House of Blood

”Eleven,” Castor said.

”Eleven what?” I asked.

”Eleven plates on Pollux’s side of the table. I’m counting because somebody has to.” He folded his big hands and looked at me with the calm of a man reading a ledger. ”At current rate, the bill will exceed your monthly stipend by four silver. I thought you’d want advance notice.”

I looked at the plates. Then at my coin purse. Then at Pollux, who had a steak in one fist, a rib in the other, and gravy on her forehead.

”Does she *ever* stop?”

”Not in battle. Not at dinner. Not at funerals.” Castor sipped his water. ”It’s one of her few consistent qualities.”

”I can hear you!” Pollux roared through a mouthful of beef.

The Drowned Boar sat at the bottom of the hill, outside the Academy gate, where the stipend kids and stable hands drank cheap ale and nobody asked who your family was. It smelled like pepper and woodsmoke. The tables were scarred. The ceiling was low. It was the least noble place I could think of, which was exactly why I’d picked it.

Which brings me to the other problem.

”This is a *tavern,*” Casper said, staring at his plate like it might bite him.

”Yeah.”

”Nobles don’t eat in taverns.”

”You’re allowed to leave.”

”My family has a cook with a *title.*”

”Great. Tell him he’s missing out.”

Casper looked at the steak. It sat there on a chipped plate, brown and sizzling, with a heap of mushrooms. Then his stomach growled so loudly the whole table heard it, and he picked up his fork like a man defusing a bomb.

He took one bite. His eyes closed.

”...Oh no,” he whispered. ”This is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

”Told you.”

”It’s a *tavern.*”

”Eat your steak, Cas.”

He ate. For a minute the only sounds were chewing, laughter from the next table, and Pollux arguing with Lyra about whether gravy counted as a drink.

I let myself breathe. Last night felt a hundred years ago.

”Valen.”

Casper hadn’t looked up. He was pushing a mushroom around his plate.

”About day one,” he said. ”The trunk.”

”You don’t have to—”

”I do. I’m bad at this.” His ears were red. ”I thought you were nobody. I thought nobody could carry what you carry without a name behind it, so I shoved your trunk off the cart to see what you’d do. You picked it up. You didn’t say anything. You just picked it up, and I felt like a bag of dirt for a week.”

”You owe me a trunk.”

”I owe you *loads* of things. I’m not good at lists.”

”Join the club,” Solene said, sliding onto the bench beside me with a cup of tea. I hadn’t invited her. I hadn’t noticed her come in. ”I keep one.”

”You’re not even eating.”

”I’m observing. It’s a different activity.” Her eyes flicked around the table, over the twins, over Lyra, over Casper’s color, which was coming back by the minute. ”Everyone looks well-rested.”

”We nearly died last night,” Lyra said flatly.

”Yes. Well.” Solene sipped. ”That’s rest, for us.”

---

By the fourth plate, Pollux had found the arm-wrestling table.

”Statistically, she wins,” Castor said, watching the roar of the crowd with deep resignation. ”Statistically, we get banned.”

”How many have we been banned from?”

”Seven. Eight, counting the one in the capital.”

”You count them?!”

”I count everything. It’s a gift. Speaking of which, the rumor at the Boar tonight is that the Governor of Bergis is a Prim. The seventh child. Nobody’s seen him in the capital in years.”

”Is that right,” I said.

”I hear he’s very short,” Solene said, into her tea.

I drank some water. It went down the wrong way.

Castor glanced at me, and the calm went a shade sharper. ”Valen. Before she comes back. A word.”

I leaned in.

”Casper has a mark on him,” Castor said quietly. ”Lyra thinks I haven’t noticed. Pollux pretends she hasn’t noticed. I noticed on the first night. It hasn’t gone, has it?”

I’d been dreading this. Hearing it in that calm voice made it worse.

”It’s asleep,” I said. ”Not gone.”

”How long?”

”Lyra thinks seven nights, from the first night. He’s had four.”

”Three left.” Castor tapped one finger on the table. ”Then it ends at the Founders’ Feast.”

I blinked. ”What?”

