In the Shadow of Lightning

27

After two days of trying to get in touch with Demir without luck, Kizzie was finally given the nod from Breenen and sent up to Demir’s second-floor office at the Hyacinth Hotel. The room was sparsely decorated, the shelves empty, looking like he’d just moved in and hadn’t had time to unpack. As she entered she found him staring at one of the hammerglass windows, a scowl on his face. He looked pale, as if he’d just come out the other end of an illness.

There was a young woman in his office with him. Pretty, with dirty-blond hair and light provincial skin, and of medium height. Kizzie might have taken her for Demir’s paramour if her arms weren’t covered with the old burn scars of a siliceer. Definitely not Demir’s type. Or was she? Demir had changed a lot over the years.

“Thessa, could you give us just a moment?” Demir asked the young woman. “Find Breenen at the front desk. He’ll get you set up with your own room.” He waited until she was gone, then said to Kizzie, “Sorry, we just arrived a few minutes ago.”

Kizzie raised an eyebrow at him, with the implicit question, to which Demir just shook his head. “Charming, but no. New business partner. Any progress on those killers?”

“You could say that.” Kizzie sat down on a sofa facing Demir, passing her hand across her face. She’d gotten some rest over the last two days but she still felt plenty unsettled from the events of the last week. “I’ve found two of them.”

This got his attention. Demir perked up, sitting up straight in his chair with an eager look on his face. “Do I know them? Who were they working for? What did…” He paused, seemed to gather his composure, and nodded at her to continue.

Kizzie didn’t mince words. “Churian Dorlani was the first. A vendor identified him because his mask fell off while he fled the scene. I cornered and questioned him with the shackleglass.”

“And?” Demir’s eagerness had gone, as if he’d pulled on a carefully prepared mask.

“And he admitted it. The order came from his grandmother.”

“Aelia Dorlani?”

“Correct. He didn’t know why she wanted your mother dead, but he was able to give me one of the other killers. Glissandi Magna. She also admitted to the killing, but when I tried to force her to tell me why, she killed herself on my stiletto.”

“Glassdamn,” Demir said quietly, covering his mouth with one hand and staring off into the space over Kizzie’s head. “Do you have another lead?”

“Not yet, but I’m working on it.”

“What did you do with Churian?”

“I told him if he didn’t flee the country, I’d tell Montego that he killed Adriana.”

“And did he?”

“Without an ozzo to his name.”

Demir drummed his fingers on his chin. “Perhaps not harsh enough, but there’s a certain poetry in that. What to do about Aelia, though?”

“That,” Kizzie replied pointedly, “is beyond me. She’s a matriarch on the Inner Assembly. If you want to ask her then you have to do it yourself.”

“Noted. For now, she’ll be wondering why her grandson abandoned his home and family. I’ll let that paranoia fester.” A wicked little smile flashed across his face, one that Kizzie returned. She had, she had to admit, become more invested in this thing than she’d expected. There was a deeper mystery going on underneath all of this. Multiple guild-families, Grent, that tall man at the Lampshade Boardwalk. It was a puzzle begging to be solved.

“I think,” Kizzie said, “that Glissandi was being followed.” Demir cocked an eyebrow at her, so she explained, “The moment before she killed herself, she saw someone on the boardwalk. I didn’t get a good look thanks to the dark, but she kept her eyes on him as she died.”

“You think he’s connected to the plot somehow?”

“Perhaps? I checked back in the morning and he wasn’t a regular around the Lampshade Boardwalk. He might be a hired specialist making sure the participants don’t talk? I’ve heard of such people before. He had light skin – probably a Purnian – and was glassdamned near seven feet tall.”

“But if he’s a specialist, who hired him?”

Kizzie shook her head.

Demir said, “Someone that tall shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“I’ve been trying to locate him for two days. No one has so much as seen him before.”

“I’ll have Breenen do some asking as well,” Demir said.

Kizzie nodded. She’d be glad for the help. Her contacts were quite good, but the concierge of the Hyacinth would be able to ask questions more freely and of a higher echelon of society. Demir continued to drum his fingers against his chin. He finally said, “The Magna, the Dorlani, and the Grent. Those are strange bedfellows for a conspiracy against a single politician.”

