I froze as he found the two hairpins there and gently pulled them free. The waving strand that had been pinned away from my face fell onto my shoulder and Ezra looked at it before holding the pins between us.
I struggled to draw a breath into my tight chest. “Hairpins.”
“They’re as good as anything else,” he answered, setting one of them down.
I could still feel his touch, the trail of it burning on my skin. But he had turned his attention back to the chest.
“You’ll need extra in your hair just in case. The first, you’ll bend like this.” He shaped the metal into a point. “You’re left-handed, so the other, you’ll use in that hand.”
“How do you know I’m left-handed?” I studied him, suspicious.
“I have eyes.” He fit the bent one inside the lock’s opening before sliding the straight pin in beneath it. “Like this.” Once he’d shown me, he pulled them back out to let me try.
I took the pins from his fingers, taking care not to touch him, and slid the chest closer to me. I mimicked what he’d done, putting the folded pin in first, then the straight one.
“Use the top one to feel where the pins are. They’ll slide up easily until you reach the key pin.”
I pressed the tip of the pin up from back to front, finding the openings in the metal. “What does the key pin feel like?”
“It will be more resistant than the others. More rigid.” He was slipping into the ease of work, his rough edges and the tension in his voice softening. “When you find it, use the pin to gently push it up until it clicks into place. You’ll hear it.”
I trained my eyes on the edge of the table, trying to feel my way through until I reached a pin that was heavier than the others. It took a few tries, but I finally wedged the pin up enough to lift it and heard a soft click.
“Good. That’s the easy one. Now do the same thing, looking for the next one.”
I lowered the pin and moved it forward, but the metal wall inside was smooth. “I don’t feel it.”
Ezra drifted closer to me and I inhaled the smell of cloves coming off of him. His jacket. His hair. The scent followed him wherever he went. I could taste it on my tongue.
I immediately leaned back, putting more air between us.
He reached up, positioning his hand against mine and the tips of his fingers slid over my knuckles until he was directing my movements. The warmth of his skin made my stomach feel like it was full of stones.
“There.” He tilted the pin upward at an angle until the tip found the next groove.
But when he let me go and I tried lifting, it snapped back down, bringing the other pin with it. “Damn it.” I groaned.
“It’s going to take practice. Try again.”
“I am trying.” I shot him a pointed look.
He tossed the second pin onto the stack of parchments, setting his elbows onto the desk. “If you have something to say, then say it.”
Heat crept up from the neck of my frock as his eyes ran over my face. “Fine. You shouldn’t have hit him. He’s a child.”
Ezra scoffed. “He’s hardly a child. He’s ten years old.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t know what you were doing at that age, but I wasn’t being served tea with sugar and playing with toys,” he said, flatly.
I narrowed my eyes. He was implying that being raised in Nimsmire had made me soft. Fragile. That I couldn’t possibly understand the way they did things. It all came down to the same point: I wasn’t one of them. “Child or not, you don’t just hit someone when they don’t do what you tell them to.”
He shook his head, muttering something under his breath that I couldn’t understand.
“What?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he snapped.
“Neither do you. I know you think I’m ridiculous. That I don’t deserve to be here. You look at me and you see a girl raised in Nimsmire with sugar in her tea.” My voice rose, repeating his own words back to him. “You think I can’t do this.”
But Ezra didn’t look angry, which made me feel even more foolish. He leveled his gaze at me, speaking evenly. “I don’t think that.”
“Then what?” I snapped.
He said nothing for a moment, eyes running over my face and making me want to shove away from my stool. He leaned in closer, meeting my eyes. “I see a girl hiding beneath silk skirts.” He breathed. “Makes me wonder what you’re afraid they’ll see.”
I swallowed against the pain in my throat. I’d thought more than once that I’d known a hundred men like him, but I was beginning to wonder if I was wrong. There was an unsettling feeling inside of me when Ezra looked at me. As if he could see much more than I wanted him to.
And I wasn’t only angry that he’d hit Tru. I was angry that he’d watched Arthur hit me.
“I know you were there in the alley,” I whispered. “When I went to the pier.”
The set of his mouth faltered, and I watched as his lips pressed together for just a moment. “I wasn’t even supposed to be there,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Look,” Ezra said suddenly. “I’m only going to say this once.” He kept his voice low, as if he was being careful not to be overheard. “Family means something different to these people, Bryn.”
I bit down on my bottom lip painfully. He had never said my name. I was sure he hadn’t, because I’d never felt that bloom in my chest before. He was horrible and callous and cruel. But there was something else about Ezra that felt like a sinking stone in water. One that never hit bottom.
“Now…” He returned his gaze to the lock and he picked up the pin, holding it out to me. “Again.”
THIRTEEN
The couturier had worked through the night, appearing at the door after breakfast with an enormous armload of unfinished jackets and trousers. His hair was spilling from his hat, his eyes darkened with sleeplessness, but as soon as I let him into the library, he got to work.
The raw stitching along the hems of the garments was only a placeholder for the detailed handwork he would do once the fit had been checked. A couturier never relied solely on measurements. Until he saw the fabric draped over the body, he wouldn’t finalize a single seam.
