(In which Janus discovers Maledicte's disappearance.)

From the moment their carriage drew up to Lastrest, the jingle of the horses' harnesses lost under the crunch of hard-rimmed wheels in the oyster-shell drive, Janus Ixion, Earl of Last, anticipated disaster. He sensed it in the air, like a wisp of smoke signaling an unseen fire.

It was not an unanticipated feeling, born from airy fancies turned dark, but dread based in simple fact. Janus had left his lover unattended for nearly a fortnight, confined to the house, hiding in the back corridors and abandoned rooms, and Maledicte chafed under restraints.

Maledicte's tempers were uneven at the best of times, which these decidedly were not. She had been unmasked as a murderer, a thing not unheard of in the Antyrrian court--any courtier who fancied himself a duelist was such--but also a traitor to the crown. Her motives had been mercenary, slaughter to profit Janus and herself, and that the court could not forgive. Maledicte's death sentence had been inevitable. Fortunately, the execution had been more malleable.

Janus's schemes served both of them well; Janus had 'killed' Maledicte and substituted a body, denying King Aris any proof that Janus had enabled Maledicte's actions, no matter that they benefited him most.

Still, alive was not the same as free--an accusation Maledicte hurled at him often enough, pacing Janus's bedchamber late at night, Ani's lingering presence visible in the feathery shadows that followed her.

Ani, Janus thought, as he descended from the carriage, was even less prone to holding back Her tempers. Were She stronger, he wouldn't have dared leave for fear of finding his manor a welter of gore on his return. His reputation was chancy enough without risking that sort of gossip.

But something was off, Ani or no; the house was dark, the curtains drawn tight though the afternoon sunlight still spilled over the grounds. Janus held up a hand for Psyke's and asked, "Peculiar, don't you think?"

His touch, his words jolted her from the silence she had fallen into for the length of their return journey; Janus knew who to blame for it. Their visit to Murne had been at the king's request, and Janus, though unwilling to leave Maledicte to her own devices, had been unable to deny Aris, when the man's wish held the weight of both kin and king. Janus's prompt obedience was rewarded by Aris whispering doubts into Psyke's ears, reminding her that she was his spy and that her husband was dangerous.

She glanced up at the shadowed windows, and shook her head, "I see nothing at odds with a household still in mourning."

Janus released her hand as soon as her slippers touched ground, and said, in a tone rather more brittle than he had meant, "That's as may be, but I would prefer you to wait here until I say otherwise."

Her eyes, as blue as forget-me-nots, met his for the first time since they had begun their journey home, and their expression was distrustful. Her voice showed none of that sentiment though, as poised as ever. "As you will. I too have arrangements to make," she said. She walked back toward the coaches still pulling into the drive carrying their luggage and their attendants.

Janus watched her a moment, damning Aris for his interference. Janus had worked to keep her content and mindless, and Aris, with his demands and suspicions, had set Janus back at the beginning again.

Time, Janus knew, was not his ally, not when Aris distrusted him, when Maledicte grew more impatient with playing the ghost, and when the role he had to play thwarted his own ambitions.

The front doors swung open, and the butler said, "Your Grace. My apologies."

"What's happened, Martin?" Janus said.

That sensation of disaster rose again, stirred to waking by the sweat standing out on the fastidious man's brow. Perhaps Ani had been stronger than he thought, perhaps there were deaths waiting for him, mangled bodies and a savage lover, sword to hand. But the air of the house, while musty, due to the curtains being drawn tight to signify both the master's absence and their mourning, held no familiar tang of blood.

"It's your quarters, my lord, and your lady wife's. I'm afraid the foolish maids blamed it on the ghost, and failed to repair the damage. They only told me of it this morning."

That's all? Janus wanted to say, wanted to laugh. Maledicte's tempers were of the kind that demanded satisfaction in destruction. Janus had tidied away more than one such tantrum with the maids all unawares, save that lamps, mirrors, small chairs disappeared with worrying regularity.

Even so, dread clutched fingers tighter 'round his heart; there was something else, an absence. The air was still and dead, lacked the dark electricity he had learned to acknowledge as the god's presence.

Black-Winged Ani was withdrawn or gone.

And Maledicte?

Janus swept by the man, heading upstairs. Martin followed, still mouthing apologies and spilling blame on every servant but himself.

Janus stood in the wreckage, atop the wreckage, and failed entirely to keep control of his breath. It came out a near whine, the strangled cry of a wounded animal.

