Chapter Twenty-Seven Wren
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Wren
What makes a Fate? Scholars have long debated this mystery, and while the Fates themselves have claimed divine destiny, skeptics refuse to give up the search for a solid answer.
—Pages found in the banned book Questioning Fate by Alexandra Collette, Andalay historian, location unknown
I never did get the chance to see Lord Sinclair. After Everett and I rode back to his home in unbearable silence, he all but whisked me to his carriage with hardly a word.
He’d been ashamed, and I understood, but if anyone would sympathize with what he’d gone through, it would be me. Or maybe I was just lucky to have someone like my sister who cared enough to listen and talk without judgment. Everett didn’t have any siblings, and if his father abused him…
Everett’s not wanting a heart-to-heart would be understandable.
I’d keep his secret nevertheless, even from…
even from Damien. He’d been the first person I’d thought of running off to tell.
In fact, Damien tended to cross my mind more and more lately, even over trivial things barely related to the case.
Shame prickled underneath my skin, and I brushed aside the thought.
I could keep one secret. It didn’t mean Everett was our culprit, and I liked to think my word meant something.
When I arrived home and after my parents had retired for the evening, I hunted Callie down.
She lay across her bed, a few open ledgers spread across her fluffy violet blanket.
Twirling a pink fountain pen in her hand, she rested on her stomach, bare feet in the air and kicking casually back and forth.
I smiled. She looked like she had five years ago—before my partner in crime had endured Father’s tutelage.
“Yes, sister?” she asked in a teasing tone, not glancing over her shoulder. Fates, she had the uncanny ability to know when I was sneaking up on her. Maybe she sensed my emotions radiating from my damned pores.
“Do you or Father ever deal with Lord Arthur Sinclair?” I asked, leaning against her doorframe.
She paused, twirling her pen, to sneak a peek at me, the space between her eyes pinched. “That old bag? Ugh. He’s the worst. Why?”
“Why is he the worst?” I continued, pulse pounding at my throat.
“He stays to himself mostly, thank the Fates, but whenever Father and I have to go to his estate for business, he’s a real…pleasure.”
“Do you think he abuses his son?”
I got straight to the point. No child should suffer a parent’s abuse, and my hands clenched as I thought of Everett cowering while his own father swung at him.
Callie frowned, her pretty features fraught. “I mean, I haven’t heard any gossip, but…”
I walked deeper into the room. “But what?”
“But there was some talk a couple of years ago that Arthur hit his late wife. She died when his son was younger, so my memory could be foggy, but I wouldn’t exactly put it past him.
He has a well-known temper. Father even had a bruise once from where Arthur threw a paperweight at his shoulder during an official vote. ”
I sucked in a sharp breath, hating that I hadn’t tried harder to talk more with Everett before he rushed me out through his gates. He could be the victim of abuse. Then again, hounding him when he didn’t feel comfortable wasn’t ideal either.
“Why are you asking about him?” Callie dropped her pen on the biggest ledger and twisted herself to an upright position.
“I saw Everett today. He just seemed off when we brought up his father,” I lied. Well, half lied.
Callie nodded like she understood. “You like him,” she said confidently and with far too much pleasure.
If she read my emotions, she’d know I did like him, I just wasn’t certain which kind of like.
Everett had grown on me easily enough, but my heart didn’t pound like a madwoman’s at the mere sight of him.
It was a gentle beat, sure and steady. The problem was, I wasn’t certain I liked the steadiness of it all.
“Just be careful, little bird,” Callie warned.
“A romantic entanglement with him would mean dealing with his father, and while I like Everett as a man, I’d be wary. ”
“I will.” I stepped back, itching to get away from the topic of courtship. “Night, Callie.”
“Night,” she called as I left her room.
I walked to my own room and shut the door with a deep sigh. A few hours remained until Grayson and I were to meet to follow his father to the docks.
The idea felt thrilling at the time, but now, after today—
I was drained. Mentally, emotionally. I stared at my reflection in the floor-length mirror opposite me, noting the dark circles below each eye and the limpness of my hair.
Even my skin looked pallid. Pinching my cheeks, I roused some color, but it wasn’t enough to dispel that haunting version of me.
Before I turned eighteen, Callie had often teased me about being a bundle of energy.
How I’d bounce off the walls whenever a ball was planned and think for days about what to wear.
How excited I grew at the prospect of the quarterly festival days in the town market, where I’d buy silks and ribbons and all manner of frivolous things.
I’d been the younger, lively sister who’d thought only about herself.
After my eyes had opened, after misfortune had befallen me, that had all changed. Funny how that worked. You’re blind to the unpleasant things in life when you’re happy. Like other people’s pain was nonexistent as long as you were smiling.
I plopped onto my bed, eyes on the ceiling. I might not enjoy my reflection, but I was glad I wasn’t that girl anymore—or was trying not to be. She’d been self-centered and delusional.
I’d trade dark circles for clarity any day.
Hopefully tonight would provide some.
