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The Dawn of Amber

SIXTEEN

“Blaise?” I said again. “Our sister Blaise?”
He gave a chuckle at my bewildered expression.
“Don’t let her fool you,” he said. “She’s got a regular network of spies. Half the staff is in her pay.”
“And the other half?”
“Sleeping with her.”
I snorted. “Well, it saves money, I suppose,” I said.
Blaise . . .
It was something to think about. I hadn’t even considered her. From our first meeting, I’d gotten the impression she knew little beyond what jewelry to wear with which clothes to such-and-such a court function—an important skill in its way, I’m sure, but not one I’d ever found particularly useful. Perhaps I had been too quick to dismiss her.
And then, just when Aber had me half believing I’d been fooled into believing we had a spy among us by the planted Trump, I remembered Ivinius the barber, who had tried to kill me in my rooms. He’d been smuggled into the castle for the sole purpose of killing me, and by someone who knew who I was and what I needed to hear to put me off my guard.
So who had sent Ivinius to kill me? And how had he or she gotten the body out of my rooms without being seen?
“But I do know—without any doubt—that we have a traitor in Juniper,” I continued,
He blinked in surprise. “What! Who?”
“I don’t know—yet.”
Then I told him how Ivinius had tried to slit my throat in my room. It felt good to share this secret, too.
“So that’s why you jumped at me when I Trumped in,” he said. “You thought I’d come to check on your murder!”
“Or to finish the job.” I sighed and shook my head. “If it had only been Locke instead of you . . . things would certainly be a lot simpler right now.”
“You were lucky,” he said slowly, “If it had been Locke, you’d be dead. He’s the best swordsman among us,”
“You’ve never seen me fight.”
He shrugged. “I concede the point. But Locke’s the best swordsman I’ve ever seen. He was schooled by a dozen weapons-masters in the Courts of Chaos. He grew up with blades in both hands. His mother, after all—”
“Freda mentioned her,” I said. “Some sort of hell-creature?”
“The Lady Ryassa de Lyor ab Sytalla is hardly a hell-creature.”
“Then you’ve met her?”
“Not formally, no . . . but I’ve seen her half a dozen times.”
I shrugged. “You’re probably right. Father never would have married her otherwise.”
“True.”
“And,” I said, “if you say Locke’s a great swordsman, I’ll accept that, even though I’ve never seen him fight.”
“Good.”
“It’s just that I made the mistake of letting down my guard, thinking I was safe here. It won’t happen again. Not with anyone.”
He pursed his lips again. “A traitor . . . that’s something none of us has ever talked about before. Yet it makes a lot of sense. This Shadow is very, very far from the Courts. About as far as you can get and still use the Logrus. We should have been safe here . . . and yet they found us fairly quickly.”
I spread my hands in a half shrug. “So . . . what now?”
“Blaise . . . ” he hesitated.
“The same qualities that make her a likely ally also make her a likely suspect. She could have gotten Ivinius into the castle and sent him to my room.”
“True. She saw what you looked like when we had drinks, so she knew you needed a shave and a haircut. But you could say the same for Pella, Freda, and me, too. Or Dad, for that matter. Or anyone you passed in the corridor.”
“Or anyone who saw me get out of the carriage when we got here,” I said, remembering the crowd that had surrounded Dad. Locke and Davin had been among them . . . plus several dozen others, any one of whom could have said the wrong word to the wrong person and set me up.
I sighed. Clearly we weren’t getting anywhere.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“Tell Blaise about the Trump you found,” he said, “and your suspicions. The more I think about it, the more I believe she’ll be able to help you. I’ll tell Freda. Perhaps one of them will have an answer.”
“Don’t tell them about the hell-creature barber yet,” I said. “I don’t want to tip my hand.”
“No . . . you’re right, of course. Save that. It may be important later.”
I found Blaise’s rooms on the floor above, and her serving girl showed me into a sitting room done in bright colors, with fresh cut flowers in intricate arrangements all around. My sister reclined on a small sofa, a glass of red wine in one hand and a pretty young man in the other. He kissed her fingers, rose with a sideways glance at me, and slipped out the side door. I watched him go without comment, thinking of Aber’s jibe that she slept with half the serving staff. An exaggeration, of course . . . at least, I hoped so.
“Oberon,” she said, rising.
I kissed the cheek she offered.
