Bone Palace, The - Amanda Downum Page 0,32
from beneath his high velvet collar to frame the line of his jaw. “This is a fraught little tableau. Am I interrupting something?”
“Nothing,” Kiril said with a sigh, sinking into the chair on top of his crumpled cloak, “except the litany of our sins.”
A flick of Varis’s slender wrist dismissed those. His rings flashed, pigeon’s blood ruby and orange sapphire, lesser emeralds and topazes, but no diamonds; Varis was one of the cleverest mages Kiril knew, but never a vinculator. “I hear sins and litanies every night, darling. Surely you have something more interesting.”
Not for the first time, Kiril wished that it hadn’t been Varis who’d brought Phaedra to him. If she could only have snared someone else in her schemes, someone he wouldn’t miss if forced to kill. But Varis had always been fascinated by her, and just as fascinated by secrets and clever sorcery and flaunting rules. And he had his own reasons to despise the Alexioi.
Kiril recounted again everything Isyllt had told him about the investigation. He didn’t mention Phaedra’s involvement in the prostitute’s death, though he wasn’t sure exactly why—it wasn’t as though Varis had innocence to preserve. He expected another flippant response, but by the time he finished Varis had paled to a sickly shade of paste.
“Saints and specters,” he whispered. “So that’s it. Damn.” He began to pace, short measured strides scuffing against carpets and clicking on tile. “Your apprentice told the prince, and the prince told Savedra.”
Kiril’s spine stiffened. “Told her what, exactly?”
“I don’t know. Everything, I imagine. She was asking about vampires yesterday, with much too convenient an excuse.” He stopped his circuit and flung himself into another chair. Phaedra watched him with an expression somewhere between amusement and befuddlement and Kiril nearly laughed—Varis had that effect on people. The pale sorcerer sighed, rubbing a hand over his scalp. “We know entirely too many inquisitive people.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Phaedra promised. Kiril didn’t have the energy left to argue with her.
Silence fell between them, broken only by the crackling of the hearth. They were, Kiril thought, an unlikely conspiracy. Varis was known for his dissipation and excess, and despite a brief assignment at the Selafaïn embassy in Iskar over twenty years ago no one imagined he might have a political thought in his head. No one remembered or cared about the rumors that had attended his birth: his mother had held the old king’s regard, and been removed from court too hastily; her marriage to her cousin Tselios had also been too hasty, especially to account for Varis’s birth; Nikolaos Alexios had had the same pale blue eyes, so uncommon in Selafaïns. It could have been the makings of a terrible scandal, but had faded instead into obscurity.
It had taken more than rumor control and royal unconcern to keep Phaedra Severos quietly obscure. She had been a prominent fixture at the Arcanost, famed for her beauty and brilliance and mercurial temper. Her death, and that of her foreign noble husband, would have meant not scandal but ruin for the young Mathiros had the truth of them ever been found out. Preventing that had taken all of Kiril’s resources, and the greatest magic he had ever wrought. He had been paying off the debt of it for three years now, but it had worked: no one outside this room remembered Phaedra, or had any concern about her if they did.
The way no one would remember him. History cared for kings and princes and their scandals, but spymasters were brushed quietly away with dust and pen shavings. The most effective were never known at all. As it ought to be.
“Speaking of care,” Varis said, distracting Kiril from the bitter spiral of his thoughts, “we can’t let you wander around dressed like that.” A wave of his hand encompassed Phaedra’s gown and shed veils. “You’re years out of style, and unseasonal besides.”
“We can’t let her wander around at all,” Kiril said, even as Phaedra plucked at her dress—sleeveless gauzy silk belted below her breasts—with a frown. The shade of orange should have flattered, but her brown skin was unhealthily pale, like tea with too much milk. Or dead flesh through which no blood flowed.
“Things happen,” Varis replied, “as your story so clearly illustrates. It’s impossible that she won’t be seen eventually—we need to make sure that when she is she doesn’t look like a mad vengeful ghost from one of Kolkhis’s tragedies.”
Kiril opened his mouth to argue—And never mind, he thought, that that’s exactly