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But she’d had help, hadn’t she?
She’d already received half the puzzle—the little details in the folio that had put her on alert in the first place, even if she hadn’t understood them all.
Aurelius should have been furious with this whole situation. He had been betrayed by his cousin. The time was streaking by without result. Half the summer was almost gone. The Wax Crack, midpoint of the summer, was less than a week away! And everywhere he went, Zosime followed.
And yet, despite the ache in his face, despite the grinding frustration of his failures, Aurelius gave a tiny smirk.
Zosime might be good. But he was better. And in this game, he still had cards to play.
Because Calix wasn’t the only one with family.
Teigra emerged from up the stairs and through his bedroom, panting. She turned a shocked look first to the folio, and then to his face. “Aurie? What... what happened?”
He turned the parchment pages slowly—letting each flick across his thumb. “You knew, didn’t you, Teigra?”
“I... I...”
He turned, allowing the afternoon light to emphasize every wound across his battered visage. “Not only did you not destroy it. Not only did you bring it with you. Not only did you lose it. But you knew that Zosime had it. That is why you pushed me to go to the wrestling school on our first day here. You knew the danger I was in, the danger you caused, and you didn’t even tell me.”
She denied him his intended guilt trip by bursting into inconsolable tears, babbling out a list of excuses: of being ashamed of her mistake, of not wanting to see Aunt Urosina’s work go up in flames, of the pressure that Securia had placed on her to tell Aurelius’s secrets or ruin the name of House Cosmin.
As she collapsed before him, her tears staining his blue tunic a dark navy, he did feel a little sorry for her.
And yet, it didn’t matter. The point remained the same.
She had put him in danger.
She had made his mission that much harder.
And now, she would repay that debt.
44
TEIGRA
Teigra tapped on the golden door, half hoping it wouldn’t be answered.
She’d done everything else she could think of to find the information Aurelius had demanded: asking guarded questions to her contacts in the agora, hoping she wasn’t being too obvious; walking around the Green Heart Park in the center of town as the nobles lounged and laughed, willing that she would somehow just overhear the crucial information.
That hadn’t worked, of course. And now, with the Wax Crack just five days away, there was only one person who might know the answer she needed.
The door was opened by a posh-looking servant—impeccably dressed, with a face full of suspicion.
“Hello,” she whispered. “I was... I was just wondering whether...”
“My dear! What an unexpected pleasure,” said Fabulosa, rounding the corner inside the Ondocian embassy, wearing the most exquisite himation that Teigra had ever seen. The cut was sleeveless and shorter at the legs, made from a figure-hugging teal that was practically sheer, such that she could see the silhouette of the curves beneath. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I... I wanted your advice on something,” said Teigra, feeling the urge to look away.
Fabulosa cocked a knowing eyebrow and led her through the halls, past incredible vases and silks, until they arrived in a lavish drawing room.
The high envoy reclined into a sumptuous lounge—gold-leafed wood and sapphire velvet. She snapped her fingers and a young man entered, carrying two glasses of dark liquid. “I was thinking about you just the other day, my dear.”
“You were?” she said, taking a seat on an adjacent lounge. She put the glass to her side.
“Yes. About your name. It means tiger in Voresoma.”
It wasn’t a question, and Teigra had no doubt that Fabulosa, like most senior Ondocians, could speak the language fluently. She nodded cautiously as the servant departed.