At ten-thirty, I pulled on the dreariest dress I owned—a lapis blue number with long sleeves and a higher neckline. Taming my hair, I pinned it up into a tight bun so the cloak I stole from Mother’s closet would easily slip over. Mine was caked in grime, and Sarah had insisted it be cleaned.
In case anyone lingered by the front entrance, I chose to use the garden. Grayson told me he’d meet me a block away to avoid suspicion.
My hands dug into the cloak’s pockets as I walked, the night too quiet, the air stagnant. My fingers curled around something hard. Removing my hand from the deep pocket, I squinted beneath a streetlamp at the black card I grasped.
The Black Dahlia.
I blinked in confusion at the golden script, noting that the address lay south. There was no other hint as to what the establishment was, but ice shot down my back. Even if it belonged to someone innocent, my mother was too stuck-up ever to set foot in the south. Or so I believed.
When a horse neighed impatiently nearby, I shoved the card back in her pocket.
Grayson’s carriage waited on the other side of the street, a block away, as he’d promised.
Lifting my leather-gloved hand, I softly rapped on the door, his hunched-over driver not sparing me a glance.
A beat passed before the door swung open, and I hastily climbed inside.
Thankfully, it wasn’t as ostentatious as his parents’ usual transportation; no gold or carved wood in sight.
Grayson dressed the part of a vigilante—though a stylish one, covered in head-to-toe black with crisp button-down and velvet trousers.
His leg jostled as he appraised me, his eyes wide enough to reveal the nerves he failed to conceal.
“Wren,” he murmured, nodding to the opposite seat, his natural charisma nonexistent.
I took my place with a nod. We were linked, both of our fathers a part of something we prayed wasn’t as terrible as we imagined.
Souls had to mean people.
Like the ones who’d lost their lives in the Void, their black-and-white photographs clipped to a thin sheet of paper, filed away and forgotten beneath a layer of dust.
The face of the man who raised me loomed in my mind.
Aside from blackmail, I suspected my father was involved with those files and the people who had mysteriously gone missing.
It was a sickening thought, that he could do worse than steal gifts and blackmail lords, but he’d risen so high in the ranks so quickly, becoming representative of Ward One, and his thirst for more influence might drive him to do nearly anything.
Even something as heinous as cold-blooded murder.
My heart had started to break when Damien spotted him at the Registry in that cold room.
After Grayson’s note, it was fully broken.
But my feelings couldn’t matter anymore.
We had to catch him red-handed, dealing with people, and bring him to justice so no more were killed.
Grayson would make the perfect witness—while some might not believe me due to the ridiculous fact that I was a woman, they wouldn’t hesitate to listen to Grayson if he made the claim.
I dug my nails into my palms as I thought about how outrageous our world was. How we pretended to be civilized when all we amounted to were bloodthirsty animals.
Grayson wordlessly tapped the roof of the carriage and we started off, for once not making clever remarks or even shamelessly flirting. We sat in uneasy silence for many minutes before he spoke.
“We’re just doing some spying,” he assured me. Or himself. “No interfering, and we stay as far away from my father as possible.”
I nodded in agreement, my stomach twisting. The dress I wore had been a bad choice; the heavy material caused sweat to pool down my back, the feeling of being wrapped in stifling wool making my pulse flutter in distress at my throat.
It didn’t ease my mind that I’d left Damien high and dry.
He probably would be pissed if he showed up and I was gone on a mission without him, but I’d had no way to get a message to him with Sarah breathing down my neck all day.
I should have felt guilty, but the vindictive side of me wished I could be there to see Damien’s scowl when he realized I wasn’t always waiting at his beck and call.
When we arrived at the docks, Grayson’s nervous foot-tapping ceased. Mercifully.
“Ready?” he asked, opening the door. I nodded. Steeling my spine, Grayson exited before offering me a hand. It shook.
I eyed our surroundings.
We were at the docks, sure enough, the sight of the sea and the scent of brine and varnish washing over my senses. To our right, the great import and export ships waited, moored at the dozens of tidy docks spread out like spindly fingers reaching into the ocean.
Grayson had the good idea to hide the carriage behind the port master’s office, and we moved around to the edge of the central walkway.
His father’s ships were closer to the end, but I heard shouts ringing in the air.
Peering into the night, I glimpsed men and women lifting crates with ropes and pulleys, hauling them off the ship and onto a rolling device secured to the dock.
Stamped on the black container was a hatchet and moon symbol. The Hockley emblem.
“Let’s move closer.” I nudged Grayson.
He stood frozen. “There’s hardly any cover.” He was right. Just an open fence separated the docks from the mainland, though I did see some thick reeds we could slink behind.
“We might get a little messy, but aim for those.” I pointed at our destination. Grayson cringed. “I’m right here,” I assured him, grabbing his hand and squeezing.
I barely knew him, and yet it felt like we’d been friends for years. I supposed some people were like that—forging a connection that tied them together, making everything feel effortless.
Or I felt that way because we were in the same horrid predicament. Pain made for an easy bond.
“Together,” Grayson said with a sigh.
With his hand in mine, we started to creep along the fence when an irritated voice rang out.
“Did you forget someone, sunshine?”