one part of it, certainly,” he said smoothly. “Humans are encroaching on the area. All that beauty will be gone in a human generation without protection.”
She had to admit this was reasonable. The fey were fanatical about keeping woodland, even though their primary abodes were in their own realm. If that was true, then it would have been in Cormac’s best interest to keep Hiro alive. If it was true.
“Are you done, Inquisitor?” His gaze was mocking but she noticed that his eyes lingered on her lips. “Ready to keep your end of the bargain?”
“I made no bargain,” she said. “Now be silent. I hear Rendell.”
He sputtered as he realized that she hadn’t committed to the deal he’d offered but took a seat with ill-grace as Rendell thrust the door open and entered with a slow and languid elegance that made her feel lumpy and bumbling. The fey often had this effect on other arcana. As he passed Cormac, she compared the two. There were similarities, to be certain. All fey had a particular puckishness to their features. In Rendell, it came out in a strangely gleeful expression as if laughing at a cruel joke. Cormac had a bit of the same but without the underlying nastiness. On him, it showed in the occasional wicked and knowing smile that swept across his face like a cool wind.
Rendell brushed an imaginary speck of dust off his spotless silver-gray suit. “I keep thinking of Hiro. Poor man. Such pain.”
The words were right, but Rendell’s voice was thick with a horrible excitement. He kept talking. “You saw him. Were the cuts deep? Were the blood drops like rubies on his skin?”
Michaela barely avoided rolling her eyes at his blatant attempt to shock her but Cormac growled. “Why don’t you tell us?” he asked.
“Cormac.” Her voice carried a warning.
Rendell’s eyes flickered over him, deliberately dismissive, before turning back to Michaela. “Should we be frightened? Can you protect us all?” He licked his lips.
It only took her seconds to decide how to deal with him. “You’ve nothing to be afraid of,” she said in her chirpiest voice, patterned after the most irritatingly cheerful barista she knew. “We think the attacker is only targeting important Pharos members.”
Rendell laughed. “Charming, Michaela. You know, of course, that unlike you, I have no reason to kill Hiro. Or any human for that matter, although Oksana is so irritating she should be exterminated on principle.”
She caught Cormac leaning forward as if to say something and shot him such a look that he held up his hands in mock surrender.
“You were seen speaking to him in the library several days ago,” she said to Rendell.
“Perhaps. I speak to many of my colleagues.”
Investigations would go so much better if she only had to deal with things and not people. “What did you discuss?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Let me help jog your memory. You were overheard talking about money. Quite a vast sum.”
Rendell yawned and cast his eyes up to the ceiling in an exaggeratedly theatrical attempt at recollection. “Now it comes back to me. He offered me some land, a forest. I have plenty and declined, but he was extremely pushy. I told him I’d think about it.”
“What land?” asked Michaela. Across the room, Cormac’s eyes were trained on Rendell but he remained silent.
“A Japanese mountain, or some such thing.”
Japan. Michaela kept her focus on Rendell. “Northern Japan?”
“Now that you mention it, yes.” He smirked. “Did he offer it to you, too?”
“I don’t need a forest.”
“Oksana says Hiro’s death is a violation of the Law, you know.” Rendell cocked his head to the side, then crossed his legs. “Is she right?”
“Human councilors are outside the Law,” she said. “Obviously, since they need to know of arcane existence.”
“The Law and the peace it brought hangs by a thread.” Rendell’s comment made Michaela wonder how much of his attitude was simply show. The Law that governed all arcana and hid them from human view had worked for the last seven hundred years and, on the surface, still seemed to be working. Rendell was one of the first Michaela had heard openly admit to the potentially devastating cracks that were forming underneath.
“Why do you say that?”
“Hiro is one of only two humans on the council. If I were Oksana, I would be very worried indeed.”
“An interesting theory.” She had an inkling of where this was going but would let him say it.
“Didn’t the masquerada have a little problem with humans recently? Franz Iverson?”
She didn’t bite. “All the arcane groups have a love-hate relationship with humans, not only the masquerada.”
Rendell gave her a nasty smile. “Last time I checked, the fey weren’t the ones trying to, oh, dominate the world and subjugate humanity.”
Deep breath. “That was one twisted man’s thinking.” Franz Iverson had not made them many friends by declaring humans were at the bottom of a pyramid of worth that placed the masquerada alone at the top. While most arcana would agree with humans at the base, they disagreed vehemently about having masquerada at the apex.
“One?” Rendell examined Michaela with his pale blue eyes. “We all know how hard it’s been for you to take control of your insubordinate groups. I doubt he was the only believer.”
He winked at her and swept out of the room, a king ending an audience with a supplicant.
Once he was gone, Cormac scowled, his jaw tense. “Does that worm bother you?”
“I’m not interested in your petty rivalry.”
“Petty? No. Rendell is one of the queen’s pets and he has even less morality than most fey. Stay clear of him.”
“It’s my investi—”
He smiled at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a way that made her heart beat faster. Attracted to Cormac? Impossible. “Michaela. I know you can take care of yourself. I give you only a warning about an individual of whom I have more experience than you.”
She listened now. It was difficult to find accurate information about the fey. “What do you mean?”
“Rendell is the queen’s master torturer. He enjoys his work.”
She blanched. “That’s barbaric.” The masquerada had abandoned torture decades ago. Arcane groups didn’t interfere in each other’s internal discipline, but such practices still came in for a good amount of superior tut-tutting.
“That is how the fey court works.” Cormac yawned as if this was normal. “He did bring up a good point, however.”
“I don’t recall asking your opinion.”
“I know. That’s why I’m giving it unsolicited.”
“What exactly are you blaming on us?” Her day with Cormac had caused a headache that had settled directly behind her eyes.
He gave a languid shrug. “Not Hiro’s death, necessarily. The tension between arcane groups, yes.”
“This is not our fault.” Why was it her job to defend her race against the stupidity of a single bigoted man who the Hierarch had killed in combat? Hadn’t she spent the last half year fighting death threats to make sure masquerada with such heinous beliefs were taken into custody?
It must have been chilly in the room, because she shivered as he moved by her to flick open the window curtain and check outside. “No need to get high and mighty. Perhaps if you treated the rest of