by Claire Luana
“I…” She could barely form words. “I won’t let him die for me.” Her fingers tightened on his arm. “I promise.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry about my sister.” He slipped from her grasp and was gone.
She turned to Hale, horror in her eyes. Willings’s threats, Oldrick’s words about the inquisitor… they flew through her head like debris in a gale, slicing her with sharp edges and points.
“How… could he do that?” she asked. “Put himself at such risk… for a stranger?”
“You didn’t know?” Hale asked.
She examined his face. No surprise showed there. “You did?” She shrank from him.
“Of course. That’s what vouching means. I thought you understood.”
“They don’t teach the ins and outs of the Alesian judicial system on the street,” she retorted. “The lessons pretty much start with ‘don’t get caught’ and end with ‘don’t get killed.’”
“I’m sorry,” Hale said. “But this doesn’t change anything. We’ll still find who the killer is. You and Lucas will be fine.”
“It changes everything,” Wren breathed. “I can’t ask him to die for me. Before it was my life on the line. But now… he has to take it back. He’ll un-vouch for me and I’ll go to jail.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Hale said. “Besides, then you’d be in jail and have no chance of proving who the real killer is.”
“Then I’ll… I’ll confess,” she said. “Tell them it was me.”
“No good.” Hale shook his head. “If you confess, you and Lucas both hang.”
The room around her suddenly felt loud and overwhelming. The people and the sounds pressed against her with stifling weight.
“I need to get out of here.” Her hands flitted uselessly, tearing at her hair, her gown. This stupid dress! What did she think she was playing at, eating and dancing while Lucas was dying for her?
“Okay,” Hale said, putting his arm around her shoulder and steering her towards the door. “We’ll get you back to the Guild.”
“No,” she said, shrugging his arm off of her. His presence, which had felt so warm and comforting before, now threatened to choke her, drown her. “I need some time. Alone. Please. Leave me alone,” she said, and she tore out the front of the Tradehouse, down the stairs into the indifferent night.
Chapter 22
Wren sat with a thunk on one of the massive steps of her Guildhall, gasping for breath. Angry tears flowed freely as the enormity of Lucas’s sacrifice washed over her. He had no guarantee that they would ever find the killer. Or that she wasn’t, in fact, the killer! He had known her for all of five minutes when he had vouched for her. How could he do something like that? Put himself in harm’s way—for her?
She couldn’t get over what he had done for her; her thoughts circled back to it time and time again. What kind of man did a thing like that? Her heart twisted painfully at the thought of his graphite eyes and rosemary scent and lean saunter.
How much time she’d wasted, playing with Olivia, stirring caramel, dancing and eating and sleeping. Chances she had squandered, playing at this thing like it was a game, unwilling to face the reality of her situation. She had distracted herself, enjoyed the perks of this new life, because the truth waiting for her at the end of these few blessed weeks of freedom had been too horrible to confront. Torture and death. A sacrifice for someone’s political gain, a discarded piece in a game she didn’t understand. At her core, she had never believed she would prove Callidus’s guilt. Who was she to go against the Head of the Guild? A man who would kill his own mentor to gain power and take his position for his own?
Wren wiped her tears with the heel of her hand, taking a deep shuddering breath. She didn’t have the luxury of time or apathy anymore. It wasn’t only her life at stake, but Lucas’s. It was time to act.
But what could she do? What next?
She looked across the dark street to the bright entrance to the Tradehouse. Music and laughter floated on the air, signs that the party was still in full swing.
She turned behind her to the dim light of the Guildhall. The building was practically empty right now. Callidus was gone, distracted at the gala. It would be a perfect time to sneak into his chambers and find a sample of his handwriting to match with the letter. And anything else she might find. That ebony notebook.
Wren stood, spirits buoyed now that she had a plan in hand. They had ten days left. Perhaps they could pull this one out of the fire yet.
