Chapter Three #2
I’d die for this. I’d be beaten within an inch of my life, and if I survived that, he’d make good on his earlier threat. But
the way he was cajoling me, sweetening his tone to impress the rich gentleman, overwhelmed reason with revulsion.
“I assure you,” the stranger said to me, “this will be worth your while.”
I decided then that, if nothing else, I would enjoy this. If it was my last act in this accursed world, I would drag this
monster to hell with me.
With a shudder, I forced myself to focus on Branson’s essence again, teasing out each sickly thread of it, until I feared
I might truly vomit.
“He lives at the edge of Riverside, in the dwelling that overlooks Ravenwell Bridge,” I began, “where the men from the nearby
market dump their unsold, rotting offerings.”
With the fire burning behind me, I must have looked like a terrible enchantress from the fairy tales. Branson turned wan as my words sank in. “Ye overheard one of the other guards speaking of it—”
“He waters his ale, either unable to pay for a full pint or unable to handle more,” I continued, clucking my tongue. “Shame,
that.”
The stranger made a noise of amusement that pulled Branson’s outraged focus. “Will ye let the bitch speak to me in such a
way?” he snarled.
“I think I will,” the stranger said. “I’m rather enjoying myself.”
“Mr. Branson stole the boots he’s wearing off someone he found near the taverns of Nine Veils,” I said. They smelled of expensive
shaving soap, of the damp bricks of the old buildings. “Likely the stockings, too.”
His eyes bulged. “I’m no thief, you lyin’ cu—”
“Perhaps,” I interrupted, relishing my final bow, “but you are weeks away from death. Of that, I am certain.”
The guard’s jaw hung open. Even the stranger couldn’t completely mask his surprise. It was an unspeakable pleasure to finally
crack that mask of arrogant nonchalance.
“Venia’s Curse, I’m afraid,” I said. The smell of his innards slowly wasting away—it was unmistakable. “It won’t be long until
you start showing signs of the pox on your face, and then what will you do?”
The noise the guard made was inhuman, born of pure, unyielding rage. His face flooded with crimson as he raised his truncheon
like a club and lunged. I threw my arms up to protect my head, curling in to brace for the fatal strike.
It never came.
I risked a look up through the curtain of my matted hair.
The stranger had caught Branson’s arm and held it aloft, the grip punishing enough for the guard to gasp and nearly drop the
truncheon.
“If you attempt to strike this woman again,” he began in that velvety voice of his, “I will use that little stick to give
you the most unholy thrashing of your existence, until not even God recognizes the bloody pulp of your remains. Do you understand
me?”
Branson quivered, his face mottling with purple. He didn’t seem to be breathing.
“Do you,” the man repeated slowly, as if speaking to a small child, “understand me?”
“Y-yes,” Branson muttered, staggering as the other man forcibly released him.
“Good.” The stranger flicked his fingers in a way that reeked of titled nobility. “You may go.”
The guard panted, shaking. He obeyed—but not before sending me a look that promised murder, and worse.
Waiting for the door to slam shut, the stranger crossed back toward the fireplace, occupying the other chair. We sat side
by side, separated only by a small tea table, facing opposite directions.
“Have I passed your test?” I asked coldly.
He braced an elbow on the arm of the chair and his chin on his fist, studying me. “Yes, I suppose,” he said, infusing the
words with a warmth that didn’t match the sharpness of his gaze. “What can you tell about me, I wonder?”
The bastard knew, as he’d known nearly everything else about me, that I couldn’t scent him. There had to be a reason for it—magic,
most likely. He was using some relic that protected him from fairy magic.
“You smell of horses and deceit,” I lied, unwilling to let him win.
He mimed being shot in the heart. “Sour milk, then?”
I couldn’t help my surprise.
“Your grandfather accused me of the very same,” he explained.
“He’s not my grandfather.”
“Not in the present tense at least,” he agreed. “He was, however, wasn’t he?”
“He was never my grandfather, as you well know,” I ground out. “He disinherited my mother.”
“His only child,” he said. “His sole heir. He never had another, legitimate or otherwise. What could have possibly caused
such a rupture?”
“You are looking upon her,” I told him, the words brittle.
