Something in him, something primal, something absolutely foreign, whispered:Find her. Find her right now.
“A girl would be my guess, yes, but what girl creeps around in the shadows in the dead of night?”
Even more guesses. He hated guessing. “One from that wretched club of aristocrats playing at smuggling.”
“They were dealt with.”
“Organizations like that aren’t always fully handled. There are always foxes that wish to become wolves.” As if he needed any more hindrances. He was building an untouchable empire. For that, he needed more power and more blunt than any enemy. He could not have weaknesses. Could not have rats slipping through cracks.
“I don’t know. The way this person fled, perhaps they weren’t wearing it,” Reaper pointed out. “It could have slipped from the bag they carried.”
Maxen grunted. “You don’t think it was one of those blue-blooded feather heads?”
Reaper stepped up to meet his pace. “Those women are aristocrats. Could they give us both the slip like this?”
Good point. “So a spy, then. But who would send a girl?”
“Him.”
A shiver shot down Maxen’s spine.
Him?
No. It could absolutely not be. He wouldn’t meddle in their affairs. It would mean war if that were the case. Again. The late Duke of Crane, their father, had been the cruelest blackguard alive. The current duke, their half-brother, was a recluse, and no obstacle to them. He might even become an ally, albeit a reluctant one, in the future. “It’s not Crane.”
Reaper shrugged, a silver coin appearing between his fingers. He rolled it lazily over his knuckles. “Could also be theotherhim.”
Sirius?
That man, their uncle on their father’s side, had been “reported” dead ten years ago. Only they knew it to be a bold lie. Their uncle was as bad as the late duke. Certainly cunning. An outright coward in Maxen’s view. He had never coveted his brother’s title. No, that would have placed him under the scrutiny of the man he feared most, the Crown, and society as a whole. So he set his sights elsewhere.
Sirus Faiththorne didn’t have the spine to build an empire of hisown. He was a vulture who fed off the work of stronger men. What he wanted, he took in the dark and had no qualms hiring cutthroats to do his dirty deeds. The man stood for the one thing they stood violently against: killing as a means to an end.
Maxen felt a throb in his temples coming on.
They’d shipped him off in a crate years ago, bound for the East and never meant to return. It was the fastest way to deal with persistent pests without crushing them beneath a boot. Without blood.
But if he had found a way to claw himself back...
God help them all.
If there was one thing Maxen had learned in all his thirty-two years of life, one couldn’t fight a phantom in the shadows. Until he saw the blackguard’s face with his own damn eyes, he would not believe their uncle had returned.
“Let us hope it’s not him.” Maxen’s grip tightened on the slipper. “I want this girl found.”
Chapter Two
Calliope breathed inthe comforting brightness when she entered her shop, The Whispering Wick, the next morning after a quick stroll, Prince trotting beside her, his claws clicking on the hardwood floor as he padded around the shop, sniffing the rows of candles stacked neatly on the shelves that lined two walls—his ritual before settling in the corner on his pillow.
Sun poured through the large arched window.
Ah, daylight.
Calliope could scarcely believe she wasn’t shackled to a hopeless life anymore. She had claimed this little piece of the world, and it didn’t belong to anyone but her.
She swept a quick gaze over the snug space.
Real. It was very much real.
