The Confectioner's Truth

by Claire Luana

  It was nearly dawn when they retired, Violena finding them each rooms. Wren and Lucas trudged up the stairs to their chamber, eyelids drooping.

  Once inside, Lucas tilted over onto the bed, collapsing into its voluptuous embrace. He groaned in delight. “Yes,” he said. “A thousand times yes.”

  “Compared to my berth on the Phoenix,” Wren said, settling onto the bed next to him and closing her eyes, “this is heaven.”

  “Mmm,” Lucas agreed.

  Wren burrowed into his side, nestling herself in the crook of his arm, resting her head on his shoulder. Sleep tugged at her.

  “Wren,” Lucas murmured.

  “Yep?” she replied, her eyes still closed.

  “Do you still have my key?”

  Suddenly, Wren was wide awake. Her eyes flew open as her stomach sank like a stone. “No,” she whispered.

  “What happened to it?” The words were drowsy.

  Wren squeezed her eyes shut. She was overcome with the urge to lie. To keep this perfect moment, to hold it tight. True, they were in a fight for their lives against a powerful enemy who wanted them dead. But here, in this house, in Lucas’s arms...everything was right. And if she told him, she might never feel this again. She exhaled as tears pricked her eyes. She couldn’t keep lying. Not forever. “The Apricans took it.”

  “How?” It seemed to wake him up. He cocked his head, looking at her.

  She drank him in with her eyes—the relaxed stretch of his lean body next to hers, his tousled salt-and-pepper hair, his slate-gray eyes. Memorizing the moment. “There’s something I need to tell you,” Wren said, pushing herself up on her elbow.

  “What?”

  “Remember when Hale and I went to Dash Island, and you were so mad because we could have been captured?”

  “How could I forget?” Lucas said. “I could have throttled that blond asshole for taking you.”

  “Well...” She swallowed, feeling Lucas slip from her fingers. “We were. Captured, that is.” Her words tumbled one over the other as she explained what had happened—General Marius and Sim Daemastra, escaping the Aprican camp through the tunnel—Callidus’s sentencing after Sable had died, her helplessness and desperation to stop it. Going into the tunnel with Hale. She left Thom out of it. She didn’t want to ruin his and Trick’s relationship too. It was Thom’s choice to make, whether to be honest or not. Faster and faster, the words fell, Marius’s ultimatum, Hale’s betrayal. Her escape from captivity and the harrowing trip back into the city under the noses of their invaders.

  When it was all done, she looked up at him, at the stony mask that had transformed his features. The hard set of his jaw, his muscles working furiously.

  “Say something,” Wren pleaded. “Anything.”

  “My mother,” he said, so quietly she almost missed the words. “Virgil...”

  “I know.” Guilt twisted her heart, wringing it out until it felt empty. “It’s my fault. If I hadn’t gone, Evander wouldn’t have gotten the key. Wouldn’t have known about the passageways and been able to sneak in. Lucas, I’m so sorry.” She grasped his hand, pressing it between hers. Tears were falling now, salty and bitter. “You have to know how sorry I am. I was just trying to help. I thought... I don’t know what I thought.”

  “You thought you’d sell my family out to our enemies?” Lucas pulled his hand from her grip, recoiling away from her, off the bed, pressing himself against the far wall. As if he couldn’t get enough space between them. “You just thought you’d, what...lie to me? Kiss me and lay with me like everything was all right—all the while knowing my family is dead because of you?” He spun around, his hands covering his mouth, his face, running through his hair.

  “There just wasn’t...the right moment.” She sobbed, knowing it was a weak excuse. She had been selfishly putting off this conversation. “I was worried...I didn’t want to hurt you. To ruin things between us.”

  “Well, you have a funny way of showing it.” He whirled on her, his fists clenched at his side. “After all we’ve been through, you should know that the one thing I can’t stand for is more lies from you! If you’d told me straight up...I don’t know. Maybe...I don’t know. I might have been able to move past it. But lie to me...” He shook his head. “The truth. That’s all I ever asked for from you, Wren. And that’s what you seem perpetually incapable of giving me.” He stormed past her and yanked the door open before slamming it shut behind him.

