In the Shadow of Lightning

13

Kizzie had never met Churian Dorlani, but she’d seen him from a distance on several occasions. As a first cousin in the Dorlani guild-family he’d fallen into an overseer’s job at a large lumber mill just outside of Ossa, where he collected an immense salary letting his more competent underlings do the entirety of his job for him. He was not smart enough to truly excel, not dumb enough to truly fail. He was, Kizzie reflected, a man who had gone far in life by being entirely average.

It was a common story among the Ossan elite. Kizzie tried not to think of the injustice of it all.

It cost her two hours and a pittance of Demir’s money to find out everything she could possibly need to know about Churian – his hobbies, lovers, social groups. Kizzie then spent the rest of her evening waiting down the street from his Fulgurist Society on Glory Street. Glory Street was a tiny little borough between the Assembly District and the Slag, dividing the richest of the rich from the poorest of the poor and giving them a place to meet. Kizzie watched the second-rate Ossan elite come and go, entertaining herself with fantasies of one day joining their lazy, hedonistic lifestyle.

It was a fantasy. Her father, one of the most powerful men in Ossa, had publicly denounced the whole concept of legitimizing bastards. Without legitimization, she would never be anything but a favored enforcer, allowed to wear a smaller version of the Vorcien silic sigil as a birthright but having only a fraction of the other privileges that came with it. If she were to ever have children, they would have no silic sigil of their own.

Right now, she wasn’t even favored. Her oldest half brother, Sibrial, hated her more than usual because she refused to lie to that magistrate. Father Vorcien was irritated at her. The chances of her surviving Father Vorcien’s death and the ensuing power transfer had gone from slim to none.

Kizzie spotted one of her own cousins – a nineteen-year-old layabout wearing next to nothing despite the cold and hanging on the arm of a powerful glassdancer – go into the cockfighting arena that housed Churian’s Fulgurist Society. Kizzie swallowed her irritation and checked her pocket watch. It was almost eight o’clock. The mild winter night was cool and dark, the street filled with the sound of chatting passersby and clattering carriages.

She blew on her hands to warm them. Few people so much as glanced in her direction. Bodyguards and low-level enforcers hung around, waiting for their wards to emerge from whatever whorehouse, gambling den, or dazeglass hotel they were enjoying. She nodded at an enforcer who raised his hand in greeting, then pulled the brim of her felt hat down closer to hide her face.

It was just after nine when Churian Dorlani emerged from the cockfighting arena. He was a middle-aged man; tall, balding, and awkward with one hand crudely shoved up the back of the short tunic of the young woman next to him. She leaned into him, giggling in that obviously fake manner of a mistress who puts up with a lot because she has bills to pay.

Kizzie waited for them to reach the end of the street and then detached herself from the shadows to follow.

It was not a long walk; just five blocks to one of the nicer tenement buildings on the edge of the Assembly District. Churian had two mistresses and a mister, and he brought them all to the same apartment. It was, as far as these things went, rather tasteless, but it made Kizzie’s job a lot easier.

She watched them go inside, waited five minutes, and then approached the doorman. “Excuse me,” she said, raising one hand, “the side door of the building is wide open. I can’t imagine anyone will be happy for the cold.”

The doorman swore quietly. “Every damned day. I even put up a sign,” he complained.

“Sorry,” she replied with a sympathetic smile. “I figured you’d want to know. My own doorman was dismissed for such a breach. I thought it was unfair, but a Magna owns my building and you can’t argue with them.”

“Thanks,” he replied. He glanced in both directions, seemed to decide no one needed his help for the moment, and then hurried around the corner. Kizzie slipped inside the tenement the moment his back was turned.

Kizzie walked with purpose, chin raised and eyes confident, an excuse on her tongue in case anyone questioned her presence. She found Churian’s apartment and stopped outside to check that she was prepared. Her stiletto was hidden underneath her jacket, along with a pistol just in case, and Demir’s shackleglass was still in her cork-lined pocket.

Putting one ear to the door, she listened until she was certain that the pair inside were “occupied.”

She often wondered what other pathways she might have followed. What if she hadn’t tried to blackmail that professor her first year at university? She might be off in the provinces, running a winery, with her choice of provincial misters and mistresses. She sighed to herself and removed three small, square regular glass beads from her pocket. No point in ruminating over past mistakes. At least she was listening to idiots have sex instead of slitting the throats of gang members. She could thank Demir for that tiny step up for the moment.

