William de Laurent knelt over the bloodied guard, lips moving in heartfelt prayer for the man's departed soul. He felt the blood soaking into his cassock, the ugly warmth on his knee, but he would not rise until he was done.
“I'm impressed, Your Eminence,” Claude told him. “You're handling this with remarkable aplomb.”
“No more impressed than I,” the archbishop retorted as his prayer wound to a close. “Your god must be sneaky indeed, to have hidden the stain on your soul from me. You know that what you've set in motion is a violation of the Pact.”
“Only if we're caught, Your Eminence. And of course, that's where you come in. You and dear old Alexandre.”
Slowed by grief and aching bones, gazing longingly at the broken staff of office that lay across the chamber, he rose.
“Thank you,” he said, “for allowing me to offer final rites.”
“I had no personal quarrel with these men, Your Eminence,” said Claude, Apostle of Cevora and former servant of Alexandre Delacroix. “Nor with you. I'll make it swift.”
William did not want to die, not here, not now that he knew who and what it was he had come to Davillon to find. He briefly eyed the window, but it was a useless thought. Adrienne possessed the speed and grace to pull it off. Even in his youth, he himself had not.
So he held himself straight, determined to face his end with dignity. Who was Death, after all, if not another of the gods of the Pact?
He felt the first of the cuts as a fire in his gut. And William de Laurent died praying. Praying for the soul of the man who killed him, and for the life of a young woman who had already suffered enough.
Claude was long gone, leaving the room empty of all but corpses, before Bouniard and his constables made their way upstairs.
ONE YEAR AGO:
Renard Lambert leaned precariously back in his chair, ankles crossed atop the table, and sipped absently from a goblet of wine of a far better vintage than the bottle indicated. Somebody, somewhere in Davillon, was going to be very disappointed with the contents of their forty-mark bottle.
Or maybe they wouldn't be. Not everyone could have as refined a palate as he did. It's what made label-switching a profitable venture. Which reminded him, he needed to swing by the Mahaut vineyards before the end of the week, make sure that they…
So lost was Renard in his thoughts, senses ever so gently clouded by the wine he'd already consumed, that it took him a moment to recognize the faint but insistent tapping at his door, a moment more to realize the implications.
Who the hell knows where I live?
The thief shot to his feet, one hand darting to the rapier hanging on the coatrack by the door. Slowly, deliberately, he slid aside the brass cap blocking the peephole.
“Hsst! Lambert! I know you're in there! Let me in!”
Slack-jawed, Renard opened the door, stepping aside as the girl flitted past. Sweat plastered her hair to her cheeks and forehead, and she carried a large and lumpy sack over one shoulder.
He stared at her; she stared at the room. Thick carpeting, polished brass-and-silver fixtures, bright paintings of random scenes and portraits of random faces—all were arranged in a display of opulence that obscenely straddled the line between tasteful and tacky.
“It's absolutely you,” she said, turning to face her host.
“Widdershins, what the—?”
She frowned, lips curling into a pert little moue. “You said I should come to you if I had any problems or questions,” she reminded him.
“Well, yes. The guild can be a difficult home to settle into. Most newcomers have a guide or a patron for their first few—”
“Then why do you look so unhappy to see me?”
“I—you—Widdershins, how do you know where I live?”
“Oh, that.” Widdershins made a dismissive gesture with one hand, dropped her sack to the floor with a loud clatter, and slid into the chair Renard had so recently vacated. A brief sniff at the goblet, and then she swiftly drained off its contents before he could protest. “I followed you a few weeks ago.”
“I—you…” Renard had the vague sensation he was repeating himself. “That's not possible!”
“I'm here, aren't I?” She shrugged. “If it makes you feel any better, you're really careful. You almost lost me twice.”
His face turning peculiar shades of red, Renard hauled a second chair to the table and sat across from his guest. “Why did you follow me?”
