Painted Devils, page 31
“That would fit with what I saw, yes,” Abbess Sibylle confirms. There’s an odd twinge to her voice, like she’s leaving something out. “I’m not sure how you would accomplish such a task, but perhaps Truth will afford me some clarity later.”
I let a breath hiss through my teeth, racking my brain. Time was already going to be tight, and now I have to reclaim Henrik from a Low God and fix the mess I caused with the Ardîm family before we can even leave Rammelbeck.
“Brother Conrad, you are welcome to use our library as you please,” the abbess is saying. “We may have some volumes of interest to you.”
“Thank you, I would appreciate that.”
Well, there’s one person who might know how to get Brunne to give up my brother. I just have to … multitask, I suppose.
I get to my feet. “Your Reverence, can I get a ride back to our inn? I need to tell Helga our dinner plans have changed.” Emeric raises an eyebrow. I say smoothly, “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“Notably, every time you say that, it turns out I should, in fact, worry a lot.”
“I will help you secure a carriage,” the abbess says, also standing. “Brother Conrad, Lady Ambroszia, I shall return momentarily.”
She accompanies me out of the library and down to the abbey’s main drive, deep in thought. To my surprise, a coach is already waiting. I turn to ask. The abbess just points at her eye pendant once more.
“God Daughter,” she says, “I did not wish to say this in the company of the others. But in my vision…” Abbess Sibylle purses her lips. “Bear in mind that this was an abstract fragment of Truth, that not everything can be interpreted at face value.”
“What did you see?”
“For example, you couldn’t possibly hold comets in your bare hand—”
The driver scoots to hop down and open the coach door, but I wave him off, yanking at the handle. “Look, I have a lot to do today and not a lot of time, so please just spit it out.”
The Mother Superior looks directly at me, and for the first time, she seems—sad. “You were weeping,” she admits. “And, somehow, I knew … you were alone.”
* * *
“When you said you wanted company on errands tonight,” Helga grumbles, “this was not what I had in mind.”
I shift the lockpicks clenched in my teeth as I work on the back door of the Treasury. “Yeah, well, I had to introduce manacles in the bedroom last night, and it wasn’t what I had in mind either, so we’re all broadening our horizons in Rammelbeck. Just keep a lookout.”
Madame Treasury gets this much credit from me, however grudging: This is not an easy lock to pick. I’ll admit, I expected her to cut corners everywhere, but she’s invested in decent-enough hardware that it takes a minute or two before the pins smooth into place and let the cylinder turn.
I ease the door open and peer in. It’s dark and silent inside, with only the faint glow of the half-moon streaming in through the domed glass ceiling to anoint a few surfaces in smears of silver. I slip inside, motion for Helga to follow, and lock the door behind us. (It’s a good lock. It deserves to be used.)
“What are we doing, exactly?” she asks as I wait for my eyes to fully adjust.
“Finding Erwin’s bribe money so we can pay the Green Sleeve. And anything we can use to fix the deal the Ardîms had.” I start picking my way to the empty main floor, listening for any signs of life and coming up empty. It’s well-known the Treasury’s been shut for bed lice, which ought to keep out most intruders. “You’re here because the money’s probably still here and this place is too big to search on my own. Madame got Erwin Friday night and kicked him out Monday morning. Unless she could think of an excuse for a hundred-gilden spike in sales—”
“Five hundred,” Helga corrects. I gawk at her, and she grimaces. “Erwin told me he didn’t spend it all at the Green Sleeve.”
I find myself chewing my thumbnail nearly ragged at that. “Then it’s definitely still here. Madame wouldn’t have time to launder that through the brothel … or … the spintz booth … hm.”
There might be more to the picture than I realized. A bribe that big means very deep pockets. Someone invested in shutting down the port for days, like the prefects were saying earlier. And the structure of the spintz scheme makes for a perfect way to launder money—that exchange tax is impossible to track.
I pull out my message-mirror.
Where do
you usually find
evidence of math
crimes
?
I look around while I wait for Emeric’s answer. “Five hundred gilden … If I were an absurd amount of money, where would I be…?”
There’s a creak and a glimmer of gold. I see a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye.
Fortune’s still with me, even if I can’t hear her, can’t see her, without Truth’s help.
The wheel on the stage slowly rotates through a rogues’ gallery of sexy enterprises until it lands on a wedge labeled OFFICIAL BUSINESS and illustrated with figures making very unsanitary use of a desk.
Looks like our first search should be Madame’s office, then. There’s just one hang-up:
“I wanted to spin the wheel,” I pout.
In response, the wheel wobbles a bit, as if to say, Go on then. I give it a spin. It stops, once more, on OFFICIAL BUSINESS.
I beam. “Thank you for humoring me.”
The wheel creaks over to IN FOR A PENNY.
Now I just need Emeric to tell me where in Madame’s office to look for the math crimes. My mirror pulses with his answer.
In a graph.
They’re always used
for plotting.
I only barely resist the urge to throw the mirror across the room.
No you ass
I mean ACTUAL MONEY
LAUNDERING
“Come on, we’re checking the office first,” I tell Helga, and start climbing one of the double sets of stairs.