Wren hiked up her dress and flew up the stairs of the Guild, pulling the door open. The normal guards were gone. As she entered the antechamber, she realized that she wasn’t certain where Callidus’s chambers were. She thought back to Olivia’s tour that first day and recalled that the guildmaster’s chambers were on the third floor, with his office. If Callidus was in such a hurry to move into the guildmaster’s office, he’d probably moved chambers as well.
Wren flew up the two flights of stairs, the long skirt of her dress clutched in her hands. She turned left and strode to the doorway, swiftly pulling two of the pins out of her hair. She bent over the lock, making quick work of it. These types of door locks were simple, so it took a matter of seconds.
When the lock made a telltale click, she squeezed through the door and locked it behind her. The room was dark but for the lamplight that streamed through the window outside.
She didn’t dare light a candle, so she let her eyes adjust while she moved to the desk. She rifled through papers in a drawer, looking for one with his signature that she could take. It was difficult to find. Most of the letters in the desk were to Callidus, not from him. At least she knew that she had come to the right room.
She hissed in frustration, trying another drawer. Here, her luck held. A to-do list on stationery bearing his name. Of course Callidus was the type of man to have monogrammed stationery. He had probably dreamed about it as a wretched boy while other youths had been playing ball and catching fish. She couldn’t make out the items on the list in the light, but she could imagine what it said. “Poison clueless guildmaster and take his rightful place.” “Ruin young stranger’s life by pinning crime on her.” “Buy pomade.”
Wren looked at the list and frowned. The handwriting seemed different than the writing she had remembered from the letter. But without it to compare to side by side, she couldn’t be sure. She folded the paper and tucked it in the bosom of her dress, wishing, not for the first time, that the gown had pockets. That would be priority number one in dress-buying from now on. Pockets.
As she closed the desk drawer, the knob on the door rattled. A clink of keys. Someone was coming in!
Wren launched herself into action, flying through the door into the bedchamber. Under the bed. She would hide under the bed.
She dropped to the floor and swore. The bed sat on the ground, its monster frame looming two feet tall. She jumped to her feet and spun in a panicked circle, looking for the next best place to hide. The wardrobe? No, if he opened it, she’d be a sitting duck. The curtains dropped to the floor. But her form might show…
The door opened, and Callidus’s unpleasant voice drifted in from the next room. The curtains it was. She moved silently behind them, swathing her body in the thick velvet drapes. She tried to make herself as small as possible, willing her body to shrink into itself until she was nothing. Why couldn’t her magic be something really useful? Like flight or invisibility.
A lamp came on in the bedroom, and Wren stifled the hitch in her breathing. Her heart thudded in her ears and her body had broken out in a cold sweat. If he caught her, she was done for. And so was Lucas.
Callidus was alone, but he was muttering to himself angrily. “Blooming servants, can’t do a thing right, two left feet…” He trailed off.
Wren peeked around the corner the tiniest amount so she could see a sliver of what was going on. Callidus was at his desk, wiping at his little notebook with a handkerchief. His jacket was off and a wine stain as red as blood blosso
med across his chest. A small smile of satisfaction crept onto Wren’s face. Served him right, getting spilled on at his own party.
He finished dabbing at the pages and left the notebook open on the table, undoubtedly to dry.
Callidus unbuttoned his shirt and retrieved another from the wardrobe. Wren’s face flamed and she pulled back a touch as he took his shirt off to switch to the clean one, revealing pale skin and wiry muscles.
He put the new one on but didn’t button it, sinking instead against the bed, his head in his hands. She felt like an interloper in this surprisingly intimate scene, taken aback by how vulnerable and human Callidus had become without the armor of his scowl and starched suit.
“Oh, Francis,” he said. “Why’d you go and leave such a mess? I told you I never wanted any of this. I don’t think I can do it alone…”
Wren’s heart skipped a beat. Francis. Francis Kasper. He was lamenting Kasper leaving him? Of all the things she might have eavesdropped on in this room, this was the last thing she’d expected.
