“Still. Even if it’s dangerous, I have to go.” Griff took a cautious step toward him, then another, and pried the scissors from Liam’s reluctant fingers. Finally able to take a deep breath, he held those familiar gray eyes he loved so well and explained, “Hefound a map that belonged to Rhun. We think it must be the route he was taking with his friends when he disappeared—this is a chance to get some answers about what really happened to him. I mean, it’s been years, but it feels like we owe it to him—and to Alys, and Wynnie—to find out what we can. My dad was Rhun’s best friend; he’d want me to go too.”
Liam stepped around Griff, returning to the kitchen table to pull out one of the chairs, where he sat down heavily. His expression was calmer now, if still wary. He knew what Rhun had been to Griff; he hadn’t had much of a father himself, only a drunkard who was the reason Liam was so good with his fists.
Griff took the chance to add softly, “And … there might be something out there, an artifact in the treasure Mal’s after, that was designed to combat the effects of magical poisons. It’s got healing powers beyond even Rosemaris’s, beyond the strongest elven potion.”
He didn’t need to say more. Liam would understand what that meant for him too.
Swallowing a few times, the locksmith finally said in a more controlled voice, “Your mom came by this morning after you left for work. I meant to tell you.”
“Which one?” Griff asked.
He hadn’t seen Wynnie in over a week, but he’d seen Vic just yesterday, when he had visited the cottage porch to deliver some of that strong elven healing potion for their dog, Whiskey. It was provided to him in a series of secretive handoffs from the Wardens courtesy of Rose, a vial of cherry-scented, ruby liquid that was nearly priceless these days. When magical poisons weren’t involved, it could stall a man’s death for a day or two, give a body a fighting chance, and it was all that kept the old dog alive anymore. But no one aside from Griff and Vic, who drizzled the vial over the dog’s evening meal once a month, needed to know the reason behind their old friend hanging on for so long.
“Wynnie,” Liam said finally, seeming to have come back to himself a little more. “She found the guy who stabbed you—one of them, at least. YourfriendWills, from your construction crew.”
Griff sure could have used a chair to sink into himself as he heard that name, but he didn’t want to crowd Liam just yet. “Oh,” he breathed, willing his scar not to twinge. “Okay.”
No wonder Wills was still out sick, if Wynnie had gotten hold of him. She wouldn’t have been able to kill him, not without bringing far too much unwanted attention on herself—not in Mayfair, with all its Wardens—but she could have given him any number of lasting wounds to rival Griff’s. Not that he minded at this point. His fingers mapped the area of his scar over his apron, feeling it ache with only a phantom of the usual pain.
“Wynnie said Wills was working for the Shadow Queen. And that shetook care of itand expected you wouldn’t want the gory details.” Liam paused there, exchanging a knowing look with Griff. To her credit, his former guardian did understand at least this one thing about him: his distaste for violence. “She also said—and I agree—that you trust far too easily, and it’s going to be the death of you,” the locksmith added pointedly, frowning as he watched Griff trace the injury that had nearly ended him.
Pushing Wynnie’s sense of justice and his own shortcomings on choosing friends to the back of his mind for now, Griff took a tentative step toward the table, keeping his voice soft as he tried again to broach the subject of his departure. “Look, I have to go. I have to find answers about Rhun, if I can. And if I find that artifact in Mal’s pile of gold, so much the better. The only thing that’s going to come back from this trip with any bruises on it is my ego after Mal has his fill of insulting me all day long, and that’s a—”
“No. Don’t,” Liam interrupted, and loudly. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you promise me anything right now.” He held up a hand, bidding for silence, and Griff complied, not attempting another step forward into the tense space between them.
Hadn’t Liam known from the start, from the first coin dropped on his nightstand, that Griff wasn’t very good at staying?
“What kind of business is it that little creep usually does anyway?” Liam asked eventually.