Emeric’s follow-up comes almost immediately:
There’s money
laundering? And you
didn’t invite me?
“You know what, ScarMad can have him,” I mutter. I should know better than to ask about financial offenses unless I’m trying to seduce him.
“You say that,” Helga pipes up as we reach the top of the stairs, “but you’re grinning like an absolute buffoon right now.”
We have to go through another lock to get into Madame’s office, but at least the enchantment for the lights still functions, kindling as we enter. Emeric apparently has decided to be helpful in the interim, because when I check my mirror, he’s added:
Recurring large transactions
for generic goods or services
that don’t have a fixed price,
like art.
If you don’t find them
in an obvious ledger,
look for a hidden one.
I write back:
All hypothetical.
In a moment, I get:
Hypothetically, if Madame
has ties to the Grace Unending
after all, Ghendt and Dursyn
would like to know.
The insufferable beanstalk. I didn’t even tell him where I was going tonight. I shove the mirror in my pocket. “We’re looking for a ledger,” I tell Helga.
“I thought we were looking for Erwin’s bribe money.”
“Call it a hunch,” I say, heading for a marble bust, “but I bet where we find one, we’ll find the other. Start with the bookcase. Check all the books for a hollow.”
Helga obliges, sliding a look my way. “Since we’re doing this instead of dinner … can we still … talk?”
My stomach twists as I run my hands over the marble in search of a hidden lever or the like. I fixate on the base of the bust and say tonelessly, “Might as well.”
All I hear is the shuffle of books as Helga pulls them off shelves, one by one, on the other side of the room. “First of all, we weren’t trying to hide it from you—”
“Bullshit,” I say tightly. “Eida came all the way to Dänwik and you let me think she was delusional.”
Helga doesn’t answer for a moment. “You said you wanted to decide when you would be ready to find your family. By that point, we were … pretty sure of who you are, so my options were to wait and let you figure it out on your own or to disrespect the first boundary you’d given me.”
I find a small circular dent in the pedestal. When I press it, though, it ejects a drawer far too small for either a secret ledger or a minor fortune; instead it holds packets of burgundy powder. Madame’s hair dye. I snort in disgust and close the drawer, then move to the desk. “Or you could have told me the truth in Dänwik.”
“Eida did, and you looked like someone cut your puppet strings,” Helga says bluntly. Then her voice softens. “I am sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, or better, I just couldn’t think of … how.”
I skip the papers on the desk for now and kneel to look at its underbelly. There don’t seem to be any signs of a false bottom or a secret panel, not even in the drawers I pull out. “You said ‘we.’ How long did you all know?”
“Jakob and Udo thought there was a chance from day one. After all, you have the name, you’re the right age, and, if you haven’t noticed, you look a hell of a lot like us. I wasn’t so sure. And then when we learned your real story … we knew.” Her voice thickens. “We just didn’t want to scare you away. Not after all—If I’d thought you were ready, I—Vanja, we’ve been wondering what happened to you for thirteen years.”
Her voice breaks on “thirteen.” I stand and finally look at Helga, trying and failing to blink back the tears in my own eyes. “So,” I rasp, “even with—everything—y-you all … still want me?”
There’s a thud as Helga drops a book onto a shelf and stomps over to me. An awkward beat passes, then I half stumble to her, half let myself be yanked into a hug.
“We never stopped wanting you, you absolute donkey of a miracle,” Helga blubbers. “Never.”
I have thought about a moment like this for a long, long time. And now, here, with my older sister saying the words, I know it’s nothing like what I’d dreamed. I can only squeeze my eyes shut and let myself be held.
After another long pause, she lets me go, dabbing at her eyes. “Congrats, I guess. They’re not my terrible brothers; they’re our terrible brothers. Let’s find Erwin’s money and get out of here.”
“Yeah. I, uh. I need a minute.” I teeter over to the sofa next to the bookcase and flop down.
There’s a creak, and I’d swear I hear a jingle.
I shift my weight. There’s no noise, but … there’s not nearly enough padding for the size of the cushion.
“I think I’ve got something,” I tell Helga, sliding off the couch. She starts for me, and I wave a hand. “No, focus on the paperwork on the desk. Last time I was in here, I saw an offer to buy the Treasury. I want to know who she’d sell to when she’s making such a profit here.” I begin feeling around the base of the cushion. “Oh, and I need your advice on something.” I see her perk up from the corner of my eye and say, dour, “It has nothing to do with your bet. Which, by the way, ew.”
“We bet on how fast you would break the Scarlet Maiden’s claim,” she says primly, “not how. I’m just helping with the most-direct option.”
“Zero percent better,” I grouse. “Anyway. I need to figure out how to get Henrik back from Brunne the Huntress.”
Helga whistles low. Not in surprise—I told her about Brunne on the way over—but in apprehension. “That won’t be easy. You could win a favor from her if you best her in a challenge, and there are any number of challenges she’ll take you up on. The problem is she doesn’t accept any she won’t win.”
“Remind me of her backstory again?” My fingertips catch on a latch. I flip it, and the sofa cushion pops up like the lid of an oversized jewelry case. There’s a hollowed-out compartment lined in velvet. Inside, a plain canvas-bound book rests on top of a broad, shallow wooden box.
