Tempt the Devil (The Devil of Ponong series #3) (20 page)

It
probably didn’t matter.

No matter
how hard he tried to convince himself of that, he couldn’t believe it. QuiTai
always played to her audience. She was always aware of costume and script. He’d
watched her try to climb the veranda stairs in that ridiculously tight skirt
that bound her legs. But she hadn’t frowned until that subtle double-take at
her sleeve.

Did he
really want to know why? Would it tell him who murdered Turyat?

He
clenched his jaw and strode to the wardrobe. Inattra folded his arms across his
chest.

She’d
hung the jacket and skirt in the wardrobe. Her scent wafted to him as he
touched the jacket. He lifted the sleeve so the light fell on the raw silk. His
eyes closed. It wouldn’t change the truth, but he could pretend for a moment it
was mud, or
tamtuk
grease – anything except what he
knew it was.

How could he have been so stupid as to believe in her? It
was what he’d most feared he’d find. He tore the jacket from the hanger. His
temper was on the boil, and a storm was gathering in his mind. With a grunt of
dismissal, he stomped past Inattra, who flattened against the wall to get out
of his way.

There
weren’t any soldiers
guarding the dungeon. Kyam feared they’d already
executed QuiTai – although the way he felt, he could do it himself. She’d
fooled him for the last time.

He grabbed a jellylantern from the hook on the wall and
stomped down the stairs. Oh, the things he would say to her! Terrible words
welled up on his tongue.

Maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed far darker in
the dungeon than it had been earlier. There was only one jellylantern down
there now.

“I assumed that when they locked you in a dungeon cell,
you spent your time either being tortured or in isolation. That only goes to
show how wrong I was. There’s a constant stream of visitors down here. Hello,
Governor. Have you eaten today?” QuiTai asked.

He
squinted until he saw her shadowy form. She was sitting against the far wall
with her head tipped back. She rose and walked toward him. Her hair fell to her
knees in twisting, fuzzy locks as if she were a child. Kyam knew how much she
hated being seen like that. He was angry enough with her that it made him
happy, although he wondered which soldier had been brave enough to force her to
let it down.

“Oh,
dear. A storm seems to have settled on your brow and you’re swelling with
outrage. Could it be you have come here to scold me, Kyam?”

He flung
the jacket at her face.

“That
would have been much more effective if the cell bars weren’t in the way. Would
you like to open my cell so you can try again?”

He hated it when she mocked him like that. He ground his
fist into his palm. “I might lose control and leave fingerprints on your lovely
throat like the Devil does.”

Her smirk faded. This must be what she looked like when
she killed: absolutely calm, in control, and without a trace of humanity in her
eyes. “I’d like to see you try, Governor Zul.”

“That’s a neat trick. Have you been practicing with the
acoustics in here?”

“What trick?”

“The way you make it sound as if there’s something in the
dark corners down here, and the way your voice slithers behind me and makes the
hair at the back of my neck stand up.”

It wasn’t her voice that was giving him chills despite the
heat. She looked like a vengeful surkraim spirit, half drowned and full of
malignant fury. But he was the one with the right to be angry here, not her.

She pulled the jacket through the bars and examined the
ripped seam at the shoulder as she walked to the back of her cell.

“Don’t
you turn your back on me, QuiTai! Don’t you dare.” His chest rose and fell
quickly as he glowered at her. He knew most of his anger was about humiliation,
even though he’d duped himself. The shame was almost unbearable, so he lashed
out at her as if it were her fault.

Her head
turned, but not enough that she could look at him. It reminded him of the day
they’d first met. If he’d known how treacherous she was, would he have spent so
much time trying to figure her out? Yes, a thousand times yes, because even
though he knew she was poison, he couldn’t resist her.

“There’s
blood on that sleeve,” he said.

She turned to face him. “Yes.”

What could he do with that? He realized he’d hoped she
would lie. “It makes you look damn guilty.”

“Do you want me to explain it away to ease your mind?”

