Painted Devils, page 16
His brow furrows as he lifts my fake goblet off the cushion. His eyes land on the red penny that was hidden under its foot, lying brazenly in the open now. Then he looks back at me and cocks an eyebrow.
“Fascinating,” he says loudly, holding the fake up to the candlelight.
“Please, my boy, put that down,” Prince Ludwig pleads from across the gallery. I hear his steps hasten across the marble floor.
Emeric doesn’t move, only shoots me a thinly smug smile. And that’s when I realize he’s drawing Ludwig over here to discover the penny. He’ll figure out he’s been robbed approximately twelve hours earlier than I want him to know.
That—that little bastard—
I set the real goblet on the sill and shift forward, snaking a hand past the drapes to snatch the penny from the cushion.
Just as my hand closes over the coin, Emeric’s hand closes over mine and doesn’t let go. He pivots to stand behind the pedestal, folding his arm behind him and blocking my view through the drapery gap entirely. From the prince’s perspective, Emeric is just standing genteelly, one arm resting at his back.
From mine, this overgrown love child of a beanpole and a dictionary still has my hand in an iron grip, and if I move even a little in this awkward crouch, I’m going to tip over and yank the drapes down while I’m at it.
I can’t decide if I want to throw him out the window again for old times’ sake or drag him into a linen closet for an entirely different old times’ sake. Probably both. At the very least, I’m revisiting my stance on the manacles.
“Truly an impressive level of detail”—Emeric tips the goblet at the prinz-wahl—“for a replica.”
Prince Ludwig’s steps slow as he gets closer. I can hear guarded confusion in his voice. “… Isn’t it?”
“Particularly for glass.” Emeric lets go of my hand. Then he slips the briefest glance back at me, licks a fingertip, and runs it around the rim of the fake goblet as he sets it down. It barely makes a noise.
My useless brain, on the other hand, is very loudly and insistently sprinting to a number of different places. Every one of them makes my face burn. And the worst part is I’m still mad at him, but that isn’t slowing down my terrible, useless, treasonous brain in the slightest. It might even be greasing the wheels.
Thankfully, Prince Ludwig has urgent business to attend: figuring out if he ever even had the genuine article at all. “Glass,” he repeats slowly. “Yes. Yes, quite skillful. I … shall pass your compliments on to the glassblower. Well, this has been a lovely evening, my boy, and you’re welcome to a drink before we call your carriage…”
Party’s over. Emeric only casts one more look over his shoulder as the prince all but drags him out of the gallery. I poke my head around the drapery and wink, dramatically holding a finger to my lips, on his way out. He wrinkles his nose.
I catch the prince’s muttered orders to the guards as they leave: “Lock the gallery doors and gather all the servants in the dining hall. And send word that, apart from the carriage service, no one’s to leave the grounds until they’ve been searched.”
The gallery goes dark as the doors shut with a terminal click of a bolt.
Security is about to get a lot tighter. I have to get out, fast.
I swiftly wrap up the real goblet in my apron and stow it in the satchel, mind racing. I can’t get down and off the grounds before the order reaches the guards … but maybe I don’t have to. I just have to get to the bottom floor.
I look around and spot what I suspected was there: a serving lift in a discreet corner of the gallery. (Making servants climb one flight of stairs to a dining hall is low-risk, but anything more and you’re risking an appetizer catastrophe.) I pop it open and haul at the ropes until an unusually generous wooden shelf rises up. Ludwig’s zeal for hospitality may just come in handy after all.
Before I get inside, I dash back over to the pedestal and slide my red penny, crown-side up, under the cushion. I don’t want Ludwig to know immediately, but I still want him to know. Partially so the jeweler he hired doesn’t take the blame.
Then I climb into the lift, hanging on to the ropes, and close the cabinet door behind me. I carefully winch the ropes, letting my weight sink the lift down all three stories until I hear the roar of the kitchens. It gets quieter, paradoxically, the closer I get, but I expected that. All the servants are being mustered to the dining hall. There’s no noise but the creak of ropes and pulleys by the time the lift stops, and no light but the dim outline of the cupboard door.
