But as she pulled out the width of it to examine, Jade’s eyes fell on an imperfection at the bottom. A jagged slit, about a foot long, where a blade had run through the material.
The realization overwhelmed her, knocking the breath out of her like a wave crashing into her and pulling her under. Of course, she recognized this cloak. She had seen it many times. Her knife had stuck into the back and torn through it the night she fell off the roof at Lord Arthur’s house.
Another image came to her mind, as though the enlightening of one observation led the way to others. The flower she had run her finger along outside wasn’t an ordinary flower. It was the white blossom of firra. She’d seen it here before, the night she came to get a horse to take to Lesseine.
And creeping along the ground outside, where the horses had been grazing and the grass was shorter, was a thick accumulation of morsbane. She’d noticed the horse munching on some when she’d taken it to Lord Arthur’s house but hadn’t made the connection.
“I’m not at all surprised you figured it out.”
The voice that came from outside the room froze Jade to her core, sending an icy shockwave down her spine. She dropped the length of cloak, turning to face the sound through the open bedroom door, which provided a straight line of sight to the bunker door.
There, with his arms crossed and his chin slightly tilted up, a slight smile playing on his lips, stood Nicolas. The assassin.
Forty-Two
“You’re too smart,” Nicolas continued, taking slow steps toward Jade. “It’s why you’re so good at what you do. It’s part of what I love about you.”
Jade tried to ignore how casually he had thrown out the wordloveand focused on what mattered—Nicolas was the assassin. He had killed Arthur, Grannam...Alanna. A fiery rage boiled inside Jade at the last one. She saw no justification for it whatsoever and would accept nothing he tried to explain it away.
He was the assassin . . . and here she was, alone with him.
Theo was coming behind her, but how far away was he?
Nicolas continued to approach her in the bedroom, but she couldn’t let him trap her. She had to get to the door he had just entered through. It was the only way out, her only escape. If he cornered her in thebedroom, she was done for.
Jade left the bedroom in two long strides, and he stopped, his frame still too close to the door for her to attempt a clean escape.
Now, closer to him, she was able to make out his features better. The smile on his face was not that of a predator who had captured his prey, nor of a champion who had bested their opponent. It was a genuine smile, with a significant level of pride behind it. One she might see from her commander for a job well done. Like hewantedher to figure it out.
She would play that game. It would buy her time for Theo to arrive.
“It took me longer than it should have, to be honest,” she said, putting on an air of disappointment in herself. If she could be Elena Tavigne around him, she could be the person he wanted to see here too. “The signs were all there, but I was too close-minded to see them.”
Nicolas’s head dipped down and his arms uncrossed, his expression placating. “Don’t feel bad.” He stepped toward her enough to close the distance and placed his hands on her upper arms near her shoulders. “You’re very good. But so am I.”
Jade tried hard not to flinch at his touch, relaxing her face into a smile. “Clearly. And all the times I pursued you...I should have figured out it was you. Why else would the assassin not try to harm me?”
“Why indeed?” Nicolas raised his right hand to Jade’s face and cupped her jaw, running his thumb along her cheek. His ungloved hand was warm, and something in the motion soothed some of the anxiety welling within Jade. “You put yourself in too much danger following me, you know. I never wanted you to get hurt.”
“I know.” Jade’s words came out tight and quiet, but as the warmth of Nicolas’s palm radiated across her cheek, her eyes fluttered closed and she leaned into his touch.
He angled his head down toward her and found her lips with his, their soft fullness only meeting hers for a moment before she gently pushed him back. They were entirely too close to the open bedroom for this, and she didn’t want him getting any ideas.
“I don’t understand,” she murmured, pulling back enough to meet his eyes, the dark intensity of them only inches from her. “Why? Who were you working for? Another kingdom?”
The single laugh that left his throat seemed more like a scoff than anything, and he stepped back, allowing her some personal space. “I work for no one.”
Jade’s brows furrowed. “Then why do it? What did you have to gain from their deaths?” Her throat constricted as she thought of Alanna again.
Nicolas cocked his head, studying her with a disbelieving grin. “You haven’t figured that part out yet?”
The crease between her brows deepened as she shook her head. He’d expected her to solve that too? She barely knew anything about him. She didn’t even know who he was. A former private guard to the king, but how did that come into play?
She reframed her question: What did she know about the assassin?
Honestly, not much more. He used rienevoir to kill his victims. He could sneak around almost imperceptibly in the shadows. She thought he was working for someone in the royal family, but he’d just told her otherwise. He always seemed to get into places too easily, somehow depositing the rienevoir into food or drink without causing any disturbance. Jade had attributed that fact to the assumption that he was...
Jade gasped.