How did she say what he was feeling when even he couldn’t
put it into words? “It’s not like that.”

“Yes, it is, Kyam.”

He took a deep breath. “Why can’t you ever answer a
question? Why is there blood spatter on your sleeve? You always dress in
continental fashions when you’re dealing with Thampurians, but today, you
changed from this outfit into a sarong before you went down to the harbor.”

“I did?”

“You were seen.”

What was that flicker that crossed her face? Fear?
Concern? It went away too quickly for him to figure it out.

He gritted his teeth. “Why did you change clothes?”

“There, now. Was it so hard to ask me in a reasonable
tone?”

Did she
have any idea how irritating she was? He couldn’t let her get the better of
him. He had to calm down. “The blood. Explain it.”

She
lifted a finger. “Before I do, I feel a preliminary discussion is called for.”

“One of
your word games?”

“A word
game? Yes and no. I prefer to think of it as clarification,” she said.

“You
would.”

“Do you
want to know about the blood, or do you want to know specifically if it’s
Turyat’s? Keeping in mind that you only have a few hours left to find his
killer. If you fail, you lose your only chance at freedom.”

No one
could be that infuriating by accident. He ran his hand over his hair as he
counted to ten a few times.

A low growl, or maybe it was a groan, echoed through the
dungeon. Was she mocking him? He felt like growling back at her. But how did
she do that? It had to be a stage trick.

“It’s–”

“No, it isn’t the same thing, Kyam, if that’s what you
were about to say. Far be it from me to tell you what to think, but if I were
trying to figure out what happened in the Red Happiness this morning, I’d limit
the scope of my questions to Turyat’s death.”

His mouth snapped shut. Lizzriat had told him to narrow
his focus too. Did he want to know more? He was never sure. “I know you’re up
to something. It’s always a game with you.”

Her gaze traveled slowly down his face to his chest. By
the time it reached his thighs, he had to take a deep breath and close his eyes
for a moment.

“Of course it’s a game for me. That’s a given. You want to
find Turyat’s real killer, so you can get me out of here and use me to buy your
freedom. I’m not quite ready to leave the fortress, though, so I’m not going to
give you the answer.”

“And what do you want? Why are you here?”

She was like the surface of a calm lake, reflecting sky
rather than let anyone peer into its depths. “I wanted you to investigate the
murders of my lieutenants and bring their killers to trial. I asked you to stop
Cuulon from arresting my people for simply gathering in the marketplace and
during our festivals. But I had to settle for this.”

That stung. “There is no such thing as justice, QuiTai. No
one gets it.”

She grabbed the cell bars and looked up at him. “We should
still try.”

For once, she wasn’t cold or distant. She looked now like
an actress playing a surkraim spirit, as if the mask was floating above her
true face and only he could see beyond it. What he saw was worry and sorrow.
She’d started down a grim path and was determined to see it to the end, no
matter the cost.

Maybe he could bend a little and do this her way.

“Is the blood on that sleeve Turyat’s?” he asked.

“Ah! You’ve decided to focus on the right questions. No,
the blood isn’t Turyat’s. And to anticipate your next question, it has nothing
to do with his death.”

His relief was telling. He cared much more than he’d
admitted to himself. “If you say so.”

“I’m here to help, Governor.”

A slow smile spread across his face. This was like before,
when they’d worked together. He shouldn’t have been so happy. “Of course you
are. Your lovely neck never entered into it, sweetheart.”

She batted her eyelashes at him.

“So… Do you have any idea what happened at the Red
Happiness this morning?” Kyam asked QuiTai.

He wasn’t sure if she was acting again or if she was truly
reluctant to answer him. She rubbed one hand over another. Emotions cast
shadows over her face in a constant kaleidoscope unlike her usual serene mask.
The deliberations clearly made her unhappy. “I’ve been giving it serious
thought since I heard he’d been killed. I have a theory,” she finally admitted.

“I’d like to hear it.”