“It might have to do with her tax and property reforms?” Kizzie said with a shrug. She’d spent a lot of time thinking about this and still couldn’t make sense of things. “There’s precedent for the public killing of reformers.”

“It’s happened a few times,” Demir admitted, “but not for a hundred years. I would have liked to think Ossa has grown beyond that. Maybe I’m being too optimistic. It just seems so … risky. Why not an assassin in the dark? They could have killed her with poison or a knife to the back or any number of ways. I can’t get over why they would do it in public.”

“You and me both,” Kizzie said.

“Perhaps the Assembly was working together against her,” Demir said. “If you’re right, and it’s because of her reforms…”

“But then why the Grent agent?”

“To give them an excuse for war?”

“The duke wouldn’t have lent them an agent to start a war against him,” Kizzie countered. “There is a chance that Capric lied to you, or was lied to, and the entire Grent agent angle was fabricated.”

Demir frowned. “I made contact with my mother’s people among the Assembly and the Cinders. The Grent killer wasn’t faked.”

“Then something else is going on,” Kizzie said, wondering if Demir had meant to reveal that little bit of information. It was notoriously hard to get spies among the Cinders unless you belonged to the Inner Assembly. The fact that his mother had contacts there spoke to her skills. Kizzie pushed it out of her mind. “I’ve spent the last couple of days trying to put the pieces together, drawing every line I could between the three conspirators, and I’ve only been able to find a single common thread.”

“Which is?”

She hesitated. Her information was sketchy – hearsay, rumors, and a tip from Veterixi at the High Vorcien. “Aelia Dorlani, Glissandi Magna, and Favian Grent – the duke’s brother – all belong to the same Fulgurist Society.”

“Oh,” Demir said quietly, “that is interesting. Which one?”

“They call themselves the Glass Knife. They’re an exclusive dueling club, but beyond that I can’t find out damn well anything about them. They don’t publish their membership or their meeting times. They have no pamphlets. I know some Societies like keeping an air of secrecy about them, but the Glass Knife seems particularly closed off to outsiders.”

Demir swore quietly. “All right. If that’s the only common thread, go ahead and tug on it.”

“Of course,” Kizzie responded. Among the many things she’d wrestled with over the couple of days since Glissandi killed herself was whether she wanted to keep going on this job. She’d talked herself around several times and ultimately decided to stick with it. She was just too damned curious, and if she was being honest with herself, seeing Demir again had pricked something deep within her – a feeling of childhood kinship that she hadn’t felt in years. Demir needed her right now. Not just an enforcer or a hired investigator, but a friend he could trust.

It felt good to be that person.

But only to a degree. “If this does lead back to other guild-family matriarchs or patriarchs…”

“Then I will take over and you will never have been involved,” Demir assured her. “This is dangerous and I know you can handle yourself, but if this looks like it’s going to get you killed I want you to back off.”

Kizzie pursed her lips, wondering if she’d ever had someone care about her personal safety before. Enforcers were expendable, even the valued and experienced ones. Being expendable was a part of their job. She wondered how her life would be different if she’d been born a Grappo. Not even as part of the main family, but as a bastard or a distant cousin.

It was something she’d fantasized about a lot as a child, when she played with Demir and Montego in the park. She sighed. There was no changing who her father was. All she could do was continue being that friend Demir needed. “I’ll keep you informed,” she told Demir. “By the way, Glissandi Magna tried to bribe me with forty thousand ozzo. I’m keeping it, but I consider it payment against our agreed fee.”

“That is more than generous,” Demir replied.

Kizzie got to her feet and headed for the door, pausing to look over her shoulder. “How is Montego?” she asked quietly.

“He’s well.”

“Does he know what I’m working on?”

“He does, and he approves.”

That sentence brought up a lot of complicated feelings. If Kizzie had been the blushing type, she might have blushed then. “I’m glad he came back.”

“You could say hi,” Demir suggested. “I expect him to return in an hour or so. He’s meeting with your brother Capric to make sure some recent nastiness with a third party is … smoothed over.”

Kizzie looked at the floor for a few moments, considering the invitation. Just the thought of seeing Montego again made her both excited and afraid. “Maybe some other time,” she said. Before he could try to convince her, she went on, “I hope you’ll put a few things on the shelves. I haven’t been here for twenty years, but I remember your mom giving me candy from a jar on the shelf there.”

