Scholar of Decay Read online

  Louise fell into step beside her. “I’ll wait. No point in taking two boats when one will serve.” No point in arriving anywhere before Jacqueline. Better to share a welcome than to stand and watch her twin’s arrival, forced to acknowledge the reception as warmer than hers. Even thinking about it set her teeth on edge. There had been too many times in the past when she’d stood unwillingly in Jacqueline’s shadow. It would not happen tonight.

  “Mama! You look beautiful!”

  “Don’t I always look beautiful?” Jacqueline wondered, her voice just slightly edged.

  “Oh, yes, Mama, always,” Jacques hastened to assure her. “But tonight you look especially beautiful.”

  “Thank you, my darling.” She bent and kissed the soft black cap of his hair. He preened under the attention. “And what of your aunt?”

  Staring adoringly up into his mother’s face, Jacques shook his head. “Tante Louise is beautiful, but not as beautiful as you, Mama.”

  Well trained, Louise thought. Jacqueline had spent a careful ten years raising her son so that when he thought of his mother, he thought only of how to please her. Even as she found the results disgusting, Louise had to admire the technique. Unless things changed greatly, this boy would never grow up to wrest control from his mother’s dead hands.

  Unless things changed greatly.

  “Will you bring me something from the party, Mama?”

  “Why should I?” Jacqueline wrapped long white fingers around the boy’s pointed chin and squeezed just enough to dimple the flesh. “I hear you bit your tutor.”

  “He made me angry.”

  “And what did biting him accomplish? It only made me angry.” She shook his head from side to side. “At you.”

  “No, Mama!”

  “Yes, Mama. You must learn control. Lack of it was your father’s greatest fault. It would make me very sad if you to grew up to be like him.”

  As Jacques had heard all his short life how his mother had removed his father, it was hardly surprising that he paled. “I’m not like him, Mama! I’m not!”

  “Good.”

  He basked in her smile.

  “Perhaps I will bring you something from the party.”

  “Thank you, Mama!”

  Watching their embrace, Louise ground her teeth. No one was closer to Jacqueline than Jacques. What a weapon the boy would make against her sister! In her hands he could be a lever to pry Jacqueline out of power and into the grave. But she’d never get her hands on him.

  There were watchers in the shadows.

  The boy’s grandmama, who’d occasionally questioned her daughter’s technique, had died under questionable circumstances. Although it was doubtful Jacqueline had actually done away with their mother—and no one, Louise acknowledged privately, actually missed the interfering old harpy—her death had made a convenient lesson on how Jacqueline tolerated no interference of any kind with her son.

  Louise scowled. She found the whole thing incredibly frustrating.

  “Wouldn’t you hate it if your face froze in that expression?” Jacqueline murmured as she passed. “If you’re coming with me, I’m leaving now.”

  “Look at it, Aurek! They must have dozens of lamps in every room!” Dmitri Nuikin steadied himself on the high prow of the canalboat and leaned dangerously far forward. “The reflection looks as though they’ve scattered jewels on the water!”

  “If you’re not careful, you’ll be in the water with them,” Aurek cautioned grimly. “And I doubt you’d survive the experience.”

  His younger brother snorted derisively and remained where he was. “It’d take more than a swim to kill me. Look at how that boat’s lit up! Why don’t we have colored lanterns?”

  “Because I didn’t wish to pay for them.”

  Theirs wasn’t the only craft arriving at the private dock. Most of the party-goers had taken the river road rather than risk the bridges—especially now that cooler weather had made the stench of the water almost bearable. Their boatman jostled for space, was jostled in turn, and when a group of a half-dozen young men and women blithely ordered their larger vessel in between his boat and the dock, he quietly muttered curses.

  As one, the six turned and smiled, an impressive array of long yellow teeth flashing in the lamplight. They were dressed alike in the glittering tatters currently fashionable with the young, and all shared a distinct family resemblance. Of the four young men, two were obviously identical twins, impossible to tell apart. One of the young women was dark, the other brilliantly fair. The tallest of the men, none of whom were very tall, shook his head slowly from side to side. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” he caroled and rested an elaborately shod foot on the gunnel of Aurek’s boat.