  A picture fell off the wall from the force of the blow—its glass shattering.

  A sob escaped Wren’s mouth and she slapped a hand over her lips, trying to hold it in. She shook her head in disbelief, broken. The truth—Lucas had said he wanted the truth. Well, now he had it. And it seemed it had cost her everything.

  Chapter 37

  Olivia didn’t sleep well that night. Her stomach flipped with nervousness when Dash opened the door to their assigned quarters to reveal a large four-poster bed. Would Dash expect...? Her thoughts galloped away from her. Yes, Dash set her blood burning in her veins, and she wanted to be with him fully...at some point...but in a stranger’s house, with people all around...?

  Dash wrapped his arms around her from behind, kissing her cheek. “I’ll take the floor,” he said.

  Relief flooded her that she wouldn’t have to explain her troubled thoughts to him. “There’s no need,” she said, turning in his arms and rising on her tiptoes to meet his lips in a kiss. “You’ve been sleeping in a cell for the past week. It’s plenty big for both of us to sleep.”

  “If you’re sure,” he murmured into her hair.

  “Just sleep,” shd said.

  But lying beside him, she was hyperaware of his presence. The large shape of him stretched out beside her in the dark, the rhythmic rise and fall of his broad chest, the cut of his cheekbones. She wanted to run her hands over his face, through his hair, to marvel at his realness. But she dared not wake him.

  Since she’d been a girl, she’d longed to find a man like Dash. Handsome, gallant, brave, and kind. Yet now that she had him, she couldn’t deny an uneasiness in her stomach. She had sworn to Wren that Dash was trustworthy. The whole reason that he was here was because of her—because she had vouched for him.

  But what if she was wrong? Olivia hadn’t even seen her own grandaunt’s treachery. What if Dash was fooling her too? He was an Aprican legionnaire. And tomorrow, they were sending him back into the palace—back amongst his fellow men. He was the one who had best knowledge of the layout of the palace and location of the Aprican troops. But what if he had been fooling her? What if it was all a lie? What if the only goodbye Olivia got was a force of Aprican legionnaires knocking down the townhouse door?

  She squeezed her eyes closed against the horrors her imagination readily supplied. She tried to focus on the things that were real. The hours they’d talked in the dim cabin before Dash had ever known he might be released. The sweetness of his kiss, of the way she caught him gazing at her, like he wasn’t quite sure she was his. The same way she found herself looking at him.

  She blew out a shaky breath. Dash was an honest man. The son of a blueberry farmer. They could trust him. She could trust him. She repeated the mantra to herself—a whispered prayer in the dark. One that desperately needed to come true.

  The night sky hung as black as Lucas’s mood. Lucas had done his best to avoid Wren for most of the day, but the townhouse was flaming small. It seemed everywhere he turned she was there, her wide eyes brimming with tears and silent apologies. He couldn’t face her. He just couldn’t. He could hardly make out the layered depths of what he was feeling—but one emotion rang out loud and clear within him: Fury. He was furious with her for lying to him. Again. He couldn’t be anywhere near her. They had dangerous work to do, and he needed his head on straight. He’d process everything after they took back Maradis. If they weren’t dead.

  The tension in the carriage was thick enough to choke on. The Maradis Morning offices were in the Industrial Quarter, all the way to t
he south of town. It was too far to walk, too far to go in the infernal sewer system. So they were risking a carriage, knowing that there was a chance that they could be stopped. And if that happened, it would all be over.

  The monstrous machines of the presses required many hands to work, so those of them who weren’t trying to rescue Liam, the baker, had come with him. Callidus, Olivia, and one of Ansel’s mercenaries rode with him; Trick, Thom, Ella, and another mercenary in the carriage behind. Wren, Ansel, Pike, and Dash were headed into the palace, and Ansel’s second-in-command, Bran, had headed back to the ship that morning to retrieve the last of the infused chocolates and fill the rest of their group in on what was going on.

  Callidus was looking at him from across the carriage with a contemplative look.

  “What?” Lucas snapped. He didn’t want to be analyzed right now.

