Chapter 405

ARIA

Ivory started at the beginning.

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The actual beginning – not the version that started with the letter to Luna Margaret, not the version that started with identifying my bloodline. The version that started four years ago, when the curse had been running for almost a year and Ivory had looked at the trajectory of it and decided that the official channels for curse-breaking research were not going to move fast enough.

She spoke with the clinical efficiency she brought to everything, the same tone she used to describe medical procedures – organized, sequential, each piece of information placed in context before the next one was added. She’d clearly thought about how to present this, had organized it in the way of someone who’d been planning the telling for a while and had decided that clarity was better than softening.

Kael sat in the chair beside her bed and listened.

I watched his face.

The first several minutes were the parts he’d known about or suspected – the research approach, the decision to follow the curse’s construction backward to its source, the identification of what kind of bloodline was needed. He listened with the steady attention he brought to intelligence briefings, absorbing without interrupting, his expression controlled.

Then Ivory got to the part about the first contact.

“The information was held by a collector,” she said. “Someone who’d been acquiring curse-related documents for years. Old magic, obscure constructions, things that had no obvious practical application but that someone with the right knowledge could use.” She paused. “I found him through a secondary source – someone who’d worked with him and kept records. I made contact.”

“How did you make contact,” Kael said.

“Through channels that were not official Shadowmere channels,” she said.

“Ivory.”

“I went myself,” she said. “Without pack markings. As a private individual seeking research materials.”

The control on Kael’s face did something. Not breaking – more like it had to work harder than it had been working.

“Where,” he said.

She named a territory. Three days’ travel from Shadowmere. Not an allled pack – not hostile, but not allied.

“The collector had the information I needed,” she said. “Specifically, the construction records for the curse. How it was built. What it was built from. What could break it and why.” She looked at the ceiling in the way she did when she was delivering information she expected to produce a reaction she was preparing for. “He wasn’t willing to share it voluntarily.”

“So you took it,” Kael said.

“I accessed it,” she said.

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“Ivory.”

“I accessed it,” she said again, with the firmness of someone who’d decided on a word and was staying with it, “and in the process of accessing it, I may have also-” she paused, “-destroyed some of his other materials. Accidentally.”

“Accidentally,” Kael said.

“He tried to stop me,” she said. “There was a conflict. During the conflict, some things were damaged.”

“What things,” he said.

“Several years of his research,” she said. “And his hand. Left one. Three fingers.”

The silence had weight.

“You broke three of his fingers,” Kael said.

“They were already broken before I left,” she said. “I don’t know the precise sequence of causation.”

“Did he make it,” I asked, because the question seemed relevant.

“He made it,” Ivory said. “He was fine. Annoyed. Missing three fingers and several years of research, but fine.”

“Did he come after you,” Kael said.

“He tried,” Ivory said. “He sent people.”

‘How many people,” Kael said.

‘The first time? Three.”

‘The first time,” Kael said.

‘It happened more than once,” Ivory said, in the tone of someone managing expectations about the scope of what they were about o disclose.

Kael looked at Nina.

Vina had her pen ready.

‘How many times,” he said.

‘The collector was the first incident,” Ivory said. “After that there were subsequent incidents. With subsequent people. As I followed the research further and encountered people who were protecting other pieces of the information.”

“How many people,” Kael said.

Ivory looked at the ceiling.

“Ivory.”

“Sixty-nine,” she said.

The room was quiet.

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“Sixty-nine people,” Kael said.

“Incidents,” she said. “Some of the incidents involved multiple people.”

“Sixty-nine incidents,” he said, “involving multiple people each.”

“The numbers are in the documentation I kept,” she said. “Which I can provide. The documentation is thorough.”

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“Why,” Jordan said, from his chair, “do you have documentation of sixty-nine incidents involving people who were trying to kill

you.”

“Because I’m a healer,” Ivory said, “and I document things. It’s professional habit.”

“You documented your own assassination attempts,” Jordan said.

“Attempted assassination is a specific category,” Ivory said. “Some of the incidents were more in the harassment range. Poisoning, for instance, which is-”

“Poisoning,” Kael said.

“The second incident,” Ivory said. “Someone put something in a supply shipment. I identified it before it became a problem.”

“What was it,” Kael said.

She named it. It was a compound I didn’t recognize but that produced reactions from everyone else in the room-Nina’s pen paused, Jordan’s expression shifted, the healer near the door made a sound.

“That’s not “the healer started.

“A mild dose,” Ivory said. “I treated it before it progressed.”

“Yourself,” the healer said.

“I’m a healer,” Ivory said.

“You treated your own poisoning yourself,” the healer said, with the specific quality of a professional confronting a situation that offended their entire field.

“It was efficient,” Ivory said.

“I’ll kill her,” Kael said.

“The poisoner is a woman,” Nina said, without looking up from her notes.

“I’ll kill her,” Kael said again.

“You can’t be going around hitting women,” Nina said.

“My fists,” Kael said, “are instruments of unisex justice.”

“We have policies,” Nina said.

“The policies don’t cover-”

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“The policies cover everyone,” Nina said. “I’ll handle the poisoner.”

“You’ll handle the poisoner,” he said.

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“I’ll handle her,” Nina said, with the specific quality that meant she’d already been planning it and was simply now making it official. “You focus on the rest of the list.”