“Blaise,” I said. “You’re looking lovely.”
“Thank you.” She wore that wide, predatory smile again, and all my mistrust came flooding back. “I’m glad you’ve come to see me,” she said, “May I offer you some wine?”
“No, thank you.”
“It’s time we had a talk. But I certainly hadn’t expected to see you so soon.”
Glancing pointedly at her serving girl, I said, “This isn’t really a social call.”
“No?”
“Aber thought I should seek your advice.”
“Interesting.” She smiled. “Go on.”
“Alone, if you don’t mind.”
She made a little motion with one hand, and her serving girl curtsied and withdrew, shutting the door. Only then did I turn back to my half sister.
“I’m listening,” she said, more businesslike than before. She set down her glass, folded her hands in her lap, and looked up at me curiously.
I took a deep breath. What did I have to lose at this point? I didn’t know who to trust and who to suspect, so I might as well put all the evidence out in the open. Perhaps she would have more insight than Aber and I did.
Quickly, before I could change my mind, I told her everything, starting with Ivinius trying to slit my throat and ending with the Trump I’d found in the hell-creature’s camp. A little to my surprise, she neither interrupted nor showed the slightest concern. She merely looked thoughtful.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“That you are a damned fool,” she said sharply. “You should not have hidden an assassination attempt. This isn’t a game, Oberon. If we are in danger in Juniper, we all have a right to know!”
I bristled at that, but did not reply. Unfortunately, I thought she might be right. I had handled it wrong. I should have gone straight to Dad as soon as I’d killed Ivinius.
“What’s done is done,” I finally said, “and cannot be changed. I thought I made the right decision at the time.”
“And now you’ve come to me?”
“Aber seems to think you might have a certain . . . insight into whatever plots are going on around us.”
“Hmm.” She leaned back on the couch, drumming her fingers on its arm, eyes distant. “I’m not sure whether to be flattered or insulted. There has never been much love between Aber and me, you know.”
“We don’t need love. We need cooperation.”
She looked me in the eye. “You are quite right, Oberon. This is not a petty squabble among siblings. We are all involved, and we are all in mortal danger. If we are not careful, we will all end up dead.”
“Do you know anything about Ivinius?” I asked.
“He performed his job well and faithfully for many years. He was married. I believe his wife died about a week ago.”
“Murdered?” I asked.
She shrugged. “When a woman of seventy-odd years dies in her sleep, who questions it? Not I.”
“I suppose not.” I sat on the chair opposite her. “Of course, Ivinius’s wife would have known immediately if someone began impersonating him, I bet they killed her to keep her quiet.”
“A hell-creature impersonating Ivinius would need help. A stranger could never sneak into Juniper, replace a skilled tradesman, and impersonate him perfectly without some assistance. It had to be someone with a knowledge of the castle’s routine, who brought him here and coached him on what to say and what to do.”
I reminded her that the body had been removed from my rooms.
“That narrows down our list of suspects.”
“Not really,” I said. “The door wasn’t locked. Anyone could have walked in, found Ivinius’s body, and escaped with it.”
“Anybody might have slipped in,” she said, “but no one saw a body being carried out. I would have heard. You cannot hide a death here . . . which means whoever took the body used a Trump.”
“A family member?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I concluded,” I said. “Someone who knew I arrived in need of a shave and a haircut. You, Freda, Aber, Pella, Davin, and Locke all saw me. I don’t know whether any of the others did.”
“And then you found Locke’s Trump in the hell-creatures’ camp,” she said, frowning.
“Yes. But Aber doesn’t think he’s the traitor.”
“Locke is guilty of many things, but he wouldn’t plot with our enemies. They planted that card for us to find.”
“That’s what Aber said, too. But if not Locke, then who?”
“I think I know.”
“Tell me!”
Blaise shook her head as she rose. “Not yet,” she said firmly. “I have no proof. We must see Father first. This cannot wait.”
She hurried me out and down a series of back staircases and plainly furnished corridors through which a constant stream of servants moved until I had quite lost all sense of direction. Juniper was big. But when we pushed out into a main hallway, I realized we’d taken a shortcut and reached Dad’s workshop in about half the time it normally would have taken from my suite.
Now that she had a purpose, she moved with a speed and determination that surprised me. Who did she suspect? As Aber had said, there was more to her than I’d thought.
She swept past the two guards, with me still trailing, and knocked on our father’s workshop door.
