Ghosts in the Snow (29 page)

"Stop it," Dari said. "Can't you see that's not helping?"

"I'm all right," Nella said. "I just thought—"

The door burst open and Stef swung in, grinning from ear to ear. "Guess what, Miss Perfect? Lord Sweetie's been dragged, in chains, to Dubric's office."

Nella stared at Stef, who stuck out her tongue. "Told you he was the slasher."

Dari leapt forward and punched Stef, knocking her to the floor. "You said no such thing! You're just jealous and mean!"

Stef wiped at her mouth and scrambled to her feet, balling her hands into fists.

"Stop it," Nella said, taking deep breaths to slow her thudding heart. "Both of you." She lowered her head, her mind racing, then looked up to stare Stef in the eye. "Did you see it yourself, or is it just a rumor?"

Stef crossed her arms across her chest. "Everyone's talking about it. I don't have to see. Lord Sweetie's guilty of murder."

Nella shook her head, her eyes remaining locked on Stef.
It's just a rumor. Maybe he witnessed something; maybe Dubric decided to question him; maybe it's all a misunderstanding
. She swallowed her fear and said, "He hasn't murdered anyone." Gritting her teeth, she ran from the room with Dari on her heels.

* * *

Risley tried to stand, but the shackles kept his wrists attached to the chair. "Whoever put you up to this, they're wrong. I haven't killed anyone."

Dubric rubbed his eyes, but the ghosts refused to leave. Fytte and Ennea argued over Rianne's severed forearm, while Elli tied Nansy in her own intestines. Olibe Meiks, however, scowled at Dubric, his dead eyes glowing a hideous green.

Dubric flipped through his notebook and tried to ignore his aching head. "Evidence disagrees. We have you neatly corralled, Risley. You may as well admit your guilt and save everyone needless time and heartache."

"But I didn't do it," Risley said, trying to stand again. "And get these things off me! For Goddess's sake, I'm not a criminal."

"You are now," Dien said. "And those shackles are your own damn fault. You wouldn't stay where I put you." He jangled a set of keys before Risley's eyes.

"Peg you," Risley snapped. "I'm innocent and I demand that my father be notified of this insanity." He turned his gaze to Dubric and added, "And I demand to know what evidence you've concocted against me. What? One of the girls write my name in the mud? Or did someone leave a trail of blood and body parts leading to my room?"

Lars leaned against the wall, not far from where Fytte tortured Rianne. "You're better off not talking."

"Boar piss! I have every right and reason to be upset. You've forced me to come here, got me splattered with spit and filth, and Nella's probably worried sick or thinking I've changed my mind about her! All for some mucked-up charge that's based on hearsay and wild speculation. If you've slopped up my evening for nothing, there'll be hell to pay. I don't know a damned thing about that razor or the murders and I demand to know how in the Goddess's name you've decided I'm responsible."

Dubric watched Risley closely. "Someone sent me a disgusting gift." He pulled the fabric-wrapped horror from the box and set it on his desk. Pulling the outer ribbon loose, he said, "Nella's ribbon. Her initials are on this end. See?"

Risley's eyes grew wide and he swallowed but said nothing. Dubric dropped the ribbon, letting it land in Risley's lap.

A touch of Dubric's finger and the stiff fabric opened, revealing the plate and its contents. "Your grandfather's personal china and cutlery," he said, moving the plate aside. "Not only is it filled with human kidneys and hair, someone put trinkets from each of the victims inside. Nella, incidentally, had
two
trinkets, while the others merely had one."

Risley watched, horrified, as the plate clattered onto the table and Dubric lifted Nella's braid. "Ah, here we are," he said, letting the braid hang from his fingers. "Another bit of evidence taken from your newest conquest." He tossed it onto Risley's lap, ignoring the small sound escaping Risley's throat.

"There is more," he said. "Shall I continue?"

Risley's face had turned pale and he stared at the evidence in his lap. "I'm not sure," he replied.

"Oh, but I am," Dubric said, lifting the note. "Someone educated sent me a lovely piece of gloating filth on your grandfather's parchment. 'You've overlooked the blood on my hands.' Were you referring to the literal blood and stitches I saw on your hand this morning or the figurative deaths you've taken?"

Risley stared at him, his eyes cold and hard. "You tell me."

