“Your brother heard the woman say, ‘You.’ She knew her assailant. That would lead me to question whether all of the attacks are targeted.”
“Instead of random mages caught by a crazy man?”
He shrugged, turning the nut between his fingers. “The watch thinks they are random. Most of the public does as well. I have been too busy to pay attention these last few weeks.”
“But you think the women were targeted?” It made sense. It fit.
He shrugged again. “I don’t know what to think, but today has given me much to ponder.” He gave me an unreadable look and continued to rub his fingers in a circular pattern around the nut’s edge.
I didn’t know what to say to that, or how to respond to the feelings coiling in my stomach. I paced alongside him as we walked home, gritting my teeth every time we passed a drooling admirer.
Chapter 6
GABRIEL
I shuffled another ten pages into my leather satchel. Preparation was rarely a bad thing. And lightening charms made paranoia effortless.
Lucian had teased that I would end up with an entire library attached to my back one day. Like a book-beast hauling my scriptorium.
A swish on the boards, a movement in the air. I tracked the sound of footsteps on wood, measuring pace and weight, knowing what movements were being made without seeing them. Early training had given me the ability to know before I saw, to always be on alert. Later events ensured I would never forget to stay that way.
I relaxed my posture, lifted a quill, and angled my body as if I were simply glancing up from my work rather than pinpointing an approach.
Marietta appeared in the doorway looking slightly rumpled, one section of hair listing over its pins, a faint shimmer clinging to an uneven sleeve cuff, her expression suggesting she would fling herself from the room if I said something about any of it.
“Good morning,” she murmured, tugging at her neckline, exposing a swath of skin.
I twirled the quill and returned the greeting, though my voice wasn’t quite as smooth as I would have liked and the quill wobbled on its axis. She settled down across from me with her plate of food, and I watched her take a bite. Watched her face transform into the rather passionate expression she always wore when she ate—as if she wasn’t sure she would get another meal quite as good.
The first time I had seen that expression I had paused mid-spell—magic seeping and pooling across a talisman’s lines. Only her eyes lifting toward me had gotten me moving again.
Almost amusing, really, to need to shift in my chair. She was described in gilded circles as plain. Brown hair, brown eyes, and today a brown dress.
Researching her had been easy, but not deep—gathering passing observations from acquaintances who refused to form deeper bonds with mages from diminishing families.
It was obvious why a passing acquaintance would describe her that way. She had an average sort of face, one that could shift with lighting and cosmetics, transforming under the right tools and magic, becoming striking or forgettable as circumstance demanded. They wouldn’t linger on the clean lines of her cheekbones, the slight asymmetry to her mouth when she was being self-deprecating, the way her eyes caught light fiercely when she was thinking of ways to save her brother. Deemed by society as passingly pretty, but not beautiful.
The gilded had always been blind to what mattered.
With an untapped ability to blend orbecome, she could be anything. She would be an asset in any task, and I planned to squeeze out every drop.
But the spirit in her gaze gave truth to theotherpart of what society said—a truth I had known the moment I laid eyes on her. Defiance first. Always.
“Will this do for the negotiant’s office?” She pinched the plain brown muslin, hurriedly scraping her bowl.
My eyes narrowed and I whipped the quill into another revolution. “We won’t leave until you’ve had two bowls, if you continue to eat that fast.”
She paused, then resumed eating in a more relaxed manner. “I am going to tell Master Hackenstay exactly what I think of—”
“You will say nothing.”
Her spoon clacked the bottom of the bowl in furious outrage. “I most definitelywill. I have plenty of things to say to that cheat. He swindled us. Took advantage of Kennen’s situation. He’s a gin-soaked, criminally incompetent, swill-bottled—”
“A lovely character list, but you will not speak to him.”