Dworkin opened it after a heartbeat, peered up at the two of us, then stood back for us to enter,
“This is an odd pairing, I would say. What brings you here together?”
“Tell him,” Blaise said, looking at me.
So, for the third time that afternoon, I repeated my story, leaving nothing out. Then I told him our conclusions, down to our having a traitor in the family,
“I know I should have come to you sooner,” I said, “and I’m sorry for that. I didn’t know who I should trust . . . so I trusted no one.”
“You thought you were doing the right thing,” Dworkin said. “We will get to the bottom of this matter.”
“Blaise thinks she knows who the traitor is,” I added.
“Oh?” He looked at her, surprised and pleased.
“That’s right, Father. It can only be Freda.”

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The Dawn of Amber

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SIXTEEN

On the trip back to Juniper, I ranged ahead of the others, leaving Locke and Davin with their men. I rode neither hard nor fast enough to attract undue attention, but managed to get back a good ten minutes ahead of them.
All the way, winding through the tent city of their soldiers, crossing the drawbridge, and into the castle’s courtyard, I kept turning the implications of my discovery over and over in my mind.
We had a traitor in our midst. Ivinius’s presence—and the disappearance of his body—proved it. And the traitor had to be someone capable of using Trumps . . . which meant a family member.
But Locke?
Well, why not Locke?
He had been nothing short of hostile until this morning. And since Dworkin—I still found it hard to call him Dad—trusted him with the defenses of Juniper, his betrayal would be truly disastrous.
Or was I allowing personal dislike to cloud my judgment?
Safely ahead of the others, I pulled out the Trump I’d found, turned it over, and studied it without concentrating too hard on the picture. Locke . . . drawn exactly the same way as Freda’s Trump had been.
In fact, I realized with some dismay, this could be Freda’s Trump. But they couldn’t both be in league with hell-creatures . . . could they?
I knew one fact that might help: Aber had created this card. I’d ask him who it belonged to as soon as we got back to Jumper. If he could identify it . . .
I left my horse with the grooms and went looking for Aber. I found Freda standing in the audience hall with Pella, Blaise, and a couple of women I didn’t recognize. The warning bell must have brought everyone out looking for news or rumors.
I joined them.
“Did you find anything?” Freda asked me, once suitable introductions had been made. As I had suspected, the women I didn’t recognize were the wives of two of Dworkin’s chancellors.
“I’m afraid not,” I said. I didn’t mention the Trump I’d found. “It was just a camp site. They had been spying on us for a couple of days.”
“Too bad. Are you all back now? Safe?”
“I’m a little ahead of the others,” I said, glancing toward the door. “Locke wants to clear the brush at the edge of the forest, and I’m sure he’s going to stop and detail those duties before reporting back. He and Davin shouldn’t be too long.”
She nodded thoughtfully, then took my arm and drew me aside. “And how did you find Locke today?” she asked more softly.
“Less . . . ” I searched for the right word. “Less upset by my presence. I think he’s begun to accept me. Who knows, we might even end up friends.”
“Davin gave him a complete report about what Father said about you last night.”
I smiled lightly. “Yes, I got the feeling he knew about it. He has nothing to fear from me now. I cannot take his place without the Logrus.”
“Do not place too much trust in him yet. He may not view you as an enemy, but you are still a rival.”
“I won’t,” I promised. What would she think if she knew he wanted a private chat with me tonight? “Trust must be earned. He certainly hasn’t earned any yet.”
And he won’t earn it as long as there’s a chance he’s our traitor, I added silently.
“Good.” She smiled, the small lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth crinkling, “I hope you both make an effort at it. You can be of great help with the army, I know.”
“I hope so,” I said. Deliberately changing the subject, I asked, “Have you seen Aber?”
“Aber? Not since you left. You might look in his rooms. That’s where he spends most afternoons.”
“Thank you,” I said. I gave her and the chancellors’ wives a polite nod, then headed for the stairs. “Until dinner.”
Today I felt more comfortable navigating the castle’s seemingly endless stairs and corridors, and found my way safely to my rooms. I found Horace in my bedroom. My bed was covered with heaps of clothing.
“What’s all this?” I asked, staring.
“Mattus’s clothing, Lord,” Horace said, folding a shirt deftly and placing it in the wardrobe. “Lord Aber said I should bring it in for you.”
