Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

She broke off, snuffling.

Jane stepped forward. “Calm down. Who took who?”

“They took Abby . And Molly and Becks and the others.”

Crooked Sal spoke up. “The Armsmen have arrested Danton, and the Concordat are rounding up everybody who might have had anything to do with him. I heard they took nearly a hundred people from the big speech, and now they’re all over the place taking people for who knows what. Everybody’s locking themselves in and barring the doors.”

“They took them to the Vendre ,” Nel wailed. “Everyone said so.”

Jane stood stock-still, trying to process this. Winter stepped up beside her.

“They can’t just arrest people for listening to speeches,” she said, then looked around at a ring of worried faces. “Can they?”

“The Last goddamned Duke can do anything he wants,” said Chris, and spit on the floor. “With the king dying, who’s to stop him?”

“Everyone knows no one who goes into the Vendre comes out again,” Winn said.

“Except at night,” said Becca. “In pieces.”

“The king is ill,” said Walnut, “and the princess is a child, and sickly besides. The duke is in charge, if anyone is. And the duke works for the Borels and their Sworn Church. After what Danton did, I’m sure his masters have applied the whip. No wonder he reacts like this.”

Winter bit her lip. A thought had occurred to her, but she didn’t like it. If anyone can help Abby and the others, it’s Janus. He was Minister of Justice, after all, and an enemy of Orlanko’s. But he might not be able to. Or he might not want to. God alone knew what Janus would decide. And if he did help, that meant revealing to Jane and the others that she’d been sent here as a spy.

“Winter,” Jane said. “Come on.”

She turned on her heel, heading for the door. Winter, distracted, took a moment to catch up.

“Wait!” Sal called after her. “Where are you going?”

Jane turned, her eyes glowing dangerously in the firelight. “Where the fuck do you think I’m going?”

Walnut stood up, unfolding himself to his full, massive height like a collapsible easel setting up. “Then I am coming with you. It’s not only your girls who have been taken.”

Jane looked from him to Winter and back again, then gave a curt nod. This time, when she started for the door, everyone in the tavern scrambled to follow.

MARCUS

“Hello, Captain,” Ionkovo said. “That is you, I take it?”

Only a single candle burned in the cell under the Guardhouse, casting a weak pool of golden light and throwing the long, angular shadows of the bars across the far wall. Adam Ionkovo lay on his pallet in a pool of darkness, only his eyes marked by the faint, shivering reflection of the flame.

Marcus stood in the doorway, half wanting to slam the door and stalk away. Instead he slipped inside and shut it behind him.

It had been hours since Giforte left with a strong escort of Guardsmen, hours with no word as the sky slipped from blue into a deep, bruised purple. He’d spent as long as he could stand reading through the files, rubbing at his eyes as he read, cross-referenced, and investigated. Looking for something , some clue that he was increasingly convinced wasn’t there. Giforte was too careful; the reports were too vague. Maybe Janus would have been able to make something of the stack of oddities and exceptions, some brilliant leap of logical deduction, but it was beyond Marcus.

When he couldn’t take it anymore, he’d locked the files in his cabinet and started wandering the halls. The big old building was nearly empty, the clerks and scribes on a skeleton crew for the night shift and most of the on-duty men out in the city. Marcus had circled the top floor without meeting anyone, peering out through blurry old glass windows. A brilliant sunset blazed in the west, but when he looked to the east the sky was blotted out by dark, heavy clouds, spreading like a stain as they approached.

In the end, he’d found himself here, in the one place he shouldn’t be, speaking to the man he’d been forbidden to talk to. The man who knew- maybe! — what he needed so badly to hear.

“It’s me,” Marcus said.

“I keep expecting a visit from your Colonel Vhalnich,” Ionkovo said. “So far he has disappointed me.”

“He’s a busy man these days,” Marcus said. “The king’s made him Minister of Justice. I’m afraid he hasn’t got time for you.”

“Or you?” Ionkovo said. He sat up, angular face coming into the half-light.

He’s just needling. There was no way the prisoner could know what was going on outside. “I came to ask if you’re willing to talk.”

“I’m happy to chat , Captain, but if you mean am I willing to tell you what you want to know. .” He shrugged. “My offer still stands.”

“I’m not going to take your bargain ,” Marcus said.

“Why not? Whose interests are you really serving, Captain?”

“Vordan’s. The king’s.”

“I see. And has Colonel Vhalnich reported what happened to Jen Alhundt to the king, do you think?”

Marcus shifted, uncomfortably. “The king is ill.”

“To the Minister of War, then. Or the Minister of Information. Or anyone.” Ionkovo smiled, the shadows making his face a death’s-head. “We both know he hasn’t. He went to Khandar looking for the treasure of the Demon King. You think that was part of his official orders?”

Marcus said nothing. The candle was guttering, the room growing darker. Shadows seemed to flow , gathering around the man in the cell.

Ionkovo’s smile widened. “So, who are you really serving, when you keep his secrets? The Crown? Or Janus bet Vhalnich? What has he done, to deserve such loyalty?”

“He saved my life,” Marcus muttered. “Several times. He saved all our lives, out in the desert.”

“That makes him a good soldier. But you should know as well as anyone that good soldiers don’t always do the right thing.”

Adrecht. Marcus stared at the dim figure. He knows, of course. The mutiny and its aftermath would have been in the reports.

“Let me suggest something to you, Captain,” Ionkovo said. “You know who I am, who I work for. What they stand for. And, unlike everyone out there”-he waved a hand widely-“you know the truth. Demons are real , not fairy stories. Magic is real , and it can be deadly.

“Now consider my order. Because people no longer believe, we must operate in secret. Because our enemies are powerful and utterly without mercy, we must use whatever methods are available to us. But can you really say we are wrong, and Vhalnich is right? Why seek the Thousand Names if he does not intend to use them, as the Demon King once did?”

“He is my superior officer,” Marcus said. “Appointed by the Crown.”

“A Crown that knows nothing of his plans,” Ionkovo said. “If you discovered Vhalnich was planning to murder the king, it would be your duty to stop him, superior or not. How is this any different? He betrays not just his country, but humanity itself, to our great and common enemy.”

Sooner or later, Captain, we all must take something on faith.

Marcus opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, and stopped.

Why did I come here? Was this already in my mind?

“I. .,” he began, and stopped again. “I don’t-”

Someone knocked on the outer door, fast and loud. Marcus had ordered that he was not to be disturbed, and the sound made his heart do a double somersault. He turned his back on Ionkovo and yanked the door open to find Staff Eisen in the doorway, panting.