”Count it. The first night was the day of the trial. Four nights, so tonight is the fifth, then the sixth, then the seventh.” His eyes didn’t leave mine. ”The Feast is the night after tomorrow.”

Cold went down my back. *Seven by the festival,* Marit had said. I’d been treating it as a vague phrase. It wasn’t. It was a date.

”Castor.” My voice came out lower than I meant. ”You’re good at this.”

”I’m a Ter Sanguis. We’re very good at killing things. Someone had to learn to think.” He shrugged. ”Pollux got the fists. I got the rest.”

Ter Sanguis. Third branch. My own cousins, three steps down the family tree, and he had no idea he was explaining himself to the seventh Prim.

Then he frowned, and I watched the logic click behind his eyes.

”There’s a hole in it,” he said. ”Eleven apprentices came out of those barrels alive. If each seat was a person, and the person got *pulled out...* then the table’s short. It isn’t four-filled anymore. It’s *one* or *none.*” He looked at Casper, laughing at something Lyra said. ”That’s why it’s rushing. It lost its guests.”

My whole body went cold.

I’d missed that. I’d walked in and out of that hall twice, and I’d missed it, because I’d been looking at the bread instead of the arithmetic.

*He’s very good,* Aurelix murmured.

*Don’t start.*

*I’m not starting. I’m just saying you should hire him too.*

---

I told them everything I could.

Not the Ghost. Not the guard. Not who I was. But the table, the seven chairs, the god that fed people and the thumbprint under Casper’s eye. I told them in the back of the Drowned Boar, over cold tea, with Pollux sitting on the table because she refused to sit anywhere else.

When I finished, nobody spoke.

”So I’m furniture,” Casper said at last. His voice was thin.

”You’re a person with a very annoying stain.”

”A stain that *eats.*”

”Only on weekends.”

He laughed. It cracked in the middle. Then he put his face in his hands.

”I’m a noble,” he said into his palms. ”I’m supposed to be above this. I’m supposed to fight it like a hero, and all I want to do is sleep with the lamp on.”

Nobody laughed.

Then Pollux slid off the table, planted herself in front of him, and grabbed his face with both hands, gravy and all.

”Listen to me, Casper,” she said, very seriously. ”I will fight a god. I’ve been looking for a reason. If it comes for you again, I will take its arm off at the shoulder and eat it.”

”...That’s disgusting,” Casper said.

”It’s a promise.”

”Pollux.” Castor’s voice was gentle. ”Please don’t eat the god.”

”Fine. *Hit* it. Hard.”

”That I’ll allow.”

Casper started laughing again, helplessly, and this time it didn’t crack. And I sat there in the warm noise of a tavern, with a table of battle maniacs and a girl with a list and a boy who’d been a noble brat three weeks ago, and I thought, *This. This is what I’d lost the last time.*

The thought hit me so hard I almost missed the door.

It banged open. Cold air rushed in. The whole tavern went quiet, and a Tribunal runner in grey livery stood in the doorway, panting, a sealed letter in his fist.

”Cell One,” he called. ”Gareth’s orders. All of you. The Tribunal hall, now.”

”Why?” Solene asked, already on her feet.

”Inspectors arrived this morning.” The runner swallowed. ”They’ve been going through the granary. They say they found the Ghost’s shadow on one of you.”

Every head turned. Every head turned at once, and I felt it land on me like a drop of ice.

---

The Tribunal hall was cold, high, and stone, with a bench of three robed Inspectors at the far end and a single chair in the middle of the floor.

Two of the Inspectors were stern, grey men I’d never seen before. The third wasn’t an Inspector at all. He sat off to one side, small and thin, in a stained white doctor’s coat, with a black case at his feet and glasses so thick they made his eyes look like pale fish. He was smiling. It was a very wide smile for a man at a murder inquiry.

When I walked in, his head turned, slowly, and the smile got wider.

”Ah,” he said softly. ”There he is. The clerk.”

My stomach dropped through the floor.

*Valerian,* Aurelix said, in the thinnest voice I’d ever heard. *That man smells like the Ninth.*

”Valen, isn’t it?” The thin man rose, bowed, and patted the empty chair. ”Do sit. We have so much to discuss.”