Of Noble Chains (The Ventori Fables) (6 page)

“Are you alright?” Aeryn laughed at her as he stepped down from Cindy, careful to avoid his student.  He never offered her help up but she didn’t care; Zia shot up from the dirt and quickly brushed herself off.

“I’m like ice,” Zia declared and calmly rested her arm on Cindy.  Despite her cold appearance, the glass of her mane was actually quite hot.  The steed whinnied and shook the girl off, deciding to trot towards the grass.  “So uh, what are we doing here?”

“Read the news lately?” Aeryn moved closer to the bridge where Zia finally noticed a few bouquets of colourful flowers and melted candles surrounding a frame.  One flower was out of place though, sitting directly in from of a photograph; a single red rose.  As she approached, she saw the image of a smiling young woman.  The short news article flashed in her mind and she stopped following her mentor.

“This was the girl that jumped from the bridge,” Zia said, taking a careful step towards the photograph, “the Ventori from the other night.”

“You’re half right,” Aeryn glanced over his shoulder and allowed the breeze to blow his hair in front of his eyes, “but she didn’t jump willingly.”

“How do you know that?” Zia’s heart skipped a beat, thinking that maybe he was involved in the woman’s death.  But she pushed aside her paranoid thoughts, they were too ridiculous.  Her brother always told her she was too nervous.  “Judgmental” was his favourite word to use.

“This is your first test,” Aeryn sauntered halfway down the bridge.  Zia quickened her pace to catch up and followed him to the very end; keeping a careful eye on her surroundings.  “You know she didn’t jump off here, so what happened?”

Zia nodded at him and began to look around, trying to notice every little detail.

Aeryn knew there was no way Zia would pass this test.  But that was part of why he chose this as her first official case; because it would teach her a few valuable, and hopefully lifesaving
lessons.  He watched as she first looked around at the wooden planks, as if afraid she would step on any evidence should she move.

He stepped backwards and leaned against the side of a support beam, trying not to chuckle at her.  She shot him a look and he crossed his arms, already defensive.  Suddenly she looked past him, as if there was something there and he stupidly fell for her trick.

Aeryn swiveled his head around to look over the river but all he saw was the Northern Sun, nothing that should have gotten her attention.  Quickly he turned back to face Zia, feeling like an idiot.

“What is that?” Aeryn asked Zia, noticing the notepad in her hand.  She flicked it shut and shoved it back into her jacket pocket, not intending him to see it.

“Nothing,” Zia said, beginning to look around the bridge again.  She couldn’t admit she was trying to use a cheat sheet, and that just last night she had written down a few notes on this very case.  Or maybe she should?  Would Aeryn be impressed that she thought there was something off about what appeared to be an open and shut case?  She told him the truth and added, “Great minds think alike, I suppose.”

“And fools’ rarely differ,” Aeryn smirked at her.  Zia’s smile faltered and blood rushed to her face. 
Okay
, she thought,
not exactly the reaction I wanted
.  “Now tell me what you’ve got so far.”

“
Alrighty then,” Zia whipped her eyes all over the bridge, looking for something, anything, that could impress her mentor but found nothing earth-shattering.  “She didn’t jump.”

Aeryn rolled his eyes and began to walk towards Cindy, his motions almost a jerk.  “Well maybe I’ll call the good Father Killian and tell him to cancel your acceptance.  Because if that’s all you’ve got…”

“No,” Zia shouted, jumping towards him, “no, wait!  I have more…I just…was starting is all.”

“Then finish.”  Aeryn squinted his eyes at her, and she felt them bore into her.

“Okay,” Zia turned her back to Aeryn and gripped the boards that protected, or maybe simply blocked her, from falling off the edge, “these were broken within the past four nights; there’s heat coming off of them, see?”  She held her hands back from the wood as Aeryn approached, mimicking her position.  “That means that a Caster put them back together, so that nobody had known they were broken.”