I wait a moment to be sure, then push it open and creep out, setting foot on the stone floor of the now-empty kitchens. The back door is still wide-open, and through it I see the carriage house. But I’m not bound there yet.
Instead I run for the uniform room. Once there, I hurriedly yank on a footman’s livery, tucking my dress into breeches and buttoning a large waistcoat over the top to hide the strange lumps. When I pull on the outer coat and stuff my braids under the standard brimmed hat, I pass for an awkward stripling of a boy. On my way out, I dump the servant dress I’d borrowed earlier into the soiled laundry.
Then I hurry out to the carriage house behind the kitchens, praying I’m not too late. Guards are stalking around, arguing with grooms and shouting orders. Near the open carriage-house doors, I spot a footboy harnessing a team of harassed-looking geldings to a coach, alone. On his face is the bewildered, intent look of a lad who’s been summarily tossed into a lake to learn how to swim—one of the many new hires. Perfect.
I skulk out of sight until he steps back from the yoke and breathes a sigh of relief. Then I bluster in, my voice pitched as low as I can. “What are you doing? Didn’t you hear the orders?”
The footboy jumps like a cat confronted with a cucumber. “What? I—I was told to ready the carriage for—”
“We’re all supposed to be searching the grounds,” I bellow. “You’re to check the lakefront walk! Go before they see you slacking!”
I duck out the door and start jogging away. Almost immediately the footboy stumbles out, too, running from the stables. Once he’s passed me, I double back and take his place, tugging on leather straps and nodding like I have any idea what they do.
The coachman arrives a minute later. He’s much too busy inspecting the yoke and the harnesses to spare more than a glance for me. “All set?”
“Ready, sir,” I grunt. The coachman and I lead the horses out of the carriage house and into the yard, then he climbs onto his perch at the front and slaps the reins. As the coach jolts into motion, I grab a handle and swing up to stand on the rear footboard. We roll up to the grand main entrance of the hunting lodge, where Joniza and Emeric are both waiting with politely rigid smiles as the prince prattles on.
I get down to open the carriage door for them while Prince Ludwig offers an emotional farewell with all the substance of a soap bubble. As Emeric and Joniza get into the coach, I keep my head lowered, hiding as much of my face as I can behind the brim of the hat. When the coachman asks for destinations, Joniza names the Golden Bine.
Emeric, the relentless bastard, asks for the Library of the Divine. He knows that’s where I’m headed with the goblet; I’d bet my last penny he’s planning on lying in wait until I stroll up.
I shut the carriage door. The coachman cracks the reins, and as the horses break into a trot, I jump onto the footboard once more.
And that’s how I leave the hunting lodge: with the prince’s prized goblet in my satchel, on the prince’s own carriage, right out his front gate. It’s not how danger usually arrives, but this time, it’s how it leaves.
That’s the thing about men like Ludwig, who are so convinced they can win because they already know it’s a scam. I win more money off them than anyone else, while they’re distracted looking only for the trick they know.
When we stop at the Library of the Divine, Emeric barely notices me as I open the carriage door for him; he’s too busy scouring the shadows and the corners and the hedges. Joniza, on the other hand, looks right at my face. She has a sudden coughing fit as Emeric climbs out, and I give her a chipper salute.
I hear the snap of the coachman’s reins. This time I let the carriage continue into the night and turn my attention to the library.
Emeric is at the front door, his coin light in one hand, a key for Vikram’s padlock in the other. I sneak up behind him while he fusses with the lock. Once the padlock falls open, I tap him on the left shoulder.
He immediately whirls to his left. I sidestep around his right side, staying hidden behind his back as I push open the unlocked library doors. Then I step backward into the foyer.
The hinges betray me with a massive groan, and it’s too dark to find a lock or a bar that I can use to keep Emeric out like I was hoping. He follows a moment later. I don’t know if it’s the harsh coin light or if he really is angrier than I expected.
“What the hell was that, Vanja?” he demands.
“We both showed up to the party wearing the same take-the-goblet plan,” I say acidly, digging in my satchel. “Etiquette says one of us has to change, and I was there first.”
