“Give it a try.” Von rubbed his neck where runes were tattooed on the sides. “I’m older, more cunning, and will promptly ignore you.”
“Do you have a key for the lock?” Sander asked.
“What would be the point?” I tapped the latch. “Everyone in this place can pick a lock in their sleep.”
The benefit of living amongst those of questionable moral character meant it was never impossible to gain access to anything. A benefit, but when I hoped to keep a private project private, it proved difficult.
“We forgot some.” Von had his hands in his dark hair, re-braiding the longer, center strands out of his eyes, and used his stubbled chin to point to a stack of dusty books.
Dammit. I plucked them off the floor, studying the top cover. Blue leather with gold filigree embossed on the corners. A saga of the wandering maiden who was kidnapped by a troll king and dragged to his underground world.
Opposites. Forced together. The maiden soon came to love the troll king and his dreary world, so much she gave up her upper lands and placed her heart in one of the troll king’s chests in his treasury.
His, for all time.
With a sigh, I shouldered into the darkened room.
Dust and the smell of old parchment burned my lungs with each breath. It was a corpse of a room. Tattered draperies blotted out the sunset. Linen covered sitting chairs that would need new padding and furs were shoved to the sides, and in the center endless piles of supplies for the empty shelves were stacked and orderly thanks to Sander and his focus.
I added the stack of children’s folk tales to the chaos, then returned to the corridor.
“Jonas.” Von leaned a shoulder against the wall. “Where are your thoughts? You look miserable. Quite unlike you, my friend. Was your moonlit night so terrible? Not compatible in bed?”
“Not miserable. Hungry.” I used the back of my hand to strike his chest, laughing to hide the disquiet in my blood. “And you know we did nothing but sleep, stop trying to imagine anything else.”
“I do not imagine you in bed, you ass. That would ruin any pleasure I hope to find in my own.”
“Ah, did you decide to speak to Brunhild other than thanking her for the food she serves?” Sander asked. “If you never say more, she’ll never know you wish to eat more than her wine rolls.”
“Gods, Sander.” Von studied my brother like he had never seen him before. “Sometimes you say things that make you more of a sod than Jonas.”
“Because I enjoy reading, you all think I am some innocent babe. Von, you live with Niklas Tjuv, the least innocent of us.”
Von chuckled. “True.”
Niklas and his wife, Junius, had territories in the northern provinces. Former smugglers (who were still prone to smuggle) and guild leads of the Falkyns.
Niklas was the most scholarly soul I knew. When we visited their province as boys, Von and I would race through the streets while Sander and Nik read the days away, then tested each other’s knowledge about different mesmers or cultures of fae folk.
“So what is all this, Jonas?” Von asked when we made our way down the darkened corridor. “What’s the ploy?”
“Not every step is a mark.”
“I’d believe that except here, we scheme.” Von winked. “Tell me about her. She’s why we are here behaving like gentlemen, right?”
What the hells was I to say? Should I admit how it felt damn near impossible to keep my distance from her after a mere week? How somehow the bleeding woman sparked heat in my blood?
In my bed, she’d left me in an inferno.
To get close again would simply be another dose of this new, unwelcome obsession.
“Damn.” Von’s voice snapped me from my melancholy. “I’ve never seen you so out of sorts. I think I might be in love with your new bride if she has done this to you.”
I narrowed my gaze, and it only made both Sander and Von laugh.
“She is a piece in a game, much the same as me,” I insisted. “Nothing more.”
“A game you arranged.” Von quickened his step and followed me around a corner. “Now, I have to wonder if you added stakes greater than you anticipated.”
