by Claire Luana
“You look… fancy,” he said carefully. “Did you come from the gala?”
She smoothed her dress, suddenly feeling foolish and tongue-tied. Part of her had wanted Lucas to see her in this dress, to see her at her most beautiful. What was she playing at? Lives were at stake. This wasn’t the time for crushes or romance. A fancy gown wouldn’t save her from the gallows.
“I met your sister at the gala,” she said, meeting his gaze. “And your brother Patrick.”
He stiffened, his face growing wary. “Did you?”
“She was… not kind in her assessment of me. She was quite distraught at the thought that you might die for my crime.”
He looked away, running his hand over his hair.
“Tell me it isn’t true, Lucas.” Her voice was harder than she’d intended it to be. “Tell me she misunderstood. That it doesn’t work that way. I never would have asked you to put your own life in danger. It’s not right.”
He looked at her, his expression soft. “It wasn’t right what they were doing to you. Willings and Callidus. I had a way to delay it, to give you a chance. So I did. It was my choice, Wren. You have nothing to feel sorry for.”
“But you barely knew me. You barely know me now. What if I really did murder Kasper?”
“I’m an excellent judge of character,” Lucas said. “I was confident you were innocent.”
“An excellent judge of character?” She let out a huff. “That’s madness. You’re a prince! You’re worth ten of me. How could you risk yourself?”
“Wren, I’m not the saint you make me out to be. Yes, it was a risk, but a calculated one. It is because I’m a prince that I could vouch for you. I knew, however right or wrong, that my father would think twice before he executes me. The case will get the consideration it might not have warranted if it was only a guild apprentice’s life on the line. No offense…”
“It’s fine. I’m no stranger to how the world works.” She stood, pacing across the room, unable to look at him for fear the warmth filling her heart might spill out.
“It’s not fine,” Lucas said, standing too, laying his hands on her shoulders, and turning her around gently to face him.
His touch sent a rush of heat through her, and she tried to focus on the words he spoke, not the fine stubble at his jaw, the stretch of exposed skin showing through his haphazardly buttoned shirt.
“I became an inspector because I wanted to help people. Growing up around my father, I realized that Alesian justice was a malleable concept; it depended entirely on whether you had money or connections. It infuriated me. I wanted to have some small role in setting that right, even if it was one case at a time, one person at a time. I had never seen Willings go for someone with the vengeance that he went for you. It wasn’t fair. So yes, I had an opportunity to use my position to help you when you needed it, and I took it. I won’t apologize for what I did, and I don’t regret it.”
A knot grew in Wren’s throat. There had been so few moments of true kindness in her life. Selfless sacrifice, white knights in shining armor—those were stories meant to distract from the cruelty of reality.
But here one was. A man of myth.
“Don’t worry,” he said. He reached out and touched her cheek, tracing the line of her jaw with the rough skin of his thumb. “It’ll be fine. We’ll both be fine.”
Words were lost to her, unsatisfactory vessels to convey the depth of what his gesture had meant to her. What he meant to her.
So she kissed him. She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her lips to his, desperate to say what she didn’t know how.
He tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled her body flush against his, parting her lips with his tongue and the heat of his breath. The muscles of his body were hard against her, and excitement trilled inside of her at the knowledge that he wanted her too.
But then his kiss was gone, empty space left between them. He pulled back with a shuddering breath, pushing her shoulders from him, his head down with a curse. “Wren.” He growled the word. “You don’t… owe me anything.” He met her eyes, his own smoldering in the lamplight. “I made my choice freely. Don’t do this because you feel you have some debt to repay.”
She blinked in surprise, embarrassment and shame flooding through her like a bite of a hot pepper. He thought she had kissed him to pay a debt? That her only currency was her body? That there could never be anything real between them?
