“Nobody,” Kane said. “At least not right now.”
Fletcher had disappeared from his side, Zaria realized. A moment later he appeared again, dragging what looked to be two wooden pallets on wheels. She frowned. “What are those for?”
Kane ignored her, stalking up to the front door. He bent over the lock, his body shielding Zaria’s view of whatever he was doing, but she was able to guess. Sure enough, a moment later there was an audibleclick. Kane gave the door a shove, and it swung open.
“Nice,” Fletcher said, beginning to drag the wooden pallets up the front steps. The wheels clunked dully on each subsequent stair.
Zaria watched in blatant confusion. “Would one of you mind telling me what, exactly, we’re doing here?”
Kane stared at her from the doorway, eyes half-lidded. One side of his mouth tilted up, and there was more amusement in that look than Zaria would have liked.
“Haven’t you guessed?” he said. “We’re committing a crime, Miss Mendoza.”
ZARIA
ZARIA STARED ATKANE. HER THOUGHTS WERE ALL A JUMBLE—she didn’t know if she was waiting for more information, for her feet to start moving, or for Kane to tell her he was joking.
She knew he wasn’t joking, though. It was Kane. She supposed this was just another evening for him. That he did illegal things all the time covered by the shroud of night. Whenever Zaria looked at him, it was an effort to remember what she wanted. The primateria source. The Waterhouse jewels. His continued trust—or, at the very least, enough of it to keep him from noticing anything was amiss.
She focused on those things. Let strategy quash emotion. Let logic override the way her breath caught when his gaze met hers, always seeming to communicate a challenge. And then, once she was certain she had her head on straight, she followed Kane and Fletcher into the house.
It was the most beautiful home she had ever been inside. Themain entrance had impossibly high ceilings and gleaming surfaces; a wide staircase in the center of the room ascended to the second level. A glittering crystal chandelier hung above their heads. The air smelled like polished wood and held all the silence of a place protected from outside noise. There was very little furniture; it felt less like a place where someone lived and more like an exquisite display. It was a building that should have held a dozen staff. Yet tonight, it appeared, not another soul breathed within these walls.
“Whose house is this?” Zaria asked again, keeping her voice low.
Kane took no such precautions. “It belongs to a widowed duchess,” he said, the words echoing through the space. “Or, at least, it did.”
“Where is she now?”
“Dead.”
Zaria whirled from where she had been examining a painted vase. “Did youkillher?”
The question escaped her mouth before she could think better of it, and Fletcher gave a throaty laugh.
Kane merely smirked. “We did not. By happy accident, she died earlier this week.”
“Natural causes,” Fletcher added. “She was elderly.”
Zaria wasn’t prepared to be quite as blasé about a woman’s death as they were. Despite Kane’s and Fletcher’s words, she wasn’t entirely convinced theyhadn’tkilled her. “And why are we here, snooping through her house? What’s the crime, apart from trespassing?”
Kane didn’t answer right away. He had strolled purposefully into the adjacent room, squinting through the dim as if in search of something. Whatever it was, he must not have seen it, because he re-emerged a moment later into the entryway, brow furrowed.
“We’re stealing something” was his matter-of-fact reply as hemade his way to the next room over. His footsteps echoed in his wake, an eerie, hollow sound. Zaria followed on his heels.
“Stealing what, exactly?”
Kane paused, beckoning past her to Fletcher, whose eyes lit up. He came to join them in what Zaria realized belatedly was a drawing room, dragging those ridiculous wheeled pallets along behind him. She couldn’t tell quite what they were looking at; everything in here must have been valuable. Sofas and chairs were arranged around a shiny wooden pianoforte, and the walls were covered with portraits and artwork that, for all Zaria knew, could have been priceless. An unlit fireplace with an elaborate mantel occupied the far wall, and a beautiful woven tapestry hung above it. She hated it, this ostentatious display of wealth while so many went hungry in the slums.
“We are stealingthat.” Kane pointed, a self-satisfied smile playing across his lips. Zaria felt her jaw slacken.
“You’re joking.”
“I most certainly am not.”
“Thepianoforte?”
Kane crossed his arms as Fletcher wheeled the pallets onto the patterned carpet. “Yes, the pianoforte. Keep up, would you?”
