The Bridge of Bones (Trouble and Riel's Story)

[EXTREME CONTENT WARNING: This story is an attempt at a police procedural murder mystery, and contains all of the elements included in that genre, including extensive discussion and investigation of murder and death. In particular, this story involves the implied kidnapping, physical beating, and violent murder of an adolescent, as well as dealing with the corruption surrounding wealth and privilege. Please protect yourself and read only at your own risk!]

Part I: A Whole Lotta Eyes 

Part II: Connective Tissue 

Part III: Skeletons in the Closet

The first thing Trouble thinks when he hears the Inquisitor’s name is that his last name sort of sounds like Trouble’s own. Riel would make fun of him for that knee-jerk reaction; he’d probably say something like, Alder is a common surname from the Guilder territories, meaning eldest guardian, and the etymology of Alden is Hanish, from Alluden, meaning blah-blah-blah, and you’re a fucking idiot for always thinking you could be related to random people based on the sounds of your names, and it’s probably got something to do with not having a family, you poor orphaned sod.

The second thing he thinks is that that Edric Fuckface Whatever kind of looks familiar.

Then he looks at the gun again and feels the old heat roaring in the back of his head and thinks, Three steps to cross the room, wrench that gun up towards his chin, and squeeze the trigger for him. Even less time to quickdraw his own pistol and blast the bastard’s hand off at the wrist; he’s never lost a duel, and they didn’t call him Deadeye Alder for nothing.

But there’s always a chance, however slight, that the other man is faster—and besides, now the gun’s pointing at Riel, and Trouble would rather take the bullet himself than take that chance. So he just stands there like an idiot and waits for Riel to talk them out of this corner.

Riel and the Inquisitor clearly know each other. They argue back and forth in the clipped, mean tones of old enemies, the way he and Lazu Reen used to talk at each other—before this latest time, before he beat the rotten bastard’s face in and made him swallow his teeth. He can’t imagine Riel beating someone’s face in, but he gets the feeling that if he ever learned to stand the feeling of splitting his own knuckles, his first victim would be this guy.

Trouble doesn’t blame him. Even if the Inquisitor hadn’t introduced himself by pointing a gun in their faces, Trouble still would have hated him. He has a pale, pointed face, this Edric Alden, a slick of blond hair and wide-set, colorless eyes with creepy, spiky pale lashes ringing them all around. They make him look sinister and bored, all at once. If Briony were here, she would call him “a cold fish,” with his snotty little sneer and the chilly, straight-backed eagerness to take them in.

And it’s kind of funny, the way the guy is menacing them with his gun, because he’d look a bit pathetic without it. He’s short like Riel, scrawny like him, too—they’re like mirror images of each other, in a warped sense, Riel with his dark hair and sober clothes and this pale-haired mutiin royal colors like he’s son of the fucking Autarch himself, both of them sporting cool, piercing expressions, like they’d very much like to watch the other one get flayed alive while sipping a glass of wine. They’re both citing various violations at each other, rapidfire, like they’re exchanging gunshots. It sort of sounds like Riel is winning, but Trouble can’t quite tell; he’s still too busy watching the gun.

“This is our jurisdiction,” Riel is saying. “An arcane crime caused by magic. You have no reason to be here, Edric.”

“On the contrary, Riel,” the Inquisitor returns, his voice dripping acid, “I have every reason to be here—not least because the deceased was my direct relation. And it is the duty of the Inquisitors to ensure that Diminished corruption does not run amok in the city. I’d say everything you’ve done, from covering up my cousin’s murder to lying about its true cause, is an example of that exact corruption.”

“We have not covered anything. We did not know Calum’s identity until we discovered our first lead this morning, and as soon as we did, we came straight to this estate and alerted his family. We have acted according to procedure.”

“You have not. You may not have known his identity, but you knew very early on that he was killed by a Mage—and yet you have neglected to alert anyone about this.”

He’s got us there, Trouble thinks, because they did keep that part quiet, to avoid widespread panic, and he wants to ask this wretch if he would have preferred riots and revenge-killings—but then he realizes, Of course he would. He’s an Inquisitor.

Riel returns, without batting an eye: “It is standard procedure to avoid informing family members about potential suspects in an investigation, or to provide clues as to the killer’s possible identity. It sways their opinions, poisons their accounts, and introduces unforgivable bias into the proceedings.”

“There is an active magical threat loose in this city,” the Inquisitor replies, the gun cold and gleaming in his hand, “and it is your duty as Shepherds to inform the public about it. But you opted to conceal the information for your own base purposes: to protect your Diminished friends, and to pin the crime on some innocent soul.”

“Prove it.”

Trouble and the Inquisitor turn and blink rapidly at him. “What?” Alden demands, his eyes going narrow as his jaw sets.

“Prove it,” Riel repeats baldly. “You claim that we are biased; we maintain that we have acted according to procedure. I believe that you are biased—possibly unhinged by the tragic death of your cousin, and prone to interfering in our hunt for his killer in your thirst for revenge; and acting irrationally in your general and well-known eagerness to see Diminished people hang. So, both sides argue that the other is prejudiced and incapable of investigating in an impartial manner. Let us arrange for proof of these claims, and we shall see who the Autarch believes.”

The gun wavers in Edric’s hand slightly. “You consent to being arrested, then?”