  “Strange vibe in the townhouse today. If I’m not mistaken, you and Wren didn’t say two words to each other. Everything all right?”

  Lucas’s hands tightened into fists at his side. “No, everything’s not all right.”

  “Would it help to discuss it?” Callidus asked stiffly. The man didn’t have much of a bedside manner, did he?

  “Nope.” Lucas shook his head, looking at the carriage curtains, wishing he could open them so he had something to look at.

  The carriage was quiet for a moment. Then Olivia spoke. “Whatever it is, I’m sure you can work through it. Wren loves you.”

  “Love has never been our problem,” Lucas said through gritted teeth. Why had he ended up in a carriage with two of Wren’s fans?

  “That girl—” Callidus began.

  “Woman,” Olivia said, interrupting. “She’s a woman.”

  Callidus rolled his eyes. “That woman saved your life twice in the last month. She would go through fire and brimstone for you. She faced the might of a king and an empire. For you. Not often you find a girl—woman—like that.”

  Lucas pursed his lips. He knew Wren was brave and loyal. He’d never doubted that. But she was reckless, too. With people’s lives. With the truth. It had gotten his family killed. It had gotten them all into this predicament.

  Callidus spoke carefully. “If you’re angry about what I think you’re angry about...consider that it’s like being angry at someone for leaving the back door open before a tsunami hits. Perhaps it was easier for the water to get in, but it was going to get in all the same.”

  Lucas shook his head. “But maybe the family would have had more time to get to safety if the door hadn’t been open.”

  “Or maybe they all would have stayed snug in their beds without that warning, and they all would have been lost.”

  Lucas met Callidus’s icy-blue gaze. There was compassion there, but he didn’t want compassion right now. He wanted anger. He wanted to wrap it around him like a cloak, to cover himself with it until nothing else could get through. Sure, maybe he’d be dead too if Wren hadn’t done what she had. But maybe they’d all be alive. Virgil. Mother.

  “It’s your life,” said Callidus. “It’s your decision. But I’ll say one last thing.”

  “Please, enlighten me,” Lucas said dryly.

  “Don’t wait too long to figure out how you feel. It’s plain to see that there’s someone else vying for the position of Wren’s better half, and he’s not hesitating,” Callidus said.

  Lucas’s mood sank even lower at the mention of the redheaded mercenary.

  “He’s talking about Ansel—” Olivia said.

  “I know he’s taking about Ansel,” Lucas snapped. “He can’t keep his flaming hands off her.” Lucas’s eyes flicked to Ansel’s mercenary, a tall bearded man with the coloring of a Magnish. The man had the wherewithal to stare at the curtains, leaving them to their conversation.

  “You don’t need to be rude,” Olivia said, drawing herself up. “We’re just trying to help.”

  Lucas closed his eyes, taking a long-suffering breath. He couldn’t be held responsible for anyone else’s feelings right now. “I’m sorry, Olivia,” he said with as much gentleness as he could muster. “I know you mean well. I just can’t think about this right now.”

  “Forgiven,” she said primly. “Just...don’t miss your chance, Lucas.”

  They lapsed back into uneasy silence as the carriage trundled beneath them, the clop of the horse’s hooves sounding deafening in his ears.

  Callidus and Olivia’s points, though uninvited, held a ring of truth. Yes, he was furious at Wren. He wanted to rage and scream at her for what she’d done—the risk she’d taken. She could have been killed. She could have gotten all of them killed. But then, part of him wanted to bury his head in her shoulder and cry, to breathe in her scent of sugar and vanilla. To mourn with her. To taste the salt of her tears on her lips as they navigated this madness together.

  But now...Olivia’s words rang in his mind. Don’t miss your chance. Dread pooled in the pit of his stomach. Maybe he already had.

  Wren’s misery made poor company as they moved through the foul-smelling passageway towards the palace entrance. She shoved down all throughs of Lucas as she walked between Ansel and Pike, Dash bringing up the rear. Now was not the time. If she’d kept moving after Sable had died, she could keep moving after Lucas turned his back on her. At least he was alive. And that meant there was a chance of fixing it, however remote it seemed.