“My plan didn’t jump straight to committing multiple crimes as the solution,” he retorts, and I know he’s mad from the way the coin light swings in his hand as he talks. “Ludwig would have returned the goblet on his own if you’d just let me handle this!”
“You want to bet on that?”
“You used me to—to distract from robbing a prince-elector—you didn’t even talk to me first—”
I pull out the apron and start picking open the bundle, sniffing, “I’ll have you know, I was asked to.”
“Oh, by whom, the gargoyles?” he says sourly.
“Saint Willehalm, actually,” I fire back. “He showed up in my dream last night. He’s the poltergeist and the Armarius, and this”—I heft the goblet—“is part of the binding spell that keeps him here. Which I would have told you if you hadn’t stood me up for lunch.”
I catch a glimpse of the gears turning for Emeric but don’t stick around to watch them click into place. Instead I turn on a heel, narrowly avoiding the abandoned doll by the friar statue, and head for the wreckage in the rotunda. “Sextus!” I shout. “I’ve got your fancy cup!”
The chandeliers ignite a path to the pedestal, flames leaning in the sudden draft. “Pleeeeease,” howls the wretched voice that last called me a liar, “please, give it back!”
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter as I step over a broken chair, “keep your cowl on.”
“Hang on—” A thunk reverberates through the rotunda; judging from the startled curse, I’m pretty sure Emeric just walked into a capsized desk. “I did show up for lunch, I waited—”
I stop and turn to face him again, furious that he’d try to sell me (Me! A renowned expert in the field of bullshit!) such a blatant lie. “I waited at that park like a little fool for over half an hour, so don’t tell me you were there.”
Emeric looks up from the debris he’s wading through. “The park? Proctor Kirkling said she saw you and Helga return to the Book and Bell, so I…” He trails off, connecting the dots.
“Can this waaaait?” wails the eldritch voice of Saint Willehalm.
“Coming,” I snap, and resume picking my way over to the reliquary base. “Right. I see the problem: the words Kirkling and said.”
Emeric’s voice frays a little. “Vanja … I don’t think that’s our only problem.”
He’s right. Kirkling keeps throwing lamp oil on the fire, but we’re the coals it’s feeding.
I just … don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m tired of fighting, of feeling like this. I want to black out for five minutes and wake up and have everything fixed.
But maybe the biggest problem is that I don’t even know what fixed looks like.
“One thing at a time,” I say wearily. I reach the middle of the room, where the remains of the reliquary base are still bolted to the pedestal, and unceremoniously plunk the goblet into place.
A shiver runs through the floor. Hundreds of tiny flames sweep out from the pedestal as every candle, lamp, and torch in the library ignites. A symphony of groaning wood tears through the rotunda, the shattered tables and chairs lurching upright, their splinters knitting into smooth timber. It’s hard not to gawk; the empire is full of beasts wretched and divine, but for some reason I never expected a ghost to command this scale of power.
There’s a sound like a cascade of parchment, and then the specter of Saint Willehalm towers before me, a little too tall to be human. “My thanks, God Daughter, for your assistance. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to aid you in the future.”
“Actually, we first came here to look for records,” Emeric says over my shoulder.
Saint Willehalm blinks at him. Then he says stonily, “I recall you. I believe you threw a knife at my face.”
There’s a thoracic little death rattle behind me. I’m pretty sure it’s the sound of Emeric’s world crumbling at the fact that he’s pissed off the saint of libraries.
Saint Willehalm tips his hood to me. “Again, please let me know if you require my help in the future, God Daughter. Farewe—”
“No, no, hold up,” I sigh. “Again, you broke every bone in my body”—(“gross hyperbole”)—“so let’s let bygones be bygones, all right? I would really appreciate it if you helped Emeric find what he’s looking for. Besides, isn’t that your whole job?”
“Fine,” the ghost grumbles. “What do you seek to know?”
I have to motion Emeric forward before he speaks, fussing with his krebatte until I pull his hand to his side. “A—” His voice squeaks, and he clears his throat hastily. “Any records you have pertaining to a Low God known as the Scarlet Maiden.”
