The Mirador

  “Of course I wouldn’t let you do it, you suicidal half-wit! ”

  That might be as close as Felix would ever come to saying I love you, and I could tell from Mildmay’s startled, reflexive glance at Felix’s face that he knew it.

  “Oh never mind,” Felix said after a moment. “You seem to have saved the city while I wasn’t watching. I shouldn’t be churlish about it.”

  Felix’s rather rueful admiration seemed to distress Mildmay even more than his anger had. “It ain’t like that.”

  “No? How would you describe it, then?”

  “Um,” Mildmay said, and then with obvious relief, “There’s the stairs to the crypt.”

  It was a mark of how hard Felix was working to keep his façades in place that he let Mildmay redirect his attention without another word. I’d watched them do that particular dance more times than I could count, and while Felix often accepted the new topic, I’d never seen him do it without a pointed comment—a warning that he would be returning to the uncomfortable subject later. And then I remembered, looking at the rose-entwined skeletons serving as caryatids at the stairhead, that there might not be any “later” for Felix.

  And honestly, the knowledge that I’d done everything I could was no comfort at all.

  Mildmay

  Josiah and Cleo didn’t like the crypt. They stayed by the door— Cleo stayed in the doorway, like he was afraid he’d get locked in if he gave it the chance to close.

  Josiah tossed me a box of lucifers, though, and I lit the candles somebody’d put around Amaryllis Cordelia’s tomb. It wasn’t like it was enough light, but I didn’t figure broad daylight would be enough light for this place, and the candles were better than nothing. And better than trying to talk Cleo out of the death grip he had on the lantern, too.

  Felix went prowling up and down the rows of tombs. Mehitabel came and stood next to me. After a moment, she said, “I did the best I could. I told Stephen everything.”

  “Everything?”

  “Oh God,” she said, and she told me, barely whispering so Josiah and Cleo wouldn’t hear. It didn’t take her long, and I listened and thought about how much it explained.

  When she was done, I said, “You gonna be okay?”

  “I’m sleeping with the Lord Protector,” she said, and I was surprised at how bitter she sounded. “I’ll be fine.” She glanced sideways at me and burst out laughing, her real laugh, making everybody else jump. “I love the look you get when you’re trying to decide if you have to ask someone a personal question. I’m fine—in no danger, and Stephen’s promised to see if he can help Hallam.”

  “Is Hallam your fella?” I asked, and I guess we were both surprised at how jealous I didn’t sound, because she gave me a really beautiful smile and said, “Yes. I’m sorry, you know. I should have told you—”

  “You couldn’t. I get that. And, I mean, I figure I was worse, calling you Ginevra and everything.”

  “I shouldn’t have told you that.”

  “Yes, you should,” I said, and suddenly I really wanted to make her understand. “It was a shitty thing to do to you, and you shouldn’t’ve had to put up with it. And I think I needed my ass kicked about it anyway. You know, to get over it.”

  “Have you?”

  “I’m getting better. Getting better about a lot of things.” And without even meaning to, I was looking for Felix.

  He was standing by one of the tombs, resting his hands on it to take the weight of the manacles off his wrists, and when he saw me looking at him, he said, “Can we move the candles over here?”

  “Sure,” I said, and me and Mehitabel moved them. Felix just stood there, head down, until we were done, and then he said, in this nice even voice, like he was talking to the kids in the Grenouille Salon, “Ephreal Sand calls the world of the spirit manar, and magic is only one of the ways to reach it. I don’t think I’ve ever actually used magic to disperse a ghost.”

  “But that big maze we drew down here—”

  “Was ritual. Like I said, another way to channel manar. Maybe even a better way.”

  “It didn’t do Magnus no good.”

  “There’s a blockage,” Felix said. “In the flow of what Ynge calls noirant energy. I learned how to see it from observing Vincent. ”

  “Who doesn’t do magic at all,” Mehitabel said, like this was all starting to make sense to her.

  “Exactly.” Felix gave her a tired smile. “Now if I had access to my magic, I could remove the block by brute force, but I don’t. I’m almost glad of it—I think a ritual will be less disruptive.”

  “Disruptive to what?” Mehitabel said.

