Covenant's End - Ari Marmell Page 0,61
say?”
Olgun could only sigh.
“I'm worried,” Robin conceded, doe-eyed and imploring, from her spot at the end of the sofa. Around the room, the various conspirators took this seat or that, while Evrard—fulfilling his duties as host, for all that he constantly grumbled about it—passed around brimming goblets and morsels of those fruits available in this peculiar season.
To everyone other than Faustine, who was nowhere to be seen.
“I told her to stay here!” Shins fumed, not merely pacing but stomping as though the carpet were made of spiders. “I didn't want you alone!”
“Calm down, Shins. I wasn't. She didn't leave until Renard got back.”
“I'm not sure that's any safer,” she growled.
“I daresay, I can hear you,” the older thief protested from across the chamber, idly studying a crystalline vessel of a rich wine.
“I'm not surprised; it really isn't much of a dare.” Shins cast about the room, sort of idly flailed her hands a bit, and then resumed her previous spot beside the hearth. “Gah!”
“Widdershinsian catastrophe or not,” Robin insisted, “I still have responsibilities.”
“‘Widdershinsian’…?”
“I have to make decisions about the Witch, and for that I need to know how business is running. You're lucky I just asked her to go, but I knew I'd slow everything down too much if I went along.”
“Oh, all right. Point made. Let's start with the basics. Broad strokes. If Faustine's not back after that, we'll go look for her before we get down to details. Okay, Robs?”
Robin appeared rather less than okay, but she nodded agreement.
“Good. Evrard hasn't learned anything, so let's start with you, Igraine.”
“Certainly,” the priestess began. “I've been…uh, Widdershins?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Evrard supposed to be turning that color? Because that doesn't look entirely natural to me.”
“I'm sure he's fine. You were saying?”
“O…kay…. Since I wasn't trying to drag a bloody, collapsing companion with me, I had no difficulty in reaching the Basilica. I spent the day speaking with his Eminence Sicard's people. No new information, but I can confirm that there's almost perfect overlap between the Houses whose priests are claiming to be able to ward off this latest supernatural threat, and those that have refused to put soldiers on the street to help keep the peace. And also that not a single one of them has suffered any sort of attack by the fae, at least not that's become public knowledge.”
Shins chewed the ends of her hair a moment. Then, “All right, Renard?”
“Ah, my dear lady, I am sorry to say I discovered nothing from my Guild and underworld contacts we had not already known. I fear I'm in the same spot as Monsieur d'Arras. Albeit apparently less crimson about it.”
More unintelligible grumbling from Evrard.
“What of you?” Renard asked, after sparing the aristocrat no more than a passing glance.
“Oh,” Shins replied, “right. Well, I'm wanted for the murder of…” She swallowed, hard; it was still so difficult to say. “Major Julien Bouniard.”
It proved impossible to make out Robin's, Renard's, or Evrard's responses beneath Igraine's strenuous and rather unpriestly “Horse shit!” but Widdershins was pretty sure they all amounted to that same general sentiment.
“Kind of what I said, only with less, uh, feces. And not everyone believes it. Julien's friend Paschal knows better. But the order came from the top.”
“Commandant Archibeque?” Renard asked.
“Yep. Oh! Also, he's possessed by Lisette's fae.”
That, of course, required more than a bit of elaboration. Shins had just gotten everyone to stop shouting questions at once and had begun to explain what had occurred at the headquarters of the Guard, when a faint, even timid, rap on the front door halted her in mid-word.
They all knew who it probably was, yet hands dropped to weapons and muscles went tense until Evrard, after a careful peek through a tiny sliding window, hauled the door open and stepped aside for Faustine to enter the suite.
Her hair and skirts hung limp, weighted down and fatigued by the damp, and all of that made perfect sense. Shins's gaze flew almost instantly to the woman's face, though. The redness, puffiness…that wasn't rainwater glistening on her cheeks. Faustine had been crying, and hard.
Shins felt a faint tingle in her nose, almost like a building sneeze, except spiritual. She knew what it meant, knew Olgun had sensed something she couldn't, and needed her to smell it, too.
He guided her, softly, gently, and there it was. Clinging to the courier's clothes.
The faintest, lingering whiff of smoke.
And Shins knew. As thoroughly as if Faustine had already spoken, as if she herself had witnessed it, Shins knew. She slumped hard