The Amagarda apartment was a mess when Kentario let himself in. The raiders had been in here too, the door hastily repaired after it had been forced open, furniture overturned throughout the living room. He deliberately ignored the doorway leading to his father’s bedroom, not quite prepared to deal with that side of the tragedy for now, and he instead headed straight for his own bedroom. Inside, clothes were strewn about, but as tired as he was, he was in no mood to clean up, so he simply gathered them into a pile and tossed the lot back into the wardrobe.
He pulled off his boots, letting them drop to the floor with two matching thuds, then collapsed onto the bed, still fully clothed.
Goddess, what a mess. Sleep would come fitfully, if at all, but he lay there anyway, trying to still the scenes that immediately began playing through his head. The shouts in the hallway. The sight of Felix, bleeding to death. Ryu, so pale and cold out in the darkness…
A faint knock at the door had him sitting bolt upright, his gun drawn in a heartbeat.
“Sorry,” Emica said, stepping cautiously into the room. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Kentario sighed and put the gun away. “Shit, sorry,” he apologised to his sister. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
Emica sat down gently on the edge of the bed, while Kentario flopped back again, one arm thrown over his eyes.
“You did good today,” she told him, reaching out to take his hand. “I know we don’t have all the answers yet, but we’ve made a lot of progress.”
“It won’t matter, if we can’t figure out who did this.”
“This might be a crazy idea, but why don’t we just ask the Nalmagians how they got in? They’ve all been arrested anyway. Surely there would be someone willing to talk, in exchange for some sort of leniency?”
Leniency towards the Nalmagians was not an idea Kentario liked. But right now, it wouldn’t make a difference. “Maro already tried that this morning,” he said. “They won’t talk.” After seeing Maro work on the staff today, and after the efforts he’d gone to when he’d originally sealed the door, he was past the point of thinking the Captain had had something to do with the attack. There were still a few points about his recent behaviour that Kentario didn’t appreciate, but he didn’t think the man was guilty of treason.
With a sigh, Emica kicked off her own boots, then lay down beside him, staring at the ceiling. “Dad’s dead,” she said at length.
“Yeah. I know.” He put his arm around her, pulling her closer, and she snuggled in against his side, her head on his chest. It was the same position they’d lain in when they were young, after their mother had died; two frightened children doing their best to comfort each other, when neither one had any clear idea of what the future held. “Cael’s going to be a mess for a while.” Thankfully, their younger brother was currently out of the city, staying with the family of a friend for a brief summer holiday, but he’d have to cut the break short now and return to Azrahn for the funeral.
“I spoke to him this morning,” Emica said, and Kentario was grateful to her for making the effort. As much as he loved his brother, he’d had bigger things on his mind. “He’s pretty upset, but Countess Relia said she’ll take care of him for the next few days. They were all pretty shocked to hear about the attack.”
They both fell silent, Kentario listening to the soft rasp of Emica’s breathing as the day’s events played over in his mind again. It would have made things a hell of a lot easier if the Nalmagians would just come clean about who’d helped them get inside, but…
Kentario tensed, an idea niggling at the back of his mind. What was it Maro had said this morning?
“What is it?” Emica asked, sitting halfway up.
“You said we should just ask the Nalmagians how they got in. But this morning Maro said… What was it? He said theyrefused to betray their country or their tribesmen.”
“Well, that much is probably true,” Emica agreed. “But I don’t see how it’s relevant. If whoever let them in is just some lowly kitchen hand, why would they feel a need to protect them?”
“They wouldn’t,” Kentario said, the pieces jostling around in his mind, trying to find a way to fit together. Just like Emica had said, they were all so tired, they were overlooking the obvious. “Are any of our kitchen staff of Nalmagian origin?”
Emica stared at him, mouth hanging open in surprise. Then, in an almost comical move, both siblings leapt off the bed at the same time. Kentario slowed for a moment to tug on his boots, while Emica took the more expedient route of grabbing her boots off the floor and sprinting out the door barefoot.
Maro’s quarters were at the far end of the western wing, and they both headed that way, Emica skidding to a halt in front of his door and banging on it with her fist. “Maro? Get out here. We need your help.”
A loud curse sounded from inside the room, then the door opened, Maro glaring at them both. He was now only half dressed, clearly having been preparing to go to bed.
“You said this morning that the Nalmagians wouldn’t answer any questions because they wouldn’t betray their tribesmen,” Kentario reminded him quickly. “So we need to know who on the kitchen staff has ties to Nalmaga. You’ve got access to all the staff files. They all go through rigorous security checks before they’re given a job here. One of them has to be involved.”
“Goddess alive, why didn’t I think of that?” Maro muttered. “Fuck… just a second. Let me get a shirt…” He disappeared back inside the apartment, then returned a moment later, shirt and shoes back on his body. “This way. I can access the files from the guard house.”
The night guard leapt to his feet as the three of them rushed through the door. “Good evening, sir,” he said, snapping a salute to Maro. “I thought you’d gone to bed…?”
“Change of plan,” Maro said, brushing right past him to access his computer. “Kentario had an idea…” He didn’t explain any further as he set about combing through each file. It took a while, with thirty staff to sort through and plenty of background details on each of them. But scarcely ten minutes later, he suddenly sat up. “Got it,” he snapped, and both Kentario and Emica rushed over to his side. “Xi Ooan. She works the afternoon shift. She said she wasn’t here during the attack – which is true, according to the security logs. She was born in Galandeen, and her mother’s Galandanish, but her father,” he said, his voice taking on a bitter edge, “is from Nalmaga.”
“Get one of your guards to fetch Xi Ooan,” Kentario ordered the guard waiting by the door. “I don’t care if she’s asleep. Wake her up, get her dressed, and bring her down here.”
Five minutes later, a bleary-eyed Xi was marched through the door. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked, sounding half-outraged, half-terrified. “I don’t know what you want. I told you, I wasn’t here during the attack. I don’t know anything about it.”
“No, you weren’t here,” Kentario drawled, liking the shadowed fear in her eyes. “But someone wouldn’t necessarily have to be on site to leave an access point open. So here’s what I think happened. Your father’s people have been making noise about the lack of support from Galandeen during the war in Biermarg. And they found out that one of their tribesmen had a daughter working in the palace. So at the end of your shift, you carefully made sure that the bolt on the service door was left unlatched. Then you went home, all flowers and innocence, and then at eleven o’clock at night, a group of armed Nalmagians made use of the convenient gap in security to break into the palace and murder the king and queen. How am I doing so far, hm? Anything important I’ve left out of that little scenario?”