‘Thoughtful of him.”
“Yes, Lord.”
I realized I hadn’t had a chance to change yet from my workout, and now I stank not just of sweat, but of horse.
“Pick out new clothes for me,” I said, heading for the washbasin. “Then get the rest of them put away.” I’d clean up before going to see Aber, I decided.
Five minutes later, I went to Aber’s room and knocked sharply.
He called, “Enter at your own risk!” in cheerful tones.
I went in and found him sitting at a drafting table by the windows. Small bottles of colored pigments sat all around him, and he held a tiny horsehair brush in one hand.
He paused in his work. “What news from the woods, brother?” he asked.
“Nothing more than we already heard,” I said with a shrug. “The hell-creatures were long gone.”
“A pity,” he said.
I came closer, looking at the half-dozen Trumps sitting out on the table. “What are you doing?”
“Making a Trump.”
He picked it up and turned it so I could see . . . and though only half finished, it clearly showed a man standing with feet spread and sword raised, ready for battle. He was dressed all in deep blues with black trim, and his cloak ruffled faintly as though from a steady breeze. In the white spaces of the unfinished background, ever so faintly, I noticed a lacework pattern of thin black lines . . . curves and angles that seemed to reach deep into the card, somehow, like a three-dimensional puzzle. A representation of the Logrus? I suspected so.
Aber had just begun coloring the face when I walked in. With some surprise. I realized it was a miniature portrait of me.
“What do you think of this one?” he asked. “I’m making it for Freda. She told me she wanted it last night, after dinner.”
“No more candles?”
He chuckled. “Actually, that one was supposed to be Mattus. I finished it up this morning with your face.” He shrugged apologetically. “I was in a hurry.”
“And a good thing you were. You probably saved my life.”
“Ah, how ironic! The artist saves the warrior.”
I laughed. “It was still a good likeness, even if it started out as a picture of Mattus. And I’m even more flattered by this one.”
“Really?” He seemed honestly delighted. “You know, I think you’re the first person who’s ever said that to me!”
I regarded his new card carefully. “Blue is not really my color, though,” I said. “How about red next time?”
“The colors don’t matter, it’s the person and how the image is drawn.” He set it back in the last of the dying sunlight. “Have to let it dry now, anyway,” he said. “So, what brings you here?”
I hesitated. Trust no one, Freda had said. But this was something I couldn’t do alone. I needed an ally . . . and of all my family, I liked Aber most of all. If I had to trust someone, it had to be him . . . for no other reason than he was the one most likely to recognize the Trump I’d found. It wasn’t an easy decision, but once made, I knew it was the right one.
“I want you to look at something.” I pulled out the Locke’s Trump and handed it to him. “I found it. Is it yours?”
“Well, I made it.” He turned it over and pointed to the rampant lion painted in gold on the back. “I put a lion on all of mine. Dad never bothered with such niceties when he made Trumps.”
“Do you know who you made it for?”
He shrugged. “Why not ask at dinner? I’m sure whoever’s lost it wants it back.”
“I . . . do have a reason.”
“But you’re not going to say.”
“No. Not right now.”
“Hmm.” He studied me thoughtfully, then raised the Trump for a second, studying it more carefully. “Honestly, I’m not sure who I made it for,” he admitted. “I’ve done at least twenty of Locke over the years, and I always copy my original. They all look pretty much the same.”
He opened a drawer in the table and pulled out a small teak box similar to the one he’d given me, but with polished brass corners. He swung back the lid and pulled out a set of perhaps fifty or sixty cards, fanned them open, and pulled one out.
When he set it beside the Trump I had found, they appeared identical. I wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart. No wonder it had looked like Freda’s—he really had been copying his original card over and over. And with twenty of them out there . . . this Trump could belong to anyone.
“Sorry,” he said. “Like I told you, ask at dinner. That’s your best bet.”
I shook my head. “I can’t do that. Do you think it might be Locke’s?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I never give anyone their own Trump. It’s a waste of my time. Why would you want to contact yourself?”
It made sense. And yet, when I thought back to my carriage ride, envisioning the Trumps I’d seen on the table, I was pretty sure Freda had one of herself.
“What about Freda?” I asked. “Doesn’t she . . . ”
“Oh, that’s different.” He laughed. “She reads patterns from them, so she needs one of everyone in the family, including herself. That’s what you get for growing up in the Courts. People are . . . different there. They think and teach and learn things that the rest of us, who grew up in Shadows, can only long for.”
