A delicious aroma of frying meat floated up from the kitchen, accompanied by the sizzle of food in a hot pan. She wasn’t sure what Richard was cooking for breakfast, but whatever it was, it smelled divine. He liked to cook, she’d discovered.
A faint hissing announced a phaeton arriving. They had been waiting for it.
“We come in peace,” a male voice announced from the outside. “Don’t shoot us.”
Richard leaned away from the stove. “It’s my brother.”
“I’ll let him in,” she said.
Charlotte unlatched the door and swung it open. A man in his early thirties stood on the porch, carrying a very thick leather file. The resemblance was definitely there: similar hair, except Richard combed his and Kaldar left it in a disorganized mess; similar faces, both handsome with contoured jawlines and pronounced cheekbones; similar height. And yet they were different. Richard’s features had nobility and pride, while Kaldar was handsome in a roguish way, with a wild glint to his eyes and a charming grin. She had a feeling he smiled frequently and lied easily, while each of Richard’s rare smiles was a gift.
Kaldar blinked. “Who are you?”
“I’m Charlotte,” she told him.
“A pleasure. Say, Charlotte, have you seen Richard? A brooding fellow about as tall as me, but much uglier and incapable of humor?”
“Uglier?”
“Well, perhaps not uglier per se, but definitely more melancholy. His trouble is that he thinks too much. It keeps him from enjoying life. Have you seen him?”
“He’s inside cooking.”
“Cooking? He hates to cook.”
Kaldar stepped over the threshold and ducked left. A knife sprouted from the doorframe where his head had been a moment ago. Kaldar flicked his fingers at the blade. “See? Incapable of humor.”
“What are you talking about?” Richard raised his eyebrows. “I thought the look on your face was bloody hilarious.”
“Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?”
A young man followed Kaldar through the door. An impeccably tailored jacket hugged his fit, slim frame, and he moved with the casual elegance so many bluebloods strived to achieve through dancing lessons. He walked with supple grace but a certain surety, not a dancer, but rather a swordsman. His blond hair, cut long, which usually indicated a mage, accentuated the precise cut of his features, still touched with boyish softness. He turned to her. Familiar blue eyes looked at her from a face that was already arresting and in a few years would be devastating.
“George?” she gasped.
“Good morning, my lady.” He took the broom from her. “I’ll finish this.”
She tried to reconcile the filthy urchin with the flawless blueblood prince and failed. The pieces simply didn’t fit together.
“Terrible, isn’t it?” Kaldar shook his head in mock resignation. “Look at the caliber of the competition I have to deal with. You know, women under twenty-five don’t even notice me anymore when I tow him around.”
George rolled his eyes.
“You’re married,” Richard reminded him.
“I was complaining in a purely hypothetical sense.” Kaldar turned to Richard. “What are you cooking? Did you make enough for everybody?”
“You won’t be left unfed, don’t worry.” Richard jerked the pan up in a sharp motion. A pancake flew in the air and flipped back into the pan.
“The least you can do is feed me. I brought your information.” Kaldar shook the file. “My wife stole it for you from our illustrious spy agency, and we spent the whole night copying it by hand, then taking it back to the Mirror . . .”
“He has an imager at his house,” George said. “It took him less than half an hour to copy everything.”
“Traitor child.” Kaldar dropped the file on the counter. “A gift for you, my ever-so-serious elder sibling.” He made an elaborate flourish with his hand, and a piece of paper popped into his fingers out of thin air. Richard put the wooden spoon down and opened the paper. His face showed nothing. He looked at it for a long moment and passed it to her.
It was Richard’s image captured with an imager and printed on paper with the word HUNTER printed at the top. The shot had caught him in a moment of battle. He’d just swung his sword, and the body in front of him was still falling. Blood spatter stained his skin. His hair flared, moving from the momentum of his turn. His face looked serene.
“Where did you get this?” Richard asked.
“While I was procuring your information, I happened to be by Rodera. She’s a hell of a city, and I made an excursion into her gutters and ruffled through her skirts. The slavers are passing this around. You are busted. How many times have I told you to wear a mask? Why don’t you ever listen to me?”
