Chapter Ten: Square Zero

When Thane had returned from having his injuries seen to, he'd found Deena seated at the kitchen table, staring at nothing, a cup of tea untouched and long gone cold in her hands. His arrival had startled her out of her reverie, and she had burst from her stunned stillness into a flurry of nervous energy in the space of a heartbeat. And now he could only watch from the couch, helpless and apprehensive, as she paced restlessly back and forth.

Cecilia was nowhere to be found. Thane could not decide whether he should be relieved or worried.

Deena had relayed Cecilia's story in tones of alternating rage and grief, tears spilling down her face. Thane wanted to comfort her, but he didn't know how. Nothing he could say would change anything, nor ease her pain. All he could do was listen.

"I spent the whole trip home praying it wasn't true," she moaned. "I tried to convince myself Ceris was lying, that she was only trying to get under my skin. There had to be some other explanation—a leak in my security, a bug in my office, anything. For a moment, I even wondered if Marlei…" She choked back a sob, though it seemed it might tear her apart. "Anyone but Cecilia."

"Ceris is a master manipulator," said Thane, schooling his voice to remain carefully neutral. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and folding his hands under his chin. "It would take exceptional strength of will to avoid falling under her spell."

Deena sighed heavily. "I know. To be honest, that's not even what I'm upset about. Not really."

"What is it, then?"

She blinked at him incredulously, as though the answer should be obvious. "The lies," she hissed. "All she would have had to do was tell me what she'd done. We could have worked through it! But she didn't trust me enough. Or didn't love me enough? I mean, maybe that's why she slept with Ceris in the first place. I wasn't enough for her." The tears began again in earnest. "Thane, what if I—"

"Deena." Thane stood and stopped her pacing with a hand on her elbow. "Has it occurred to you that perhaps she hid it from you because she loves you? That she may simply have been too ashamed, too afraid to lose you? Perhaps…" He hesitated, considering for a moment just how much he wanted to say. This was coming dangerously close to something he'd not confessed to anyone, not even Irikah.

But Deena had been inside his mind, had seen everything there was to see. All of his own failings and indiscretions—

(eyes the color of oceans at midnight)

—and one shameful, dreadful secret.

He hadn't expected to find himself defending Cecilia, but… well, it was possible she was not quite the villain he'd thought her to be. Only a fallible and imperfect being, trying and occasionally failing to be a good person. The Gods knew, he had no room to judge.

"Perhaps she was only trying to spare you from pain," he said quietly.

"I…" Deena stared at him, her purple eyes wide and dull, as the meaning of his words sank in. "Maybe. Maybe you're right." She drew a deep, shuddering breath and wiped the tears from her cheeks with both hands. "But that still leaves us with the question of what to do now."

Thane nodded. "However willing you may be to forgive, the fact remains she can no longer be trusted," he said. "Ceris may continue to use her guilt to manipulate her, or may come after her directly."

"Well, I can't just abandon her. I won't," Deena said firmly. "We have to protect her."

"And the most effective way to accomplish that will be to locate and eliminate Ceris as quickly as possible," Thane replied. "Have you made any progress with Zensha's omni-tool?"

Deena swallowed hard and looked away. "No," she said. "I… I haven't started working on it yet."

Thane gritted his teeth in frustration. "Why not?" he demanded. "Ceris's lead on us is already considerable, and every moment we waste makes it even greater. Time is not out ally in this, Deena."

But she would not, or could not, meet his eyes. "I'm sorry, it's just… I can't even look at it without thinking about what I… what I did back there."

Her words brought him up short. "Of course," he said, more gently. He hadn't considered at all her feelings about what had happened to Captain Zensha and the Eclipse mercs—an embarrassing oversight that left him feeling selfish and guilty. "Please forgive me. You have done more than enough, more than I had any right to ask, and I am deeply in your debt. You needn't worry about this. I have other contacts here on Illium; perhaps one of them can—"

"No." Deena shook her head. "No, I'll do it. It's my family on the line now, too."

Maralei set her bowl of stew on her desk beside her computer. She was supposed to be taking it easy—the poison she'd been dosed with had left no lasting damage, but Deena had insisted she not push herself for a while. However, when she'd come home from the hospital and seen the sheer volume of backlogged correspondence in her inbox, she had resigned herself to at least a week of very long days, indeed. This would be the third day in a row she'd left the office at her usual time, only to come home and continue working through dinner.

But no sooner had she sat down and lifted her fork to her mouth than someone knocked at the door to her studio apartment. Not the polite tap of a friend come to call, nor the businesslike thumping of a mail carrier making a delivery—this was an insistent, authoritative hammering that could only mean trouble. Maralei jumped at the sound, her heart in her throat, dropping her fork in her lap and smearing gravy down the front of her dress.

