Encryption of the Heart (Love, Tech, & Magic #1)

Chapter Eleven

CHAPTER ELEVEN

No matter how she tried to steer away from mere feelings and veer toward logic instead, there was still this graceful danger to Casimir that sent electrical jolts tingling over her skin each time they touched. Olline knew better than to find such danger appealing. Yet she couldn’t stop herself from stealing long looks at him as he strode beside her.

The problem was, her plan was good. Okay, that wasn’t the problem.

The problem was that the plan required her to bring Casimir to her apartment. The apartment she had confessed to loving, admitting she would be more devastated by its loss than incarceration. After what happened at the Department, saying such things about an apartment she hadn’t even lived in a full month was juvenile of her.

Which was the last thing she wanted anyone to ever think of her again. Especially Casimir. A realization she blamed his attempted heroics on, even if he was cagey as to what he was doing nearby.

Oddly, she wasn’t nervous about him being in her apartment specifically. Which, come to think of it, was probably the correct reaction to have. Yet, when she was with Casimir, the last thing she felt was nervous.

Curious.

What she was anxious about was what Casimir would think of a space she had made so uniquely hers. Would he think her plants were a waste of power like Achan? A silly little hobby no respecting earth caster would waste their time on? Would Casimir look at her space and decide it was unstylish, or worse, childish? All of which was an absurd thing to worry about right now . She didn’t—or shouldn’t—care about that when there were far bigger things to concern herself with. Like all the documents she was going to have to decrypt.

After she told him she had a safe place to go, they didn’t speak again until they were on the pedestrian promenade leading to the mid-level entrance of her building. It would have been faster to take a sky-cab, but Olline was nervous it would make them easier to track and trap—if they were, in fact, still being monitored. Recent evidence said they were better safe than sorry, and Casimir had agreed.

Well, he had said nothing, so Olline took that as agreeing with her.

Casimir stopped beside her, collapsing the holo-visor he used to conceal his eyes, and craned his head back to see the top of the building. Exhaust shrouded the mega sky-tower, making it difficult to see the level where Olline’s apartment was located. His jaw tensed, the muscles in his neck flexing, and he gave a little shake of his head, but whatever thoughts were churning behind his deep red eyes, he kept to himself.

Olline darted inside first, ensuring that the front desk clerk was occupied elsewhere before guiding Casimir into the high-speed elevator bay. It wasn’t until the doors finally slid closed, Olline took a deep breath and leaned against the wall of the mirrored elevator, letting its coolness soothe her hot skin.

“You know,” Casimir said, his tone lazy despite the stiff way he stood across from her, “for someone who ventured down into the bowels of this city looking to feel a real connection to Antal’s heart, you live rather far from its core, don’t you, Tav?” He lifted a steel-colored brow at her, a type of judgmental amusement flashing in his eyes and evident in the grin he awarded her.

Olline shrugged, fidgeting to hide her worry. “Despite what my previous actions show, I do actually care about my safety. And living that far down in the city wasn’t a good idea—a smart idea.” Now it was her turn to flash him a mischievous smile. “Besides, I make up for being so far above the core of Antal in other ways. You’ll see.”

She had let no one see her hobbies since Achan, and the sting of that disastrous show of vulnerability still lanced through her heart. But Lochan was right. Her mother would want her to give Casimir a chance. He wasn’t Achan. And yet apprehension flooded her system as soon as the elevator opened on her floor.

None of that stopped her from opening her apartment door and ushering Casimir inside.

Olline shut the door behind her and whipped around, running smack dab into Casimir’s back. He barely even swayed with the collision. She rubbed her nose, trying hard not to inhale his comforting scent, and walked around him. “What’s wrong now?”

“Did you buy all these?” He waved a hand at the plants clustered on every table, ignoring the plastic crates she still hadn’t unpacked. The vines, with a few days of being fed magic, grew so thick you couldn’t see the walls they were crawling up. Splashes of orange, red, magenta, and lilac blooms poked out of variegated green fronds at every entryway, her latest additions. His expression was that unreadable mask again, but his tone was free of sarcasm, so that was . . . good?

