I waited. Midway through the afternoon, Kofi came in with an older man who looked enough like him to be a brother. Kofi greeted Kayleigh with an affectionate wink that made me absolutely wild with envy for the simple pleasure they could take in being together among family that cherished them. But I stalked him as he went into a secondary courtyard where three new rooms were going up beside a shed storing broken wheels. We were alone. I let the shadows fall.
He stepped into the shed and picked up a splintered spoke. “A witch, then. Leave Kayleigh alone. She never harmed yee.”
“Whatever you think of me, whatever you believe of me, I ask you to remember I risked my life to find that old man in the boathouse.”
“That is surely true,” he agreed grudgingly. “For he sake, I shall listen.” He waited.
We had gone too far too fast to exchange polite pleasantries. “I wasn’t the one who betrayed the radicals at Nance’s. I knew nothing about it. The general and his people were using me. I was ignorant of the plan. It’s a complicated story.”
“The stories yee tell always is. Yee shall understand if I’s skeptical.”
“Jasmeen is the general’s mistress. With my own eyes I saw Jasmeen kiss the general and call him darling. She comes at night for assignations. She’s the one who betrayed you.”
He whistled softly. “Yee’s a meaner bitch than even I thought, weaving a tale like that.”
A foot scuffed behind us. Kofi whipped his spar forward as if to charge. Just as I shifted to defend myself, Kayleigh stepped in under the shed’s roof. Kofi settled back on his heels.
“Maybe Cat is, but if I were you, Kofi, I would look into it.”
“Would yee now, love? After she humiliated yee brother as plain as she could?”
My face burned, but I bit down the words I wanted to shout into his doubting face.
Kayleigh sighed. “Even if Cat betrayed Vai, which seems likely, I think she cares for him. People have more than one face, many parts, contradictory feelings. I don’t think she wants him dead. I have a very good idea of where she wants him.” Her mouth curled into a smirk.
Kofi lowered the spoke. “The same argument Vai made. He said ’twould take a hells good actress to behave toward a man the way she was behaving the night of the areito. But he wanted it to be true. That don’ make it true.”
“He wanted it to be true?” I asked, so choked with hope I could barely speak.