“I consent to no such thing. But I invite you to report your conclusions to the Autarch’s people, if you are so sure of their validity, and you can begin the process of launching a tribunal. It will take several weeks, if not months—if they listen to you at all.”

Edric regards him for a moment, apparently disarmed by his placid confidence. Then he says, his voice high and angry, “No. I’m taking you in. Today. Now.”

Trouble groans, and Edric’s eyes flick nervously to him; Riel doesn’t react or move from where he’s standing, leaning stiffly against his walking cane with both hands clasped over the handle.

“All right,” Trouble says, shifting so that he can just feel the press of his pistol against the inside of his forearm, “I’m sick of hearing about this, so—I’m pulling rank. Let me lay it out for you, asshole, since you can’t seem to see what’s right in front of your face. There’s two of us, one of you. I’m not getting arrested, not by you, so let’s just get that straight out. I won’t cooperate, I won’t go willingly. So, now you’ve got a few options. You try to take me in by force, I fight back, you shoot me in the face. Now I’m dead, and you just killed the Vice Commander of the Shepherds. Are youGrand Inquisitor? No? All right, so you’re some shitheel recruit or whatever, and you’ve just shot the Shepherd second-in-command, and the Autarch’s gonna have no problem shredding your ass like grated cheese and eating pumpkin soup out of your head. Or, you try to arrest me, I fight back, and I shoot youin the face. And now you’re dead, and there’s two of us, and Riel and I are going to say that you went absolutely batshit and I killed you in self-defense, and then we go and piss on your grave a little bit, if they even think to give you one at all, and that’s the end of that. Or—or—you get that fucking gun out of my face right now, no one gets arrested, and we all go on our merry ways. Your choice.”

Edric Alden stares at him for a moment, speechless. Then he says, his eyes hard and blank: “You cannot be Vice Commander of the Shepherds. You are a Norm.”

Trouble looks at Riel. “All right, I’m going to shoot him.”

Riel’s expression flattens in a distinctly-unamused way—possibly because he didn’t like Trouble’s use of his name and the word “piss” in the same sentence—but before he can interject, there’s a light step out in the hall. The manservant, Kers, looks into the room with a perfectly polite expression, tall and green as a grasshopper in his pressed jacket, apparently unperturbed to find his lady’s guests holding each other at gunpoint in a dead boy’s reading parlor. It’s almost enough to make Trouble want to laugh, if he wasn’t so focused on biting back his anger, the familiar desire to smash this little Inquisitor ketchto pieces.

“My lord, Duke Sylver, has returned,” the butler murmurs, bowing his head in deference. His hair is gelled so tightly to his scalp that it looks like the shiny black chassis of a beetle. “He bids the Shepherds to take their leave.”

Edric’s arm slackens, just slightly. “I am in the process of placing them under arrest,” he says through a clenched jaw, frustration evident in the etching of his brow.

“No, he isn’t,” Trouble says loudly.

Kers bows his head even lower. “My lord, Duke Sylver, has indicated that such activities are forbidden in our estate,” he reports, his voice as bland and toneless as milk. “He considers any conflicts here to be a violation of the sanctity of his home. If you wish to persist in your intentions, Inquisitor Alden, my lord Duke Sylver invites you to pursue them outside.”

It’s a noble “Piss off” if there ever was one. An angry flush appear over Edric Alden’s high collar, and for a moment, he doesn’t speak, glaring at Kers as if he wishes he could tear the man apart with his teeth. Trouble glances at Riel, who nods imperceptibly. Trust in an aristocrat to be so concerned with avoiding a scandal, with not wanting to sully his name and estate, that he would inadvertently save their hides with such a timely interruption. And whoever this Edric Alden is, it doesn’t seem like he’s thatpowerful. He still has to defer to his cousin’s husband, who’d send a manservant to relay orders to him like a dog.

Trouble turns on his heel, keeping a wary eye on the Inquisitor’s gun at all times. “We’re leaving now,” he says to Kers. “Give our sympathies to Duke Sylver.”

Kers keeps his eyes on the rich, patterned carpet. “Thank you, sir.”

The gun tracks them all the way out of the room, swiveling slowly like a weathervane; Trouble keeps his stride loose, unconcerned, but he feels the phantom bullet between his shoulder blades like a brand. He keeps his body between Riel and Kers—he doesn’t really think Edric will fire, but the man has a brief, dangerous glint in his eye, and there’s just the slightest tremble to the gun. Then he lets out a ragged breath, just as they cross the threshold out into the silent, plush hall, and Trouble thinks, Riel is right. That bastard is unhinged. It’s not even about the gun, not really. It’s more about the cold, tightly-held fury, like it’s the only thing holding the man together, animating his limbs. A connective tissue of hatred and something like madness, liable to snap.

They make it all the way outside and into Riel’s coach without anyone else approaching them; a dapper butler holds the door open for them with a graceful bow. Once they’re inside and Riel has delivered some brisk instruction to the driver, Trouble chances a peek out the carriage window, his hand still on his own gun. There aren’t any faces watching them from the mansion’s high windows; but for the briefest moment, he experiences a déjà vu, a kind of double-vision, where he imagines young Calum looking down at him from his bedroom, a ghostly visage behind a shifting curtain. The house stares malevolently down at him like a dark-eyed face.

