Solentine nodded. “Thunderstorms over the Glades. Added three hours.”
I met Everard’s eyes. “He’s dead, right? He didn’t regrow a face and resurrect?”
“I swear to you, he is dead,” Everard said.
“Magic has a limit, and its name is Death,” Solentine said. “Last I checked people didn’t come back to life. That would be utterly ridiculous.”
“Ha!” I put my hand over my face.
“Maggie, the Butcher is no more,” Everard said. “I will prove it to you tonight.”
“It has to be an impostor,” Solentine said. “I got a good look at the body before the guards pulled it off the bridge. It lacked the Butcher’s artistry. Cutting humans open to display your handiwork requires a skill set most people do not possess. The cut on Velpor was a single smooth slice. It took the new killer four cuts to open up the body, and his edges are ragged.”
“So he imitates without understanding the purpose behind the kill,” Everard said.
“In essence, yes,” Solentine said. “Also, the Butcher dueled his victims. He was looking for that moment when the tide turned, and his target saw their death approach. The man sought to prove his superiority. The new murderer put an amulor through the target’s eye.”
“What’s an amulor?” I asked.
“A narrow-bladed dagger. About this long.” Solentine indicated about fourteen inches with his fingers. “Triple-edged, convex grind. Very stiff. Basically, a sharp, rigid spike designed to crack links in chain armor. The killer stabbed our dead man in the eye with enough force to scramble the brain behind it. Instant kill. The victim didn’t even know he died.”
“Hreban hired a replacement,” Everard said. “It’s the simplest explanation.”
“Probably Cai of Sunder,” I told them. “That’s his go-to assassin.”
Solentine frowned. “That complicates things.”
“Is he good?” Everard asked.
“Yes. Fast, precise, professional. The man doesn’t get emotionally involved,” Solentine said.
“Can you find him before the opening of the judicial session?” Everard asked.
The head of the Shears shrugged. “Doubtful. I will try, but only saints can work miracles.”
Everything I had gone through, all the pain and suffering, and the assassination was still going forward. Not only that—we were worse off than when we started.
The Butcher was an assassin of opportunity. Hreban had hired him for his cruelty and shock value, but before the Butcher became a serial killer, he was a knight. He told me so when he declared that I was not one of them because I didn’t have the right heart. Skulking around the city didn’t come to him naturally. Cai of Sunder had been trained by one of the best assassins of the age, and assassination was his profession from the start. He wouldn’t make the Butcher’s mistakes.
I’d managed to escalate things again. Every time I crawled a foot forward, Rellas kicked me two feet back. I’d scream but I had already made enough of a spectacle.
“There is one thing that puzzles me,” Solentine said. “We know that Hreban becomes the Sun Margrave.”
He’d read the pages I’d given him. “Yes.”
“But Hreban himself can’t possibly know that,” Solentine said.
Everard sat up straighter. “That’s true. Sauven is volatile and Hreban is an unlikely man for that post.”
“So why does Hreban want to kill the Sun Margrave?” Solentine asked. “Why him of all people?”
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
Weknew what would happen, because of me. Hreban didn’t have me. Trying to assassinate the Sun Margrave was incredibly dangerous. It would infuriate Sauven beyond anything Rellas had seen. Hreban had to have figured out that much. So why risk it?
“Are there any charges in the High Court against Hreban?” Everard asked.
“Before I left, I told my people to look into the High Court docket. There is nothing. There is no bad blood between Colart Jenicor and Ulmar Hreban. They know of each other, but they’ve never come into conflict.”
