Splintered Path (Shattered World Book 4), page 19
The kettle began, softly, to wail, and Viv hurriedly took it off the stovetop, switching off the burner. She looked around for Gilbert to ask him where the mugs were, and realised belatedly that she hadn’t seen him for at least the last ten minutes.
“Sugar!” swore Viv. She had lost Gilbert. She set the kettle on the cold side of the stove and padded back out of the kitchen and into the dim hallway, searching for any sight or sound of movement that might tell her where he had gone.
She had travelled nearly the entire length of the hallway that led toward the front of the manor when she saw the straight edges of an open doorway in shadow up ahead. Her stomach knotted. It was the little room where Gorman had laid out Jonno’s body for visitors and passing Seelie sprites. Gilbert shouldn’t be in there.
Viv dashed down the hallway and toward that door, but she was too late. As she caught herself against the doorway, breathing too fast, she could already see that the room was occupied.
A shadow hovered over the body, as anguished and still as any ghost. It was Gilbert, his tanned face so pale in the dusky room that it was almost pale yellow, and his eyes wide and uncomprehending. He stared down at his son’s severed face with the most terrible expression of anguish that Viv had ever seen, and his hand reached out as if to touch the blossom-shrouded cheek of the face in front of him. The food basket, forgotten, hung limply from his fingers.
Viv forced herself out of her stupor, and darted forward to catch his hand before he could touch the waxy cold cheek. “Come away from here,” she said to him impulsively. “You shouldn’t be looking at this. Gorman is taking care of it; he’s arranged everything so beautifully.”
“I don’t understand,” said Gilbert, and his hand shook in hers. His body shook, too, and she didn’t think he had blinked since she first saw him, his eyes still fixed in horror.
Gilbert might not mentally remember his son, or that he had had a son at all, but his body and his heart obviously remembered only too well.
“Don’t look,” Viv said gently, leading him away and toward the door.
“It’s a dream,” murmured Gilbert, trailing behind her without trying to resist. “Or maybe I’m really dead. Maybe we’re all dead. He shouldn’t be dead.”
“You’re not dead,” Viv told him. “I’m not dead, either. Come on; let’s get you back in your room.”
She had barely got him to the door—his frame, so large and broad, seemed oddly fragile tonight, and he trembled the entire way there—when the butler appeared, his face white and his eyebrows pinched together. His eyes swept over Gilbert, from feet to trembling hand with the basket still clutched in it, and then to his pale face.
There was a very slight tremble in Gorman’s voice when he said, “Master, you shouldn’t be out of bed!”
“I’ve had a bad dream, Gorman,” said Gilbert, still shivering. He shuffled forward until he was in front of Gorman like a little child, and caught hold of the older man’s cuff. “Can you get me something warm? I feel as though my magic has frozen.”
Gorman’s eyes met Viv’s over his master’s shoulder. “I have something waiting in your room, sir,” he said.
She wasn’t surprised when he didn’t try to reason with Gilbert about dreams or magic; the sooner that Gilbert was away from the pieces of his dead son and in a safe, warm place, the better. Viv felt at that moment as though she would quite like to have a warm room and a Gorman to fetch her something nice to eat, too.
Chapter 11
It’s Never Too Late
Viv found that she still didn’t like having Forex in the house when it was someone else’s house. Now that she had been at the Tea House for a couple of months, she didn’t care to live elsewhere, either. After her night’s adventures with Gilbert and the lack of sleep involved therein, she also had less patience to deal with it.
She was already annoyed when she went downstairs for breakfast, and was further annoyed to find that Jasper was not at breakfast—meaning that she was stuck with the two Forex agents again. He had been entirely unreachable yesterday afternoon, too, leaving Viv to eat dinner with the agents alone.
Viv had the sneaking, irritated suspicion that Jasper could be using her as a target to distract the agents so that he could get some time to himself. What he was doing with that time was anyone’s guess. It was too late and too many words overheard to think that Jasper was really concerned with her safety—either solely or tangentially.
Even the sight of Gorman’s friendly, relieved face when he turned stiffly from serving the Forex agents to Viv wasn’t the comfort that it might normally have been. There was still too much from last night playing over in her head, and she was too tired to be able to think about it properly. She did know that she couldn’t trust Jasper fully while he was with the agents, and that made her even more irritated, because he was the one who had brought her here, after all. It was doubly wrong of him to put her in danger and be a source of danger himself.
It made it very hard for her to try to bring up the memory stick that Luca had taken from the Sponsor a few weeks ago—the memory stick that was, if she wasn’t very mistaken, something that had been stolen from this very manor. She didn’t know whether it had all of Gilbert’s memories on it, or just the memories of his research, but either way she wasn’t sure it was something she could safely bring up with Jasper while she didn’t know exactly what he might do with it.
Whatever it was, it had been stolen by way of blackmail. If it was all of Gilbert’s memories, as she thought it might be, she didn’t think she could trust that Jasper would return them to him and not give the memory stick to the Forex agents—or sell it to them. If it was just the memories of Gilbert’s research, she was now certain that Jasper would sell or take it to the agents.
