The peach silk shimmered. A b.u.t.terfly fluttered at his shoulder, curious.
"My father. What about my father?"
In the beautiful blue sky a flutter of pigeons rose from one of the Palace"s thousand towers. Evian did not turn and his voice was so quiet she barely heard it. "He is dangerous. He is implicated."
"Don"t hurt him."
"Claudia ..."
"Don"t."
She clenched her fists.
"He is not to be killed. Promise me now. Swear. Or I go to the Queen this minute and tell her everything."
That made him turn, startled.
"You wouldn"t..."
"You don"t know me."
Iron-cold she faced him. Only her stubbornness would keep a knife out of her father"s heart. She knew he was her enemy, her subtle foe, her cold opponent over the chessboard. But he was still her father.
Evian flashed a glance at Jared, then breathed out, a long uneasy breath. "Very well."
"Swear."
She put her hand out and grabbed his and held it tight; it was hot and clammy.
"With Jared as witness."
Reluctant, he let her raise their clasped fingers. Jared put his delicate hand on top.
"I swear. As I am a lord of the Realm and a devotee of the Nine-Fingered One."
Lord Evian"s small gray eyes were pale in the sunlight.
"The Warden of Incarceron will not be killed."
She nodded.
"Thank you."
They watched him detach his hand and walk away, wiping his fingers fastidiously with a silk handkerchief, disappearing down the greenness of the lime walk.
As soon as he was gone, Claudia sat on the gra.s.s and clutched her knees under the blue dress.
"Oh, Master. What a mess."
Jared seemed barely to be listening. He shifted restlessly about, as if he was stiff. Then he stopped so abruptly, she thought a bee had stung him.
"Who"s the Nine-Fingered One?"
"What?"
"That was what Evian said."
He turned, and there was a tension in his dark eyes she knew well, like the burning obsessions that sometimes kept him at his experiments for days and nights.
"Have you ever heard of such a cult before?"
Brutally, she shrugged.
"No. And I don"t have time to care. Listen. Tonight, after the banquet, the Queen holds a meeting of her Council, a great Synod, to prepare the deeds of the wedding and the succession. They"ll be there, Caspar and the Warden and his secretary and anyone of importance. And they won"t be able to leave."
"Not you?"