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a suicide,” Aeryn feigned skepticism, “maybe there was an accident that required a Specter.”

Zia shook her head, “It’s unlikely.  Even though this is the bridge leading down to the South, they rarely employ Specter’s or clan members.  All construction is done by humans, since the Work Accord of ’42.  Specter’s only come in if it’s absolutely necessary, and I can’t imagine they would find putting up some boards ‘absolutely necessary’.”

“Huh,” Aeryn said, eyeing his student.  He hadn’t anticipated her to actually know that, and he certainly hadn’t anticipated her to notice the heat, or have notes on the case already.  “What else ya got?”

Zia smiled at him, obviously happy to have left him surprised.  She continued, “There’s also a bit of Caster residue left in the cracks.”  She slid her finger down one small line in the woodwork, barely noticeable by anyone else’s standards.  When she held up her index finger it had a thin coating of blue dust, the very same he had found last night.

“Huh,” Aeryn said again and silently added,
thought it would have blown away.

Zia continued her analysis without needing any more prompting.  “I also looked into some other articles on it; they said that the ball had finished at about one in the morning, but her time of death was estimated to be at about four.  She was found in her gown, so what happened to those three hours?  Also—“

“Where did you find the time of death?” Aeryn removed his hands from above the boards and crossed them over his chest.  “I don’t recall that being in any article.”

Zia laughed nervously.  “Well I read it online…I guess it could be wrong.”

“I’ll pretend that’s the truth…for now.”

“Anyway…I read in the
er—article, that she had been found with deep cuts, that the coroner assumed was done by the rocks down below.”  They each peered over the edge at the calm waters that covered jagged points.  It was a likely theory, Aeryn thought.  “But really I doubt that, they looked more like they had been done by knives.  The cuts were a little blue-ish too, so I think it was a Caster knife.”

Aeryn laughed and shook his head.  How could she have known all this already?  He figured she must have hacked into the Archives…but to do that required great skill.  Then he remembered something Donataen had told him.

“You know your father’s password,” Aeryn mumbled, “I should’ve guessed.”

“That’s not true!” Zia suddenly wheeled on him, a wild look in her eyes.  “I would never endanger my father’s work in the Archives for my own gain.”

“Then how did you read the coroner’s report?” Aeryn held up a hand to stop her.  “Oh, I’m sorry; how did you read the coroner’s ‘article’?”

Zia didn’t blush as he had anticipated.  Instead she said, “I think that’s for me to know and you to…not know.”

“That’s fine,” Aeryn said, “I’ll find out on my own eventually.”

Zia had wondered if she should have told Aeryn just exactly how much access she had to the city archives.  But if she did that, it was admitting to hacking into their computers, and worse, having to tell him how she did it.  When she had told Iscah about her own profile and security access card her friend had thought she had amazing computer skills.  But it wasn’t that at all.

When she was fifteen she had to go on her annual trip to work with her father when an emergency had come up for him; and he had left her alone at his mobile computer.  Cashel worked all over the city as an Ark specialist, and on that particular day they had been at City Ark.  It had only taken her about ten minutes to actually get onto the
Ark’s main server and create her own file.  Not exactly hard work on her part.

So now, at that very moment, she had an ID access card sitting in her wallet with her deceased neighbours name on it, and her photograph.  It couldn’t get her in anywhere in person easily, but online it got her into all the secret places the Ark didn’t want civilians to know about.  Places like the coroner’s office.

“Well,” Zia said, “no matter how I got the information, this looks like a Caster killing.”

“Very good,” Aeryn said slyly.  “What class do you propose?”

Zia thought for a long moment about the various types of Caster Specter’s out there; only two of them left a blue residue behind, and it usually meant a powerful one.

