“Do you wish to go back with the Prince, then?” It was Jolivet, at Kel’s shoulder. The grooves in his cheeks, alongside his mouth, looked as if they had been cut there by knives.
Kel shook his head. “I can’t. I rode Asti here. I’ll bring her back.”
“Lucky you,” Jolivet murmured. A moment later he was gone into the royal carriage with Conor and Lilibet; it began to roll out of the square, followed by the smaller fleet of sky-blue carriages from Sarthe.
The crowd had begun to dispense. Flower petals still spun in the air as Kel crossed the square, looking for Manish, with whom he had left Asti. He felt numb, a faint ringing in his ears: The whole business had not taken that long, perhaps half an hour, and yet it had upended even the fragile expectations of what was to come in his future—and Conor’s.
He found Asti where he had left her, beside the Convocat. Manish, wearing a hooded black cloak, was holding her reins. Which was odd; Kel recalled the young groom as wearing the red livery of the Palace, and it was far too hot for a cloak to be comfortable. He narrowed his eyes, his hand going to the blade at his hip, just as the “groom” threw the hood back and a spill of black hair, half contained with peony clips, was revealed.
Ji-An grinned at him.
Kel sighed. “I thought I saw you in the crowd. Should I even ask what you did with Manish? If you’ve killed him, I will be vexed. He always lets me in the West Gate.”
“I certainly have not. I bribed him,” Ji-An said, indignantly. “I am not a lunatic, unlike some people who go around poisoning themselves.”
“Have you bribed my groom just for the chance to insult me?” Kel said. “Because I am already having a terrible day.”
“I noticed,” said Ji-An, with the air of someone who has come into a piece of excellent gossip. Kel did not have the energy to tell her that this was more than gossip, this was people’s lives, and he doubted she would care if he did. “Regardless. It’s been a fortnight since you’ve been to the Black Mansion. No message, either. Rather as if you’d vanished.”
“I’d no idea you cared.”
“I don’t,” Ji-An said. “But the Ragpicker King does. The last we heard, you were going off to speak with Prosper Beck. Then—nothing.”
Kel ran a hand through his tangled hair. “Beck had nothing interesting to say.”
“I rather doubt that,” said Ji-An drily. “And Andreyen would want to judge the situation for himself. I think . . .”
Kel tensed, half waiting for her to say: I think Prosper Beck offered you the chance to do something for him, in exchange for information, and you’re considering it.
“I think,” she finished, “that you have been so caught up in the rather . . . startling events regarding the Prince that you have forgotten all about us, down in the city.”
“Perhaps so. But that is my duty.” Kel sighed. “I have to get back to the Palace. Can you take a message to Andreyen?”
“No,” Ji-An said, moving easily to block him from reaching for Asti. “He needs to see you. Face-to-face.”
“I have no time for a journey to the Black Mansion—”
“Luckily,” Ji-An said, “you needn’t make one. The Ragpicker King’s carriage is just around the corner.”
“Of course,” Kel muttered. “Of course it is.”
Things had changed, he mused as he followed Ji-An, still leading Asti, around the Convocat to the road that ran behind it. There was the familiar shining black carriage with scarlet wheels, which would once have given him pause. Now he felt a weariness with the world as Ji-An swung the door open and ushered him inside.
There he found Andreyen waiting for him, Gentleman Death in his black suit, with his silver-headed cane and narrow green gaze. It was odd, Kel thought, that Andreyen seemed to carry the cane with him everywhere, though as far as he could tell, the Ragpicker King had no need for it. “Well,” he said. “Sarthe has certainly chosen a unique method of retribution where it comes to your Prince.”
Kel exhaled. “I suppose I should not be surprised. You always know too much.”
The Ragpicker King hummed with amusement. “Only bits of the puzzle. I have put them together myself. Rather clever of young Prince Conor to arrange for Sarthe to provide him the gold he needed to pay off his debts. Rather less clever not to gain the approval of the King and Queen first. He is lucky Markus seems to have lost interest in worldly things, or he might be facing punishment from more than just Sarthe.”
Kel studied the Ragpicker King’s face, but there seemed nothing hidden in it, no second meaning to his words. He felt a wave of relief—the secret of Conor’s whipping, it seemed, had been successfully contained.
“I’m well aware of that,” said Kel. “But I doubt you sent Ji-An to fetch me because you wanted to discuss Sarthe.”
“True. I want to know about Beck. Did Jerrod bring you to him? What did he say to you?”
“I did speak to him,” Kel said, carefully. “I do not think he is the danger the King spoke to you of in his letter.”
Andreyen’s eyes glittered. “Has Beck gotten you on his side, then?”
“No.” Kel supposed he should be afraid. He knew there was more to Andreyen than the slightly absent, friendly enough fa?ade; he had caught glimpses of it here and there, in moments when the Ragpicker King was unguarded. But he was too tense, too weary to be anxious. “I have been watching the nobles of the Hill for fifteen years now,” he said. “They are no different from your criminals. There are the schemers and the plotters, the ones willing to go along with a plan for expediency’s sake, and then—then there are the opportunists. Beck is an opportunist.”
Andreyen shifted his grip on his cane. “Go on.”
“I do not know where Beck came from,” said Kel. “I can tell you he is not a noble. I made several deliberate mistakes when discussing the nobles on the Hill with him, and he neither cared nor noticed. For someone like him, there is no real benefit in playing about with business on the Hill. Beck wants to run gambling dens and bawdy houses in the Maze. He admits freely to being funded by someone important, but is uninterested in their eventual goals.”
“Someone important,” Andreyen echoed. “Someone in the Palace?”
“On the Hill, at any rate. Someone who set Beck up in business and put him in the position to play the game of debt with Conor.”
“What do you think that was meant to accomplish? Not simply to gain a bit of interest payment, surely.”
“I think it was meant to humiliate House Aurelian, and put them in the position of going begging to the Council of Twelve.”
“Or it could have been an attempt to draw out Markus,” said Andreyen. “Force him to act.”
“I don’t think either outcome is of real interest to Beck,” said Kel. “I am inclined to believe him when he says he has a patron on the Hill who wants to cause trouble for the Aurelians. Not because I trust him, but because it makes sense.”
“Why tell you, though?” Andreyen said, his narrow fingers tap-tapping at his cane. He was looking at Kel in that unnerving way of his, as if he could see directly through him.