“Salla disease,” Kasper said, filling in the name Bayle had forgotten.

Bayle nodded. “Yeah, that’s it.”

I’d heard of Salla disease before. It was some kind of genetic disorder that affected a small percentage of the troll population, but it wasn’t common enough that I knew much about it.

“My little sister Naima has it,” Kasper said, and his whole face softened when he mentioned her.

“What is it exactly?” I asked.

“It affects the nervous system, and it made it hard for Naima to talk or move, not to mention the seizures,” he said. “Fortunately, my parents caught it early with Naima, and they got the medics involved right away. With a combination of medication and their healing powers, along with a couple other things, they really helped her.”

Our medics had the ability to heal with psychokinetic powers, but they weren’t all powerful. They couldn’t undo death, and they couldn’t eliminate most diseases. They could take away some symptoms, but they couldn’t eradicate disease entirely.

“I mean, she’s not cured, and she never will be,” Kasper elaborated. “But Naima’s ten now, and she can talk, and she loves to dance.” He smiled. “She’s really happy, and that’s what counts.”

“I’m glad she’s okay now,” I said.

“Me too,” he agreed. “But the treatments my parents got for her cost a fortune. My dad had to get a second job to help cover them.”

“That’s terrible, but if the two of you are done talking about your families, do you wanna start looking around to see if we can find any clues about Cyrano?” Bayle asked, sounding awfully patronizing for someone who had hired Cyrano in the first place.

“Yes. Of course.” I saluted him, which made him scowl, and I started to look around the room.

In reality, there wasn’t much to investigate. The house was small and ordinary, and it didn’t appear that Cyrano had left behind a manifesto. But since Bayle had been condescending, I wasn’t going to leave a single stone unturned.

I lifted up the blankets on the bed, riffled through the baby’s toys in the toy box, and leafed through the few books on the shelf. None of them were too exciting—there were a few books on parenting and Salla disease, a dog-eared copy of Atlas Shrugged, and a book by Jordan Belfort.

While I dug around their living room, Bayle walked around not doing much of anything, and Kasper scoped out the kitchen. I was flipping through one of the books when I glanced over at the kitchen to see that Kasper had dropped to his knees and was reaching underneath the stout wood-burning stove.

“What are you doing?” I asked, setting aside the book to check it out.

“I thought I saw the light catch on something.” He squeezed himself against the stove, reaching all the way to the back, then he scooted back out.

“What is it?” I asked, and Bayle came to look over my shoulder.

Kasper sat back on his knees and opened his hand, revealing two blue stones each about the size of a marble but not quite as round. Their dark blue color sparkled as Kasper tilted his hand.

“Those are big sapphires,” I said.

Kasper looked up at me. “This has to mean something.”

TWENTY-FIVE

incentives

“What is going on in my kingdom?” Marksinna Lisbet asked, and for the first time since I’d met her, she truly appeared her age.

Her golden hair fell in loose curls down to the middle of her back. Her satin dressing gown flowed around her, creating a half-circle of shimmering fabric on the marble floor of her chambers. She sat at her vanity, her makeup and jewels spread out on the table beside her.

The only jewelry she wore was the large sapphire wedding ring from her long-deceased husband, and even though it wasn’t yet six in the morning she’d already applied a coat of mauve lipstick.

“Nana, it’s not so bad,” Linnea said, attempting to comfort her. She sat on a plush chaise behind her grandmother, and based on her lack of makeup and loosely tied robe that revealed a lace-trimmed camisole underneath, I suspected she hadn’t been awake long either.

Lisbet had summoned Kasper and me very early this morning to have a private meeting in her chambers, with only her and her granddaughter. When we arrived, she apologized for the early hour, but said she thought it was the only way a meeting among us would go unnoticed.

“It’s not so bad?” Lisbet shot a look over her shoulder at Linnea and scoffed. “Just two weeks ago someone attempted to kidnap you, and last night your guard tried to murder your husband! How can you say it’s not so bad?”

“Well…” Linnea faltered for a moment, frowning. “Both Mikko and I are alive and well. So it can’t be that bad.”

“My child, you know you are the world to me, but things are very bad indeed when the only positive thing you can say is that you’re simply alive,” Lisbet said. “You’re a vibrant, healthy, young Queen. You are supposed to be alive!”

“Kasper and Bryn are here,” Linnea tried, gesturing toward where we stood at attention near the door. “They’ll help us sort out this mess.”

The Marksinna looked toward us, an unsettling weariness and fear in her eyes, and she nodded once. “You are here, and I am very grateful for it, because without you I have no idea what would have become of my grandson-in-law. But what do we do about all this?” Her gaze fell heavily on Kasper and me. “Who is behind these attempts on my family’s lives? And how do we stop them?”