Page 7 of Only Hard Problems

“Any news on Nerezza Blackwell?” The pesky gossipcaster just kept spewing out annoying, awkward questions. “What about your efforts to track her down?”

Once again, I ground my teeth to hold on to my smile. “Nerezza Blackwell remains a person of interest. She too will be brought back to Corios to face justice for her many crimes against the Imperium, including conspiring with the Techwave.”

During the midnight ball, not only had Vesper revealed that Nerezza was her biological mother, but she’d also claimed that the Regal lady was a double agent, spying on both the Techwaveandthe Imperium to further her own mysterious agenda. During the chaos and confusion of the throne room fight, Nerezza had slipped out of Crownpoint, emptied out the House Blackwell accounts, and fled Corios in a private space cruiser.

No one had seen or heard from the Regal lady since then, although I knew that Beatrice was greatly worried about what Nerezza might do next—and what she might reveal about her relationship with Wendell, especially the fact that he was Vesper’s father.

In addition to learning more about Vesper, I’d also been researching Nerezza. Even among the Regals, who put a capitalRin Ruthless, Nerezza Blackwell was famous—or rather infamous—for being a notorious social climber who flitted from one relationship to another until she got what she wanted out of it.

Everything I’d discovered about her made my skin crawl. Story after story about Nerezza befriending, beguiling, and bewitching some lord, lady, servant, or guard, only to cast them aside the second they were no longer useful. Add in the fact that she’d done the same thing to her own daughter when Vesper was a child . . . Well, Nerezza Blackwell was far more devious, duplicitous, and dangerous than I’d imagined. She was another hard problem I didn’t have a solution to, just like Vesper was.

The gossipcaster sucked in a breath to pepper me with yet more pointed questions, so I picked up my pace. “Sorry, folks. Gotta jet. Don’t want to be late to the party. After all, there are several ladies who haven’t had the pleasure of a dance with yours truly yet this social season.”

I gave them all another exaggerated wink, along with a good-bye wave, then stepped through an archway into a large courtyard that featured a bubbling fountain. All the other Regals had already moved deeper into the castle, so I slid to the side, stopped in the shadows, and unscrewed the smile from my face.

Outside, the gossipcasters milled around, checking their equipment and footage and chatting with one another.

The woman who’d asked me about Kyrion, Vesper, and Nerezza lowered her microphone and shook her head. Her snide voice drifted over to me: “Zane Zimmer, always the arrogant idiot.”

Her cameraman snickered in agreement. “How long do you think ol’ Zane will last as the leader of the Arrows? I put down a hundred credits on one month—or less.”

So there was a betting pool devoted to my expected failure and future execution. Fantastic.

The gossipcaster shrugged. “Depends on how quickly he captures Kyrion Caldaren and Vesper Quill. But if he doesn’t? Not long. Callus Holloway isn’t known for his patience. Sooner or later, he’ll order his Bronze Hand guards to chop Zane’s empty, pretty head right off his pretty shoulders.”

The cameraman snickered again, and the two of them started talking about other things. Their mocking dismissal didn’t anger me, though. I’d worked long and hard to convince everyone that I was an arrogant idiot, just like they had said.

No, the thing that bothered me was they were right. If I didn’t find my wayward sister soon, then my head would be the one on the chopping block.

Iletmyselfbroodfor a minute, then plastered another smile on my face and stepped out of the shadows. I moved through the open-air courtyard, then two more similar areas, before finally reaching another scalloped archway that led to a massive lawn rolling out from the back of the castle like an emerald carpet.

Castle Rojillo was famous for its pink-star honeysuckles, which boasted blossoms bigger than my hand and perfumed the air with a sweet, delicate scent. Dozens of the dense green bushes ringed the lawn, starting at the castle walls and running all the way down to the man-made lake in the distance. The enormous, oversize bushes stretched up more than twenty feet, and strings of pink bulbs snaked through the tops of the thick branches, along with yellow and white crystals shaped like suns and crescent moons that cast rainbow prisms across the entire lawn.

Solstice games had been set up on one side of the grass, and children ran from one booth to another, smiling and shrieking while they tossed rings around toy planets, shot paint blasters at paper star charts, and smashed plastic models of space cruisers with wooden stormswords to spill out all the candy crammed inside. Other children clustered around the refreshment tables, using their bare hands to snag the colorful sugar bubbles that wafted up out of the dessert fountains and cram the sticky treats into their mouths.

Down at the lake, a few children splashed around in the shallows while parents and lifeguards watched from the relative dryness of a nearby dock. Farther out on the water, several Regals clutched frilly lace parasols and perched in the back of paddleboats being propelled by sweating servants. In the distance, beyond the far edge of the lake, the sun was beginning to set behind the surrounding hills and was streaking the sky in warm, hazy stripes of pink, orange, and yellow.

Summer solstice was the longest day of the year on Corios. It was just after eight, and the sun wouldn’t fully vanish until almost nine o’clock galactic time. Eventually, the children would be put to bed inside the castle, while the adults waltzed around the dance floor that had been erected on the other side of the lawn. The ball would last into the wee hours of the morning, and many of the Regals would stumble to their rooms, high on chembonds and eager to indulge in all their fantasies—whether it was with their spouse, a servant, a guard, or some other convenient lover.

Ding!Another message from Holloway popped up on my tablet.The only reason you’re attending the solstice celebration is to see if any of the Regals are helping Kyrion. Don’t forget that.

As if I could with his charming missives. I huffed at his petty demands and slid my tablet back into my pocket.

A waving motion caught my eye, and I headed over to my father, who was standing near the refreshment tables with Jorge Rojillo, the head of House Rojillo.

“Hello, Zane!” Jorge called out, clapping me on the back.

I smiled at him, my expression genuine for a change. “Hello, Jorge.”

Jorge Rojillo was in his early sixties, roughly the same age as my father, although he was much shorter, with a broad, stocky body. Like all the other Regal men in attendance, he was wearing a formal tailcoat, although his was the pale pink of House Rojillo and studded with flower-shaped gold buttons. Jorge plucked a white handkerchief out of his pocket, pushed back his wavy black hair, and dabbed some sweat off his bronze skin.

Tempered silk might adjust to the body heat of its wearer, along with the environment, but it was simply no match for the summer solstice sun. The hot rays beat down on my head, while the excessive humidity bathed everything in an unpleasant stickiness. Several lords and ladies were firmly ensconced in chairs in front of large box-shaped fans spaced around the lawn that were spewing out cooler air, as well as filtering out the worst of the summer pollen.

“Jorge was telling me about some new temperature-shielding technology he’s been developing,” my father said.

Jorge was a spelltech, someone who was capable of infusing psionic power into weapons and other objects, just like my father. And just like my father, Jorge preferred to spend most of his time in his research-and-development labs and left the Regal politicking up to his wife, Halecia, who was currently deep in conversation with Beatrice.

Jorge gave a modest shrug, although his dark brown eyes gleamed, and a satisfied grin spread across his face. “It’s just a little something new I’ve whipped up. House Rojillo is bidding on the climate-control contracts for Promenade Park, and my latest invention should help put my proposal over the top.”

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