She knelt beside the door, holding the three beads in her palm and focusing. A minor talent in glassdancing was not considered valuable – certainly not one worth adoption into a great guild-family, and the respect, fear, and authority that came with it. Still, she found it had its uses. The beads rose up into the air, moving forward as a clump into the lock. A drop of sweat sprang to her forehead as she maneuvered the beads around inside the lock’s mechanism, putting three different amounts of pressure on the tumblers until they finally clicked.

Within the minute she was inside the apartment, closing the door gently behind her and walking softly across the wooden floor. She ignored the sounds of the liaison in the bedroom and did a quick sweep. It was a simple place, with vaulted ceilings, a few cheap pieces of art on the walls, and gas lanterns. She turned all but one of the lanterns down and found a chair that looked at the bedroom.

This wait felt longer than the one outside the club, though in reality it couldn’t have been more than forty-five minutes. Kizzie held her stiletto in one hand, resting her head against the chair, lounging in the dim light until the mistress emerged from the bedroom.

The young woman paused briefly at the sight of her, then closed the bedroom door behind her. She had her clothes clutched to her chest, and her makeup was smeared.

“Is he asleep?” Kizzie asked quietly.

The mistress nodded. “Is everything as we agreed? You won’t kill him? He’s not evil. Just…” She trailed off, as if even she wasn’t sure why she cared about Churian’s survival.

“I won’t kill him,” Kizzie promised, removing a wad of banknotes from her pocket and placing it on the table next to her. It was enough money to pay several months’ rent on an apartment like this, or several years on a place in the Slag. The young woman plucked it up, regarding Kizzie warily, then crouched in the corner of the sitting room to pull on her tunic and jacket. She was soon gone, leaving Kizzie alone in the apartment with the soft sound of snoring.

Kizzie entered the bedroom, looking down at the slovenly guild-family asshole sleeping nude under a sheet that left little to the imagination. His breathing was heavy, indicative of a deep sleep, and she very carefully slid the shackleglass through one of Churian’s piercings. Shackleglass was not a violent sorcery, and his body didn’t so much as twitch at the feel of it.

Sure that everything was prepared, she shoved Churian’s own undergarments into his open mouth. That woke him up, and she stood above him and watched him flail and grunt for several moments before giving him very specific instructions: “You are to remain still. Do not speak unless to answer a question. Do you understand?” Kizzie turned up the gas lantern above the bed. She could see in Churian’s eyes that his panic was warring with the sorcery of the shackleglass. Eventually the sorcery won out. His expression became one of frightened acceptance, and he nodded in response to her question.

Low-resonance shackleglass was known to make people suggestible and truthful. It was commonly given to convicts and prisoners, and sometimes to the house staff of particularly paranoid or cruel guild-families. High-resonance shackleglass forced the wearer to tell any truth and obey any command. The piece that Demir had given Kizzie was medium-resonance, and it would be perfect for her needs.

She removed the undergarments from Churian’s mouth, sitting on the bed next to him. “What is your name?”

“Churian Dorlani,” he answered fearfully.

“What is your most embarrassing secret?”

His eyes widened, but he answered immediately. “I once let out a fart at a fancy dinner party. Poo came out with it. I blamed the dog.”

Kizzie rubbed at her nose to cover her smile. Well, the shackleglass definitely worked. She tugged on the gloves hiding her silic sigil. “Do you recognize me?” she asked.

“No,” he answered.

“Good. Did you participate in the murder of Adriana Grappo?”

Churian’s eyes grew wide. He began to tremble, struggling as if against invisible ropes, his body unwilling to disobey Kizzie’s direct command. His mouth opened, closed, then opened again as he fought the sorcery. He chewed on his tongue – not enough to bite it off, but enough to draw blood. Kizzie lost patience and pulled out her stiletto, pressing it against his throat for added incentive.

“Did you participate in the murder of Adriana Grappo?” she asked again, more forcefully.

“Y-y-yes,” Churian answered.

Kizzie gazed down at him, frowning. “Well. Damn.” She had expected this answer – the Breadman seemed like a reliable witness – but she still didn’t like it. “Why did you do it?”

Churian licked his lips, glancing over Kizzie’s shoulder as if to search the room for help. Sweat poured off his brow. Finally he said, “I was ordered to by my grandmother, Aelia Dorlani.”

“That’s it?” Kizzie asked. “You were ordered to?”

“You don’t say no to Aelia.”

