“Thank you,” he said, and he sounded like he meant it.
We were silent for a minute, and I was just about to ask him if his head was okay, when he said, “Is . . . is this the Verpine?”
“Yeah,” I said, and tried to hide how gut-punched I felt that he had to ask.
“I was here once before.”
“Before?”
“When I broke the Virtu. They put me down here. I remember the dark.”
We were silent again, because I didn’t know what the fuck to say, then he said, “Mildmay?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think it’s dark, where Gideon is?” And, powers, his accent had gotten away from him, and his voice was barely more than breath, and he sounded so fucking lost.
"Oh, sweetheart,” I said, and my voice broke. "C’mere.” We found each other in the dark, and I hugged him, and for once he didn’t go stiff or shrug me away, but hugged me back.
“I don’t want him to be in the dark,” he said into my shoulder. “I don’t want him to be afraid.”
“His White-Eyed Lady was waiting for him,” I said. “She’ll take care of him. She’ll help him rest.”
“Do you think so? Really?” He was crying, the way you learn to cry when you’re a kept-thief and you don’t dare make any sound about it. But I could feel his tears soaking into my shirt.
“Really,” I said, and held him against the dark.
Mehitabel
Stephen did not exactly look on me with favor when Josiah had sweet-talked me past the guards on duty outside his study.
“Mehitabel, I am extremely busy, and—”
“Shut up and listen,” I said.
His jaw sagged a little, and I threw myself into speech before he could muster himself to have me evicted. “I was a spy for the Bastion. Up until about quarter of eleven tonight. No, yesterday, it must be past midnight by now.”
“It is,” Stephen said grimly. But he flicked his fingers at me to continue.
I told him the whole thing. About Hallam and Louis Goliath and Isaac, about what I’d done and hadn’t done, what I’d seen, what I knew. I laid out every piece of the puzzle, every link in the chain, and Stephen sat and listened with perfect concentration.
“Felix didn’t kill Gideon,” I said finally. “Isaac did.”
“To get Felix convicted of murder and executed.”
“That seems the logical conclusion.”
“Pity we can’t ask him,” Stephen said, his voice as dry as salt and ashes.
“Is he . . . ?”
“His mind is gone,” Stephen said. “Whatever Felix did to him, it’s not the sort of thing you get over.”
I shivered.
“And so you may clear him of murder, but I’m afraid there’s still the gross heresy to deal with.”
“Oh,” I said. Stupidly, I hadn’t thought past Gideon.
He sighed, deeply. “There will have to be a trial. Will you testify?”
“If you’re going to kill him anyway, why does it matter?”
His basilisk stare turned me to stone where I stood. “Because it is the truth. Will you testify?”
“You burn wizards for heresy, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“God.” I wrapped my arms around myself in a useless parody of a hug. “Is there any way . . .”
“He’s made a man into a drooling, weeping, mindless wreck, and you’re pleading for him?”
“That same man is one you would only have executed. Do you burn spies, too, or just hang them?”
“Revenge and justice are not the same.”
“The end results look pretty damn similar,” I snapped. “And, oh, by the way, are you going to execute me? I’d like to know before I make dinner plans.”
“You haven’t committed a capital crime,” he said, quite mildly all things considered. “Will you testify?”
“In front of the court? Will you provide the rail for them to run me out of town afterward?”
“In front of me, Giancarlo, and one other, whom you may choose.”
I stared at him, wishing I could basilisk right back at him. “Is this because I’m sleeping with you?”
“Yes,” he said, perfectly unashamed. “And because you chose to come to me with the truth. And because I’m going to be ruining enough lives in the morning. Your Mr. Foxe was very busy last night.”
“He’s not mine,” I said. I’d heard rather more than I’d wanted to about the downfall of Ivo Polydorius and Robert of Hermione while Josiah was arguing with the guards.
“In any event, you acted under duress.” A pause, and he added with the first sign of discomfort he’d shown, “I will see if there’s anything I can do about Lieutenant Bellamy.”
Maybe Thaddeus was right. Maybe I was overwrought. Tears were suddenly burning in my eyes, in the back of my throat. “Thank you,” I said, and it came out more hoarsely than I wanted.
“There may be nothing,” Stephen said, as if trying to evade my gratitude. “Go get some rest, Mehitabel. And tell me who you want as your third witness. Oh—it has to be an annemer.”
I expected the decision to be a difficult one, but the answer was there, waiting for me. “Lord Shannon.”
Stephen’s momentarily dumbfounded expression was very nearly worth the mortification of having had to tell him the whole sordid story. The smile I gave him as I left was almost real.
I lay on my bed, unsleeping, the rest of the night, reciting Finuspex and The Tragedy of Horatio to myself to keep from having to think. A little after six, Lenore brought tea and toast and a message telling me to meet Stephen, Shannon, and Lord Giancarlo in the Attercop. A page would come at seven-thirty to show me the way.
