A House Divided

Chapter 22

"I found one," Cianne said, slapping a note down on Kila's desk. Her color was high, her face pinched in anger, and he was astonished at the show of emotion. Her posture was rigid, as if she were having trouble preventing herself from lashing out.

In the two days since they had performed the deshya together, he had spent every free moment thinking of her and the things they had discovered. Combing through Toran Stowley's ledger, Kila had tried to glean some new information, but to no avail.

Ledgers didn't seem to be much of a friend to him as of late. He and Burl were still working on tracking down the shopkeeper's murderer, Kila not having made much progress with the shopkeeper's ledger either. Burl's face had been openly suspicious when he had reported back to her, and she had taken the ledger home with her the previous night. Her tone had been grudging this morning when she had admitted she hadn't found much either, but he had felt a glimmer of relief. Her skills were impressive, but the evidence that they didn't overshadow his was mounting. He didn't care about his pride taking a blow; rather he was concerned that Burl might be too much for him, that she might catch on to the fact that her new partner was doing some investigating on the side. Chief Flim had assured him Burl had no idea what he was up to, but he wasn't willing to get comfortable.

"Where did you find it?" he asked, smoothing the crumpled, singed sheet. He was quite certain Cianne hadn't been the one to crumple it, which indicated that if it were a love letter as the captain suspected, his mother appeared to have been jilted.

"Moiria's study."

"So perhaps she hasn't been storing anything at the Council Hall, judging by the state of this letter," he said. "She may be in the habit of burning anything incriminating."

"It's possible. At any rate, my hope is that this may provide us with a lead. I was able to get into her study seconds after she stepped out, and I managed to snatch this from the fire before it could catch. Whatever it is, she didn't want anyone to see it."

A single column ran the length of the page. Each line was a jumble of letters and numbers.

"Looks like what was in Toran's ledger," Cianne said.

"No," Kila said, seeing immediately that Moiria's letter bore no resemblance to what Toran Stowley had written. "See here? It's designed to look like it might be counting book figures, but I'd be willing to wager that it isn't. The numbers and letters repeat in distinct patterns, and the combinations are different from what Toran Stowley used."

"Do you think you can crack it?"

"I can try, but I can't guarantee anything. Chances are that if Moiria and anyone else in House Staerleigh are in the habit of exchanging coded messages they're changing the cipher on a regular basis."

"Could you do what you can?" Hands on hips, she paced restlessly, like a caged animal.

"Of course. Has something happened?"

She recounted for him the conversation she had overheard in her father's study, and he understood her ire at once.

"Not the most pleasant of things to overhear," he said mildly when she was finished.

Patches of color stained her cheeks, and she shook her head. "I don't care what they said about me," she said, but she was lying. "I'm far more concerned with the whole nature of the conversation. I suspected my father was up to something, but now I am certain, and it gives me no pleasure.

"I am concerned about what they said about Lach. Something about the conversation gave me the impression they weren't comfortable with his presence in Cearova."