by Claire Luana
Callidus’s face darkened, his thick brows furrowing.
Wrong thing to say. Wren winced. The Accord spelled out the terms of the uneasy alliance between the Alesian king, Hadrian Imbris, and the Guilds. The Accord was renegotiated every twenty-five years, and negotiations had started a week ago. Callidus’s mood had been growing fouler by the day.
“If you would tell us what’s going on,” Wren said gently, “we could help—”
“You’re as bad as Sable,” Callidus snapped. “It’s Guildmaster business. End of story.”
Wren stifled her grimace, lapsing back into silence. Grandmaster Sable, her sponsor and one of the most powerful confectioners in the Guild, was even more frustrated than Wren about being shut out of what was going on. Wren was confident Sable would find a way to get Callidus to tell them—eventually.
The light inside the shop winked out. “Looks as if they’re finished for the night,” Callidus said, uncoiling himself from the bench.
Wren stood too, twisting one way, then the other until her back gave a satisfying pop. “Why tonight?” she asked. “We’ve had our eye on him for a few weeks.”
“I had a feeling about tonight.”
Wren said nothing, contemplating his words. Each of the Gifted confectioners’ magic cooked up in a different way, but Callidus’s Gift was one that brought him to the right place at the right time. She was firmly convinced that it had been his Gift that had brought him to the municipal courthouse a month ago just seconds before the Grand Inquisitor executed Wren for a crime she hadn’t committed. It was part of why Callidus had started to grow on her over the past month, despite his unpleasant veneer. Had his Gift brought them here on this night for a reason?
Thom and his master, a small, bearded man, emerged from the shop. The master said goodnight to Thom with a little salute and sauntered down the sidewalk, his whistle catching on the breeze. Thom locked up the shop door with a jingle of keys and turned off the two ornamental lanterns that flanked the entrance. Wren studied him in the low light, trying to take his measure. He was the type of tall that seemed to apologize to the world for towering over it by rounding his shoulders. She thought he would be handsome when he filled out a bit. Right now, his lankiness was almost painful to look at.
Thom turned right and headed up the street, the opposite direction as his master.
“Now’s our chance,” Callidus said. “Come on.”
Wren hurried to keep up with his long steps as Callidus crossed the street, angling to intercept Thom.
But someone beat them to it. As Thom passed an alleyway between two brick buildings, hands reached out and grabbed him, yanking him off the sidewalk. Thom let out a muffled exclamation before he disappeared into the gloom.
Wren stumbled a step, giving her head a little shake. It had happened so fast, it could have been a trick of the light—or her imagination. But Thom was gone. “Callidus!” She grabbed his arm. “There’s someone in the alley.”
They broke into a run. “Cedar Guard!” Callidus bellowed. “Someone call the Cedar Guard!” Despite the cloak of darkness that had fallen, the night was warm, and the walking path around Lake Viri was a popular destination. There were people about. Hopefully someone would run for a guardsman.
They dashed into the mouth of the alley. Three shadows were scuffling against the far wall, behind a tilting pile of packing crates.
“Unhand him!” Callidus shouted, running forwards.
Wren lagged a step behind, caution tugging at her feet. She had never been good at running towards danger. But she couldn’t let another guildmaster get himself killed right in front of her.
One of the two attackers turned to face them, advancing with menacing steps. The man wore all black and a black mask covered his face and head. What kind of bandits were these? A gleaming knife appeared in one of his hands, sending a shudder of fear through her.
“Callidus—” she said, but to her shock, he reached under his suit jacket and pulled a little blade from a sheath strapped to his back.
“Stay back, Wren.” His voice was calm. “Leave the boy,” Callidus said to the two men. “The guard are on their way. You’ll find easier prey elsewhere.”
Wren looked around desperately for a weapon, wishing she had a blade herself. Not that she was much of a fighter. The teetering pile of packing crates was the only thing she could see that might be remotely helpful.
“We found him first,” the man said, his voice low and velvety. In the dim light of the alley, Wren could see little, except his build. He was a tall man, muscular and trim. He looked like he could break Callidus across his knee.
