For Want of a Fiend (27 page)

On the day of their trap, Katya fidgeted, even though she had Starbride with her. The only people who’d be in danger were Captain Ursula and her people. The city Watch employed one or two pyradistés, though they couldn’t use mind magic without a magistrate’s permission. They were only present to combat criminal pyradistés, like the one Lady Hilda might be using to attack the fake Starbride.

Secretly, Katya hoped they’d catch Roland in their net and not Lady Hilda. She was willing to forgive Lady Hilda all her machinations if the matter with Roland could be put to bed. Of course, if Roland were with the attackers, Ursula and all her party might be as good as dead.

Dawnmother’s servant spies informed them that Lady Hilda didn’t leave the palace, but that her townhouse in Marienne emptied of guards. The princess consort
was
too big a fish to resist, that or Roland had commanded Lady Hilda to go after Starbride. Whatever the cause, Katya waited with Starbride in her apartment, both of them pacing a hole in the carpet.

When a light scratch came from the secret passage entrance, Katya nearly jumped out of her skin. “Come!”

Pennynail stepped out and pointed to the ceiling, telling them he’d received the signal from his post atop a tower. “How many lights?”

He held up three fingers. The trap had been sprung, and the pyradistés had signaled a catch. Katya slapped a fist into her other palm. “Finally, some good news. Now all that’s left is Lady Hilda herself. Are you ready?” He nodded. When Katya looked to Starbride, she nodded, too. “Good. We’ll collect Hugo on our way. Let’s catch her before she escapes the palace.”

Starbride grabbed her arm. “Brutal wants to come, too. He sent a note.”

“Is he well enough?”

“He claimed to be.”

Katya chewed her lip for a moment. “He knows his limits. We’ll gather him on our way.”

If Katya was waiting for a signal, no doubt Lady Hilda waited for one, too. Katya hurried for the stables where Lady Hilda kept her carriage and her fastest horse. That last bit of information had come from Castelle, of all sources. She’d been getting to know the servants and grooms like she always had, and her team had found out a great deal of information about Lady Hilda’s movements.

With her usual alacrity, Castelle had known Katya would be looking for the source of the recent troubles in Marienne. Katya had always thought she’d concealed her involvement with the Order, but Castelle was more observant than Katya had given her credit for. Castelle didn’t know about the Order itself, but she knew Katya had a greater role in security than what was widely known. That was surely what all her talk about duty had been about.

Katya needed all the help she could get. Castelle’s team waited in Marienne just in case Lady Hilda got away. She’d already cleared the front stable not only of grooms, but horses as well.

Just after the Order hid, Lady Hilda hurried into the empty stable, two servants with a lot of baggage in tow. Katya leaned against a post as if simply lingering there.

Lady Hilda pulled up short. “Hi…Highness.” She and her two servants bowed.

“It doesn’t surprise me that he’d sacrifice you as a pawn.”

“I…don’t know what you mean.”

Katya leaned forward and relished the anger that pounded in her, for once enjoying that she didn’t have to worry about the Fiend. “Roland.”

Lady Hilda sucked in a breath, but she didn’t look confused or blink or ask who Katya meant.

“I had rather hoped you wouldn’t know who I was talking about. I can’t save you if you’ve gotten in bed with him.”

Lady Hilda dropped her bag. Her servants followed suit. She put on a languid smile and threw the cloak from her shoulders. No low-cut gowns today, only sensible leather trousers and a plain white shirt. Her long red hair had been braided behind her. “Wanted to save me, did you? Then you should join us. All he wants is his rightful place. There’s nothing to say you couldn’t still be the heir.”

“Ah, so that’s the song he sang you.” As Lady Hilda’s hand inched toward her pocket, Katya held up a finger. “No, no, no.”

From the corner of the stable, light blazed, and Starbride held up a pyramid. “I’ve neutralized the fire pyramid you’re concealing and the two flash bombs carried by your ladies.” She put on a smug smile.

“My, my, haven’t we been learning. And here I thought you were just a pretty face, but it seems you bring more to the table than just the stink of horses.”

Starbride stepped forward and held the pyramid high, revealing Brutal and Hugo standing in the corner behind Lady Hilda’s servants, their weapons already drawn. “I suppose I should tell you to surrender,” Starbride said, “but I’m so hoping you won’t.”

“Politics isn’t the only thing I’ve learned under your uncle’s tutelage.” Lady Hilda’s smile stretched far to the sides as her eyes went all green. “You missed one.” Little horns erupted from her forehead, curving slightly over her hairline.