She stepped back, pulling away. “I’m not a whore, Lucas. I don’t pay people with…” She gestured to herself. “This. That you would think that of me shows that you don’t know me at all.” She turned towards the door, wanting to flee. Of course, even in his rejection of her, he’d be noble. It had been a mistake to come here. A mistake to kiss him.
“Wren.” His voice was tender. “Forgive me. That’s not what I meant. The fact is, I’m terrible at interpreting the language of women, and so I’ve always found it better to be clear upfront. I wanted to make sure this was what you wanted. That you wanted… me.”
“Do you have so many women kiss you out of obligation that you’ve had to establish a protocol?” Wren pointed out. But his expression when she turned around was so miserable that she softened, her anger cooling.
“No, of course not.” He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Well, thank you for clarifying. I do owe you much, Lucas Imbris,” Wren said. “But I kissed you because that’s what I wanted, not just because it’s what I thought you wanted.”
“Wanted?” His eyes were pleading, and he took her hands. “Don’t tell me I ruined this, Wren. Let’s start again. The last thirty seconds never happened. Where were we…? Yes. I was telling you not to worry…” He stroked her cheek with his thumb once again. “Which doesn’t seem right at all since now you seem like you’d rather pummel me than worry.” A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
She pursed her lips to stop the grin from spreading across her face. “I wanted to pummel you then, too,” she said. “For selflessly risking your life for mine.”
“The truth is, I vouched for you for selfish reasons,” he murmured, taking her face in his hands. “Not for justice, or because I’m a champion for the disenfranchised. It’s because you were the fiercest and loveliest thing I had ever seen, sitting on that couch without a trace of fear, and I couldn’t imagine a world where I didn’t get to know you.”
His words broke through the last of her anger and hurt, and she kissed him again, soft and sweet this time. She wanted to be that version of herself, the version Lucas had glimpsed. The version without fear. She had lived half a life, letting fear rob her of the rest. She wouldn’t let it rob her of this, too.
They explored the taste and the feel of each other with gentle lips. Lucas pulled back, drinking in the sight of her, brushing a loose curl off her forehead. “So glad I didn’t screw that up.”
“There’s still time,” she retorted, and he let out a bark of laughter, wrapping his arms around her, crushing his lips to hers.
Then there was no holding back. They were a tangle of tongues and hands and skin. His mouth traced a line of fire down her neck while his hands glided across the skin of her back, leaving sparks in their wake. He was everywhere, and she found herself falling into a universe that was only the feel and the smell of him—like fresh laundry dried in sunshine and spring breezes. He lifted her off her feet, spinning her and setting her down on the dining room table. The table rocked beneath them, and Lucas reached out to steady them.
A bottle fell and shattered on the floor.
They broke apart and Wren let out a careless laugh. Until she saw the label of the bottle. Destrier’s Reserve. The bottle from Kasper’s office. They had just destroyed the evidence.
Chapter 24
Lucas and Wren stared at each other in horror.
“Is that…?” she asked.
He nodded, misery painted across his face. “Flame it,” he swore. “I knew
I should have taken it to the station!”
“Why didn’t you?” Wren demanded.
“I was worried there was someone on the inside, who might… tamper with the evidence. I’ve never seen Willings so rabid about a case and I didn’t want to risk it.”
“That risk is looking pretty good right about now,” she said.
He ran his hands through his hair. “Damn, damn, damn.”
Wren retrieved two towels and a bowl from the kitchen.
Lucas broke from his daze and went into the other room. He returned with a stoppered flask and an eye dropper. “We can at least get some of the whiskey. It should be enough.”
He proceeded to suck up several ounces of liquid while Wren carefully picked up the glass shards.
“I have so much to tell you,” she said. “Much has happened since we last spoke.”
“Oh?” he asked, holding up the flask. It was mostly full now. He stoppered it and set it carefully on the table.
Wren picked up the neck of the bottle, with half of the bottle, including the label, still connected. She set it in the bowl.
“I got a sample of Callidus’s handwriting to compare to the note.”
