He wondered what he and Belimai would do tomorrow. An excitement began to build in him. They were free to do whatever they pleased. These lands were his, and Belimai was finally well enough to enjoy them with him. He wondered what part of the estate Belimai would like best.
Harper smiled to himself. Perhaps this time he would stay long enough to actually have those torch-holders refitted.
"Daydreaming?" A woman's voice suddenly broke through his thoughts.
Harper leapt to his feet and spun to see his sister sitting just inside the frame of the open window. Her cropped hair drooped in dirty strands around her face. Dust coated her jacket and pants. She smiled with hesitant slowness, as if she were cautiously trespassing on ground that used to be hers.
Harper also smiled, but he didn't rush forward and sweep her up in a hug as he once would have. She seemed out of place in-doors, like some mythic child raised by beasts in the wilderness. The black nails that she used to spend hours clipping and bleaching now jutted from her finger tips like talons. Her red eyes roamed restlessly from Harper's face to his hands, and then to the gun holster hanging below his left arm.
"It's been a while," Harper said. "How have you been?"
"Can't complain. You?"
"Busy." Harper frowned at the awkwardness of their exchange. They sounded like distant acquaintances at a wake. "Have you been getting enough food? You look thinner."
"I've been just fine, Will. Mica's been teaching me to tell fortunes. I've been making a good living. The people at Good Commons have been watching out for me."
"That's good," Harper replied. "Have you seen Edward?"
" I...I've kept track of him, but we haven't spoken..." She glanced up at the bright blue sky on the ceiling and shook her head. "How could we? What could I possibly say that would make things all right between us?"
"You could let him know that you aren't dead."
"Do you honestly think it would do him any good? At least this way there's a clean ending. He can remember me as a faithful, darling wife who died at the hands of criminals. It's sad, but God knows it has to be better than telling him that I was in love with another man. Or that I'm a Prodigal. Or that I went out of my mind and burned his house down. What would it do to him to know those things?"
"I don't know, but I think he deserves the truth."
"You wouldn't tell him, would you?" She stared at him, and Harper shook his head.
"You know I wouldn't tell anyone." The thought made him glance back to where Belimai lay sleeping. Joan's secrets had given him a reason to approach Belimai.
"Who's your guest?" Joan cocked her head to the side and looked past Harper to the bed.
"Belimai Sykes. He's recovering from a bout of flu." Harper gave her the same lie he and Mrs. Kately had offered the staff.
"I've seen him before...at St. Christopher's. He helped me."
"He was also at Scott-Beck's office when you torched it. You nearly killed him." Harper tried to keep the recrimination out of his voice, but it was hard. Not only had Joan nearly killed Belimai, but she had destroyed any evidence that Harper might have used to bring charges against Abbot Greeley for his involvement.
"I don't remember much about that." She ran her hand through her hair and a thin cloud of dust drifted up from her fingers into the bright morning light. "Do you have him handcuffed for a reason?"
Harper simply ignored the question. He had kept Joan's secrets from Belimai; the least he could do was give Belimai the same courtesy.
"Why did you come to see me?" Harper asked.
"You aren't going to hurt him, are you?" Joan asked.
"The last thing in this world that I would do is hurt him," Harper said flatly. "Now, tell me why you're here."
"It's Nick Sariel—"
"Doesn't anything happen without involving that man?" The name alone was becoming a physical pain to Harper. Joan stepped back from him slightly.
"I didn't think the two of you were on such bad terms."
"He blames me for Peter's death, and I—" Harper cut himself off. Even when he and Joan had been at their closest, Harper had kept his desires and temptations to himself. "I'm just sick of every living Prodigal thinking I'm his enemy."
"I know you're not my enemy, Will."
Harper was surprised at the sudden softness in his sister's tone. She smiled at him.
"Things have just been so confused...so hard. I haven't always been thinking straight, but I've never hated you. I've never blamed you."
"I know." Harper took the four steps that closed the distance between them. "You know that I don't blame you either, don't you? I'm sorry as hell about Peter and for Edward, but mostly I just miss having you around."
Harper took her hands carefully in his and gave her a reassuring squeeze, just as he had always done in the past. The same small gesture had always conveyed his love: after their mother's death, after their father's disappearance, throughout their lives. He hadn't known that one gesture was all his sister had been waiting for, just a single sign that they were still brother and sister.
"I've missed you too, Will." Joan pressed against his chest, hugging him. "It's been like some terrible nightmare that I can't wake up from. All I could think of was how furious I was, how much I missed Peter. And I kept thinking that I should have been there with him. I should have been down in Hells Below living with him, not hiding behind Edward and you, pretending I was someone I'm not."
"Even if you had been there, you couldn't have saved him." Harper wrapped his arms around her.
"I might have," she whispered against his shirt. "If I had been with him instead of running and hiding, who knows how it would have turned out?" Harper heard the tremble in her voice and the slight pause as she pulled herself back from the point of tears. She sniffed and drew a step back from him.
"This time I want to do things differently, but I need your help."
"They've arrested Sariel, haven't they?" In the back of his mind, Harper had known they would. Sariel was one of the few remaining Prodigals who could fly. Between that and his involvement in Good Commons, he made the perfect scapegoat for the murder of Lord Cedric's niece.
"They took him in for questioning six days ago, and we've heard nothing from him since."
"They're probably torturing a confession out of him."
"But he hasn't done anything," Joan said.
"He doesn't have to have done anything. There are plenty of crimes that have already been committed. They'll just assign one of those to him."
"Can you get him out?" Joan asked.
"Possibly." Harper felt suddenly very tired. Part of him didn't even want to get Sariel out. A deep, bitter vein of malice within him wanted Sariel to suffer as Belimai had suffered.
He wondered what Belimai would do if he found out that Sariel was in Inquisition custody. Would he collapse back into addiction? Or more likely, and far worse, he would confess to the murder himself to get Sariel released.
"It's not just Nick, either," Joan went on. "Two days ago they took Edward into custody also."
For a moment, Harper was simply too stunned by the idea to react.
"They took him in for questioning. I think they suspect that I'm the one who killed Scott-Beck," Joan said.