NINETEEN
Aly stood in the corner of the Copper Kettle, eyeing the clientele, her hands clenched into fists in her pockets to keep them from shaking.
Plenty of them were still sober, tucking into vegetable-rich stews with hearty bread or mashed potato-laden fish pies, but plenty, too, had moved well past dinner and into the drinking stage of the evening.
A woman in the far corner leapt to her feet and nearly tumbled back onto her stool, announcing that she would buy the next round for her table to a chorus of cheers from her pals. She wove towards the bar, Aly moving to intercept her.
She timed it perfectly. The other woman stumbled straight into her, arms flailing as she sought to regain her balance.
“Oi, would you watch where you’re going?” Aly snarled, putting some bite into her tone.
It was easy for her to duck the swinging punch the drunk woman directed at her. It wasn’t so easy for the fellow seated on the stool behind her who was caught unawares.
His stool clattered to the floor as he leapt up to confront his attacker, whose friends were hurrying to her rescue when they saw she had hit someone twice her size.
And that was it. Soon half the customers were trying—with variable success—to hit the other half.
Aly slipped through the crowd, light-footed as a wraith, and up the stairs at the back to Grant’s office.
He looked up when the doors swung open, his lips flattening when he saw who it was.
Her stomach clenched. Not forgiven yet, then.
“What do you want, then?” he snapped.
Aly jerked her head towards the stair. “There’s a wee stramash downstairs.”
“Let the bartender deal with it.”
Aly winced theatrically. “Er, it’s not that wee.”
Grant’s lip curled in a snarl as he stormed past her.
For a moment, Aly felt guilty over starting the fight, but at worst, Grant would bar a few of them, maintaining his reputation as a genial brewery owner.
He’d perhaps shout and shove them out the door, but no one would be worse for wear at the end of the night—and no one would be remembered and hunted down beyond that.
Heart hammering, she crossed to the desk, her fingertips flitting over the surface, sliding papers around as she looked for the one she’d thrown onto his desk the other night.
Concluding it wasn’t on the cluttered surface, she started tugging open drawers, her heart in her throat.
The wolf’s head seal was in the top drawer, tossed in there next to an inkwell and a couple of pens; she checked the embossed pattern, then thrust it back into the drawer, her mind on the blackmail letter.
Her fingers flicked through pages frantically, her search slowed by so many pages covered in the same spidery script as Grant had written the letter in—he hadn’t even tried to hide his own hand.
She kept an ear out for any sound of Grant coming up the stairs, her body alert to every creak of old wood, every skitter of rodents in the walls.
She reached the bottom drawer, but it was locked. Her heart pounded as she drew her lockpicks out of her pocket, fitting the two slender rods into the lock. She took a slow breath to steady herself and, moments later, the lock clicked open.
Dropping the lockpicks, Aly tugged the drawer open.
There—right at the top of the drawer, sat the blackmail letter, in Grant’s own hand and sealed with the Wulver’s stamp.
She snatched it up, peering at the seal.
The wax was broken, but the shape of the ear and the tip of the snout matched the insignia she’d found in the other drawer.
Stowing it in her pocket, she began to close the drawer when the carved wooden surface beneath it caught her eye.
It was the box she’d stolen from Burgess Edzan’s house.
The lid was open, revealing a pile of paper. Aly snatched up the top one, scanning the contents.
It was, of all things, a love letter. Or, rather, a break-up letter that expressed the letter-writer’s undying devotion to the addressee while proclaiming they needed to focus on their marriage and children and could no longer pursue an affair with the one they loved.
It was all rather sappy and, in Aly’s opinion, overly dramatic.
She pulled up short when she reached the end.
I am enclosing your past letters to me; do with them what you will.
Ever yours,
Craig Gibson
Craig Gibson, the murdered burgess, had been conducting an affair with his colleague—clearly without his wife’s knowledge.
Aly’s hands shook as she pulled the letters out of the box. There were hundreds, written by both of them, dating back years. Slipping the final letter from Gibson into her pocket, she pulled a couple dozen from the middle of the pile, hoping Grant wouldn’t notice if some of them were missing.
She tucked the letters in her pocket and picked up her lockpicks, closing the drawer and sliding them back into the lock, her mouth dry as she waited for it to click shut.
Her mind was full as she tripped down the stairs, prepared to weave through the brawling crowd and head straight home.
She pulled up short when she stepped into the taproom.
The shattered remains of several stools and chairs lay on the ale-soaked sawdust floor, broken glass glittering amongst them.
The stench of alcohol wafted up from the sodden floor, making Aly’s throat burn.
Grant was leaning against the mantel, his arms crossed and an expression of tamped rage on his face.
And standing in front of him, interviewing him about the destruction surrounding both of them, was Calum.
Calum clutched his pencil so tightly he thought it would break as he recorded Grant’s—the Wulver’s—version of events.