The butler's speech, split between invective for the lazy maids that had allowed the mess to stand, and apology, faltered for a bare before slanting his speech toward apology entirely. Janus wanted to throttle him to give him the silence his racing thoughts so desperately needed. The wreckage was nothing; expensive, extensive, and inconvenient, but nothing.

A familiar wail of dismay from the door let him know his valet had arrived, ready to put away his court clothes, only to find devastation instead of order.

The floor had gone from sight, buried beneath the scattered paraphernalia of an aristocratic life. Torn shirts, the linen jagged where the knife had first penetrated, lay scattered from wardrobe to dressing room. Paintings, some as old as the family itself, had been broken from their frames and battered to shapelessness. A feather bolster shed dingy goose down throughout the room, like a shroud of ash after a fire.

Shattered fragments of silvered glass crunched beneath his bootheels as he made a slower survey of the room. The butler shied as Janus passed, and his fright stilled his words. The valet's voice came clear then, little yelps of distress as he discovered still more damage done to Janus's wardrobe. "Oh! your waistcoats and Oh! your linens. . . ."
Janus cuffed the man, knocked his head into the edge of the wardrobe, and growled, "Be quiet." Padget shuddered and obeyed.

The window was broken, glass caught hanging in the drapes; the drapes hung in tatters. The wind whistled through the jagged hole, stirred the bedcurtains, and sent a drift of dark feathers into the air. Janus tugged back the bedcurtains and his skin flushed hot, his rage and fear combining into one sickening whole.

His world whited out while he stared at dark feathers spread across the mattress in the shape of a sword. He stroked his fingers through the mess, setting the feathers to rippling over the sheets like something living, and allowed the knowledge to cross his mind: Maledicte had gone.

A dark stain, first a shadow on the broken glass, then a rusty footprint on the sheet trailing from the bed, caught his attention. So careless with her skin. It bit at Janus that he hadn't been here, to soothe Mal from her temper, to bandage the hurts garnered by rage. Though in truth he hadn't been the one to soothe Maledicte for some time, not with that cretin Gilly usurping his role.

He caught up a handful of crow's feathers, let them drift, sharp-edged, through his fingers, closed his hands on the last one when it would escape him also. Martin prosed on about the slackness of country maids and how they feared the ghost too much to clean its mess away--

They were short-sighted, Janus thought, his mind feeling thick and as slow as if he had breathed ether. They feared the ghost, but on his return they remembered they feared their master more.

"Dismiss them all. No reference," Janus said, and if his voice was thick, no doubt Martin would take it for rage. He opened his hand and let the feather drop.

"Sir," the butler said.

"Get out, both of you," Janus said. The valet stood, still rubbing his jaw where the hard edge of the door had bitten into his flesh. The butler bowed his head and turned for the open door.

"Wait," Janus said. "When did this happen?" It was a futile question. The room was cold, empty of personality, stale and scentless, and the emotion that had fed the wreckage covered over with a sifting of dust. Time had passed, enough time that any pursuit was at a tremendous disadvantage.

"The day after you went to Murne, your Grace," the butler said. Martin bowed his way out after Janus failed to respond, and left him to silence.

Maledicte was gone. Janus sat down on the mattress; the feathers flowed toward him.

Maledicte was gone. Had fled the safety that Janus provided and disappeared. Had gone so many days ago that not even an echo of her presence, or even Ani's, remained in the house.

When the flush of rage and fear faded again, Janus managed to think that this separation might be an unlooked for boon. Mal had cut up rough over Janus's marriage to Psyke Bellane, and turned fouler of temper when she realized that Janus intended to approach Psyke with something other than duty and distant courtesy.

The affection Janus showed Psyke infuriated Maledicte, no matter that it was a sham, judged to a nicety: too much would be ridiculously false, too little and she might complain to Aris.

Psyke had a weakness though that Janus meant to exploit: recently and violently orphaned, she craved the familial affection she had once taken for granted. Kept content, kept happy, Psyke's report to Aris had been little more than the tale of a successful marriage, a counter both to Aris's attempt at machinations and his lingering suspicions. Maledicte, with her spiteful games, and traps laid to injure Psyke, had jeopardized that, brought fear to Psyke's eyes, and worse--a glimmer of recognition.

Psyke might be sweet and delicate, a perfect example of a gently reared noble girl, but she was not unintelligent. Though the servants blamed the signs of Maledicte's presence on a ghost, Psyke was well educated and scorned specters; she believed in flesh and blood evil all too well.