To her surprise, Demir crossed the room and opened the left desk drawer. He tossed something to her, which she caught in one hand. It was a piece of toffee wrapped in wax paper, of the very same kind Adriana used to give Demir’s friends when they were children. “Keep digging,” he told her.

Kizzie rolled the toffee across her fingers as she left the hotel, keeping half an eye out to make sure she didn’t run into Montego unawares. Outside the hotel she popped the toffee into her mouth, a thousand tiny memories coming back to her from the taste, and enjoyed it as she walked down the street looking for a hackney cab.

She’d gone less than a block before she became aware of a presence following her.

“Hey Kizzie,” a man said as he moved up to walk beside her. He was a short, frog-faced fellow of about forty wearing a tight gray uniform with the pink auraglass buttons of a National Guardsman. His left pinkie was painted sky blue to show his allegiance to the Vorcien. He had a lit cigarette in one hand and touched it to the narrow brim of his bearskin hat in a sort of salute.

“Gorian,” Kizzie answered. Gorian was one of her favorite National Guardsmen – a corrupt little bastard with a wonderful sense of humor and a kind family. Unlike most of the guardsmen on a guild-family payroll, he was actually useful and could get her all sorts of gossip, information, or even supplies for the right price. “What are you doing in the Assembly District?”

“Looking for you.”

Kizzie’s pleasure at seeing her friend seized up immediately. “Oh yeah?” she asked in trepidation. “What for?”

“Your dad wants to see you.”

Her mood soured further. “Well, that just puckers my asshole. What does the old man want, and why didn’t he send an enforcer?”

“No idea,” Gorian answered, spreading his hands, “and he wanted to call you in, uh, circumspect-like.”

So she wasn’t in trouble. Kizzie found herself grinding her teeth, on edge in a way that had nothing to do with Demir’s conspiracy. A summons from the patriarch of the Vorcien could mean any number of things. For a lowly enforcer like her – even if she was his daughter – few of them were good. “Right away?” she asked.

“Right away,” Gorian confirmed.

Kizzie didn’t press him further. It wasn’t like Gorian had a choice about delivering the message. “All right, I’ll head over. Hey, I want you to keep an ear out on something for me. Quietly.”

“What for?”

“I’m trying to identify someone. Incredibly tall, near seven feet, with light skin. Bald.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar.”

“See if you can find someone who knows him.”

“Will do.”

“Thanks. Oh, and one other thing.” She paused in the street, turning toward Gorian and glancing in both directions to be sure they wouldn’t be overheard. “I need the membership list of an exclusive Fulgurist Society. How hard would it be to get that for me?”

“Depends on the Society.” Gorian raised his eyebrows. “But yeah, the National Guard keeps tabs on all of them. Easier to root out dissidents when you know who they spend their free time with.”

“They’re called the Glass Knife.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Well, see what you can find.”

“Fine. Tall man and the Glass Knife.” He pretended to write in the air, as if he were making a list. “Got it. Come by the watchhouse when you’re finished with your dad.”

“I’ll do that.”

Gorian touched the brim of his bearskin hat again in deference. “And Kizzie, good luck with him. I know things have been rocky.”

Kizzie waved Gorian off and hired a hackney cab to take her directly up to the Family District – a walled-off section of the city filled with the guild-family townhomes. The streets here were wide, the townhomes designed like tiny estates with their own decorative walls, expensive gardens, and towering brick manors. While foreigners and commoners might think that the power of the Ossan Empire lay in the Assembly District, those within the guild-families knew that the real power lay here.

Vorcien was among the largest and wealthiest of the guild-families. Their city estate matched their level of power, located nearly at the top of Family Hill, nestled in a grove of trees with a long, winding drive that never lacked for traffic as Vorcien clients, employees, and allies came to pay their weekly respects.

She walked up the drive and entered through the main door, where a handful of merchant clients waited with their hats in hand outside Father Vorcien’s immense study. The doors were closed, indicating that the old man was in a meeting. Kizzie checked her pocket watch and paced the foyer, one eye on the office door and another on the clients, all of whom studiously ignored her presence. It wasn’t becoming of a guild-family enforcer to hang around in public like this, after all. But Kizzie would cling to her small rights as a bastard until the day she died.

