Betrayal? This man thought a few servants indulging in a night off was betrayal?

"You said the cook was at home," Magiere pressed. "I at least need to speak with her."

With his jaw still tight, Lanjov backed through the archway to speak low and harshly to the young maid. Soon after, a portly woman in her mid-fifties appeared.

Unlike the maid, she didn't appear frightened. Her red-and-gray hair was bound in a bun, and her apron, although clean, bore a few faded stains. She sized up Magiere.

"So you're the hunter. You're not what anyone expected."

Magiere almost smiled. "Apparently not." She turned to Lanjov. "Could we speak with her alone?"

"No," he said flatly. "Any questioning will take place in my presence."

It became clear to Magiere that for all his words to the council concerning cooperation, he had little intention of doing so himself. He probably expected her to stay far from him and his home, and use some mystical power to track down Chesna's killer. Then he would expect proof for the council, so they could pat her on the head, give her a bank draft, and send her out of sight.

"What's your name?" Magiere asked the cook.

"Dyta."

"Tell us what happened the night Chesna was killed."

"I already told the master everything. I didn't know the poor mistress had even opened the front door. I never heard the knock."

Magiere nodded. "No one is blaming you, but I need you to tell us exactly what you did that night. It might help us find her killer."

Dyta pursed her lips. "Chesna was a sweet girl. Always sent Hedi and young Andrey out for a little amusement whenever the master was off to the cards. She stayed home and read or visited with me. That night, I was busy in the kitchen, storing up dried plums for winter. I didn't hear no knocking. I didn't hear no voices, because the kitchen is out back of the house. But I did catch a sharp draft when I opened the back door for a bit of air. I thought maybe a window out front might have been left open. So I went to see and found the front door ajar."

She stopped. Before tears could get the better of her, Dyta scowled hard, anger replacing anguish.

"I closed it. The poor lamb was lying out on the steps, and I never saw her or thought for a moment she'd be anywhere but in her room. I just closed the door."

Lanjov listened attentively, but at those words his head dropped slightly.

"Wasn't until later," Dyta continued, "past midnight, I heard the master shouting. I was already settled in bed in my room out back, so I found my robe and ran out. I heard him outside and opened the door as Lord Kushev came running up the front walk."

"Who's Kushev?" Leesil asked.

"A neighbor," Lanjov answered. "He was playing cards at the Knight's House with me."

"The saddest sight," Dyta whispered, "with her dress all torn, and throat so-"

"Enough," Lanjov ordered in a ragged voice. "I don't see how any of this will help."

Leesil raised his eyebrows, but Magiere couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"I assume you saved the dress?" she asked.

"Yes," Lanjov answered. "Captain Chetnik of the city guard told me that I must keep it, even after she was buried."

Magiere committed the name to memory. So far, few people in this had shown much sense, but this captain apparently had, and it might be worth the time to speak with him.

"I'll need to see it." She paused and felt some embarrassment. "Actually"-she pointed to Chap-"our tracker needs to smell it."

Lanjov's face paled again. The thought of a dog sniffing over his dead daughter's clothing was pushing this evening past his tolerance. To his credit, he simply said, "It's in her room. Follow me."

As Dyta left, Magiere, Leesil, and Chap followed Lanjov back into the hallway and to the right. The hall opened up in a wider area with a curved staircase. Lanjov led them up to the third floor and into a bedroom.

Cream draperies hung from a four-poster bed with a matching comforter. Small whitewashed shelves were attached to the walls at heights low enough for a young girl to reach, and the number of dolls that filled them surprised Magiere. Leesil looked at them too. At least a score of dolls, intermingled with occasional toy animals or a foppish marionette, were displayed along one wall alone. Some were blond, some had dark ringlets, and one had hair of auburn red. All of their heads were porcelain and most wore pink, lavender, or yellow lace dresses.

"How old was your daughter?" Magiere asked.

"Sixteen," Lanjov answered.

At that, Leesil's eyebrows rose, and he rolled his eyes as well.

"Where is her mother?" Leesil asked.

Again, Lanjov paused as if the question were not only irrelevant but impertinent.

"She died the night Chesna was born," he answered.

Magiere couldn't help pitying this arrogant man. He'd lost his wife in childbirth, and now lost his only child. Perhaps he'd been in no hurry to see his daughter grow into a life of her own.

Lanjov opened the doors of a tall wardrobe and removed a cloth-wrapped bundle. He carried it to bed as if it were both precious and horrifying to the touch. Inside was what had once been an elegant day dress of lavender with saffron trim. The neckline and left shoulder were stained with dried blood.

Chap trotted to the bed and looked up at Lanjov expectantly, but the councilman merely stepped back. Leesil reached out and took the dress, letting it unfold until the skirt hem touched the floor.

From its size, the girl would have stood no taller than Magiere's shoulder, but what caught her attention most was its condition. The front was shredded and torn open from bodice to hem. Magiere's stomach began to burn, accompanied by a familiar ache in her jaw that she quickly suppressed. But anger still crawled up her throat and into her head.

Those lower slashes hadn't been done to feed or kill. An ugly question needed to be asked, but when she looked at Lanjov's face, she couldn't voice it.

Lanjov stood silent and never blinked as he stared at the dress. His hands were tightly closed at his sides, and Magiere saw his throat clench as he swallowed.

Chap started at the hem of the torn skirt, pushing at it with his nose. As he worked upward, Leesil dropped down until the hound could reach the collar. Chap looked up at Leesil and back to Magiere and whined. Magiere knelt down next to the hound.

"Nothing?" Grabbing the shredded fabric in her fist, she shoved it at Chap, nearly jerking the dress out of Leesil's hands. "Again… pay attention!"

It wasn't that Chap understood her words, but Magiere had come to recognize that he knew exactly what his role was in their trio.

Chap looked into her eyes for a moment, and Magiere felt as if he returned her own dissatisfaction with a faint rumble in his throat. He again breathed in the dress, working along the folds and up to the bodice and shoulders. He finished and then whined.

"That's enough," Leesil said. "He's not getting anything. Perhaps it's been too long."

"Well?" Lanjov demanded, as if expecting them to have some new dram of insight after this painful indignity.

"We need to take it with us," Leesil said. He stood to face the councilman, leaving the dress in Magiere's hands. "Chap might not know what he's scenting yet."

Magiere knew well enough that her partner was now telling tales. She bunched the lavender dress in both hands. Part of her didn't want to know what had been done to this girl as she bled to death. She suddenly envisioned the mother she'd never seen being taken away in the dark to a fief keep. Rumors passed among the villagers of a woman glimpsed on rare nights, wandering, full with a child sired by what Magiere now had accepted was a walking abomination masquerading as a man. Just before her mother died, Magiere was born, unnatural and half-tied to the world of the undead. She squeezed Chesna's dress between her fingers and closed her eyes.