FORTY-NINE
The door to the Wulver’s rooms was plain, the chipped paint a dull green like so many other doors in the area.
It wasn’t hidden in any way, but it was easy to pass over if one didn’t know it was there.
And yet it loomed in Aly’s vision as she walked towards it, her shoulders tensing as she pressed it open.
She hadn’t wanted to show any of her fear to Calum, who was already so terrified for her sake, but without his presence to force her to be calm her heart was thundering in her chest.
Legs shaking, she climbed the rickety staircase at the back of the building.
She had believed it when she said that he didn’t want her dead anymore, but now that she approached his office she was unsure.
And even if he didn’t want her dead, he could still want to punish her—for fleeing her flat, for going behind his back, for working for Yvaani, even.
It didn’t matter. She could withstand anything he did to her if it meant finding the salchs he was holding captive and freeing them. She had to.
There was no stench of blood in the corridor at this time of day, little risk she’d run into anyone who might want her dead, but her fingers still itched to hold her knives, so she drew one and held it at her left side, her eyes darting about and her ears alert for any sound beyond the creak of the stairs beneath her feet and the thud of her boots on the wooden floor.
She pushed open the door from the cache that held the Wulver’s rooms into the corridor containing the brewery’s offices, blinking in the sudden brightness.
She’d taken this route because she hadn’t wanted to find out if Bernard, or whoever was at the bar downstairs today, had been told to keep her out of the back rooms, but it was a disorienting shift from the caves of the Wulver’s salching concern to the bustle of the brewery in the middle of the day.
And she was still holding a knife.
She sheathed it hurriedly, her breath quickening as she fumbled the pleats of her coat over it. A man holding a brown envelope approached her, his gaze falling on her face, and for a moment she feared he would confront her, but his eyes slid onwards and he walked on past.
She reached the door to Grant’s office without incident, pushing it open without knocking. Her palms were clammy, a trickle of sweat easing down her spine beneath the lacing of her stays.
“I said not to disturb—Aly?” Grant looked up from his desk, his expression revealing nothing of his thoughts.
Aly gave a nervous smile, her throat closing up when she tried to talk.
“What on earth are you doing here?” Grant set down his pen with a clink.
Aly’s cheeks heated. He hadn’t attacked her yet—that was a good sign—but he didn’t seem pleased or like he’d expected her. Her stomach contracted, the fear that she’d misjudged the situation entirely lancing through her. “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”
Grant stood, walking around the desk with his arms outstretched towards her. “Believe me, dear, I am. But after you stabbed Rory for asking you to return—”
“Who told you that?”
“He did.”
“He’s alive?” Relief flooded through her. For all he’d tried to kill her—and had made her nervous long before then—she always hated adding to her list of dead.
“And not very happy with you, my dear.” Grant shook his head, but his mouth was curving into a smile. “Leaving him in the canal like that.”
“He deserved it.” Aly shrugged, trying to seem like she had no regrets. “I didn’t stab him because he asked me to return to you. I stabbed him because he attacked me first. He thought getting rid of me would get him my job—my old job.”
“Well, he certainly won’t be getting it now.” Grant’s expression was cold enough to make the skin prickle on Aly’s scalp, even when the fury wasn’t directed at her. “Not least because—I hope—you want it back?”
Aly swallowed the fear clawing at the back of her throat. “I do.”
Grant cupped her face, kissing her. His lips were soft on hers, sending heat through her body, but the heat left emptiness in its wake, like fae food that turned to ash on the tongue; it had been good enough—very good, even—when she’d had nothing to compare it to, but it was such a pale imitation of how it felt to kiss Calum, the trust and affection between them amplifying her desire.
Grant stilled, pulling away. “What’s the matter?” His eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Aly shook her head, threading her arms around his neck. “Nothing at all.” She forced a smile to her face, then reached up and kissed him, banishing all thought of Calum and leaning into the press of Grant’s chest against hers, the pressure of his fingertips on her face.
She tried to, anyway. When she could bear it no longer, she pulled away. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing?” she asked, keeping her arms around Grant. “With the salchs?”
“You’re not angry?” His thumb stroked over her cheek, the movement somehow possessive.
“Why would I be angry?” Aly played with a loose lock of hair on his forehead.
Grant’s eyes flashed, and Aly hurried to regain control of the conversation. “I know what I am now. What we are.” The words made her insides writhe with nausea, but she pressed on. “We were born to be ruthless. It’s in our blood.”
Grant’s lips curved in a feral grin, and he kissed Aly’s forehead. “My Aly. I knew you’d come round.”
Aly gave a smile that felt more like a grimace. “So what’s the plan? I assume you’re waiting for Imbolc.”
“You’ve done your research.” Grant’s look was indulgent. “Yes, I’m waiting for Imbolc. But they’re safely stowed away in the meantime.”
Aly straightened her shoulders. “Take me to them. I want to see.”
Grant’s brow furrowed, and he pulled away from Aly. “Why?”
“This is our future, isn’t it?” Aly said, her suspicions about Grant crashing together in her head. “You’re trading them to Faerie to get something out of the fae.”
“Indeed I am.” Grant carded a hand through her hair. “Have you heard of Ascension?”
“Ascension?” The way his eyes gleamed sent cold slithering down her spine.
“It’s a way for demi-fae”—he gestured between the two of them—“to become fully fae. To become immortal and have access to all the powers we are owed from our fae parents.”
Cold sweat broke out on Aly’s back, making her shift stick to her skin.
“You want to become fully fae?” She didn’t want to think what kind of power he’d obtain by tapping into his fae side, when already he glamoured and took others’ magic—and that wasn’t even considering how he manipulated and threatened the people who had influence in the city.
