Lux’s desperate need grew until she couldn’t bear it any longer; she had to hear him say it. Her chin quivered the smallest fraction when she asked, “What was her brilliance? What was her name?”
Corvin turned his back on the painting to face her. “Healing. Riselda Grimrook. Of the late House of Grimrook.”
Chapter fifteen
“Thisisaroom?”Lux spun a slow circle, dropping her pack to the floor—where she immediately snatched it off, remembering how dirty it was from all she’d put it through. “This was my apartment in Ghadra.”
Corvin’s gaze flicked across the expanse, nonplussed. “A travesty.”
She made her way around the draped four-poster bed to push into the washroom, squealing silently over what she found: a tub, copper and overlarge, with ornate, clawed feet. She’d not used one like it since her childhood, withering away in the late mayor’s mansion. All at once, her skin itched to soak.
“There’s a dressing room attached through that wall,” Corvin said, coming up behind her. “Which you can also enter from a second door out here. These suites are kept stocked for the sake of rare guests, but if you should need anything in particular, you only have to ask. There’s a bell pull beside the bed.”
Lux surveyed her soiled sleeves. “A launderer, I think.”
He chuckled at her back. “That can be arranged.”
A gentle knock sounded against the main door, and Lux returned to the bedroom alongside Corvin. “That’ll be Manphry with dinner,” he said.
He strode to the door and opened it, but Lux knew in an instant it wasn’t, because Manphry was shaped like a stalk, and this man was as broad as a wall.
“Lord Corvin.”
“Oh. Lord Kent.”
Corvin stepped aside until Lux could see the full size of the man entering the room. He lumbered forward, a black hood pulled low over his brow, and Lux’s skin grew clammy—though his hands were clean of dirt and empty.
“And this is your guest, I presume?” With hands the size of meat pies, Lord Kent gestured to her person.
“This is Lux Thorn of Ghadra. A necromancer.”
Lux bristled at the slew of details all laid bare in a breath. But before she could throw Corvin a glare, one of Kent’s large hands reached within his robe and drew forth a measuring roll. “Ghadra? Well, well. And Ms. Thorn can bring back the dead, can she?” The tool unraveled and tumbled to the floor. He suspended the opposite end near the top of her head. “Average enough, for a woman.”
“Excuse me?” She stepped back from him, outrage curling her lip.
“Height, Ms. Thorn.” He picked up the opposite end, and with a flourish, roped her inside it. “Average again.” The roll left her waist, and he looped it quickly. “The rest I’ve an eye for. No need to fret. I’ll have you a wardrobe by morning.”
“But I—”
“Thank you for your time, Kent.”
“You’re welcome. It’s not often I’m allowed my brilliance its range. Tell me, Ms. Thorn, are you skilled at reviving the departed?”
“Of course,” said Lux, still reeling with confusion.
“Praise to the Saints. What a find,” he replied, but not to her.
To Corvin.
Her mouth parted over his final words, and when Kent ducked his covered head to pass through the door frame, Corvin rushed to shut him out. He turned back toward her, twin splotches of color reddening his cheekbones. “He’s a tailor. Or was. His brilliance is in fabrics, rather. But he’s a collector as well.”
Lux’s lips thinned over Corvin’s rambling thoughts. She’d not yet heard him unpolished. In fact, she’d begun to think it was impossible. “So, because he works most often with objects, he treats people like them? I didn’t ask for a wardrobe, let alone to be measured. ‘What a find?’I told you before and I’ll say it again. I did not come here to becollected.”
His color deepened. “Please accept my apology for his behavior. Remember what I warned you of while outside? His manners aren’t what they should be after having been secluded so long. He’s only eager and intrigued. We all are, really—it’s our nature as academics. Of course you’re not something to be collected.”
He’d said she should be wary of gruffness from old men, not insults from one without so much as an age spot on his hands. But following Corvin’s chagrined apology, Lux gathered her courtesy. She couldn’t entirely abandon the role she had to play if she wished to unearth secrets.
She exhaled a slow breath. “I suppose it was a nice gesture. With the clothes. Only, I would have appreciated your asking. I don’t know if I have the funds to cover it.” In her head, her newly acquired goldquins were already spent on the book in Loxlen.