She was far more concerned with what her father actually wanted. Had her altercation with Sibrial gotten back to him? Was she about to be punished further? Would he pull her off Demir’s payroll and order her to do something vile?

The door to Father Vorcien’s office opened. The family majordomo, Diaguni, held the door open for an old woman to come scurrying out, and she hurried across the foyer without meeting anyone’s eyes. Diaguni was tall, thin, and bald, with pale olive skin that marked him as being from the Balk region. He watched the old woman go with a wry look on his face and then raised his chin toward Kizzie.

“Kissandra, your father will see you now.”

No appointment? No making her wait until all the important clients were gone? Very strange. Kizzie removed her hat and followed Diaguni into the office. It was a palatial room, all covered in white marble and surprisingly devoid of godglass. Decoration was minimal – some gold trim, two tall windows, and a fireplace big enough to drive a carriage into. A single immense chair sat beside the empty fireplace, turned toward the door, and in it a man in his seventies, bloated and bent, body deformed from years of sitting.

His real name was Stutd, but no one had called him anything but Father Vorcien in years. Supposedly, he’d once been a dashing young man, svelte and athletic, more prone to wearing forgeglass than witglass. Kizzie had no memories of that man. Only the fat, old reprobate before her. Still, it was best not to underestimate him. Father Vorcien was the senior member of the Inner Assembly, and one of the smartest and most powerful people in Ossa.

She waited until Diaguni closed the door behind her and walked to her father’s side, bending to kiss the large silic symbol tattooed on his hand. He was scaly to the touch, an effect of the glassrot that was a ubiquitous sight on his skin. Godglass sorcery often killed those who abused it. Sometimes, though, it left them twisted lumps of flesh like Father Vorcien.

“Good afternoon, my bastard daughter.”

“Father,” Kizzie answered, her head still bowed, swallowing the bile elicited by his distinct pronunciation of the word “bastard.” She knew that he used it to hurt her. It worked. “You needed to see me?”

“It has come to my attention that Capric loaned you out to Demir Grappo.”

No asking after her health. No pleasantries. Just down to business. That, Kizzie distinctly appreciated. She did not hate her father, but she didn’t want to spend much time in his presence, either. “That’s right.”

“What are you doing for the Grappo?”

“He’s asked me to track down Adriana’s killers,” Kizzie answered without hesitation. She had no compunctions against lying to or misleading other Vorcien enforcers, employees, and clients – even her half siblings – but she would not lie to Father Vorcien. She felt the knot in her jaw grow ever tighter as she waited for some kind of response. Was he involved? Would he order her off the job? She risked a glance upward to study his face, but Father Vorcien’s lips were pursed, his expression unreadable.

“Capric told me it was about hotel security.”

“That’s what Demir wanted him to think.”

“Clever boy, Demir. Not trusting his own childhood friend. But he trusted you.”

“Capric and Demir are friends of circumstance,” Kizzie said. “He and I are…” She hesitated, hating her choice of words, but said it anyway. “… real friends.”

“Ah, yes. You and Demir and Montego were quite inseparable for several years. It’s still shocking that Adriana allowed her son friends so far below his station. I suppose that wasn’t the strangest thing about that family.” Father Vorcien gave a careless sigh. “Tell me, what have you found?”

“I’m still working on it.” Kizzie dodged the question, hoping that Father Vorcien wouldn’t press. She continued to tense, waiting for the ax to fall. She all but expected him to call her off the job and in the process guarantee his own involvement. To her surprise, he simply harrumphed.

“I’ll be interested to learn what you discover. I’ve been wondering myself who was involved, but the rest of the Inner Assembly agreed not to dig further.”

Of course they had. At least Aelia Dorlani was involved, maybe other members of the Inner Assembly. Interestingly, it seemed that Father Vorcien wasn’t. “You’re not … going to stop me?”

Father Vorcien chuckled. “Of course not. I told them I wouldn’t pry, but Demir Grappo made no such promises. Besides, I have something more important on my mind.” He paused for a moment, his mirth subsiding into a little scowl. “Do you know what a phoenix channel is?”

“I don’t.” Kizzie looked up, cocking an eyebrow at her father.

