Wings of midnight blue and vivid green, a smile that saw too much, stirred things that had not been touched in an eon.
Lisbeth’s voice tangled with the unexpected images whispering through his mind. “It is all right.” Sniffing with a delicacy that did nothing to mar her beauty, she said, “You ask for help to seek Shabnam’s murderer?”
He inclined his head. “Do you know of anything that may shed light on the matter?”
A calculated hesitation before she shook her head. “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”
“She is dead.” Jason added gentle, warm notes to his voice. “What you say cannot hurt her.”
Swallowing, Lisbeth wrapped her arms around herself as if cold. “It is not done to speak ill of the dead, but . . . Shabnam was not faithful to her lover.” The words were shaped with utmost sincerity, yet Jason knew them for a lie. Still, he allowed her to continue, wanting to see how black she would paint the victim. “She was generous with her favors . . . particularly when it came to the guards—I believe she thought to ease her way into places we are not meant to go.”
An adroit accusation of spying, perhaps even treason. “Do you believe one of the guards may have become jealous?” he asked, acting obtuse on purpose.
The faintest hint of impatience flittered across her face, fracturing the thus far flawless illusion of beautiful sorrow. “I’m sure for all her airs, Shabnam was nothing but a diversion for them. But her family, they’re proud. They may have considered her actions shameful.” A demure downsweep of curling black lashes. “I’m not accusing them of anything, and I’m sure they would never . . . but you asked. And I just wanted— Oh, forget I said anything.”
“I appreciate your trust. Thank you.”
“Of course.” She could not quite keep her smug satisfaction out of her voice. “I only hope I helped.”
“Yes, very much.” Excusing himself, Jason rose into the air. It didn’t take him long to track down the rest of the ladies-in-waiting. They were creatures who did not like to go too far from their habitat, fearing another would take their place or gain some favor from which they were excluded.
Everyone but for Shabnam’s sparrow-winged friend, Tanuja, attempted to malign the victim. One even insinuated that she’d seduced Eris. However, Tanuja was adamant that Shabnam had been a faithful lover and no spy.
“She was a nice person,” Tanuja sobbed, skin of soft brown blotchy from her distress. “Too nice for this pit of vipers, and the fact that she was a favorite with Neha only made the others act uglier toward her. She used to laugh and say they were jealous witches, but now she’s dead.” A hard stare out of red-rimmed eyes. “Lisbeth may not like getting her hands dirty, but she comes from a family that doesn’t mind blood.”
* * *
The sky was the lush gray of a balmy evening when he came in to land on the balcony outside his suite. Ignoring his own doors, he knocked on Mahiya’s. She opened the left side a fraction, her wary expression changing the instant she saw him. “Oh, it’s you!” Smile reaching her eyes to light them to tawny brightness, she pulled the doors fully open.
At that instant, Jason felt something slam into him, a powerful, amorphous realization that he tried to capture, to examine, but it was so much smoke, wisping out of his hand yet leaving an imprint behind. “Why were you worried?” he asked, feeling as if he’d been marked in some immutable way.
“I—” Mahiya shook her head. “Come in first. The food is hot.”
Walking inside when she turned away, he shut the doors at his back. She didn’t startle at the act, the silverwork on the pale pink of her fitted tunic and on the ankle cuffs of her white harem-style pants catching the light from the tiny crystal chandelier above. The comb in her neatly bound hair was intricately worked silver set with diamonds, the gauzy white scarf thrown over her shoulders from her front embellished with threads of the same metallic shade at the ends. “You dress formally.”
Taking a graceful seat on the flat cushion in front of the low table, her wings spread out behind her in a glory of emerald and peacock blue with splashes of jet, she picked up the water jug. “You’ll need to dress, too. Neha has summoned us to a formal dinner. But we have time enough to eat and drink.”
He took his place opposite her, noticing the color on her lips, the skillful use of other cosmetics to highlight her cheekbones while playing down her eyes. This, too, he thought, was a subtle mask. “The food at dinner will not be agreeable?”
“The food will be exquisite, but the conversation will curdle my stomach. And you will be too busy watching and listening to everyone to eat more than a bite or two.”
He thought perhaps the strange sensation in his chest might be amusement. Illium occasionally incited the same response in him, but this was somehow gentler, more tender. “In that case, I thank you for your thoughtfulness.”
She gave him a sharp look, eyes narrowed. “Be careful or I’ll stop feeding you.”
“A great punishment indeed.” And it would be; this fragile ritual of homecoming was important to him in a way she could not comprehend. “May I have some water?” he said, absently noticing a little bag of carrots set on a small table that held an unlit lamp, as if Mahiya had put the bag down, then forgotten about it.
“Since you asked so nicely.” Lips twitching, she poured it for him, then removed the lids off the trays that sat between them. “I was in the mood to cook, so you have several choices. Do you want to try a little of each?”