Palatine First (The Aurelian Archives) (50 page)

             
"Yes," Lucious spoke up quickly, "it was just dreadful, but you know, rather
exciting
."

             
"Pah, you don't know what you're talking about. You were as drunk as a bleeding Westerner," Mr. Tobin snapped at his son, who flushed. Tobin nodded his head apologetically to the duke and Abigail and loaded another forkful of salad before continuing. "An assassination plot...hatched by the headmaster of The Aurelian Academy himself! Can't imagine you knew it was coming, Thaddeus, but you have to admit, it was a mighty bit of luck that landed Reece of all people with the chance to stop Eldritch's Vee before it got a shot off on you."

             
"Very lucky," the duke agreed, nodding. His dark eyes and stern expression betrayed nothing, but in Scarlet's studies, even that meant something.

             
Scarlet carefully eyed Reece, who had suddenly homed in on his neglected salad and was focusing all his attention on his bowl. Scarlet had been there that night; she had spoken with Reece and learned he had come to the masquerade to protect the duke from said assassination. That, frustratingly, was all she really knew for sure. Oh, she had guesses, the same guesses as Mr. Tobin's evening papers. Headmaster Charles Eldritch, whom she had previously ascertained was the real power behind most of The Guild House's decisions, had turned out to be what parliament classified as a N.H.A.: a Non-Human Alien, one capable of taking human hosts. Where he had come from, or whom, was being kept closely guarded from the Honoran public.

             
Scarlet and the newspapers all suspected Reece was in on the secret, but he thus far hadn't been very forthcoming with either. Which was altogether unsurprising.

             
Mr. Tobin didn't seem pacified by the duke's answer. "But there was a second assassin, wasn't there? A gold-masked fellow, all the rumors name him."

             
"There was." The lines around the duke's eyes deepened as he frowned at a point over Mr. Tobin's head, seemingly lost in thought. Try as she might, Scarlet couldn't comprehend his expression; it seemed strangely…sad. And why had Abigail's face gone so pale?

             
After a pause, Reece cleared his throat and spoke while watching his father out of the corner of his eye. "There was a second assassin, and he did wear a gold mask. But he was killed in the explosion."

             
With a cough that barely passed for a laugh, Mr. Tobin picked up his goblet and tipped it at Reece as if offering a toast, all the while staring beadily at him. "Well, you're probably something of a hero at The Owl, I imagine. Unmasked an imposter, saved the duke and parliament…killed a Vee, too, and that's no small feat."

"Actually, I just pushed him off a balcony."

              Nobody said anything for a long moment.

             
Finally, Abigail, whose eyes looked rather red, snapped, "Are we ready for the second course, or are we going to keep yapping our appetites away?"

             
The second course—fruit salad garnished with mint leaves—stretched impossibly longer than the first, with the Tobins always returning to the night of the masquerade, ferreting for gossip. The duke took it all with that dark grace of his, but Abigail's disdainful sniffs kept growing more and more pronounced.

             
"Blasted shame about Liem, by the way," Mr. Tobin said as he cleaned the bottom of his fruit dish, affecting an appropriately mournful expression.

             
"Terrible, just terrible," Mrs. Tobin echoed. "But the funeral was lovely."

             
The duke nodded grimly, and Abigail drank deeply from her goblet. There was definitely something there, Scarlet decided. She'd already had her suspicions, of course. Liem pronounced dead the same night as the horrific heliocraft crash? It was too great a coincidence to be left alone, and this settled it in her mind. For whatever reason, Liem
had
been on
The Jester
.

             
"I wonder," Mrs. Tobin said in a conspiratorial voice, "if Headmaster Eldritch had something to do with Liem's abduction?"

             
Scarlet's keen eye picked up on the short glance passing between Reece and his father.

             
"I'd say that's likely," the duke said, and Mrs. Tobin swelled with pride.

             
Sweet nut and honey bread and lamb stew came and was then replaced by apple pie and tea, and the conversation dragged, but still Scarlet listened, mentally filing valuable little tidbits—such as Reece and the duke's shared glance, and Abigail's red eyes and heavy drinking—away for later. It was boring, tedious work, but necessary.