I nodded. It all fit. “So Locke wouldn’t need it. He couldn’t use it. But Davin . . . ”
“Yes, it might be his.” Aber’s eyes narrowed a bit with sudden suspicion. “Why are you asking all these questions? Something’s wrong. Where did you really get it . . . in the enemy’s camp?”
I hesitated. If I could trust one family member, somehow I thought it would be Aber. Should I tell him? I needed an ally . . . someone in whom I could confide and seek advice . . . someone who knew Juniper. And if anything happened to me, if another hell-creature managed to assassinate me, I wanted the truth known. He had just guessed where the card had come from, after all. What could it hurt to tell him the truth . . . or as much of it as he needed to know?
“That’s it, isn’t it?” He took my silence for confirmation. “So . . . they have our Trumps.”
I took a deep breath. Against my instincts for secrecy, I told him how I had found the Trump, hidden it from Locke and Davin, and brought it back with me.
Then I told him my suspicions about a traitor in Juniper.
“And you thought these spies had been talking to Locke,” he said, folding his hands together under his chin thoughtfully. “You thought Locke might betray us.”
“That was the general idea,” I admitted. “He’s been the most, ah, hostile, after all.”
“You’re wrong,” Aber said bluntly. He looked me straight in the eye. “Locke doesn’t have the imagination or the ambition to betray anyone. He and Davin spent the last year training the army for Dad. They will both fight to the death, if necessary, to protect us.”
“Maybe he thinks we’re going to lose and wants to be on the winning side.”
“They are trying to wipe out our bloodline. Why would they let him live?”
“Deals have been made before.”
“Not with Locke.”
“Then how do you explain this?” I tapped the Trump with my finger. “Maybe they agreed to let him live out his years in exile. It’s a small price it he can deliver Juniper . . . all of us.”
“I don’t know.” His brow furrowed again. “There are at least four sets of Trumps missing . . . Mattus, Alanar, Taine, and Clay all carried them. This card could easily be one of theirs.”
“Then why Locke?” I demanded. “Why would hell-creatures carry his card and no others?”
“And why would they forget it when they left?” Aber countered. “It’s not the sort of thing you’d accidentally leave behind when you clear out camp. And, for that matter, it’s not the sort of thing a routine scout would carry.”
“I see your point,” I admitted.
“What if they wanted us to find it,” he went on. “What if they planned the whole thing, right down to hiding that card in the bedroll?”
The idea hadn’t occurred to me. It was devious . . . exactly the sort of trick a hell-creature might try.
Aber went on, “If Dad stripped Locke of his command, it would do us real damage. The men love him and will follow him to the seven hells and back, if he asks. Davin isn’t half the leader Locke is. And the men don’t know you well enough to follow you. Losing Locke would be a terrible blow.”
“You have a good point,” I admitted
“So, what are you going to do?” he asked. “Tell Dad or keep it to yourself?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “If only you recognized the Trump!”
I began to pace, thinking. Everything had seemed much clearer before I’d talked to Aber, when Locke looked guilty. Now, according to Aber, finding the Trump meant the traitor could be anyone except Locke.
Who?
I sighed. “Plots and schemes have never come easily to me,” I told him.
“Nor to me,” he said. “It takes a lot more patience than I have. You’d be better off talking to Blaise, if you want that sort of advice.”
“Blaise?” His suggestion left me faintly baffled. “Why her? I would’ve thought you’d send me to Freda.”
“Freda is no amateur, but Blaise is the true master when it comes to intrigue. Nothing happens in Juniper without her hearing about it.”
“Blaise?” I said again. “Our sister Blaise?”
He gave a chuckle at my bewildered expression.
“Don’t let her fool you,” he said. “She’s got a regular network of spies. Half the staff is in her pay.”
“And the other half?”
“Sleeping with her.”
I snorted. “Well, it saves money, I suppose,” I said.
Blaise . . .
It was something to think about. I hadn’t even considered her. From our first meeting, I’d gotten the impression she knew little beyond what jewelry to wear with which clothes to such-and-such a court function—an important skill in its way, I’m sure, but not one I’d ever found particularly useful. Perhaps I had been too quick to dismiss her.