Casimir hadn’t moved. The heat radiating from his back, the electrical jolts of the contact shooting down her abdomen. She had to fight the sudden urge to wrap her arms around his waist, to bury her face in his chest and hug him until he had forgiven her for the mistake she had made.

Hug him? Ugh, stop that.

Olline chuckled nervously and scampered to the low table in the middle of her living room, one of the few surfaces completely free of greenery. “Why would I buy them when I can do this?” Her eyelids drooped as she tugged at that warm tendril of power in her core and reached out for the vibrant, verdant life around her. She wiggled her fingers and every single plant rustled as if a gentle breeze wafted through her apartment.

Casimir sucked in a breath and Olline let the magic go, worried she startled him. “I send away to the agricultural colleges for seeds and scavenge the discarded soil from herbalists’ shops when I can. But sometimes it’s just easier to make my plants from scratch.” She glanced around the spacious apartment and pride swelled in her for all the florae that were thriving because of her. “I haven’t lost a single plant in years, even with relocating.”

The leaves rustled again, arching, reaching toward her, and her swell of pride turned softer, warmer, stronger. “They’re my friends,” she admitted before she realized what she said. Olline snapped her jaw shut before she could confess that they were her only friends, the only things that drove away the ache in her chest born of an intense longing for—

Focus on work, Olline.

She cleared her throat, avoiding Casimir’s face. Olline didn’t want to see the pity he surely felt for her. Because it was sad, wasn’t it? To admit that plants, of all things, were her friends. She knew she should embrace her hobbies, the things that brought her joy, and to do so unapologetically, but she wasn’t there yet.

Olline removed the tech from her satchel and plugged in her hastily shut down holo-tablets and laptops. Casimir still hadn’t said anything, and heat began crawling up Olline’s neck until it reached her hairline, her breaths coming faster. She couldn’t bear to look at him now, too afraid to see the amusement in his gaze.

After another heartbeat of silence, a ragged sigh came from where Casimir stood, still unmoving at the threshold of her apartment. Olline quickly looked up, she couldn’t help herself. Her heart tripped over itself at the wide-eyed look of wonder on Casimir’s face as his eyes trailed over every one of her plants.

The heat turned into a buzzing warmth spreading throughout her body as she took joy in his joy. But as quickly as the look was there, it smoothed into stone. His eyes hardened and the muscles along his neck flexed as he clenched his jaw. Olline’s chest tightened, mourning the loss of something she didn’t fully understand.

He glided from the threshold to stand near where she sat on the floor, and she pretended she saw nothing and had been too busy with her devices. “Your talents are wasted on developing magitech, Olline,” he said. His tone was, dare she say, kind, despite his stoic expression.

Olline sucked in a breath. Of all the things she had expected him to say that hadn’t been on her list, not even in the top twenty. She blinked rapidly, too stunned to look at him.

“You could be creating real life with nothing more than the wiggle of your charming little fingers. Why in the world would you,” Casimir stopped himself, taking a ragged breath. “It would’ve kept you from getting tangled with Under Senator Straub, if nothing else.”

The heat crawling over her body turned into a river of lava at his words, and she tucked her chin against her chest. She booted up her devices to hide the flush in her cheeks and to give herself something tangible to focus on.

“I love my plants. They bring me peace no matter where I live. But my flowers are . . .” She stopped, considered her words with care as it suddenly became very important that she explain this right. “It sounds silly, I know, especially coming from an earth caster, but these plants? They’re mine and for me . If they were my job, the serenity and joy I feel in having them in my home would be, I don’t know, spoiled somehow.”

A heavy silence fell, then Casimir finally sank down beside her. “It doesn’t sound silly at all,” he said, his voice a breathy whisper that sent a tingle down her spine. “I understand wanting something to have just for yourself and wanting to keep it sacred.”

His words tickled something in her mind, and her brows pinched together as she gave him a side-long glance. But he was moving on before she could turn over his words further.