"I will, in time," Dubric said, reading from the note again. " 'Girls are dying, my Lord Castellan, every night beneath my razor, but you are not making a lick of difference.'" He met Risley's eyes and smiled. "You said almost exactly the same phrase to me this very morning. Do you remember?"

"Vaguely," Risley said, his stare not faltering.

"You have called the people of my castle 'sheep' to my face, and now this." Dubric rattled the note.

"I did not kill those girls. Someone else wrote that damned letter."

"And I suppose someone else was able to pilfer parchment and dishes from your grandfather, as well as use your phraseology. Someone else received the razor last autumn, and someone else has committed these crimes?"

Risley did not flinch or waver. "It would appear so, yes."

"And you insist you have never seen this before."

"Dammit, Dubric, I guarantee that if I'd ever seen that disgusting thing, I'd remember."

Dubric sighed and lifted a bundle of papers from his desk. "I have known you since you were an infant, Risley," he said quietly as he found his page, "and I have never known you to be unreasonable or dangerous. Even when wallowing in the headstrong tendencies of youth, you have always kept your mental faculties." He looked at the paper and leaned forward. "I want to believe you today. I do. I do not wish to think you intended to hurt anyone. That simply is not the young man I know.

"Do you remember what you said to me when Dien brought you here for lurking in the servants' wing?"

Risley blinked in reply.

Dubric read a section of Otlee's notes aloud. " 'Who's to say I haven't been touched with some dark magic? Been tainted somehow? Completely lost my senses?'"

Dubric smiled at Otlee and set the note aside.
Every damned word, -praise the King
! "You added, 'I'm innocent, I know it in my heart, but what if my heart is lying?' Do you remember?"

"Yes, I remember."

Dubric accepted two papers and a battered ledger from Otlee before he returned his attention to Risley, waiting a long moment before speaking again. "Been having headaches lately?"

"Some. I haven't been sleeping well. People do get headaches from time to time."

Dubric tapped a finger in the ledger. "But I believe that you are the only person in Faldorrah to have traveled to Astaria. Lars mentioned your headaches days ago, but I had not made the connection until today. Did you happen to visit Vehnliel?"

Risley's brow furrowed. "You've likely got the page in front of you, so why bother asking me?"

Dubric leaned a hip against his desk. "Surely you know travel there is forbidden."

Risley exhaled slowly, his fingers gripping the chair. "That is restricted information of a sensitive nature."

"And yet you maintained records, written in a hand that has an uncanny resemblance to the note the killer left me. We even had the scribes and herald compare parts of the two and they agreed with our assessment." Dubric tossed a page of manifest toward Risley and it floated onto his lap. "Would you care to explain what item number seventeen is?"

"No. As a courier and representative of the Lagiern Crown, I am authorized—"

"You are a murder suspect in Faldorrah! I do not care what secrets the King is hoarding. We are discussing your life and the deaths of eleven people!"

Risley grumbled within his throat and said, "Yes, I went to Vehnliel and yes, I acquired a particular rarity for which my grandfather has spent decades searching. I never touched the item in question, or spoke to it, and it certainly did not bite or inject me. After assuring its presence in the holding vessel, I sealed the jar with wax and delivered it, still sealed inside, to my grandfather for destruction."

Lars had turned nearly as ashen as the granite wall behind him. "Don't soul-stealers drink people's blood and replace it with their own urine? Goddess, you actually brought one to Lagiern?"

"Damn right I did. I killed three Pyrinnian couriers to get it, and an Astarian spy. I couldn't let it fall into Egeslic's hands. Do you have any idea what he would do with a soul-stealer? Can you imagine an army of zombies? They'd fight without fear, remorse, or even pain, obliterating everything in their path. Possibly getting a case of rot was the least of my concerns."

"You should've dropped it in the sea," Dien said, scowling.

"The little bastards don't drown. Would you have taken the chance that it could escape the jar and find land? What if it bit someone? What if it spawned?"

Dien grumbled his reply and crossed his arms over his chest.

Dubric frowned. "Headaches are a symptom of Wraith Rot, as is uncharacteristic aggression. Surely you know this."

"I considered it when this first started, I did, but I was in Astaria nearly nine moons ago. I was in a quarantine zone, yes, but I show no definitive symptoms of Wraith Rot and I don't have a single lesion, anywhere, or any other late-stage symptoms. Besides, if I'd been exposed, I'd likely be dead by now."