I didn’t miss the way his eyes traveled over the room as he got his things organized. He was probably used to working in the most decadent homes of the guild, but coin was coin. He was a fool if he let pride get in the way of a full purse, and I wondered now if whispered rumors had already begun in the Merchant’s District about Henrik. If Simon had managed to keep his invitation a secret, it wouldn’t stay that way for long.
“I’ll take the boy first,” he said, finding the smallest jacket in the stack. Tru’s jacket.
I leaned out of the study, calling his name, and my voice echoed up the stairwell. It was followed by the sound of footsteps and soon Tru was coming through the door.
I’d tried not to stare at him when he arrived after breakfast to help Henrik in the workshop, but one of his eyes was blackened, his cheek swollen. From the way he chewed on only one side when Sylvie gave him a biscuit, I guessed the inside of his mouth had a nasty cut as well. But he didn’t complain, and I didn’t want to embarrass him by calling attention to it. The couturier, on the other hand, inspected Tru’s face with sharp eyes as the boy unbuttoned his jacket. Whatever he was thinking, he bit his tongue.
Tru stood before the window and held his arms out to either side so the couturier could slide on what would become his new waistcoat. Even with the seams unfinished, his work was flawless. The fit hugged all the right places despite Tru’s small stature, making him look older than his ten years. The dinner jacket was next, and Tru seemed confused by its length, instinctively pushing the tails away from his legs.
“These look funny,” he straightened the collar beneath his chin.
“Well, you don’t look funny.” I smirked. “You look handsome.” I pushed his hands out of the way, doing the buttons up
myself before he could smudge the white fabric of the shirt. In the light, his eye didn’t appear quite as dark as it had in the workshop, but it still looked like it hurt. I waited for the couturier to go back to the study before I finally spoke in a low voice. “You shouldn’t let them treat you like that, you know.”
Tru gave me a puzzled look, shaking out one of his sleeves to measure the cuff’s length. “Like what?”
“What happened yesterday. With Ezra.” I tipped my chin toward the open doorway where I could hear Ezra’s hammer echoing through the house. I’d heard him leave the house after we finished with the lock and he hadn’t returned until almost morning.
Tru still looked confused. “But I forgot to check the count.”
I stared at him blankly before I sighed, turning him around to check the fit across the shoulders. They were insane. All of them. Even Tru wasn’t angry about what Ezra had done. The words he’d spoken last night in my room came back to me, making me shiver. Family means something different to these people.
“What did your father say about your face?” I asked, a bite edging the words.
He shrugged. “To check the count next time.”
I scoffed. “And your mother?”
That was the only question he didn’t seem keen to answer. He stared straight ahead, out the window.
Though she’d been the only other woman in the house apart from Sylvie, she hadn’t said one word to me in the few times I’d seen her. I’d sensed a tension between Anthelia and the others at the family dinner. There was a distance there, even if it was a polite one. Sariah had never met her or Tru and Jameson, so I wasn’t sure if Anthelia had known my parents. But she’d married into the Roths, which seemed like its own kind of insanity.
I turned him again. “I don’t remember my parents, you know,” I said, watching his face carefully. “I was about as big as Jameson when they died.”
“I know,” he said, softly.
“I’m sure you’ve heard more stories about them than I have. Maybe you could tell me about them.”
“He doesn’t like it when we talk about Aunt Eden,” Tru whispered, his mouth twisting up on one side. He winced, as if the motion hurt.
My brow furrowed. “Henrik?”
He nodded.
I hadn’t heard Henrik speak of my parents. Not once. I searched Tru’s face for whatever he wasn’t saying.
“Auster, either,” he added.
“Auster.” I studied him. “Sariah’s grandson?”
Tru nodded, whispering, “He used to live in your room, but he ran away a long time ago. Climbed out the window and never came back.”
That’s who Murrow had been talking about when he said whoever lived in my room was gone. The few times Sariah had spoken about Auster, it had sounded like he was dead. But now that I thought about it, she’d never actually said that.
My mind went to the discolored spot on the papered wall of the study. Maybe his was the portrait that had been taken down.
I had a feeling if I pressed, Tru would tell me more, but I wasn’t going to get him into any more trouble with the others. I brushed off the shoulders of the jacket, giving him one last look over.
“Am I done?” He perked up instantly.
I smiled at him. “You’re done.”
He slipped out of the waistcoat and out of the room before I heard the door to the workshop open and close again. Murrow was already waiting outside of the study, reading over a stack of parchments silently. His hair was always just on the verge of unkempt and his pants a little too short, but he was very easy on the eyes. I could see all three of my uncles in him and I wondered if somewhere in there, he looked like my mother, too. But that was a face I didn’t know well enough to recognize.
“You’re next,” I said, waving him inside.
He finished reading before he glanced up at me. “In a minute. I have to…”
“Now,” I said, raising an eyebrow at him.