  He was stronger than he looked.

  The canalboat rocked under his push. A swell of murky water lapped hungrily up and over the side.

  A heartbeat later, Aurek leaped to his feet, one hand preventing his brother from charging forward, the other curved to cup the night air. “Enough!”

  The young man glared at him, lip curled. “I’ll say when it’s enough, and …” He frowned. Survival in Pont-a-Museau was infinitely more likely if challenges were issued only when the fight could be won. What he saw in this stranger’s face told him three-to-one odds were not quite good enough. His nose twitched as though he smelled something unexpected, and with a sharp jerk of his head, he indicated that his companions should disembark.

  “But, Yves …” protested one of the twins, clutching at his sleeve.

  “But nothing,” Yves snarled, following them up onto the dock. While the others started toward the house, he took a long last look at the stranger. “Muzzle your boatman,” he advised, slapping the words down between them. “We have very good ears.”

  “Are you just going to let that insult stand?” Dmitri demanded, twitching his vest out of his brother’s grip and glaring at the stranger’s receding back.

  “Try to remember,” Aurek murmured by the younger man’s ear, “that it is in our best interests to get along with these people.”

  “Your best interests.” Leaping out onto the dock before the mooring lines were secure, Dmitri tossed golden blond hair back out of violet eyes and scowled. “I don’t even want to be here.”

  Aurek ignored him. What Dmitri did or did not want had little bearing on the situation. The moment the boy had attracted Ivana Boritsi’s usually fatal attention, he had no choice but to leave Borca. When Aurek had informed his sisters he was traveling to Richemulot, they informed him in turn that his youngest sibling would be accompanying him. He’d argued against it, but he might as well have saved his breath. “If he stays, he dies,” their eldest sister told him shortly. “While we’re sorry about your loss, you have no more choice in this than he does.”

  “I’ll have no time to take care of him.”

  “He’s not a child, Aurek. He can take care of himself.”

  That had yet to be proven to Aurek’s satisfaction, but so far, at least, the boy had not gotten in his way.

  Eyes narrowed, Aurek turned to the terrified boatman. The man had come very close to involving him in exactly the sort of situation he wanted to avoid. “That was your one chance,” he said softly. “You will not cause me another moment of trouble, for any reason.”

  Expecting to die, the boatman was emboldened by this astonishing show of mercy from a foreign noble. “Th-They’ll come after me, sir!”

  Aurek allowed himself a small, tight smile as he remembered the dawning realization in the expression of the young stranger who’d confronted them. “No, I don’t think so. Not as long as you remain in my employ.”

  He paused for a moment on the dock and looked back out over the river. The reflection of the house on the water made it seem as if a second party were taking place in the murky depths below. Which, he wondered, is the more dangerous of the two? Catching sight of a wedge-shaped shadow swimming just beneath the surface of the water, he watched the V of the creature’s passage until it lef
t the light.

  A glass of pale wine in one hand, Aurek circled the ballroom, watching, listening, learning the patterns of Pont-a-Museau. These were the aristocrats of the city, those fortunate few with power or position or merely the right connections.

  He had been given a letter of introduction to Joelle Milette, the evening’s hostess, by one of the travelers he’d questioned. The letter had gained him a brief meeting with her, which had in turn brought an invitation to this, the first party of the autumn Season. That the invitation had been offered with an obvious ulterior motive was unimportant. In order for his search to proceed smoothly—and the search was all that mattered—it was essential that he convince the Lord of Richemulot to allow him the freedom of the city.

  Almost lost in a flurry of shredded silk, Dmitri danced by with a striking young woman who shared a similarity of features with the six youths at the dock. The face turned up to his brother’s was pointed in all the same places.

