“This feels weirdly formal now,” Eyden said, leaning his elbows on the table.
“All business?” she asked, clearly kidding, but Eyden seemed serious.
“It was never just business with you.”
Swallowing, Lora leaned back in her chair, needing that extra space between them. She ran through the list of questions she had saved in her head and decided to go back to the beginning. “What did Marcel say to convince you to help me? It must have been business-related at the very beginning. I’m not saying that to judge you, I just need to know why.”
Eyden’s smile slipped as he exhaled, clearly not thrilled about the question.
“No more secrets. We’re beyond that now, aren’t we?” Lora urged. If this thing between them was real—and her heart screamed at her it was—there couldn’t be anything left unsaid between them. No more lies that could ruin them.
“No more secrets,” he agreed, still visibly pained. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but I need you to know that…I’ve made mistakes. I’ve messed up more than once, done things I’m not proud of.” His tone made Lora shiver. “And maybe you’ll never look at me the same again, but I’m not that person anymore.”
She took a shaky breath and braced herself. “Go on.”
“When El first came to stay with me, I didn’t have much. I was mostly living off pickpocketing, but adding another person to feed, to care for, was more than difficult. I was only seventeen. I was barely scraping by, and then…El got sick. I was so afraid it would be as bad as when she got sick as a child and lost part of her hearing.”
He paused, his eyes trained on his hands on the table. Lora caught a glimpse of a bracelet sticking out of his sleeve. It had the same stone as the bracelet he had given her. “One day, while I was out pickpocketing, barely making ends meet, I joined a poker game on a whim. It quickly became a regular thing.”
“So that’s how you knew you would win that poker game at that diner on the way to Ilario’s?” Lora asked. He’d been so cocky.
“I was damn good at it, but no one wins every single time. I learned that the hard way. One day, this guy joined the game and put in a shit ton of silver. I couldn’t match him, but he said I could work it off should he win. I was sosureI’d win. I didn’t even question him about the work he did.”
“And you lost?”
Eyden let out a sad laugh, chilling her blood. “I lost fucking big. All my savings. And suddenly, I was working for him. He wasn’t someone to fuck around with. He forced me to keep my word.”
Suspicion crept into Lora’s mind. “Who was he?”
Eyden looked up at her then, his eyes as cold as ice, reflecting deep sorrow. “Rahmur Piers.”
Lora hadn’t forgotten that name. That was the name Eyden had given in Rubien when asked which trader had sent them for the living blood sources. “The blood trafficker?”
“Yes.” A dark lock fell into his eye as he hung his head. “I’m not proud of it. I never captured any humans, I only dealt with moving parcels. I never even looked inside them, but Iknewwhat it was.”
A mix of emotions went through her. She pushed them back and asked, “How does Marcel play into this?”
“When I finally worked off my debt, I needed arealjob. During my work, I met another trader who mentioned a human trader was looking for someone to work with. Someone experienced. I couldn’t exactly tell him about my previous work, but I wrote Marcel a letter, asking him to be my client, pleading that I needed this job. And he agreed. Once I started working with him, the jobs kept coming and I was in business—legitimately this time. As legitimately as you can be in the black market business.”
“Who knows about this?”
“Ilario only knows I have a gambling issue.”
Lora raised her eyebrows. “You still do?”
“I hadn’t played poker in years until that time in the diner. I wish I could say there wasn’t some thrill in it for me. I almost played again recently. I told myself it was to get more silver for our mission, but that would only be half true.”
“What about Elyssa?”
Eyden exhaled loudly. “She knows about my gambling, but she didn’t know how it started. Now she does. It’s why we got into that fight.”
“Why now?” It didn’t seem like Eyden to drag up the past if he wasn’t forced to.
“The reason Rhay let us into the palace was because he wanted to buy fortae.”
“What?” Lora knew Rhay liked to party and get drunk, but fortae? She’d thought better of him.
“It wasn’t for him,” Eyden assured her, leaning back in his chair. “It was for Amira. It’s why El went with her. Because she can make the drug herself. She’s not happy about it, but you know El—no risk is too fucking great. She had to take the chance.”
