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  The duke’s brow creased. “I told you to stop calling me that. You saved me from a life sentence for a murder I didn’t commit, remember? We don’t stand on ceremony.”

  “I… of course, your—Baurus.” Kadin hadn’t realized they stood on anything anymore, but she wasn’t going to contradict him.

  “You’re upset that I didn’t call, aren’t you?” Baurus ran his fingers through his hair, dislodging the perfectly slicked-down curls. “That always happens in those silly novels Bay and her friends read. Men don’t call, and women get all upset about it. But I said to myself, ‘Kadin’s not like that. She’ll understand I have to lay some groundwork first.’ Tell me you understand.”

  She didn’t understand, at least, not what he was babbling about. She had never expected him to call her. He was a duke, for pity’s sake. She didn’t imagine he even talked on a phone so much as had people do it for him.

  “Of course.”

  Baurus nodded. Apparently, it was Kadin’s night for bluffing men. He didn’t calm, though. Kadin didn’t think he ever calmed.

  “I wanted to invite you tonight, but I need to work up to that. I invited some actors, and of course, that’s the problem.”

  Kadin could barely follow what he was saying, which wasn’t surprising. Given Baurus’s flushed face and animated hands, she suspected he didn’t know what he was saying, either.

  “Some actors are the problem?” asked Kadin. “Didn’t you invite them?”

  The duke’s social recognition of the Entertainers Guild had filled the tabloids for the past week, and Kadin hated that she knew that. Six months ago, her friend Olivan King’s constant gossiping about Imperials had gone in one ear and out the other, but these days, her memory proved sticky where Baurus DeValeriel was concerned.

  “Yes!” Baurus threw his hands in the air. “I didn’t realize one of them was going to turn up dead!”

  “I don’t… Wait, what?” Kadin held an image of Imperial galas as stately affairs that, no doubt, bore little resemblance to reality. The ultra-rich probably engaged in all kinds of scandalous—and dangerous—behavior. “What kind of party was this?

  Baurus held up his hands in defense. “Not the kind of party where someone dies! Beatrin wouldn’t have it. She thinks I live to make her life miserable, but I make people take the hard drug use elsewhere. No, no, no. The actress got murdered. What was her name again? Something Crest? Shelly? No, Coelis. Coelis Crest.”

  Kadin’s mouth dropped open. “You left a party you hosted after it had turned into a crime scene? You can’t do that! You’re a material witness!”

  Baurus snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “See, that’s why I did. I need you. I don’t know anything about solving murders. I need the most brilliant investigative mind in the city on this, and near as I can tell, that’s you.”

  “I am not the most brilliant investigative mind in the city! I’m a detective’s aide. I follow my boss around, take notes”—and solve half his cases—“and bring him his java.”

  Baurus waved a hand. “You’re the only detective I know personally who has ever solved a murder, and I saw a whole bunch who didn’t back during that whole Callista affair. And these idiots from CrimeSolve look like they’re cut from the same cloth—a bunch of suits more interested in getting their names in the paper than actually solving crimes. I need you.”

  Kadin didn’t know where to start. Since when did Baurus dismiss the death of the love of his life as “that whole Callista affair”? And what did he mean, he needed her? He needed a detective to solve the murder, but it didn’t have to be her. He said that last word with such intensity, though.

  “Wait, you hired CrimeSolve already, and you’re still trying to hire me? Why do you need two detective agencies?”

  “I don’t. I only planned to hire you, but Bay found the body, and she called CrimeSolve before she even talked to me. I argued with her about it, but she was in a mood before she found the body.”

  Kadin almost opened her next sentence with his name, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to say it with the called-for tone of exasperation. “CrimeSolve is the biggest, most well-regarded detective agency in the kingdom. They are perfectly capable of handling this without me!”

  Wait, why am I arguing against this? It’s a murder. Solving murders is my job.

  You’re arguing because you don’t want Baurus DeValeriel to waltz back into your life and then waltz right back out again, that’s why. It’s better if he just goes now.