“I don’t exactly know,” Griff admitted. “I think … he does a little of everything. Real estate. Shipping. Protection. He just seems to go wherever opportunity arises.” Perhaps that was all a generous way of putting it, but he wasn’t seeking to upset Liam any further. Just the opposite, yet the look on his face had Griff wondering if the sweet-natured locksmith was currently contemplating murder.
“It’s just a job,” he said hastily, recalling Mal’s earlier words to him. This time, when he closed the distance between himself and Liam, the locksmith rose from his chair and met him with an outstretched arm, pulled him back into the warmth of his embrace, his heartbeat still rapid against Griff’s chest but his breathing, at least, starting to slow. “Just a job,” he pretended he was telling Liam, rather than himself. “Extra coin for us—from the sound of it, enough for us to buy a bigger house. Enough for us to get another friend for Badger, and maybe a horse. A chance for me to finally heal this wound all the way. And possibly a chance for some closure about Rhun.”
Liam’s arms tightened around him. He slid his hands under the apron, into the comfort of familiar skin, offering plenty of wordless understanding.
Mal’s skin had been so warm, too, the feel of his cheek beneath Griff’s fingers achingly familiar and yet completely new. Mal wasn’t asking Griff to die for him, and yet he would, if it came to that. He and Mal had sat together and talked without coming to blows, and that was more than they had had in long time, that was more than enough—how could Mal ever think he wasn’t enough for him, how could he not see that a simple touchwas enough to still be keeping Griff warm, even now? Was he thinking about it too? That moment when neither of them had dared to so much as breathe? No doubt Mal had already put it out of his mind, if he’d thought of it at all. And so should Griff, because he could never tell Mal how he felt. He didn’t think he would ever be able to get warm again after hearing the laughter that would surely follow.
“Just a job,” Griff repeated at last, once again telling himself as well. “A job. For us.”
Eventually, he hoped, saying it enough times would make it true. He ran his hands up into Liam’s sandy-blond hair and kissed him until he drew some soft noises of wanting from the other man, as if a shared moment of pleasure would somehow make thisenough.
“I’ve still got a few hours before I have to hit the road. We might as well make the most of them …” Griff murmured.
Liam pulled back, looking for a long moment into his eyes before they ventured further.
But while Griff smiled back at him, he couldn’t help that his gaze was already somewhere else again, following the wisp of a ratty gray cloak into the deepening night in his mind’s eye as he relived those moments with Mal.
“Will he hold you through your nightmares like I do?” Liam asked softly.
Griff wasn’t sure what to say to that. He shook his head, a denial of sorts. He couldn’t imagine Mal ever doing anything so tender, not even for Alys, and she was his best friend. Mal had come back from Thrallkeld with a permanent chip on his shoulder, and Griff wasn’t convinced the thief knew what gentle was anymore, if he ever had.
“Well, perhaps you’d better remember who does that, then,” Liam suggested, raising one hand to cup the side of Griff’s face, softly feeling into his hair. “I do, because I love you so much.” Hetook a bracing breath. “But if you go on that trip, if you walk out that door in the morning, you’re fucking dead to me. Leave here with them, and we’re done. If Mal wants to find out what happened to Rhun so badly, he can risk his own neck and come back to tell you about it. I need you here. I don’t care if that means I never get to retire—fuck the money.”
Liam leaned in and nuzzled Griff’s cheek before adding, his voice never rising, “If you go, any of your shit that gets left behind is going out on the lawn for the neighbors to pick through. And that includes your everyday lute, your favorite lute from the elves, and your entire collection of pants that hug that fine ass of yours just right.”
In the end, the combination of his favorite strawberry cake and Griff in just that apron proved too much for Liam to resist, though Griff made no promises about staying or going with the dawn. He managed to convince the locksmith to come to bed to share the cake, to snuggle and get their sheets dirty in all their favorite ways.
And if later, in the sweaty, bewildering dark, Griff couldn’t tell whether it was Mal’s or Liam’s hand wrapped around him just right, well—that was between Griff and the pillows, and they weren’t about to start talking.
