Division of the Marked (The Marked Series) (18 page)

“What is your name, child?” she asked. Bray did not much like being called a child—she was fourteen years old, thank you very much—but she answered nonetheless. “Bray Marron.”

“Very pleased to meet you, Bray Marron. I am Vindella Chassel,” the woman said. “And this,” she gestured to the man who had given up his seat, “is Quade Asher.” Quade Asher inclined his head. He was much younger than Mrs. Chassel, perhaps in his mid-thirties. He had fair skin, dark glittering eyes, and a prominent, slender nose.
 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Bray said.
 

Mrs. Chassel extracted a handkerchief and dabbed at her face. “Thank you dear, but I think we both know it wasn’t a loss. Ambrone was
stolen
from me. That is why I wanted to speak to you. I had hoped you could tell me everything you saw in that chamber. Perhaps there was some clue?”
 

Her eyes filled with such hope, it made Bray’s heart ache. She frowned and tried to summon the scene back to her mind. “There was the sword,” she said, “and the…I mean, him—” Bray narrowly avoided using the word ‘body,’ which she thought might be insensitive “—and there were crates and a lot of broken glass on the floor…”

“Broken glass?” Quade asked, speaking for the first time. His voice took Bray by surprise, his accent quite like her own; rough and musical and decidedly working-class. “Was there a broken window to account for it?”
 

“There were no windows,” Bray said. “So it was quite dark.” She added this to excuse her unhelpfully minimalistic description.
 

Mrs. Chassel clasped her eyes on Quade. “Do you have a theory?”

“Well…the glass could have already been there…” he mused.
 

“Don’t you two keep your artifacts in glass containers?” Mrs. Chassel asked.
 

“Aye,” Quade said, “but I can’t think how that would relate. We’ve never found anything worth stealing, let alone killing for.”

He turned back to Bray and she felt her head spin more intensely. He was a pleasant man to look at. “I apologize, but I need to ask you a grim question.” His eyes flickered to Mrs. Chassel sympathetically. “Was there blood on the ground beneath his body?”

Bray felt sick, but she tried to summon that dark room to her mind once again. There was blood on his clothes, she remembered that well, but she did not recall any blood on the ground. “No, I don’t think so.”
 

“What does that mean, Quade?” Mrs. Chassel asked.

“I imagine it means that he was not killed in that room—that his body was merely hidden there. It also likely means that the glass and anything else in that chamber were unrelated.”
 

Mrs. Chassel sighed, her shoulders slumped.
 

Quade knelt and unleashed the full power of his gaze on Mrs. Chassel, gripping her hand with his own. “I will go speak to Dolla Adder. I promise you, Vindella, I will not let this rest until your husband, my friend, is avenged.”

He rose and strode away, back to the noise of the gathering within the hall. Mrs. Chassel watched him go.

“He and my husband shared a love of old things and dirt. They’ve spent the last fifteen years together, searching for treasure and finding only bits of garbage. Of course, as Quade will always remind me, even garbage has value if it’s old enough.”

“He wanted to find all of those magical things of legend too?” Bray asked. “Like the Scimitar of Amarra and the Seve Tapestry?”
 

Mrs. Chassel laughed. “Who, Quade?” She returned her handkerchief to her handbag. “No, he is too much a realist to believe in such things. He just loves history, discovering the way people lived before us. My husband was the dreamer.” A fond expression crossed her face.

“So you don’t think any of it is real?” Bray asked. How could she follow her husband around the world for so many years, if she did not think the things he sought existed?

“Ambrone looked his whole life and found nothing extraordinary. No, they are not real. But it made him happy to think that they were.”

“Who is Dolla Adder?” Bray asked.

“She’s a Chiona, an expert in criminology. She’s here for the funeral, but most of the time she travels around to crime scenes all over Trinitas. Quade is hoping she’ll look into my husband’s murder.”

“I’d like to help if I can,” Bray said, giving Mrs. Chassel an earnest look.

“That is sweet, dear. But what more can you do?”
 

Bray didn’t have an answer for this, but she would not be deterred.
 

“Do many people study criminology?” she asked.

“Only Dolla, as far as I know,” Mrs. Chassel said. She gave Bray a piercing look. “You aren’t considering it yourself, are you? You are a young, beautiful girl. Do something nice with your life. You don’t want to spend the rest of your days with dead bodies, do you?”
 

“If it meant I could help people?” Bray asked herself aloud. “Yes, I think I could do that. Bad people should be stopped.”

“And if one of those bad people puts a stop to you?”

“They couldn’t touch me,” Bray answered, a fire in her eyes, her voice ringing with confidence.

Hours later, Bray walked with her feet in the water, her yellow dress hiked to the knee, and stared out at the setting sun. The sky was afire with pinks, reds, and oranges, and they cast their hues upon the sea beneath. The water rushed out, burying her feet in white sand and rising above her ankles. Moments later, the tide pulled back, tugging the sand with it and causing her feet to sink still deeper.
 

