Chương 118: Chapter 139: Burned

"... And everyone wanted to know who set the fire, but the question nobody wanted to bring up until today was: why was all of this arranged in the specific way that only one property burned?" I fixed her with an icy glare that she could feel through the veil. Sisa stared at me, already sputtering protests that she knew I would not accept.

"Wh- My lady- Princess Natal-""Shut the fuck up," I said. She was wearing a steel-boned bustier. Convenient. The narrow shafts twisted like serpents inside their stitched confines.

"Was it your idea for the deans to withdraw my invitations, too? So there would be nothing keeping me in the city?" She gasped and flinched. Crimson slowly bloomed on burgundy, but she did not scream.

"My lady, there is no reason for this. I've been a loyal servant-""You've been living in Hearstcliff and submerged in this corruption for twenty years," I said.

"Your job is to serve as the sole liaison between the estate of a duke and that duchy and the people and institutions of the capital. I've been here for half a year and I've seen the corrosive effects this place has. Here's the good news: I know you have nothing to do with the attack on Wendy, Bruce, or Nathan. That's why you're going to get the chance to earn a head start."

"What?" she said with short breath. The steel slats were still, having cut her just enough to send their message. But then they lurched, all of these weight-bearing rods drawn telekinetically toward me. I raised my hand, and her throat smacked into my grip with a satisfying sound. Her eyes bulged as I applied tiny pressure.

"But- but how-""Why do I have to keep explaining to people that I know things? That I have knowledge of the present and future that defies explanation?" I shook my head, annoyed. I gathered myself, blew out a breath, and let my tone go cold as I spoke.

"When you leave here, you go to your office, and send letters and messengers, everyone you work with in an official capacity. From now on, all Meadowtam business, all Harigold business, goes through the family. First points of contact are Bruce and Petty, but final say comes from the heirs. I know you don't have the authority to cut Nathan out or demote him. So you will name him and me as co-equal. If you do that, you can take the eight hundred gold coats you embezzled from my college fund and run.

That money should be enough to keep you out of my sight for a long long time."

"It- your parents only sent two hundred in advance and-""Oh my gods, bitch, are you seriously whining to me that you only embezzled a quarter of my inheritance?" I stared in disbelief.

"Do you understand that it is literally easier for me to compress your entire body into a space so tiny that it could not be seen than it is for me to hold this conversation with you? Why the fuck are you trying to bargain here? You betrayed my family, you tried to kill me, you did kill my friends, you've sabotaged my future and you stole hundreds of gold straight from my pocket. The fucking nerve you've got. I don't need answers from you.

I just want you to transfer the contact names and the power of attorney, and then I want you to run the fuck out of here and spend the rest of your life hiding and afraid that I'll find you. If you do that, you get a two-week head start. If you screw me on this, I'll be on your ass before you're an hour out of the city. Got it?" There was crimson running down the ivory of her skirts and sleeves. Her face was puffy and purple. I let go of her. She hit the ground and crumpled.

A kindly gentleman who had known her for years helped her to her feet, having not seen anything up to this point. But most of the prying eyes all around us stared, shocked but silent. Sisa Wellen ran for the doors. I turned away, and nearly bumped into a round-faced woman with beautiful Harigold-red curls clustered around her cheeks, and a very cute hat set at a daring, rakish angle. From the shock and muted horror on her face, she had seen the whole thing.

"Oh, excuse me," I said, chuckling as I stepped back a pace.

"Sorry for the display just now. A change of management was required." Spoiler here: I was going to wind up explaining to a lot of people throughout this night that Sisa had been systematically selling the family out for years. It seemed like every single member of the extended clan was going to need to hear it directly from me. But that was after: right now, I could see Petty cresting in my direction, her head bobbing above the sea of faces I don't recognize.

The woman that marched ahead of her and Bruce looked quite unlike the rest of my family. Harigolds tend towards ruddy. Complexions from butterscotch to toffee, hair from chestnut to cheddar. Strongly-hued, and slanted towards a composition of reds and oranges. But of all the people in the Harigold throng, there was nobody she resembled as much as me. Three times my age, with narrow shoulders and a bland gray gaze, but her complexion and hair were cold-toned. When Harigolds go gray-haired, it's a warm gray.

Like dove gray, undyed wool, or the more beige side of gray. She had hair of ashes and dust, and papery skin with blue veins across the backs of her hands. She wore the traditional colors of her house, white and yellow, with a shawl of red and white to declare her station as a vassal house of Harigold. She could tell that she was walking into a hubbub, and had doubtless heard my reputation before. She stopped at exactly the correct distance, and dipped a curtsy.

