Painted devils, p.28
Painted Devils, page 28
It’s just like Madame Treasury, her tacit disrespect. She doesn’t answer me because she doesn’t have to, and she wants me to know.
(For a moment, I contemplate solving Kirkling with bed lice too.)
“Well,” Lady Ambroszia says before I can pursue that fun thought, dusting herself off. “Godly possession? That sounds atrocious. Take heart, young man, my evening was much more fruitful. I made it all the way through 300 Blessed Era in those records.” The glowing light in her empty eye socket blinks off a moment, then reignites. I realize that’s her attempt at a wink. “But I’ll keep those findings to myself around the young lady, hm?”
Emeric stares at his plate, mouth flexing like a bow resisting the string.
And then—it snaps.
“No,” he says shortly. “Vanja is a consultant for the Scarlet Maiden case. It’s time for her to consult. We’re bringing her into the loop. Once we get to the outpost, we’ll go over what we know.”
An enormous weight lifts from my throat even as I grip my fork a bit tighter. “Are you sure?”
He takes a deep breath. When he speaks, he sounds almost … sad. “There was a time when I looked up to Elske Kirkling a great deal. She and Hubert made sure my father’s killer faced justice, and she even helped me in the training academy, almost as much as Hubert did. But every time you meet her criterion to establish your innocence, she finds a new one. I have tried to compensate for my own bias in your regard. If she cannot do the same, then I can no longer trust her to objectively advise me on the best course of action.” He lets out the rest of his breath. “And, to be honest, we don’t have time. It’s going to take, what, four days to get to Kerzenthal from here?”
I think of Jakob’s map. “At least. And then another four days minimum to Hagendorn.”
“So if we leave tomorrow, spend one day in Kerzenthal, and proceed straight to Hagendorn, we’ll have…” He prods the table, frowning. “Ten days to solve this, if everything goes right. And there’s still one more blood drop to collect in Welkenrode beforehand.”
“Right. Henrik, at the Imperial Abbey.” I wash down my last bite of rye toast with a swig of coffee. “If we hurry, maybe we can go after we’re done at your outpost.”
Emeric puts a cautious hand on mine. “You don’t have to … be ready for that yet.”
I grasp what he’s getting at. Ozkar was only a suspicion; Henrik is the first of my brothers who I will meet as—
As a sister.
The very idea feels alien, disorienting, like when I steal Emeric’s spectacles to look through. It curves the world into a new form.
“No,” I say, a bit bewildered at the buzz in my chest. It’s close to the feeling when Saint Willehalm asked me for help. “I think I want to go.”
Since time is short, we decide to take a carriage to the Welkenrode prefect outpost instead of going on foot. I wait by the courtyard’s street gate while Emeric goes to call a coach. I’m studying a flower box, dismally noting the new distinct red-orange cast of the previously yellow daffodils, when I hear Bajeri’s baritone rumbling over the stones. I can’t understand the fluid Sahalian words, but he doesn’t sound happy, and neither does Joniza when she answers back.
I turn. They’re headed my way, still deep in what looks like debate, judging from Joniza’s rapid gestures. She sees me and jabs a thumb at her father. “Vanja! Tell this stubborn old man to go home.”
I know better than to do any such thing, so instead I say diplomatically, “Wasn’t that the plan?”
Bajeri rubs at a line in his brow. “So it was. Köhler, my decorator contact, he was to buy most of my wares, but he sent a message last night that he must cancel our deal.”
I feel like I’ve seen that name before, and not somewhere good. “At the last minute? That scumbag.”
“She gets it,” Joniza mutters.
“No, no, Köhler is a fair man.” Bajeri sighs. “He had a major project fall through suddenly, and now he is also in a bad spot. At least I can continue on the rest of my route. My merchant friends here tell me Köhler has to get rid of enough green furnishings to cover half the Sünderweg.”
Green.
The note on Madame Treasury’s desk, the one about a parlor, it was signed Köhler. And she was going to buy the Green Sleeve …
… until I put her out of business.
“I am telling you, go home and let me finish your route,” Joniza insists. “You should be there for Fatatuma!”
