When Mei arrived in his office, Charlie grabbed his coat and a file folder and said, “Good, you’re here. Wagner just dropped her off in the interrogation room.”
He led her down the hall and paused in front of a door reinforced with thick iron bands. “Nod if you think that she’s the one who attacked Sanford.”
Then he shouldered the door open, allowing Mei to step into a cold stone room whose walls were decorated with rusted metal mounts and hooks. One of three stools in the center of the room sat a short, wiry woman in a fashionable light teal suit, her dusty brown hair held in a tight bun, her cheekbones red from sun exposure.
“This is a torture chamber, is it not?” Tiffany P. Burks’s eyes flicked to the walls. “I mean it doesn’t have all of the necessities, sure, but you could say it has the foundation in, haha.”
Mei caught Charlie’s eye and shook her head. While Burks and the windsong thief seemed to be about the same height, and Burks’s burnt cheekbones screamed windsong, that soft lilting accent didn’t match Dwayne’s description of the windsong thief’s voice nor did Burks’s dog-like jittery energy, which the thief had completely lacked.
“Hello, Miss Burks.” Charlie sat down and gestured for Mei to do the same. “My name is Charles Vogt, this is Mei Ma of the Royal Sorcerer’s Office, and I assure you that this room is for asking questions, not demanding answers. The Chamber does not approve of the use of saws, pears or wheels in its scrytives’ work.”
“That’s almost too bad. I’m curious as to what a pear is. By the way,” the windsong showed off a plain silvery ring on her finger, “it’s Mrs. Burks. Just been hitched a week now, but,” she winked, “I got to get myself into the habit, you know.”
“Congratulations.” Charlie opened up a file folder and made a show of making a note. “You kept your own family name?”
“I have to make clear my antecedents. In Cairnborne, the Burks are a prominent family, who’ve sent at least one mage to the Academy every generation.”
“Impressive.” Charlie’s eyes lifted from the file. “I also see that you’re the first wind Qe in your family? Your… antecedents were all water Qe.”
Burk’s shifted uneasily in her chair. “I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” asked Mei.
“My partner here is new to Soura, Mrs. Burks. See, Mei,” Charlie’s gaze continued to pin Mrs. Burks to her seat, “here in Soura, a mother passes down her magic to her daughter, and not just her ability to do magic, but also her specific kind of magic. Take your friend Miss Lucchesi. Her mother was wind Qe. Her mother’s mother was wind Qe as was her mother and her mother and so on and so forth. It’s how it works here.”
Mei frowned. “What about Maggie? She’s nQe.”
“The nQe stuff is more… arbitrary, but her mother is water Qe and she’s water nQe so it all fits.”
Mei had more questions, like why Lady Gallus and Lord Kalan, brother and sister presumably, didn’t have the same magic, but instead she asked Burks, “So, your mother was wind Qe?”
“Again, what does that have to do with anything?” Burks crossed her arms. “Did you bring me here to question me about my heritage?”
“Not at all,” said Charlie. “I was just explaining to Mei why, instead of dousing water in Cairnborne like your fully licensed sister, you’re here in Bradford begging the local Vanurian contingent for work.”
Burks stared. “You even looked into Wendy…”
“We’re don’t care about your heritage, Mrs. Burks. We’re here because we need a motive for murder.”
“Murder!” Burks paled. “What murder? Who’s murdered? Not Wendy, I got a windsong from her this morning, and there’s no way you could have heard faster than me. Do you think I did it? For a real license or something? I mean, it would have been nice to have a real license, but everyone knows you gotta have an in with the Queen to get one.”
“Which means that you’re working under a provisional license?” Charlie took note. “Tell us more about that.”
A tingle zipped up Mei’s spine. The scrytive had simultaneously shifted the conversation to what he’d wanted to know while also reminding Burks of how much power he had.
Burks frowned. “I don’t see what my provy has to do with anything.”
“You share three things with the murder victim.” Charlie counted on his hands. “You were both windsong, you were both unable to get a real license, and you both spent significant amounts of time on the other side of the wall.”
“The other side of the… The Plague District?” Burks paled. “Oh, you’re talking about Juan, ain’t ya? I just thought he were taking his time coming back from Vanuria.”
It took Mei a moment to decipher Burks’s suddenly thick accent. “Why do you think we’re talking about him?”
“Because I heard that a windsong were, was, killed a few days ago, and he wasn’t there to kick I and Orlaith out of VanQuart. It is him, isn’t it?”
“It is,” said Charlie.
Burks cupped her hands over her chest. “Cups and crackers.”
“You knew him?” asked Mei.
“Aye, I mean yes. I mean, we’d once gone out once or twice, but we liked rivalry more than relationship. Once, I boasted about taking a job all the way from here to Ponne, and the next day, he declared he were heading out to Ti Mei and promised to make it back before me. When we both got back, we were so exhausted, we ended up just flopping all over each other instead of proper… well… you know.” She coughed. “We broke it off soon after.” Her voice went quiet. “Does his family know?”
“His sister picked up his body this morning,” said Charlie.
“Good.” Burks cleared her throat. “Good. They’ll want to send him.”
“I don’t understand,” said Charlie.