"My lady princess," she said, without lowering her eyes.

"Earl Meadwhite," I said, dipping a curtsy that was just as formal and impersonal.

"We are overdue to speak." I glanced at Petty and Bruce, and they nodded back. Bruce gestured me and the earl towards a two-top table, and then he and Petunia began tactfully corralling the partygoers to a respectful distance. He managed not to look like a bouncer while he was doing it, Petunia looked like a brick wall in gingham but she did not look offensive or aggressive about it.

"I am uncertain where to begin," the Meadwhite leader said.

"From my understanding, you typically know quite a great deal, but it may be inconsistent or unpredictable. I will require you to begin us or I may start in the wrong place."

"Sisa Wellen will no longer be representing the family," I said.

"She has been dismissed without references."

"I see. And I suppose she had confederates that have also been removed?" she said with a leading tone.

"I did not ask her," I said, letting some heat creep into my voice, "because I already know. And I have known for quite a while." The tone leveled my accusation. She did not flinch from it.

"Ah," the woman said, nodding. My few short words had communicated a very thorough message to her.

"I expect then your next step is to either begin the dissolution of my heraldry or to transfer our vassalage to an interested third party. Before you take such measures, I should pass on a message. It was given to me under the presumption that you would make the connection sooner or later. The beginning of the message states: he wants to meet with you." I barked a laugh. Disbelief.

"Why?" I'm in the middle of demoting her and she's got a message from him that she's been holding onto waiting for this moment. That's twisted.

"He wishes to ask questions. He is prepared to bargain for them," she said.

"And then you would ask why you would bargain with him?" she asked, as if filling out her script.

"I would ask that, yes," I acknowledged, giving her the signal to continue.

"Ahem. He told me that he has valuable information he is certain you will not find from any other source. Information about yourself. And then, presumably, you ask why he would bargain with you?" Another stop for the scripted response. I gave her a flat, withering look.

"I'll play out your charade. Yes, let us ask that."

"Yes. For this, he said that though you have already killed him twice, he considers both of those owed in advance, and nothing for him to pay back. Once in kind, and once in trade." She paused, and looked uncomfortable.

"I had to memorize that portion particularly. It made no sense at all to me. I seem to gather that you and he have rather a lot of history?" She seemed more than politely curious.

"We've spoken," I said, coldly. That seemed to be less explanation than she was hoping for. I did not care. So, Meadwhite the lich wants to talk. Trade information. And he says he is not holding a grudge. Even though I've blown him up twice, blown his cover and his lair to pieces, he says we're even. Once because he tried to kill me, and once because we bargained for it- I gave him a demonstration of power he could not get anywhere else, and in exchange he gave me a free shot.

Granted, he did not realize that a single free shot from me was a one-hit-kill. But now he wants to trade. He's got information about me. Information I could not get from any other source. Something specific to liches. Presumably information about my special nature. The Untethered Essence. The reason the magister's college wanted me dead. Apparently, for those who know what to look for I'm fairly obvious. Well, that's a problem I'll solve some other time. I still need to wring this out.

"And what else did he say?" I asked, letting my impatience color my words.

"He said that if you really were worth bargaining with as he expects, you will already know how to reach him." Oh, she sounded self-satisfied by that.

"Broghton," I said with an offhand wave.

"I went to kill him a couple weeks back and got distracted. If he wants to talk and only to talk, I'll work him into my schedule, I'm going to be in his neighborhood a lot through the month of Springebb. If you wish, send him a letter to that effect. No tricks."

"Very good, my lady," the earl said, and started to stand again. I find myself annoyed at her paleness, at her coldness, at her reflection of me. I interrupted her before she moved to leave.

"I will need to discuss with my brother and cousins regarding the future of your family and its holdings," I said, keeping my tone mild.

"If I do not tell them that you have been funneling information, resources, money and favors to the man who tried to crush Meadowtam under his boot, they may decide to let your family retain your status and some of your holdings and transfer your vassalage to another House. But if I tell them that the lich whose tyranny was so vile that the people rose up and installed my family is not only still active, but still receiving assistance from his mortal descendants, they are unlikely to feel merciful." She froze.

A deer that sees the hunter, unsure whether to bolt.

"You sound like someone who has a proposal," she said carefully, watching my eyes through my veil.