The saint closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he is the Armarius, master of records of the Library of the Divine. The sockets look like vellum held up to the sun, glowing a cloudy, muted gold as symbols and letters scrawl over them.
Then he blinks again and shakes his head. “I apologize, but I have nothing that mentions a Scarlet Maiden.”
I go abruptly cold.
I did this, then. I conjured her into being myself.
And that means I’m guilty of everything Kirkling said.
Emeric frowns. “Not even prior to the Accord of Prefectorial and Godly Alliance?”
“No.”
That’s the nail in the coffin. She’s lying about predating the accords. And she’s doing it to try to claim—no, to kill—Emeric.
Then—I remember Dieter’s song trailing out of the Golden Bine. “What about the Red Maid of the River?”
“The Red Maid of the River?” The Armarius’s eyes flash that bright vellum again. This time, as letters race across them, I see some ignite, sparking an even brighter gold.
Thuds and rustling echo all around the shelved columns. A veritable swarm of parchments, books, and scrolls bursts from the shelves, weaving around stair and railing, and convenes on the rotunda like a literal cyclone, then settles into an enormous stack that takes up at least three tables. I’m not even sure if we could fit it all into a coach.
The Armarius asks, “Where do I begin?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
RIBBON
“She … she’s real, then.” Emeric looks a bit pale. He reaches for his krebatte again but stops short, his fingertips resting over the red handprint below his shirt.
“Very much so.”
I don’t feel any better for it. Even if it means I’m off the hook … the seven blood drops will be the only way to save Emeric from the Scarlet Maiden.
“Do any of those records predate the prefect accords?” I ask swiftly. She could still be lying about evading them.
Some part of me sinks when the Armarius says, “Nearly all.” He waves to the stack on the table, returning to Saint Willehalm again as the vellum fades from his eyes. “That does mean there are many versions of her story, and few can say which are true—certainly not I. But hers is an old, sad tale at its heart. She was a princess before the days of the empire, back when a castle stood in the shadow of the Broken Peak, and was betrothed to the love of her life. Then she lost him to the hellhound, and it’s said his blood dyed her red from head to toe. Her tears swept her own castle away and made the river that runs through the gorge now.”
“That … would explain some things.” Emeric thinks a moment. “I’m also going to need any records you have on Low Gods going dormant, especially if they revived at a later date. And ritual sacrifices common to the era. And ritual bindings, siphoning magic, paras—”
“And how,” Saint Willehalm asks, mild, “will you be carrying that out? And returning it?”
“It’s a lot, isn’t it?” I sigh.
“Some two hundred records and counting.” Saint Willehalm pauses, looking off to the side a moment, as if listening to an unseen speaker. “I suppose … yes, that would be a novel approach. I have an alternative. Wait here, please, I’ll return shortly.”
He winks out, a few papers fluttering in his wake, leaving Emeric and me alone in the enormity of the rotunda.
A stiff beat passes, then I say, “What do you think ‘shortly’ means to a centuries-old ghost?” at the same time Emeric blurts out, “I should have told you about the first year earlier.”
I turn to face him properly, a little surprised. “Uh. You really want to do this now?”
“At this rate there’s decent odds we’ll be interrupted by—I don’t know what next, a haunted doll with a quest? So yes. I need to say this while we have the chance.” He steps closer, and his hands are back to fidgeting, tangling with each other. “I am sorry I didn’t tell you. We didn’t really have time before, but I should have made it. I didn’t think it would come up this soon and—and I didn’t want to scare you.”
“Because this”—I gesture between us—“has an end date.”
But Emeric shakes his head. “Because it doesn’t. I mean, not for me.”
I blink at him, uncomprehending.
His mouth twists. “I understand the reasoning behind the first-year tradition, but it’s an expectation, not a rule. Vikram and Mathilde both say it was awful and didn’t teach them anything they didn’t already know. And I think it does more harm than good, keeping people from joining the prefects if they already have a partner or children. So I have no intention of following it.”