He lets out a breath and throws himself back into his seat as the coach rattles through the estate’s gated entrance and into the sedate Whitestone street beyond. The Sylver mansion retreats behind them, fading away like a bad dream.

“All right,” Trouble says after a minute, rubbing his gloved hands on his pant legs. “What the Hael was that all about?”

Riel is scribbling something in a notepad that he produced from nowhere, his legs crossed elegantly at the knee, as prim and pristine as if nothing had occurred. For a moment, it doesn’t seem as if he heard Trouble or will deign to answer him—but at Trouble’s pointed harumph, he glances up impatiently, his pen still scratching even while his blue eyes fix hawkishly on Trouble’s.

“Edric Alden,” he says shortly. “Apparently a cousin of Calum’s, though my guess is that he is moreso cousins with the mother, Duchess Lucrecia. And he is an Inquisitor. Obviously.”

“Yeah,” Trouble says sarcastically, “I put all that together. I’m talking about everything else: you two clearly know each other.”

Here, Riel sets aside his notepad with a light sigh, turning to glance out the window, his pale and bony fingers drumming thoughtfully against the heavy golden head of his cane. Trouble watches and sees how Riel is weighing everything in his head, figuring out exactly how much he wants to divulge. After a moment, the merchant leader says: “We attended university together, he and I. We had many of the same classes. He decided early on that he could not tolerate my presence there. He was the son of a noble family, albeit a minor one of little political consequence; and I was a commoner, most of my wealth and business self-made, which carried a certain… stigma to it.”

Trouble chews on that for a moment. “So, what, you were like school rivals?”

Riel flicks his hand, a dismissive gesture. “It became more vitriolic than that. At first, I was content to simply ignore him and act as if he were beneath my notice. But his cruelties became intolerable—and not just towards myself. He hates Diminished people, as you can tell. He used his wealth and power to abuse them, humiliate them for his own amusement or the amusement of his friends. It started as lazy, idle pastimes: getting Diminished servants fired simply because he could, terrorizing people by hiring cronies to follow them or spy on them. Then it began to escalate. And his family would cover up his wrongdoings, or deflect the consequences; I recall a teacher at the university ejected him from class for his unbecoming conduct, and that professor was gone and replaced overnight.”

Trouble whistles softly. Riel shakes his head and continues, “Edric Alden is one of those people who are obsessed with power—power being the sole cornerstone of their worth, their very identity—and exercising it over others; or accruing it by gaining the approval of those he perceives to be better than him. He is simpering and kowtowing towards those with undeniable authority over himself, cruel and vicious towards the people he considers beneath him. I have always suspected that he was threatened by Diminished people in particular: generally downtrodden in society, yes, but physically gifted with powers far greater than his own, able to crush him like an insect if the rule of those above him ever wavered and fortunes changed. I think that dissonance maddens him, and he projects all his envy, hate, and rage onto those who threaten his idea of the world—people who have the capacity to tip the scales of power.”

“People like the Diminished,” Trouble echoes. “And you.”

Riel shrugs lightly. “And me, I suppose. As I said, at first his behavior towards me was merely a nuisance—but then I saw how dangerous he could truly be, how far his cruelties could extend if left unchecked. So I had him expelled.”

Trouble barks out a disbelieving laugh. “Expelled? How?”

Riel looks patently uninterested in this story, as if he had only heard about it secondhand from some other source. “It wasn’t very difficult,” he intones. “I did some investigating of my own, hired a legal team, garnered signatures and testimonies from other classmates—even the ones initially too afraid of him to speak up. I demanded that the right authorities launch a tribunal to investigate his behavior, outlined his numerous violations and infractions in painstaking and irrefutable detail—and mounted a strong counter-defense in case he tried to retaliate and attempt to attack me.” He drums his fingers against his cane again. “At first, he did not show much concern—he did not want his friends to believe he was frightened of anything a commoner like me could do, I think—and so he didn’t do much to counter me. By the time he realized how serious I was, and how many of my resources I was willing to dedicate to getting rid of him, it was already too late.” He flicks his hand again. “Simple. His family had finally run out of strings to pull and favors to call, and he was expelled in our second year. He vanished, significantly disgraced, apparently disowned by his parents and shipped off to a job filing paperwork at a military barracks in Stroud.”

“God’s hounds,” Trouble says, trying to fight down a smile.

Riel smiles back, very faintly. “Yes, an inglorious fate—the only one I would have preferred more was seeing him end up in prison, but I knew that would never happen: he’d been careful in that regard, at least. Still, he made such a poor show of resisting my campaign against him that I dismissed him from my mind after that. I have many enemies, and he was the most impotent among them.”

Then a bitter, annoyed expression crosses his face. “Stupid, on my part. I should know by now to keep track of anyone who might bear a grudge against me, no matter how ineffectual or easily-bested. It was the arrogance of youth. I lost track of him, and somehow, he has become an Inquisitor—and clawed at least a little influence back, if he’s back in Haven and associating with his cousins, the Sylvers.” He pauses. “It does throw an additional obstacle in our path.”

“I’ll say,” Trouble mutters. An Inquisitor with a grudge, hounding their every step, breathing down their necks, and scrutinizing their every move is the last thing they need for this investigation. Still, he can’t help but feel a measure of respect for Riel: the man does know how to end threats more elegantly than simply shooting them, and the psychological warfare he was deploying in that parlor is just beginning to reveal itself in full. Still—“It’s rotten luck. What are the chances that someone who would love to see you burn happens to be the cousin of our murder victim—and an Inquisitor, to boot? How did he even know about Calum being killed by magic, anyway?”