“Betrothed to a giant against her will, fooled him into letting her ride his special horse. While she was running away, the horse kicked the top off a mountain, and she turned into a god.”
“Poetic.” I flip through the book. There are rows and rows of daily deposits and withdrawals—Madame’s real ledger. I stow it in my satchel and crack open the box. There’s a lot of gold inside. I don’t have time to count all five hundred, but, having once been in possession of a thousand gilden, I’d say the amount looks to be about half. I grab a pillow off the sofa, cut it open with my boot knife, yank out the stuffing, and start shoveling gilden inside. Something turns in my mind as I do: Abbess Sibylle saw me riding through the night. “Do you think Brunne would accept a race?”
Helga lets out a disbelieving laugh. “Yes, but again, because she would definitely win. Special horse and all.”
I think of a black feather in my rucksack, back at the Jolly Magistrate. “Maybe, maybe not. I might know a horse.”
Helga, surprisingly, doesn’t question that. When I look up from shoving money into the pillowcase, I find her frowning at a piece of paper. “Get this,” she says, then reads: “‘Prefects called in. Change in plans. Hold the cash and keep the deliveryman on-site until things cool off. Once he’s handled, we’ll go forward with the sale.’”
“So they weren’t keeping Erwin just to hurt the Green Sleeve.” I sit back on my heels. “He knows the helmsmen of the Grace Unending were given bad directions on purpose. The bribers were going to kill him to shut him up and then take back their money. I hope he’s lying low.”
“He was planning on it, but … I’ll let him know it’s worse than we thought.” Helga keeps flipping through the papers on the desk. “There’re plans here for the Green Sleeve too.”
I finish stuffing the pillowcase with all the gilden, knot it shut, close up the sofa, and go to look at the paperwork. The offer to buy the Treasury is still stuck under the same stack. I pull it out and find Wälftsee Holdings listed as the buyer.
When Emeric spoke earlier with Prefect Ghendt, she said, “… see Holdings.” This could be it, where all those suspicious missing profits are getting laundered. But more importantly … Wälftsee is the lake in Dänwik. The one named for Prince Ludwig’s family. And Emeric said art purchases can be a cover for money laundering.
Just like Ludwig’s beloved gallery.
This isn’t enough to make any hasty decisions on, not yet. But when I compare the letter Helga found to a scrawled note on the offer, the handwriting looks too similar to be chance. Flipping through the ledger, I find regular payments: fifty gilden three times a week to Wälftsee Holdings. All it says in the note beside each is a generic Appraisals.
My eyes fall to the plans for the Green Sleeve, where the name Köhler is printed on the corner of each page. It’s one more reminder of what I have to put to rights in the next few days.
Then, slowly, the troubles twist in my mind—not burdens, but ties. Threads.
For the prefects, justice is an axe that can strike only once. Extraordinary power to be used against extraordinary wrongs. But the prefects are only as good as the laws of the empire; they can only cut back the overgrowth.
They can’t shape the boughs to grow into something new.
Saint Willehalm said justice requires mending, sometimes. A needle, not an axe. Someone to close the tears, who knows how to pass without a trace.
Someone to pull the threads where they need to go.
The Green Sleeve. The sale of the Treasury. The bribe money. The spintz. Each one a stitch waiting to be drawn through the weave.
“I think we’re just about done here,” I tell Helga, “but we need to go settle Erwin’s debt with the Green Sleeve. And then … I have business to discuss with Jenneke.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
OLD FRIENDS
Emeric is still awake when I return to the Jolly Magistrate, sitting up in bed and reading one hefty tome from a new stack on the nightstand. He smiles at me through the obligatory shower of roses as I close the door. “How was the money laundering?”
“Hypothetically, enlightening.” I go to my rucksack and excavate the black feather. “And I have a plan for getting Henrik back tomorrow night. Bad news: It involves horses. Good news: You have to sit it out anyway.”
“If you’re sure,” he says, sounding faintly relieved.
“I am.” I take the feather over to a candle on the nightstand and let it catch the flame. It dissolves into red smoke instantly. “Don’t worry, I’m going to have backup.”
“Is that for who I think it’s for?” Emeric gestures to the smoke trailing through my fingers. I nod, and he smiles. “That’s something. But I’m definitely still going to worry.”
“I know.” I sit at the foot of the bed to start working on my boots. “On a different note, I need to ask you about tax law.”
“O-oh.” Emeric sounds vaguely sucker punched. “You … you do?”
“Well, it may be a bit more complicated than that.” I yank the laces.
“I’m listening,” he says.
“It’s partially tax law”—I kick off one boot and start on the next—“partially property law, maybe some asset forfeiture…” He’s oddly quiet. I glance over, working at my lace knot.
His face is so rigid and composed, for a heartbeat I fear he’s about to be possessed. Then I realize he’s shifted the book over his lap. Specifically.
“Prefect Aspirant Conrad,” I gasp, scandalized. He buries his face in his hands. “You utter reprobate.”
His ears might as well be giving off steam. “I’m sorry, I just—this may have been the start of … a dream I had once.”
