Chapter 18
Devon
Early evening made a cathedral out of the office.
The new desk that Kazimir had gotten for me fit perfectly in the space and I loved working beside him.
The light fell long through the tall windows and turned the dust into slow stars, and the leather sofa—scandalous an hour ago—behaved like a respectable parish pew under the weight of paper and ink.
Below, the building learned its breath, the faint percussion of staff moving in patterns I was just beginning to read.
The scent in here belonged to old books and ironed linen and something ink-bitter I secretly liked.
I tucked my hair behind my ear, ran through a few invoices, and let the quiet do what it did best here—hold me steady while the world sharpened.
I moved on to the patrol maps. The perimeter was an elegant mess—elegant because the redundancies were invisible unless you knew how redundancy dressed; mess because life did what it wanted to the best-laid plans.
Wards ran like fishing line between physical defense points; the cameras had been staggered so no single angle had jurisdiction over the same patch of ground twice in under a minute.
The patrol routes—blue marker—overlapped with a mathematician’s restraint.
I circled the section lightly, then drew a diagonal slash through my circle, the code I’d used on tickets at the diner when something didn’t add up.
If I listened—really listened—the hum under my palm sharpened to a warning bell at that point.
It wasn’t danger yet. It was a possibility. Those made better murderers.
I kept going. The south side had its own rhythm—wider streets, a line of sight that kept most men honest. The east perimeter leaned into its cousin buildings and borrowed their shadows; that would be a problem on a fogged night, not so much on a full moon.
The west—our entrance for those who knew where to knock—was cleaner.
I tracked the nightly foot patterns with the side of my hand and found a seam where two shifts met—a three-minute edge the maps didn’t show.
I made another neat mark and wrote a number beside it. Then I laid the pen down and sat back a fraction.
“Kazimir,” I said.
He stood, soft as a shadow falling, and came to look at the map on my desk. His hand—cool, elegant—settled itself on the back of my chair near my shoulder, and the long planes of him entered my periphery. I pointed.
“Here,” I said, tapping the north alley.
“We treat this like a straight line, but it isn’t.
The camera’s angle leaves a slice if a truck higher than six foot nine hugs the curb.
It’s nothing most nights because the ward covers it, but the ward flexes to accommodate this old drain…
If someone times the weekly produce delivery and knows exactly where to hang a hand, he can ride the weakness.
Twelve seconds. Maybe ten if he’s lucky.
Long enough to get a tracker on a crate or a man if he knows how to make himself part of a stack. ”
He bent closer, and his breath stirred the hair just behind my ear. I heard the soft scratch of his ring against the paper as he braced on the table’s edge to shade the print with his body.
I waited. He didn’t rush into the part where he made it better. He considered my observation. “Good catch. Make the notes, scan them and send them to everyone.”
I swallowed something that tried to expand in my chest until it would break ribs.
The last time someone had said I was good at anything, they’d been handing me a bus tray that weighed more than my wrists liked and telling me I was good at mopping the floor.
This was different. This was my body remembering the rules it had learned before I was cast down and realizing praise always felt good.
“You have a warrior's eye for strategy,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said, met his eyes, and didn’t look away. The pale blue went darker at the edges. “I don’t…know why I know it. But I do.”
“I do,” he said, with that soft gravity that made me want to believe the world had bones you could trust. “You are a soldier of the first order. It has not left you.”
I finished the decoy notes and wrote a small addendum in Amelia’s language about the ward tweak—then made a note about installing additional protection.
I drew it with a flourish at the top because if you had to put a physical reminder in the world that it wasn’t safe to cheat, you could at least make it handsome.
“Done,” I said finally, and the word settled something inside of me. I pressed my palm to the page one more time, feeling for hums where I’d made marks. The old soldier in me—whoever she had been—approved.
Across the room, Kazimir glanced up and gave me the smallest nod, like I’d handed him his coffee exactly the way he liked it. I loved his subtle approval.
I headed out of the office for a much-needed break. The need to personally scan the halls and see the guards face-to-face had become a necessary part of my day.