The man dove for Callidus with a wicked slash of his blade. Callidus leaped back to miss the swipe, almost running into Wren. She scrambled out of the way, pressing herself against the rough brick of the wall, her heart hammering in her throat.
Callidus and the man in black exchanged a few more feints and attacks, Callidus miraculously managing to avoid being split open on the man’s glinting blade. But Wren could see that it was only a matter of time before the tables turned. Where their attacker’s movements were slow and controlled, Callidus’s slashes were wild and panicked. The man was toying with him. Deeper into the alley, the other man had Thom forced to his knees and was binding his hands behind his back. In a moment, Thom would be dealt with and the other man would be free to join his friend in handling her and Callidus. She had to do something. But what?
Letting instinct move her, Wren let out her most bloodcurdling scream, the sound piercing and shrill. It distracted Callidus’s attacker for a split second, and Callidus dove, scoring a cut on the man’s bicep.
The attacker stumbled back with a curse.
Wren grabbed on to the wooden slats of the packing crates and heaved with all her might, the rough wood digging splinters into her fingers. Her effort was enough to tilt the pile, and the crates toppled with a crash onto the man fighting Callidus. One of the stray crates tumbled into Callidus, knocking him to the ground as well.
“Callidus,” Wren cried, running towards him. Oh, gods. Was he all right? She had made it two steps when a rough hand tangled in her hair, yanking her backwards. She gasped at the razor-sharp pain, reeling as the man slammed her against the brick wall, one hand in her hair, the other taking her by the chin and pinning her to the wall.
Her thoughts guttered like a flickering candle as fear and pain overtook her. The man’s hooded face loomed in her vision, only his green eyes visible—narrowed and angry. “You’ll pay for that,” he spat, and a whimper escaped her, the sound pathetic and mewling in her own ears.
Out of nowhere, Thom barreled into the man with a tackle, sending them all crashing to the hard cobblestones in a jumbled pile of limbs and bodies. Wren landed on top of the man with the hood and scrambled to push off him. As he reached to grab her again, she did the only thing she could think of: kneeing him in the groin with all her strength. He let out a garbled scream of pain, curling in on himself. Wren saw, in that moment, that the man had only four fingers on his right hand—his middle finger was missing completely. The thought fled then as shouts sounded from up the street. Thank the Beekeeper. The Cedar Guard were coming.
Wren stumbled to her feet, pulling Thom out from under the man, who was rising with a curse. The man who had faced off with Callidus had crawled out from under the crates, knuckles scraped and bloody.
The two masked men exchanged the briefest of looks before turning and running into the darkness.
“Are you all right?” Wren asked Thom, who was leaning precariously against the wall, his hands still tied behind his back.
He nodded. “You?”
She nodded back. “Callidus.” She took a few shaky steps, but he was rising, four Cedar Guardsman silhouetted behind him.
“What’s going on?” the first guard asked, the silver buttons on his uniform gleaming.
“They went that way,” Callidus pointed. “Two men. Black hoods and masks covering their faces.”
The guard motioned two of his men to follow, and the guards drew their swords, dashing into the night.
“Is everyone all right?” the guard asked.
Adrenaline still surged through Wren’s body, setting her limbs buzzing like honeybees. “I think so.”
Callidus nodded.
“I wouldn’t mind being untied,” Thom said.
The Cedar Guardsman—a Lieutenant named Bryson—sat them on the bench across from Salted Cream and questioned them for the better part of half an hour. Wren and Callidus explained how they had been walking along the lake when they had seen Thom yanked off the sidewalk and had tried to help. No, they didn’t know each other. Yes, it was lucky they were there. No, Thom didn’t know why anyone would want to attack him. They hadn’t even gone for his wallet.
The other guardsmen came back and reported that they hadn’t found a trace of the two men wearing black.
“Well,” Bryson said, scratching the back of his neck, “we’ll see what we can uncover. We work with the Grand Inspector’s office on cases like this. Maybe they’ll be able to get to the bottom of this.”