“He is an Inquisitor,” Riel echoes, inclining his head. “If the Sylvers asked him to investigate Calum’s disappearance and track him down when the boy went missing, it stands to reason that Edric eventually came across a lead—something that led him to the alleyway in Ashtown, and then to that embalmer, Vesuvia. The evidence is clear from there on.” He pauses. “It’s a shame; if it wasn’t Edric, it might have been worthwhile to pool our information. He likely knows things we don’t, as both a relative of the murder victim and as an Inquisitor.”

Trouble only grunts; he can’t imagine ever wanting to cooperate with any of those mutis, but it’s probably not a point worth arguing—and finding this killer is bigger than his own grudges. If only Edric would take the same view. “You think he’ll be back?”

“Oh, undoubtedly.” Riel pulls out his notepad again, the ink flowing from his pen in an inscrutable black ribbon. “And he’ll be looking to exploit any misstep, any error in judgment, as an excuse to sic the rest of the Inquisitors on us. You saw it. He’d like very much for us both to be thrown in the stocks.”

“Shit. What do we do?”

“Our best hope is to find the killer and prove their guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. End the investigation, conclusively and resoundingly, before Edric gets a chance to sabotage it or twist the story in his favor. Our results will speak for themselves; he won’t dare to accuse the officers who successfully brought a Diminished murderer to justice. He’ll look ridiculous if he tries.”

Trouble clicks his teeth. “That’s a hard enough task, even without him nipping at our heels. Now we’ve got to rush, too?”

“Yes.”

He glances around at their surroundings; for a moment, the streets look unfamiliar to him, the polished white buildings and tree-covered lanes disorientating and foreign—and he realizes then that he must trust Riel, because he never gets in someone else’s vehicle without keeping an eye on where they’re going. “Where are we, anyway?”

Riel waves an absent hand at the driver’s box in front. “Calum Sylver’s school, St. Ambrose’s. We need to follow up on the matter of his ring, and if his family wasn’t forthcoming, the next order of business are his teachers and classmates.” His voice turns very dry. “And given the circumstances, I didn’t think we had time to waste.”

Trouble leans his elbow against the coach’s windowsill, feels the press of his gun on his hip like the headbutt of an anxious dog. “Good man. Let’s catch this killer before that Inquisitor catches us.”

#

The staff at St. Ambrose’s have no idea what to do with them, but Riel puts on his merchant leader’s blank—his classic wall-eyed look, that flat and commanding tone that he uses on people, the one that just straddles the line between polite and bullying—and plows through their protests like they’re so many spiderwebs. Trouble feels uneasy about the prospect of interviewing Calum’s peers and friends before they even realize he’s dead—the news can’t have reached the school yet, not since they talked to the mother an hour ago—but Riel is right: they can’t afford to wait.

The winter sun sits high and pale in the glassy sky, now; it’s noon, and most of the boys at St. Ambrose’s are spending their allotted hour of leisure time outside, scattered throughout the school’s many manicured courtyards. Trouble and Riel run through the teachers and staff first, inquiring about Calum Sylver before any of them get the chance to rally and prepare their stories. It turns out the school is already aware of the boy’s absence—Duke Syvler’s mercs already came through days ago, interrogating everyone in an effort to gain a lead on Calum’s whereabouts—and Shepherds showing up and asking questions now has everyone abuzz with speculation. Trouble watches each of their faces in turn, but he can’t make out anything, not in the way Riel can seemingly read thoughts and feelings like directions on a map. He just sees concern, confusion, perhaps some veiled distaste here and there—from having to talk to the likes of him—but whether any of it’s genuine, he can’t say for sure. Whitestone folks always seem so much less honest than the people he’s used to in Ashtown.

At some point he hones in on an instructor, one of the few who didn’t flinch when she noticed his eyes and his gun. Although she has the usual high-handed accent of a Whitestone native, he gets the feeling she’s actually from somewhere like Smoketown; it’s a particular way of standing, as if she’s bracing herself for some unseen impact, or it’s in the way she lifts her chin. “Who are Calum’s friends?” he asks her, keeping his tone direct and friendly and a little conspiratorial. Riel is on the other side of the room, talking to the school’s headmaster. “Who knows him best?”

The woman, who reminds him a little of Shery with her long hair and spectacles, sighs a little. “Well, that’s complicated,” she begins. “A few years ago, I would have said Calum’s closest friends were his teachers. He’s always been a shy, quiet boy; he enjoyed staying behind after class and speaking with his instructors, or reading a book in the library or one of his classrooms.” She lowers her voice. “It was a cause of some concern for his parents, I think. St. Ambrose boys are always supposed to socialize, make those important connections early.”

Trouble nods. “But that changed?”

The instructor’s eyes dart around. “Well, a little. I think Duke Sylver had a talk with his brother, whose son—Calum’s cousin—also attends school here. I think the cousin was persuaded to take Calum under his wing, despite being older and… and more outgoing.”

Now they’re getting somewhere. “What’s the cousin’s name?”

But the headmaster has materialized at the instructor’s elbow, looking pinched and severe. “Miss Griffin,” he says stiffly. “I think it’s time for you to prepare for your next class, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes, Headmaster.” Shooting a look at Trouble, she ducks her head and hurries away.