Swearing under her breath, she grabbed a napkin to clean herself up. "Coming," she called out, as whoever was out there ponded on the door again.

"Nos Astra Police. Please open the door, ma'am," came the muffled response.

Maralei froze for an instant, her blood turning to ice. The police? What could they want? An officer had questioned her about the poisoning while she was in the hospital, and this one didn't sound like she was just here for follow-up.

Detective Anaya, on the other hand, had had it out for Deena as long as Maralei could remember. She didn't trust information brokers, and had made it her personal crusade to find a reason to arrest Deena—or at least drive her out of Nos Astra. She'd never found anything before, but… Oh, Goddess. The police took my work computer. Did they get in? Did they find something on it?

But the longer she hesitated, the more suspicious she would look. So she gave up on her stained dress, swallowed hard, and opened the door.

"Hello, Miss Calisi," said Anaya with a predatory grin: an unsettling departure from her usual frustrated grimace. She flashed her badge, as if Maralei didn't already know her far too well. "May I come in?"

Maralei stepped back to let Anaya inside, but did not invite her to sit. "What can I do for you, Detective?" she asked, fighting to keep her voice from trembling.

Anaya chuckled, looking for all the world like a varren with a juicy steak. "Don't look so scared. I'm not here to arrest you."

An unspoken yet hovered in the air between them like a bad smell. It almost sounded like a threat.

"Then what do you want?" Maralei demanded.

With a deliberately casual shrug, Anaya said, "I just want you to tell me what you know about a certain freelance merc who's been seen around here. One Aselda Ceris?"

"Ceris?" Maralei frowned, even as relief washed over her and relaxed her defensive posture a fraction. Maybe she wasn't here about Deena after all. "What do you want to know?"

Anaya leaned a hip against the kitchen table, crossing one ankle over the other and folding her arms. "What's her problem with your boss?"

Maralei's relief was short-lived—this may not be about Deena, but it was still hitting a little too close to home. There was no way she was getting out of this without either herself or Deena looking guilty. So she decided not to say anything. "I want an advocate present for this," she bit out stiffly.

"Okay," said Anaya amiably. "But I just want you to be aware, I have more than enough evidence to subpoena this information. I will find out what I need to know. And it'll be so much easier for you if you just cooperate."

Now, that was definitely a threat. Maralei weighed her options for a long moment. If she talked, Deena would probably fire her—but if she didn't, she risked going to prison on the strength of whatever "evidence" Anaya thought she had. Was her job really worth her freedom?

She would just have to be careful of how much she said. "Ceris is a pirate," she said finally. "About five years ago, she attacked an asari merchant vessel. Most of the crew were killed. But, uh, the captain survived—barely—and she went to Deena for help. Deena not only helped her find Ceris, but also hired a small crew to help her recover her stolen cargo." She shrugged. "They nearly succeeded. Ceris has held a grudge against Deena ever since."

Anaya cocked an eyebrow at her. "Nearly?"

"Nearly," Maralei confirmed. "The captain was killed in the attempt."

"I see." Anaya looked unimpressed. "It sounds like Deena went above and beyond for this, uh, captain."

Maralei hesitated. She'd said too much already. But Anaya was after Ceris, now, wasn't she? Maybe if she knew who the captain was, she might actually help. She could only pray the detective wouldn't pry any further. "The merchant captain… was Deena's sister," Maralei said. "Ceris killed her."

"Any yet, somehow, it's Ceris who holds a grudge against Deena." Anaya shook her head. "Think you can fill in that leap of logic for me?"

Wringing her hands, Maralei bit her lip. She had no choice, now. "The crew Deena hired… it was a gang of batarian mercs," she admitted. "They were just supposed to cover the cargo, I swear! But they…" She blinked back tears. "It wasn't Deena's fault, Detective, They betrayed her!"

"What did they do, Miss Calisi?" Anaya snapped. "Out with it!"

Maralei flinched at the tone of her voice and the spark of triumph in her eyes. "I want my advocate, Anaya."

Anaya stood straighter, sneering. "That's your right. But I have my officers executing a search warrant on Deena's office right now. I have all the evidence I need to put her away for a long time, and if you fight me, I can nail you, too." Her face and voice softened. 'Look, I'm not supposed to tell you this, not yet. But… I have a source that says it was Deena who poisoned you! Does she really deserve your blind loyalty?" She shook her head, almost sadly. "Work with me, Maralei, and I'll work with you."