  “Remember what Vincent said the last time we were here,” Felix said, and Mehitabel shut her mouth in a hurry. “Tabby, do you have a stickpin or the like?”

  Mehitabel did—pretty thing set with citrines—and handed it over. I decided I just wasn’t going to wonder if Lord Stephen had given it to her.

  Felix looked at it a second, and then jabbed it into the vein in his left wrist.

  “Good God, Felix, do you have to?” Mehitabel said, and she sounded every bit as spooked out as I felt.

  “I think so,” Felix said, watching his blood drip onto the top of the tomb. “I need power to remove the block, and, well, this is what I’ve got at hand. So to speak.”

  “But isn’t that dangerous?”

  He shrugged a little. His hair had fallen forward, so I couldn’t see his face. “I’ve done worse things.”

  “Not what I asked, sunshine.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Just let me do this.”

  And Mehitabel held her tongue.

  After a little while, he started using the pin to draw patterns in the blood, muttering under his breath. He was using his right thumb to stanch the bleeding. Me and Mehitabel were both trying like fuck to look somewhere else, so I didn’t see most of it, but I knew when it worked all right, because, powers and saints, it was like a thunderclap, and then there was just this afterimage, blurring into nothing almost before it was there, a hawk-faced boy, trying to smile, his hands spread like he was giving Felix a blessing.

  Felix just stood there, rubbing his fingers like they hurt, and blinking hard. After a long, long moment, he said, “I’ll have to remember that one. So as not to do it again.”

  “It worked, though, right?” I said.

  “Oh yes. He’ll rest now.” Felix brought up his hands to rub his eyes, wincing as the manacles shifted on his wrists.

  “That’s good,” Mehitabel said gently.

  “Yes. Will it make you think of me more kindly, Tabby, when . . .”

  When I’m dead, he meant, but he couldn’t quite make himself say it.

  “I think kindly of you now, sunshine,” Mehitabel said, still so fucking gentle, and Felix’s calm cracked like an eggshell.

  The next second he was back in control, just daring us to try and say anything. Mehitabel kind of looked at me like she was waiting to follow my lead, but I didn’t have the first fucking clue what to say.

  Felix only gave me about a heartbeat anyway before he said, “I expect we’d better get back. I don’t want to get our guards in trouble.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Josiah and Cleo were both staring at Felix like he was gold-plated, and I wondered how long it’d be before the story was all over the Mirador. But that was okay—maybe it would balance out all the other shit.

  I blew out the candles.

  Felix and Mehitabel helped.

  Mehitabel

  I’d never seen the Hall of the Chimeras in its role as a judicial court before, and it wasn’t improved. I planted myself where I had a good view of the dais, and waited, surrounded by the chatter of the courtiers and wizards. They were anxious, alarmed, indulging in spectacular gossip. The rituals of the Mirador were disrupted, and it was almost funny how bereft her denizens were.

  The Curia came in first, followed by Stephen’s Cabinet. They flanked the dais, grave-faced as owls. Stephen,
Shannon, and Victoria entered through the door behind the dais, and the background mutter increased sharply as the court realized Robert wasn’t with them. They were all three as unreadable as stone.

  Stephen dealt with the—relatively—simpler matter of Ivo Polydorius and Robert of Hermione first. The rabbity musician, the one who had brought Cardenio to me two years ago—I couldn’t even remember his name when I saw him—gave his testimony in a flood of words, babbling and sobbing. Mostly, it made no sense to me, since he was talking about things that had happened many years ago, and I didn’t recognize most of the names. But Ivo Polydorius kept recurring, like a cork bobbing in a rain-butt, and the deepening grimness of Cabinet and Curia said clearly that the other names were evil company.

  Robert of Hermione was brought out next, sweating and sallow. But he was still vilely confident; he’d had Stephen’s protection for a long time, and his narrow self-interest was of the sort that never understands what will make other people snap. He was too frightened to lie, but his words were all weasel words, and it took repeated, hammering questions to get the truth out of him. Robert hadn’t been a member of the first conspiracy, the one which resulted in the death by burning of Gloria Aestia, but he’d been enticed in after his sister’s death, when he could no longer rely on her soft good-nature to get him preferment. He’d been in the thick of the plotting around Cornell Teverius, and although he couldn’t be driven to say so outright, his animosity for Shannon had been a large factor in the decision to involve Cornell. It was appallingly clear that Robert didn’t care who held power in the Mirador, as long as he got his share.

