But Jarvins had drilled into us that flattery went far with seduction.
We let ourselves be carried a few steps by the conversational tide toward a large column veined with gold. The gala churned around us. Guests in masks were drinking and murmuring as music threaded through the air.
I let my fingers trail along the edge of his cuff, admiring the stitching. I tapped the ring with my nail to test him. The ring hummed in the bones of my fingertip.
“Is the ring a family heirloom?” I asked, gazing at the ring.
“Tradition from my career,” he corrected, lifting it for me to admire. The stone looked like a sapphire. “From the founder of the academy. It opens…doors.”
I laughed lightly. “I prefer a key rather than an artifact to open a door,” I confessed densely, “but I respect a dramatic shortcut.”
“Keys can be stolen.” He rotated his wrist, obliging me with another angle. “Rings are harder to lose.”
“Good point.”
He offered his glass to a footman without looking, freeing up the very hand I needed access to.
I set my champagne on the column’s ledge and let my knuckles lightly graze his palm as I stepped closer.
He turned his hand instinctively. My thumb found the seam on the inside of the ring, and I choked back a gasp.
The key had a pressure lock. It was old magic pretending to be a new design, and I wasn’t exactly sure how to unlock it.
“Your shop,” he said, not looking away from my eyes. “How do you make enough to attend a charity gala such as this?”
“Opportunities,” I explained, my thumb applying a whisper of pressure and a force of intent to open through my magical essence. “I sell to academies, infirmaries, institutions like that.”
“Interesting,” he murmured. “You have heart.”
“I have an interest in the expansion of my shop,” I corrected, smiling, focusing on that pressure lock.
The band warmed under my skin before a tiny click launched down my bones.
I was so close.
“Ms. Vale?” A feminine voice cut in, too startling, and too close.
Wasn’t Dimitri supposed to be protecting me?
I turned to find Aura.
She smiled, one hand on the bar that was next to us as a bartender leaned in. She didn’t look at me when she spoke; she aimed her voice toward us. “Your special order. Shall I have the bartender send the…poisonto your table or would you like it here?”
The bartender looked between us and fumbled, “Infusion, miss, I meantinfusionof fae whiskey.”
“Poison?” Vlaken repeated, the word coming out as a trigger. His hand ripped from mine, and the ring’s hum sharpened.
I let go as if I’d only been tracing a line in his palm and reclaimed my glass in the same motion, giving him an innocentsmile. “Oh,darling,” I said without glancing away from Vlaken, “the only thing I poison are snakes.”
I had to wonder what the fuck she was doing to interrupt my mission.
“Of course, my mistake.” She tipped the bartender a coin. “Surely, you would never poison yourself, right?”
Vlaken’s weight had shifted on his feet as he turned from at ease to suspicious. The ring turned a fraction on his finger as he flexed, showing me that Ihadunlocked it. “Ms. Vale,” he said lightly, “what sort of infusions does your potions shop prefer?”
“Fae-blessed water,” I said without missing a beat.
Back to square one, damn it.
