Treachery Queen (The Callistra Chronicles #1)

TWENTY

Chapter Twenty

"I have a lead, witch."

Pasiphae sighed in defeat, pulling the plug out from the sink.

"Do you, now?" she entertained at Psyche, who spoke to her from the balcony.

"Don't get all high and mighty. Come look."

Pasiphae closed the necklace back around her neck aggressively, drying the chain with the edges of her cloak. There had been a complete dead connection. Wherever Circe was, she hoped her sister was okay.

"What is it?" Pasiphae asked, picking off a dead leaf that was still stuck on her clothing. By the time they had found their way back yesterday, she and Seth were wearing more undergrowth than fabric on their bodies. The leaves clung on strongly, just like the foul mood latched to her brain.

Seth had also proceeded to search every accessible inch of the palace for Naeyrs, but she had disappeared without a trace.

"See that?"

Psyche pointed vaguely into the distance.

Pasiphae gave the faery an incredulous glance as she stepped outside. "No, I really don't."

"The—" the faery stabbed her pointer finger, "—curved building over there."

"What are you talking about?" Pasiphae leaned over the balcony's banister, narrowing her eyes to focus. "Oh, wait, I think I see. What about it?"

Psyche gave another aggressive thrust of her finger. "I've been watching the movement coming in and out for the past hour. There are massive successions going in. Hardly any coming out."

"I'm not sure how that's a lead." Pasiphae picked off another dead leaf tangled in her hair, frowning. "What do you even do everyday? I've never asked."

"I stare at buildings in the skyline," Psyche replied drolly.

"Must be a long day."

Psyche went rigid all of a sudden. Pasiphae thought that perhaps the faery had had enough, and was about to start swinging knives at her, but Psyche exclaimed, "There, again!"

A dark blur sped through the sky and into the rooftop of the curved building. If Pasiphae had blinked, she would have missed it.

"You can conclude absolutely nothing from that," she said.

"I can conclude," Psyche countered, "that something is deeply strange about that building."

"And if it's just casual Khotadian crime completely unrelated to the Somnus?"

Psyche crossed her arms and tilted her nose up into the air. "Nothing is ever unrelated here."

Pasiphae rolled her eyes.

"I think you've been stuck inside a bit too long," she said. "When Seth returns from his excursion, I recommend you ask for— is that Kalis?"

Psyche started from the abrupt switch. "What? Who?"

"By Callistra," Pasiphae exclaimed, peering into the gardens. "It is. Kalis!"

The small silhouette with the bright cloak looked up. Kalis' face was half-bathed in moonlight, half in the shadows, staring up in blind confusion.

"What are you doing?" Pasiphae called down.

"I don't know," Kalis said. Her response was simple, but her words ran together, slurred in a way that Pasiphae almost thought the human consort was drunk on substance. "The door was unlocked at ten o'clock. The door is never unlocked at ten o'clock."