“Are you serious?” Lucas asked, wiping up the whiskey with the towel. Its pungent smell burned her nostrils.
“Yes,” Wren said. “But… I’m not sure it’s Callidus anymore.”
“Why not?” Lucas asked, taking the wet towels and depositing them in the sink.
She stood and stretched her knees, setting the bowl on the table. She thought they had gotten it all.
“After the gala… I went to Callidus’s room.”
“Wren!” Lucas chided. “Do you know how dangerous that was? What if he had returned?”
“Well,” she said, turning from his intense gaze. “He did. But he didn’t find me!” she continued quickly.
“You know how lucky you were?” he said, blowing out a breath.
“Yes, yes. But I overheard him talking to himself. He was lamenting Kasper’s death. Missing him. And he’s investigating Kasper’s death himself.”
“That could be for show,” Lucas said. “To make it seem like he cared about finding the killer.”
“Perhaps. But it didn’t seem like it. And if it’s for show, why is he doing it in secret?”
“I can’t answer that. Who was he investigating?”
“Everyone. Everyone in our guild, and the heads of the other guilds. The Spicer’s. The Distiller’s Guild. Names I don’t recognize as well.”
Lucas frowned, considering. “Grandmaster Pike is odd enough. No one knows all the plots he has in play. But Grandmaster Chandler? He seems so… grandfatherly.”
“Maybe it’s an act?” Wren asked. “Someone gave Kasper this whiskey and wouldn’t the head of the guild know what was going on under his own roof?”
“True,” Lucas said. “But he’s such a humanitarian. He spends half his time campaigning for better hospitals in the city. He had a granddaughter die in the Red Plague, and it has been his cause ever since. It’s hard for me to imagine him as a cold-blooded murderer.”
“I don’t know,” Wren admitted.
“I was so sure it was Callidus,” Lucas said. “He had the character, the motive, the means. My focus has been on him. Perhaps I’ve missed something if he’s innocent.”
“We can find out,” Wren said, reaching into her dress to pull out the list she had swiped from Callidus’s room.
Lucas raised an eyebrow. “Do you keep everything in there?”
“No pockets.” She rolled her eyes, moving the bowl with the broken bottle and smoothing the list down on the table. “Do you have the letter we found? We can compare the handwriting.”
Lucas disappeared into the bedroom and returned bearing the letter they had discovered in the secret compartment in Kasper’s desk.
He set it down next to the list.
Right away, Wren could see the differences. It was as she suspected when she had first glanced at the list. She was no expert, but it seemed impossible that they were written by the same hand. Callidus’s list had been written in that same cramped hand she had seen in the journal, miserly and enigmatic as he was. There was no flair, no passion in that hand.
The letter, on the other hand, was written in a flowing cursive, a script that sprawled across the page with flourishes and curls.
“These aren’t the same person,” Lucas said. “Look at the tail on the letter ‘C’ at the end of the threat. It’s not the same as this ‘C’ at all.”
“It’s not Callidus,” Wren said, the certainty sinking into her and settling in her bones. She had wanted it to be Callidus. Had wanted to unmask the wretched man’s crimes, to show the world that he was terrible. But mostly, she’d wanted it to be him because then it would all be over. And if it wasn’t, it meant their search was only just beginning. “Sable was convinced all along that it wasn’t Callidus. We can’t make a square peg fit in a round hole.”
Lucas groaned, slamming a hand on the table, hanging his head. “I feel like I’m failing you.”
Wren jumped slightly at the noise but reached out a hand to Lucas. She laid it on his shoulder, trying to communicate her gratitude with her touch.
He stiffened under her. “Wren,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said, the rebuke biting.
“No, Wren, look.” He was staring with wide eyes at the bowl of glass shards. He reached out and picked up the neck of the broken whiskey bottle, turning it so the inside of the label was revealed.
Something was written there.
“What… What is that?” Wren asked, breathless with excitement.