“That rooftop garden,” he said, a chuckle making his voice a void she wanted to sink into. “It was a mistake, wasn’t it? Not the going after hours part. That was rather fun. But the gesture of taking you to a place like that. It was a staticky holo-vid compared to what you’ve done here. Clearly, I didn’t think it through.” His words became halting toward the end, as if he was thinking of saying something else, or something more, but couldn’t.

He gave her such a bashful look, a faint flush going from his cheeks all the way to the tips of his pointed ears, that Olline couldn’t help but give him a sympathetic smile in return, even as her heart ached to do more. “It wasn’t a bad idea, just,” she paused, her fingers flexing like she could pluck the word she was searching for from the air. “It was a safe one. It was very lovely though, don’t worry! I really did appreciate the effort you put into it.”

Casimir ran his hands through his curls and Olline couldn’t help but wonder if they felt as soft as they looked—like silken strands of silvery moonlight. He shook his head, an ironic chuckle making his words light. “Safe? No one has ever accused me or my ideas of being ‘safe’.” He flashed her one of his rare, relaxed smiles, his eyes dancing with mirth. “You’re entirely too polite, you know. I promise to do better next time.”

Her heart stuttered over the “next time” part, the rumble in his voice as he said it. Her words were heavy on her tongue, her mind spinning, which was unfair. Olline shouldn’t let a pretty face catch her off guard like this, especially when it had such a smooth tongue. Without a single doubt in her mind now, she knew that should she make a move, Casimir would take her to bed. But after Achan . . . was casual sex even something she wanted? Even if it was with—

Nope!

Thankfully, Casimir was already moving on, and she could only hope he hadn’t noticed how flustered she was. “So why magitech then?”

She shrugged, glad for the change in topic, and pulled up her files again, even gladder for something to focus on that had nothing to do with how close he was to her. “It brings me joy, too. A different kind, but still joy. Working with the metals, crystals, and alloys in technology and manipulating them to go above and beyond what they’re supposed to? All to help people? That’s my definition of magic.” She couldn’t stop the smile from tugging at her lips as she finally got the courage to look at him again.

“Take this server I’m making. But remove the whole, I’m accidentally making it for a corrupt politician part,” she added quickly with a nervous laugh. “When I’m done, the new magitech hardware I’m assembling will remove all those old devices from that room. It’ll free up that entire space so people can work there again. I’m helping people. Or I thought I was.” Her shoulders slumped, but she shook the defeat away before it could weigh her down and drown her. “Anyway, when done right, my magitech helps on a scale my little plants never could.”

His face was that stoic mask again. The one Olline was beginning to understand was the look he had when he wanted to hide what he truly thought. Something in her chest cracked, and the desire to rip his mask away was so overwhelming she was sure it showed on her face.

“Never underestimate the help, the power, something you cultivate through joy can bring to Antal—or Audamar, or even the whole of Eerden.” His tone was firm but a little rough around the edges with an emotion Olline didn’t want to analyze for fear of the hope it might give her. A tentative smile grew as the surprise of his words sank in, her breath catching slightly in her throat.

“Look, I know I’m impressive, but I’m not . . . nothing I can do is all that remarkable,” she said, her voice shaky, which wasn’t aided in the slightest by her disbelieving, high-pitched laugh.

She looked away before Casimir could do the nice thing and pepper her with more compliments or reassurances. If he did that, she was certain she would immolate them both with the fire of her unease around praise.

“We should get to work before the IT guys decide to look at what was actually flagged in their program security. Or worse, someone tells Camirin that I threw her under the bus for something she has no idea about. Although, maybe she wouldn’t care.” Her face scrunched up as she looked at the folder containing all the chips in it. A heavy sigh pulled her shoulders down. “I’ll have to figure out the passcodes and enter them in slowly, so I don’t raise any other flags.” With a groan, she threw her head back on the couch behind her, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t have the time to crack it, not when I have the pretense of a job to maintain.”

“Does it help that Etzel is preoccupied for the week?” Casimir offered, and she rolled her head to look at him. “He’s at a conference trying to get other Senators to deregulate the restrictions around certain kinds of magitech. He’s still in Antal, of course. But he’s not at the Government Plaza and won’t be for another six or seven days. Does that help?”