             
"…can't blame a man for wondering, of course," Mr. Tobin droned on. "But us in the Economics Department, we don't hear much of these things. The army is still being raised, then?"

             
Scarlet tipped her head in interest, swilling her tea gently. That particular nugget of information was one she had mined months ago. Parliament had enacted the involuntary draft to raise the numbers of Honora's ground and air forces, undoubtedly for war.
What
war, however, remained yet another mystery. Reece, along with his friend Hubert, had actually been drafted before his father had belatedly exempted them in accordance with The Duke's Rite of Imbuement, but if he knew any more about who his enemies would have been than Scarlet, he'd kept the knowledge to himself.

             
"Yes, Theodore," the duke answered, sounding impatient at last. "The army is still being raised. Surely you are not
that
cut off in the D.E. offices. Several of your co-workers' sons were drafted, after all."

             
Waving his goblet, Mr. Tobin bumbled, "Had to hear it from the mouth of the horse, as it were. No one seems to know what it's being raised
for
, you see."

             
"I would have thought that'd be obvious. Charles Eldritch's extensive infiltration of Honora begs us to be prepared. I doubt it will be the last time aliens make a bid for our planet."

             
"Is that what the creature was doing, then? Making a bid for our planet?"

             
"Oh, for pity's sake!" Startling them all, Abigail slapped a palm to the tabletop and glowered around at her company. "Can we speak of nothing else? I've been too busy to see daylight this past month because of that wretched night. Scarlet."

             
Scarlet looked up expectantly, wiping her face of her look of concentration.

             
"How are your twin sisters? Are they liking The Academy?"

             
Scarlet inwardly grimaced and outwardly smiled—a skill she had honed with years of practice. "Well, they certainly like it…but I think they'd do better if there were fewer boys at The Academy to distract them." Fewer boys meaning
no boys
. Kitty and Savannah could make a career out of chasing boys with no intention of chasing them back, and they'd excel at it, the silly things.

             
"Hmph," Abigail snorted, clicking her fingers for a servant to clear away the empty dessert dishes.              "I'll have to keep my eyes on them. If I can't marry Reece off to you, that leaves me at least two other Ashdowns to pick from."

             
"Abigail," the duke chided, chuckling with Mr. and Mrs. Tobin as Lucious frowned to himself. He had looked a little
too
interested in Scarlet's mention of her younger sisters' fancies; she made a mental note to keep him clear of family picnics.

             
"What? I'm being perfectly serious, Thaddy. If we don't marry your son off before he heads into the Streams, we'll die without any grandchildren."

             
"Please forgive my wife, Mrs. Ashdown." The duke bowed his head to Scarlet's mother, who had barely said two words since the lunch began, though hardly for lack of thought, if Scarlet knew her at all.             

"Of course," Mrs. Ashdown said lightly, smiling. "Either girl would be delighted at the thought of an arranged marriage to our young captain."

              "There, you see?" Tossing her ashy brown hair and leaning back in her seat, Abigail said to Reece, "Well? Does my hopeless son have anything to say on the matter, or can I expect our family name to stop with your Uncle Uriah? Perish the thought."

             
Reece, who had been staring into his apple pie, started and lifted his head. He looked from his mother to Mrs. Ashdown, and then turned to face the duke, wearing an unfathomable expression. "I'd like to make sure the Dryad is seen to before the storm gets any worse."

             
"Go," the duke said before Abigail could put words to the anger coloring her face. "For goodness' sake, just go. Before your mother starts performing the nuptials."

Coming to The Archives March 5, 2013

About the Author

Courtney Grace Powers has been cramming notebooks full of stories since she was six years old and determined to see her short stories about flying unicorns and vampire princes adapted to the big screen. Although she has since decided to leave the unicorns and vampires on the shelf, science-fiction and fantasy stories have retained a special place in her heart, along with theatre, chai tea, bomber jackets, and adventuring.

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