Katya drew her rapier even as she gaped. Roland had given Lady Hilda a Fiend. More than that, he’d somehow taught her how to control it. Lady Hilda leapt at Katya as her two servants drew weapons and rushed Hugo and Brutal. Lady Hilda didn’t move as quickly as one of the Umbriel Fiends, but she was faster than the dead creatures from Marienne. Katya tried to dart out of the way, but Lady Hilda’s claws grazed her arm and shredded both her coat and the shirt underneath.

Katya tried to return the strike, but Lady Hilda dodged, her pointed teeth snarling. A knife sank into Lady Hilda’s side before she could attack again. She shrieked, and the sound brought the metallic tang of blood to Katya’s mouth.

Katya darted in for another attack. Lady Hilda slapped the rapier away and dashed into the shadows of the stables. A moment later, Pennynail flew by as if thrown by a catapult. He slammed into a wall and thudded to the ground.

“Temperance!” Starbride cried.

Katya shielded her eyes. Lady Hilda loosed that horrible screech again. Starbride ran toward her, another pyramid raised. Katya followed and aimed for the Fiend’s heart.

Lady Hilda knocked Starbride to the side. The sudden movement sent Katya’s rapier into her shoulder instead of her chest. Lady Hilda shoved Katya, pulling the rapier free, and then knocked Katya to the floor, making her teeth rattle in her skull as she hit.

Katya tried to scramble up, but the wind had fled from her lungs. Brutal’s mace flew over her head and slammed into Lady Hilda’s midsection. Roland should have left her mindless; she didn’t know how to use her speed.

Lady Hilda staggered. Her hideous face swung to and fro as if seeking a way out. Katya scrambled up, still gasping, and put herself in the stable doorway. Hugo raced to stand beside her. He had a line of blood across one cheek, but seemed otherwise unhurt. From the corner of her eye, Katya saw Pennynail and Starbride standing up. Brutal stalked toward the Fiend, his opponent on the ground behind him.

Lady Hilda screeched again. Hugo grabbed his left ear, but she didn’t try to rush them. She ran for the wall and slammed into the wood, breaking through. Sunlight streamed in through the hole and a scream came from the courtyard. When Katya ran into the light, she saw a groom on the ground, clutching his bleeding face. If Lady Hilda had passed him, she’d gone around the corner, into the street, into the city.

Katya started to run but skidded to a halt. Several servants were hurrying toward the downed groom from the street, but they didn’t seem alarmed, as if they
hadn’t
seen the Fiend.

Katya glanced up. Several roof tiles for a neighboring building hung askew. “She went up there.”

Even clutching his ribs, Pennynail dragged himself to a windowsill and then to the roof.

Starbride pointed at Katya’s shredded clothing. “Are you hurt?”

Katya shook her head. “You?”

“I’ll have quite the bruise, but that’s all.”

Katya looked to where Brutal and Hugo bent over the injured groom. Damn the man, why had he come back just then?

“Princess Katyarianna,” one of the servants said, “what did this to poor Gregory?” She seemed to realize who she was talking to as the words left her mouth. She bowed deeply.

“Some fool noble brought a hillcat to court as a pet, and the damn thing escaped,” Katya said. “I’ll have someone’s head for this.”

The servants tried to back away. Katya sheathed her rapier and gestured to Lady Hilda’s downed maids. “The hillcat attacked the groom and the ladies over there. It would have killed more if we hadn’t showed up. See to it that Gregory is tended by my personal physician.”

“Your Highness,” the grooms and servants muttered. The bowed again.

Brutal and Hugo stood with her as she walked to the palace doors. “The groom will be fine,” Brutal said, “though he’ll have several scars.”

“And the ladies?”

“Dead,” Brutal said. He looked sharply at Hugo. “Well, mine is.”

Hugo’s eyes flashed. “I saw no reason to kill her.”

“And that’s why you’ve got that scratch.” Brutal nodded at Hugo’s face.

“Peace.” Katya hurried toward the lady in question, happy to have a captive. One lady was crumpled near the stable wall, part of her face gone from Brutal’s mace. The other lay curled in a ball, unmoving. She had a dagger sticking out of her abdomen.

“Spirits above!” Hugo cried. “I left her alive, I swear!”

“Evidently, she preferred this to capture,” Katya said.

