Chapter 12
Elric watched her familiar disappear into the shadows of the house.
Nyx had learned much in her short lifespan already, but familiars were always tricky little things.
He’d created them more times than he could count, but they chose their own forms, their own witches, and even then, they were difficult to control.
Familiars required respect from their witches, and if they didn’t get it, then they would find another. So the fact that Nyx was already willing to go to such lengths for Jessamine? It boded well for his little gravesinger.
They waited for a long while in the dark, neither of them saying a word.
The guards changed shifts again. They seem to do that fairly regularly, almost at every hour.
It seemed Leon wanted to make sure every single guard was always refreshed, and their eyes never missed a single detail.
One of the guards even noticed a rat as it scurried across the street, and he was very quick to finish it before it could approach Fortuna’s home.
But then, a little shadow passed underneath the gate and headed straight for them. The darkness of Nyx’s form was little more than a blur, and not a single guard noticed as she darted across the street, over the stairs, and down onto the side where they hid.
“There you are,” Jessamine breathed as she ran her hands over Nyx’s sides. “What took you so long?”
There was a soft glare from her familiar before it reached out a paw and touched her cheek. Jessamine stilled, her eyes going glassy as magic passed between the two of them.
He’d only seen familiars do this on the rare occasion. The creatures were notoriously difficult to get to perform magic with their owners, being far more likely to hoard that power for themselves. Yet again, this familiar had surprised him.
Jessamine, returning to herself after communing with the little creature, said, “There appears to be a small servant’s door hidden in the wall of ivy in the back.
It’s made to look like there’s nothing behind the wall, but we should be able to get inside with no issues.
The only problem is that there are guards on that side as well.
They won’t let us pass unless we look like one of the servants. ”
“Did Nyx see any servants? If so, I could steal their faces.” It was a power he hadn’t used in a while, but he would very much enjoy doing it again. There was a little pain involved, but did that matter in the grand scheme of things?
“No,” she lamented before leaning away from Nyx’s touch. “Go home to Sybil now, sweet one. I don’t want you getting caught.”
All the fur on Nyx’s sides fluffed, and her tail doubled in size. Clearly, she was very unhappy with her owner for even suggesting such a thing. Familiars had their place, and that was with their witch.
Jessamine smiled and ran her hand down Nyx’s head, flattening her ears against her skull. “This is too dangerous for a black cat. I’ll make it home to you in no time, little one.”
Though the familiar still wasn’t happy with this option, the cat turned and disappeared back down the street. The cat would find its way home, without a doubt, but he had no idea what it would do when it found Sybil. Likely complain.
And perhaps vomit void dust into their shoes. It had taken him weeks to clean that curse out of them last time.
Sighing, he reached for Jessamine’s hand and clasped it in his own. “Think of shadows, gravesinger.”
“Why?”
“Because it is nighttime, and that is when I am most powerful. Think of shadows and how you are one. Together, we shall walk past these guards and they will never know that we were here.”
“You can do that?” She looked him up and down, sizing up the god before her as though she questioned his power.
“Nightmare,” he murmured, his voice pitched low and sultry. He stepped closer, reeling her into his chest. “Haven’t you learned it’s better to trust me?”
Her pupils enlarged, growing larger with desire as she used her magic.
And then they were both in the throes of need as her power flowed through them.
He tilted his head back, groaning quietly so they wouldn’t be overheard.
But every time she used magic, it was white-hot fire that flowed through his veins.
This magic was powerful, almost too powerful for him to comprehend. Witches weren’t supposed to be able to use his magic like this. Or at least they never had before.
Not until her.
He breathed into the power, allowing it to flow from his fingertips and down into hers.
The moment it entered her body, she changed it.
Manipulated it. The magic became something far more than what he could do with it, because she knew how to use that power to her own advantage.
No longer tied only to him, the magic became something else entirely.
“Shadows,” she breathed. And then they became so.
He could feel his form disappearing. Soon enough, he could barely even see her.
But he could feel the connection between their hands as they held on to each other.
Elric could feel her heart beating through the tight grip with which she held on to him.
And he could hear her soft exhalation of breath.
“Shall we?” she asked, though the words were strained.
Holding on to her, he maneuvered them out onto the streets.
He wanted to make sure the spell worked first. If the guards got the impression of shadow figures walking toward them, he wasn’t sure what the men would do.
Likely shout and use those swords at their sides, or worse, use the rifles that were strapped to their backs.
Elric really didn’t want to be picking shrapnel out of himself, or the little musket balls, which were painful even to a god. This new body wasn’t as strong as the shadows he once was.
But none of the guards reacted to them in the slightest. The men just kept staring straight ahead, their eyes waiting for any movement to draw them. They could likely still hear them, though, so Elric couldn’t praise Jessamine as he wished.
His gravesinger had come a long way from not being able to cast any spell. She deserved to know how good she had become. He was, unfortunately, only able to squeeze her hand.
She squeezed back as they rounded the house and then took the lead as they slipped through the servants’ entrance and toward the wall of ivy that Nyx had shown her.
It was a complicated lock that required seven enchanted ivy leaves to be perfectly overlapped before there was the faintest crunching noise and the stone moved.
He tensed, waiting for a guard to say something about a door moving on its own.
But when he looked over his shoulder, the guard didn’t look back.
Jessamine tugged him closer to her and whispered, “He probably thinks someone is leaving. Let’s go before he realizes no one is here.”
Elric took one look at the beaming blast of light that erupted from the small slot behind the ivy and sighed. He knew they had to do this, but he still hated it. The shadows were entirely banished by the light beyond, and though he was still a god, it would make him weaker.
