A puff of fine gray sprang out, and we both skidded backward. Jov waved me out and shut the door behind him. He pushed down his mask and gave me a satisfied grin; I’d never seen him look more like Etan, and I had to turn away to hide the flood of sudden, unexpected grief that struck me.
“What was that?” I asked eventually, masking the emotion with sharpness.
“You gave me the idea,” he said, setting down the spectacles and mask. “I’ve been thinking of things I should carry in the pouches you made. Then I thought, what if we could use some of these during the next attack? When I used them down there, the rebels were terrified. Half our city seems to be convinced they’re going to use some kind of spirit magic on us. So why not turn that fear around on them?” He showed me a list of notes, boyish excitement making him speak faster than usual. “Look, here’s what I was thinking. If we put stingbark powder in water and tipped it over the attackers, it’d make their skin itch and burn; and if we mixed it with something viscous, it’d stick to their skin. Malek’s acid will dissolve wood in a breeze, and metal, too, if you give it a bit of time; if we could get the engineers to make some—Etan knew how, he’s got all the instructions here—we could use it to try to disable a ram or even a range weapon, if we could fire a container of it accurately.”
I looked over the list, leery. Etan had loved to experiment with various chemicals, but I recalled more mistakes than successes. “And whatever you just burst in there was…?”
“Oh. Art’s tonic.” He carefully didn’t look at me. I was all too familiar with that heavy sedative. Etan had used it during my bad episodes, dissolving the powder in a solution, then boiling it so I could breathe in the steam. “If you breathe in the powder directly that works, too. Better, actually, though it’s a lot less comfortable. I was just seeing if I could make it pop and spread broadly if I sealed it in a container and then added something that would react together to make a gas. That was pica paste with vinegar in a jar.”
I couldn’t remember what pica paste was, but it hardly mattered. “That’s really clever, Jov.” I paused. “And nothing that will kill.”
He looked at his hands. “I would kill if I had to,” he said, almost fiercely. “To protect you or Tain, of course I would. I did, on the walls, in the battle. But…”
But he didn’t want to. Protectiveness was built into him; it was impossible to separate his duty to his family and Tain’s from his identity, but I knew too well how fixated he was on the consequences of even his minor actions and inactions, playing out blame and judgment in a hundred different ways. He did not want extra burdens. “I understand.”
He didn’t respond, but some of the tension left his shoulders. “Anyway, where have you been?” He opened the secret door to check if the cloud had dissipated. “I thought you’d be back here.”
I hesitated. Already his distraction was fading and his sharp eyes were taking in the damp ends of my hair and bottom of my dress. I’d been sure he’d be pleased. Suddenly that seemed shortsighted. As I recounted it my words faltered at his increasing frown.
“You what?”
“I followed him,” I said. “He didn’t see me.”
“Lini.” He rubbed his forehead, pained. “He could have, though.”
“He didn’t,” I repeated. “Jov, he was a Doranite.” I seized on his renewed interest and finished the story, avoiding eye contact as I mumbled through my confrontation with Varina and Hasan. My satisfaction with my discoveries had drained out along with my energy.
“What made you think it was Batbayer?”
I shrugged. “I had his name on a list of people to watch out for in any of the rosters. And when I saw them together I just made a guess. I didn’t really expect to be right.”
“You shouldn’t have baited them,” he admonished. He started to pace, but broke disjointedly to look me up and down, as if searching for undisclosed injuries. “I don’t like any part of this. What were they exchanging? Something for Batbayer to smuggle out of the city? Information? We need to let Tain know.”
My throat burned with things unsaid. Hating my silence but lacking the energy to quarrel, I followed him into the Manor. We met Tain, returning from the training grounds, outside the Manor gate. He dismissed his servant guards as we came inside.
When we passed Argo in the Manor entryway, I smiled at him, and fancied I saw a flicker of a response on the old man’s face. Tain stopped. “Argo, you’ve been here all day, every day for weeks,” he said. “Let me get some assistance for you to manage the entrance.”
Argo shrugged, not making eye contact. His heavily lined face twitched a little as he replied. “I don’t have any family, Honored Chancellor. I’m too old to help the defense on the walls. If I stay here, no one comes into the Manor without my say so, and there aren’t any surprises for you.”
Tain clasped the little man’s shoulders. “Thank you,” he said. “You’ve served my family so well. I want you to know I appreciate it.”
Argo blinked, his pursed mouth working silently. I turned away to hide a smile. Tain had the charm his uncle had sometimes lacked. If we lived through this siege for him to rule properly, perhaps he’d be a leader to be reckoned with.
We filled Tain in on his way to his rooms, waiting while he cleaned and changed.
“And you’re sure it was Lazar’s servant, Lini? They admitted it?” Tain appeared, looking more presentable in a clean paluma.
“No,” I said. “But there wasn’t any doubt. It was like I’d slapped her.”
“Then we need to find this man,” he said. He fished around in his satchel and brought out a dark fold of bread, which he raised to his mouth. Jov sprang to his feet.
“Where did you get that?” He snatched the bread. “I haven’t proofed it.”
“I picked it up at the ration station when I was done with training,” Tain said, his tone defensive. “No one knew I was going there, so it can’t have been tampered with.”
Jov sniffed the bread and opened the fold. “There’s oku meat on this, which means it’s not part of the normal rations. Who made it? What ration station?”
“The one in Bradomir’s sector, up near the tournament grounds,” he said, eyes on the food longingly. “I don’t know who made it—whoever was manning the station, I guess. There was a woman there who helped me. Jov, I haven’t eaten in forever. I want that. I’m not waiting for hours.”
“You can have it once I’ve proofed it and we’ve waited. Were you even listening to Lini? A member of your Council meeting secretly with a servant who was there when our uncles were poisoned, and you think today’s the day to start being a fool?” He broke off a small piece of the bread and sniffed, examining it with fingers, eyes and nose, then tongue. To me, of course, it looked like regular flat black bread. But like Jov had said, meat was not part of the rations being divvied out in the stations. Either someone had specifically prepared that meal for Tain, or ration stations were reserving superior food for certain classes of people. I hoped it was the latter—a problem, but one that could be fixed.