“It is I who have not had word from him. I sent a message requesting a meeting.” The King tore his eyes from the magpie trinket and stared again out the window. “I should not have done it. The stars prophesied we would not meet. The stars do not lie.”
“Perhaps,” said Kel. Sweat prickled along his spine—the sky outside was brightening. He could not stay here long. And his knees hurt from contact with the stone floor. “Perhaps what the stars intended was that you tell me what danger faces House Aurelian, and I will bring that message to the Ragpicker King.”
The King moved fretfully in his chair. “Fausten tells me this is the destiny written in the stars. But I know it is my sin, my evil, that has brought us to this place.”
“What place?”
“This place of debt,” said the King, and Kel felt as if a hot poker had jabbed him between his shoulder blades. Could the King know of the money Conor owed Prosper Beck? Surely that could not have been the danger he spoke of. Should the King wish to pay that money back, it would be simple for him. The Treasury was his.
“It is not your fault,” said Kel, choosing each word with care. “Your Highness. This is Prosper Beck’s fault.”
The King looked at him blankly.
“Who is Beck?” Kel whispered. “What does he want? Surely the debt can be paid, ten thousand crowns—”
Hoarsely, the King snapped: “This is no debt to be paid in gold, boy. This is a debt of blood and flesh. It entraps me like the bars of a cage, yet I cannot escape it.”
Kel sat back on his heels. “I don’t—”
The metal door slammed open. A squat figure barreled into Kel. He found himself hauled to his feet by none other than Fausten. The little man was pale, the bald pate of his head shiny with sweat. He stank of sour sweat and old liquor.
“Your Highness,” Fausten gasped. “My apologies. You should not have been troubled by this—this interloper.”
The King looked at Kel—no, not at Kel. At what he held in his hand. But Kel had already closed his hand around the magpie trinket. He wrenched away from Fausten, but there was nothing to say. He could not appeal to Markus, who was watching them with haunted eyes. Fausten did not know about the contract between the two Kings in Castellane, and keeping that secret was far more important than Kel’s protesting that he had a right to be where he was.
He let Fausten herd him out onto the landing. It galled him not to push back, but he knew it would have accomplished nothing, and Fausten could certainly stir up trouble for Kel if he liked.
Fausten was breathing hard through his nose. “How dare you—”
“I heard a noise while walking the grounds,” Kel said smoothly. “I came to assure myself His Highness was well. It was a mistake to assume—”
“It was indeed a mistake,” Fausten snapped. When he was angry, his Malgasi accent thickened. “His Highness’s welfare is not your concern, Királar. The Princeling is your responsibility. Not his father.”
“The safety of all House Aurelian concerns me,” said Kel, tightening his hand around the tin magpie. Its sharp little wings cut into his palm.
Fausten shook his head slowly. Kel had never noticed how small his eyes were before, how glittering and black. “His Highness,” he hissed, “does as I advise. I interpret for him the will of the stars, which he believes in utterly. If the stars told him to imprison you in the Trick, he would do it. You would hardly be the first Királar locked away for treachery.”
“I have done nothing to warrant that.”
“See that you continue to do nothing.” Fausten gave Kel a small shove; he was not strong, but Kel, stunned by what he’d just heard, took a step back. “He szekuti!”
Get out of here. Do not return.
With that, Fausten spun on his heel and hurried back into the King’s study. Kel could hear him muttering in his high, worried voice, assuring the King all was well. “Your Highness, you are agitated. Have a bit of your medicine.”
Bile rose in Kel’s throat. He flung himself down the steps, puzzled and furious, and out the door of the tower, into the clear air of morning. The sky above was blue and clear, the air free of dust.
His hand ached. He opened it, looked down. He had gripped the Ragpicker King’s magpie trinket so tightly in his hand that he had crushed it out of all recognition.
When Judah Makabi returned to Aram, Queen Adassa gave him back his human form, and bade him speak of what he had seen. “Dark news, my Queen,” he told her. “You have been betrayed. King Suleman has raised a great army against you, and they will attack Aram in three days’ time.”
Adassa did not speak, but shut herself up in the great tower of Balal. When she did, unrest stirred in Aram, for the people feared their Queen had forsaken them. But Makabi came out to the front of the palace and said to them: “Do not fear, for our Queen will save us. Have faith. She is ours.”
On the morning of the second day Adassa emerged from her tower much changed. She had been a beautiful and gentle girl, but all that seemed burned away, and it was a woman bright and sharp as a blade who went out from her palace and looked upon her people, who had gathered together to hear her speak.
“My people of Aram,” she said. “I need your help.”
—Tales of the Sorcerer-Kings, Laocantus Aurus Iovit III
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kel made his way up Yulan Road, his head bent under the bright sun of Castellane. It was nearly noon, and he was beginning to overheat in his green velvet jacket, but such were the sacrifices one made to please the Queen of House Aurelian.
Merren Asper walked by his side, a slim figure in rusty black, seeming lost in thought. Here I am, Kel thought, side by side with a poisoner, off to meet the only man in Castellane who can, in theory, get me close to Prosper Beck. How again did I get here?
Not that it was a difficult question to answer. The Ragpicker King. Kel had made his usual excuses about training at the Arena, and headed directly for the Black Mansion. He’d found Andreyen in the solarium, admiring the plants. “You talked to Markus,” Andreyen had said, the moment he caught sight of Kel’s expression. “And I see it did not go well.”
Halfway through the story, Merren and Ji-An had joined them, plainly curious. Andreyen had shot Kel a warning look, but he’d already moved past the part of the story where Markus had acknowledged a connection to the Ragpicker King. He repeated the other things Markus had said: that it was his sin and evil that had brought them to this place. That Conor’s debt could only be paid in blood. And what he had not said: anything about Prosper Beck.
He told them, too, about Fausten—his defensiveness and his threats. “Maybe he’s Prosper Beck,” Merren had suggested. “Or funding him.”
The Ragpicker King had been quick to dismiss this notion. “Fausten has no money to speak of,” he’d said. “The influence he wields over the King is his only power. Prosper Beck is a destabilizing force. Fausten likes things as they are.” He’d shrugged. “You’ll have to try to talk to the King when Fausten is not there.”
But Kel had dug his heels in. Perhaps Fausten had been bluffing when he’d threatened the Trick, but Kel doubted it. There had been none of the usual fluttering of diffidence about him. He’d seemed sure, and the horror of what the Trick represented was stronger than he guessed Andreyen would understand.