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“So he’s OK?” he whispered.
“I think so,” I said. “He’s definitely been weakened, but it’s probably just like me. He needs some rest.”
“I got a lot of what you were looking for.” He bent over and started sorting through the books. “These probably aren’t as important now, but if you want to find out more about keletha, that’s this pile. From the index, it didn’t say much about dragons. I’m guessing because it doesn’t come from here and why would anyone poison a dragon if they’re your means to gain power? This is an atlas of Aravisia. Might be useful later, but this is the one that might get your interest.” He picked up a thick volume. “This is the history of the Rozenrrath from across the whole continent because the section from Aravisia…” he flipped open the book and then found the page he was looking for, “…is only this thick. The rest is everyone else’s records of them. They’ve been effectively erased from the history books here. You gotta wonder why.”
I did wonder why. I took the book, eyeing the TBR pile which was infinitely more urgent than this. Flea saw my look and said, “Take another day off. You’d have no problems getting it with him the way he is. You could get through a lot of this reading and then start back tomorrow.”
“It’ll be later than that. The day after is the beginning of the weekend. I’ll get caught up on this, but further behind in class.” I looked at the book in my hand again. “Fuck it, I need to know what the deal is with the Rozenrrath.” He patted my knee and then got up to make us some tea.
The Rozenrrath were a dragon rider family, one of the primary backers of the deposed Casteron dynasty during the Killkin War of Succession. Their participation in the Casteron push to retain the throne resulted in the extermination of their line, the deregistration of their name and the destruction of their dragons.
That was the sum total of all knowledge from Aravisian sources in the Celestial Record? I looked at Flea with a frown. “Did you read this?” I pointed to the page. He nodded. “How did a major player in a war get written out of the history books?”
“History is written by the victors. What did the victors want hidden?” Flea said, setting a cuppa before me.
I flipped the page and kept reading.
“It seems the Rozenrrath had more powers than the other riders,” I said after wading through a few chapters. This was a compendium of all the articles or excerpts of books the Record had found about the Rozenrrath. “It’s hard to say specifically what they had, the references are kinda vague, but reading between the lines, definitely seems to be some kind of extra-ness going on. They seem to feature a lot in other cultures as well like they were ambassadors or something. Obviously I would need to read a review of all cultures’ references to any dragon riders to be sure, but up until three hundred years ago, there was a lot of mentions of them visiting, being fixtures in international courts, mediating disputes, facilitating the moving of difficult feral dragons back to Aravisia. I wonder if there’s anything like it now?”
We didn’t get to discuss that further. The front door banged open and Jez stomped in, looking a little worse for wear. “You owe me,” she said, pointing to me. She tried to wipe a smudge on her face away with the back of her hand, but it just smeared further.
“K, what happened?”
“I found evidence that the school is behind the poisoning is what,” she said, brandishing a stained piece of paper. She tried to pass it over, but it seemed to stick to her hand. I plucked it off with my fingertips, trying to avoid getting the gunk on me as well. I took it over to the bench, Miazydar remained asleep despite my movement and smoothed it out on the cutting board. “Next time I give a blowie to a guy for information, I’m getting him to retrieve it,” Jez muttered. She scrubbed her hands in the sink, rubbing soap between them with enthusiasm. “Found a bloke who cleans the VCs office and thought I was on to something. Did the deed and the prick just showed me the midden where all the stuff from Bhechro’s office is dumped. This was under the rotting remains of the last staff function,” she said with a shudder. “The guy gave me a stick to move the rubbish but told me to not make a mess. Bloody dickhead. But I found this.”
“Looks like an invoice, but what for? We can’t read Aravisian,” Flea said, peering over my shoulder.
“Look here, this word, this is how keletha is spelt in Aravisian,” she said.
“How d'you know that?” Flea said.
“Asked the bloke to tell me before he got to the happy place,” she said.
“You think this is evidence they purchased the poison? They wouldn’t be so stupid as to just chuck it in the rubbish pile at the back of the university, would they?” I said.
“It’s not that close, the guy had to give me a lift out there on this cart pulled by these donkey/cow things. Also, these guys are overconfident dick weasels. Not quite in the ‘I’m going to tell you all my evil plans’ way, but more ‘I don’t have to cover my arse because I’m invulnerable,’” Jez said. “And anyway, are any of these lily-livered university students likely to go and trawl through the rubbish? I don’t think so.”
“So we need a translation. I can’t go into Bhechro’s office waving around a partially translated document,” I said. We didn’t get to discuss who would go to the Record because there was another knock at the door. We all looked at each other with frowns. The minute we’d decided to lock down the place, we’d had people fronting up more than ever. We each grabbed our pistols and walked over to the front door.
“Oh!” Scalla said, taking all three of us and the weapons in. Her eyes flicked to me, then Miazydar. “You found him!”
“Yep and come in,” I said, glancing around. “It’ll have gotten out Keel had Hand and Lane over here, but I don’t want everyone coming through here to have a look.” Jez closed the door behind her. “How’re you feeling?”
“I was just released from the hospital. I’ve been able to hold down solids for twelve hours so I was free to go,” she said. “What about you and Miazydar? What happened? Where did you find him?”
The three of us traded looks. I liked Scalla; she seemed friendly and nice, but who’s to say she wasn’t the one pushing me down stairs, or wanting to? “He just turned up,” I said, which was true enough. “While you’re here, can I get you to read something?”
She nodded and then followed us into the kitchen. I pointed to the invoice stuck to the chopping board. She reached out for it, then stopped herself when she saw how sticky it was. Instead, she stood close and read it standing. I watched her eyes scan the text, growing steadily wider as she went. She gasped, then went for something in her pocket. “Uh uh,” Flea said, pointing the gun at her, “what’re you grabbing?”
“My communicator,” she said, freezing still. “This is huge. This is evidence that the VCs office purchased a massive amount of keletha just before the poisoning. I have some contacts in the capital that will want to see this,” she poked the stained paper with a finger. “This could mean the sacking of Bhechro.”
“And who are these contacts?” Jez said, arms crossed over her chest. “I’m not sure we want to release this to the media yet.” She turned to me. “You could do with a blackmailing ace in your pocket if all these assessments go south.”
“They aren’t in the media. They’re…” Her eyes roamed across the floor of the cottage before meeting mine. “They’re an underground organisation.”
I laughed, then forced my face to seriousness when I saw her hurt expression. “I’m sorry, but you’re a secret agent?”
“I dunno, the cutesy-pie look girlfriend’s rocking is a pretty good disguise,” Jez said. “Who’s gonna suspect the kewpie doll?”
