“Perhaps if we go to Andrei instead of summoning him here?”
Konstantin grunted. “That may work. All right, let's go speak to the Master Murderer.”
“TheallegedMaster Murderer,” I corrected.
Kon snorted as he opened the door for me. “See? I told you, you're funny.”
“You've given me a reason to be.” I smiled tenderly at him. “You've given me a reason to laugh.”
He shut the door.
“What are you doing?”
Konstantin pulled me into an embrace. “That deserves a kiss.”
Our kiss lasted far longer than it should have and yet not long enough. When we finally eased apart, we were both smiling, and it felt natural to take his hand. But then Kon opened the door, and I remembered why it wasn't a good idea to parade through the castle hand-in-hand with my secret lover. I let go and rushed out into the corridor ahead of him.
Konstantin's soft laughter followed me before he did. When he stepped up beside me, he whispered, “I like that I can make you forget where you are.”
“Yes, that's wonderful until we get caught,” I hissed back.
“There's no one out here, Misha.”
“We still need to be careful.”
“Okay, all right.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I'm getting excited because we're so close. If we play this right, we could have a confession by the end of the day.”
“I know.” I grinned. “And then, I'll hold your hand in public.”
“Deal.”
We hurried through the corridors to the library, but Master Andrei wasn't there. We searched the castle ourselves since we didn't want to alert Niko that we were closing in on the murderer. The Master Librarian wasn't in his chambers, the dining hall, any of the socializing rooms—including the castle's movie theater, or the gardens. No one was in the gardens—the storm may have passed but it was still cold with intermittent snowfall—so it was easy to verify the last one. We even walked down to the village, but no one had seen him there either.
We eventually gave up and returned to the castle for dinner.
“Do you know if he owns a car?” Konstantin asked as we passed through the castle gates.
“Most of us don't. The King has a fleet of vehicles which members of the court are allowed to use.” I veered toward the garage to the left. “I'll check with the attendant to see if Andrei has borrowed one.”
“If he's taken a car, he's stolen it, not borrowed.”
“You think he's fled?”
“The one day we go looking for him, and he's nowhere to be found? Yes, I think it's likely.”
“But how would he know that we were looking for him?”
“Nowthere'sa question,” Kon muttered as we entered the garage.
A long, rectangular room housed the land-bound vehicles but at the back, there was also a hanger for some of the more advanced craft used for interplanetary travel. Those were kept behind locked iron gates so I wasn't worried about Andrei stealing one to make his escape. But if fleeing to another planet was his goal, he didn't need one. He only had to reach a beneather community with a public travel portal. Krasnodar had the closest one, a little over an hour away. Still, I wasn't worried. Even if Andrei left the planet, we could find him through portal records and surveillance. Goddess knows I'd thought about leaving often enough myself to have considered every option. My conclusion: there wasn't a place in all the realms that I could hide from the King of the Larchs.
“This is new.” I waved a hand at a black truck parked at the head of a line of sedans and SUVs.
“That one's mine,” Kon said.
“Oh, I didn't realize you'd brought a car with you.”
“You don't have a portal here so it was kinda necessary. The truck belongs to my clan.”