Another shrug. “I figured if I did need to take you up on your offer of advice, I might not want to do it at the guild. In case, you know, it was about the guild, yes?”
All right, that at least makes sense. “So what's your problem, then?” he asked, calming down.
“Well…” Widdershins nudged the bag on the floor with her toe, just enough for a smattering of coins and the tip of a solid gold candelabrum to tumble out. “There's got to be thousands of marks' worth of goods here. Maybe tens of thousands. I just—I didn't know if maybe there were different procedures for reporting and delivering the guild's share of something this big. And I'm a little nervous about just walking into the guild with that much hard currency. I know we're all supposed to be able to trust each other, but…Renard, are you all right?”
No, he was pretty sure he wasn't, given that his eyes were doubtlessly about to pop from his skull like champagne corks. “Widdershins, where in the gods' names did you get this?”
“Oh, I hit the d'Arras family tower. You wouldn't believe how difficult it—”
“You what?” The foppish thief literally felt the blood drain from his face.
“Don't tell me it was off-limits!” Widdershins cried, a twinge of fear in her voice. “I checked the lists, I swear I did! There was nothing—”
“No.” Renard shook his head, thoughts tumbling drunkenly over one another—though he himself was now quite sober. “No, d'Arras Tower isn't on the forbidden list.”
“Then what…?”
Months, maybe even years of planning. He knew, because she'd bragged to him about it enough times. Oh, but she is not going to be happy when she hears about this….
“Widdershins, how much do you know about the guild's taskmaster, Lisette Suvagne?”
“Oh, is that who I saw there?”
Renard dropped his head into his hands and groaned.
NOW:
Clouds smeared the stars into glowing will-o'-the-wisps, orbiting the aura of the waning moon. The sky remained dry, its tears spent in the drenching rains of the previous night, though the air smelled heavily of more to come in the days ahead. Even the predators—the rats, the cats, and the two-legged variety—huddled shivering in their hidey-holes and contemplated staying in.
Beneath those apathetic clouds, Widdershins drifted, equally silent. Utterly lost in thought, barely cognizant of her surroundings, she darted through the city, alley to alcove, shadow to street corner, in an invisible dance. The streets slipped by, Widdershins drew ever nearer a destination that she hadn't yet realized she'd chosen—and still she remained focused inward, pondering the night's endeavors.
She couldn't decide precisely how much that little visit with the archbishop might have accomplished. She felt better, certainly: for her new confidant, for her greater understanding of her link with Olgun, and, perhaps most vitally, for her chance, however slim, to finally make things right with Alexandre.
So yes, the visit had been worthwhile in its own right. But she was nowhere nearer to solving her more immediate problems, or learning who was trying to kill her and William, who had slaughtered Olgun's cult.
“Help me, Olgun,” she whispered, her voice lost in the chilling breeze. “Tell me what I'm supposed to do!”
But the deity, as she'd expected, could tell her nothing at all.
She was still muttering peevishly when she rounded the next corner and realized she'd been heading, all this time, toward the Flippant Witch.
Widdershins stopped, her heels skidding on the dew-slicked cobblestones, an
d briefly debated going the other way. Someone could well be watching her—especially considering Bouniard's unexpected appearance at the manor—and she absolutely did not want to put Genevieve at any more risk.
But Olgun seemed certain she was in no immediate danger, and she really, really needed a friendly ear. Too much had happened to sort through by herself. With a deep, calming breath, Widdershins set out across the market square.
When she spotted the small but irritable crowd milling about out front, what poise she'd gathered shattered like a fallen vase. The usual drunkards and other flotsam that washed up on the tavern's doorstep every night—there was nothing unusual about them, save that they were outside, when the ale and beer and wine were inside. Her heart hammering at her ribs, Widdershins pushed past the belligerent lurkers and leapt the steps to the front door.