Bajeri shakes his head. “And I am telling you, these empire merchants don’t know you. You will have to fight for a fair price every time, if they even let you in the door. No, it will be fine. I have decided.” He tips his head. “I must go speak with my other contacts here, see what they will take. Good luck to us all today.”
“Good luck,” I manage, trying to muffle my guilt as he sets off down the street. Apparently I don’t do a very good job of it, though. When I turn back to Joniza, her eyes are narrowed at me.
“What do you know?” she asks, suspicious.
“It’s. Um.” I swallow hard. “It’s complicated.”
“Vanja,” she says blisteringly.
I open my mouth, then close it, mind racing. Maybe I can find another buyer? Or maybe I can exploit the shortages from the Grace Unending somehow? “I can fix it,” I start. “I didn’t know—”
“Enough.” She holds up a finger, her eyes squeezed shut, mouth twisting. After a long, long moment, she grates out, “I know you wouldn’t try to hurt us, but … this is my family.”
“I’m sorry. I swear I’ll fix it.”
Joniza just crosses her arms, jerking her chin as carriage wheels clatter to a halt behind me. “Your ride’s here.”
I turn and find Emeric opening the coach door from the inside. When I look back, Joniza’s already on her way out.
* * *
“… but I didn’t do any of that on purpose,” I tell Emeric as we walk into the Welkenrode outpost of the Order of Prefects of the Godly Courts. “So technically none of it’s my fault. Right?”
“I’d rather not answer that,” he says tactfully, then turns to address the clerk sitting at the tidy front desk. “Good morning. Is Vikram Mistry in yet?”
“Conrad!” Vikram’s voice carries in from a back room. “Did you bring any of those cinnamon delights?”
“Never mind,” Emeric deadpans.
“Also, Yeshe Ghendt and Jander Dursyn are working in the east study, if you want their input or have anything for the Grace Unending case,” the clerk says. “Do you need a guest badge?”
“Vanja is a registered consultant, thank you.”
“Vanja!” I hear Vikram call. “My favorite criminal mastermind!”
“Do you mind?” another voice—either Ghendt’s or Dursyn’s, I’d wager—grouses from what I’d similarly guess to be the east study.
Emeric leads me down the narrow hall behind the front desk, pointing out a privy and the east study and winding up in a large workroom of sorts. It’s not unlike Ozkar’s, with its shelves and apparatuses, but it seems geared toward a wider range of work, with everything from apothecarial studies to a tiny forge. Vikram’s perched on a stool near the door, hunching over a tiny glowing orb that he seems to be meticulously sanding into powder.
“Please tell me you have a distraction,” he says, his voice lodged in his nasal passages as he screws up his face in concentration. “I’m stuck making alloys while Mathilde’s out, and it’s the most tedious thing I’ve done since my family reunion.”
“You’re in luck,” I say grimly.
We summarize the events of the previous night as impersonally as possible. Emeric is nonetheless shamefaced when we’re done. Vikram, however, is decisively intrigued.
“Now this is a puzzle,” he says, taking his hair down and finger-combing it in thought. “An antipossession charm, perhaps? But would it be strong enough?”
“Can it even be done?” Emeric asks bleakly. “She’s a god.”
Vikram goes still, eyes darting as if chasing invisible formulas. He taps a finger to his lips and says, “Nope. It can’t. We can’t block her from you. But not for the reason you think.” He pushes off his stool and goes to a large cabinet in a corner, tying his hair back up excitedly. “If we cut you off from her, we cut you off from the rest of the Low Gods too. You’d have to go back to just using witch-ash for magic, which sounds like a bad move when you’re contending with a hostile god.”
Emeric and I trade looks as Vikram pulls jars off shelves. I say, “That would not be ideal.”
Vikram starts tipping powder onto a scale. “So if we can’t incapacitate the god … we incapacitate the vessel.”
“A signal-activated sedative.” Emeric straightens up so fast I’d almost swear he bounced on his toes. “Of course.”