“It’s a message. One you can only see once you drink the contents.”
Wren peered closer, turning the bottle in Lucas’s hand. “Charger’s Estate. Hermitage. New moon. Midnight. This bottle was in Kasper’s office. It must have been a message intended for Kasper alone?”
“Not just a message. A meeting,” Lucas said. “And that’s not all. Look at the ‘C’ in ‘Charger.’”
“The flourish!” Wren’s eyes opened wide as she grabbed the letter and held it beside the broken bottle. “The handwriting is the same.”
“And the message is inside the bottle. Meaning whoever left it made the whiskey or at least bottled it. They didn’t just buy it.”
“So we find who made the whiskey, we know who wrote the letter.”
“And we find who wrote the letter, we find the killer.”
“Exactly.”
Lucas sank onto the couch. “Thank the gods we have somewhere to start. We’re still missing something, though. The letter references Kasper revealing a secret. Their truest currency. We still don’t know what the letter-writer meant.”
Wren stilled. She knew the Guild’s deepest secret. A secret worth killing over. The Gifted. What she didn’t know was why Kasper would threaten to reveal it. For what end?
Lucas was examining her with his discerning gaze. “You know, don’t you? The secret. What is it?”
Wren stepped back involuntarily, shaking her head. “I don’t know what the letter is talking about.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’m not lying,” she said.
“You can’t even effectively lie about being a liar,” he said. “What’s the secret, Wren?” He took one of her hands in his own, drawing her close, looking up at her expectantly. “You can trust me. I won’t tell anyone. But I need to know if I’m going to solve this crime.”
She shook her head, her lips pressed together in a hard line. She wanted to tell him more than anything. To share this revelation, this burden, with someone else. To share how she wasn’t only a girl from the street, she was unique, special—magic.
Even as the thoughts surfaced, her throat burned like fire, her tongue grew large in her mouth and her lips felt like they were covered in glue. That damn wine!
She jerked her hands from his, turning from him,
focusing her mind on other things. The crack in the plaster snaking down from the corner of the living room. The painting of Mount Luminis in twilight, its snowcapped peak shining in the last glimmers of sun.
She took a shuddering breath, opening her mouth once again.
She turned back. “Can I have some water?” she croaked.
He eyed her strangely but complied, filling up a mason jar with water from a pitcher.
She drank it greedily, watching him watch her, two animals facing off warily.
“Wren—” he began.
“I can’t.” She shook her head, her throat burning even at the thought of explaining the wine. She couldn’t even say why she couldn’t say! “I can’t, I can’t. Don’t ask it of me.”
“All right,” he said, taking the glass from her and rubbing her arms. “It’s all right. I won’t ask.” From the twist of his brow, he didn’t seem happy about it.
She relaxed under his touch, his hands heating her skin and more besides. She stepped into him and let him wrap her in an embrace, laying her head against his chest. Suddenly, she felt very weary.
“You should get some sleep,” he said. “It’s late. We can talk things through in the morning.”
The thought of walking back through the dark streets to the Guildhall overwhelmed her. But she didn’t want to ask to stay here. She looked at him and nodded.
“Stay here,” he said in a rush. “I mean, I’ll sleep on the couch. You take the bed. It’s too late to walk back.”
She nodded. “I’m happy to take the couch.”
“My mother didn’t raise me to let a lady sleep on the couch.”
“Do they even have couches in the palace?” she retorted.
“You know what I mean. Please.”
“Fine,” she relented, and he led her into the bedroom.
The white sheets and gray-striped comforter were thrown back, no doubt tossed aside as he came to the door at her pounding.
The room was sparse but homey, an earthenware pot full of nestled succulents on the desk, a wardrobe with hanging shirts and suits, iron hooks on the wall hung with hats and a scarf. This room felt like Lucas, and the intimate glimpse made her want very badly to belong here, to fit into this space and this life as naturally as the books on the bedside table.