  When they were done with Robert, there was a long silence, thick as mud. Everyone was watching Stephen, who was sitting slumped, bearlike, his eyes hooded and lowered. Whatever he was thinking about, he didn’t like it. Finally, he said, “Let’s have Lord Ivo out here.”

  At his side, Shannon said, his voice thin and harsh, “May I speak?”

  “What do you want to say?”

  “I knew nothing of this plotting. I do not want the Protectorship, and if anyone had approached me to offer it, I should neither have accepted nor remained quiet. There is no evidence I can produce, of course, since one cannot prove a negative, but even if you burn me for treason, I will die avowing that this was none of my doing and none of my wish.”

  “You are heard,” Stephen said. “Does anyone doubt Lord Shannon?”

  People did, of course; human nature alone would have ensured that, even if there hadn’t been, as Shannon said, such a hideous dearth of evidence. But it wasn’t the sort of thing anyone would say out loud.

  “Then let it be known,” said Stephen, falling into the formal cadences of a proclamation, “that I place full trust and confidence in my brother, Shannon Teverius. His loyalty to the Protectorate has never been in doubt, and it is not doubted now.” He and Shannon exchanged a glance; Stephen’s face was, as always, uninformative, but I saw relief and a shy, surprised kind of pleasure on Shannon’s. “Bring out Lord Ivo.”

  I’d never seen Lord Ivo before. He was a straight-backed man in his early sixties, with a narrow, sardonic face and bright, hooded eyes like a raptor’s. He radiated self-will like the rank smell of a fox, a sense that in all his life he had done only and always what suited him. He wasn’t frightened, although he had to know he was defeated.

  His determination was to bring as many people down with him as he could. Unlike Robert, he made no attempt to weasel or to whitewash himself, admitting freely to his league with Vey Coruscant, their plotting which had begun with the death of Lord Ivo’s cousin Dulcinea, to all the intricacies and betrayals of the intervening years. His evidence was clear, cogent, complete— and damning. He named his confederates, both nobles and wizards, and he gave the name of every single person who had ever turned a blind eye to what he did. But he didn’t lie. He exonerated Shannon, when he could have dragged him down with no more than an equivocation. Lord Ivo, too, had his own sense of honor.

  When he was finished, that clear, dry voice, like dead twigs snapping, fallen silent at last, Stephen brooded again, while the court shifted uneasily and nobody made eye contact with anybody.

  At last, Stephen said, “Lord Ivo Polydorius, Lord Robert of Hermione, you are guilty of treason. The sentence for treason is death.” Of all the people in the Hall of the Chimeras, only Lord Ivo didn’t flinch. “Does anyone speak in defense of these persons? ”

  There was a terrible silence. Ritualistically, Stephen asked the question two more times, and the silence just got deeper. I’d been told of trials in the past—Felix and Mildmay had gotten on the subject one night—in which clemency had been granted. The most notable was Felix’s own trial, when the Virtu had been broken. They had left him alive, Felix had said snidely, because they couldn’t solve their jigsaw puzzles without him. Intellectual aggravation, not clemency. But there were other trials: the trial of Lord George Cledentius, at which his wife had cast herself weeping at the feet of Lord Malory Teverius; the trial of Lord Polycarp Aemorius, at which the head of the Curia had stood up and declared his belief that Lord Polycarp’s treason had been justified. It wasn’t uncommon for traitors to be forgiven, or their sentences commuted. But it needed someone to speak for them. And no one spoke.

  “Very well,” said Stephen. “For the smaller players in this foul game, Lord Alaric Gardenius, Lord Walter Malanius, Lady Dolores Malania, Lady Parsanthia Ward, Lord Michael Otanius— and the go-between, Hugo Chandler—my judgment is this: they are to be stripped of land, title, and privileges, and to be banished. After Samedy, Dai twenty-fourth, 2283 ab urbe condita, if they are found within the borders of Marathat, they shall suffer the fate of their leaders. Lord Ivo Polydorius, Lord Robert of Hermione, my judgment on you is that at sundown, Jeudy, Dai twenty-second, you shall be taken into the Plaza del’Archimago and there burned, as Gloria Aestia was burned.”

