The White studied Teia as Teia studied the White. Teia wondered what the old woman saw.
“Aglaia,” Commander Ironfist said without preamble. “Trained her in theft. Has probably been keeping the items for blackmail. Explains Teia’s facility with disguises. She came to me. Unprompted.”
The White looked unperturbed by the revelation, or by how Ironfist had launched into it without warning. “When did you find out that there was no Lady Verangheti?” she asked Teia.
“Just before we left—wait, you know about that, too?” Teia said. Lady Aglaia Crassos had said that concealing her own ownership of slaves under the pseudonym Lady Lucretia Verangheti had allowed her to place spies in all sorts of places.
“If one is to go to the trouble of having spies, it behooves a lady to have the best,” the White said. She gave a small smile. “How did you figure out that she was going to blackmail you? Surely after Andross Guile forced her to sell you to him, you must have thought that you were free—free of her at least.”
“I did,” Teia said. The truth was more complicated. She’d thought she would be free until today.
Her first thought had been that Aglaia had sent Master Sharp to pull her back into her web. But why frame her for murder?
It wasn’t how Lady Crassos usually played things. As Lady Verangheti, she had been disciplined, making Teia steal harder and harder things, making her enmesh herself more and more in the web so that she would be fully caught before she thought to struggle. Lady Verangheti would have taken the steps one at a time: give Teia harder jobs until she balked, then reveal that Teia had been damning herself all along, then make her continue doing worse things until Teia would do anything at all. Such a spy—especially if she made it onto the Blackguard itself—would be an excellent weapon. And Lady Crassos seemed clever enough not to do anything that might break Teia out of her web early.
Like the shock of witnessing a murder.
Seeing a murder, Teia might logically go straight to Commander Ironfist and tell him everything. Lady Crassos wouldn’t risk that.
So why would she frame Teia for murder?
No reason. Literally. Lady Crassos hadn’t done it.
Before the Battle of Ru, her handler had been uninterested in the assassination Teia had seen in the marketplace. There was no reason for her to pretend that if assassination was what she wanted Teia to do. It would have been a great motivator: ‘If you disobey, Adrasteia, I can have you killed like that. No one can stop me.’
In fact, it was still a good motivator. A good motivator to not tell the White, or Commander Ironfist, or Kip, or anyone else, about Murder Sharp.
Teia realized her silence was getting suspiciously long. “I couldn’t really believe I was free, and I had this terrible feeling, and the more I thought about it, the more plausible it seemed that she would keep something of what I’d done to use against me. She’s … frightening.” Which was understating. “But how’d you know about this? Did you both know?”
Teia looked over at Ironfist. He stared back at her, silent. He said, “Adrasteia, in this game, one must either be as wise as serpents, or trust implicitly someone who is. I’ve always opted for the latter.” He inclined his head to the White. Odd how only moments ago he’d seemed jaded, and now he seemed the old Ironfist, too straightforward to be political. Teia wondered if it had something to do with his highly public loss of faith—and highly public regaining of it.
“Come here, child,” the White said. When Teia approached, the old woman examined her closely, studying her eyes with a sharp gaze. “Commander, is there a slight violet tinge to her eyes, or am I fooling myself?”
The commander stared at Teia’s eyes. “Could be. I wouldn’t see it if I weren’t looking for it, though.”
“Spectral bleed, then. Affects even the paryl drafters, apparently.” The White heaved a sigh. “Oh, child, if only you could be two separate girls. I should love to study both of you. But studying precludes using, and there is but one of you. Orholam knows best, one supposes. Still.” She cast her eyes skyward, though there was only ceiling there, as if gently castigating the creator of the universe. “Tell me, daughter, about your family.”
“That’s none of your—” Teia bit off her words, realizing who she was talking to. She swallowed. It was a perfectly neutral question, even friendly, but Teia had hoarded up the knowledge and the shame of her family for so long that any inquiry felt hostile.
“High Lady, perhaps this isn’t the time,” Commander Ironfist said. “We have only minutes—”