  His own face expressionless, Aurek scanned the crowd, noting the evidence of a predominant bloodline. Noting how certain eyes glittered more brightly. Certain smiles showed more teeth. Small, compact bodies made movements so lithe and liquid that the people surrounding them seemed coarse and ungainly. For those who cared, or dared to look, it became obvious that Pont-a-Museau revolved around this extended family. They laughed at, not with, the other guests … laughter that held a feral edge and the intimacy of a secret shared.

  Whispered rumors that had reached over the border into Borca were apparently true. Pont-a-Museau was swarming with wererats, and the lycanthropes were quite clearly in control. The other citizens of the city either didn’t care or were doing their best to deliberately not see a situation they could do nothing to change. Aurek wondered, not for the first time, if he should warn Dmitri, but decided, yet again, that he should not. His younger brother was handsome, and by all accounts, personable and proficient in a number of physical activities, but Aurek had often suspected he wasn’t particularly intelligent. If feigned ignorance of the situation was what it took to survive, Dmitri had best remain ignorant in truth, for his ability to dissemble was nearly nonexistent.

  “I love to watch the young folks having a good time,” declared a middle-aged man, suddenly standing by Aurek’s side. He swung his goblet toward the dance floor, slopping the contents up his sleeve, new stains covering old. “The ladies certainly have noticed that brother of yours.” Completely unaware of the astonished distaste directed toward him, he chuckled and set greasy jowls quivering. “That’s a lad ripe for adventure. I hope your family doesn’t expect you to keep him out of trouble.”

  “He is not a child,” Aurek replied coldly, echoing his sister’s words. “He can take care of himself.” Stepping fastidiously back, he inclined his head and walked away.

  From a table filled with drinking vessels of every shape and size, from squat pewter cups to gleaming crystal flutes, Aurek exchanged his empty glass for a full one and continued pacing around the ballroom. He had no idea what had drawn that disgusting man to his side, but he had every intention of making himself a moving target so that it wouldn’t happen again.

  He recognized neither the dances nor the music the dancers moved to, but that was hardly surprising, as he’d spent most of his life with books and scrolls. The room itself was worthy of attention. Great swaths of gold satin hung in tentlike folds from an immense plaster rose in the center of the ceiling, their ends looped through the gilded arms of grotesque statues that lined the walls. If the fabric had been intended to compress the formidable dimensions of the room, it failed, for there was so much of it, the size of the room had to be acknowledged in order to cope. A closer look determined that the fabric was mildewed, and much of the gilding had flaked off the statues’ arms. Tiles were missing from the intricate pattern once laid out in the parquet floor, and those that remained were scuffed and stained. The flocked wallpaper dangled in damp streamers in several places, and it seemed as though something had chewed the carved frame of a huge mirror all along one …

  Mirror.

  Aurek’s heart stopped. A wild-haired man stared out at him from behind the refection of his shoulder. Heavy-lidded eyes widened in mock astonishment. Thin lips parted in a burst of manic laughter, but no sound emerged. The wineglass slipped from nerveless fingers as, sweat beading his forehead, Aurek whirled.

  No laughing wizard stood behind him.

  Forcing his gaze back to the mirror, he could see only a shaken reflection of himself, his face even paler than usual. His hands curled into fists. “You’re dead,” he whispered through clenched teeth. “Leave me alone.”

  When the music stopped and a rising babble of voices indicated that someone of note had arrived, he moved across the dance floor toward the noise, grateful for the distraction. As he walked away from the mirror, the skin crawled between his shoulder blades. Let the dead mock him; he would not turn.

  “Aurek, darling, there you are.” Joelle Milette appeared out of the crowd, wrapped a hand possessively around his elbow, and dragged him forward. “My cousins have arrived, and you have to meet them. Where’s that lovely brother of yours? Oh, there he is.” Changing course slightly, she snagged Dmitri as well and hurried them both out through a semicircle of guests calling supplicant greetings. “Jacqueline, Louise, these are the two gentlemen I was telling you about: Aurek and Dmitri Nuikin.”

  Suddenly released, Aurek felt as though he were being offered as part of a buffet. He bowed in the Borcan style, though not quite so elaborately as his brother did beside him, and studied the women who were studying them.

