The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft

Author:Josiah Bancroft
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2023-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

Riding in the back of a hired jaunt, Isolde leaned against the window and let the strobe of the passing streetlamps comb her tangled thoughts. The privacy screen was up, and still she could hear the faint squawk of the hyaline broadcast and the jivey rag that seemed at such odds with her mood.

On the far side of the plush bench, Warren snored softly, his chin rolling upon the knot of his necktie, his head bobbing with the rhythm of the seams in the street. The late hour and his recent needling by the nithe-grims had left him drained. Scant minutes after their driver had pulled into traffic, he’d begun to doze. She saw no reason to wake him.

In her hand, she held a thin dossier that contained the records of Jessamine’s brief tenure under De Lee’s care. One page included a single line that appeared to resolve the Wilbies’ royal investigation. In the blank that followed the question of the father of Jessamine’s child was the clearly drawn name: Rudolph Atterton.

During their farewell in the park, when the prince had bestowed his signet ring upon Jessamine, he’d said that he could not forgive what Rudy had done to her, what he had made of her. Isolde had assumed that he was merely referring to the pregnancy—Atterton had made her an unwed mother. But now it seemed more likely the prince was referencing the lance corporal’s death. Rudy had made her a killer. Isolde tried to imagine how she herself would’ve approached the dilemma Jessamine had faced in the alley. Choosing between the unwilling father of one’s own child and the prince of a nation seemed an impossible quandary, one that forbade the possibility of a happy ending.

It seemed to his credit that the prince felt responsible for shielding Jessamine from the consequences of that evening. Perhaps he had felt on the hook for his orderly’s predaciousness, or perhaps he was merely grateful for her intervention in the alley, which might well have saved his life. In parting, Prince Sebastian had called her Lady Larkland—a promise, it seemed, that he would see that her extended family welcomed her to the fold, a prospect rendered moot by Jess’s untimely illness and death.

Iz had more than a few lingering questions. De Lee had said the military police had collected the body, but why? As a favor to the prince? Weeks later, a stand-in would die in the trenches in the lance corporal’s uniform, and both the press and the extended Atterton family would assume Rudy, ever the roguish lad, had deserted his post and paid off a patsy. But it couldn’t have been Rudy who’d organized the ploy; he was already dead. It had to be someone in the military or some noble hoping to secure favor with the king-to-be. Whoever it was, they might’ve gone so far as to load the corpse onto the transport ship, then throw it overboard once they were underway. Not even Old Geb could sniff out what became of those who were lost at sea.

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