  The day had been spent preparing and planning. Arguing. It seemed everyone was against Wren going with the group to retrieve the baker Liam, but she had insisted, standing her ground. She had convinced them that she might be easier for Liam to trust than Ansel or Pike. They didn’t need to know the true reason for her stubbornness. Wren wanted to be there to ensure that nothing untoward happened to the poor Gifted baker. She could see Ansel or even Pike being more cavalier with the man’s life. She would do everything in her power to make sure that no one else died on their crazy mission.

  The tunnels were still and quiet but for the scuffle of their footsteps and the occasional drip of water echoing against the walls. Killian’s Falconers had triggered an explosion in the warehouse holding the infused grain a half hour ago. That was their diversion; now the rest was up to them.

  By a stroke of luck, the tunnel let out in the west wing of the palace, which was also, according to Hale, where the baker was being kept. Dash had confirmed that it was the area of the palace Daemastra had claimed for his own.

  Wren’s heart hammered harder in her chest the closer they got. They hadn’t seen any guards, like Killian had warned them to watch out for. Every corner they turned around, she kept waiting for someone to jump out, despite the infused chocolates each one of them had eaten, and the four she carried in her pocket, wrapped securely in wax paper.

  But there was no one. This place was empty but for the scuffling of rats.

  Finally, they reached the dead end that Killian’s map showed as their exit point. There was a ladder with iron rungs heading up the side of the wall.

  “I’ll go first,” Ansel said.

  Ansel summited the ladder and turned a crank that opened the trapdoor above them. The crank screeched with protest, and they all winced. Ansel waited for a moment as they all stood stock still, listening for signs that someone had heard the noise. Nothing. Ansel cracked the trapdoor, and a sliver of light shone into the darkness of the tunnel.

  Sweat prickled Wren’s skin, despite the chill of the tunnels. She wanted out of here.

  “It’s clear,” Ansel said, throwing the door open and climbing through. The rest of them made quick time of it, and they found themselves in a storeroom. Dash was last through, closing the trapdoor. From this angle, it was indistinguishable from the rest of the floorboards.

  Ansel peeked into the hallway next. He motioned to them that it was all clear. “Dash, take a gander and see if ya can tell where we are,” Ansel hissed.

  Dash followed instructions, poking his head into the hallway. He closed the door again. “We’re near the bathing pools. If Killi
an’s source is correct, we’re a few hallways over from there the baker is being kept.”

  “You know the way?” Pike asked.

  Dash nodded.

  “Lead on.” Ansel gestured.

  The stone hallways were deserted.

  As they went to turn a corner, Ansel pulled Dash back, shoving him against the wall.

  The sound of boots on the stones sounded down the corridor. Wren peeked around the corner, sandwiching herself between Dash and Ansel. Her stomach dropped. It was Hale, his face hard, his uniform buttons gleaming in the flickering torchlight.

  She pulled back against the far wall, trying to keep her breathing in check. Hale was here. In the same wing as Daemastra. The same wing as the baker. Was he helping the Apricans with their strange experiments, or trying to undermine them from the inside?

  “Clear,” Ansel said.

  Wren followed in their wake, her mind sluggish after the sight of Hale.

  “You all right?” Pike asked.

  She nodded woodenly. She didn’t know. She hadn’t been prepared to see him in this place.

  “I think I found ‘im,” Ansel said.

  Wren let out a breath. Could it be that easy?

  “Wren, do the honors?” Ansel asked, nodding towards the lock.

  Wren knelt down, taking her lockpicks out with shaky fingers.

  “You’ve got this,” Pike said.

  She worked at the lock, springing it free. She stood and pushed the door open.

  The man inside was gaunt and haggard, heavy shadows under his eyes. He sat up from a hard bunk where he lay. “Already?” His voice was hoarse. “I’ve just had an hour. I’m supposed to get at least two hours of sleep. Please.” He looked near tears.

  “We’re not here to take you to the Apricans. We’re here to rescue you,” Wren said. “Come with us.”

  “What? Who are you?”

  “We’re from the Confectioner’s Guild,” Wren said.

  “And Spicer’s,” Pike said, cutting in. “We need to get you out.”