The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)(120)

Fayazi’s axiom gripped her mistress’s arm again.

“I will say nothing to you,” said Fayazi quietly.

“But when your father died, you had to take over his duties here. You sent word to the other prime sons of the lineage, asking for guidance—and they told you to burn the body and the evidence and suppress all knowledge, fearing anything that might connect your father’s death to Commander Blas would reveal what they had done to Oypat. You did as they asked—and thus, you enabled the breach. And the deaths of all those soldiers and people now lie upon your head.”

“No,” whispered Fayazi.

“And then things got so much more dangerous…For then the clan sent their agent, didn’t they? Someone terrifying to do their dirty work and clean up all this mess you’d made?”

Fayazi trembled under her veil, yet said nothing.

“They sent their twitch, of course,” said Ana. “And all you could do was sit there. Sit there while the twitch went after Blas’s secretary. And then that poor miller you’d hired for all that fernpaper—they killed him and left him to rot in a basement. And then poor Nusis.”

“Dolabra!” said Vashta, alarmed. “What are you talking abou—”

“I wonder how many people your twitch has killed for your clan,” Ana said. “Dozens? Hundreds? But you knew when they came, Madam Haza, that you might be the next one they killed. For you’re distant from the elder sons. Vulnerable. Unimportant. The twitch was here to make sure you didn’t step out of line…and if all their plans here in Talagray fell to pieces, it was you they intended to blame for it all and leave for the loop. Another tidy ending to a horrid little story.”

Fayazi convulsed like she’d been slapped.

“Surely you’ve thought that,” whispered Ana. “Surely you’ve known that’s what they planned. But…why don’t you ask her? Why don’t you go ahead and ask your twitch right now?”

A loud, thundering silence.

“D-Dolabra?” said Vashta. “What are you…what…”

Ana turned her face to the axiom, who stared back at her with her cold, dark eyes.

“For it’s you, isn’t it?” said Ana. “You’re no axiom. You’re the twitch. And it is you who’s here to threaten Madam Haza’s life. And it’s you who killed Immunis Nusis just last night.”



* * *



—

ANOTHER STUNNED SILENCE.

The axiom smiled and laughed, a high, cold sound. “You’re mad. She’s mad. This woman is absolutely mad!”

“What’s the square root of 21,316?” demanded Ana.

“Wh-what?” said the axiom, startled. “Why are you—”

“The answer is 146,” said Ana. “What’s 98 to the power of four?”

The axiom was silent.

“The answer is 92,236,816,” said Ana. “What about 92,236,816 divided by 21,316? Can you do that?”

Silence.

“Can you?” demanded Vashta. “Can you not?” She looked to Fayazi. “Why can she not?”

Fayazi began to shake but did not answer. The axiom’s cold, dead stare grew even colder.

“I think the answer is a little over 4,327,” said Ana. “But don’t quote me.” She grinned. “You bear the heralds of an axiom—but you can’t do math at all, can you? You needed a reason to hang about Fayazi while Din talked to her, to make sure she said the right things. And what gentrywoman goes anywhere without their Sublimes? You couldn’t pose as an engraver—she already had one of those—but axiom, well…Why would anyone pose complex math problems to Fayazi Haza? I wouldn’t have thought twice on it—but then Din asked a few very simple mathematical questions, and you said nothing. Nothing at all. And that was curious to me.” Her smile faded. “It’s you. You killed Aristan. And Suberek. And Nusis. It was all you.”

The axiom was silent. Ana began moving back, but she started speaking louder so the whole room could hear.

“The Hazas sent you here to clean up,” she said. “But the real mission was to get back that damn reagents key—the one filled with the cure for dappleglass. You learned from one of Kaygi’s many dirty sources that Nusis just happened to have a reagents key that had been recovered from Rona Aristan. You knew right away what it was. And with the leviathan approaching, there was no time. You got desperate. You went to her office, forced her to open the safe, and killed her—unaware that she and I had already swapped out the keys, and I had the real one in the chest in my rooms. Right upstairs, right now.”

I blinked at that, confused again. That couldn’t be so. Yet Ana kept talking.

“Very gutsy, to come here,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if you’d do it. I made sure not to ask for you at all, worried I might spook you. But you’re very loyal to the Haza clan. They told you to keep watch over their little sister, and that’s what you’re here to do.”

Fayazi was trembling now. Miljin stood and drew his sword.

I shot to my feet and did the same. The Legionnaires about us took that as a sign and drew their own blades.

The twitch’s cold, dark eyes flicked around the room, unnaturally quickly, counting us all.