by M. J. Scott
“So you made a choice because you didn’t like the other options?”
“Yes.”
He shrugged. “So did I.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t know how to explain it. But I looked around me and I saw things in the world that weren’t fair. Or good. Or just. People getting hurt.”
“You could’ve been a doctor or an advocate.”
“Did I mention the thought of being locked up in school for years made me want to punch somebody?”
“Yet you chose to be locked up in the Brother House.”
“Not exactly. It’s not being locked up if you want to do it. I wanted it.”
“Why?”
“Because it felt right. I knew this was how I could make the world a better place. Save it.”
“Save it for humans, you mean.”
“We’re the most vulnerable. But no. I don’t wish the Fae or the Beasts ill. I can’t say I’m crazy about the Blood, but if they obey the rules, then I’ll leave them alone too. But if they hurt those I want to protect, then they’re fair game. As other humans would be too.”
“God wants you to protect people?”
“That’s what I believe, yes.”
“By killing others?”
“By keeping the peace. And yes, sometimes by bringing others to justice.”
Or delivering that justice, as far as I could tell. A Templar’s sword was an executioner’s sword. If he killed, it was in the name of his God and no one would gainsay it. No one human, at least. “By giving your life?”
“If that happens, then yes. But believe me, it’s not something I want to happen. In fact, I’ve spent a good deal of time learning how to make sure it doesn’t.”
“No one can make sure of that.”
“You can be the best you can be. Minimize the risk. Surely you understand that. After all, you climb about on rooftops and consort with the Night World. That’s not exactly taking the safe route.”
“I don’t plan on doing what I do forever.”
His eyes sharpened, he leaned forward. “Neither do I.”
“Templars don’t retire.”
“No, but neither do they actively fight all their lives. Eventually I guess I’ll be a commander.”
“Or the Abbott General”
“Bloody hell. I hope not.”
“What would be wrong with that?”
“Too much politics.”
Templar was an interesting choice of occupation for a man who didn’t like politics. After all, part of the reason for their existence was to enforce the treaties the politicians negotiated. But best to leave well enough alone for now. I turned the conversation to a slightly different path.
“And what about life outside the order?” This was skating perilously close to things that it was dumb to ask a man who’d spent a total of one night in your bed. Most men would construe it as a question about families. Or marriage. I had to admit to a reasonable amount of curiosity as to what Guy’s views were, but it was a dead-end discussion. He and I were strictly temporary.
“Outside the order? Are you asking about my hobbies again?” His eyes glittered in the candlelight; he knew very well what I meant.
“Other than chopping off people’s heads, you mean?”
He smiled suddenly. “I don’t believe I’ve ever actually decapitated someone. Usually sticking your sword in them does the trick. Or shooting them.”
I didn’t want to think about shooting people. “I’ll keep that in mind. But no, I wasn’t asking about your hobbies. I was asking whether you ever wanted something more. Templars do marry, don’t they?”
“Some do. It’s allowed,” he admitted.
“You sound as though you’d rather be decapitated.”
“It’s not something I think about terribly often.” He grinned. “Anyway, now that Simon has Lily, Mother will be able to fixate on them producing offspring rather than me.”
“But you’re the eldest.”
“Legally, if the courts had to rule, that’s not true. To join the Templars you forfeit your worldly possessions.”
“To the Church?”
“Sometimes. But I was seventeen, not of age. My worldly possessions amounted to clothes, a horse, and some armor. Plus my sword. Come to think of it, that hasn’t changed much. I’m not sure I’m a terribly marriageable prospect.”
He obviously didn’t look in the mirror very often. I stayed silent. “You don’t want a family?”
“I have a family. I have two, in fact. My blood family and the order.”
I tried not to be jealous. Two families. I had perhaps, if one thought about it in generous terms, bits of one. Mother, Fen, Reggie. Cormen wasn’t family despite our shared blood. He was almost the opposite of family, in fact.
But I wasn’t completely envious. Families were risky. They exposed you to the possibility of hurt and betrayal. Plus a family implied tying yourself to a man for life. I didn’t want to do that. Didn’t want to give my happiness to someone who might treat me as cruelly as Cormen had treated my mother. So perhaps Guy and I weren’t so different after all.
But I did want a life. I wanted freedom and to not have to keep living the life I did. One day I would have enough money. One day.
Thinking about one day didn’t help much. I shivered again. “Tell me about your family.” Maybe a tale of normality would take my mind off everything that worried me. Give me hope that some people did live happy lives.
Guy straightened in his chair, cocked his head at me. “What do you want to know?”
“Tell me about your sisters. And your parents.” Over the years I’d heard a lot about Simon—a sunmage as powerful as him was inevitably the focus of Night World speculation—but I didn’t know a lot about the rest of the DuCaines.
“There’s not much to tell.” He looked down for a moment. “Saskia’s the oldest. She’s a ’prentice metalmage. And Hannah—she’s the youngest—she’s still in school. Edwina. She died.”