Grant tilted her chin up so she looked him square in the eye. “Not just me. I want us to become fully fae. Think what we can accomplish with the full powers of our birthright. We’ll be unstoppable.”
It all felt too easy. The hair lifted on the back of Aly’s neck as she walked alongside Grant through the city. Just like that, she’d convinced him she supported him, after years of opposition to his more brutal activities.
She told herself it was a stroke of luck, that something had to go their way sooner or later and finally it had, but it didn’t stop the quaking in her gut as they approached the harbour.
Nor did it prevent the burn of bile in the back of her throat at his plans.
He wanted to Ascend. To strip away his humanity and mortality and emerge more powerful, more brutal than before. And he wanted her to Ascend.
“I understand you’ve been busy.”
Aly glanced sidelong at him. The sunlight burnished his chestnut curls. “What do you mean?”
“Getting Yvaani to hire you, then stealing from her and setting fire to her storeroom . . . I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
Nausea twisted Aly’s stomach at the idea that she’d done it all for him. “The fire was an accident.”
“But not the theft.” It wasn’t a question. “What did you steal?”
She couldn’t answer that directly, not without prompting more questions about the purpose. “The most valuable item in her shipment.”
Grant gave her the kind of approving smile she used to crave, the crinkling in the corners of his eyes that used to fill her with pride. It made her feel hollow and empty.
“Well done,” he said, leading her down a close that stank of seaweed. “And your copper?”
“Haven’t seen him since—since he last arrested me.” She’d almost said, “since you tried to strangle me,” but knowing Grant it was best to ignore that and pretend it hadn’t happened.
Grant flicked his gaze to her. “No?”
Aly shrugged. “Seemed little point, given he knew fuck all about who dumped a body in your territory.”
“Indeed.” Grant’s expression gave no indication as to whether he believed her.
Aly’s pulse quickened. If he didn’t believe her, if he even had the faintest suspicion she was a grass .
. . “He got clingy. He kept trying to rescue me from a life of crime and help me become an upstanding guild-employed citizen again.” She gave a snort, her real feelings about the guilds seeping into her next words.
“Who wouldn’t want to work themself to the bone for nothing more than the dream of a better future?
” So many apprentices and journeyfolk never reached the stage of master, and those who worked for a guild without being members had little opportunity for progression. “How did you do it?”
“Hmm?”
“Become a guild master.” She’d never known him to work hard at anything in his life; that was what he had people like her for.
Grant waggled his fingers, a grin flashing across his face. “Magic.”
Aly raised her eyebrows.
“By magic, of course, I mean a combination of my stunning good looks and threats. It’s remarkable what you can get the other apprentices to do for you when they’re afraid you’ll throttle them with their own innards if they don’t.”
Aly suppressed a shiver. She could only imagine what he’d done to convince his peers the threats were anything more than posturing and banter.
Grant stopped next to a warehouse with high, grimy windows and a chain across the door. “Here we are.”
The chains clanked as he unlocked the heavy iron padlock—he’d pulled on a pair of leather gloves before touching it—and unravelled them to haul the door open.
The smell hit Aly first, the stench of piss and shit and the sweat of too many terrified people crowded into too small a space making her eyes water.
She forced herself to look inside, blinking in the gloom.
A dozen or so people were huddled together in a room the size of Calum’s kitchen, their eyes wide with fear as they stared at Aly and Grant.
Aly’s gut lurched as she caught sight of a young lad, no more than seventeen, twisting his body to shield another youth from her scrutiny. She wanted to comfort them, to tell them they’d be free soon, but all she could do was break eye contact with the lad and step back from the doorway.
“There we are,” Grant said, closing the door.
“Our ticket to Ascension.” He threaded the chain through the handles again and locked it.
“The iron stops them from using magic to get the door open.” He peeled his gloves off, folding them and sliding them into a pocket of his frock coat.
“There would have been more, but it seems your copper has been releasing any arrested salchs he comes across.”
“He’s not my copper.”
“So you wouldn’t happen to know why he’s foiling my plans, then?” Grant’s eyes were flinty as he started walking up the slope into town.
Aly stopped looking around surreptitiously in an effort to memorise the flaking blue paint of the door and the jagged crack running like a scar across the highest window. “I told you,” she said, falling into step with Grant, “he thinks he can save people from their crimes.”
“So you found yourself a copper too moral to see salchs punished.” Grant’s face was hard in the grey light. Aly’s breath caught in her throat. “But not too moral, it seems, to fuck a criminal in exchange for letting her off.”
Aly flashed a look at him. His nostrils flared, the cords standing out in his throat above his cravat. “No, not too moral for that,” she said, the lie bitter on her tongue.
“Why do you think that’s where he draws the line?” Grant said, his expression smoothing.
“I really couldn’t say.” Aly eyed him, hiding her clammy hands in her pockets.
Grant tilted his head. “Hmm.” He walked on in silence, Aly keeping pace beside him.
She needed to get away from him, and soon, before he figured out the truth.
“I’ll meet you at home,” she said, keeping her voice light. “I’m sure you have a lot to do at the office.”
Grant slowed, turning to look at her. “Can you find your way back from here?”
Aly looked around. They were on a broader street, the pavement giving way to a canal to her left. She recognised it from their journey to the warehouse. “I think so.”
Grant’s grip was tight on her shoulder as he pulled her in to kiss her, his tongue delving possessively into her mouth, his other hand firm on her back. She forced herself to relax into the kiss, skimming her fingers over his jawline and counting her heartbeats until he pulled away.
“I’ll see you this evening,” he said, then released her and walked away.
Aly’s pulse didn’t slow until long after he’d disappeared round the corner.