“Not evenyoucan deny they sound like arrogance.”
“They remain fact.”
She studied him, and he stiffened against the damnable urge to puff himself up like a peacock. The sensation of her attention crept along his spine, setting his nerves on edge and leaving him acutely conscious of the invading sense that she was deciding something about him.
“Well, well, well,” a drawl came from behind them, “this must be the first time in my life I’ve heard you laugh,frère.”
Maxen cursed, shifting to block his brother’s view, tossing over his shoulder, “I told you to stay downstairs.”
Reaper, blade dangling from one hand, his coin dancing over the knuckles of the other, appeared with the relaxed menace of a man who enjoyed chaos just a little too damn much.
“Reaper.”
“What? I couldn’t resist following.” His brother’s focus shifted, trying to see around him to Calliope. “Sounded like you were dying there. Thought I’d missed something good. Now I know I did.”
Bloody hell.
“What about the man downstairs?”
“The bald one Rollings outed?” Reaper shrugged “Tied up like asack of potatoes. Couldn’t put up much of a fight.”
“Rollings?” Calliope exclaimed. “He is alive?”
Maxen’s attention snapped back to her, meeting her delighted, but astonished gaze. He scowled. “Why would you think he wasn’t alive?”
“Oh.” Her lips parted and closed before she said, “I, uh, purchased oil from him but he never delivered my last order. I thought something might’ve... happened to him.”
Plausible.
Matched Rollings’s tale.
However, why would she presume something had happened to Rollings if she didn’t know a speck of his profession? Perhaps bore witness to something she shouldn’t have? “I see.”
“So this is the little mouse,” Reaper piped up from the back. “Our wily spy.”
“Stand down, Reaper,” Maxen warned.
“I can’t even get a glance?” his brother lamented. “How disappointing.”
“Enough,” Maxen snapped.
“Aspy?” came Calliope’s shocked exclamation. “You believe me to be aspy?”
Maxen sighed.
“Oh dear,” Reaper murmured. “I was not supposed to say that, was I?” At Maxen’s glare, he stepped back. “No need for violence,frère, I’ll leave the little mouse to you.”
“Who is that and why is he calling me little mouse?” Calliope demanded. “I am not a mouse!”
A drink would be good right about now. “Handle the bald one,” Maxen instructed his brother.
“Done.”
Only when Reaper disappeared, did he say to the bristling woman before him, “Don’t listen to him. He belongs in Bedlam.”
Her gaze cut through him. “I have so many questions, but first,who broke into my shop?”
“Why don’t you tell me, Calliope?” He stared.