His face was suddenly stony, his voice bleak. Somehow I knew that whatever had caused his sister’s death, it hadn’t been anything simple like an illness or an accident. “Oh.” I hugged my arms tighter around my knees.
“You’re cold.”
“You could come and warm me up.” I no longer wanted to talk. Our conversation had made me melancholy. I wasn’t sure I understood him any better, but I couldn’t deny that I wanted him. Right now he seemed the perfect way to chase away the chill of the morning. “If you’re done,” I added.
“Perhaps I am, at that,” he said with a nod. He pulled his shirt over his head and sat still for a moment studying me.
In the candlelight, he was curved muscle and hard planes that flickered smooth gold and shadow as the flame shifted. It made his hair a brighter shade and his eyes deep and unfathomable. I was suddenly very glad that he didn’t want to get married. That meant that some girl couldn’t win his heart and take him away before I was done with him.
I let the counterpane fall away from my shoulders, baring myself to his gaze.
He didn’t need a second invitation.
Chapter Fifteen
HOLLY
As I’d feared, with daylight came reality. When I woke a second time, my mind was churning. My mother. Cormen. The Beasts. Ignatius. A visit to Halcyon.
Henri and Antoine. The more I thought about it, the more it puzzled me. We hadn’t done anything confrontational at the Gilt, yet there had been a confrontation. Why? Who had they been trying to warn off? Guy? Or me?
One of us, that much was clear, which made me nervous. And I didn’t like it any more when I turned to thinking about Cormen and why he’d been at the Gilt. He too had tried to intimidate me, but why was he there in the first place? In his position, I’d be safely in Summerdale, pulling strings via my lackeys. He didn’t need to threaten me. The geas should control me well enough for his purposes.
And how had he even known I’d be at the Gilt?
He
couldn’t have . . . which meant he was there for some other reason.
Why?
Was it just a coincidence that Henri and Antoine were there too?
That they had tried to attack us after my encounter with Cormen?
Was there a connection?
Or was I just building stories out of shadows?
I felt tired contemplating it all. Tired and lacking in ideas about how to proceed. I flopped down on my pillow with a sigh.
“What’s wrong?” Guy asked.
I rolled to face him. “Just thinking.”
“I thought we discussed that earlier,” he said with a smile. “No thinking allowed.”
“I’m serious. There’s a lot we need to do.”
He hoisted himself up on one elbow. “Does your list include eating breakfast?”
Men. I was wondering how we were going to survive the next few days and he was wondering where his next meal was coming from. “You’re going to be expensive to keep, aren’t you?” I said, matching his pose. “Eating me out of house and home.”
“I think I earned breakfast, at least.”
I didn’t want to think about that. I willed myself not to blush. I didn’t blush.
Particularly not over this man.
Not when I was starting to think letting him into my bed had been a mistake. Not because I hadn’t enjoyed it. No, I enjoyed it too much. Now, lying next to him, when I should be thinking about tonight and what I needed to achieve, I was thinking about how good he smelled and the way his face looked in the morning shaded with pale stubble and his hair spiky from sleep.
Thinking that way could only lead to disaster.
I sat up. “We should eat. We have work to do.”
“Halcyon won’t even open its door until the sun sets,” Guy objected, yawning. “We have plenty of time.”
That was the tone of a man hopeful of coaxing his woman back into bed.
No. I didn’t want that to happen. I threw back the counterpane and reached for my robe as I stood. “Not that much time. We need weapons and clothes and charms and—” I stopped, frustrated when I couldn’t find my slippers.
“Charms?”
“Yes, charms,” I said. “I’m half Fae, remember?”
Guy sat up, leaning forward, arms draped around his knees. “I hadn’t forgotten.” He sounded slightly puzzled. Probably because I was behaving like a shrew.
I didn’t know why I was so flustered, but the last of the languor of the previous night left my body in a rush, forced out by a rising tide of fear and worry. I needed some time to regain my composure or I would be picking a fight with Guy for no reason. Which would only risk letting him see how off balance I felt.
“And most of all,” I said, not looking at him, “I need a bath.” With that brilliant statement, I left the room before he could say anything else.
GUY
I put down the book I hadn’t been reading when Holly returned. She closed the door, the long wet ringlets of her hair dripping onto her silk robe.
She’d fled the room in such a rush, I still wasn’t sure what had happened. Did she regret what had happened? Did I? I didn’t know the answer to either. But I did regret the empty space in the bed beside me.
So while she’d taken an inordinately long time to take a bath, I’d prowled around the room. I was tempted to snoop, but Holly was a spy. I was fairly sure she’d have ways of telling if her things had been disturbed. So I picked a book from her shelves and tried to read.
In the clear morning light, her face free of paint or glamour, Holly looked young. Young and beautiful, her Fae blood sculpting the curves and arches of her face into something far from ordinary. Something arresting.
Guilt twisted in my stomach.
Foolish.
Foolish to give in last night, to take her to bed. Foolish to think we could both walk away from this unscathed when I’d spent half my time alone trying not to think about having her again.
Foolish was something neither of us could afford.