Bray’s mind sparked with newly formed resolution. The Chisanta could study and do as they liked, and she would work to become a defender of the innocent and a bane to the wicked. The determination coursed through her like a drug. Little felt better in life than a sense of purpose.

Chasku sits across these waters,
Bray thought. Perhaps the seawater she touched would turn round and head north, to the Cape of Cosanta and to Yarrow. Then again, perhaps it would not.

Yarrow ran his ink-stained finger along the script-covered parchment and mumbled aloud to himself. He dipped his pen in the inkwell, tapped it several times, and began to scribble a note on a second, fresh sheaf of paper.
 

“Do you ever leave the library?” a drawling voice asked from behind him.

Without looking up, still scratching at the parchment, Yarrow said, “I’m surprised you know what a library is, let alone where to find one.”

Arlow laughed, sat down, and crossed his legs at the ankle. “We can’t all be as bookish as you. Or as obsessive.”
 

“The answer may be in here, Arlow,” Yarrow said, a crease forming between his dark, thick brows.
 

“Yes, but it may not as well.” Arlow reached for a book from Yarrow’s collection, flipped it open, and read: “‘Man will reach for the heavens only when his thrust exceeds his drag…All that exists has ever existed…1,729; 4,104; 13,832.’” Arlow flipped a page. “And then it’s just names! ‘Jacus Maynar of the Morse Forest, Chiona; Kenrra Melva of Porramore, Cosanta; Seo-Song of Bykju…’” Arlow threw the book down carelessly. “Utter nonsense. I will never understand how you can read this stuff without going as mental as the Fifths themselves.”

Yarrow set his pen down and rolled his shoulders, a vain attempt to alleviate the ever-present knot in his back. He brushed at the long strands of hair that had worked their way free of his braid.
 

“No Chisanta has studied the original transcripts of the Fifth since Aldron Chapleton.” Yarrow gestured to the sheaf of parchment before him. “And that was two hundred years ago. We can’t continue to rely on second- and third-hand reports that are incomplete and outdated. Not with so much amiss, so much at stake.”
 

Yarrow had spent the better part of ten years studying the transcripts of the Fifth and had still barely scratched the surface, so dense were the records.

“Well, you’ll need to give it a rest tonight. We are going to the city to celebrate,” Arlow said.

“Da Un Marcu isn’t until tomorrow, and it hasn’t been much of a cause for celebration of late,” Yarrow said as he began to jot another note. Arlow reached across the table and grabbed the pen from his hand, smiling devilishly.

“Not Da Un Marcu,” Arlow said. “We’re celebrating something else.”

“What then?” Yarrow asked.

“Guess,” Arlow said, plainly in high spirits.
 

Yarrow offered his friend an exasperated expression. “You’ve finally received your first gift?”

Arlow clicked his tongue in mock disapproval. “Now, Yarrow. Just because you haven’t guessed my gift yet, doesn’t mean I haven’t got one.”
 

Yarrow smiled. “I do have to hand it to you, I’ve never met a man who could take a game of ‘guess’ to such extremes. That one has been going on for over a decade.”

“This should be easier, especially given your giant brain,” Arlow said. Yarrow hadn’t felt Arlow this pleased with himself in years. The small ball that was Arlow’s emotions in Yarrow’s mind whistled with joy. Just focusing on his friend’s feelings made his own heart lighter. He must have just gotten the thing he most wanted.

“You’re going to Accord?”
 

Arlow beamed. “To advise the King himself!”

Yarrow’s tired face broke into a genuine smile. “Well done, my friend,” he said and shook Arlow’s hand heartily.
 

“I’m meant to leave tomorrow,” Arlow said.

“So soon?”
 

Arlow was his oldest friend—how strange it would be to lose him.

“Yes, which is why we are going to celebrate. Go get changed, you look a mess.”

Yarrow nodded and packed away his books and notes carefully while Arlow waited, fists in pockets, with obvious impatience. “I’ll meet you at the entrance in twenty minutes,” he said at last.
 

He sprung to his feet and began to whistle a jaunty tune as he strolled to the exit.

“And Yarrow?” he called over his shoulder from the doorway.

“Yes?”

“Wash the ink from your hands for once, will you?”
 

Yarrow changed into a freshly pressed set of blue robes, scrubbed his hands white in the basin, and even took the measure of shaving the stubble from his face. He put on his best coat, exchanged his slippers for walking boots, and donned his top hat.

He had halfway made it to the door before he patted his pockets and realized he had forgotten something. He crossed back to his bedside table, opened the drawer, and shifted through the items until his hand clasped the plain-hued handle of his father’s pocket knife, the thing he never left home without. Just beneath it was his mother’s handkerchief wrapped around a lock of copper hair. Three treasures from a previous life—or so it felt.

His fingers lingered on the stack of envelopes within; a decade’s worth of correspondence with his family. Most of the letters were from his sister Ree, though even her messages had come less and less frequently as the years passed. Which was just fine. He did not need a note to know that they were well and safe.