Chapter 3 #2
‘I’m here for the records.’ His voice was deep, dark.
It sent shivers down the back of Thea’s neck.
Owing to the late hour, he had forsaken the neat, powdered wig he sometimes wore, revealing his natural hair, curled above the ear, in a rich brown that appeared near-black.
She wondered what fashions he kept in his own realm, the entrance to which was buried somewhere in the forest and was inadvisable for anyone who was not a fate-weaver to pass through.
Though if he ever visited his own realm, she did not know.
Only that he had a grand residence in the Old Town where she presumed he spent most of his time, though that too, was a guess. Jasper was unknowable.
‘Of course.’ Without another word, matching his succinctness, she reached for the leather-bound tome she kept below her workbench and opened it to the latest page, spreading it on the table Jasper was idling against. ‘There.’
Jasper scanned the record of Thea’s dealings with fate and their subsequent prices.
Thea acted unbothered by his presence, closing her Compendium of Magic, ready to carry it upstairs and perhaps read a little with another cup of lavender tea.
She caught Jasper’s mouth pursing in displeasure from the corner of her eye.
Did he know she hadn’t taken that girl’s price?
‘Something the matter?’ she asked, unable to mask the thrill of satisfaction his disappointment gave her.
Even if he knew what she’d done, it had been worth it.
She was prepared to bear the consequences for letting the girl’s price go unpaid.
Jasper ran a finger down the listed entries.
Some noted a single dream, others, like the year she’d failed to take from the girl, detailed amounts of time.
The rest held more ephemeral records: memory.
Thea had taken more memories than she cared to dwell on, but never more than one at a time: a beloved memory, a worst memory, an old memory.
She had never taken every memory from one person before, which made her wonder what on earth she could have asked for that had demanded a price high enough to reforge her entire existence.
What happened to me? Sometimes she was scared to find out.
‘There is less than I expected here.’
Good, Thea thought fiercely to herself. That means fewer desperate people have been prepared to sell a sliver of their souls.
Keeping her thoughts tucked firmly inside her own head, she shrugged.
She needed to distract him. She was contracted to stay at the apothecary, to take these prices and pass them on.
If he discovered she hadn’t taken one, she didn’t know what might happen.
Jasper looked up, appraising her.
Thea’s face heated. Did he know? She stared back at him.
There was something about the man that never failed to burrow under her skin.
Perhaps it was that he was the only person who knew what had happened to Thea before he’d taken her memories and heart.
It needled that Jasper, of all people, knew her the most. Knew her true name. Her identity.
‘Anyway,’ she declared, desperate to distract him. ‘Something seems afoot. There have been suspicious people lurking around the Magic Quarter; I spotted one of them myself tonight. Magical folk, I presume, but it bears keeping an eye on.’
Jasper’s spine tightened. He drew himself to standing, his jawline rigid as he looked at her.
She shivered again despite herself, her body reacting to his height, his presence, towering over her.
‘Why did you not send me a raven immediately? Must I remind you that one of your duties is to report anything unusual or troubling directly to me, the moment it happens?’
Thea refused to bend to him. ‘Perhaps my heart just isn’t in it,’ she said wryly.
A muscle ticked in Jasper’s jaw. He closed the records, his twitching muscle the sole clue that Thea had provoked him.
And oh, how she enjoyed provoking him. It was one of life’s little pleasures, up there with the first bite into a cream cake or rereading a favourite book.
Sweet and satisfying. ‘I shall return in a few days,’ Jasper said, somewhat stiffly.
Thea bristled with alarm. ‘A few days? You usually only come once a week.’
‘Whilst I am sorry that my company causes you such distress, I must remind you that this is my apothecary, and you work for me. If somebody is lurking around either my shop or you, that bears urgent investigation.’
‘I do not belong to you,’ Thea said softly. Dangerously.
Jasper’s stare collided with hers. He looked as furious as she felt. Every time they exchanged words, it felt as if they could raze the apothecary down to ashes. ‘I am more than aware of that,’ he snapped. ‘I can assure you that I dislike these . . . meetings every bit as intensely as you do.’
‘Then why do you insist upon them?’ Thea folded her arms, glaring at him.
Jasper glared back. The edges of Thea’s vision flamed. ‘A deal is a deal,’ he said at last, before stalking from the room without a backward glance. The bells did not ring when he left the shop.
Thea half collapsed against her workbench with muddied relief and frustration and some other feeling she couldn’t place that left a bitter, brackish taste on her tongue.
He didn’t know that she hadn’t taken a price.
And if he didn’t know . . . did that mean she could try it again?
She so hated taking these prices that a tentative hope sparked.
Until she recalled what she hadn’t asked him.
Running out of the apothecary, remembering too late that she hadn’t put any shoes on since the knock at the door had disturbed her reading, Thea chased Jasper down the street.
He cut an enigmatic figure, striding away in his navy-blue breeches and coat through the silence.
A lone pixie, strolling through the trees, let out a squawk of alarm on spotting the fate-weaver, and hid beneath a pile of leaves.
‘Wait!’
Jasper turned, frowning as Thea drew to a stop, breathing hard. ‘What is it?’ He glanced at her bare feet, that tic in his jawline giving a single pulse.
Distaste, Thea thought, for her lack of decorum. Well, she didn’t care. What she had to say was more important than what he thought of her.
‘A deal is a deal,’ she echoed back at him, a little breathlessly. ‘You didn’t wait to hear my guess today.’
Jasper’s frown hardened. ‘Very well.’
I promised that if you guessed your real name, I would return your memories, your heart, he’d told her.
Thea’s hope struggled in her chest, her missing heart giving a ghost of a thump as she looked up at Jasper.
Perhaps tonight would be the night she guessed right, that she would discover her true name and her long-lost memories would come flooding back like patient old friends.
Setting her free from the apothecary. ‘Adela,’ she whispered, her heart-spell fluttering in her mouth.
Jasper looked inscrutable.
‘No.’ He walked away without another word, and for once Thea couldn’t fault him; what more was there to say?
It didn’t stop her loathing him, though.
When Thea marched back into the apothecary, she locked the door with shaking hands. Something creaked, as if the apothecary was shuddering in fury, too. She winced at the sound, glancing up. And freezing in place.
A crack was running along the ceiling, splintering the paint.