Free Murder at the Kinnen Hotel by Brian McClellan Page A

his arms.
    “Where did you get that?”
    “I stole it from the Public Archives about twenty minutes ago.”
    White’s eyes were cold and calculating. She produced a pocket watch and sprang the lid with her thumb. “You have fifty-five seconds left.”
    Adamat opened the book, flipping through the pages as fast as he could. He found the right one and then drew a finger down it, searching for a name. “Genetrie Kemptin,” he said, “is the name of a cousin of the Kemptin family, four times removed from the main branch. Her name doesn’t appear in the official family tree, but it does show up in the Family Codex, which is right here in my hand. Her father was a disgrace, all but disowned by the main family.”
    He showed White the entry in the Family Codex, then closed the book and shifted it to one arm, removing several newspapers from his pocket. “If you’ll look here, on the very last page, in very small letters, it announces tomorrow’s execution of Genetrie Kemptin, a distant relative of the Kemptin family, for the murder of her master the Viscount Brezé.”
    “You have ten seconds,” White said.
    Adamat shifted to the second paper. “Four days ago, in the Adran Herald , which is not owned by any of the Kemptin family’s allies, the Viscount Brezé announced his intention to support Ricard Tumblar’s bid for the legalization of unions in the House of Nobles. That,” Adamat slapping the paper with the back of his hand, “cannot be a coincidence!”
    “Your time is up,” White said, closing her pocket watch with a click.
    “If the Kemptin family is willing to order one of their own cousins to murder a viscount in cold blood, they would be willing to hire a powder mage to frame a competing businessman. They will go to any lengths to protect their interests and that has to catch the interest of the royal cabal!” Adamat could hear the desperation in his own voice as he finished talking. White’s eyes remained cold, her demeanor unconvinced.
    Slowly, as if with great regret, she took the paper from his hands. Her eyes scanned the article announcing Viscount Brezé’s intentions.
    “Why,” she asked, “would a distant cousin of the Kemptin family commit a crime that sends her to the guillotine?”
    “Her execution isn’t until tomorrow,” Adamat said. “Let’s go ask her.”
    White handed the paper back to Adamat. “Return the codex to the Public Archives,” she said.
    “Of course.”
    “You have my attention, Adamat. Let us pray you keep it.”
    “I have nothing more to say to the police.”
    Genetrie Kemptin was a stout woman in her mid-twenties. She had a round face and thick, powerful arms, and she still wore the soiled uniform of a Brezé family servant. Her cell in Sablethorn was tiny, hardly bigger than an outdoor privy. Adamat and White had to stand in the hallway, talking to her through the cell bars.
    “I think you do,” Adamat said gently.
    Genetrie sat in the dirty straw on the floor, shoulder toward them, staring straight ahead at the wall. There were bruises on her faces and arms, likely from Lieutenant Dorry’s “interrogation.”
    “I do not.”
    “We can help you,” Adamat said.
    “If you please,” she said, “I will face my sentence with some dignity.”
    Adamat could see no hope in her eyes. No interest in talking or begging for a stay of execution. This, he realized, was a woman who already considered herself dead. He put his back to the wall of the prison hallway and sank down to sit in the filth on the floor. What were his options? Was he going to open the cell and beat the woman until she confessed to, what? Brezé’s murder? She’d already done that.
    “It’s interesting,” he said, “that your execution was scheduled so swiftly. These things normally take months of sitting around in prison, even after the sentence has been passed. What has it been, three days since you bludgeoned the viscount to death?”
    “He was a vile man and got what he