“Some part of them has to go home or they can’t rest,” explained Mei.
Burks nodded. “That was Juan’s personal mission, getting as many people back home to Vanuria so they could rest in peace.”
“Did that mean he crossed the border into Vanuria regularly?” asked Charlie.
“Not regularly. The Plague District isn’t that bad. They’ve got fewer dead infants than the Bilges by a long shot.”
“Is crossing the border something a provisional license grants you?”
“No, that’s a privilege that can only be held by a holder of a real license. When I’ve done border runs, I’d pass off the package to a local courier who goes the rest of the way. Otherwise, your girl would be made an arrow’s pincushion.”
“But Juanelo could cross?” asked Mei.
“I never asked him how, but he is, was, Vanurian, and he was a pretty smooth talker. Maybe that’s how he got through.”
“Still, I wonder how he got a provisional license in the first place.” Charlie closed his file folder. “Or, to be honest, how you got one because, despite that excellent suit, you don’t look like you could afford the fee.”
“Right.” Burks’s eyes slid away. “Well. Let’s say I did a favor for a noble.“
“What kind of favor?”
“Nothing majorly criminal.” Burks pulled at her collar.
Charlie smiled. “We’re not going to charge you with anything, Mrs. Burks. We’re here to ask questions.”
“Right. Well. Let’s say, hypothetically, that a noble with a proper license trade a provisional one for providing the service of finding out if his husband was sleeping with another man. Hypothetically, you’re just a girl from some insignificant town, so he won’t believe your word and will demand proof, and so, hypothetically, you find said husband’s paramour’s schedule near an open window and just borrow it for just long enough to know for sure. For a provisional license, what poor, half-disowned Academy graduate could resist? Particularly if she’d heard that sometimes more was required.”
Because Charlie looked too scandalized to talk, Mei asked, “Was more required of Juanelo?”
Burks nodded. “At first, his sponsor made a similar deal: one favor, one license, but then Juanelo wanted to cross the border, and the deal became one favor, one crossing. Usually, all Juanelo had to do was let his sponsor read the messages he carried.” Burk’s’s lips curled. “Sometimes, it was more.”
“You cannot be serious,” Charlie blurted out. “Windsong are supposed to be trustworthy.”
“We are, mostly,” Mrs. Burks looked down at her knees, “but we need to eat, and Juanelo, well, he had to get his people home. It was his calling he said.”
Charlie’s voice shook as he asked, “Do you know who his sponsor was?”
“No. Sorry.”
Still, it was all starting to add up for Mei. “Where did he cross the border?”
“Walton, I think.”
That could be nothing, could be chance, but Mei didn’t think so. It fit too well. “I think Mrs. Burks can go.”
Charlie frowned, but when Mei nodded, he said, “Looks like we’re done here, Mrs. Burks.” He opened the door. “Thank you for coming in and, again, congratulations on your nuptials.”
When the door closed behind the relieved windsong, Charlie turned to Mei. “Why did I just let her leave?”
“Juanelo was the windsong Lord Kalan hired to carry messages to Dwayne,” answered Mei.
“How do you know that?”
“Because Juanelo was going to the Noble District when he was died.” Mei stood up and paced. “That’s where Sanford is. He also traveled to Walton regularly, where Lord Kalan is.”
“There are other nobles in Walton.”
“Not many.” Mei remembered who Dwayne had had to deal with after Sir Marcus’s funeral. “And they don’t have estates here. Also, Dwayne got clothes from Lord Kalan before the Autumn Session.”
“I don’t see how-”
“Clothes travel slower than messages, but Dwayne has not heard from Lord Kalan since the murder. That’s why Lady Pol surprised us at the Autumn Session.”
“Because she heard from Lord Kalan himself.” Charlie frowned. “Couldn’t she be Juanelo’s sponsor?”
Mei paused. “I… don’t know. Maybe. It also could be Baron Thadden. He wanted a new Royal Sorcerer.”
“And now he might be Royal Sorcerer.”
Mei waved that away. “We don’t have anything pointing to him or her. But Juanelo’s death keeps Dwayne in the dark.”
“You think that Juanelo’s mysterious sponsor had him killed?”
“No, I don’t think that. A star wolf doesn’t prefer violence.”
Charlie stared. “I’m sorry? Aren’t they predators?”
Mei nodded. “Predators don’t like violence. They use violence to hunt and to defend against other, bigger predators. Juanelo’s killer must be small to his sponsor and so violence was the only way.”
“Sponsor.” Charlie made a face. “That sounds too nice, too supportive. These people are making thralls out of honest Sourans and forcing them perform criminal acts. If they weren’t nobles or merchant, I’d…” He blew out a breath. “Well, I’d do something. However, since it sounds like we can’t let Orlaith Jung off the hook, I’ll track him down. I’ll contact you when I do. That windsong you sent had a two-for one deal that I had to take.”
“You can send it to Sanford.” Until then, Mei had another question for a certain roofrunner.
As she left the Chamber, Mei amended her statement about predators. Sometimes, very rarely, a predator didn’t use violence just for food or defense. Sometimes, they just liked the taste of blood.
Admaeus Speaks 