Lucia came around the corner sharp as a blade, yet soft as silk, a tray balanced on one palm.
She had traded the designer dresses for something deceptively simple: black trousers, a red blouse that said she meant business, her hair in a braid that looked like it could double as a weapon.
Her eyes met my face and warmed in an instant.
“I brought bribes,” she said. “Tea for a woman who just reorganized my father’s to-do list with frightening efficiency.
” She set the tray on a slim console table against the wall and handed me a cup of tea.
“Don’t get used to me playing errand girl.
I’m spoiling you early so I can be impossible later. ”
I took the cup in both hands. The steam kissed my face and smelled faintly of mint and something floral. “If this is spoiling, I accept my fate. Also, if you're going to be impossible, please schedule it so I can watch. I love a good performance.”
Her mouth did that thing where it looked like she was about to smile and then chose a sharper expression instead. “You’ll have front-row. How are you? How is your… everything?” Her eyes flicked, a beat too long, to my back. There was no pity there. There was curiosity wrapped in respect.
“They’re beautiful and strong,” I said honestly, leaning a shoulder against the wall so I wouldn’t have to pretend I was less tired than I was.
“They come when I ask and go when I ask now. I’m flying faster each day.
” I let the memory flicker across my jaw and vanish. “Kazimir seems partial to them.”
“I would expect nothing less,” she said, dry as good gin. Then, more softly, “You should know you made the second-floor ward wake up when you unfurled. It liked you. Amelia came down off the bar with a look on her face like she had just solved a riddle and then refused to tell anyone the answer.”
I laughed into my tea. “That tracks.” I swallowed a mouthful that warmed me all the way to my fingers. “They are…not just for pretty. The base is very sensitive. If a hand knows where to touch, it is like a switch. Kazimir learned that very quickly.”
She arched an eyebrow in an amused motion. “I’m going to file that away into things I could do without knowing.”
I laughed. “Yes, well. I have so few women to talk to. Sorry if I over shared,” I said, cheerful in the face of my own blush.
She sipped her tea, went pensive. “You’ll make the rest of us look terribly dull if you start glowing every time you come,” she said conversationally, as if discussing the weather.
I choked on nothing and then laughed until one of the guards down the hall cut his eyes away to avoid smiling on duty. “I make no promises,” I managed when air returned.
“Good,” she said. The word was a blessing.
“Promise me less and deliver more. The world expects the opposite.” She reached and adjusted a stray lock of hair behind my ear with the kind of care that made my stomach pinch with the ache of receiving something I hadn’t had since I woke up on a park bench.
“Also, your notes on the patrols—Bohdan is already growling. That means he’s pleased. He only purrs when he’s furious.”
I made a face. “Then I’ll try for a growl score of eight out of ten. I don’t want to give him a complex.”
“You’ll know you have when he brings you a pastry and calls it fuel,” she said, amused. “Be warned.”
We fell quiet for a breath, sharing the kind of silence that meant nothing vital was at risk. Then she said, softer yet, “Thank you for letting him be happy.” She didn’t say my father. She didn’t have to.
“He did the work himself,” I said, honest to the bone. “I only…was.”
“Being is harder than bleeding out, some days,” she replied.
The faintest line pulled between her brows the way it did when she thought of her own tightrope between here and Iron Valor.
“Anyway—if you need anything—Doc would be insufferable if I didn’t say it.
He’s very fond of damsels who are actually swords. ”
“I’ll try to deserve his faith,” I told her honestly not wanting to disappoint her kind, yet scary mate.
She glanced down the hall, mind already running two floors and three hours ahead. “I have to brief a witch who uses adjectives I don’t trust. Are you coming down for a while or hiding up here with the old ghosts?”
“Both,” I said. “I’m developing a taste for multitasking.”
She grinned outright then—the kind that showed teeth and no apology—and flicked my braid with two fingers. “Dangerous woman.” She took the tray and lifted it one-handed again. “Try not to set anything on fire without me.”
“No promises,” I called after her, and earned a backward wave before she rounded the corner and disappeared into the machinery of the house.