State of Sorrow (Sorrow #1)(113)

She guided him into the east wing, along to her suite of rooms, through her parlour, her private dining room, and into her bedroom.

“Get over there.” She pointed to a corner. “Stay there.”

Reluctant to turn her back to him, she crossed to her travel case and dragged it around so she could still see him as she threw it open and began to ransack it.

Dresses she’d packed but had no plans to wear, laundry from their time travelling Rhannon that there had been no time to do, books, cosmetics, shoes, papers, all became an untidy mound on the floor as she tore through the trunk.

She pulled a small bag from the bottom, and Luvian recognized it. It was the one she’d had with her the night she fought with Rasmus in Rhylla.

“I never unpacked,” Sorrow said. “After we got back I just … I left it. When we started visiting the towns, I threw what I needed in on top.” She opened the bag and pulled out the flask of Starwater Rasmus had left with her. The contents were still liquid, protected by the darkness, and by the cork she hadn’t removed, clear, oily-looking, when she held it up to the light. Sorrow carried it to her dressing table, taking the lid off a powder compact and pouring in enough to coat the bottom.

“We’ll see what happens when it starts to evaporate,” she said. “And in the meantime, you can tell me exactly who you are, who the man who tried to kill me was, and how you know the Sons of Rhannon.”

“I don’t want you to hate me,” he said.

Sorrow said nothing, ignoring the flare of guilt as his face fell, reading from her silence that it might be too late for that. She didn’t know how she felt about him. A little scared at that moment, and a lot betrayed. But hate? No. She didn’t hate him.

“Just tell me,” she said, though her voice softened a fraction. “We can deal with how I feel afterwards.”

He nodded, his expression still crestfallen, as he sat on her bed without asking. “Well, to begin, my name is Luvian, but it’s not Luvian Fen.” He paused, taking a deep breath before he said, “It’s Luvian Rathbone. And the man who tried to kill you is my brother, Arkady.”

Sorrow stared at Luvian. Rathbone. The family in Prekara who gave Kaspira so much trouble. Who’d given all of Rhannon some trouble or other for at least the last century.

Her grandmother had told her tales of the Rathbones, from when she was a young woman. Stories of smuggling and black markets, knives in backs, and high-stakes gambling behind closed doors. How Andearly Rathbone had broken into a museum in the East Marches and, over the course of two years, had stolen over three million rals’ worth of artwork from storage. At his trial he’d lamented the fact he wouldn’t have been caught at all, had he not gone back to swap a portrait of a young woman for one his new wife had requested instead. He’d made the court laugh when he’d told them he didn’t see the problem, given they were only taking up space in a warehouse, and that he’d installed a whole bunch of new gaslights in his home to best showcase them. The dowager had smiled faintly as she’d told the story, and Sorrow had suspected her grandmother had more than a small crush on Andearly Rathbone.

He’d said in Ceridog that his grandfather had been a lover of art. He hadn’t lied about that, then.

But they weren’t all charming rogues. Jeraphim Rathbone – who Sorrow realized must be Luvian’s father – had been sentenced to his second term in prison six months ago, for almost beating to death two members of the Decorum Ward. Sorrow remembered because Kaspira had mentioned it at the first Jedenvat meeting Sorrow had attended, Meeren Vine waiting outside, calling for the blood of all the Rathbones. Sorrow had privately thought it was about time the Ward had a taste of their own medicine, but was wise enough to keep her mouth shut.

Sorrow shook her head. “You’re a Rathbone?”

He looked a little cross. “Yes, all right. I know I don’t fit the profile.”

He really didn’t. Nothing about her articulate, urbane advisor suggested it. The Rathbones were muscled brutes, by all accounts, with a punch-now-ask-questions-later approach to problem-solving. No one could ever accuse Luvian, who was never happier than when verbally sparring, of being that. Thugs, liars, thieves, pickpockets and fences, an entire family of criminals, who, with Jeraphim indefinitely jailed, were headed by…

“Your mother is Beata Rathbone,” Sorrow said. Rumour had it Jeraphim was not the one to administer the beatings, but had taken the fall for his wife, who wasn’t born a Rathbone, but embraced her new name vigorously. The whispers Sorrow had heard from Irris were that Jeraphim offered to take the fall, for the respite a spell in prison would offer him from the formidable matriarch.

“Yes. That’s Mummy.”

“And your brothers are—”

“Lawton, Sumner, Arkady. Then me.”

“Arkady tried to kill me?”

Luvian’s cheeks darkened, and he nodded. “I expect it was him who broke into your room in the North Marches too.”

Sorrow swallowed, her fists clenching, before she continued. “Were Lawton and Sumner with him that day in Prekara?”

“Sumner is in prison. Murder. But Lawton was probably there. He usually does what Arkady tells him to. Most people do; he’s very, ah … persuasive.”

“Did you know they were going to be there?”