Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
“What do you know about the refugees?” I ask.
Vitalian Dimos frowns. “The ones coming in from the border? They’ve been coming in waves for months.”
He doesn’t know.
“Have they finally brought the plague with them?”
“What are you talking about?”
He rubs his brow. “There’s been whispers of plague in border towns in the southern kingdom. I’ve been trying to warn the higher-ups that we need to be prepared, but . . . out of sight, out of mind.”
A plague would sow chaos and fear, masking any foul play in its wake. If the poison was part of a larger plan, then whoever orchestrated it has calculated everything—even the panic that would follow.
I turn to Quin and he reads my worried expression.
“I’ll have people look into it,” he says.
I nod, and meet Vitalian Dimos’s furrowed gaze. “What is it?”
“I can’t be sure, but the morning I stumbled over those bodies . . . I think I saw . . .”
“What?”
“White lace.”
“White?” Quin’s gaze shifts from the dead body to Vitalian Dimos’s grimace, then to me. “What does that mean?”
“Eparchess Juliana. She always wears white lace and a mask. I’ve seen her at the outpost, the refugee camp, and speaking with Commander Thalassios at the dance house.”
Which, come to think of it, I haven’t divulged to Quin yet. The encounter got lost in the rush of what happened after, from exhuming a body, to working on an antidote, to interrogating our missing vitalian over a putrefying redcloak . . .
I steer Quin to the corner of the cabin and share what I overheard about the instability of the borders, and wrap up musing, “She’s awfully mysterious. How haven’t you seen her?”
Quin frowns. “I wonder . . . Or perhaps she’s avoiding constables.”
“She’s definitely hiding more than her face.” I tug his sleeve, but he doesn’t immediately react, watching me instead. “We need to talk to her. We also need to find our fourth redcloak. We need to return to the outpost.”
“Officially, we’ll have Commander Thalassios breathing down our necks,” Quin says. “But perhaps I won’t mind if you drag me along by the sleeve.”
My hand is already pulling again—too far to stop, and too hard. The fabric pulls and the collar gapes, revealing the flutette at his neck.
I fumble to push his shirt back in place, muttering, “Why is it so flimsy?”
“Feel free to take it off and cast it away.”
With flaming cheeks, I glare at him. “Keep your mind on what matters.”
“Then—”
At a flicker of arrogant mischief in his eyes, I cover his mouth quickly. “There’s a drakopagon game the day after tomorrow, at the outpost training field. Eparch Valerius asked Nicostratus to play.” I pause, dropping my hand from his smile with a tangential thought. “Why would he invite Nicostratus when he’s under house arrest?”
Quin scoffs. “He’s royalty, after all. No one would dare refuse to invite royalty to such an event.”
The world of the important. I suppose that does make sense. “Anyway, tomorrow the nannan should have started showing green veins. Let’s free your brother and get him to the game. While he’s playing, distracting the crowds and the commander, we’ll look around. Dress as if you’re there to watch the game.”
“You seem very keen on dressing me, would you like to do it yourself?”
I go to shove his chest—
And grab his belt instead.
Quin sucks in a breath, his smirk fading while I feel around the strap. “Where’s my soldad?” I ask, half expecting it to swing obnoxiously into view. “You’ve been dangling it in front of me since . . .” My voice falters. “It’s gone.”
Quin’s hand moves to his belt with uncharacteristic haste and a deepening frown.
“You had it in the coffin,” I say. “I felt the hard wood between us.”
Quin stills, gaze rooted on his belt.
I try to cast the worry out of my voice. I have no right to be upset. “Maybe it fell off? I knew I should have asked for it sooner.”
He meets my stare with amused calm. “I suppose you’d like me to dig it out for you?”
“Could you?”
His smile is slow and . . . frustrating. “If you come along again.”
That ‘again’ throws me right back into the coffin with Quin, that tight, tight space, his knowing look . . .
Over a lurch in my belly, I step back to Vitalian Dimos.
“Let’s rather focus on what has to be done.” I jerk a finger at Quin and try not to let my gaze fall miserably to his belt. “Get us back to town. And get your brother on board.”
Vitalian Dimos asks, “What about the body?”
While Dimos conducts a few tests on the body, I raid my grandfather’s bookshelves; then we bury the redcloak in the woods.
As I drop the last stone onto the churned soil, I glance at Quin. “How did you end up following him?”