“Out! Out! Disrespecting our hospitality! Get thee gone!”

  Three

  LILIATH HAD NEVER BEEN TO LUTACE, BUT THE PRINCIPAL city of Sarance was not so very different from Cadenz, the chief metropolis of Ystara. Lutace also had a river winding through it—the Leire—though it was not so broad as the Gosse, and the city was mostly flat, lacking the hills of Cadenz.

  Lutace did have a much taller and more extensive city wall than the Ystaran city. It was pale yellow brick only a few hundred years old, rather than the gray stone of earlier times. But either the city or royal authorities, or both, had become lax about enforcing the cleared areas necessary for proper defense, with a great sprawl of houses and huts and shacks and shanties built right up to the city wall and over it.

  One of the Night Crew’s many refuges and hideouts was in the Refuser’s Quarter, an extensive slum that began in the dock and warehouse district and flowed over the southwestern city wall to spread out into what had been countryside a generation or two before. Bisc’s people had taken over two houses that straddled the wall, the top stories leaning over into each other so it was only a hop and a jump from the attic window of the house outside the wall to the attic window of the one on the inside.

  Liliath had commandeered the largest chamber of the city-side house for her own use. Stretching across the entire fifth floor, part of it was temporarily set up as an iconer’s studio, with a long workbench situated against the biggest of the dormer windows, for the natural light. Though she did not anticipate staying in the house very long, Liliath had work to do, restoring icons that had suffered a little during her long sleep, particularly those that she had retrieved from the secret caches left by her followers when they first came to Lutace. Angels usually responded better to bright, clean representations.

  A great four-poster bed with cloth of gold brocaded curtains occupied the other corner of the large chamber. The bed was fit for a queen and had, in fact, been a wedding gift to some princess of a century or so ago, who had died before the nuptials. It had been stolen from one of the minor, mostly unused royal hunting lodges outside the city, cleaned and finished with a new feather mattress and fine bedclothes. Of course, Liliath knew Bisc had procured such an imposing bed because he hoped to share it with her, but she had not yet chosen to let him do so. The greater the anticipation, the more he would feel under her sway.

  Liliath was at the workbench, but she was not restoring an icon. Instead, she took out the one made by Brother Delfon again and leaned close to it, her slim fingers touching the gilded surface. She had started to summon Foraziel twice since she had left the temple of Saint Marguerite, but on both occasions had been interrupted, and the angel had taken advantage of her concentration being broken, proving unexpectedly recalcitrant and elusive.

  So now she had to summon the angel in the city, where there were a great many more practitioners of angelic magic, many more angels actively summoned and present in the mortal world, and so a much greater risk of discovery, or curiosity. Liliath was not concerned with this as such, as she was well able to deal with the common run of angels, should some mage send one to investigate. But there was a small risk that Cardinal Duplessis herself might be sufficiently alarmed to summon Ashalael. In the Archangel’s own country, Ashalael would find Liliath in an instant, and she would be quickly overcome.

  But Liliath considered the chance of this to be very small, because she had learned the current Cardinal who held the great icon of Ashalael was in her late forties but looked sixty or more, already greatly aged by her many summonings. She would not summon Ashalael lightly, probably not at all, save at great need. Liliath felt she could conduct her small workings and deceptions without attracting the Cardinal’s attention.

  Of course, there were other risks. While the Cardinal might not dare to summon the patron Archangel of Sarance, there was a chance that more earthly agents might stumble upon Liliath, and she had not yet established a suitable identity to hide who she really was. If the Cardinal’s Pursuivants—as Her Eminence’s soldiers and secret agents were called—found Liliath now, in a safe house of the Night King, she would be hard put to escape without revealing her true identity. The process of becoming someone else, a sleight of hand to misdirect merely human attention, had already begun. But it was not yet done.

  Despite the risk, Liliath told herself, she had to summon Foraziel. She could not bear to remain in ignorance of the names and locations of the four candidates.

  Once again she frowned at the thought of there being only four but, as quickly, smoothed her forehead, knowing she must not dwell on this setback.