“Thank you,” Callidus said.
“I’ll have a guard escort each of you home,” Bryson announced. “Just to make sure you don’t see any more excitement tonight.”
Callidus pursed his lips but nodded.
Wren knew why he was upset. They wouldn’t have a chance to speak with Thom alone. If anything, the strangeness of the night made it all the more important that they share the secret of the Gifting with Thom and invite him to join them at the Guildhall, where they could protect him. A Gifted Confectioner was a valuable commodity. If someone else knew what Thom was, it might have explained the attack. Perhaps someone else wanted Thom’s Gift for themselves. But who?
Wren racked her brain for a way to secure a meeting with Thom without raising the guards’ suspicions. She touched her scalp gingerly where the man had grabbed her. It stung something fierce, but she didn’t think he had pulled out any hair. “Join us for dinner tomorrow, Thom,” Wren offered, looking sidelong at Callidus. Come on, Callidus. Go with it, she prayed. “As a thank you for saving me.”
“I should be thanking you for saving me,” Thom said, dipping his head so his unruly mop of blond hair fell over his eyes.
“Please,” Callidus said. “We’ll send an invitation with all the details. We insist.”
“Okay.” Thom nodded, giving them a shy smile.
Wren offered a reassuring smile back. She ignored the flicker of guilt that accompanied her relief. Thom had no idea what he was getting himself into with the Confectioner’s Guild. But, on the other hand, did the Guild know what it was getting into with Thom? Because someone had just tried to kidnap him, and they had no idea whom, or why.
Chapter 2
Wren slept in much longer that morning than she probably should have. As she lay in the warm cocoon of her bed, relishing the down of her white comforter that was as soft and airy as angel food cake, she contemplated her turn of fortunes. It was a strange thing, being at the Guild with no one trying to kill her or frame her for murder. She shoved aside thoughts of last night. That had been a fluke. She hadn’t been the target of that attack.
Over the past month, Wren had found herself with a surplus of free time, something she’d never had in her life. Growing up, there’d been a stream of endless chores so vast, they’d seemed impossible to fit into a day. When she had lived on the street with the Red Wraiths her attention had been split between searching for food or coin and keeping an eye out for danger. At Master Oldrick’s, she had worked from dawn until she fell into her hard, little cot above the shop well after dusk, exhausted from the day’s labor.
The weeks since her almost-execution had been strangely peaceful. The first week, Sable had been convalescing, and so Wren had kept her company, playing King’s Quarters with Hale’s old card deck on Sable’s hospital bed. The evenings she’d spent with Lucas, watching the fading sun glaze the surface of Lake Viri with shimmering light. Even when Sable had returned to the Guild, she’d had business to catch up on, so Wren had entertained herself, reading in the quirky kitchen library or baking in one of the teaching kitchens. Wren and Olivia had resumed a tentative friendship, though the relationship was a fragile thing, consisting more of fumbled words and apologies than actual laughter and camaraderie. Wren couldn’t blame the other girl for feeling awkward around her, and she supposed she had every right to feel awkward around Olivia. Olivia’s grandaunt, Guildmistress Iris Greer, had murdered her brother, the guildmaster, and tried to frame Wren for the crime. It had been far too close for comfort in the end; Wren had almost been executed. She hoped her comfortable friendship with Olivia would return in time.
And then there was Hale. Sable had sent Hale to live with Mistress Violena across Lake Crima for a time, and so Wren had not seen him in the month that had elapsed since her trial and almost execution. Since he had believed the false trail laid by the murderer Iris Greer, certain Wren had poisoned Sable. Since he had held her against a wall by her throat, nearly crushing her windpipe. Wren’s hand migrated to her neck, feeling for the phantom bruises his fingers had left on the white expanse of her skin. She rolled over, shoving her hands under the pillow. Thoughts of Hale still made her uneasy.
A knock on Wren’s door pulled her from her reverie and demanded that she actually greet the day. “Just a minute,” she called, throwing on a colorful floral robe over her ivory nightgown. She briefly grappled with her thick, auburn curls, doing her best to corral them into a clip.