  Lord Ivo looked vaguely bored. Robert threw himself forward, grabbing at Stephen’s feet, pleading and crying, invoking Emily Teveria as if she were some patron saint. Stephen sat unmoved, merely waving for the guards to come and pull Robert back.

  “One last favor for my dead wife,” said Stephen, when Robert was quiet again. “A merciful death for her brother. Robert of Hermione, you shall die under the sanguette.” The flat finality of his voice silenced Robert at last. Stephen looked away from Robert and said, “The dynastic line of the Polydorii passes to Lord Crowell Polydorius. Lord Crowell, the house of Polydorius is now your problem.” A noble near me, with Lord Ivo’s bones, but without the cruel brightness in his eyes, bowed in acknowledgment, and Stephen sighed. “Take the prisoners away. Grant them every courtesy due their rank.”

  Robert and Lord Ivo were taken out. The “courtesy of rank” often extended itself to the means of suicide being left handy, and I hoped someone would manage it this time, too. I had no desire to watch anyone be burned, not even Ivo Polydorius.

  Stephen sat up straighter; the day’s business wasn’t done. “Bring in Felix Harrowgate.”

  Felix looked even worse than he had the night before. He was unraveling, strand by strand, and I hated that there were so many witnesses to it. From the frown in Mildmay’s face as he followed, he hadn’t been able to help. The guards jerked Felix to a halt before the dais. He seemed almost unaware of his surroundings, but when Stephen said, “Felix Harrowgate,” he said, “Yes, my lord,” his voice as clear and level as ever. Only I thought I detected a hint of the Lower City in it, a trace of Mildmay.

  “Did you murder Gideon Thraxios?”

  God, Stephen, must you be so tactless? Felix’s flinch was visible, but he said, “No, my lord.”

  “Did you destroy the mind of Isaac Garamond?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Because he murdered Gideon Thraxios, whom I loved. Because he was a spy of the Bastion, and a confederate of Malkar Gennadion.”

  “Oh my God!” Thaddeus, shouting. “Don’t tell me you??
?re going to swallow a pack of lies like that!”

  “Lord Thaddeus,” said Stephen, “be silent. Felix Harrowgate, what proof do you have?”

  Felix hesitated. But then he said, in arid defiance, as one who knows he won’t be believed, “The word of my brother.”

  “Mr. Foxe,” said Stephen.

  “M’lord,” said Mildmay.

  “What evidence do you have for your claim against Isaac Garamond?”

  “M’lord,” Mildmay said again. And he told him, the whole thing, repeating himself patiently when Stephen asked. I was disconcerted by how hard Stephen found it to understand Mildmay. I hadn’t realized before how acclimated I’d gotten to Mildmay’s drawling, diphthonged vowels and slurred consonants.

  “You say that you ‘remember’ Isaac Garamond. Can you be clearer?”

  There was a pause. Everyone but Felix was looking at Mildmay. Felix’s head was down; I couldn’t tell if he even heard the voices around him. Mildmay was struggling for words. Finally he said, “Two indictions ago—as maybe your lordship remembers—I got . . . trapped by Brinvillier Strych. Or Malkar Gennadion, as some call him.”

  “Yes,” said Stephen, almost kindly.

  “He kept me awhile,” Mildmay said, and I winced at the wealth of things left unsaid. “And I saw Mr. Garamond there with him in the Bastion, helping him.” His head went down for a moment, but he got it back up and said, slow and careful, “Helping him torture me.”

  “Why haven’t you mentioned this before?”

  There was another pause, as long as a hard winter. Mildmay said, “Strych hurt me pretty bad, and I . . . I dunno. I wasn’t letting myself remember what he done, so I couldn’t remember none of the rest of it neither. But it came back at me anyways.”

  “My lord!” Thaddeus again. “Clearly this story is an invention. This creature has been coached by his brother to incriminate their victim.”

  I saw the spark in Mildmay’s eye and didn’t blame him. There were worse epithets than “creature” Thaddeus could have used, but it was hard to think of one.