It’s not the Chained Sisters, who I hoped she’d be hiding in here. No, it’s a bevy of interfolk people similar to Palacia and Zefyra’s deceased lover, all dressed in rags and with the same disheveled, dirty face.
Vallan says, “I recognize at least half these people.”
“That’s because they were all workers at your mine, Taskmaster Vallan,” Zefyra says proudly. She puffs her chestout and sweeps a hand at the tables full of workers. “Might I introduce you to the Gilded Ghosts.”
Some of them are drinking. Some of them are chatting. All of them are peering at us, and we’re gazing at them. They look destitute but alive, proud and loud in this hidden room.
“How?” I squeak.
Zefyra swings her broad-brimmed judgeman’s hat around her back, taps it, and slaps it on a table. “After Sutlis Spire, I went to the one powerful vampire I thought I could possibly trust. Told them my skills at being invisible. They had a job they thought I’d be well-suited for.”
“They?” I croak. “Them? You aren’t talking about . . .”
Zefyra nods deeply. “Overliege Liolen Sesk. The Commerce Minister.”
“The Gilded Liege,” Skartovius mutters, nodding toward the interfolk around the tables. “Hence the Gilded Ghosts.”
The ex-Chained Sister grins with one side of her mouth—the unscarred side. “Quite right, Lord Ashfen.”
“You’ve poached the miners,” Vallan says.
“Aye. Turns out they didn’t enjoy being rounded up into body bags by Alacine Mortis’ spies. The attack on the silver mines did a number on morale.”
“What about your mistress? Where’s Cordea?”
The vampiress who turned Zefyra,I remember.
Zefyra shrugs. “Still at the silver mines as the new taskmistress with your absence, I suspect. She’s with Aramastun Wyvox now, my lord.”
“Bullshit.”
Flaring her nostrils, Zefyra sits with a heavy sigh at a nearby seat. “I’m sure you can see for yourself if you go there.”
I speak up, wanting to pick her brain about things she evidently knows so much about. “What about the people youcalled home for so long, Zefyra? What about the Chained Sisters?”
“I can take you to them.”
My heart thumps against my ribs.
“Fear not, little Sister.” Another grin. “They’re alive and well. Just not in Olhav. They scattered once word came down that Aramastun was moving on the noblebloods. Knew their cushy existence in that ramshackle hovel was no longer safe. That’s also when I acted on liberating the miners.”
A few of the interfolk in the throng raise their mugs in cheers. Most of them are trying not to eavesdrop, I notice.
I throw my arms out wide, more confused than ever. “Buthow?” I ask. “How have you done all this? How do you know so much?”
“Because in the year I’ve been gone from the Chained Sisters, Sephania, I’ve networked. Dug myself into the streams that run this fucking city. It started with Overliege Liolen. From there”—she taps the tall hat on the table—“he put me into Aramastun’s army, where I act as a spy. Liolen has been keeping tabs on the Night Judge for months. Months before Barnabac Craxon conveniently died during a Five Ministries meeting, and Alacine Mortis met her shadowy end.”
Clearly her intelligence is not absolute, or else she’d know how Barnabac and Alacine died. I have their murderers with me right now.
Still, my jaw nearly hits the floor. Here I thought Sister Zefyra was dead, having never shown herself after the Tanmount incident. I had promised the younger Chained Sisters who missed her that she would return soon, knowing it was a falsehood.
In truth, she’s not wrong: I almost forgot about her. It’s not that she’s a forgettable person—clearly she’s made something of herself—but she’s not wrong when she says she knows how toblend in, become invisible, and therefore forgotten.Just the ally we need. Someone who can tell us about Aramastun’s goings-onandLiolen Sesk’s.
This is a huge turnaround. Things are looking up in a hurry. I smile at my friend.
Then Skar says, “One thing. You lied to us.” When Zefyra quirks her brow at him, Skar gestures with his sharp chin at the roomful of Gilded Ghosts. “You said this building was empty. Abandoned.”
Zefyra tosses a one-sided smirk at Skar, which I’m starting to realize is her signature look. She’s much more confident in herself than when I knew her.