She opened the door to find Lucas Imbris standing there. Alesian prince, lieutenant inspector, and swoon-worthy boyfriend. “Hello, you,” she said, her stomach performing an inconvenient series of backflips.
“Hello, yourself,” he said with a roguish grin, brushing an auburn curl back from her neck before cupping her face to kiss her. Heat seared through her as their lips met, and she pulled him through the doorway and flush against her, closing the door with a bit more force than was necessary.
The best part of the last month, hands down, had been Lucas. He pulled away from her lips and rained warm kisses across her cheeks and nose and eyelids. “You’re so cute when you’re sleepy,” he murmured, his breath hot on her skin.
“Lucas!” Her heart trilled, but she swatted at him until he relented, playing her role in this familiar game. She studied him as she often found herself doing, mentally pinching herself to see if, indeed, this man was real. Lucas was tall and lean, broad-shouldered with a trim waist. His hair was coarse and dark, but with flecks of gray that made him look older than his years, if you didn’t study his face. But Wren studied his face. Fierce gray eyes with crinkles about them when he smiled, a stern nose a touch too large, a wide, broad smile. He was handsome, but not devastatingly so, like Hale. His beauty was not obvious to the casual passerby. But to the Lucas connoisseur, like herself, there was no finer vintage.
“What’re you looking at?” he asked, still wearing that smile. It seemed they spent an inordinate amount of time grinning at each other. And kissing. She could pass a whole day with Lucas just grinning and kissing and be perfectly content.
“You,” she admitted, taking his calloused hand in her own.
“Well, I’m relieved to find you in one piece. Lieutenant Bryson told me that a pretty young confectioner was attacked last night. Was it you? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Wren said, extricating herself from his arms. Wren quickly explained what had happened, leaving out, with a pang of guilt, that they had been stalking a Gifted confectioner. Lucas didn’t know about the Gifting, and thanks to the cursed binding wine that magically prevented her from spilling the secret, she could never tell him. It made things inconvenient, to say the least.
Lucas pulled her into a hug, enveloping her in his scent of lavender and fresh soap. “I know you wanted to help, but you shouldn’t have rushed in like that. You could have been hurt. Or worse.”
“I know
.” Wren leaned into him. Lucas managed to be the right amount of protective. His concern wrapped around her like a comforting blanket. Warm, but not stifling. She felt safe when she was with him. So long as she didn’t think about who his father was.
“Does Bryson have any leads?” she asked, pulling back and leading him to the little table by the window to sit down.
“Not yet. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a green-eyed man without a middle finger. I offered to help. We’ll find him.”
“Thank you,” Wren said. Lucas was good, but perhaps the Guild should do its own digging. If Thom’s Gift was the true motivation behind the attack, that knowledge might lead them down trails the inspector’s office wouldn’t think of. She’d have to talk to Sable.
“You’re in uniform today,” Wren said to change the subject, glancing up and down the rest of him. The Inspector’s office was a unit of the Cedar Guard, and he’d been wearing his brown uniform more as of late. More than she wished.
“I’m drilling with the guard today,” Lucas admitted, straightening a silver button with a twist of distaste. “Father’s stepped up all patrols and enlisted a thousand more men. The inspector’s unit has been called in to act as commanders until the recruits are trained up enough to start assuming some of their own command.”
“A thousand more men,” Wren asked. “So many?” Aprica, their neighbor two countries to the north, had invaded and occupied Tamros months ago. Rumors had been swirling for weeks that the Aprican King Evander’s forces had crossed the border from Tamros into Alesia.
“I keep praying he’s just paranoid, over-obsessed with security. But the reports…they aren’t good. I think we may need them.”
“You think there will be war?” she asked.
Lucas nodded. “And soon.”
“And you would be…leading these men? In defending the city?” An icy lance of fear streaked through her mind. She hadn’t realized Lucas could be called into actual combat. “Surely, your father wouldn’t put you in danger.” As soon as she said it, she realized it was the wrong thing to say.