Callidus stood and crossed to the corner of the room, an arm’s reach from her. She froze, going as still as the grave, fearing Callidus would hear the drumbeat of her heart.
He didn’t. He retrieved an instrument from a stand, a lovely little mandolin, all playful scrolls and warm wood. He sunk back down on the bed and began picking a tune on the eight strings. It was the most haunting melody Wren had ever heard, a mournful song full of yearning and loss. His long, thin fingers danced over the strings, transforming from crafty spider-like digits to instruments of wonder.
Too soon, the song stopped, and it was as if the very air mourned its absence. She felt wrung out, raw, as he placed the instrument back on its stand, buttoned his shirt, grabbed his jacket, and walked from the room.
She heard the lock click as Callidus left his chambers, but she didn’t move. She stood behind the curtain for a long time, astounded at the certainty washing over her. She had seen a man’s soul tonight, and it wasn’t the soul of a murderer. It was that of a sad lonely man missing his mentor. And friend.
As her toes began to go numb in her heeled shoes, Wren finally emerged from behind the curtain, moving to the desk where the precious journal sat, pages drying in the dark air. Her enthusiasm at reading it had withered completely. She wasn’t sure what she would find within, but she no longer thought it was the plan for Kasper’s murder. She flipped through the pages under the low light of the single oil lamp Callidus had left on. She looked at it nervously. Perhaps he intended to return quickly. She needed to get out of here.
On each page of the journal was a name. Notes were scribbled beneath them in a cramped, sloping handwriting. Some she recognized. Pike. Sable. Beckett. Some she didn’t. Hythia. Nix. Castlerock. The pages seemed endless, containing every person Callidus had ever met. As she scanned the writing, she realized what this was. Not every person Callidus had ever met. Every person Kasper had known. Callidus’s investigation into Kasper’s murder. Each page contained his notes about the person’s whereabouts, motives, connections to Kasper. Her eyes widened as she flipped through more pages, feeling foolish. Her own “investigation” was a raindrop compared to this ocean of connections and knowledge. He had everyone in here! Even Olivia and Greer… the maids, the guild controller. She hissed in a breath when she came to her page.
Her name had been circled, and then crossed out. What did that mean? Did he mean to be rid of her? But as she read down, squinting in the low light at his handwriting, she came to understand. He had ruled her out as a suspect. The notes were simple enough. “No connections to Kasper.” “No connections to other guilds.” “No motive.” “No means of obtaining poison.” “Unaware of Gift.”
So… he believed her? Wren let out a little laugh of disbelief. Then why in the Beekeeper’s name was he still singling her out? Why had he all but pointed his finger at her at yesterday’s assembly? Did he just… hate her?
She turned back to the journal, wanting to shake it for answers that weren’t forthcoming. She set it back down, a feeling of helplessness washing over her. She wanted to stay here with this journal forever, analyzing the secrets within its pages. But she knew she had already pushed her luck. So Wren set the journal down, and with one final longing glance at the mysteries contained in its wine-soaked pages, she left.
Chapter 23
The moon was high in the sky, its cheerful face incongruous with the turmoil within her. Wren needed to talk to Lucas. Now. She still had the note with Callidus’s handwriting hidden within her dress, though she suspected glumly that it would not contain the answer she had once hoped for.
Where could she find him? She didn’t know where he lived. But she knew someone who did.
The Temple of the Sower looked as it had two days prior. Soaring ceilings, intricate paintings, flickering candles, and the ever-present feeling of her skin crawling that came upon her in the presence of the Sower or one of his priests.
“Virgil?” she called, her voice echoing throughout the temple and earning her dirty looks from the two devout worshippers who sat in the pews. She didn’t care. She didn’t have the patience to leave the button and wait for him to find her the next day. She needed to talk to him now. Besides, anyone who might take interest in her meeting with Lucas was likely at the Appointment Gala.