I rose, washed, dressed, ate, all of it like a machine in one of Mélusine’s manufactories. Lenore—silent, watchful, but nonjudgmental—pinned my hair up and unearthed the black gloves I’d bought for the funeral of Corinna’s Aunt Constancy. She gave them to me, and I realized I was wearing the same dress I’d worn to that funeral, too: plain gray wool with jet buttons and an underskirt trimmed with black lace.
I wondered where Gideon would be buried.
The page was the brown sparrow-child I’d seen once before. His name—he told me shyly when I asked—was Garnet Aemorius. He had just turned thirteen, and he thought the Mirador was the most fascinating and beautiful place in the world. I hoped he’d be able to go on thinking that.
The Attercop was a small room, paneled in cherrywood. Its only decoration was the carpet, which I recognized as Lunnessmake, bold in cranberry and gold and kingfisher blue. The men were waiting for me; even Shannon was dressed somberly, and Giancarlo of Novalucrezia looked as if he hadn’t slept for a week. Even his eyebrows were drooping.
Stephen poured me a glass of water. I thanked him with a curtsy and then pulled myself up, assuming the swan-daughter, drawing on Edith Pelpheria and Jacobethy and every other strong-willed woman I’d ever played. Even Aven, God bless her crooked black heart. “My lords,” I said, “I was a spy for the Bastion ...”
It was no less wearing to tell it a second time. I tried not to look at either Shannon or Lord Giancarlo as I spoke; Stephen’s basilisk stare was oddly comforting. When I had done, Lord Giancarlo said, “Thank you,” and Shannon got up to hand me to a chair, as he would for a real lady. He didn’t say anything, but the brief, warm pressure of his fingers on mine was message enough.
I sat, still playing the swan-daughter, while they consulted in voices low enough that I couldn’t quite hear them. At least they believed me, I said to myself.
Finally, Stephen said, “Well, we’ll do what we must.” And, to me, “Will you come see justice done tomorrow?”
“I hope so,” I said, and he gave me a tight smile for the quibble.
Chapter 18
Mehitabel
I went back to my suite because I couldn’t think of anything else to do, and it seemed possible I might sleep. But I found that a letter had been delivered while I was gon
e.
Vincent Demabrien’s lovely, lucid hand:
I don’t know how much you know about Marathine jurisprudence, but it is very likely, from what I understand, that Felix will be sentenced to death. If that happens, the ghost of whom we were speaking last night will never find rest, for I don’t believe anyone other than Felix can help him.
Does it seem callous at this juncture to be worried about a boy who is already dead? I don’t know. But I’m sitting in Ivo’s study, waiting for the guards to come and take me to the person who will be deciding how I am to be judged in the catastrophe of Ivo’s horrid machinations, and all I can think of is that poor, hurting ghost. And, I admit it, of Felix. Who would never murder a lover in cold blood, and who may have to die drowning in this ugliness. It is ridiculous and romantic of me to think that any benefit might come of his last deed being a good one, and yet I sit here and the idea will not leave me alone.
And there’s nothing I can do. Probably, there isn’t anything you can do, either. But it seems to me possible that you might think of something. At least, I know that you will understand what I mean, and maybe knowing that will help me feel not so fucking awful about this whole stupid, pointless, evil mess.
And if I am wrong, and there is something I can do— anything I can do—please let me know.
Even his signature was beautiful and clear, as beautiful and clear as that completely uncharacteristic word, fucking.
I read the letter twice, and I thought about atonement and second chances, and the ghastly thing Felix had done.
And then I called for Lenore and told her I wanted to talk to the guardsman named Josiah. Because I thought Vincent was right; I could think of something.
Mildmay
Me and Felix both startled awake when the door at the end of the hall opened again. Felix sort of moaned, deep in his throat, and pressed his face into my shoulder. And then he woke up properly and was suddenly two feet away, and I didn’t need to be able to see him to know he was blushing. Because, you know, powers and saints preserve us all from having to admit we’re grieving.
It was Josiah, and Cleo with him, both of them kind of frowning, and Josiah said, “Mildmay, that actress you were seeing, did she talk you into doing weird shit all the time and you couldn’t figure out how?”
“Um,” I said.
“Because, I’m telling you, this is some weird shit, and I don’t know how she talked me into it.”
“You’d do anything for a sob story and a pair of pretty eyes,” Cleo said.
“Then I don’t know how she talked you into it.”
Cleo snorted. “I told you. I believe what she said.”
“Which is what, exactly?” Felix said, and if he’d been close enough, I would’ve smacked him for being snotty.
“Well,” Josiah said, “Madame Parr says as how there’s a ghost you need to lay, and she wants to know if you can do it tonight. ”
I expected Felix to laugh or rip Josiah a new asshole or something, but he made this funny little choked noise and said, “Yes.”
“And, um. We’re supposed to ask you what you need.”
“Well, for starters,” I said, “you could get me my cane.”
Mehitabel
Later, I had no memory of the performance. Absolutely none. All I remembered was, in the second intermission, getting a note in Felix’s looping scrawl, written on cheap paper with a cheaper pen, saying, Tabby, thank you, midnight is the best time, will you come?