  Keeping her fingertips on the icon, Liliath began the summoning. She did not rely on sheer strength of will to force an immediate connection as she usually did, but built the call slowly and more surreptitiously, as she had been taught long ago when she was a precocious child fawned on by her teachers in the temple and first called the Maid of Ellanda.

  Foraziel, finder of lost things.

  Foraziel, searcher of secrets.

  Foraziel, Foraziel, come to my aid.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, Liliath felt the angel’s presence draw near. The entity was suspicious, not wanting to be summoned, but she could not ignore the thread of power that flowed from Liliath to icon to the heavens where the angels dwelled.

  Then he was caught. Trapped by Liliath’s fierce, concentrated will.

  Foraziel. You will do my bidding. There are four in Lutace who bear the true essence of Palleniel within them. I must know their names and stations and where they are—

  I cannot. It is forbidden. I—

  You can. You must. If you fail, or retreat from the world before this task is done, the next summoning will be for your unmaking.

  Liliath felt the shock and surprise of the angel as she realized Liliath spoke truly. Most angels were not aware their unmaking was even possible, but Foraziel did not doubt it now, unable to escape the shivering, crystal spear that was Liliath’s will. She did not know if any other mage had ever discovered that it was possible to end angels, and more.

  Given it was always such a surprise to them, she doubted it.

  Possibly the greater angels knew. Liliath was not absolutely sure if she could extinguish one of them, and did not wish to risk it. Even unmaking one of the Seraphim or Cherubim was a mighty task, though she had done it numerous times, taking their power into herself. First to become more than human, then to augment certain skills, and then several times more to armor herself against the effects of time, before her long not-quite death.

  I obey, as I must. It is within my scope. Within the span of a single hour, I shall return with the knowledge you require.

  “Go, then, and do not fail me,” said Liliath aloud, her voice harsh and strong.

  There was a rush of wings, but as Foraziel was still present in the world, Liliath kept her fingers on the icon, so he should have no chance to slip away without finishing the task. She could dimly feel the angel flitting over the city, now here, now there, as he sought out the four Liliath had specified.

  The next hour was spent in pleasant imaginings of the future. Though Liliath was sure to keep her fingers upon the icon, she was almost surprised when she felt Foraziel’s unseen presence, her mind absent elsewhere.

  I return. I have found what you seek.

  Liliath roused herself, bent her will, placed a sheet of thick, linen-rich paper next to the icon.

  “Write their names!”

  A tiny spark flared on the paper and began to move, leaving a blackened trail, slowly forming the letter “S” in a fine hand. Liliath hissed with impatience and felt Foraziel quail. The angel wrote faster, burning through the paper in his haste, having to quickly blot the tiny flames with unseen hands or the brush of wings or however it was angels interacted with the physical world. Still, the words were clear, whether the letters formed of burnt holes or blackened lines.

  - Simeon MacNeel. A student of medicine, at the Hospital of Saint Jerahibim the Calm.

  - Agnez Descaray. A cadet of the Queen’s Musketeers.

  - Henri Dupallidin. A clerk in the service of the Cardinal.

  - Dorotea Imsel. An icon-maker, student at the Belhalle.

  Release me, begged Foraziel.

  For a moment, a look of cruel exasperation flashed across Liliath’s face. She thought of punishment, extinguishment, absorption. But any of these would certainly alert angels both manifested here and in the heavens, and their human masters. It was tempting, but not sensible.

  “Go,” she said, waving her hand in dismissal.

  After the departure of Foraziel, Liliath put the angel’s icon into one of the drawers of the bureau next to her worktable. There were many more icons in the drawer, dozens of them, only a small proportion of the items she had carried in the special interior pockets of her habit, in the Saint’s Tomb.

  Liliath studied the icons, then slowly shut and locked the drawer. She was tempted, as always, to summon angels merely to test her power over them, to relish their inability to refuse her commands. To test once more that she alone in all the world could remain unaffected by her use of angelic powers, drawing on the angels she had taken into herself rather than her own flesh and blood.