“Virgil!” she called again, louder this time, trying to keep the edge of hysteria from her voice.
“Wren?” He appeared at the front of the temple, his visage so much like Lucas’s that her heart twisted painfully.
He hurried to her side, shepherding her towards the back of the temple. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I met your sister today. And your brother Patrick. She told me what Lucas did for me. What it means that he vouched for me.”
His face softened. “You didn’t know?”
“Why does everyone assume that I did? Is it such a common occurrence, someone dooming themselves for another?”
“No, of course not. We were trained at the palace in every conceivable facet of Alesian life; we forget sometimes that not everyone has the benefit of such an education.”
“Why would he do that?” Wren asked. She couldn’t shake the thought from her head. Why had he done it? Was Lucas truly that selfless a man, or was it something more? Something personal?
“Only Lucas can answer that,” Virgil said.
“I need to talk to him,” Wren said. “Can you tell me where he lives?”
Virgil raised an eyebrow. “At this hour?”
“Please. It can’t wait.”
“Very well,” he said. “Give me a moment. I’ll write down the directions.”
Virgil returned in a moment with a scrap of paper, and Wren’s lip quivered. She felt as if she was coming apart at the seams. She looked at Virgil’s kind eyes and concerned expression. She thought she could see the truth of him, that he was holding himself open to her as a peace offering, and what she saw was that he was cut from the same selfless cloth as his brother. He was nothing like Brother Brax or the other priests at the orphanage. “I think I owe you an apology,” she said. “We started off on the wrong foot. And now… now I’ve taken your brother from you.”
He shook his head, a kind smile crossing his face, so alike Lucas’s that it took her breath away. “No apology needed. And at the risk of delving too deep, I suspect that I owe you an apology.”
“Why?”
“On behalf of my order. And my god. For whoever wronged you deeply.”
She stiffened, drawing back, fighting her natural urge to flee, her mind’s ringing warning of too close, too close.
He held up his hands to her, as if comforting a skittish horse. “If you ever wish to talk, it would be a great honor. If you never wish to talk, I understand. We each must own our story and live with it how we see fit. But as for my brother, do not underestimate him. He is not lost to us yet, not by a long shot. And neither are you. Don’t give up hope.”
Don’t give up hope.
Those words took root in her frayed soul, buoying her. She nodded and squeezed his hand once before slipping out the door into the night.
Lucas lived in a flat over a bookshop on the edge of the Lyceum Quarter. After ten minutes of running, Wren slowed to a walk to catch her breath. She smoothed her hair, wiping the sweat from her brow. Her stomach flipped nervously at the thought of seeing him, and she found she didn’t want to look a total fright when she arrived.
Wren let herself into the front door of the building, turning the lock on the gated entry easily. Her hairpins had been busy tonight. She climbed the three flights and found herself standing before the door to number 303. She blew out a breath, finding her nerves jittery. She tried to calm herself. She was here to discuss the case. His vouching. Her heart was hammering from her run, that was all.
She rapped firmly on the door, trying to look composed.
The peephole went dark for a moment, as if someone was looking through the other side.
Lucas opened the door, standing in a pair of half-buttoned trousers, holding a lamp in his hand. His hair was mussed, and the lamplight cast golden shadows on the muscles of his chest.
Her breath stilled for a moment.
“Wren,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“I… I need to talk to you. It’s urgent. May I come in?”
He opened the door wider to let her pass. “Let me get a shirt,” he said, disappearing into the other room.
Lucas’s flat was tidy and sparse. A gray sofa, a table and chairs, a quaint white kitchen with a two-burner stove and a small icebox. The only thing that spoke of Lucas was a bookshelf lined with books and the stacks of volumes that sat on the side table, the kitchen counter, the floor by the door.
Lucas returned, fully clothed, to Wren’s slight disappointment. He lit another lamp and bid her to sit on the couch. He didn’t sit beside her, instead pulling one of the dining room chairs out and swiveling it around.