“It’s a theoretical silic device. The details are not important. What’s important is that Adriana Grappo, before her death, was working on a phoenix channel.”

“She wasn’t a siliceer.”

“No, but she was partnered with one in secret.”

“How do you know?” Kizzie asked, the question coming out somewhat more sharply than she’d intended.

“Because I had my agents steal all the notes the Cinders confiscated from her office.” Father Vorcien examined his nails and yawned, as if this weren’t low even for him. He continued, “She covered her tracks well, but if you examine her private notes with an eye for what she left out, it was not difficult to ascertain what she was up to. We don’t know who her partner was for sure – we have our suspicions – but Demir might try to continue the work that she started.”

Kizzie felt her heart fall as she realized what was about to come next. “You want me to spy on Demir,” she said flatly.

“I do.” Father Vorcien licked his lips and grinned. “He’s taken you deep into his confidence. He won’t suspect anything.”

“I’m not … I don’t think…” Kizzie searched around inside herself for the courage to say no. She was already in trouble for that bullshit with Sibrial and the magistrate. Could she afford to lose even more standing with Father Vorcien? She swore silently. That was not her. She did not spy on her friends. That warm feeling of childhood friendship she’d experienced at Demir’s hotel had evaporated, and she found herself suddenly quite scared.

“Before you bore me with your personal integrity,” Father Vorcien said, waving dismissively, “I will make you an offer: if Demir succeeds in creating a phoenix channel and you inform me of the fact, I will legitimize you.”

For half a moment, Kizzie felt like she’d been shot. Her body tightened, all rational thought fleeing her mind. She was frozen in complete disbelief. “You would?” The question came out as a shameful squeak. Father Vorcien’s grin widened. The old bastard knew he had her.

“I would, and I will.”

“And all I have to do is tell you if Demir makes this phoenix channel?”

“Correct. I understand it’s a betrayal of sorts, but it’s certainly not a big one. I won’t have you raise a hand against him.”

Father Vorcien was many things, but he always followed through on a promise. Kizzie was trembling now, blown away by the very thought. Moments ago legitimization had been a forbidden fantasy. Now it was a possibility. She wouldn’t be just a bastard enforcer with a handful of scant privileges; she’d be a proper family member. She would have money, power, luxuries. Sibrial wouldn’t be allowed to touch her, even after he inherited the post of patriarch.

“I won’t spend my time rooting through his papers,” she said in a shaky voice, trying to cling to some semblance of her integrity.

“You will do what you see fit.” Father Vorcien’s tone was lazy, confident. He’d just dangled the juiciest of prizes in front of her. He didn’t need to say or do anything else. He knew that if Demir Grappo made a phoenix channel and there was any way for Kizzie to discover this fact, she would do it. “Aside from that,” he continued, “I would like to know if you discover Adriana’s killers. That could be very valuable information and even if Demir does not succeed with a phoenix channel … well, telling me who killed his mother will return you to my good graces. Adriana and I had our differences, but I liked her. Closure to her death would be both professionally and personally satisfying.”

“Understood,” Kizzie choked out. Father Vorcien rang the bell sitting on the table beside him and Diaguni opened the doors to his study. Kizzie retreated at the silent dismissal. She found an empty sitting room where she could regain her composure and paced the length of it for some time.

On one hand, she did not want to betray Demir. He was a friend, and even in this short time after his return he’d shown her basic kindnesses that no one in her family ever had. On the other hand, this could solve all of her problems. A single betrayal in return for a guaranteed future? Like Father Vorcien had said, it was a small betrayal. It would never come back to her. She could make that sacrifice to secure her future. She had to.

A thought suddenly occurred to her: Demir had been meeting with a young siliceer that he called his new business partner. Was she working on the phoenix channel? She seemed far too young for a project that sounded so important, but it made sense. Kizzie almost returned to the foyer to interrupt her father’s next meeting. She stopped herself. No need to jump to conclusions, or slavishly feed Father Vorcien information in the hope of earning his goodwill. The deal was a single piece of information in exchange for her legitimization. She would not give him a scrap more.

Kizzie smoothed back her hair, put the last of her qualms to bed, and returned her thoughts to the matter at hand. It was time to find the next killer.