Four Dead Queens(56)

That night, Stessa had followed Iris back to her rooms. She needed to know. She’d wanted to believe that Iris wouldn’t tell anyone about Lyker, but out of all the queens, she’d seemed most married to Queenly Law. She didn’t have to wait long. Corra arrived around half an hour later. Stessa had been initially shocked they’d both broken Queenly Law, but this worked in her favor. She’d confronted Iris the next morning.

Two weeks later, Iris had been murdered.

Stessa ran a hand across her perspiring brow and scowled at the white cream coating her palm. She would have to reapply her makeup when she returned to her rooms. She swirled the water around with her fingertips and watched the cream dissolve.

The door to the baths opened. Stessa sat upright, but didn’t turn around. Not yet.

“You’re late,” she said. “You know I don’t like to be kept waiting.” But her voice was light. Playful.

She turned after a silent moment, annoyed he hadn’t spoken.

“Oh!” she cried when she saw it wasn’t Lyker. “I thought you were someone else.” She scrambled to her bare feet. “What are you doing in here? And—” Before she could ask anything further, she was pushed in the middle of her chest. She soared backward and hit the water with a painful whack.

Stessa’s indignation at being pushed into water while fully clothed was soon overcome with dread. She’d fallen into the deep middle of the pool. She reached for the edge, her arms and legs thrashing.

“Help!” she cried. She tried to stay afloat. “I can’t swim!”

A moment later, she was joined in the water. Stessa held out her arm to be brought to safety, but instead of being pulled to the pool’s ledge, the arm encircled her waist and pulled down.

Stessa let out a cry, but her scream was washed away with bathwater. It tasted like chemicals. She thought of poor Demitrus and tried to spit the water out, but there was only more to meet her open mouth. Her thrashing arms and legs collided with her attacker as she tried to right herself. The attacker’s arms loosened. Momentarily free, she scrambled for the edge. Her black fingernails gripped the golden tiles.

Stessa opened her mouth to scream for any nearby guards, but a hand clamped down from behind. Another arm pulled her backward. The arms were solid, muscled. Stessa was no match.

She thrashed, but with the attacker clinging to her back and her wet, heavy dress, she began to tire. Her head dipped beneath the water, dislodging her crown. She reached down as the crown sank to the bottom of the pool. When she glanced back, she couldn’t distinguish which way was the surface. All she saw was gold. And two eyes watching from above, expression blank.

A lick of flame built within her chest, throat and nose, her arms and legs leaden.

No! No! This can’t be happening. She was too young. Too beautiful. Too loved. With a full life to live. Why would someone do this to her?

As Stessa’s heels hit the tiles at the bottom of the pool, she looked up to the water’s surface and reached out with one hand. The assassin stood on her shoulders, pinning her down. She bucked, trying again to dislodge the weight. But she was weak, her legs collapsing beneath her.

Her last breath burned its way out of her lungs, sending bubbles to the surface. The assassin finally released her, but it was too late.

She wished she could leave Lyker one last message.





CHAPTER TWENTY





Keralie



Mackiel tipped his bowler hat as I climbed out of the incinerator. “Hello, darlin’ Kera. It’s wonderful you could join us.”

I recognized the woman next to him as the informant who worked on the wall to Toria. What was she doing here?

“You knew I was in there the entire time,” I said to Mackiel, keeping the table safely between us.

The woman asked, “Is that true?”

“It’s what I would’ve done.” Mackiel shrugged. “And I thought it would be more fun to smoke her out. It was more fun, wasn’t it?” He grinned.

Talking about my accident had never been about getting Varin to betray me. Mackiel wanted to remind me about my father. He wanted to remind me how I’d hurt the people I loved the most. But why? If he was planning to kill us both, why waste his time?

“What now, Mackiel?” I spread my hands wide. “Shoot us, then shove us into the incinerator to ensure no one finds our bodies?”

Mackiel tapped his lip. “Thank you for the suggestion, but I’m not planning to be rid of you.” Yet, his words promised.

“This isn’t our normal business, Mackiel,” I said.

He brushed invisible lint off his black coat, which I’d stolen for him over a year ago. Was anything actually his? I looked down at my gaudy Ludist outfit. Was anything mine?

“My business,” he said, “is anything and everything lucrative. You know our world, darlin’. You know only the most cunning survive. And in these times, we have to be more ruthless than ever.”

He was right. We had to be ruthless to survive. I had to be ruthless.

“We don’t involve ourselves with quadrant politics and palace laws,” I said, stalling.

“The queens got involved with us first,” he replied. Then this was about the Jetée? I still couldn’t imagine Mackiel, the young boy I’d grown up with, to be the mastermind behind the murders of all four queens.