And then, just when Aber had me half believing I’d been fooled into believing we had a spy among us by the planted Trump, I remembered Ivinius the barber, who had tried to kill me in my rooms. He’d been smuggled into the castle for the sole purpose of killing me, and by someone who knew who I was and what I needed to hear to put me off my guard.
So who had sent Ivinius to kill me? And how had he or she gotten the body out of my rooms without being seen?
“But I do know—without any doubt—that we have a traitor in Juniper,” I continued,
He blinked in surprise. “What! Who?”
“I don’t know—yet.”
Then I told him how Ivinius had tried to slit my throat in my room. It felt good to share this secret, too.
“So that’s why you jumped at me when I Trumped in,” he said. “You thought I’d come to check on your murder!”
“Or to finish the job.” I sighed and shook my head. “If it had only been Locke instead of you . . . things would certainly be a lot simpler right now.”
“You were lucky,” he said slowly, “If it had been Locke, you’d be dead. He’s the best swordsman among us,”
“You’ve never seen me fight.”
He shrugged. “I concede the point. But Locke’s the best swordsman I’ve ever seen. He was schooled by a dozen weapons-masters in the Courts of Chaos. He grew up with blades in both hands. His mother, after all—”
“Freda mentioned her,” I said. “Some sort of hell-creature?”
“The Lady Ryassa de Lyor ab Sytalla is hardly a hell-creature.”
“Then you’ve met her?”
“Not formally, no . . . but I’ve seen her half a dozen times.”
I shrugged. “You’re probably right. Father never would have married her otherwise.”
“True.”
“And,” I said, “if you say Locke’s a great swordsman, I’ll accept that, even though I’ve never seen him fight.”
“Good.”
“It’s just that I made the mistake of letting down my guard, thinking I was safe here. It won’t happen again. Not with anyone.”
He pursed his lips again. “A traitor . . . that’s something none of us has ever talked about before. Yet it makes a lot of sense. This Shadow is very, very far from the Courts. About as far as you can get and still use the Logrus. We should have been safe here . . . and yet they found us fairly quickly.”
I spread my hands in a half shrug. “So . . . what now?”
“Blaise . . . ” he hesitated.
“The same qualities that make her a likely ally also make her a likely suspect. She could have gotten Ivinius into the castle and sent him to my room.”
“True. She saw what you looked like when we had drinks, so she knew you needed a shave and a haircut. But you could say the same for Pella, Freda, and me, too. Or Dad, for that matter. Or anyone you passed in the corridor.”
“Or anyone who saw me get out of the carriage when we got here,” I said, remembering the crowd that had surrounded Dad. Locke and Davin had been among them . . . plus several dozen others, any one of whom could have said the wrong word to the wrong person and set me up.
I sighed. Clearly we weren’t getting anywhere.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“Tell Blaise about the Trump you found,” he said, “and your suspicions. The more I think about it, the more I believe she’ll be able to help you. I’ll tell Freda. Perhaps one of them will have an answer.”
“Don’t tell them about the hell-creature barber yet,” I said. “I don’t want to tip my hand.”
“No . . . you’re right, of course. Save that. It may be important later.”
I found Blaise’s rooms on the floor above, and her serving girl showed me into a sitting room done in bright colors, with fresh cut flowers in intricate arrangements all around. My sister reclined on a small sofa, a glass of red wine in one hand and a pretty young man in the other. He kissed her fingers, rose with a sideways glance at me, and slipped out the side door. I watched him go without comment, thinking of Aber’s jibe that she slept with half the serving staff. An exaggeration, of course . . . at least, I hoped so.
“Oberon,” she said, rising.
I kissed the cheek she offered.
“Blaise,” I said. “You’re looking lovely.”
“Thank you.” She wore that wide, predatory smile again, and all my mistrust came flooding back. “I’m glad you’ve come to see me,” she said, “May I offer you some wine?”
“No, thank you.”
“It’s time we had a talk. But I certainly hadn’t expected to see you so soon.”
Glancing pointedly at her serving girl, I said, “This isn’t really a social call.”
“No?”
“Aber thought I should seek your advice.”
“Interesting.” She smiled. “Go on.”
“Alone, if you don’t mind.”
She made a little motion with one hand, and her serving girl curtsied and withdrew, shutting the door. Only then did I turn back to my half sister.
“I’m listening,” she said, more businesslike than before. She set down her glass, folded her hands in her lap, and looked up at me curiously.