Trouble’s just about to hurl an insult at the headmaster—a stodgy old fool whose nostrils flare like a horse’s—before Riel glides up to his elbow and says, “Headmaster Anatole here has granted us permission to speak to the students. Thank you, Headmaster. We can show ourselves around.”

“No chaperone?” Trouble mutters as they walk away, the headmaster’s glare anchored to their backs like a physical weight. “How’d you manage that?”

“I know many of the people who donate endowments to this school. And many of them owe me favors.”

“Bloody Hael—the things money can do.”

“Why do you think I bother with it?”

They make their way to the first of the many courtyards, interconnected around the school like links on a chain—but wrangling the students into talking them isn’t as easy as he first assumed. Adults are warier, but they know enough to—however grudgingly—respect the sun medallion, the authority of the Autarch, the consequences of withholding or lying to officers of the law. They know what being a Shepherd means.

The aristocrat boys—they couldn’t give a rat’s arse. They’ve been taught that they are the kings of their own little realms, that there are no punishments their lofty names can’t get them out of. More, they’ve been taught not to respect the Diminished, and even if he and Riel are Norms, it all means the same thing in here, in this shining little corner tucked away from the world. Trouble almost launches his fist at a teenager’s face in the span of the first ten minutes. None of them will talk.

“Coifed little shits,” he rants under his breath. Some puffed-up teenaged asshole wearing epaulets has just tossed a handkerchief at his feet, sneering some snide insult about the mud on his boots. “I fucking preferred Edric. Least when he was pointing at a gun at me, I would have been justified in pointing mine back.” He glances at Riel, whose face has remained mostly impassive, blue eyes alert and roving. Some boy with burnished copper hair is pointing at him from within a cluster of friends, laughing about his cane. “Aren’t they pissing you off?”

“Not by much,” Riel returns, his voice dry and sonorous. “I don’t respect any of them, so their opinions have no effect on me.”

Trouble grinds his teeth. “Still.”

It’s by chance that he catches the flash of blue, the glint of silver in the pale and glassy sunlight. He looks, and he sees a tall, somewhat gangly boy with shaved brown hair talking animatedly to a group of friends, leaning at his ease against a water fountain; the fountain’s ivory stallion towers over him, poised to trample him beneath its hooves. The boy has a distinctly thuggish look to him, surely affected—aside from the shaved head, he has a pale, tattered scar over his upper lip and through his left brow, and one of his ears is pierced with a corsair-style gold hoop. Surely against every rotten rule in the headmaster’s dress code… so the fact that he’s loitering while flagrantly flouting the rules means he must be well-connected and powerful.

And he’s wearing a deep sapphire ring, just like Calum’s, on the smallest finger of his left hand.

Trouble jerks his head at Riel, who looks and sees the ring instantly. His brow knits when he takes the wearer in, and he murmurs, “The infamous cousin of Calum’s?”

Trouble rubs his jaw, thinking of Calum’s black hair and pale skin, juxtaposing the image with this larger boy’s catlike gray eyes and broad, slouched shoulders. “Not much of a family resemblance.”

“There wouldn’t need to be,” Riel replies. “These aristocratic families mix blood and lineages in so many different ways that there’s no telling what the offspring will look like—or who they will resemble. And there is always the possibilities of adopted children… or bastards.”

On that note, they make their way over to the group of boys, who fall silent as Trouble and Riel draw near. There’s a crouched, expectant air to them, like a huddle of lions waiting for their prey to start sprinting so they can burst into action—and Trouble sees now that they all sport sapphire rings. The one with the shaved head is the only one who wears it on his left hand, instead of his right: clearly, this distinction marks him out as their leader. He looks to be about seventeen, just beginning to gain a hint of muscle, but not enough to be any significant threat.

“You Calum Sylver’s cousin?” he asks, just to get it over with.

The tall boy sneers at him; his eyes are like hard chips of glass. “Who’s asking?”

“Your bloody aunt. Answer the question, kid.”

The boy glances at Riel, silent and black-cloaked against the afternoon chill like a frail-winged raven. “And who are you, his secretary?”

“Riel Syndran, Shepherd captain,” the merchant leader answers in a clipped voice.

The boy turns to his cronies and jeers; as if on cue, the others cackle like hyenas. “Ooh, a Shepherd!” He eyes Riel again. “They’re really just letting anybody join, aren’t they? You look like you couldn’t even hold a gun, let alone fire it without snapping your arm in half. How are yousupposed to protect the city from demons?”

More howling. Trouble feels a low rumble starting in his chest, part-growl, part-boiling rage, moving up his torso like heartburn. His eyes turn hot, and the top of his skull aches. He says, keeping his voice steady, “Oi—fuckface. Answer the question, or I’ll know you’re too much of a coward to even give your own name.”

The boys in the crowd fall abruptly silent, staring at Trouble with wide, shocked eyes. For a moment, he thinks they’ve simply never been talked to like that, that his crassness has cowed them into submission—but then he sees how their eyes flit to their leader, watching for his reaction. The boy with the shaved head has gone very still, the smile dropping abruptly from his face as if he’d been wearing a mask.

They’re not scared of me, Trouble realizes. They’re scared of him.

