She's standing inside the gate with Brynna's chest at her feet and a roll of white muslin tucked under one arm. The same driver who took her home yesterday is pulling the last bundle off his cart. Her hair is pinned badly, there are shadows beneath herhazel eyes, and the hem of her dress carries four hours of road dust. She looks like she hasn't slept at all.
She is still the best thing I have ever seen.
I stop several feet short of her, because I don't trust myself any nearer.
"You came back."
"I said I would."
The driver clears his throat and looks between us like a male who would very much like to be paid and gone.
"I'll take the chest," I say.
"Much obliged, my lord." He hands it over with an expression of profound relief and goes to see to his horse.
I lift it, and it's heavier than I remember. She got it up onto a cart and down again with nobody to help her.Is she staying, or has she only come to deliver it?She watches me hold it with one hand tight around the muslin, and for a moment neither of us says anything.
There is too much to say. The steps. The curse. The vial. The letter I sent after her that she may never have opened at all.Where does a male even start?Do I apologize again, or is she sick to death of hearing it?
She reaches into her coat and holds out a folded page before I can decide.
"I wrote this last night."
My heart hits hard against my ribs. I set the chest down again and take it from her.
"Torgan," she says quietly. "The first part can wait. The rest can't."
I open it.
Torgan—
The curse is real. Noemi found the working inside the book tonight.
I don't care.
When the Vosses are finished. We have our own story to write. Together.
And as for the Vosses, it's all one scheme. We have enough to put them behind bars.
—L
I read it twice.Then a third time, and the third time has nothing to do with the Vosses at all.
Does together mean what I think it means?
Lissy Sunfell does not waste ink when she means something. Four lines about a curse that has haunted her family for generations, and one word about us, and the one word is doing all the work.
Together.
I make myself look at the pages folded underneath before I do something undignified in my own courtyard.
Dates. Addresses. Shipping figures in her hand and Brynna's tighter one. A list of every shop on Main Street that received an offer, set against the week its suppliers raised their prices. The address at the bottom of every column is the one Caden gave me in the road two nights ago.
Tanner's Row.
"The office sending the lease letters sits inside the Voss warehouse," Lissy says. "The same warehouse Brynna traced the false dock fees through."
I look up at her.