“I would say one skilled with Arcane I guess, considering the marks found on the body,” she finally said and the right corner of his mouth raised just slightly.  At first Zia thought that maybe
she was wrong but he never said if she was or wasn’t.  Instead, he turned around and began heading back to the photograph of the woman that had “jumped”. 
Cindel
, Zia reminded herself,
the woman’s name was Cindel
.

“If you were alone, what would you do next?” Aeryn asked her, never taking his eyes off of the blonde’s picture.  He almost looked sad, as if he had known her.

“I would talk to the family,” Zia said strongly, “see if she had any known enemies, or if she was working any active cases.  Talk to her friends too, I guess.”

“Close,” Aeryn said, finally dragging his eyes towards Zia, “we’re going to look into her cases ourselves first, and do a little background before talking to them.”

He spun on his heel and whistled for Cindy.  She poked her head up from the long grass and came over slowly.  Aeryn jumped onto her with a ridiculous amount of ease and offered his hand out to Zia.

“Why do that first?” Zia asked, taking hold of his rough fingers.  She could feel scars on them, feel how many battles he had won, how many enemies he must have defeated.  Actually meeting him was different than what she had pictured.  Rinehart the Unbreakable made him sound immortal, but feeling his wounds…made him seem very human.  More human than she had wanted him to be.

“Because family isn’t always innocent.”

The wind had picked up, bringing in more storm clouds over North Havilan and the rain had just begun to descend when Zia and Aeryn stepped into Ventori Ark on the East side of the city.  For a brief moment adrenaline shot through her veins, but she calmed down when she remembered her father was still stationed at the Library.

“Got your papers?” Aeryn asked as they stepped in line behind a fellow Ventori.  Zia had barely heard him, too busy soaking in the atmosphere.

She had never been to Ventori Ark, but she had always dreamed of it.  The building was the second tallest in the world, next to City Ark; it also held one of the only entrances to the catacombs.  It shot into the sky, piercing the clouds themselves and shone brilliantly under the Northern Sun.  Zia often watched it as a child, imagining she and her brother coming here for her official license.   Her eyes dimmed a bit under the bright lights.

“Hey,” Aeryn knocked on her head with one knuckle, “
papers
.”

“Huh?” Zia snapped out of her daze.  “Oh, right, here.”  She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the forms that allowed her to work with Aeryn for the summer.  She unfolded them and placed them into his hand.

“What were you thinking about?” Aeryn eyed her curiously but she shrugged him off and continued to look around her.

There weren’t that many people there, only a few Ventori.  Some of them had
STRAYs in tow, while others were probably only there to report on their cases.  The golden walls reflected the sun all around her and it seemed close to heavenly.  But all she could think about was how many times her brother had walked on the very tiles upon which she now stood.  How many STRAYs had he brought in here for punishment?  How many—

“Next!” A small, pointy nosed woman waved Zia and Aeryn to the front desk.  They walked up, Aeryn almost having to drag Zia away from her own misery.  “How can I help you today?”

“We need to file some authorization forms,” Aeryn said when Zia didn’t speak up, “and get some information on a deceased Ventori.”

Aeryn handed over the forms and the woman took them without another word, already typing into her computer with nails that could
easily be mistaken for Specter’s claws.  After a few short moments the woman turned back to them and said to Zia, “Congratulations on your training.”

“
Hm?  Thanks,” Zia said back absentmindedly.

“What case info did you need now?” the woman directed her question at Zia again, obviously trying to be nice.  But Zia only found it difficult to concentrate, as if something was urging her to just turn around and leave.

“It’s a charm,” Zia spoke aloud and whirled around.  Everyone nearby was either Ventori or in proper reduc-chains.  No Casters in the building would be able to use their magic, so what was going on?  Zia could feel the effects of a Turn Away charm on her, but she had no idea where it was coming from.

“Took you long enough to notice,” Aeryn laughed and patted her once on the back.  He quickly turned back to the receptionist.  “We need to know if
Cindel l’Heureux was working on any cases before she died.”  He spelled out the name for the woman.