I hadn’t been sure he would want to see me, really hadn’t been sure he would want me there. But I wasn’t about to turn him down.
We had to meet in the Verpine, there being quite drastic limits to what Josiah was willing to do. I’d never been there before, and I found myself hoping profoundly I’d never have to go there again as Josiah’s friend Cleo—massive, scowling, but perfectly comfortable with the idea of laying a ghost—escorted me down the stairs to the room where Felix and Mildmay were waiting.
After a single, searing glance, I couldn’t look at Felix. His hands were manacled, ringless. His shirt was torn and his hair was hanging in lank tangles. I had never seen him so disheveled, so far from his usual state of catlike neatness. His face was gray beneath the streaks of dirt. His eyes were red-rimmed and sunk in their sockets, his lips bloodless. In his blue eye I read crushing grief, in the left a darkness that might have been fury or simple insanity.
Mildmay was behind him, looking just as disheveled but much calmer. His head was up, his eyes bright and intent, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen him this focused since . . . since we’d brought him out of the Bastion. He didn’t seem at all thrown by seeing me, either, simply gave me a nod and turned his attention back to Felix.
Felix was looking at me; it took him two tries before he could manage to say, “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“How much this mattered.”
“You told me, sunshine,” I said, and watched bewildered as he flushed a painful red. “In any event, it was Vincent’s idea. I just organized.”
“Vincent?”
“He wrote to me.”
"He would understand,” Felix said, sounding vague and rather lost.
“We should get going,” Josiah said uneasily. “’Less y’all’re gonna change your minds.”
“No,” Felix said. “This needs to be done. Mildmay?”
“Can’t you take the manacles off first?” I said to Josiah. They were ugly, crude things, and I could see the welts they were rubbing against the bones of Felix’s hands.
It was Felix who answered, his voice unwontedly gentle: “Thank you, Tabby, but they can’t. These keep me from— what’s the word you used?”
“Hexing,” Mildmay said.
“Thank you, yes. Hexing everyone in sight and . . . well, I don’t know what I’d do then, but no doubt something ghastly.”
“But if you can’t do magic . . .”
“This isn’t about magic.”
Even Mildmay was staring at him, and he made a noise that might almost have been a laugh. “We really do need to get going. And I promise you don’t want to hear the theory involved. Especially since it’s fifty percent guesswork.”
“Powers,” Mildmay said. “Well, c’mon then.” He didn’t go back up the stairs, but led us—Felix and me together, with the two guardsmen bringing up the rear—through a series of storage rooms and out again into a hallway I’d never seen before. At one point during our progress, as Mildmay nonchalantly forced the lock of a three-quarter sized door hidden in the shadow of a flying buttress, Cleo muttered, “Fuck me hard.” I pretended not to hear, not wanting to embarrass him, but I was a little heartened by the evidence the guards hadn’t known about this route either.
Felix asked Mildmay about the buttress, and Mildmay said promptly, “There’s a bunch of ’em. Holding up the Vielle Roche. They didn’t want to fuck with it, so they just built around ’em.”
“You mean that was once the outer wall?” I said.
“Yeah. Vielle Roche is the oldest part. The Tiamat”—with a wave around to indicate that was where we were now—" ’s Ophidian.”
“How do you know?” I knew better than to ask, of course, but there had been so many times I hadn’t asked, and I’d regretted it when I’d thought I’d never get another chance.
And Mildmay just shrugged, the movement stiffer and truncated from what I was used to because he was leaning on his walking stick, and said, “I learned a lot of stuff when Kolkhis was training me.”
Which wasn’t an answer, but I let myself be distracted. “I’ve never heard you say her name before.”
That got me a glance over his shoulder, just enough lift to his eyebrows that I knew he was teasing—or as close as he got— when he said, “I been practicing.”
He led us easily, steadily. Josiah and Cleo clustered up closer and closer, and we had to stop several times for one person or another to recover from a sneezing fit. The dust and cobwebs and mikkary were
painfully thick in these abandoned rooms, and Felix said, “I’m glad Vincent isn’t here.”
“He would have come,” I said, uneasily uncertain whether that comment was meant to be taken at face value, “but Lord Ivo’s household is still—”
“Lord Ivo’s household?” Felix interrupted me, his voice suddenly sharp. “What’s happened to Lord Ivo?”
“Powers,” Mildmay said resignedly. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
It was strange to hear the thing from Mildmay’s perspective, described in blunt, brutal words and with the eerie flat finality of fact instead of the breathless murmur of speculation. Felix listened to it all, his face going blanker and blanker in the light of the lantern Cleo carried, and when Mildmay was done, he said, “You must have been making excursions into the Lower City for weeks.”
“Only a couple times,” Mildmay said.
“And you didn’t tell me any of it.”
“I didn’t want to upset you.”
“Yes, and you picked such a foolproof method of going about it, too.”
Josiah, Cleo, and I all pulled back involuntarily from the bitterness in Felix’s voice, but Mildmay said, just as bitterly, “If I’d told you, you wouldn’t’ve let me do it.”