The bouquet slipped from his fingers, petals scattering across the threshold.
Elizabeth was gone.
Chapter 44
Caspian’s Hunt
Frantically, Caspian tore apart her chamber, but he couldn’t find any clue as to where she might have gone. The closets and drawers were barren, and all her belongings were gone.
There wasn’t even a note.
The sharp scent of cleaning disinfectant burned his nose. Elizabeth had wiped every surface in the room with it, even inside the closets and drawers, making it impossible for him to track her by scent.
Which told him two things: one, she was much cleverer than he’d previously given her credit for, and two, she knew a great deal more about demons than he’d realized.
Even her sheets, he noticed, had been changed, smelling of nothing but clean linen.
Everything was exactly as it had been before she arrived at the castle.
This was a woman who did not intend to return.
***
He sat in the leather chair in the living room and demanded Fiza be brought before him.
“You really, really, do not want to make me angry right now,” he said, black flames dancing at his fingertips. “Where is Elizabeth?”
“I don’t know, Master! I woke up, and she was gone.” Fiza cringed.
“How could you not know? You’re in that closet with her every day, for Lucifer’s sake.”
“Lady Elizabeth had packed her own trunk for the trip, so I didn’t go into the closet before we left … Sometimes she likes to take care of her own things that way,” Fiza said, wringing her hands. “I haven’t actually been in her closet since before the trip. Wait, no, even before that.” Fiza cringed. “Master, please don’t beupset with me, but she’s been laying out her own clothes for dinner for a few weeks now. When I last saw her closet, it was full.”
He pinched his forehead with his fingers. Useless demon. He had picked a mid-level demon, thinking she would be more intelligent than a weak and stupid low. Clearly, he had misjudged. Fiza had shirked her duties and let Elizabeth pack up in secret. If the girl had been forced to try and carry all her trunks in one night, someone would have heard and fetched him, and she would have never escaped.
Instead, she had been permitted to slowly squirrel away her belongings over several weeks, without anyone being the wiser. It was Fiza’s idiocy that had cost him his mistress. She would be punished, of course, for her lapse in judgement.
“Where does she go when she's not here? Does she have a lover? Some man who’s offered her a place to stay?” he asked.
“She has no other lovers that I'm aware of, Master. I do not know where she goes when she is not with me. With me, our ventures have been very innocent, going to the farmer’s market, bookstores, and some other shops.” Fiza prattled on about the small errands they had run together. He held up a hand to stop the flow of useless, distracting information.
“Which cities?”
Fiza kept her eyes downcast. “We’ve ventured to Calhoun, Veridas, Silas, and I know that Elizabeth has visited Volantia as well. Wherever the Lady likes to go, we go, Master.”
He gripped Fiza’s chin in his fingers, his nails elongating into claws, digging into her skin. “And who did she meet with while she was in these cities?”
Fiza lifted her chin stubbornly, and he dug his nails in deeper, drawing blood.
“Answer me.”
Fiza swallowed, her eyes growing fearful. “I don’t know, sir.”
“Useless.” He released her. “Do you know if she has any friends in those cities?”
“She has only mentioned her friends from back home.”
“Rhodea.”