Aelia was the matriarch of the Dorlani guild-family and widely considered a sadist. Saying no to her was akin to saying no to Father Vorcien – except she would kill you herself, rather than have an underling do it. Kizzie’s uneasiness grew. If the Dorlani were behind the killing and word got out, it could start a guild-family war. They had enough enemies, and the tiny Grappo guild-family was well-liked enough, that it wouldn’t take but hours before enforcers were gunning each other down in the streets. “Do you know why she wanted Adriana dead?”

“I don’t. I…” Churian hesitated, then spat out, “I didn’t want to! I didn’t even know Adriana. Why would I kill her? But Grandmother said to.”

“So you followed orders.” Kizzie sighed. That was not nearly as good a lead as she’d hoped. It wasn’t like she could slip into the Dorlani estate and do something similar to Aelia. Piss, even asking to see Aelia would raise suspicions, among both the Dorlani and her own family. “The other killers. Were they also ordered there by your grandmother?”

“I don’t know.”

“Guess.”

Churian’s eyes twitched. The blanket beneath him was soaked with sweat now. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“We met anonymously, just before the killing. Everyone was wearing masks. I … recognized one of them. My grandmother would not have sent a Magna for a public killing.”

A cold finger seemed to creep up Kizzie’s spine. A Grent agent, a Dorlani, and a Magna. Glassdamn, this was a conspiracy! Conjectures began flying around inside her head, and it took all her willpower to silence them so that she could properly work. “Who was it?”

Churian had stopped trembling. He was nothing but resignation now, his whole body looking slack and exhausted from trying to fight the shackleglass. “Glissandi Magna.”

Another guild-family cousin. Kizzie chewed on her lip, considering. “Don’t move,” she ordered Churian, withdrawing to the sitting room, where she could pace and think.

Was this a real conspiracy? Were the guild-families and the Duke of Grent somehow working together? Had Capric lied to Demir about that captured Grent agent? It all seemed so impossible, but so did the idea that agents from three major powers had come together for the murder.

Kizzie vacillated on what to do next. While Churian was considered little more than a bureaucratic nobody within his own family, Glissandi had actual power within the Magna. She was as close to the main family as was possible without being an actual daughter. Fiercely independent, quite rich, and with connections all over Ossa, Glissandi would be a difficult target.

But it was also Kizzie’s best lead.

She walked to the door. “You definitely didn’t recognize anyone else?” she asked.

“I didn’t, I swear!” came the answer.

This was becoming more dangerous by the minute. Once again, Kizzie found herself wondering if she should just return Demir’s money and swear off the job. Just a day and a half had passed. She could probably back out. If she did, the question of what had actually happened would haunt her for the rest of her life. What’s more, she would miss her chance at reconnecting with Montego.

Something else about this whole thing was bothering her. Assuming Capric was telling the truth about the Grent agent, then at least two of the six killers were patsies. They were killers but not conspirators. Neither of them knew why Adriana Grappo needed to die.

Glissandi might.

Kizzie tossed her stiletto up into the air and caught it deftly by the blade between two fingers. Glissandi Magna. She would be difficult to corner alone, but not impossible. Certainly easier than Aelia Dorlani.

She forced herself to stop worrying. The politics wasn’t part of her job. All she had to do was get the facts back to Demir. If he wanted to start a guild-family war, that was his problem. Kizzie would have to hide her involvement in all this from her family, but if they somehow found out then she would have plausible deniability. They were, after all, the ones who loaned her out to the Grappo.

She returned to the bedroom once more and tapped Churian’s bare chest with the flat of her stiletto blade. “I’ll give you two choices,” she said. “You can either sell all your worldly possessions by noon tomorrow and board the next ship to Marn, or I can tell Baby Montego that you took part in the killing of his adopted mother. Which do you choose?”

The trembling returned, and Kizzie quickly caught a whiff of the scent of piss. “I’ll leave!” Churian said. “I’ll be gone. I … I … I won’t talk to another soul. I won’t even sell anything. You’ll never see me again.”

Satisfied with the answer, Kizzie leaned over and plucked the shackleglass from Churian’s ear. “If you try to follow me, I’ll kill you. If you try to find out who I am, I’ll kill you. I’d lay there for a few minutes after I’m gone, if I were you. I promise that if you haven’t disappeared by noon tomorrow, Baby Montego will be visiting you by dinner.”

She left that threat, letting herself out of the apartment and then leaving by the same side door that she’d tricked the doorman with earlier. It was around ten o’clock. Perfect time to get a drink. She would need it if she was going to figure out how to fit the next piece of this puzzle without getting murdered by Glissandi Magna’s bodyguards.