“And with a combination of paralytic and soporific elements, you’d be immobilized and unconscious,” Vikram says around a vial’s cork, which he just pulled out with his teeth. He empties the vial into a small mortar, the pestle in his other hand.
“If, hypothetically, your local criminal mastermind did not understand any of that…” I start.
Vikram spits the cork at a rubbish bin. It hits the rim and misses, to all our disappointment. “We can bind different spells to a substance that stays in the bloodstream for up to a week, and set them so they’re activated at a specific word from a specific person. For example, you can assign it general healing magic and activate it if ambushed.” He pulls a cast-iron mold off another shelf. “And for Conrad here, I can combine spells to both paralyze him and knock him out for five minutes, which should be long enough to restrain him if the Scarlet Maiden returns.”
“And we’ll both have the activation word,” Emeric says firmly.
“Good thinking.” Vikram funnels the contents of the mortar into the iron mold, then casually draws a complex wheel of runes and symbols in silvery fire, mumbling under his breath. When the mold clamps shut, a puff of steam swallows the runes. He uses a rag to pry the mold open once more, revealing a dozen pale blue tablets the size of my pinkie nail waiting inside. Using a spoon, he scoops eleven into a small glass jar that he stoppers and passes to Emeric. Then he hands Emeric the remaining pill. “There’s a pitcher and cups behind you. Your activation word is villanelle. You know, like the poem.”
Emeric gives him a dirty look as I hand him a cup. “Of course it is.”
“You’re welcome!” Vikram starts putting away the equipment. “You know, half your verses weren’t that bad—”
“Aaaand we’re going.” Emeric ushers me out.
“Take one each week!” Vikram shouts after us. “Don’t let him forget, Vanja!”
An aggrieved-looking woman pops her head out of the study across the way. “For the gods’ sakes, Mistry, WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY.”
Emeric pauses as good-natured bickering boils up behind us. “One moment.” He ducks back down the hall to confer with the prefect. Her glossy dark hair’s braided up in the Gharese fashion for married women, and “Yeshe” is a Gharese given name, so I’m guessing this is Prefect Ghendt. When she eyes me and lowers her voice, I make a show of looking elsewhere, still shamelessly eavesdropping.
“… see Holdings,” Ghendt’s saying. “They own a lot of businesses that should be profiting off the port being blocked. The money’s just not there.” Emeric asks something I don’t catch. “We’re looking for one, but so far, their own businesses’ books are clean. If you hear anything else about that bribe, let us know.”
“I will,” Emeric says. “Good luck.”
I wait until we’re out of earshot to ask, under my breath, “Bribe?”
“I let them know one of my most trustworthy contacts heard a dockworker was bribed to give bad directions to the Grace Unending,” Emeric says calmly, “but didn’t have any identifying details. If you hear anything to the contrary, of course, they’d welcome the insight.”
He opens a door to another workroom of sorts. One wall is slate, the others dotted with tacks and hundreds of tiny holes. The table and chairs in the middle of the room look like they’ve endured lifetimes of thoughtful mutilation at the hands of prefects mulling over puzzles. I set my satchel on the table, helping Lady Ambroszia out. She plops herself down on the tabletop, arranging her skirts as Emeric shuts the door.
“All right,” he says slowly, picking up a piece of chalk from a tin bolted to the slate wall. “Here’s what we have with the Scarlet Maiden. First, I always start with Hubert’s five motives, to see if we can identify a pattern in the behavior.” He writes five words on the far left of the slate wall:
GREED
LOVE
HATE
FEAR
REVENGE
“I never really got why love is an option,” I muse aloud. “It seems like the opposite of a crime.”
Before Emeric can answer, Lady Ambroszia tuts at me. “It’s not the crime, dear; it’s the motive. Take it from a former kept woman.”
I suppose that does make her the resident expert. “Fair enough.”
Emeric draws a line through LOVE anyway. “We know the Red Maid of the River lost her lover to a hellhound; that much is documented in the song and the recorded legends. I looked to see if it’s possible the sacrifice ritual might resurrect the lover, but that didn’t turn up anything.”
“Could the hellhound be trapping his ghost down there?” I ask. “Or maybe he won’t rest until it’s defeated?”
