“We wanted to know if any of your people were hired for the job,” Jacks added.
Chaos leaned back in his leather chair and steepled his fingers with the slow ease of someone who didn’t have to worry about the rabid changelings fighting to escape their cages. Or he really just wanted to waste their time on purpose.
“You owe me a debt,” Jacks reminded him.
“Relax, old friend, I was just going to say that no one came to us for this job,” Chaos said eventually. “But I remember … about a week ago, I think it was the evening after Nocte Neverending, my potions master received a rare request for a bottle of malefic oil.”
“What’s malefic oil?” Evangeline asked.
“It’s a very effective method of murder,” Chaos replied. “It’s not typically popular, since it takes a particular skill to work with. Most toxins have the same type of effect on every human, making them easily detectable and sloppy instruments of death. But if you have the spell and the preternatural skills to combine malefic oil with the blood, the tears, or the hair of a person you wish to kill, it is only toxic to that person.”
Evangeline tensed, thinking of the last time she’d seen Apollo, his chest covered in a glistening substance that looked like oil.
“Who asked for the poison?” Jacks said.
“I wasn’t there when the request was made,” Chaos said. “I only know it came from a female, and I’d wager she’s a witch. It takes a fair amount of power and a spell to properly combine the ingredients.”
Evangeline instantly thought of Marisol and her cooking spell books. But why would Marisol want to kill Apollo? Apollo had given her a new home and restored her reputation. It also didn’t make sense for Marisol to go to the trouble of securing a rare toxin that would only work on the prince, and then also poison a bottle of wine with something that could kill anyone who drank from it. Unless two different people had been trying to commit murder?
But that still didn’t mean Marisol was involved.
The Fortuna matriarch had already tried to kill Evangeline once. Although Kristof had written that the matriarch had suffered from a fall that had stolen some of her memories, making her an unlikely suspect.
“Is there anything else you can tell us about the woman who bought the oil?” Evangeline asked.
Chaos toyed with a chain hanging from his neck and shook his head.
“If that’s all you have, this doesn’t clear your debt,” Jacks said. “We should leave.”
“Wait.” Evangeline’s eyes were still on the chain around Chaos’s neck. She hadn’t noticed it before. When it had been flat against his leather armor, the chain and the medallion at the end of it had blended in. But now that the chain was in Chaos’s hands, Evangeline could see the aged medallion clearly enough to make out the symbol on it—the head of a wolf wearing a crown. The same symbol that had been burned into the door in the library, the door that all the books on the Valors were locked behind.
Maybe it was just a coincidence. But it felt like a clue. Chaos might not have been able to identify Apollo’s killer, but what if he knew something about the Valory Arch and what really had been locked behind it? She knew that wasn’t why they were visiting the vampire, but it was the reason Jacks had sabotaged the course of her life.
“Where did you get that medallion?” she asked.
Chaos looked down as if he weren’t even aware of the object he’d been toying with. “I took this from Wolfric Valor.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Jacks groaned.
An impressive crash came from the amphitheater. A cage had fallen to the floor.
The vampires inside the other room all clapped.
Evangeline looked out to the balcony. The vampire changeling inside the fallen cage had yet to break the lock, but given the way he fought with it, all tearing fingers and fearless growls, Evangeline doubted this young man would stay imprisoned much longer. They needed to leave soon, but Chaos had just said that he’d taken the medallion around his neck from Wolfric Valor.
Chaos had been alive at the same time as the Valors. Jacks had told Evangeline that Chaos was as old as the North, but she hadn’t realized the implication of that information until now.
The excitement must have shown on her face.
Beside her, Jacks went as taut as a bowstring.
Then Chaos was saying, “If you’re curious about the Valors, I can tell you whatever you want to know. I was there, and I remember the truth.”
No. Jacks’s voice seethed inside her head, and for once, his ruthless expression matched his words. Don’t even think about it.