Excerpt from The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Chapter 1

The walls of the estate emerged from the morning fog before me, long and dark and rounded like the skin of some beached sea creature. I walked along them, trying to ignore the flutter of my heart and the trickle of sweat down my neck. A faint blue light glimmered in the mist ahead. With each step it calcified into a mai-lantern hanging above the estate's servants' gate; and there, leaning against the walls beside the gate, was the figure of a uniformed man in a shining steel cap waiting for me.

The princeps watched me approach. He cocked an eyebrow at me, and it climbed higher up his forehead the closer I came to him. By the time I'd finally stopped before him it'd almost joined the hair atop his head.

I cleared my throat in what I hoped was an authoritative manner, and said, "Signum Dinios Kol, assistant to the investigator. I'm here about the body."

The princeps blinked, then looked me up and down. Being as I was nearly a head taller than him, it took him a moment. "I see, sir," he said. He gave me a short bow—a quarter of a full bow, maybe a third—but then did not move.

"You do have a body, yes?" I asked.

"Well, we do, sir," he said slowly. He glanced over my shoulder down the fog-strewn lane behind me.

"Then what seems to be the issue?"

"Well, ah ..." Again, a glance down the lane behind me. "Pardon, sir, but—where's the other one?"

"I'm sorry?" I asked. "Other one?"

"The investigator? When will she be arriving?"

I suppressed a flicker of worry. I'd dealt with this question when working other matters for my master, but doing so when the situation involved a dead body was another thing entirely. "The investigator isn't able to attend," I said. "I'm here to review the scene, interview the staff and any witnesses, and report back to her."

"The investigator is choosing to proceed with the investigation ... without being present?" he said. "Might I ask why, sir?"

I took him in. His short mail shirt glinted in the low light, each ringlet dabbed with tiny pearls of condensation. Very fancy. Ornate belt at his waist, slightly soft belly hanging over the buckle—a consequence of early middle age. Same for the thread of gray in his beard. Black boots highly polished, trim woven with seaweed-stained leather. The only standard-issue item on his body was the longsword in his scabbard and his dark red cloak, indicating he was an Apothetikal: an imperial officer responsible for managing the Empire's many organic alterations. The rest of it he must've purchased himself, probably for a princely sum.

All this told me that even though I was a signum and thus technically outranked him, this man was not only older and wealthier than me, but he'd probably seen more in his career than I could imagine. I couldn't blame him for wondering why the investigator had sent this twenty-year-old boy in ratty boots to a death scene all on his own.

"The investigator usually is not present at investigations, Princeps," I said. "She sends me to assess the situation and uses my report to make the appropriate conclusions."

"The appropriate conclusions," the princeps echoed.

"Correct," I said.

I waited for him to permit me inside. He just stood there. I wondered if I was going to have to order him to let me into the estate. I'd never given a direct order to an officer of another imperial administration before and did not entirely know how to go about doing it.

To my relief, he finally said, "Right, sir ..." and reached into his pocket. He took out a small bronze disc with a little glass vial set in the center, which sloshed with black fluid. "You'll need to follow close, sir. This gate is a bit old. Can be fussy."

He turned to face the servants' gate: a rounded aperture in the smooth black surface of the estate walls. Hanging on the other side of the aperture was a veil of curling, furred vines of a greenish-yellow color. They trembled as the princeps approached—a disquieting, juddering tremor—and fell back, allowing us to enter.

Excerpted from The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. Copyright © 2024 by Robert Jackson Bennett. Excerpted by permission of Del Rey. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.