  She would remain young and beautiful forever, no matter what she did.

  A triple knock, pause, and single knock again at the door alerted her to the return of Biscaray. He was eager to do anything she asked and had put the entire Night Crew at her service: all the thieves, beggars, toshers, scarlatans, goods fishers, night filchers, brawlers, upside folk, and roof crawlers of Lutace. Her healing of him had made him a true believer. He had no doubt Liliath would lead his people back to Ystara. He was clearly also hoping that there he might wield real power, out of the shadows. She suspected he dreamed of becoming king in fact, imagining himself by her side as the new ruler of Ystara.

  Only Bisc and the dozen Refusers who had been at the Temple of Saint Marguerite with him knew who Liliath really was. They had been sworn to secrecy and promised healing and riches from Liliath in return, as well as threats from Bisc that he would kill them if they talked. Even so, they remained a potential threat, so they had been kept close. None had returned to their previous criminal activities; all worked in the wall house now.

  “Enter,” said Liliath. She stood up from her bench and smoothed down her tunic and breeches. Both were of dark burgundy satin, the tunic cut low, but she wore a wide collar of fine white lace trimmed with tiny diamonds that made it both more modest and more alluring, and the breeches high enough to show her ankles, her gold-heeled shoes accentuating the effect. Only a few icon rings remained on her hands, with another icon pinned to her dress as a brooch. Her long dark hair was gathered under a lace cap, also adorned with tiny diamonds.

  The clothes had been bought with funds hidden long ago, like most of the icons in her bureau, for Liliath’s return. Though she had not anticipated her sleep would be quite so extensive, or that the refugee Ystarans would become a shunned underclass, the first generation of her followers had carried out her orders to the letter.

  Biscaray had personally retrieved the contents of the two most important caches. She had allowed him to see what was inside the small chests he had brought back, astounding him with the wealth her order had brought out, in icons and gems, and coins, the fabulously heavy “double dolphin” gold nobles of Ystara.

  One particular treasure from the main cache had absolutely staggered Biscaray. He’d recognized it at once, both for its almost incalculable worth and because it had been famously stolen from Queen Anne IV of Sarance one hundred and thirty-eight years before: a magnificent jeweled necklace of twelve icons known as the Queen’s Collar, or in the folk stories that had sprung up about its theft as the Twelve Diamond Icons, as each of the engraved icon plaques of gilded bronze were bordered with dozens of diamonds.

  Liliath had enjoyed seeing his astonishment, and even more the magnification of that astonishment when she told him that she had arranged the theft because she needed to study the icons, which were of the twelve Principalities who served under Ashalael. More important for her purposes, they had been made by the infamous mage Chalconte, the first time engraved metal icons had been proved to work. These icons had been the beginning of the great mage’s descent into heresy, though they were not themselves considered heretical.

  Liliath didn’t tell Bisc what she planned to do with the collar now. She wasn’t sure herself, though several plans were evolving, and her mind was constantly weighing up various possibilities.

  Biscaray entered and bowed low. He wore a black leather mask, a lumpy, ill-fitting thing that suggested the scars underneath that were no longer there, complete with a smaller hole for his supposedly misshapen left eye. No one could know he had been healed, since this was impossible.

  As was required by law, he wore the gray shirt, doublet, breeches, and cloak of a Refuser, but since returning to Lutace, his clothes had become of a finer cut and now featured a narrow band of black lace at the neck and cuffs, as much as, or perhaps a little more than, any former Ystaran refugee was allowed.

  “Good evening, milady,” said Biscaray. He glanced toward the bed, and then away again, as if it were entirely by chance.

  “Milady?” asked Liliath. She smiled and twirled an errant strand of hair that had escaped her cap. “Have I become an Alban noble?”

  “If you so choose,” said Biscaray. He reached into his doublet and withdrew a sheaf of papers. “You asked me to find someone suitable for you to become, of noble birth, but not yet known at court.”

  “I did,” said Liliath, smiling again.

  “I have found three,” replied the Night King. “But the Alban is the best. Uh, I suppose you can speak Alban?”