"Or stark raving mad trying to maintain a solid form," Dien muttered.

"I'm not dead or insane, nor has my soul been stolen and my veins filled with soul-stealer piss. I'm just tired. That's why I'm having the headaches." He took a cleansing breath and met Dubric's gaze. "You have to believe me."

"How can I when every new piece of evidence we find points to you? Every last one." Dubric slammed the ledger closed. "Either condition could lead you to brutally murder without remorse."

"It's someone else."

"Someone else who happens to have blood on their shirt?"

"I fell this morning. Ask Nella. She was there."

"Yes, Nella," Dubric said, leaning closer. "Of all the victims, only she lived. Why is that?"

"If you had kept your promise, she never would have been hurt at all."

"And two bits referring to her, instead of one, like everyone else. Why is that?"

"I don't know. But when I find out, I'm going to gut the bastard like a fish."

Dubric reached for his notebook. "We will not give you the opportunity to cheat justice. There is too much evidence to deny."

"Listen to me. Someone—I don't know who, but someone else—did this. Not me. Besides, none of this directly connects me to that disgusting thing or any of die murdered girls. It's all speculation and deduction."

"This is not," Dubric said, lifting the hair from his notebook. "We found this inside the wrapper, in a crease. Do you recognize it?"

"It's a hair. Most people have hair, or have you forgotten?" He glanced at Dubric's shining pate and raised a single mocking eyebrow. "Ow! Hey!"

"Oh, excuse me, your lordship. Thought I saw a snarl." Dien handed Dubric a single dark hair and Dubric placed them side by side. The lengths, color, and shape were comparable and Risley gasped.

"That's impossible. I never saw that horrid thing before!"

Dubric handed the second hair back to Dien and returned the original to his notebook. "It is a fact, Lord Romlin, not speculation or deduction. An irrefutable fact. We found your hair
inside
the nest of clues because you assembled them, you gathered them, and you killed for them."

"One hair? You're basing this on one damned hair? Goddess, how many people in this castle have hair like mine? Scores, surely."

Dubric lifted Risley's wooden razor and contemplated the dents and scratches. "I had first thought that this was battered from travel. Surely being jostled in saddlebags and packs would wear such a fine piece of wood. But look here, do you see this strip missing? This narrow sliver? Do you know where the missing piece is?"

"I've had the thing for summers. It's most likely in the bottom of my travel pack, but it could be anywhere."

"Are you so certain?" Dubric asked, opening a small paper packet. He pulled out the sliver of wood and held it before Risley's eyes. He had not cleaned away the blood, and the splinter looked dark and dead. "Is this at all familiar to you?"

"It's a dirty piece of wood."

"That we happened to find inside one of the victims. You left us a physical clue, Risley. One you were unaware of. You made a mistake and we caught you. This tiny sliver will remove all doubt as to your guilt or innocence."

"It won't fit," Risley said, staring at it. "It can't."

Dubric lay the sliver against the razor and it nestled against the worn wood, fitting perfectly into one end of the open strip. He stood straight and stared into Risley's eyes. "The hair and wood belong to you, Risley; my Far-Sight glass has left us no doubt. We have gathered substantial circumstantial evidence against you. All I needed was one scrap of hard proof to link you directly to this mess, even a single hair stuck to a bloody package or a sliver of wood found inside a dead girl's chest. For those, Lord Romlin, and for the murder of eleven innocent souls, I will see you hanged."

* * *

Nella had chewed her fingernails to the quick worrying over the muffled noises coming from behind the locked door. Risley and Dubric grumbled and argued, but she couldn't understand what they said, nor was she certain she wanted to. All the while, Dari sat beside her, quivering and staring at Dubric's office.

The door burst open without warning and Dari let out a startled scream, but Nella took a deep breath and stood, trying to accept the impossible. Lars and Dien shoved Risley toward her, and she swallowed her horror and tried to look into his eyes.

Spattered with filth and his wrists shackled together, Risley gasped at the sight of her. He smoothed his frown and his fingers clenched. "We may have to delay our jaunt to the minstrel," he said, forcing an assured smile. "I'm sorry, love, but circumstance…" Lars pushed him forward again as his voice trailed off.