“And there was never any hope of reconciliation in all this time?” He clucked his tongue. “In truth, I cannot help but wonder
if she was the one who chose to leave—and that, rather than humiliation, was what angered him enough to destroy his own legacy.”
Mama’s desperate face flashed in my mind as I ground out, “I assure you, there was no choice in the matter.”
There never was for a woman. William Rosebourne had chosen society’s acceptance over his own child, who, until that fateful
mistake, had been the perfect, gentle, obedient young lady.
His ink-dark brows rose, just that little bit. “Were you aware that he told the whole of society she had died of gray fever? There was a funeral at Saint Bartholomew’s. No expense was spared. Rather shocking, wouldn’t you say?”
Disgust curdled my empty stomach once more, and I barely got the words out. “I am aware, yes. He aspired to be one of you—became one of you. In the eyes of the Patricians, shame is the only crime that cannot be overcome. A diseased branch of a tree must
be excised or else the whole of it will rot.”
“And yet, here you are.”
“Here I am,” I echoed caustically.
With agonizing slowness, as if relishing every prolonged moment of my discomfort, he placed the flacon of Blooming Beauty on the table between us, then another just beside it. The second flacon was no bigger than the length of a finger, the vessel
simple in its shape. If not for the rose stopper, I might not have recognized it as a bottle of Rosebourne perfume at all.
A deep ache stole through me at the sight of it, and before I could stop myself, I snatched up the Rosebourne bottle and threw
it into the fire. The flames burned a blinding blue, hissing and heaving as they devoured the magic. The stranger’s gaze never
left mine.
“There’s no need for dramatics, Lockwood,” he said.
“I have not yet begun to show you dramatics, sir,” I vowed.
“Settle your feathers,” he said. “I had to be certain you possessed the family gift.”
“Gift.” I licked my dry lips. “How interesting that it becomes a gift when it is attached to the Rosebourne name, but it was only
ever a crime when associated with Lockwood.”
“Were you under the impression that life was a fair game?” he asked.
“No, but I thought—” I clamped my jaw shut.
It was galling, all of it. The way the King sent his soldiers to rip relics out of the hands of families who had need of them,
while the Patricians were allowed to keep them locked in vaults. The way anyone with a drop of fairy blood had been shunned
until their line died out entirely—and yet, for decades, they had simply averted their gazes and held out their hands for
their bespoke Rosebourne perfumes. And all the while, everyone else in the kingdom struggled and toiled and died, with only
whispers and rumors in the scandal sheets of the magic that still existed outside of their reach.
The fairies and their old gods had left the shores of Albion centuries ago, driven out, it was said, by the rise of men and their new conquering faith.
Any magic threatened the great balance of life, the divine right of the King to rule, and the hierarchy of our society said to be ordained by God himself.
“You thought what?” he pressed, looking curious now.
I said nothing. I’d learned long ago to keep my feelings inside, where they couldn’t be used against me.
“William Rosebourne died four nights ago at Fenwick’s, his member’s club,” the man said into the silence. “Someone placed
an explosive beneath his carriage.”
I knew, of course. The broadsheets had screamed of it for days, venturing theory after theory of who might be responsible.
A rival he’d put out of business, one could assume, but Rosebourne had thrice as many enemies as I had years.
It didn’t matter to me who had done it, only that he had gotten what he deserved at last.
“Why are you here?” I asked quietly.
“I have a task that, regrettably, only you can perform,” he said, “and so, I have a proposition.”
I leaned against the chair, my fingers knotting together painfully over my chest. “I assume this task is a perfume?” I asked
finally. “One involving some magic, or else you wouldn’t be here, desperate and pretending otherwise.”
His eyes narrowed. Good. Aside from Sweetie, annoying him was one of the few weapons I had left available to me, and he was
making it too easy.
“Yes. One I can speak of only if you agree.”
“If I were able to create a magic perfume—a fact that has yet to be tested at trial,” I began ingenuously, “I would never agree to the
creation of one that would harm another, nor would I agree to one that comes at too high a cost to myself.”
He drew back against his own seat then, the tension in his jaw emphasizing its sharp line. “Not even for a full pardon from
the King upon the perfume’s completion?”
I launched myself to my feet with such force I nearly overturned the heavy chair into the fire. “You are—you are a fork-tongued
serpent. Lying and—”