Maybe…he didn’t want to?
“It’s an odd lock,” was all he replied.
“Not as odd as the mayor’s lifeblood cabinet, surely?”
“I can hardly see, but I don’t feel any markings for directions. I think it’s a regular lock, but also…not.”
Lux’s eyebrows met in her confusion, but she didn’t ask anything else about it. He’d more experience than she in this. Instead, she listened to his tools scrape away. To the whisper of the sea breeze through the brambles and the waves crashing against the cliffs. She listened for anyone coming down the garden path. She listened to—a crow?
The creature cawed and startled Shaw enough that he dropped one of the tools. It startled Lux hardly at all. She stared up at it perched atop the stone arch, and she said in a heated whisper, “So you come back to gloat? Or did you come to peck at me some more?”
Shaw straightened from retrieving his lock pick. He glanced at the bird before returning his attention to her. “Enemy of yours?”
“Yes,” she said at the same moment the bird repeated its call.
“It seems one-sided.”
“Does it?” Lux glared up at the animal. “Well, maybe it is. After all, I didn’t biteitshand or peckitsleg.”
“It attacked you? It isn’t—”
“No,” Lux hurried to reply. “It isn’t revived or even sick, I don’t think. It’s only mean.”
Shaw stepped nearer to the door, his attention riveted on the bird and its lack of movement. It only watched them both. Calculating, she thought. But when it didn’t launch an attack, he bent again to the lock.
Lux managed a short, shocked cry and nothing more when the crow flew down upon them both. She could feel wind. Wings. She crouched and covered her head, swatting at the air with her free arm. But she met nothing, and after several heartbeats, the bird had taken to the air again. This time, it landed farther along the fence line. She scowled fiercely at the animal and then looked at Shaw. Found him staring down at his one remaining lockpick.
The crow had stolen the other. It held it in its claws and cawed again—almost exasperated. And Lux could only shake her head.
“He won’t fit,” she said to the bird.
“Pardon me?” Shaw questioned.
“It’s helping us. Or thinks it is. There’s a bend to the bars in there, but it isn’t much. I was even worried I—wait.”
Shaw stepped off the path.
He did so carefully, with his back pressed to the fencing and his front prepared for any movement of brambles. But when the shifting didn’t reveal any teeth, and the bird continued its pacing, he moved quicker. Soon enough, Lux lost sight of him beyond the curve of iron.
“Fine,” she huffed at the crow, and followed Shaw inside.
Luxtuckedherhandsbeneath her arms while she watched.
Shaw gripped the bar a second time, and for the second time, he pulled hard against it. His entire body strained—she was close enough to see the pulsing tension in his neck—as he bent the bar further.
He stood to place his hands on his hips, breathing heavily. “That should be wide enough.”
“For me, for sure. I don’t know about you.” She glanced him up and down.
“You’d be surprised at what I can get into.”
Lux curled her lip at his tone but said nothing. She left him chuckling, and with the brambles’ teeth swaying behind her, she crouched at the hidden opening. Then—very carefully—she squeezed through.
The fabric caught even with her slow maneuvers. She heard a short burst of ripping at her skirt and grimaced, but she’d made it. She straightened at the opposite side.
The cliffs were sheered near her feet, and the sea sent a brutal burst of wind against her bared skin. Lux shivered, goosebumps erupting over her body, but she didn’t dare dwell on it.
There sat Grimrook House.