  “If I might interject…”

  The interruption came from the kitchen doorway. Dahran stood there, looking rather like a child in a candy store. Octavira must have let him in the back way.

  Dahran moved into the room and put his arm around Kadin. “Detective agencies often work together on cases if there are competing interests involved, as it sounds like there may be in your case, Your Grace. Kay here may not realize that because she’s only an aide—and a rather new one at that.” Women, what can you do? said Dahran’s look.

  Baurus’s jaw clenched, and Kadin suspected she was not the only one who wanted to smack that smug look off Dahran’s face.

  Handsome. Employed. Things in common. Likes you.

  “I, however, am a full detective,” Dahran continued. “And I would be happy to take on the role of lead detective for this case.”

  Dahran held out the hand that was not wound around Kadin to the duke.

  Baurus kept his gaze on Kadin. “So you’ll come?”

  “I’ll come. I just need to make one call first.”

  Chapter 2

  “Quick, tell me everything you know about Coelis Crest!” Kadin said into the telephone.

  “Do you have any idea what time it is?” asked the voice on the other end of the line. “I need my beauty sleep, you know.”

  Kadin glanced at the rooster-shaped clock above the kitchen sink.

  “The day you’re getting your beauty sleep this early on a Saturday night is the day I sprout wings and join the devil’s entourage. I’m surprised you’re even home.”

  Kadin could practically hear Olivan King stretching out on his red leather sofa. “Well, ordinarily I would be out, but tonight Vinnie came over, and we—”

  “Too much information. Back to the subject at hand.” The last thing Kadin wanted to discuss with Olivan, even when she wasn’t in a hurry, was his boyfriend.

  This time she heard the squeak of the sofa as Olivan sat up. “I wasn’t going to say anything dirty! Honestly, Kay, I don’t know what your problem with Vinnie is. Sometimes I swear he likes you better than he likes me.”

  Kadin doubted that was true, but she did share a closeness with Vinnie that Olivan did not. She knew Vinnie’s deepest secret: there was no such person as Vinnie Royal, and there never had been. He was the Merchant alter ego of King Ralvin DeValeriel, a man who spent all his public time wearing formal robes and face makeup so that no one would realize he spent his days parading around as a sideways man who owned part of the newspaper.

  Kadin did like Ralvin. She understood that he could never be his true self in a nation that expected its monarch to sire an heir. In the six months since she’d learned his secret, he had become one of her best friends. She hated that he was dating one of her friends, though, both because she hated lying to Olivan and because the relationship would never work out long term. So Kadin did what she could, which was largely ignore the issue.

  “I don’t have a problem with Vinnie.” Lie, lie, lie. “But I’m in a bit of a hurry. Can you tell me everything you know about Coelis Crest?”

  “Really, Kay? An entertainer? You know I have better taste than that.” Despite the fact that he was dating someone he thought was a Merchant, Olivan was a perennial supporter of the Imperials and general believer in their superiority over mere commoners, himself included.

  “I know that you read a
ny gossip glossy you can get your hands on, no matter who it’s about.” Kadin thought of Olivan’s filing cabinets at work, which, instead of containing personnel data, were filled with painstakingly organized articles on every famous person in the city. “It’s a matter of pride.”

  “Fine, fine. You know I keep my best stuff at the office, but I’ve got a few things here I haven’t had time to catalogue yet.” From Olivan’s end came the sound of rustling papers, as he no doubt rummaged through some of the glossies he always had at his fingertips. “Hey, if you need sudden information about Coelis, does this mean she’s involved in a murder? Victim or perp? Or just a person of interest? Ooh, ooh! Does she have a stalker?”

  “Ollie, you know I can’t reveal the details of a case.”

  “So there is a case!” Kadin heard the fiendish smile in Olivan’s voice. “Face it. I know now, and if you don’t tell me, I will start spreading the most outrageous rumors I can think of.”

