“Very well.” Konstantin stood up. “You can show me.”
“You want me to take you there?” Ilya got to his feet a bit slower and ran his hand over his limp, blond hair.
“I know where it is,” I said as I stood.
“I want Ilya to show me.” Konstantin kept his stare on the nobleman.
“Very well.” Ilya headed for the door.
I started to join him, but Konstantin grabbed my wrist and held me back. He shook his head at me as we followed Ilya into the hallway.
“What are you up to?” I whispered.
“In a place this large, information can get altered. Ilya found the body, only he can tell me precisely where it was. I don't want you to unwittingly influence him.”
Ilya glanced back at us, and I smiled reassuringly.
That was all it took—one smile. Ilya headed through the hallways with more confidence, greeting the other courtiers we passed. Several of them bowed to me and inclined their heads respectfully to the Garin. Some stared a little too long at Konstantin, offering him inviting smiles, but he didn't notice, and that gavemeconfidence. By the time we reached the library, both Ilya and I were completely at ease.
But then Ilya took us down a path between the rows of sturdy, soaring bookshelves, deeper and deeper into the library. And the further back we went, the more twitchy Ilya got. To tell the truth, I was getting a bit nervous myself.
The archives lay beyond the main portion of the library, extending to the far wall. Because it was so infrequently accessed, it wasn't lit as the rest of the vast space was. Instead of normal overheads, the archive had motion-activated lights that clicked on as we entered the shadowy section. Each subsequent light sensed us before we left the halo of the previous, so that we were never in the dark for long. Yet the inky murk billowed around us, turning the aisles between shelves into hidey-holes for monsters and murderers. The clack of the lights coming on became nerve-wracking, reminding me of a gun cocking. Lord Timofey had been stabbed, not shot—Larch air magic made guns an unreliable weapon against one of us—but still, it wasn't a pleasant comparison.
Yes, I was spooked, and I knew the reason for it; this wasn't where I'd been told the body was found.
“Here.” Ilya waved us down an aisle.
Konstantin and I turned the corner and lights clicked on overhead to illuminate the entire row. It looked like any other library aisle, albeit a grand one, with solid wood shelves to either side, full of books. These books, however, were old, far older than me, and many shone with the gleam of preservation spells.
“Where was he?” Konstantin demanded.
Ilya ventured forward, going nearly to the end of the aisle where the shelves abutted the stone wall. “Here. He was lying right here, half propped by this shelf.” He pointed.
“This spot precisely?” Konstantin asked as he pulled a slim metal tube out of his jacket and tapped it. A light appeared at one end.
“Yes, Garin.”
Konstantin crouched and flashed the light over the floor, then up at the books, peering closely. “Someone did a very good job of cleaning up.”
“Ilya, are you sure this is where he was? I was told Timofey was found near the maps, in the main section of the library.”
“That's what I was ordered to tell people,” Ilya said. “The King didn't want the court disturbing the crime scene or getting in the way of the investigators.”
Konstantin grunted. “That's not a bad call.” He flicked a button on his device and the light changed to a violet-blue hue. Instantly, swaths, spots, and puddles were revealed. “Yep, it was done here all right.” He tapped the device again, and the light changed to a red grid which he ran methodically over the floor and books. A rectangular screen running along the tube lit up and started flashing numbers.
“They probably didn't want to use bleach around the books,” I said as I crouched beside him.
“Chlorine bleach doesn't remove all traces of blood; it has to be oxygenated bleach. But you're right; they didn't use either, this device would have picked up on that. Either they weren't trying to destroy evidence or they didn't think Ilya would lead us here.”
“What does that mean?” Ilya whispered.
“He has to entertain the possibility that anyone could be behind these murders,” I said. “It's good to have an unbiased investigator.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Konstantin flashed his grid light around and it suddenly produced a hologram of the evidence it registered, bringing a grisly scene to life. Blood gleamed crimson everywhere and a transparent outline of a body sprawled just as Ilya had described. Ilya, who found himself standing within the largest puddle of holographic blood, gasped and backed away.
“Can he wait at the end of the aisle?” I asked Kon.