But Maralei barely heard her over the thundering of her own heartbeat in her ears. Anaya's accusation coursed through her like an electric shock, and it took a supreme effort of will just to keep her knees from buckling. "No… no, that can't be… she couldn't have…" The tears finally spilled over. "She wouldn't do that to me!"

"Wouldn't she? Would you really put it past her, if it meant she could place the blame on the one who killed her sister?" Anaya laid a gentle hand on Maralei's shoulder. "You know her well You know the lengths she goes to, to protect—or avenge—the people she loves. The question is: are you one of them?"

"I…" Maralei's eyes widened. "She's always been kind to me, but… I'm just her secretary." She sniffled and wiped the tears from her face. "All right. The batarians she hired—they slaughtered Ceris's crew," she admitted. "Brutalized them. Ceris was the only one who escaped."

"Just like Deena's sister was the only survivor of Ceris's raid."

"Exactly like that." Maralei bowed her head. "I always thought—I wondered if that could really be a coincidence. But I never thought Deena was really capable of… of… oh, Goddess forgive me."

With Deena at her office and Cecilia still in the wind, the silence of the apartment took on a presence of its own. It was not the restful silence of an evening in, nor the peaceful stillness that followed a long and trying day. This was a palpable silence, a silence of things missing, a calm before a devastating storm. It was the way the tide pulled back in advance of a catastrophic wave. It was empty lungs before the trigger was pulled.

This silence rang. It vibrated with anticipation and dread. It hovered over Thane's shoulder and watched his every move, intruded in his meditations, and smothered his prayers.

He turned Irikah's coin over and over in his hand, concentrating on the weight of it, allowing himself to be hypnotized by the way it caught the light. Gold, like the sunlight. Like her scales. Rich and warm and comforting.

(I don't deserve you)

He had certainly proven that, time and time again.

With a frustrated hiss, he pushed himself to his feet and began to pace back and forth. He hated waiting like this, doing nothing while someone else did the work. But there was nothing else to be done until Deena cracked Zensha's omni-tool and traced it back to Ceris. Nothing to do but wait, and rest, and try to keep guilty memories, stirred to life by recent events like the unquiet dead, at bay.

In silence.

And so when the chime of an incoming call on his omni-tool unceremoniously shattered that stifling quietude, Thane jumped like a frightened child. He took a moment to compose himself, to control his breathing and calm his racing heart, intensely glad no one had been around to see that. He chuckled softly to himself—how ridiculous, to let his imagination run away with him so.

But even that small bit of mirth evaporated when he saw who was calling, and despite the audio-only connection, he scowled as he answered. "It is quite bold of you to contact me now, Cecilia," he said. "It is also unwise."

"I know," came the reply, and her voice trembled, watery and thick. Was she crying? "I just don't know where else to turn. As bad as it sounds, you're the only one I can trust right now. And I've just learned something you'll need to know."

Thane raised his brow ridge skeptically. "Your trust may be misplaced, Cecilia. You must know that it is not reciprocated."

"I know. God help me, I know. But you'll find out about this sooner or later, anyway." She choked back a sob. "Sere Krios, Deena's been arrested!"

Thane's blood ran cold. "Arrested?" he demanded. "On what charges?"

"A laundry list. Embezzlement, grand larceny, assault, accessory to various crimes. Conspiracy to commit murder. Obstruction of justice." She drew a deep, shuddering breath and let it out in a rush. "Anything Detective Anaya could get to stick—and she has evidence for most of it."

"What kind of evidence?"

"Fake evidence, that's what kind," Cecilia growled. "Passed to her by Ceris. Anonymously."

If true, that could be problematic, indeed. "How do you know that?"

There was a long pause, then Cecilia said softly, "Because Deena is being charged with crimes I committed, that Ceris blackmailed me into. She's punishing me for betraying her."

Thane considered this information carefully. His first instinct, knowing what he did now, was to assume she was lying. Surely Ceris would have tightened her grip on Cecilia to a stranglehold after the debacle on Cyone; it was likely she was controlling her every move now. He knew how crime bosses like Ceris operated—it would not be long before Cecilia outlived her usefulness and Ceris had her killed. But not before she'd pressed every advantage she had.

If she was lying, though, what purpose could that serve? Would it not be to Ceris's advantage to allow Thane to believe Deena was guilty?

Perhaps she was counting on that. Perhaps Ceris knew that he would be inclined to disbelieve Cecilia, and was attempting a bit of reverse psychology to convince him of Deena's guilt.

"Sere Krios?" Cecilia's voice broke into his thoughts, toneless and flat. "I know you have no reason at all to want to help me, and God knows I don't deserve it. But if you care at all for Deena… please."

Thane nodded. "I will do what I can."