A scuff near the door made them turn. Pennynail stood there, still cradling his ribs. He shook his head.

Katya bit her lip. She hadn’t really expected him to catch Lady Hilda, but it would have been nice. “Take these bodies away before someone follows us over here. They won’t believe an escaped hillcat stabbed one and bashed the other’s head in.”

Brutal and Pennynail wrapped the bodies in their cloaks and carried them outside. The groom had gathered quite a crowd, including the royal physician.

“Your Highness?” the royal physician asked. He inclined his head at the two cloak-shrouded bodies.

Katya shook her head. “The cat was on them before we could do anything.”

“Who did it? Who brought the animal?” someone called.

Katya hesitated, but Starbride said, “Lady Hilda Montenegro. She’s always desperate to impress everyone.”

Katya nearly glanced at her in surprise. “Yes, she is that.” She gestured for the two dead bodies to be loaded on a cart. “These were her servants. Spirits knows where the lady herself is now.” She turned to another servant, glad there were so many about. “Find my lady-in-waiting and tell her to make inquiries as to who the maids’ families are.”

The onlookers seemed impressed. Lady Hilda might have gotten away, but she’d given the Umbriels an opportunity to foster some goodwill with the common people.

Pennynail and Brutal drove the cart into the city, presumably to the mortuary, but Katya didn’t know where the two ladies would really end up, if they’d find a new home with Pennynail’s infamous pig farmer.

*

Lady Hilda had vanished. Dawnmother’s spying said that she hadn’t returned to her townhouse, and news of her “hillcat” had everyone in the palace keeping an eye out for her. She couldn’t stay in the city and not be called to task.

“Someone has to be sheltering her,” Katya said to the Order that evening. Hugo attended as well as Averie. She hadn’t found any family to receive the bodies of the maids. Katya tried not to think about where they’d have to end up now.

“She has to have a bolt-hole,” Brutal said. He leaned forward from time to time and massaged his back. “Somewhere she can go to ground. All of the nobles do.”

Katya nodded. “Who did Captain Ursula bring in from the countryside?”

“Mostly guards working for Lady Hilda,” Starbride said. “The Watch is holding them in the city jail. Ursula’s agreed to let me use a pyramid on them without a magistrate’s permission, on one condition.”

“Let me guess, she wants to know what we find out.”

“You’ve got it.”

“Lady Hilda wouldn’t have told her guards anything, would she?” Hugo asked. “She wouldn’t share her mind with hired thugs. Do we really need to break the law to interrogate them?”

“There’s more than ethics at stake here, Lord Hugo,” Brutal said. “If the Umbriels fall, it’s likely Yanchasa could escape and destroy Marienne or even all of Farraday.”

“I know that.” He frowned and looked away, reminding Katya of Maia’s occasional pouts.

Brutal must have seen the same thing. “You need to get a little hard, friend. If you can’t kill a minor enemy, how are you going to face Darren or your father?” He didn’t mention that they might also be facing Maia as well.

“I had that maid beaten. Why kill her?”

Brutal clucked his tongue. “What if she’d felt well enough to come to the door of the stable and throw that knife of hers? Or sneak up on us while we were preoccupied with Lady Hilda?”

Hugo stared at the table and didn’t say anything.

“I felt the same way as you when I first came here,” Starbride said. “I didn’t think I could really be hurt, that anyone could. I thought the danger was exaggerated, but then Lady Hilda almost attacked me in her room. You’re fighting someone who wants to kill you, Hugo. They won’t hesitate, and you have to learn to do the same.”

Katya didn’t mention that she doubted if Starbride could kill yet without a second thought, but she let the words sink in.

“I’ll…yes, I’ll keep that in mind,” Hugo said. “Still, can you see Lady Hilda sharing information with her guards?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Katya turned to Starbride. “If you see something about the Fiends, about Roland, in the guards’ thoughts, can you lie to Captain Ursula?”

Starbride blinked, but then she nodded.

“I guess there’s no way Ursula will bring the captives here?” Brutal asked.

“I doubt it,” Katya said. “She’s desperate to know what’s going on. I imagine she’ll do whatever it takes to hold on to her leverage.”

“Do we know if she had her pyradistés read the captives already?” Hugo asked.

“They’re taught to wait for a magistrate. But whatever the protocol, we’d better get there soon.” Katya crossed her arms and looked to Starbride again. “I don’t like sending you into the city, not with Lady Hilda on the loose and those Fiend corpses running around.”