Olline considered, and then slowly shook her head. “Not really. I mean a little, but we’d have to get really, really lucky, too.” She groaned again. “This is going to take forever.”

“Sounds like you have to do things the old-fashioned way,” Casimir said. The amusement in his voice had Olline squinting at him. He grinned down at her. “I did tell you I’d be able to help you. This is how. I know Etzel. The real Etzel. I’m sure I can help you pick these locks, as it were.”

Leaning forward, she lifted a shoulder, reluctant to tell him how many potential password combinations there could be, and how they couldn’t get a single one wrong. Preoccupied or not, if they tripped a security sensor, she didn’t doubt Etzel would send someone after them. But Casimir wanted to help, and looked so sure of himself, that Olline was reluctant to shatter that so soon.

She pulled open the file and the first password prompt, fingers poised over her holo-keyboard, and said, “If it keeps more security guards from pulling a gun on us, it’s worth a shot. No pun intended.”

The first file was titled “Everleigh.Maldonado”. It was meaningless to Olline, though she guessed it was probably someone’s name. Casimir’s eyes narrowed on the file and a corner of his lip twitched into a sneer. After a moment of study, he said, “Try Gold, with a capital G.”

“You’re sure? We can’t guess or, well, you know what. Are you positive?” Olline cringed at how shrill her nervousness made her voice, but she really, really didn’t want any armed guards showing up at her complex.

Casimir titled his chin down, bringing his face a fraction closer to hers. Her breath caught, snagged on a ribcage that was too tight around her racing heart. Casimir still had a slight sneer on his lips, but his eyes were twinkling with a kind of calm happiness that made her heart feel light enough to float away.

“Trust me, Ollie,” he said, his rich deep voice reminding her once again of satin sheets rustling in the dark.

Her mind snagged on the new nickname, and her fingers tingled with the need to touch him, to pluck the name from the air and hold it tight. She looked away and typed in the passcode instead. Because the truth was, she did trust him. Lochan would be so proud.

Casimir didn’t have to warn her she was about to be caught. He could have washed his hands of her right then and there and not risked his exposure. But he hadn’t. He had come for her, and that had to be worth something.

Olline held her breath as she hit enter. And the file opened immediately.

It worked. Holy shit, it worked!

She didn’t know why she was surprised; this is what they wanted. But something about Casimir getting it right on the first try . . . Something tickled in the back of her mind, but she soon forgot about it when she saw what the file contained.

Her stomach went into freefall. These weren’t just blackmail files. There were dozens of those, too, pictures and videos, scraps of holo-messages, and transaction records that were incriminating. But the main attraction of each file was access to the chip that collected all these pieces of evidence. It wasn’t a simple administrative bot chip, a program whose sole function was to keep the incoming data organized for the main user.

No, these chips were control chips. Control chips implanted in living, breathing, people .

Then the tickle became a painful scratching, and she leaned back, removed her hands from the keyboard, and leveled her full scrutiny at the seerani next to her. Casimir had taken one look at the filename and had known the password. It wasn’t a guess. He knew . Which should be impossible. She didn’t have to be a theoretical statistician like Goswin to know the odds said it was impossible and yet . . . She silently tugged on the power in her core, ready to summon her plants if need be.

“You knew what these chips were this whole time, didn’t you? That it wasn’t simply blackmail we were dealing with here.” Despite her words, they weren’t questions.

Casimir didn’t so much as flinch, even as his gaze dropped away from hers. “Yes,” he admitted quietly.

“How?” she demanded. “What do you do for Etzel Straub where you could just know his passcodes?” Her green eyes narrowed on him. “Who’re you really, Casimir? How are you tangled up in all this? Tell me now, and tell me the truth, or else.” The leaves rustled ominously around her, the vines slithering closer, bearing down on them, making her threat clear. She wouldn’t hurt him, not purposefully, but she could restrain him easily until help arrived.

Their gazes collided, a silent explosion as his stare bore deeply into hers. Finally, he said, “Because one of those chips is mine.”