I took a deep breath. What did I have to lose at this point? I didn’t know who to trust and who to suspect, so I might as well put all the evidence out in the open. Perhaps she would have more insight than Aber and I did.
Quickly, before I could change my mind, I told her everything, starting with Ivinius trying to slit my throat and ending with the Trump I’d found in the hell-creature’s camp. A little to my surprise, she neither interrupted nor showed the slightest concern. She merely looked thoughtful.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“That you are a damned fool,” she said sharply. “You should not have hidden an assassination attempt. This isn’t a game, Oberon. If we are in danger in Juniper, we all have a right to know!”
I bristled at that, but did not reply. Unfortunately, I thought she might be right. I had handled it wrong. I should have gone straight to Dad as soon as I’d killed Ivinius.
“What’s done is done,” I finally said, “and cannot be changed. I thought I made the right decision at the time.”
“And now you’ve come to me?”
“Aber seems to think you might have a certain . . . insight into whatever plots are going on around us.”
“Hmm.” She leaned back on the couch, drumming her fingers on its arm, eyes distant. “I’m not sure whether to be flattered or insulted. There has never been much love between Aber and me, you know.”
“We don’t need love. We need cooperation.”
She looked me in the eye. “You are quite right, Oberon. This is not a petty squabble among siblings. We are all involved, and we are all in mortal danger. If we are not careful, we will all end up dead.”
“Do you know anything about Ivinius?” I asked.
“He performed his job well and faithfully for many years. He was married. I believe his wife died about a week ago.”
“Murdered?” I asked.
She shrugged. “When a woman of seventy-odd years dies in her sleep, who questions it? Not I.”
“I suppose not.” I sat on the chair opposite her. “Of course, Ivinius’s wife would have known immediately if someone began impersonating him, I bet they killed her to keep her quiet.”
“A hell-creature impersonating Ivinius would need help. A stranger could never sneak into Juniper, replace a skilled tradesman, and impersonate him perfectly without some assistance. It had to be someone with a knowledge of the castle’s routine, who brought him here and coached him on what to say and what to do.”
I reminded her that the body had been removed from my rooms.
“That narrows down our list of suspects.”
“Not really,” I said. “The door wasn’t locked. Anyone could have walked in, found Ivinius’s body, and escaped with it.”
“Anybody might have slipped in,” she said, “but no one saw a body being carried out. I would have heard. You cannot hide a death here . . . which means whoever took the body used a Trump.”
“A family member?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I concluded,” I said. “Someone who knew I arrived in need of a shave and a haircut. You, Freda, Aber, Pella, Davin, and Locke all saw me. I don’t know whether any of the others did.”
“And then you found Locke’s Trump in the hell-creatures’ camp,” she said, frowning.
“Yes. But Aber doesn’t think he’s the traitor.”
“Locke is guilty of many things, but he wouldn’t plot with our enemies. They planted that card for us to find.”
“That’s what Aber said, too. But if not Locke, then who?”
“I think I know.”
“Tell me!”
Blaise shook her head as she rose. “Not yet,” she said firmly. “I have no proof. We must see Father first. This cannot wait.”
She hurried me out and down a series of back staircases and plainly furnished corridors through which a constant stream of servants moved until I had quite lost all sense of direction. Juniper was big. But when we pushed out into a main hallway, I realized we’d taken a shortcut and reached Dad’s workshop in about half the time it normally would have taken from my suite.
Now that she had a purpose, she moved with a speed and determination that surprised me. Who did she suspect? As Aber had said, there was more to her than I’d thought.
She swept past the two guards, with me still trailing, and knocked on our father’s workshop door.
Dworkin opened it after a heartbeat, peered up at the two of us, then stood back for us to enter,
“This is an odd pairing, I would say. What brings you here together?”
“Tell him,” Blaise said, looking at me.
So, for the third time that afternoon, I repeated my story, leaving nothing out. Then I told him our conclusions, down to our having a traitor in the family,
“I know I should have come to you sooner,” I said, “and I’m sorry for that. I didn’t know who I should trust . . . so I trusted no one.”
“You thought you were doing the right thing,” Dworkin said. “We will get to the bottom of this matter.”
“Blaise thinks she knows who the traitor is,” I added.
“Oh?” He looked at her, surprised and pleased.
“That’s right, Father. It can only be Freda.”

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