Half an hour later, when they finished the omelet Richard made, Kaldar had made at least ten jokes, told them a funny story about his wife, and made fun of Louisiana’s ambassador. She understood why Richard got a slightly tense look on his face when he mentioned his brother. They were polar opposites. Kaldar, being the life of the party, had no urge to explore the virtues of dignity and restraint, while Richard had no desire to entertain others with his wit or draw attention to himself.
“I suppose we should start,” Kaldar said.
George dragged a large freestanding corkboard into view.
Mirth drained from Kaldar’s face. “Now then.”
He opened the leather file and began pinning images to the board, five in all. Charlotte felt a pang of regret. She still saw Tulip in her dreams, but now, when she awoke, Richard held her, and the feeling of lying next to him was indescribable. He never said it, but the way he looked at her, the way he listened, the way they gave pleasure to each other made her feel loved, and deep inside her, a pathetic little hope had reared its head. She hated herself for that hope. It chipped at her resolve and at his. This path demanded sacrifices. They both knew it. They had both agreed to accept it. But each moment she had him to herself felt like a gift. Now that hope was dying, and its death throes brought her at once relief and a sickening fear.
“Lord Casside.”
Kaldar pointed to the first image. A dark-haired man with a strong profile stared back at them.
“Minor nobility, of the lesser-known branch of the Dweller family. An only son and a self-made man. About five years ago, he quietly began to liquidate his assets and invest all of his money into Blackwolf Imports and Exports.”
“Blackwolf?” Richard grimaced.
“Not really an imaginative guy.” Kaldar tapped the picture. “You were right, by the way. Height, weight, skin and eye color. Everything is consistent. If it wasn’t for the nose and the chin, he could be part of the family.”
“What family?” Charlotte asked.
“Our family,” Richard said. “I’ll explain in a minute.”
“Then we have Earl Maedoc.”
Kaldar tapped the second picture. On it, an older man glowered, his features harsh, his stare direct. His gray hair was shorn close to his scalp, and his hooded eyes looked unfriendly.
“Veteran of the Adrianglian Army, decorated, praised, respected. He oversees recruiting efforts. He also supplies new muscle to the slavers.”
“Being in charge of the recruiting allows him to weed out those unsuitable to military service,” George said. “Those with a penchant for sadism, for example. He steers them toward the slavers.”
“Lady Ermine.”
Kaldar touched the next image. A woman in her late twenties. Delicate bone structure, coils of caramel hair, narrow eyes but a rare, highly prized color: a translucent light green.
“Another investor. Lady Ermine also takes a special interest in female slaves. She selects several each season and trains them to increase their value.”
“How do you know this?” Richard asked.
“The Mirror has a list in her file, which she had forgotten in her room at one of the state functions. It details purchases of personal items, including slinky garments and various inappropriate but entertaining things for seven women with different garment sizes and detailed prescriptions for Midwife’s Bane . . .”
Those bastards.
“. . . which is apparently . . .”
“Used as a means of birth control.” Charlotte ground out, furious. “If the dose is large enough, it can cause damage to the lining of the uterus, rendering a woman infertile.” They were robbing the slave women of their fertility to prevent inconvenient offspring. She was infertile, and she understood the full enormity of their loss. She would crush that Ermine woman like a maggot under her shoe.
“What she said,” Kaldar said. “The names on the list had the flair of the Broken. There was a Britney, which doesn’t occur here that often, but there was also a Christina, which is a completely Broken name.”
Good point.
“Why?” George asked.
“Because it’s derived from the word ‘Christian,’” Charlotte said. “In the Broken, Jesus Christ was viewed as the son of God, and his followers are Christians. In the Weird, it was John the Nazarite, whose followers are called the Nazaratians. In the Weird, a Christina would be named Johanna.”
Kaldar shrugged. “It’s clear that at least some women on that list came from the Edge, if not from the Broken itself. There’s no logical reason for Angelia to have made that list, and when a covert Mirror operative posing as a servant attempted to return it, Lady Ermine claimed she had never seen it before. The Mirror put it into her file as an oddity. Now that we know she’s connected to the slave trade, it makes much more sense.”
Richard was staring at an image of an urbane, groomed blond man with sharp features and an overly elaborate haircut. There was a focused, predatory edge to his glare. “What about him?”
“Baron Oleg Rene.” Kaldar crossed his arms. His face had gained an unexpected vicious edge. “You wouldn’t believe who he’s related to. You see the family resemblance?”