Slowly, the boy steps up to Trouble, pushing his shoulders back, raising his chin—squaring up for a fight. It’s a familiar posture, intended to be threatening, but Trouble doesn’t react.

“I’m not a coward,” the boy says in a quiet, deadly tone. This close, his gray eyes simmer loudly in his tan face. “My name is Vaughn Sulia.”

“Never heard of you,” Trouble grunts. “Obviously.”

“You should have,” the boy says, his tone challenging. “My family runs the Consortium.”

“Yeah. Somehow I doubt that.”

“So you are Calum’s cousin,” Riel says from Trouble’s left; he must recognize the name, pulling it from the depths of that remarkable memory.

Vaughn Sulia sets his jaw for a moment—and then he backs down a little, taking a step away from Trouble. He doesn’t lower his chin, though, or break Trouble’s gaze. “Yeah,” he says after a beat. It’s clear he’s trying to imitate the rough talk of the people who work by the canals, the way gangsters and criminals talk in theatrical plays, but his high-born accent chokes it. What an insipid little fraud, Trouble thinks. Leave it to the rich to want to imitate the very people they’d spit on in the street, if they’d ever be honest enough to spit. He waits for the boy to say more, but the Sulia heir isn’t so forthcoming. One of the boys in the back giggles nervously, like a high, piping bird.

“When was the last time you saw Calum?” Trouble asks.

Vaughn shrugs, apparently losing interest in the conversation. “Dunno,” he says, flicking his eyes indifferently at his friends. “Whenever he was at school last. Three days ago?”

“Two, I think, boss,” one of his cronies offers.

“Yeah. That.”

You’d think he’d be more concerned about his missing cousin, Trouble thinks, but he can’t put anything past these little wretches. “He act strange when you saw him? Say anything out of the ordinary?”

Vaughn looks around again, expectant, and the boys cue up another laugh. “How the Hael should I know?”

Trouble pops his knuckles one-by-one, something he does when he’s trying to hold his patience. “What’re those rings for?”

“What, this?” Vaughn holds up his hand, showing off the large and glittering gemstone and thick silver band—that thing would make a mean bruise if he hit someone with it, Trouble thinks. “It’s to make it hurt more when I jam my fist up your—”

“Before you finish that sentence,” Trouble says lightly, “I’ll have you know that this is part of a murder investigation. We found that same ring where your cousin’s body was found.”

It’s a deadly gamble, made on the fly, but it seems to pay off. Vaughn Sulia freezes, and one of his minions openly gasps. The group falls silent again, and Trouble can hear the spattering of the water fountain somewhere overhead.

“Murder?” Vaughn echoes, his voice flat and dry and mechanical, the way one sometimes sounds when one is in shock. “What do you mean, murder?”

“I mean exactly what I said,” Trouble answers, steeling himself against any sense of sympathy. “Your little cousin is dead. Murdered in an alleyway. So I wouldn’t be joking and jeering, if I were you. And I’m very curious why a murderer would kill him, but leave something valuable like that ring behind.” He leans in. “So what are the rings for?”

“It’s—they’re nothing,” one of the cronies babbles, clearly nervous now. He has the frightened, trapped look of a rabbit that’s dug itself into a hole it knows it can’t get out of. “Anyone who’s a part of our group gets one. It’s like our own club. A way to show our loyalty.”

Loyalty, not friendship, Trouble thinks. They must have given Calum one when they adopted him into their little group. And he clearly treasured it. But then why would the killer take it? Not for the value, that’s already been established: everything else about Calum, from his clothes to his coin pouch, was left intact. So why take only the ring? Was it to keep investigators from taking notice of this faux-gang?

Or was it more about the sentiment? Someone—possibly with an emotional tie to the ring— wanting to keep it as some kind of sick keepsake?

Though that’s all assuming that Calum was actually wearing the ring when he died, something they can assume but haven’t yet proved indubitably. Still, it’s not looking great for this merry band of jackanapes—but then he reminds himself that none of them are Mages. They’re all Norm aristocrats, through and through: if they’re attending St. Ambrose’s, he’s willing to bet there are entire archives dedicated to proving their pristine lineages, all the way back to the days of King Lukin. So where does that leave him? He needs something more; the trail can’t just end here.

“Who do you think would have wanted to hurt Calum?” he asks then, keeping his tone steely and disaffected.

The boys send baffled looks at each other, scuffing the ground sullenly with their well-polished shoes. After a moment, one mutters, “No one, really. He keeps to himself. Doesn’t interact with a lot of people.”

“Except us,” Vaughn murmurs. Somehow, his dockworker’s accent has fallen away, leaving behind a youth that sounds marginally more vulnerable and real. “And one other. He’s been hanging around that Mage beggar these last few months, hasn’t he?”

Trouble’s ears prick, and he sees Riel stiffen beside him, just slightly. “What’s this, now?”

Vaughn meets his eye, slowly, brow creased in thought. He says thickly, “There’s a beggar, over on the corner of Queen’s Road and Avon-on-Gamau. Mage. Seems harmless enough, so the Vice Guard never do anything about him. Calum was walking to the shop one day and decided to give him some coin. They…” His face twists in disgust. “…struck up conversation, I suppose. Almost every day after that, Calum went to go see him and talk. I heard him call him a friend.” He looks around at the others, shoving his hands deep in his uniform pockets. “He made me swear not to tell a soul.”

“And did you?” Riel asks quietly.