“Might's well give it up,” one of the ruffians behind her growled as the latch refused to budge beneath her grasp. He was a particularly brutish specimen, with dark blond hair matted into spiky clumps, a thin growth of beard sporting rust stains from an old razor, and clothes that hadn't been cleaned since he was last caught in the rain.
“I tried already,” he continued, the noxious fumes of his breath suggesting that he'd recently inhaled a plague rat. “They ain't open t'night, damn ‘em all!” He leered a gap-toothed grin. “Means I got me a few extra marks tonight, and no good place where to spend ‘em. You got a few free hours, you could earn ‘em.”
Widdershins turned her back on the man and shook the latch until not only the door, but the nearby windows rattled in their housing.
“I just tol' you—,” the oaf began irritably.
“Go away! We're closed!”
Widdershins recognized the voice. “Robin? Robin, it's Widdershins! You open this door right now! Open this bloody door, or I'm coming through it!”
When no response was forthcoming, Widdershins dropped to one knee and examined the various locks. Ignoring the foul-smelling fellow peering in fascination over her shoulder, she pulled a few wires and probes from her pouch and went to work.
The new locks were good; it took Widdershins five minutes to open the lot of them.
Widdershins began to push through the now more pliable portal, only to stop and glower as she felt the man behind her step forward.
“This is private,” she told him, her voice ice. “They're still closed.”
“Like fun!” he barked, his breath nearly knocking her through the doorway. “You're going in, I'm going in! Ain't nothing you can do to—”
Widdershins introduced her knee to the drunkard's gut, and the last of that foul air escaped his lungs in a single overpowering whoosh as he toppled from the steps. Widdershins was inside, the door slammed and locked behind her, before he'd finished bouncing across the cobblestones.
“Robin? Robin, where are you?” She was frantic; she knew it, heard it in her voice, and she didn't care. “Where's Gen?”
The tavern was unbelievably dark. The fireplace was cold and empty, the lamps quiescent. Only a handful of torches cast tiny fingers of illumination through the ebon depths of the common room.
It took Widdershins a moment to orient herself. Slowly, hands stretched before her until her vision fully adjusted, she crept toward the bar.
“Robin? Gen?”
A soft sniff called to her across the darkened gulf. Slowly, as her vision adjusted, the furniture began to loom from the shadows.
There! At the very edge of the room, a slender figure hunched over one of the tables. Widdershins recognized Robin's slim build and boyish hairstyle. Heartbeat all but echoing through the empty chamber, the thief skidded to a halt beside the serving girl.
“Robin, what's happened? What's wrong?”
The girl blinked up at her, and Widdershins paled at the unfocused look in her eyes, visible even in the insignificant torchlight. “It's Genevieve,” Robin said, her tone puzzled, hollow.
Widdershins found it impossible to breathe. No. Gods, please, no…
“What…what about Genevieve? Robin, what about Genevieve?!”
“It's the wine, Shins,” Robin said almost dreamily, pointing down at the table, her expression glazing even further. “Genevieve's spilled her wine, and she won't move to let me clean it up.”
Only then, staring hard through the looming shadows, did Widdershins see the figure slumped over the pocked wooden surface, facedown in a glistening pool of slowly spreading red.
There was no anger in her scream when it finally erupted, no fear, for there was nothing left for the world to throw at her that she'd not already suffered. There was only pain in that pitiable sound, the terrible wail of a lost and despairing child.
Widdershins didn't remember falling to her knees. Hands shaking wildly, blinded by tears, she reached out to the cooling corpse of the only person she had left, truly called friend, truly loved.
“Olgun?” The god cringed, horrified at the terrible pleading in her voice. “Olgun, please, please, you have to help her! I need you to help her! Please…”
But save for weeping in his own peculiar way, there was nothing even Olgun could do.
The lingering torches continued their dance, oblivious and unabated, as a tiny portion of the world ended within their feeble glow.
