25
STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
Lady Guinevere’s Potions was busy as usual, and Temple hunched lower into the greatcoat, pulled his hat over his brow to hide his face.He was all too recognizable since Diana’s arrest five days ago.Both her likeness and his had been plastered all over the papers.But he could avoid this visit no longer.Diana needed him.The king kept her in limbo, still.Unsure what to do about her, refusing to let Temple see her.The king’s guards still hovered behind Temple.He’d tried to lose them.Failed.Dogged devils.
How in hell he was going to get what he needed from Lady Guinevere with them breathing down his neck, he hadn’t yet figured out.
A man’s shoulder bumped into Temple’s shoulder.And stayed there.Leanedagainst it.
“You stink,” Temple said.
“Really?After a few days I stopped noticing.”Chester gazed at the potion shop with not-at-all concealed disgust.Then he looked at Temple, craning his head back.“You’re huge.What the hell happened?”
Temple had spent the last twenty-four hours doing the finest jewelry work in his forge without any release of the iron energy building inside his body.He was ready for the coming fight.
“Why in hell are you going in there?”Chester asked, apparently not needing an answer to his first question.
“Why aren’t you dead yet?”
“You didn’t kill me.Remember?”
“A terrible decision.”
“Clearly.Now why?—”
“Why are you following me about?All damn week, you’ve been my shadow.Don’t pretend you aren’t sleeping in my forge.I’ve seen you scurrying out of there in the mornings.”
Chester shrugged.“Hell if I know why I’m doing it.I’ve become, it seems, a glutton for punishment.Some small part of me holds out hope you’ll get angry enough to take a swing at me.With your hammer.Or an axe.I’m not picky.”
“Don’t tempt me, Chester.”
“Don’t call me that, alchemist.Apollo is fine.”
“Losing the title getting to you?”He looked worse every day than the day before.His trousers seemed to be held up with a length of rope, and he clutched his jacket around his skeletal frame.He’d grown a ragged beard, and his eyes were bloodshot.
“You think it’s funny, don’t you?”Apollo sneered.“It’s not.You could never understand what it’s like.I was the Marquess of Fordham.Now who am I?”
“You think I give a damn about your loss of a title?You tried to kill Diana—twice—and losing a title was your only punishment.Diana didn’t ask for this talent.She never wanted it.And she’s locked up in the bloody Tower.”It was unfair.Beyond unfair.It was fucking wrong.
Apollo looked over his shoulder at the guards hovering behind them.“I see your shadows remain.The king hasn’t called them off yet.”
“And he won’t.”Because Temple wouldn’t come like a good lapdog anymore.He’d thrown the summoning stone into the forge fire, watched it melt.
Diana’s summoning stone was still in their bedroom where she’d left it the night of the ball.He’d tried to pay a guard to give it to her, but he’d refused.Didn’t matter.She still had her ring, and he knew from the comforting warmth of hers she was alive at least.Sometimes an emotion came through—loneliness or panic.
He had to take to his forge then, swing his hammer at some innocent bit of metal until the mad impulse to lay siege to the Tower dissipated.
“It’s not mad,” he mused.“Not mad at all.”
“What’s not mad?”Apollo asked.
“A siege.But I cannot lose my damn shadows.”He cast a glance over his shoulders.The men behind him looked bored, but as soon as Temple moved, so would they.Damn it.“Could you at least make yourself useful?”
“I’m not at all convinced I can.”
The shop door opened, and two fashionably dressed ladies stepped onto the street.One held up a round, amber bottle, the kind Diana had pulled out of her pocket the night they’d met.The other laughed behind her hand.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Temple mused.“You are capable of more than you think.He stepped toward the women.The guards followed.He had to act quickly.“Excuse me, my lady, but is that a love potion?”