He’d been preparing to leave the station house for the day when Clare had popped her head round his door to tell him there was a bar fight at the Copper Kettle.
Calum would have sent Clare and Hugh to deal with it, but Graham overheard and insisted on sending Calum along with the constables.
Grant Mercer, it transpired, was an important supporter of the City Guard and close personal friends with the chief constable, and so Calum had been despatched with the pair of them to break up the fight and now stood here listening to Grant carry on about how it was a personal affront that a few drunk folk had the arrogance to start a brawl in his pub.
If they’d known what he did in the shadows, it would be arrogance indeed.
Calum peered at Grant, recalling how Aly had described him.
The kind of face you’d call pretty rather than handsome.
His hair fell in chestnut waves to his shoulders, gleaming in the light from the sconces on the walls.
From the elegant sweep of his jaw to the dark lashes framing his amber eyes, he looked more like a painting than a man.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs and Calum turned to see Aly, her brows drawing together when she caught sight of Calum. She smoothed her expression in seconds, but her face remained pale and the set of her shoulders tense as her eyes flicked to Grant. “Did you call the police?”
Calum turned back to Grant, who gave a nonchalant shrug. The movement was smooth and sinuous, more feline than human. It made Calum’s skin crawl. “Bernard did. Apparently, things got a bit out of hand.” He tapped a too-sharp canine. “Someone lost a tooth.”
Aly winced as she stepped towards Grant. Her jaw was tight, but she slung an arm casually around Grant’s waist. Heat spread through Calum’s chest. He turned his attention to his notebook, flicking through and confirming that Bernard was the bartender, who had already given a statement.
“Do we really need to go through this palaver?” Aly asked, her voice low. “Everyone’s gone.” That much was true; aside from a handful of remaining witnesses giving statements to constables, the pub was empty.
Grant pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Aye, we need the police report for the insurance, love.”
Calum’s stomach roiled. He had known that Aly was close to Grant, but knowing she was his deputy and seeing she was his lover were two different things. Hatred for Grant rushed through him.
He held out a hand to Aly, grateful that it didn’t tremble. “I’m Detective Inspector Erskine.”
Aly held out her free hand. Her grip was tight and cold. “Aly Muir. I’m afraid I may have started the whole thing.”
Grant glanced at her, firelight flickering over his face and turning it grotesque for a second. “You failed to mention that earlier.” His tone was light, but his gaze was cold as the pine forests of Gleannbhròn.
Aly shrugged. “It wasn’t really relevant at the time.
Besides,” she added hurriedly, her eyes flicking to Calum, “it wasn’t deliberate.
Some drunkard walked into me, and when I told her to watch where she was going, she tried to punch me.
I ducked and she hit someone else.” She gave an apologetic tilt of her head. “It kind of exploded from there.”
Calum pressed his lips together to keep himself from smiling. “And what happened next?”
“When I saw what was happening, I went upstairs to fetch Grant,” Aly said.
“I believe that’s all I need.” Calum closed his notebook, tucking it into a pocket of his coat. He started for the door, freezing when Grant’s hand clamped over his arm. He turned to find that too-perfect face less than an armspan from his own.
“I want to know who the instigators were,” Grant said, his eyes flashing. “I don’t want them returning.” His face flickered again, and that was when Calum realised what he was looking at.
Grant was wearing a glamour.
Calum didn’t hear the next words Grant spoke over the roaring in his own ears.
He didn’t know how he extricated himself from Grant’s grasp, what—if anything—he said in response, how he made it out the door and into a close where he collapsed against a wall, shaking, his sark sticking to the chilled sweat on his back.
Grant was fae.
Calum’s hands shook, scrabbling at his throat as he ripped his cravat off, tearing open the top of his shirt and gulping down cool, damp air.
If Grant had any idea who Calum was . . . he’d have to leave. Now.
He leant his head against the cold, damp stone. He couldn’t leave Aly with Grant. He couldn’t have before, when all he knew was that he was the city’s most infamous crime lord. He certainly couldn’t now, when he knew Grant was fae.
He ran a hand over his face. He’d go back in there, say he needed to check something in her statement, tell her the truth, and they’d go into hiding.
Or she’d laugh in his face and tell him to stop believing in myths.
His breath came in short, shuddering gasps as he paced up and down the close.
Grant had been a well-established member of society for years.
A fae wouldn’t stay in the mortal world that long, not unless they were mortal themself.
If he was demi-fae, he’d have no reason to know who Calum was.
He might not even know his powers for what they were, for that matter; when most people saw the fae as little more than a scary story for children, it was a short leap to think they were particularly skilled humans, turned to monsters in the telling.
Calum forced out a trembling breath. If Grant was demi-fae, with no connection to Faerie, Calum was safe.
But Aly wasn’t.