  Kadin knew Olivan didn’t mean that as a threat so much as a warning. He had a social network that rivaled society columnist Garson Grey’s and was incapable of discretion. He’d make up some hypothetical, forget to throw in enough “maybes,” and a rumor would be born.

  Kadin wasn’t concerned about the damage to Coelis Crest’s reputation—she was dead, so she probably didn’t care—but Kadin worried that any stories that got out about Coelis might waste valuable detective hours. Kadin had learned over the past six months that trails went cold quickly during a murder investigation.

  “Okay, fine. I’ll tell you, but you have to swear not to breathe a word of this to anyone.”

  Kadin imagined Olivan drawing an “X” over his chest with his finger. “I am the soul of discretion.”

  Kadin turned her gaze up to the ceiling and shook her head. “Yeah, that describes you perfectly.”

  “You know, you never used to be this sarcastic before you got all famous solving homicides—Holy crap! Was Coelis Crest murdered?”

  “I’m not famous. I didn’t even get credit for the one big case I solved.” In the interests of not wasting time in a murder investigation, Kadin continued before Olivan could argue. “And yes, Coelis Crest was murdered. She was at Baurus DeValeriel’s party tonight—”

  “I know that. Everyone knows that. Even you know that.” Olivan’s voice raised in pitch with every word. “How was she murdered? Who did it? Was it grisly? Deity, I can’t wait to tell Trinithy. She was saying no good could come of Entertainers at an Imperial gala, but I said—”

  “Soul of discretion, remember?” Kadin knew Olivan keeping this news quiet was about as likely as Baurus showing up in her living room, and she was all out of miracles for one evening. Well, the news will be in all the papers tomorrow, anyway. Baurus’s parties were the talk of the Society pages, and a murder at one was guaranteed front-page news of the Valeriel Tribune. “Can you just tell me what you know about Coelis?”

  “Coelis Crest, rising film star, considered by many to be the most beautiful woman in the world now that Queen Callista bit the big one.” Papers rustled. “Huh. You don’t think someone’s going after blond bombshells, do you? Because that would be—”

  “Ollie. Focus.” Kadin didn’t want to think the queen’s murderer, Herrick Strand, could have committed this murder. Though he could have… He is still at large.

  “Right. Relevant to your murdery interests, Coelis has two best friends: Philindra Dixie and Mandrick Pane. Both of them were also invited to the duke’s party tonight, and the three of them are the only Entertainers to ever get such an invite. So if you want my money on the murderer, it’s one of them unless you think an Imperial would kill Coelis for having the audacity to show up at one of their parties.”

  “That would probably be a bit extreme, even for an Imperial,” said Kadin, “though we can’t rule out any possibilities at this point.”

  “Of course not. It’s a murder investigation. I’ve had the training. I know how it goes.” Olivan had taken the detective’s aide course alongside Kadin, but he had neglected to apply for any aide positions. He said that working in personnel gave him the opportunity to meet more people, which Kadin knew meant it gave him the opportunity to learn more people’s secrets. “Anyway, the rumor mill says that Mandrick was sleeping with Coelis because as you know, Entertainers become famous, and no one cares if they stay virgins.”

  Kadin gasped. “Really? But that’s illegal!”

  “Apparently there’s a black market of doctors who falsify their patients’ birth control tests.” Kadin could almost see Olivan’s offhand shrug. “But you have to make a lot of money to afford a doctor like that, and you never know when he’s going to turn on you. You remember the Edeline Arrow incident from last year, of course.”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Honestly, Kay. We have got to get you a subscription to at least one glossy. Edeline was an up-and-coming film star. You remember her. Brown hair, dazzling smile?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “Well, she was sleeping with her doctor, and then he found out she was spreading her favors to other men as well, and he outed her about the pills. Now she’s Class-D and unemployable. She was on the line for a big film contract too and had to give back the money.”

