Only Him

Chapter 29

"Mrs. Ivashkov and I have been putting our considerable knowledge to the test," Abe informed the small gathering of people in Lissa's office. "Though she returned home a few weeks ago she provided us with the list of Strigoi attacks over the past year as promised. I cross-referenced those with my own list of suspects." He pushed a neatly stapled stack of papers onto the table we all gathered around.

"Is Lord Ivashkov on that list?" Hans queried, reaching for the stack.

"No," Abe answered even as Hans went looking for confirmation himself. "However, with his amount of traveling he may not have ever reported a run in with Strigoi if it resulted in a business partnership."

I scowled at that thought. Adrian's father was just the slimy type of business man to withhold information from others in order to get a leg up in the game.

"We've already looked into most of these people," Hans commented, scanning the document before passing it on to Lissa.

"Maybe we're looking at this the wrong way," my mother proposed. She sat between me and Abe, arms crossed and a thoughtful look on her face.

"How so?" Dimitri asked. He sat on my other side and leaned forward to look around me at my mother. I leaned back in my chair to help. "We know they're getting information from inside Court."

"But what if they weren't physically here themselves?" she asked.

"You mean what if someone is feeding them information?" Dimitri clarified. She nodded. "That's why we're looking into connections. Even if the person giving Marlen's partner the information isn't aware they're doing it, or what purpose the traitor has with the information, they still have a connection to Marlen's partner."

My head was beginning to hurt.

"But what if they don't have a connection at all?" It wasn't like my mom to speak in riddles, that was more mine and Abe's territory. Either she was spending too much time with the two of us or she really was puzzling it out in her head as she spoke. We waited for her to explain herself.

She looked at me. "Is it possible that Marlen's partner is in contact with someone at Court through a spirit dream?" she asked.

I was so startled by the idea that I momentarily lost balance in the chair I'd been leaning back in. Dimitri's quick reflexes saved me from tumbling backwards.

"Spirit dreams?" I demanded as my chair thunked back on all fours. "You think a spirit user is in league with Marlen? The reason he hates Lissa so much is because of it." The others at the table looked equally as confused as I was.

"Maybe they aren't the spirit user themselves."

"Viktor Dashkov," Hans supplied, catching onto my mothers train of thought. "You think he's using his brother to communicate with someone at Court." He looked intrigued. "That's not an avenue we've explored yet."

"It's not Viktor Dashkov," I said flatly. Only Dimitri, Lissa, Sonya and Jill knew the truth about Viktor's fate. I hadn't been able to tell others without dirtying Lissa's campaign for the throne.

"It fits," Hans pointed out. "This is exactly the type of thing Dashkov would do. Look at what he did to his own daughter."

"No," I said shortly. "It's not him. Victor Dashkov is a vindictive man willing to go to any length to get what he wants, true, but this wasn't him."

"And how would you know?" Hans demanded, irked at my denial.

"Let's just say Vicktor Dashkov is done playing people like a chess game," I said quietly.