But I couldn’t quite bring myself to raise the subject, to chase the happy look from her eyes, to bring back the shuttered expression she’d worn last night in the cab back from the Gilt. Twenty-five was too young to be so grim. How long had she been spying and thieving and fighting to make a life for herself?
Walking a tightrope above the razor edges of the Night World.
Too long.
The City shouldn’t be that way. People should be safe to live their lives.
And if they were, I’d spend my days with nothing to do but pray and teach young men how to use weapons they wouldn’t need.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Holly asked as she wrapped a linen towel around her head.
“I was thinking about Halcyon,” I said.
“Serious thoughts.” She crossed the room, unlatched the window. The sun was indeed bright in the sky. The day promised to grow warm, if not hot. Perhaps we’d seen the last of the unseasonable cold weather that had grayed the days so far this season. Or maybe we were all moving closer to hell.
“Blood Assemblies are serious places.”
“We’ll be all right. We just need a plan. We can talk after breakfast.” She came back to the wardrobe, peered in as though considering her choices. “I’ve been to Halcyon before and I’ve survived.”
“The last time I was there,” I said, “there was a riot and I killed a couple of people.”
Her mouth fell open. “When were you ever in—oh. Of course, the night Lily disappeared. I heard about that. You were the Templar with Simon that night.” She looked vaguely disapproving rather than concerned. Maybe she was critiquing our lack of stealth. Well, let her try kidnapping Lucius’ pet assassin out from under his nose and see how well she did.
“I was.”
“You’re not planning on starting another riot tonight, are you?”
“Not unless I have to.” I didn’t think it would be wise to mention any of the other times I’d had to cross the threshold of an Assembly. Most of those had involved violence as well. Of course, each of those had been sanctioned searches for somebody who’d broken the law.
She started to smile, then paused and frowned instead. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Of course. I’m here to protect you.”
“By starting a riot?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
She shook her head. “I really don’t recommend it.”
“Then don’t do anything that would make it necessary.”
“I can’t think of much I would do that would make it necessary for you to start a fight in a Blood Assembly.”
I could. Starting with what she was likely to wear. The thought of her parading through an Assembly wearing a dress like the one she’d worn to the Gilt, half her body on display, made my fingers itch for a sword. And the fact that that was my first thought was an indication of just how foolish I’d been last night. “Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
HOLLY
A CLOSED FOR FAMILY EMERGENCY sign hung on the door of my salon when we arrived in Gillygate. Fen’s elegant black handwriting turned my stomach to acid. Reggie should be here, safe, working at making the dresses she loved. Instead, because of me, she was gods knew where. Captive. Possibly hurt.
I set my teeth. No. I wasn’t going to think about that. I couldn’t think about that. I needed my head clear. No time for emotions. I couldn’t think about Mama and Reggie and I couldn’t think about Guy and what had passed between us in bed last night.
The door opened easily to my key. The place smelled vaguely dusty and the air was warm and stale. It needed airing out. I would have to check the fabrics too. Reggie was very particular about how they were stored, babying the fine silks and satins and velvets. At least it wasn’t winter when, in such an old building, a few days of cold without anyone here to light the stoves to warm the air could set damp and mold to growing in the rolls of material before you could blink.
Guy followed me int
o the room, shutting and locking the door behind us. When I asked, he opened the small window above the door slightly to let in some air.
“So you were telling the truth, about working for a modiste?” he said as I led the way toward the back rooms.
When had I said that? I had to stop and think, and then it came to me. Our conversation in St. Giles. When he’d first tried to hire me. Not so long ago really, but it felt like forever. “Well, Reggie’s really the modiste. And I don’t work for her. She works for me.”
“You own this place?” He sounded startled and I turned around. He looked startled too.
“I get paid well for what I do,” I said, not willing to apologize for that. “I needed an explanation for where that money comes from. And Reggie needed somewhere to work. She’s very talented. I didn’t want her slaving away for someone who would pay her nothing and steal her designs.”
“I see.” He looked around the room. It was his habit in any new place, I’d come to realize. He studied the layout, the exits. Probably could already tell me a plan for getting out of here in a hurry if he had to. A soldier’s view of the world.
My view was somewhat different. My view was slightly inclined to giggle at the sight of him, so big and solid in the midst of all the female trappings of Reggie’s workroom. The dressmaker’s forms, draped with half-finished dresses or toiles, the piles of lace and feathers, the neat rows of ribbons in all shades of the rainbow hanging on a tier of racks in one corner. Plus the pretty feminine furnishings Reggie had chosen.
Guy looked both out of place and strangely at ease. “I gather Reggie made that dress you wore last night?”
“Yes, she makes all my gowns.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Then you’re right, she is talented. How did you two meet?”
“Her mother worked with mine,” I said, and waited to see how he reacted. So far he had seemed fine with the fact that my mother had been a whore, but I wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t just too polite to let his disapproval show. He came from money. From the upper reaches of human society. The women he knew didn’t have to scrape for survival. And the Church he served didn’t exactly approve of selling sex for money.