"You can go back to your people and tell them you are a brilliant negotiator. You fought tooth and nail and tripped me up with my own words. And, I will push my family for the transfer. Not just to another house, to Freckentop. Just as you've always wanted. In exchange, I own you. For the next five years. You personally. Every career move, every policy decision. All information that crosses your office. Nobody else gets involved. And in five years you are released from all commitments.

After that, tell anyone you want whatever you like. Sell out everything, and do whatever you want with your future." She was stiff.

"You do not often find much traction in a bargain where one party will be said to own the other." Where did she find that high horse all the sudden?

"Typically not," I agreed.

"But this is not typical. Let me reframe this for you. In recognition of the fact that you and your kin have been methodically betraying me and my kin for generations despite your vassal's vows, I am asking you and only you to honor the exact letter and spirit of those for only a period of five years." She glared.

"After you sell my family to the Freckentops. You would have us enter their service in false pretenses." I laughed.

"You are un fucking believable. You would freely allow that you and dozens of your predecessors have been forsworn to their lieges for over a century, but you refuse to forswear another for five years." The earl rocked her jaw, grinding her teeth.

"Fine. At your insistence we will-""No."

"No?"

"No. This was a limited-time offer. I proposed a scenario that was entirely to your benefit. You objected. Reflexively. You pushed back. I called you out on it. And after that, you decide that my offer is good enough for you? No. When someone throws you a lifeline like I did, you better fucking grab it the first time. I told you I was willing to put my neck out so you'd have something to salvage after the decades of backstabbing and faithlessness, and your off-the-cuff reaction was that this is not good enough.

So that's all that I need to see. I know that you won't honor our bargain. You got my offer and you were not grateful, you did not see the value. You felt you were owed more. So for the next five years, am I going to wrangle you, plead with you, double-check your work? Am I going to trust that you have not changed your mind and decided to turn coat again, playing their triple agent instead of my double agent? Am I to keep sweetening the deal until it meets your standards and hope you do not demand more?

Of course not. I would be daft to accept such a bargain. I would enjoy to have a trusted associate of the Freckentop House in my pocket. But not you. Not on your terms. You had your chance and you squandered it because shading my face was more important to you than saving your family." The funny thing is that despite being nearly as wan as I am, she could still go paler. Her lips were trembling.

"But you said that if-""I said. You objected. I accept your resignation. I am under no obligation to honor an offer that has been rejected once," I folded my hands.

"Please gather your people and leave. I will be elevating one of our minor houses to your place. Perhaps the Vuryta. But I believe you and your kin have spent so many years betraying the trust of your liege that you have come to believe that is your birthright. And as such, there is no circumstance under which you may be trusted."

"It was but a moment!" she protested.

"You cannot uproot us entirely! Cannot strip us of everything, only for a moment of hesitation! There are-""That's not why." I said. Calm. Steady. I'm surprised at how mild I sound.

"You're being rendered down to the common class because of the decades of perfidy. You had a critical moment to try to save yourself. You failed. Had you agreed, that moment would be the reason you thrived despite those decades."

"But but," she was still grasping. She was mentally tallying up everything I could take from her. Houses. Lands. Accounts. Rents. Honors. Privileges. Contracts. Savings. Jewels. Access. Heirlooms. Contacts. Networks. Holdings. Businesses. Immunities. I watched her try to figure out what she could say to appeal my decision, not understanding that this has been years in the making.

"You dumb bitch," I snapped.

"You tried to kill my whole family, and you're whining because I haven't given you two chances to earn unconditional forgiveness. Gods, I am so glad you're the best your house had to offer." I paused, glaring. A long-drawn moment of tension.

"Leave." She fled. I gestured to Cousin Petty and Cousin Bruce. They spotted my call, and stepped toward me as the assembled Harigolds were still staring after the pale ash-haired woman.

"Petunia? Bruce?" I said very sweetly.

"Traitors within the Meadwhite family are responsible for the firebombing of the manor in Meadowtam three years ago. I believe we no longer need their vassalage." This Fashion Week gala is now officially a housecleaning. The traitors that Nathan was going to spend five years rooting out are gone now. It would have been nice to put a high-ranking spy next to the Freckentop flag, but not if I could not trust her. I did not refuse her appeal because she hesitated. It was a test of character.

I wanted to know if she had enough personal honor that she would be eager to make things right between us. She did not, when she was revealed she instead grasped for more than she had. Just like that I knew that I could not trust her as a pawn. This is what I have needed all along. Swift, decisive action. Doing what I know needs to be done, without hesitation or apology. Support for my allies, crush those who wrong me.