  Louise’s crimson gown hung in soft folds from rounded shoulders, jeweled combs artfully kept intentionally disheveled hair in place, and the entire effect suggested she’d just emerged from a heated tête-a-tête. Jacqueline made no use of such artifice. Black silk flowed like dark water off the ivory swell of her breasts and pooled into liquid shadow at her feet. An emerald choker the exact color of her eyes encircled her slender throat. The sisters were both beautiful, but Louise used her beauty like a weapon.

  Their eyes glittered more brightly. Their smiles showed more teeth. Even in this room, with so many of the same bloodline, the sisters stood out.

  There was dried blood caked beneath the nails of Jacqueline’s right hand.

  Lifting his eyes to hers, Aurek barely managed to contain his response as power recognized power and drove all thoughts of a laughing wizard from his mind.

  Jacqueline’s nose twitched once; then she smiled as she watched him struggle for control.

  “Aurek.” Joelle’s summons dragged him back to himself. “Jacqueline is the head of the Renier family.”

  “Yes,” he managed to respond. “I can see that.”

  Confused, Joelle plucked at his sleeve until he took a step back. She smiled ingratiatingly at her cousin. “Aurek and his brother are Borcan nobility.”

  “How nice,” Jacqueline murmured.

  “Aurek’s quite the scholar,” Joelle continued. “He’s planning to search all the abandoned buildings in the city for some clue as to who abandoned them.”

  “With your permission,” Aurek added quickly as Jacqueline began to frown. With an effort, he kept his tone casual, making it seem as though he asked a favor of the beautiful woman who ruled only the social calendar of Pont-a-Museau. Greatly daring, he met her gaze again.

  She stared at him for a long moment, and while he felt a shadow stroke his soul, he also felt a flash of kinship—gone too quickly to be understood or even to be absolutely certain it had ever existed. Then the emerald eyes hooded, and, his heart pounding, Aurek looked away. “I assume you’ve the permission of the city council.” Her tone lightly seasoned the words with contempt. “Our mayor is here tonight, if you haven’t.”

  Aurek had seen the mayor, a powerless man who’d been despondently drunk when he arrived and had been getting drunker as the evening wore on. “I have the permission of the council, mamselle.”

  “To s
earch all the abandoned buildings,” Jacqueline repeated mockingly, and for a moment he was afraid she’d deny him. Prepared to fight for access if he had to, this was not the arena he would have chosen nor, now that he finally knew who could stand in his way, was she the foe. Then she laughed. “How ambitious for a … scholar. You will let me know if you find anything?”

  Aurek bowed, the obeisance not quite submission. “Of course.”

  “What’s going on?” Dmitri demanded as, dismissed, they merged back into the crowd.

  “What are you talking about?” Aurek asked absently. Having gained the approval he needed, his thoughts were already preoccupied with sketching out the parameters of his morning search.

  “You two—you and Jacqueline Renier—came to some kind of understanding back there, and I was deliberately left out.”

  “We two came to an understanding,” Aurek reminded him. “Not we three. What passed between Jacqueline Renier and myself had nothing to do with you.”

  A muscle jumped in Dmitri’s jaw. “You know, you’re a real ass sometimes,” he snarled.

  “Don’t be so childish.”

  “Childish? That’s a good one. Go ahead and keep your little secrets then. I know you didn’t want me to come here with you, but you needn’t be so obvious about it.”

  Aurek frowned at his brother’s back as he stomped off toward the table that held the wines. Four older sisters had clearly overindulged the boy.

  “Well, what did you think?”

  “What did I think of what?” Jacqueline asked, accepting a drink from a fawning third cousin and then ignoring him.

  “Of the Nuikins.” Joelle leaned closer and lowered her voice. “Aren’t they lovely?”

  “Have you taken up procuring, Joelle? How nice you’ve found something to do that suits you so well.”

  Joelle pretended not to hear the insult. “I just thought that you could use someone to take your mind off that last unfortunate incident with Henri—” The expression on Jacqueline’s face closed Joelle’s throat around the second name.