  “Okay.” Kadin took a moment to think and heard a murmur of conversation from the living room. She remembered that she had left Baurus, Octavira, and Dahran alone in there and decided she should probably wrap this up. “What does this have to do with Coelis Crest?”

  “Nothing, directly, except she probably had a doctor like that too, especially if she was sleeping with Mandrick. A lead to follow.”

  Kadin made a note on the pad on the counter next to the telephone. “Good point. Hey, did you say Vinnie was there? Can I talk to him?”

  Olivan stopped breathing for a second, then his air came out in a rush. “You’re on a rush-rush murder investigation, and you want to take time to talk to my boyfriend? Whom you don’t even like?”

  “I never said I didn’t like him. I just think you and he are wrong for each other. That’s all. Can you put him on?”

  Olivan huffed. “Fine, but one of these days, you’re going to tell me why you’re so against me having a rich and handsome man in my life.” Olivan’s next words were muffled, as if he were covering the phone as he called into the next room. “Vinnie? Kadin wants to talk to you!” After an even more muffled statement that Kadin couldn’t make out, Olivan said, “How should I know? Ask her!”

  “Hello?” A strong voice, pitched slightly higher than his cousin’s, sounded on the other end of the phone. “Kadin?”

  Kadin took a deep breath. “Hey, I figured since you were there, I’d let you know that your cousin showed up at my house tonight.”

  “Oh?”

  Ralvin’s one syllable conveyed a sentence: “I am very interested in what you are saying but feigning much less interest because my boyfriend, who has no idea why you want to talk to me, is still in the room.”

  Kadin hadn’t known how Ralvin would react. Six months after its inception, she was still navigating her relationship with the king. This was the second time his two alter egos’ paths had crossed in her life, the first being the incident that had led her to discover his dual identity in the first place. Theoretically, Ralvin should have been able to know Kadin and still live his two separate lives. He was royalty, and she was as common as common came.

  “Apparently, Coelis Crest died at his party tonight, and he’s calling me—well, Valeriel Investigations—in to investigate.”

  “Hm.”

  Translation: “That’s very bad, and it’s extra bad that he’s bothering you about this. I’d like to say more, but boyfriend still in the room.”

  “I have to go. I need to call Jace—you remember our forensic analyst? —because that’s what I told Baurus and Dahran I was doing in the first place. Anyway, I figured yo
u’d want to know before you heard about it in the papers or before Ollie opens his big mouth, which I’m sure he’s going to do as soon as you get off the phone.”

  “Probably.” Ralvin’s voice held a smile.

  “Look, call me tomorrow, if you can get away and want to talk more about this.”

  “Will do.” His breathing disappeared from the other end of the line as he handed the phone back to Olivan.

  “What was that all about?” asked Olivan.

  “I just wanted to tell him something.” Kadin sounded defensive, even to her own ears. “It’s not that big a deal.”

  “You’re in the middle of a murder investigation, and you want to talk to Vinnie, who knows nothing about murder. What, did you want him to keep it out of the Tribune? You know he doesn’t have that much control over what goes in it.” Olivan’s voice had taken on a biting tone, and Kadin decided she had to get off the phone with him. If Ralvin wanted to date Olivan, that meant dealing with him when he was in one of his sarcastic moods.

  She said the one thing she could think of to mollify her friend. “I have to go now, but I promise to call you tomorrow and tell you everything.”

  “You’d better.” Olivan hung up.

  Kadin also hung up, though she immediately picked up the phone again, this time dialing Jace Combs’s number.

  “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  Kadin didn’t even need to glance at the rooster to know this time. “Yes, I do. But when Baurus DeValeriel shows up in your living room, demanding you solve a murder for him, you do it.”

  Chapter 3

  Kadin had worried that Baurus and Dahran would argue about who drove her over to the DeValeriel estate, but to Kadin’s relief, Dahran wanted to ride in Baurus’s convertible, even if he did have to sit in the back.

  “Ladies up front,” Baurus had said, though Kadin suspected he wanted to get Dahran’s goat more than demonstrate chivalry.