He groaned, setting the pages onto Henrik’s desk before he came through the doors of the library. The couturier was already holding up the green jacket and Murrow begrudgingly got into place, sliding his arms inside. Once it was on, I straightened it, giving the couturier a nod. The green wool looked good on him.
“I still don’t understand why we need new clothes,” he muttered. “What difference is it going to make? Coin is coin. As long as we have enough, we’ll be fine.”
“It will make all the difference in the world,” I answered. “These people don’t need copper. Image is what matters to them. If you don’t look the part, you don’t belong. They’ll never invite the Roths into the guild unless they believe you can act like one of them.”
Murrow’s jaw clenched. He didn’t like that answer.
I studied him. “You don’t want to join the guild?” I guessed.
“I don’t know. Do you?”
The question caught me off guard. No one in this house had asked me what I thought about anything. But Murrow stared into my eyes, waiting, as if he really wanted to know. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I guess I still don’t understand enough about any of this to know what I think about Henrik getting a merchant’s ring.”
“But you know about the guilds. How they work.”
I shrugged. “Sariah works closely with the guilds in Nimsmire, but she’s not a merchant. Even they don’t want to fully associate with a Roth.”
“Simon did it, somehow.”
“The watchmaker?”
“He used to run the same kind of trade in North End. Didn’t come from a merchant family and somehow worked his way into the guild.”
“You wouldn’t know it by looking at him,” I said.
“He may look like them, but he’s still the same bastard he was in North End. Anyone who crosses him doesn’t come out the other side of it. He’s dumped more bodies into the water than our entire family combined.”
My eyes widened at the admission, my hands stilling on the lapels of his jacket.
Murrow laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re too refined to speak of such things. It’s no secret.”
I glared at him, annoyed at the implication. “How did Henrik end up with the merchant’s ring from Ceros, anyway?”
Murrow pulled the sleeves of his shirt down to check the length. He looked surprised when he saw that the cuffs fell perfectly against his wrists. “He got very lucky.”
“How?”
Murrow paused, looking over his shoulder to be sure the couturier wasn’t listening. “Someone needed something from him at a very opportune moment. I don’t know if he’ll find the same luck again.”
“Then why are you going along with all of this?”
He almost laughed again. “If Henrik wants to know what I think, it would be the first time. That isn’t how things work here. Ezra is the one he listens to.”
I wanted to ask what he meant, but I was beginning to fear the edge of the boundaries in this house. If Tru got a black eye for not counting the coin correctly, what would asking too many questions get me? “Is that why you stood by yesterday when Ezra hurt Tru?”
Murrow stared down at me, his eyes squinting under his wavy hair.
“You should have done something.” I adjusted his jacket, more roughly than was necessary.
But there wasn’t any humor in his eyes. “Ezra did him a favor, Bryn.”
I stepped back, giving him a look of sheer disbelief. They were crazy. All of them. “What does that even mean?”
His head tilted a little to one side and his voice lowered. “If Ezra hadn’t given him that black eye, Henrik would have given him worse. Don’t make assumptions about things you don’t understand.”
He fastened the last button of the jacket as the couturier returned and I stepped back, watching as he pinned the places in the fabric that needed adjusting.
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
That was what Ezra had meant. He was protecting Tru by dealing with the mistake before Henrik had to. A
nd he’d returned to the house with him. Maybe to report the mistake himself.
It hadn’t occurred to me to ask myself why Murrow had come to Ezra with the problem in the ledger instead of going straight to Henrik. He’d gone to Ezra to protect Tru from whatever Henrik would dole out. And Ezra had been the one to make sure there was evidence of a punishment. That was the reason Tru wasn’t angry with him. It was probably also the reason his father didn’t seem bothered by what had happened. He might have even been grateful.
There were the rules and there were the consequences. A sharp line divided the two. But in this house, perhaps sometimes, violence was a mercy.
FOURTEEN
My uncles had grown quiet in the last few days leading up to the dinner at Simon’s, all moving around Henrik’s orders with careful attention. And though Henrik seemed himself, there was even something about him that was amiss. As if the stakes of the dinner were weighing on him. He was nervous.
We stood around the table, silently waiting until Henrik pulled out his chair and everyone else followed. Noel and Anthelia shared a look across the table as she tried to pull a wriggling Jameson into her lap and Noel reached out, taking the child from her. He settled in his father’s arms, sticking a thumb into his mouth, instantly calm. They may be covered in other people’s blood half the time, and I may not understand the dynamics that ran this family, but there was a kind of tenderness between them, making what happened with Tru even more confusing. To me, all of it was madness. To them, it was just the way of things.
I unfolded my napkin into my lap, my hands hitting the edge of the table when Henrik said my name.
“Now, Bryn.” He drew in a breath, settling the lightness in the room that had been there only a moment ago. “What do we need to know for this dinner?”
I stared at him, unsure of his meaning.
“The dinner,” he said, with less patience. “What do we need to know if we’re not going to make fools of ourselves?”
“Oh.” I looked between him and the others, shrinking under their attention. Even Ezra was waiting for my answer. I swallowed, studying the table. “Well, for starters, the napkins.”
The Last Legacy Page 9
