But I hadn’t forgotten Owyn. The threat of the gallows. And the siblings’ gossip, the night I’d eavesdropped. Poisonings. Murders. A Cage hideout, blown up. That wasn’t me. I wasn’tlikethese people.
“I should have known you’d go back on your word,” I said. “Do you even really know anything about Zennia?”
He surveyed me, lips quirked thoughtfully. “What have you been told?” he asked after a moment.
“That she came here with the eldest, Emment Shearwater, one night. That she saw one of those Orha fights you host here.” At the twitch of his eyebrow, my own gaze narrowed. He hadn’t expected me to know about those. “And she got into trouble on the crossing back. Drowned in a sudden squall that blew up.”
He pondered this, nodding shallowly.
“That was it, wasn’t it?” I said hopelessly. “That was the information you were going to give me. But I already found out about it myself.”
“No,” he said softly, shifting in the darkness. He pulled something out of his black doublet.
The hammered metal shone in the golden light from the candle. A brooch, imprinted with the image of a sailing ship. My chest constricted. The last time I’d seen it, Zennia had been packing it into her trunk at Arbenhaw before coming here, to Bower Island.
I lurched forward, darted a hand out instinctively, but the blond man stepped back, coolly inspecting it. “Pretty enough trinket,” he said, turning it over.
“Give that to me,” I gasped, wanting to rip off his mask; wanting to read, in his face, how he’d come to have the brooch.
“Certainly,” he said. “Afteryou’ve heard me out.”
Every breath was a rasp in my throat, and my head was spinning—but eventually I nodded.
“The tale you’ve been fed is wrong,” he said bluntly. “Or, at least, it leaves plenty out. Whether whoever told it to you realizes that…” He shrugged. “In any case, I can give you the whole story,ifyou agree to do one more thing for us.”
I stared at the shadows moving over his mask. “They already suspect me,” I said reluctantly. With an icy prickle, I thought of Tigo. Of Llir.
“Then you’ll just have to throw them off the scent, won’t you?”
When I didn’t respond, he forged ahead anyway. “We have…plans for Rexim Shearwater. And as you may know, there’s a Chamber Seat now free, so those plans have been, shall we say, accelerated. Just weeks from now, the Hundred will be voting for the person they want to fill that Seat, and our friend Brigant Shearwater is a shoo-in. His voice will have the power to tip the Chamber one way or the other, and the Cage have taskedmewith putting together a group to pay him and his family…a little visit. Have a nice chat about how they might want to use their newfound political sway.”
I remembered the luncheon. The proposals discussed there. Shrike’s and Crake’s ambitions for war. Orha funnelled to the armies, the navies. And Finch’s reforms, which Rexim, as a Regent, might end up having the deciding vote on.
“What does that mean?” I said. “You want to try to…work with Rexim? Get him to vote the way you want him to?”
He smiled. “Let’s call it…persuasion, shall we? Maybe his dear children can help him see reason.”
The mention of the siblings—of the Cage havingplansfor them—made something bizarrely close to possessiveness rise in me. “You don’t understand,” I said. “I know them, and I doubt they’ll be any more amenable to your cause. Except the youngest, Catua, maybe, but Rexim doesn’t listen to her—”
“Well,” he interrupted, “we have other…avenues we could go down. In fact, that brings me on nicely to your next task. The first part of it anyway.”
I blinked at him.First part?
“We need you to find out what they’re hiding. Every Hundred family has their dirty little secrets. Things they wouldn’t want their peers to know. Rexim, his children, even his servants…there must be something. Something we can use to convince your Brigant to hear us out. But your word won’t cut it—we need proof. Physical items.”
Persuasion? No—this was extortion.
“Here’s a start,” my contact mused. “Why does Shearwater want the Seat so badly? He’s never shown much interest in politics before. I doubt it’s a strong sense of moral duty. And I doubt it’s only to keep Crake out.”
I frowned. “But if Rexim refuses to be…‘persuaded,’ won’t spreading his secrets mean Crake wins the vote?”
“We’re confident,” he said, “of Shearwater’s acquiescence. He wants this Seat as much as Crake does.”
I thought of Crake’s narrow gaze at the luncheon.“Floodmouths and Gustmouths to the navies down south.”“Does Crake really want war?” I ventured nervously. “Or is he just trying to impress Regent Shrike?”
“Both,” said my contact, his voice turning brittle. “We have people stationed down in the Quaglands. Crake already seems to be calling up forces. As for Shrike, I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors about Queen Annig…The Hundred are thinking about who will comeafter. And Shrike’s no exception. He’s Annig’s uncle. Everyone knows he’s desperate for that crown. But there are other contenders for it, including the Breovan King—another of Annig’s relations, albeit distant. Shrike hates Breova because of its Charter, but war would take out a competitor for the throne, too.”
K shook his head. “Shrike’s always thinking one step ahead, and Crake’s like a moth to a flame—he’s cozying up to him. With Crake in the Chamber, war is almost certain. And I expect you’ve figured out what that means for us Orha.”