Viv took a cup of tea from Gorman, not so deep in her thoughts that she forgot to smile and say thank you, and then unfortunately caught the eye of the agent who was already staring at her when Gorman’s conveniently rotund middle ceased to block him from her view.
“I saw you out in the hallways last night,” said the agent, without preamble, his eyes still fixed on her.
“No, you didn’t,” Viv said, with such immediate and certain authority that the agent deflated just slightly, and she realised that he hadn’t, actually. She meant that it wasn’t possible for him to have seen her, because she had hidden in the treehouse before they could get within sight of her; for the agent, it would seem like a very confident and natural denial that she had been out at all last night.
“Who was playing around in the upper levels while we were trying to do our job, then?” the second agent said, spearing eggs and transferring only half of them from the serving dish due to his vigour.
“You’re getting yolk on the table,” Viv said, in deep disapproval. It was a beautiful myrtle table with giant burls in the middle of it; it should be looked after, not dripped on by egg yolks.
This managed to deflate the second agent as well, but they both kept looking at her across the table until she felt as though she was so stretched tight that she might hurl the big, wooden salt and pepper shakers at them.
Salt was a deterrent for some behindkind, Luca had told her. The Forex agents weren’t technically behindkind, but she wouldn’t be surprised if salt worked on them as well—in terms of personality, they were close enough to a large type of slug.
By the time breakfast was over, Viv’s nerves were almost entirely raw. She lingered behind the agents at the table to ask Gorman how Gilbert was doing, and encountered such a guarded look from the butler that with her present sensitivity, she felt almost physically stung. Since last night, something had obviously happened to make him not trust her. And that felt deeply unfair when the only really deceptive person in the manor was Jasper. Even the Forex Agents weren’t really trying to hide what they were up to; they simply expected everyone to keep out of their way Or Else.
“Never mind,” she said tightly. “Just keep him out of the way of the agents. They’re doing a lot of late-night exploring, and they’re really interested in his treehouse, for some reason. Where’s Jasper?”
Gorman hesitated, and she thought for a moment he was going to explain, or perhaps apologise. At last he simply said, “Master Jasper asked for breakfast to be served to him in the garden this morning. Perhaps he will still be there.”
Jasper was still in the garden. And, unlike the Tea House garden, which was never exactly the same size and had paths that didn’t always lead to the same places, the manor garden was both relatively easy to get around, and easy to see across. Jasper had taken a seat on a garden bench that had a marble side-table attached to it, upon which a breakfast had been placed and then eaten. He was in the process of drinking his tea when Viv approached him.
She thought he sighed.
“Oh good,” she said grimly. “I was hoping I’d find you alone.”
That seemed to mildly worry Jasper, which amused her.
“There are no bugs out here, are there?” she asked.
“Not of the listening kind,” Jasper said. “You’re safe to say whatever you would like.”
“Even better,” Viv said, with an insincere smile. “Why are you throwing me to the agents? If you were trying to sneak around behind their backs and do something, it would seem worthwhile, but you’re out here having tea in the garden.”
“I believe I removed myself from the manor; I certainly didn’t throw you to anyone,” Jasper said mildly.
“One day, someone is going to punch you in the nose and when you ask why they did it, they’re going to tell you that they had no intention of punching you, and that you just walked into their fist,” said Viv.
Jasper bit his lip as though trying to control his emotions. He then took a sip of his tea and asked, “Is it likely to be you? If so, thank you for the advance warning; I’ll bear it in mind. What is it you came to ask, Viv?”
If Jasper was inclined to be what she could only take as appreciative and amused at threats to punch him in the nose, blunt questioning was probably the best way to go.
“Why is Forex here?” she asked him. They had discussed it before, but they had done so while she was under the impression that he was guessing as much as she was. “Really. Did they pay Luca to kill Jonno? I can’t understand why they’re still hanging around, if they did.”
She saw Jasper’s nostrils narrow as he drew in a long, deep breath through his nose, and that pleased her. She wanted him off-balance. Maybe he would be more honest. And Viv needed to know that he was going to be honest with her if she was to consider telling him what she suspected.
“You should do something about your habit of asking inconvenient questions,” Jasper said at last. “I’m not sure why you’ve suddenly determined that I am the font of all knowledge. I’m not going to answer the latter, but as for the former, Forex doesn’t tell me why they do things. They’re not bound to consult me on their actions. They might be here for any number of reasons.”
He still wasn’t going to be honest, then.
“They might,” Viv said. “But they’re very interested in me, and they don’t seem to be very interested in who killed Jonno—or who paid for it to happen. It seems to me that they’re also a lot more interested in Gilbert than in Jonno’s death.”
“Perhaps they hope he’ll invest in their company,” Jasper said lightly. “Gilbert has extremely deep pockets, and if his faculties really are as compromised as they seem, it would probably be easy to encourage him to lay out a decent sum in support.”
“Do they know that I’m part selkie?” asked Viv, fairly daring him to lie. She already knew that the agents were here to find Gilbert’s research, and that Jasper was helping them; now she knew that he was going to continue to lie about it to her.