Vaughn tsks, looking at him with an expression of utter scorn. “Of course not. Secrets stay within the circle.” One of the boys behind him turns his ring around and around on his finger; at Vaughn’s look, he hastily falls still. “Calum’s parents would never have allowed it. Wouldn’t have let him go out if they suspected he was fraternizing with some Diminished drifter. So I kept my mouth shut.” A pained expression briefly replaces the scorn; then it disappears behind the same cool, hard-set demeanor. He looks away. “Maybe if I’d said something, he’d still be alive.”

“We’ll see about that,” Trouble says, gruff but slightly gentler now. “What’s the name of this Mage? What’s he look like? When is he usually on that corner?”

Vaughn gives them the details, sounding more meek and subdued now, as if the fight has gone out of him and his heart isn’t in maintaining his tough guy ruse any longer. Trouble almost feels guilty for breaking the news of his cousin’s death so brutally—but he forges past it and dutifully takes note of what the youth has to say. The beggar’s name is Stian. He’s forty or fifty, with speckled hair, stubble, and green eyes sporting the iladrin. He almost always wears a faded purple, tattered cloak. Hasn’t been seen on his usual street corner for a few days.

We’ve got you, you son of a bitch, we’ve got you, Trouble thinks, trying not to let his hands tremble. He nods to Vaughn and says, “Thanks. We’ll see if we can track him down, have a talk with him.” To Riel he says, “Let’s go.”

“Wait—sir?”

Trouble looks back, and Vaughn is staring at the ground, clearly uncomfortable. His shoulders hunch, and he says in a small voice, “If it’s possible… is there any way we could have the ring back? It meant a lot to Calum, and… we’d like to keep it. To help us remember him, in a way.”

Trouble’s heart skips a beat, the way it always does at the unfamiliar sensation of being caught in a lie. He thinks he keeps his voice even when he answers, “Sorry, kid, that’s not up to me.”

Vaughn Sulia nods, humbled. His eyes fall back to his shoes. “I understand.”

Trouble’s turning to go again when Riel finally speaks up, having fallen utterly silent during this entire exchange. He says, his tone unreadable: “One last thing.”

Vaughn looks at him; so does the rest of his group. Riel says, “Have you ever heard the name Edric Alden?”

For just the briefest moment, Trouble sees the flash of something strange in Vaughn’s blank gray eyes: a trace of impatience, of that same contempt he saw earlier—and something else, something like raw and vicious loathing. Then the boy says, as smooth as anything: “Of course I have. He’s my cousin, too.”

Riel doesn’t say anything for a moment. Finally, he turns away. “Thank you for your time.”

By the time they make it back to the school entrance, Trouble’s head is buzzing with plans. If Vaughn’s information was accurate, then that Stian character could be on the street corner at this very moment—if he’s returned at all. It sounds like he favors Queen’s Road in the early afternoons, then departs elsewhere for the night. There won’t be time to go back to Headquarters and fetch backup, he doesn’t think, but he could probably handle some old beggar on his own. Well, he reminds himself, it depends on what kind of magic he uses. Fire? Doesn’t usually stop a bullet. Some other weird shit? That, he’s not so sure. Maybe Riel can help him figure it out.

He glances at the merchant leader as they wait for his driver to bring the coach around, standing in front of St. Ambrose’s massive gilded gates. He says, “What are the chances this Stian would just go back to begging after murdering and dumping a boy? You’d think he’d skip town, or at least avoid the area. Or maybe he’d think that going about business as usual would throw everyone off the scent, make him seem innocent. Or maybe he’s just mad.”

“There was something wrong with that boy,” Riel says, pulling a dark glove off his hand finger-by-finger. His voice is calm, but he’s frowning; from the set of his mouth and his fidgeting with the glove, Trouble can see that he’s agitated.

Trouble blinks at him. “What, Vaughn?” He thinks on it. “He was a rich asshole like the rest of them, as well as a little fraud, what with that fake accent, but…”

“He was a liar,” Riel raps out, not looking up from his glove. His words pepper the air like a stream of bullets. “Everything he said, from the instant he opened his mouth, was a lie.” He shakes his head. “He’s sending us on a fool’s errand, telling us what he thinks he want to hear. There isn’t any Mage beggar. There’s… his eyes were disconnected. He knew the right things to say, the correct expressions to make, but none of it was real.”

Trouble stares at him. He’s never heard Riel stammer or talk like this before—he actually seems shaken. “Shit, he really got to you, didn’t he?” He frowns, thinking of that brief look on the boy’s face when Riel brought up Edric. “I mean, maybe you’re right—”

“There’s no maybe about it,” Riel snaps. “I’m right.”

“Well, what reason would he have to lie to us? Just to be a kaq, waste our time?”

Riel throws him an impatient, irritated look. “Use your head, Trouble. Why would a close relation of the deceased lie to us during a murder investigation?”

Trouble scowls, feeling the edge of his own impatience now. “You think he’s involved with the killing. But he’s not a Mage, Riel. So how does that explain how Calum died?”

Riel doesn’t reply for a moment, and the air is silent and heavy between them as the coach comes clattering up the paved driveway once more. Somewhere else, a groundskeeper whistles a merry tune; Trouble is dimly surprised they allow such levity at St. Ambrose’s School for Very Wealthy Boys.