Psyke was in position to learn the deepest secret Janus held and one he would hang for: Maledicte, the scourge of the court and killer of Auron Ixion, the king's hope for an heir--Maledicte had cheated death and thrived even now.

Though apparently, she thought she would thrive better elsewhere. Janus's fist tightened on the sheets.

Maledicte's escape from Lastrest removed that chance of Psyke's comprehension. Besides, Janus thought, it was better this way.

He understood the message. It was a goad, a reminder that Maledicte found the current arrangement untenable. When Janus succeeded in his plan, Maledicte would come slinking home, tired of the wild world and her own company, ready to share in Janus's victory. Aris's throne would be his, and damned to any who cried foul. Antyre's throne had seated murderers and kin killers before. Did Janus seize it at the right moment, the country would roll to bare its belly to him. Let Maledicte run on that invisible leash between them: she had done her share of the work, bringing Janus this close to power on the point of her blade.

Now it was Janus's turn. When he sat the throne, bringing Maledicte home, Psyke could be set aside, and Maledicte would take her place where she belonged.

Aris had been pressing to have Janus and Psyke take up residence in the palace, no doubt as a result of Psyke's reports of near injury at Lastrest. With Maledicte no longer dependent on Janus's secretive care, there was no reason not to indulge the King. And Murne itself required careful attention. Janus had set plans in motion, set Westfall's pups to work for him, cast Tarrant out to the seas; easier by far for him to be central to the palace and his schemes.

A glimmer of metal caught his attention, a dark glitter in the magpie-tossed wreckage of linen and feather and ticking. He reached out and found a familiar token, changed now.
Maledicte had given him this ring so long ago that she had been Miranda then, the starveling street rat. The ring, cheap gold that it was, had been worth a week's meals, yet she gave it to him. Now it was blackened, tarnished; the inscription on the inside, Only each other at the Last, was a blur.

He had set it aside when he wed Psyke. He stroked his fingers over it as if he would clean it and refresh the sentiment with the shine. It stayed dark despite his attempt, a tarnish more thorough than simple disuse; Ani disliked those who thought to use a god for a pawn. With Her goad, no wonder that Maledicte had fled. But Maledicte had given him the ring twice before, and she left it for him now, a promise.

Janus closed his fist around its contours. Spurn him as She would, She aided him still, taking Maledicte away when Janus needed to concentrate on Aris, that suspicious and melancholy king who needed to be finessed from the board.

"Your quarters also?" Psyke said. "Strange that. I had come to accept that whatever animus this house bears was directed solely toward me."

Janus's back stiffened as she approached, resentful of her presence. Her steps were cautious, picking her way through the wreckage and avoiding the glass.

"Perhaps my father's come back to haunt us and only took this long to reach my quarters." He refused to fumble for some plausible excuse; there was none, and excuses only invited speculation. Maledicte was gone, but the secret of her survival remained.

Psyke took his acknowledgment as permission to come closer. She raised her skirts above her ankles, careful so that the glass shards of mirror, of window, of carafe and decanter, wouldn't snag in her lace-edged underskirts. Janus flicked a gaze her direction, and saw a sight that should be everything pleasing.

Psyke was the epitome of court-trained nobility, the image most courtiers held of their perfect help-meet. Even in this situation, returning home to destruction, her expression was simple inquiry, betraying no surprise--surprise was for commoners after all, and those who had no say in their own destiny. But even as he thought that, her rosebud mouth parted and her blue eyes widened. "You've injured yourself."

"It's nothing of consequence," he said. The pain in his hand had crept up on him, and he looked at the blood welling between his fingers with the same surprise she did.

"You're bleeding," she said, paling. Her voice faltered; she swayed where she stood. Janus nearly laughed. This fragile maid his wife, when he had fought alongside Maledicte and wet his hands with blood to the elbow. Psyke had seen murder done and learned to fear; Janus and Maledicte had seen murder and learned to glory in it.

"Don't distress yourself," he said. "And don't faint. The floor's all over glass and you'd only ruin your skirts and skin."

Outrage touched her cheeks, drove the pallor back. "Would you let me fall, then, husband?"

Janus said, "Would you welcome the touch of my hands, wet with blood? Best not chance it. Leave me to my trifling hurt."

Once she had made her way out, he settled himself on the bed amidst the dark feathers and the blood, and opened his hand. The ring, edges gone sharp, had pierced his palm. Janus licked the blood away, remembering a hundred pacts of lifelong devotion. Two children in the slums, refusing to be beaten, refusing to give up each other. They'd made rituals out of every promise, and each one sworn in blood.

This was only more of the same.