“They no doubt suspect it,” he said, without taking the bait. “And since I’d much rather they weren’t able to confirm it, may I suggest that you cease walking around the manor at all hours of the night?”
“I haven’t been walking around the manor in the dark for the sheer joy of it,” protested Viv. “I’m certainly not trying to find myself alone with them; you’re the one who threw me to them for breakfast the other morning, and today!”
Jasper cleared his throat and glanced away.
“Keep out of their way as much as you can,” he said finally. “If it comes out, then it comes out. But I don’t see why we should give them so much information.”
Viv drew in a breath. She didn’t think that Jasper was deliberately putting her in harm’s way, as such. But she certainly couldn’t trust him. She finally sat down and said, almost wistfully, “This is all getting…messy.”
“Messier than before,” Jasper agreed, and she heard the sigh in his breath.
“I’m surprised you didn’t stop Forex from butting in, then,” she said. “Anyone would think that you were their employee instead of their free-lancer.”
She chanced a glance sideways as she said it, and saw the way his face stiffened, his lips pressing in. Jasper’s own eyes flicked over and caught her at it, and he shut his eyes for a brief moment.
“In this particular case, think of me as their employee,” he said. “Amongst my acquaintances, I number the owner of Forex—a human by the name of Chris. I was introduced to him while here at the manor some years ago.”
He hesitated, and Viv found that she already knew what he was hesitating to say. “He was your other benefactor,” she said. There was a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. How deep exactly did Jasper’s connections with Forex go? “And you feel like you owe him something.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Jasper said, with a faintly bitter smile. “At the very least, when I’m asked for something very specific, once in a while, I can’t say no.”
That worried Viv. “Does that mean that if they asked you to let them hire me instead, you’d let them?” she asked, and she was surprised at how flat her voice sounded.
“Absolutely not,” he said, without any hesitation at all, and Viv remembered her own instinctive, swift response to the Forex agents that morning. Jasper was for once being completely honest, and she would very much like to know why, exactly, he had no thought of selling off—or getting rid—of her. There was a very brief moment where she had the feeling that he had crystallised before he added, “You’re far too valuable to me, and the Tea House.”
It likely wasn’t that reason, then, said a jaded part of Viv.
“So they’re going to stay here until they find what it is they’re looking for?” she said, returning the subject to what it had been. She wished that the Forex agents would stop asking so many questions, if that was the case.
“Officially, they’re staying until they have someone they can arrest for the murder of the son of their ally and greatest benefactor,” said Jasper, sipping his tea again.
“They already know who did it,” Viv said. She was also quite certain that the Forex agents would not only take Luca into custody for however long it took them to find what they were looking for, but that they would also question Luca in a way that she was not prepared to expose him to.
“I think you’ll find that there’s still no official suspect,” murmured Jasper. He put his teacup down again with the faintest slither of sound. “And as soon as certain elements are cleared up as regards effects that Gilbert may or may not have left behind after the unfortunate state of mind, no doubt the agents will be more helpful in the investigation.”
Well, that was the closest to the truth he had gotten since she sat down next to him, thought Viv. She found, with a sudden breath of fear, that Jasper was now gazing at her with such direct attention that it felt as though he could see straight through to her soul.
“Viv,” he said softly. “What exactly do you know?”
“Not very much!” she replied, with some asperity. He had a great deal of cheek to withhold information from her in a place that made it dangerous not to know a great deal more than she had known going into it, and then to use that soft, dangerous tone of voice on her. “Because you haven’t told me very much! In fact, you’ve done your best to tell me nothing at all!”
Surprise flashed across his face, and then bright, unfeigned amusement. “I can’t help thinking that there’s more precedent for an employer to keep information from an employee than the other way around!” he protested. The amusement faded, and he said, “I wish you would trust me a little bit more, Viv. You did when the agents caught you in the hallway, and I think I proved myself to you then, even if you didn’t grasp the full situation.”
“You want me to trust you, but you’re not going to tell me what what’s going on?” said Viv, more slowly. “You want me to be ready to listen to whatever you whisper in my ear at any moment, and obey without question?”
“It would make things a great deal easier,” he said, as ruefully as he might if he knew that there was very little chance of Viv actually doing so. He turned to face her properly, his arm extending naturally across the back of the bench as he did so, and his fingers brushed the sleeve of her cardigan. It felt like an unconscious hand outstretched in appeal that he couldn’t consciously offer. “And it did turn out well, after all!”
“That doesn’t work for me,” she said. “I don’t like not knowing if you’re going to turn up or not, and I don’t like being treated like I’m your bit of fun around agents that already feel free to take advantage of me in other ways.”
Jasper made what was very close to a scoffing noise, and sat back, his arm withdrawing with him. “I suppose it was better to be working with an unstable murderer who treated you as though you were his jailer and a potential victim.”
“You’re just cranky because he hit you on the head and escaped,” Viv remarked. Luca had treated her in that way at first—and it was exactly what she had been. It had been some time since he had become someone she trusted almost completely. Jasper was very far from being that sort of person.