Finally Riel says, “I don’t know.” It’s almost as shocking as being splashed with ice-cold water; Trouble doesn’t think he’s heard Riel ever say those words, and that shakes him more than anything else. If Rielis stumped, what bloody chance do they have? But he reins the feeling back—this is Riel’s first murder investigation, as far as he knows; they were bound to run into some dead-end at some point. And perhaps the genius has been shaken by Edric Alden’s reappearance more than he lets on.

“But I aim to find out,” Riel continues. “Perhaps he has Diminished ancestry, somewhere, and has hidden it well. Perhaps he worked in conjunction with someone else, someone Mage-blooded who carried out his bidding.” He shakes his head. “I’m going to comb through every last registry, every discrepancy or gap in his bloodline, until I can find some proof that Vaughn Sulia was involved in his cousin’s murder.”

Trouble blows out a breath, then reaches for the case of charch in his inner pocket. “You do that,” he says. “But until then, we’re staking out Avon-on-Gameau.”

Riel gives him his patented snake-eyed glare. “I’m telling you, that Mage doesn’t really exist. Vaughn was lying to you.”

Trouble lights his cigarette, inhales the gingery, gritty taste of the charch. “Maybe,” he says. “But damned if I’m going to let Edric Alden say that I didn’t chase down every lead I got.”

#

In the end, they have a big fight about it, him and Riel, right there in the confines of Riel’s coach (which Trouble is getting thoroughly sick of).

Riel says, “We cannot let the likes of Edric Alden dictate our investigation.”

“Too fucking late,” Trouble rebuts. “He’s hounding us, and I’m sure as Hael not going to let him claim that we didn’t try to find an actual Diminished suspect just because you think his cousin is a liar.”

“I do not think he is a liar, I know he is a liar.”

“Good for you, mate. But you know he’s going to claim you’re biased, right? That you’re not taking the word of Vaughn Sulia just because you hate Edric and anyone related to him? How’s that going to look in a bloody tribunal? You’re playing right into his hands!”

That tips it over into an actual shouting match, which only ends when Trouble lunges out of the carriage in the middle of a busy road and slams the door behind him, hard enough to rattle the expensive glass windowpane. The driver turns and gives him a shocked, deer-like expression—he has probably never seen a guest of Riel’s throw himself out of a moving carriage—but at Riel’s clipped command, he shakes his reins and urges the horses forward, slipping away into the colorful stream of traffic before Trouble even makes it to the other side of the road.

Trouble spends a moment cursing at them both in his head, then jams his hands into his pockets and skulks away, cutting through the little shopping boulevards towards Queen’s Road. He doesn’t feel like going back to the Shepherds’ compound, not after that—so the only thing left to do is to track down this elusive Mage beggar. Even if he has to do it on his own.

He knew—he knew—it was a bad idea to work with Riel. He goddamn knew it. Riel’s a guildmaster, leader of his own organization for the past half-decade or more; Trouble knew he’d have problems taking orders from him, the moment they disagreed. It’s because Riel thinks he’s smarter than everybody—which, okay, he probably is, but there’s something to be said for—for experience, and street-smarts, isn’t there? But no, once the so-called genius decides something is a waste of his time, he won’t budge. Like trying to make a cat do a trick; the more you try to command it, the more it just stares at you disdainfully and makes you feel like an idiot for even asking.

Well, fuck it. Trouble kicked off this whole thing without a partner; he doesn’t need one to finish it.

And anyway, Riel’s presence has proved to be a complicating factor more than not. If he wasn’t involved with this investigation, would Edric Alden really have given a shit? Would they have to worry about claims of partiality—about old grudges, about how it looks not taking Vaughn Sulia’s word—if Riel wasn’t with him? Shit, and Trouble thought he had demons from his past: a pile of enemies and old resentments and sore wounds. Why’s he the one who gets such a bad reputation for fighting people? At least Lazu Reen didn’t become an Inquisitor and make it his sole aim to ruin Trouble’s life.

And you know what, he’s of the opinion that Vaughn Sulia wasn’t lying. It all fits. They’ve been looking for a gap where Calum could have possibly come in contact with a Diminished person, and passing conversations with a beggar would just be innocuous enough for his parents not to notice: it wasn’t like he was disappearing for hours at a time, it was just on his trips to and from the shop. It makes sense. Even though the Sylvers are rich enough that shopkeepers usually go to them, like Hermux Tantamoq, the watchmaker. And Calum always had a driver and a chaperone, didn’t someone say that, so when would he have had time to…

“Spare a danar, sir?”

Trouble freezes. Somehow he’s made his way to the corner of Avon-on-Gameau without even realizing it; he was so lost in his own fuming thoughts that he let his feet guide him. And a man is talking to him, from the shadows of the nearby alley. Trouble can’t make out much of his face, but—

He’s wearing a faded purple cloak.

And his eyes have the iladrin.

“Shit,” Trouble says, as stunned as if someone had leapt out of the alleyway and clocked him in the face. Out of reflex, he reaches for his sun medallion. “Hey, I want to—”

The man must see something in his face: the shock or recognition or urgency, because he immediately turns and bolts without even missing a beat. Cursing, Trouble starts to fumble after him, slipping in a puddle as he shoves his way into the narrow alley, dodging overturned garbage bins and debris as the Mage vanishes around the corner—

Wham.

Trouble’s vision goes black.