At the very least, he had Jessamine by his side.
Together, they plunged into the light that burned the spell from their shoulders. He could almost feel the power slinking back underneath his skin like a beaten dog.
The room was so bright. Even worse than that, it was light.
It appeared Fortuna was partial to white and gold; the walls were white with filigree gold dancing along the edges, and the floor was white with flecks of gold in the very stone beneath their feet.
Gold framed the pictures on the wall, oil paintings of far-off places or boats for some strange reason.
The furniture was white and looked decidedly uncomfortable to sit on.
But he expected nothing less from a woman like this.
What an unwelcoming home. He grimaced as he looked at the room they stood in. “This place is ugly.”
“What is within shows without,” she murmured, her gaze moving down the hallway before she reached for his hand again. “Is there a spell that would let us know which room is hers?”
“Yes.”
“Shall we cast it?”
He was reluctant to agree, if only because he secretly desired to look around this place.
It was so different from anything he would have chosen.
What kind of people would want to live here?
The colors burned his eyes, and nothing was inviting.
He’d choose a tomb over this place, and Elric knew most people would hate the thought of spiders, but he’d gleefully accept their company over those who willingly lingered here.
“Elric,” she said with a soft laugh. “We need to get moving. Someone will see us.”
“And if they do?”
“They’ll sound an alarm and Fortuna will have to move houses because Leon will not know how someone got past his guard.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You can snoop later if you wish.”
“I cannot snoop in this place. There are no shadows.”
She stood in front of a light, and her shadow cast a long figure on the floor. “Anyone walking in this place would have a shadow. You can stitch yourself to it.”
He sighed. “Fine, get this over with.”
“What is the spell?”
Elric just cast the damn thing himself, sending out a thin tendril of his power to guide them.
It flickered in the light often, requiring rethreading every time the lights flickered as whale oil dripped through a complicated piping system.
Weaving the spell over and over again took precious time and power that he needed, but eventually, they entered a bedroom in the central part of the home.
“Why was no one in the halls?” he spat the moment they closed the door behind them.
“I don’t know.”
“We should have seen at least one servant. It makes little sense.”
“No, I find there to be no sense here at all.” Jessamine’s brow wrinkled, but she turned to survey the room his spell had led them to. “Let’s just find out what we can and then get out of this house.”
It felt like a trick. There should have been guards inside as well as out. There should have been servants here to protect Fortuna. This felt like a trap.
But no one came out of the shadows. No blades parted through curtains, and no spells seared their flesh. This was just a bedroom. An ornate one, certainly, but a very quiet bedroom.
It was prettier than the hall. The entire ceiling was painted to look like a blush-colored sky with fluffy white clouds that a sunrise was just peeking through.
The four-poster bed was bolted to the ceiling and the floor, with white marble pillars sanded smooth.
The blankets were a lovely pale shade of blush on a bed so soft, it might have been the nicest he’d ever seen.
A gold-edged vanity in the corner reflected the image of Jessamine and himself back at them—two dark stains in a house that had banished shadows.
Jessamine nudged the rug that was woven with strands of blush and gold. “This looks finer than a courtesan should have, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think she’s just a courtesan any longer,” he murmured, stepping into the room a little farther. “What are we looking for?”
“Clues. Notes. Anything that would give us an explanation for what Leon is planning, or how we can attack him without dying in the process.”
She seemed so confident. He tried not to grin at the sound of her voice. Clues. Like she was a little detective who had been given an impossible plot to solve. What a strange creature this woman was. When he failed in hiding his smile, Jessamine glared at him.
“What?” she asked.
He leaned against one of the bedposts and watched her open the golden chest at the base of the bed. “Nothing.”
“Would you look for something useful?”
“What do you consider useful?”
“I’ll know it when I see it.” She pawed through the fancy fabric contained inside the chest but then glared at him again as though that expression alone could light a fire beneath him.
He sighed and meandered throughout the room, taking in details as he went.
This room was far too fine for a courtesan, that much was certain.
He didn’t know many women who sold their flesh who had gold-dusted rooms. This wasn’t just gold foil, and it certainly wasn’t just painted.
Even the hairbrush on her vanity was made out of solid gold.
She’d been gifted these by someone with a significant amount of money. Like a king who found her valuable. Or perhaps, gifts to keep her mouth shut.
What did this woman know? He could only imagine it was secrets of the state that Leon Bishop did not want getting out into society.
The more he looked, the more certain he became.
The extravagance of the room didn’t come from gifts that a man would give a woman he longed for.
They weren’t gifts that made him think Leon had any kindness in his heart for her in the slightest. Nothing here was personal, but they were valuable.
He reached down to open a pot of makeup on the vanity. Pristine, priceless blush. Crushed pearls that would make her skin glimmer. Rouge that he remembered from the old days in a pot made of gold with glittering rubies on the top.
“She knows something,” he muttered.
“Like what?”
“Something Leon doesn’t want her to tell anyone else.”
So few people had items like this. Only the consorts of kings, at least. Opening a drawer, he noticed it was filled with letters signed with a royal-blue seal. But the moment he picked them up, they turned to ash.
Picking up another piece of paper that didn’t disintegrate, he flashed it for Jessamine to look at. “And she’s scared.”
“Of what?”
She grabbed the piece of paper, her eyes flying over the words he’d already seen. Fortuna Beaumont was holding a ball for all the eligible and rich men in the Pleasure District. Even men beyond. On the top of the page were the words Fortuna Beaumont is looking for a new suitor.
“She’s running,” he murmured. The question was, from what?