QuiTai shook her head. “As you often say to me, ‘It’s an
interesting story, but where’s the proof?’”

“And as I
told you once, I’d take your theories over most people’s ‘facts’ any day.”

She stepped
back from the bars and hugged her arms. “We shouldn’t work together. You have
to know that you have the true answer.”

“But I’m
too damn slow, and you’re running out of time! At least give me a hint.”

“Don’t
tempt me.”

“You pick
the oddest things to be stubborn about.”

Was that the real reason he’d come to her? Maybe he’d
wanted her to convince him that he could believe in her innocence, despite what
he’d found.

He had no idea how to investigate a murder. He didn’t know
what to do next. Time was slipping away, and if he ran off in the wrong
direction, he’d waste what little he had. How did the police solve crimes? They
asked questions. They verified answers. He could do that; but how did anyone
know what questions to ask?

For a moment, he thought she might speak, but she frowned
and slightly shook her head. Why wouldn’t she give him a hint?

“Listen, these are your options, as far as I know. You
probably have something else up your sleeve,” he told her.

Did she react a little? He couldn’t be sure.

“Either
you help me, or you take Grandfather’s deal. I don’t know what he’s offering
you, but it can’t be good.”

“He wants
me to work for him.”

A horrible suspicion dropped on him. Was he racing against
Nashruu to recruit QuiTai? What would happen if he lost? “Grandfather wants you
to work for him? Not for Thampurian Intelligence?”

She shook
her head.

“Doesn’t
that strike you as a bit treasonous?”

“Maybe to you, since you’re now bidding against him for my
help. Oh, calm down. You and I have a deal, and I’m not about to ruin my
hard-earned reputation by breaking it. However, if you fail to hold up your
end, I’d be free to accept a better offer.”

“I’m working on it. If you’d help me…” He realized that
wasn’t going to work. She wanted him to find the real murderer, but not because
it would get her out of the fortress. He had to know with steadfast certainty
that she was innocent. Unless he found the answer himself, he’d always have a
bit of doubt. What a risk she was taking!

Kyam wanted to be flattered that she wanted him to have
faith in her, but he couldn’t help being angry that she was gambling with his
freedom.

“Your arrest couldn’t have come at a better time for
Grandfather. He has much more power than I do to get you out of here.”

“But does he have the power to figure out who murdered
Turyat? I think you have the edge there.”

He acknowledged her compliment with a sour smile. Too many
things were happening too fast, and he’d been asleep while everyone else set
their plots in motion.

“It’s probably pure coincidence that Nashruu arrived the
day Turyat was murdered. Remember, the old man plays a long, long game. He’s
patient. Nashruu all but admitted that she was sent here to woo me for him. She’s
an interesting person, by the way. I liked her,” QuiTai said.

“Apart from your obvious charms – and by that, I
mean your network of informants and smugglers – why would Grandfather try
to recruit you?” Kyam asked.

“There is that pesky war looming on the horizon.”

“War on the continent. You’re a thousand miles from the
battlefields of the last war.”

“Different war, different battles. Don’t discount the
strategic importance of the Ponong Fangs. Thampur chased the Ravidians out of
the Sea of Erykoli during the last war, making trade with the rest of the
continent almost impossible. They want back in. Their economy relies on it.”

“Their caravans still come over the desert.”

“Caravans are inefficient and are pirated more often than
ships. And before you mention trains, their rail lines are constantly devoured by
sand storms or warped by heat in the great salt pans. Ships are the only way to
trade with the rest of the continent.”

“Thank you for the big picture, but let’s focus on the
local story. You may be many things, but you can’t be the key to stopping the
war,” he said.

“If
anyone would listen to me, they’d avoid it by giving the Ravidians, and anyone
else who asks, the charts to the Ponong Fangs. Let them back into the Sea of
Erykoli. Don’t block the other routes around the Ponong Archipelago. Their
excuse for war? Poof. Gone. We all move on.”