It might have been minutes, or hours, before Widdershins finally looked up from where she'd buried her face in Genevieve's hair, cradling the woman's head without thought to the blood that now coated her arm and chest. She'd sobbed until her muscles ached and her lungs burned for air, cried tears enough nearly to wash the bloody table clean. But all her sorrow, all her prayers to every god whose name she could recall, couldn't restore the life-size doll she held, that once moved and talked and laughed and loved with the soul of Genevieve Marguilles.
And finally, though it took a lifetime, her tears slowed, slowed and stopped, and the sobs that racked her body faded away.
There was no sign of Robin. Widdershins had a faint memory of sending her upstairs to get some sleep. The girl was utterly overwhelmed, and Widdershins could only hope that the vague tint of madness in her eyes was a temporary thing.
She couldn't bear the thought of losing anyone else tonight.
Steeling herself against the pain, biting her lip until it bled, Widdershins moved the lantern closer, looking for details she didn't really want to find.
She didn't have to look hard. The wound that had taken Genevieve away from her was a simple stab, directly over the heart—but the poor woman had suffered before that merciful thrust, her legs broken multiple times with a heavy instrument.
An instrument that Widdershins herself had felt on more than one occasion.
She rose, her body shaking like a leaf in a storm, and she hated. She hated the Guardsmen who had stopped her from killing Brock in that alley; hated herself for failing to end his life when she had the chance.
For Brock, she could spare no hate—because so far as she was concerned, he was already dead. Widdershins knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she could find it in her to kill.
She turned to leave, to hunt, and the door opened at her approach, long before she reached it. And there he was, as though delivered by the hands of the gods themselves.
She had been right: He was already dead, a neat gash stitched across his throat by a thin blade. Like an enormous sack of meal, he hung limp between two hard, scruffy thugs. Behind them stood a third man, slender, his carefully groomed mustache and garish clothes contrasting sharply with the rapier at his side and the knives in his boots. Widdershins could see that the crowd she'd left outside was gone, perhaps having moved on to more worthwhile alcoholic pursuits—or else having been forcefully shooed away.
She should have fled, should have panicked, but she'd simply run out of emotion. Widdershins stared at them blankly—and then turned, slow and unblinking, when the kitchen door squeaked open as well. From within emerged a third ruffian, accompanied by the soldier whose hand she and Olgun had crippled so many years a
go.
If she'd had it left in her, she'd have been surprised to see him.
“Perhaps you should take a seat, mademoiselle,” said the dandy in the doorway, pulling the portal shut behind him.
Widdershins didn't move.
“I am Jean Luc. I believe you've already met Henri.”
“Brock?” she asked dully.
“Who? Ah,” he realized, following her gaze, “yes. We found him here, when we returned to wait for you. He was trying to, ah, encourage your friend to tell him where you might be. Apparently he'd been watching and waiting on and off for days, and had simply grown impatient.
“For what it's worth, dear Adrienne—or Widdershins or Madeleine, it's quite confusing, no?—for what it's worth, we made certain she suffered no more at his hands.”
Widdershins showed no reaction to the recitation of her various names. “Then I'll try to make sure you all die as easily,” she told him.
The thugs snickered and dropped Brock's corpse in the corner. The entire tavern shuddered with the impact.
“Perhaps,” Jean Luc said dismissively. “But first, my employer would like a word with you.”
The door opened once more, in what could only have been a deliberately orchestrated dramatic entrance. No matter the coat, no matter the bandages that wrapped his head and hands, Widdershins knew the demon for what it was.
“Yes, Adrienne,” it gloated in that crushed-gravel voice. “I'm delighted to see you again, too.”
But it was the human beside the hellish thing to whom Widdershins turned her attentions.
“Claude?”
“Hello, Adrienne.” He shut the door, wiped a bit of dust from his heavy cloak. “It's long past time we spoke, I should think. Henri,” he added, looking across the room, “leave us.”
“But, sir—”
“I need someone keeping an eye on the investigation. Go.”
With a sullen nod, the former Guardsmen departed.