“No,” she moaned.
Bile rose in Richard’s throat. Finally, the mask had ripped open. Brennan was flying his true colors. To kill a man in a fair fight was one thing, but this—this was a sickening, perverse butchery.
“Come on,” Brennan said in her ear, holding her from behind in a half embrace. “For once, you’ll be the one who gets to stick it in. It’s not hard.”
Brennan forced her forward, raised her hand with his, and stabbed Maedoc in the chest. Blood gushed. Maedoc groaned.
Angelia whimpered.
“Oh no, there is a little bit of blood,” Brennan said. “But you can handle it, can’t you? You think all that money that poured into your accounts isn’t bloody? You think those shiny stones in your ears aren’t soaked in it?”
She tore away from him.
Brennan turned to Richard and held out the dagger. “Casside. Join us, my friend.”
Richard strode forward, took the dagger, and thrust, between the ribs and up, piercing the heart. Maedoc gasped and sagged to the stone. The light went out of his eyes. The torture was over.
Brennan stared at the prone body. “Look, the three of you. Look very well. You all did this with me. Now we’re bound by blood.”
Angelia hid her face in her hands and wept.
“Take his legs.”
Richard picked up Maedoc’s legs. Brennan slid his hands under Maedoc’s arms. They heaved and threw the body over the balcony into the river below. Brennan picked up the dagger, wiped it on a handkerchief, and hurled it into the water. The blade caught the sunlight, sparking as it flew, and vanished far below.
Rene hugged Angelia and drew her toward the lift. Richard followed them. Brennan remained at the rail, his back to them, his arms crossed.
“He is crazy,” Angelia sobbed in the lift. “He’s gone crazy.”
“It will be all right,” Rene told her.
It wouldn’t be all right. The house of cards Brennan had built was tumbling down, and Richard was waiting for the right moment to set it on fire. And as the lift slid down, he thought of a perfect way to do just that.
Five minutes later, Richard walked into his quarters. “George! I know you’re here.”
A mouse scuttled out from under a bookshelf.
“Find my brother,” Richard said. “We have things to arrange.”
GEORGE stood in the shadows, leaning on the column, and watched the dining hall fill with people. The ridiculously pretentious book he’d read on Pierre de Rivière claimed that the Grand Dining Hall was a room of “almost painful elegance.” It wasn’t. It was a room of opulent old wealth.
The pale walls rose fifty feet high, reaching a glass ceiling so clear, it was invisible except for the three enormous chandeliers suspended from it. Each twelve-foot-wide chandelier was woven of hair-thin metal-and-glass strands in a perfect imitation of a cloud backlit by sunlight. Thousands of crystals suspended by thin wires cascaded from the chandelier, like rainbow-hued raindrops. The wires were invisible from the floor, and looking up gave one an illusion of standing under a spring shower.
The floor was seamless cream marble shot through with veins of silver and gold. Beautiful ornate vines cast out of bronze climbed the walls, bearing crystal- and gemstone-studded flowers. The same vine pattern decorated the chairs and the tables, shrouded in silk cloth. The book claimed that no two chairs in the dining hall were alike. Looking at the detail of the tiny leaves and buds, George believed it. The plates were silver, and the silverware had a gold tint. The room itself was enormous, and a full floor-to-ceiling mirror to his right reflected the space, making it appear even larger.
This space wasn’t just old, it was timeless. It would never go out of style by virtue of the wealth concentrated within it. It was a room built by old rich men and women to entertain other rich men and women, none of whom had ever tasted poverty. Just one of those flowers or plates would feed an Edge family for a week. The amount of food they would throw away after the bluebloods were done picking at their plates could sustain a small Edge town for a day.
He had known crushing poverty. He remembered it keenly, and this display of lavish luxury made him nauseous.
Torn shreds of conversation floated about.
“. . . found the body . . .”
“. . . water. Stabbed a dozen times . . .”
“Gods, how horrible . . .”
“. . . the wedding might be postponed . . .”
He caught sight of Charlotte and Sophie. Sophie was walking their dog on a beautiful leash with silver metalwork. The leash looked like it should belong to a fluffy ten-pound puppy with delicate paws and manicured claws. Seeing a large, muscular dog on its end was disconcerting.
Charlotte and Sophie took their seats next to a blond blueblood. He turned, displaying a familiar profile. Spider. Also known as the Count of Belidor. Sophie murmured something. He leaned over with an almost paternal expression on his face and said something. She nodded.