“We’ve looked into that possibility as well, but…” This time Emeric nods to Lady Ambroszia.
“Ghosts don’t precisely work like that,” she picks up. “A person’s connection to the mortal world is severed at the moment of passing. To remain, we need something theoreticians call a material anchor—a supplementary connection that keeps us tethered here in the same way enchantments must be anchored to the material world. It’s customarily the site of one’s demise, but strong attachment to a person or an object suffices too. If we choose not to leave with Death, only the material anchor keeps us stable, and those degrade over time.” She adjusts her hems. “If not for sweet Willi’s help, I would have left this world decades ago. And if the Red Maid’s lover yet remains … he would be a fearsome thing. We would know he was there.”
“Any chance he’s actually the hellhound, not the dead giant?” I ask.
“Boderad and Brunne predate the Red Maid, so no.” Emeric crosses out FEAR next. “Initially I thought this might be it, but speaking of the hellhound … There is nothing to support the Scarlet Maiden’s claim that he will go on a rampage, or that the sacrifices were to appease him somehow. Especially given his inactivity during her dormancy. The records only mention Brunne’s bridal crown.”
He writes crown beside GREED.
“Helga said something about a crown when she took us to Felsengruft,” I say slowly. “And in all the murals, there’s a crown at the bottom of the Kronenkessel.”
Emeric sucks his teeth. “Good points. I forgot about both of those. And the hellhound guards the crown, so if that’s what she’s after…” He purses his lips and writes Prior sacrifices? next to REVENGE. “My other theory is that the Red Maid’s past sacrifices were … pathological in nature. Reenacting her tragedy, but with her in control.”
“It was always the same type of victim,” chimes in Lady Ambroszia. “The few records we found on them, that is. Each one was an unmarried young man.”
“So when I woke her, she just picked back up where she left off?” I sit on the edge of the table.
Emeric tilts his head. “Do you remember when I had to give you a very vague metaphor about painted devils and walls?”
“The one I did not understand in the slightest?”
He rubs the back of his head. “Yes. That one. What I was trying to say is that there are a lot of things she’s telling us to fear—the hellhound, her wrath, and so on. She’s been painting the devil on the wall and hoping we won’t know it from the real thing.”
“So … a misdirect.” I frown. “Then what is she distracting us from?”
“There’s the question.” He steps to the middle of the slate wall and starts scribbling. “We know she manifested only when prefects came to Hagendorn, and she claimed one immediately as a sacrifice.” Prefect. “We know she asked for blood from seven brothers—something extremely specific.” Blood + brothers. “We know now that the most obvious candidates were your own brothers.” Family? “And, loath as I am to concur with Ozkar Ros … we don’t know what she’ll do if she gets it.” Cost?
I gnaw on a thumb tip, turning the pieces over and over in my head. “She picked you first,” I say slowly. “And then only gave the alternative after we pushed her for one.”
“And it’s an alternative that targets your brothers,” Emeric adds. “One that ultimately may harm them. I doubt any of that is coincidence.”
The shape of the scam is starting to emerge. “So … I was never supposed to go through with it. She thought I’d find out they’re my brothers and … let her take you instead. But why the pageantry, then? Why even offer the option?”
Emeric adds one word to the list: Cult.
“You said it yourself,” he says. “Cults are wildly profitable. But they’re profitable because they’re infectious and compliant. Cultists don’t ask where their money is going, they don’t ask what their work is for; they just follow orders because an authority figure tells them it’s right and their community reinforces it.”
“I remember one from my youth,” Lady Ambroszia chimes in. “Impoverished a whole region when it all fell apart. And young Conrad here and I have established quite a pattern of cults that did the same.”
“But the Scarlet Maiden doesn’t want money,” I object.
Emeric does bounce on his toes this time. “And neither did you,” he says with a tinge of triumph. “At the rate the Red Blessed grew, you could have been defrauding them for ludicrous amounts of money. But you knew it started as a scam, and you were trying to get out. The one thing you did have…”
“Was authority,” I finish, connecting the dots and feeling like a fool. “So she got me to leave.”
