“Are you certain?” Brennan’s face had gone completely flat.
“Yes. Fever does strange things to the mind. He went on and on about his son’s eyes and Lord Maedoc’s demeanor. I believe he got to spend some time with Lord Maedoc after the ceremony, and it was the highlight of his service. His healing took approximately sixteen hours. I was exhausted and had to rest. When I came to check on him the next day, some soldiers had collected him and left.”
“Maedoc?” Brennan repeated. “Was that their commanding officer?”
“Yes. I was upset that the College released him—he was in no shape to travel, really—and so I made the staff get the release order so I could check the seal on it. Is this important?”
“Not at all.” Brennan shut the album and turned to Lady Olivia. “You were telling us about oranges, Your Grace?”
* * *
RICHARD studied himself in the mirror. The man who looked back at him was nothing like him. Stolen face, stolen clothes, another man’s sword. They were tools, he told himself. Tools of his trade. She loved him anyway. She loved him.
Someone knocked on the door in a rapid staccato. Kolin, his second cousin, glanced at him. Richard nodded. Kolin swung the door open.
Brennan strode in, almost knocking Kolin over. His face shone with grim determination. Behind him Rene paused at the doorway, his face bloodless.
“Get your sword and come with me,” Brennan said.
“Did something happen?”
“Casside, get your sword.”
Richard belted his rapier on. Brennan spun on his foot and marched out. Richard followed him, striding side by side with Rene down the hallway. They climbed the ladder, crossed another hallway, and stepped into a metal-and-glass lift. Brennan punched a code into the panel, and the small cabin slid upward. Stone flashed by, then daylight streamed in. They were rising straight up the side of the castle.
“Hunter belongs to Maedoc,” Brennan said. “He’s his creature.”
“Are you sure?” Rene asked.
Brennan turned to him, his face skewed by fury, and Rene took a step back.
“It was quite clever of him. Use the Hunter to destabilize the slave trade, make me appear weak, foster the discontent as all of us lost money. I thought he was too limited for a plan like this, but he fooled us all.”
“What are you going to do?” Rene asked, a note of anxiety in his voice.
“Not just me. All of us.”
The cabin stopped. The gears in the wall turned, the doors opened, and they stepped out onto a narrow balcony, overshadowed by a spire. Far below, the river glistened. They were at the very top of the castle.
At the other end of the balcony, Maedoc and Angelia stood by the stone rail. Angelia’s face was bloodless. Fear shivered in her eyes like a small animal trapped in a corner.
“What was so important?” Maedoc asked.
She pointed at them.
Maedoc turned. “Brennan? What’s going on?”
“We have a traitor,” Brennan said, closing the distance between them. “The one who’s behind Hunter and the attack on the island.”
“Who?” Maedoc frowned.
Brennan jerked a dagger from his sheath and thrust it in Maedoc’s right side.
Angelia choked on a scream.
Brennan pulled the dagger down through the flesh with a sharp jerk, his face inches from Maedoc’s shocked eyes, and pulled the blade out. The initial thrust probably punctured the lung, Richard decided. The rip lacerated Maedoc’s liver.
“What are you doing?” Rene squeezed out. “Robert, what are you . . .”
Maedoc sank against the rail, struggling to stay upright. Brennan stepped over to Rene and thrust the bloody dagger into his hand. “Your turn.”
“What?”
“Your turn, you spineless shit. We’re in this together. Do it or join him.”
Rene stared at Maedoc. The big man raised his left hand, his right clutching the rail. “Don’t . . .”
“I will not suffer traitors in my house! Do it!” Brennan barked.
Rene stabbed Maedoc in the stomach. Blood spurted, drenching the dagger’s handle.
The soldier cried out.
Rene dropped the dagger and stumbled away. Brennan picked it up and turned to Angelia. “You’re next, my lovely.”
“No.” She backed way. “No.”
“Yes.” Brennan’s voice vibrated with fury. “I’ll help you.”
He grabbed her hand with his bloody fingers, slapped the dagger into it, and locked her fingers around it with his hand, moving behind her, pushing her toward Maedoc.
“No,” she moaned.
Bile rose in Richard’s throat. Finally, the mask had ripped open. Brennan was flying his true colors. To kill a man in a fair fight was one thing, but this—this was a sickening, perverse butchery.
“Come on,” Brennan said in her ear, holding her from behind in a half embrace. “For once, you’ll be the one who gets to stick it in. It’s not hard.”
Brennan forced her forward, raised her hand with his, and stabbed Maedoc in the chest. Blood gushed. Maedoc groaned.
Angelia whimpered.
“Oh no, there is a little bit of blood,” Brennan said. “But you can handle it, can’t you? You think all that money that poured into your accounts isn’t bloody? You think those shiny stones in your ears aren’t soaked in it?”
She tore away from him.
Brennan turned to Richard and held out the dagger. “Casside. Join us, my friend.”
Richard strode forward, took the dagger, and thrust, between the ribs and up, piercing the heart. Maedoc gasped and sagged to the stone. The light went out of his eyes. The torture was over.
Brennan stared at the prone body. “Look, the three of you. Look very well. You all did this with me. Now we’re bound by blood.”
Angelia hid her face in her hands and wept.
“Take his legs.”
Richard picked up Maedoc’s legs. Brennan slid his hands under Maedoc’s arms. They heaved and threw the body over the balcony into the river below. Brennan picked up the dagger, wiped it on a handkerchief, and hurled it into the water. The blade caught the sunlight, sparking as it flew, and vanished far below.
Rene hugged Angelia and drew her toward the lift. Richard followed them. Brennan remained at the rail, his back to them, his arms crossed.
“He is crazy,” Angelia sobbed in the lift. “He’s gone crazy.”
“It will be all right,” Rene told her.
It wouldn’t be all right. The house of cards Brennan had built was tumbling down, and Richard was waiting for the right moment to set it on fire. And as the lift slid down, he thought of a perfect way to do just that.