  “I can,” said Liliath, in Alban. She smiled, a cruel smile, remembering why this was so. One of the angels she had taken within her had been of the Alban host.

  Biscaray, his eyes downcast before her, did not see the smile.

  “Tell me who I am to be, my trusty knight,” said Liliath. She crossed the room and tapped him lightly on the shoulder, as if bestowing an accolade, before going past to look out the high window. She could see his blurred reflection in the thick, flawed glass, broken into nine squares.

  “Lady Dehiems, a widow, aged twenty,” said Biscaray. “She arrived from Alba two days ago. Her agents bought old Lord Demaselle’s house a month ago. She is very wealthy, and under a cloud in Alba, her husband’s family believing she killed him in some underhanded way.”

  “Did she?”

  Biscaray shook his head.

  “I doubt it. He was old, and she is beautiful.”

  Liliath turned to look at him. He looked up at her fully for a moment, then down again, mumbling, “Not so beautiful as you. There is a good resemblance, her eyes and skin are dark, her height similar, but her hair is a dark chestnut, not black—”

  “Easily matched,” said Liliath. “I can call upon Froudriel or Asaravael to do so. Or even simply rhubarb and henna.”

  “She is the best of those we have found so far. It isn’t just her looks. She is rich, estranged from her husband’s family and from other Albans, as most nobles have adopted the belief she is a murderer. Politics.”

  “Is she a mage?”

  Biscaray shook his head. “Of no consequence, if anything. She wears an old icon, a cameo of Fermisiel—or so says Erril, I did not recognize the angel myself—”

  “Erril? The hunchbacked woman? One of those at the temple?”

  “Yes. She is the best of our scholars. If not born a Refuser, I think she would have been a great mage.”

  “Yes. I remember her,” said Liliath. “Fermisiel is nothing. Her scope is color, to make old clothes bright again and the like. So. How many in this Lady Dehiems’s household?”

  “The doorwarden, three maids, two grooms, a cook.”

  “She brought an Alban cook to Lutace?”

  Biscaray shrugged as if to say that when it came to food Albans were even more inexplicable than in their other strange habits.

  “What are her connections here? Relatives? Friends?”

  “None that we have found. She was originally from some country part of Alba, in the north. A noble family but fallen. Her beauty alone secured her marriage.”

  “And you have seen her yourself? We really look enough alike?”

  “More than enough, once you change your hair. Besides, she has not stirred from her new house. Few have seen her since she arrived. The crossing of the gulf made her sick, it seems, and she is prone to imagine herself ill.”

  Liliath thought for a moment. This was a crucial point, where a misstep could have terrible consequences. But she had to assume some new identity, one that would enable her to move and plot and manipulate, to further the great plan. Besides, she did not want to continue living in one room of a criminal gang’s refuge, royal bed or not. In Ystara, her chambers in her temple had been as splendid as the King’s Palace in Cadenz.

  “I may continue that. A sometime invalid, off and on . . . it would suit my purposes. But should she be well enough, she would be received at court?”

  “Yes,” replied Biscaray. “As I said, a noble family, with royal connections in the past. And the suspicion of murder in Alba will help her here. The Queen is displeased with Alban posturing, and it is rumored that the traitor Deluynes—her former lover—sold the Queen’s letters to the Atheling. So . . . an enemy of the Atheling must be the Queen’s friend, no?”

  “Is she of interest to the Cardinal? Have Her Eminence’s people paid her attentions?”

  Liliath did not ask about the King. No one cared about King Ferdinand. Queen Sofia XIII notionally ruled Sarance, but her Chief Minister, Cardinal Duplessis, was in most cases the actual governor of the realm, the Queen rarely going against the Cardinal’s directives or advice. The King plotted against both, haphazardly, as was also traditional, and of little consequence.

  “I do not think so,” said Biscaray. He sounded less sure of himself than he had before. “We have seen none of the Cardinal’s Pursuivants there, or the Queen’s Musketeers, or any of the other agents we know. But the Cardinal tends to perceive more than we would like.”

 

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