It must’ve hurt her to sit close to him. George had tried to talk to her about it last night, as much of a conversation as one could manage when one communicated by means of a dead squirrel and voice projection. She said it was so painful, it was almost sweet. He thought about it for a while, but he still couldn’t figure out what she’d meant.
He saw Jack drift in through the doors. He moved quietly, sliding between groups of people, and nobody paid him any mind, as if he were invisible. A moment later he stopped next to him. “Hey, Ugly.”
“Hey, Stupid.”
“Can you smell it on me?”
George gave him a look. “No.”
They had spent the last three hours in the room behind the mirror. It was a narrow space used mostly by staff and currently empty. The two of them and Kaldar had pulled apart the thin wooden panels until the back of the mirror was exposed, stripped the protective paint layer, then sprayed a silver solvent on the back of the mirror, turning the reflective surface into simple glass.
Kaldar had raided the Mirror’s stash of gadgets, and they attached four barrier generators on the back of the now-transparent glass, stretching a spell across its back surface. As long as the room remained undisturbed, nobody would be able to tell that the mirror had been tampered with. Immediately after they finished the job, Jack began obsessing that he had a chemical smell. Normally, George tolerated his brother’s quirks, but at the moment they had bigger things to worry about.
“Do you think it will work?” Jack asked.
“If this doesn’t work, I’ll kill him myself.”
George didn’t need to specify—“him” meant Brennan. Brennan was the root of the evil that had damaged their lives. Too many people had suffered, too many had died. He couldn’t be allowed to exist.
“Agreed,” Jack said. “We’ll do it together.”
Across the hall, Richard stepped inside. He saw Rene and Angelia standing together in the corner and walked in the opposite direction, taking position against a column, much like George’s.
The Grand Thane walked into the lobby, the Marchesa on his arm. The conversation died. The older man led his bride-to-be to the center of the room, to their table, and sat. Brennan followed him among the other bluebloods, taking the seat at a table nearby. His face wore a solemn expression.
Jack bared his teeth, quick like a knife cut, and hid them again.
“Come on.” George pushed away from the column, and they walked to their seats at their assigned table next to the Duchess of the Southern Provinces.
“Boys,” she greeted them with a smile.
“My lady.” They both bowed.
“Please sit down.”
They sat.
“How is it going?” Lady Olivia asked quietly.
“Well so far,” George answered. The most difficult thing about Brennan was that he made an unpredictable opponent. The murder of Maedoc had proven that. What they were about to do was calculated to unbalance him, make him spin out of his orbit, and once he did, he would become a human wrecking ball, destroying everything in his path.
A tall man in the uniform of the Castle Guard strode into the room and onto the raised platform at the front. “My lords and ladies, may I have a moment of your time.”
Quiet fell onto the gathering.
“My name is Celire Lakita. I’m in charge of the security for the Pierre de Rivière. This morning, a murder occurred on these premises.”
Nobody gasped. Everybody had already heard the news.
“I want to assure you that your safety isn’t in question.” Celire paused. “We know that the murder took place on the Upper Northern Balcony. We know that four assailants were involved. We know why it occurred. We know who is responsible.”
George focused on Brennan. The big man sat absolutely still, his face a cold mask.
“I will now speak to the killers directly.” Celire looked at the gathering. “We know who you are. Rest assured that this matter will be resolved by the day’s end. Attempting to escape is futile—you will note increased security presence in the hallways. You have until this evening to make things easier on yourself and retain some small measure of dignity. If you don’t cooperate, your fellow conspirators will. The measure of my mercy is small and dwindling by the minute. To the rest of you, please enjoy your meal.”
He stepped down.
The hall buzzed with a dozen simultaneously started conversations. It was a carefully crafted speech. Kaldar and Richard had spent forty-five minutes writing it. Once Kaldar flashed his Mirror credentials and dangled the possible arrest of Maedoc’s murderers in front of Celire, the head of castle security proved more than willing to play his part in laying the trap. Now, Brennan had to react.
Do it, George willed silently, staring at Brennan’s back. Do it. You know you want to talk to them.
Brennan flicked open a pen.
“Pen,” Jack murmured.
“I see it.”
Brennan wrote something on a piece of paper and flagged down a waiter. The waiter weaved his way to the table where Rene and Angelia sat together. The waiter dropped off the note. Rene looked at it. His face turned pale. He passed the note to Angelia.
