“He has a crooked nose,” Nin supplied, deepening her voice. “Brown hair, a slight hunch in his posture. Seems a bit skittish. He was offering macarons the night of the ball.”
Madame Roussel’s brow furrowed in thought. After a moment, she pulled a leather-bound book from a drawer in her desk and thumbed through the contents. She stopped on one page, her finger grazing the paper before it stopped on a name.
“Pierre Martin,” she said, tapping the page and turning it toward them.
“What can you tell us of him?” Cedric asked, examining the roster closer.
“He hasn’t been seen in three days.”
Nin schooled her features, resisting the pull of surprise. It had been three days since she had overheard Pierre whispering to one of Adelina’s servants. They exchanged a glance, a silent understanding passing between them.
His disappearance was too coincidental.
“Where has he gone?” Nin asked.
Madame Roussel shut the book with a resounding snap, pinning her with a baleful stare. “Who knows? Perhaps to that tavern he likes to sneak off to. If you find him, let me know. Inform him that he will be assigned to night shifts for one week and that his salary will be reduced upon his return. Otherwise, his name will be struck from the rolls and sent to the barracks.”
Cedric leanedcloser. “What tavern?”
Madame Roussel stood, the keys on her belt jangling with the movement. “The Briar and Bell. Now, if that is all, I have hundreds of servants to oversee.”
With a shared bow, Nin and Cedric turned, a new lead filling her with hope.
“Stay alert,” Cedric reminded her for the tenth time, his hand gently resting on her arm as they stopped by a service door.
“I know how to sneak around,” she whispered back.
“I’m painfully aware,” he muttered.
Nin bit back a smile at the dry amusement in his tone as they slipped through the door and into the cool night. They wore new disguises, their laborer clothing rumpled, and her hair pinned beneath a boy’s cap. The courtyard smelled of damp stone, slick from the rain that had rolled through the afternoon like a soft siege upon the palace. Guards patrolled along the outer gate, their torches cutting streaks of light through the mist.
By the time they reached the cobbled streets beyond the palace grounds, the air thickened with pipe smoke, horse manure, and washed dust. Rainwater cascaded over blue tiles, forming filthy puddles that spattered pedestrians as carriages passed. Somewhere nearby, a drunk was singing off-key.
It was the first time she had stepped off the palace grounds in a month. Part of her missed it more than she would like to admit: the way she could weave through a crowd unnoticed, the crisp and foul scents mingling together, and the rhythmic thrum of a crowd going about their business without a care for propriety or all the suffocating court rules.
“Feels like home,” she said softly, folding her arms over her dusty coat to keep the chill from sinking into her bones. It was one sensation she hadn’t missed—the unsettling, bitter cold that followed her whenever the weather turned for the worse.
Cedric gave her a sidelong glance. “I don’t mean to insult you, but that’s deeply concerning.”
Nin barked out a laugh but swiftly covered the sound with a slap of her hand over her mouth when a pair of men stared at her from an adjacent alley. Her grin remained when she composed herself.
“I suppose it is in some ways,” she said with a quiet chuckle. “But… It’s all I know.”
From his profile, she couldn’t make out his face, but she sensed a shift within him, an understanding within the silence.
The city’s condition worsened with every turn, the muck and grime a long-lost friend; the once clean cobblestones transforming into cracked paving, laughter to murmurs, and lantern glow to smoky haze. They stopped outside a brick building wedged within a dark alley, a crooked sign shaped as a bell swung above them, just like its namesake:The Briar and Bell.A flickering light bled through warped shutters distorted by time and weather, and a low rumble ofconversation floated through the seams in the door. It was the type of place she had avoided.
Nothing good came out of men inhibiting their senses to make excuses for the evil they wished to do in the shadows.
Nin entered, keeping her head lowered. Slow ribbons of smoke ascended to the rafters, hanging over the men huddled around their tankards, who pretended not to size up every person who walked through the doors. She discreetly took in the sticky floorboards, the slanting timber frames, and the clusters of tables scattered around the room without catching anyone’s eye.
Her vision sharpened on a slight figure in the corner. “There,” Nin murmured.
Pierre sat at a corner table, half in shadow, fingers drumming against the table, his eyes downcast into his tankard as if he were waiting for the contents to swallow him whole.
They approached quietly. Cedric placed a firm hand on the back of Pierre’s chair, and the man stiffened, bolting out of his seat like a jackrabbit.
“Going somewhere?” Nin asked, sliding into the chair across from him.
