Chapter 10
Chapter ten
When Lux stepped out of her rented room, Corvin had twenty gold coins in his palm. He slid them into a purse and motioned for her hand. When she obliged, he slipped it over her wrist.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Don’t thank me yet.”
Several doors down, he knocked and then pushed his way in.
Lux scanned the room quickly and found it to be a replica of her own.
All except for the woman upon the bed, the bag enclosing her untied and pushed back from either side.
Lux glanced toward the bedside table in time to see the balding man swipe a vial. He pocketed it while avoiding her eyes.
“How do you know it was poison?” she asked, because sometimes she liked to play games with rude people.
She began laying out her ingredients on the desk. Her nose wrinkled at the candle’s smoke; it was larger than hers had been, and it smelled especially foul.
“I know.”
Someone sighed behind her. “Silas.”
“Corvin.”
“It’s a valid question for her work.”
She looked over her shoulder in time to see Corvin gesturing toward her. She turned away and continued her grinding. It was not a valid question for her work, but she let him think what he liked.
These damned howler canines.
A heavy breath huffed somewhere at her back. “I have a tincture that give the dead a chance to tell you what killed them. She told me it was poison. Though I don’t know how you know anything about that, since you weren’t up here to hear it.”
“I didn’t need to be. Your whispering is not really…” Lux crushed the last bit of tooth with all her strength. “…whispering.” She dumped the powder into the bowl.
A presence loomed beside her. “You have it memorized?”
She nodded and glanced up through her loosened hair to meet Corvin’s intrigued expression. “It was my job. In Ghadra.”
He stepped back, astonishment marking his features. “Very impressive.”
“Thank you,” she said, sticking her finger into the paste. “For this part, I’ll have no one watch me work. For her privacy.”
In this at least, Silas didn’t argue. Together, he and Corvin stepped outside the room.
Lux was left alone with the woman. She stared down at the body, risking the waste of several seconds. The veins showed stark against sallow skin—starker than anything she’d ever seen before. It seemed like whatever had poisoned her had also caused the blood to blacken and congeal.
Lux made quick work of removing the heeled shoes and lace stockings and spent more time wrestling the thick, fine clothes from the body’s frame. She began painting when she was through.
“What do you get from investing in a place like Mothlock?” she asked her. “Aside from an enemy apparently.”
Except Silas had said “same as the last” while downstairs. So maybe the enemy was not just this woman’s own, but an enemy to all investors. Maybe Mothlock in its entirety. Philanthropists with a nemesis? Did they defy someone even bigger than themselves?
When she was through, every line and whorl exact, Lux dragged the knife from her waist. She positioned it on the bedside table until its handle aligned with her hip. Then she pressed her thumbs to the woman’s unseeing eyes and—
Devil’s own…
Lux paused. Her fingers came away. She marched to the door, and when she opened it, Silas nearly toppled in atop her. He’d been listening.
“Grand,” she said. “You’re already eavesdropping. If you hear a thump, like a body falling to the floor, and your investor sounding strangely hungry, come in. Otherwise, wait for me.”
She shut the door on their gaping mouths and returned to the bed. “All right. Let’s see if that last revival was a fluke.”
Again, she pressed her thumbs to the body’s eyes.
“Back from Death, we beckon. A guide between Life and Fate…”
“Hello? Young lady!”
Lux blinked open her eyes and groaned. “No. Damn it all.” Her insides vibrated alarmingly beneath her skin.
She squinted at the face above her. Brown eyes, greying hair.
The revived woman had already begun to dress, and the toe of her stockinged foot was buried yet in Lux’s ribs. Lux shoved it away.
Her next breath drew ragged. She pressed her fists to her eyes right there on the floor.
You cannot break here.
But oh, how she wanted to.
She pushed herself up instead and stumbled to the door. She pulled it open and didn’t meet the eyes of either man who came in immediately afterward.
“What—” The woman quieted at the faces entering the room.
“Oh, Lord Corvin! Lord Silas?” She dropped to her knees.
“What’s happening here? That child won’t tell me anything.
I woke up indisposed on a strange bed with her splayed out on the floor.
I thought I’d been kidnapped.” Mistress Lefroy crossed herself before folding her hands in prayer, an incoherent mumbling pouring from her lips.
Lux’s glance lifted from the woman’s strange prostrating to see Lord Silas frown and say, “You were poisoned and died, Mistress Lefroy. I was taking you to be entombed.”
“What?”
While the pair discussed the particulars, Lux returned to the desk and gathered her ingredients as quick as she could. She paused when the handle of her knife pushed into her vision. She looked up at Corvin.
“Splayed out on the floor?” he said.
Lux snatched the weapon from him. “It’s nothing.”
That same hand with which he’d held the knife now rested on her elbow. “If you’re ill or something else, you can tell me.”
“For what purpose?” She folded everything into her arms, and when he didn’t have an immediate quip ready, said, “If you’ll excuse me, I’m tired.”
An absolute lie.
But he did not let her go. “I might be able to help.”
The best way she’d ever found to keep tears at bay was to dig for anger—and she would not cry in front of strangers. Her lip curled as her eyes pricked. “Can you really? Are you a healer? Do you specialize in broken brilliances?”
“No, Lux. I don’t specialize in anything hurt or broken. But I know someone who does.”
She scrunched her eyes closed. Maybe she hadn’t lied. Her mind was exhausted. “And you’re volunteering their services?”
“I am. Aside from its mission in preservation, Mothlock finds value in helping those wherever it can. We’re blessed by the Saints in employing the strongest gifts in the country.”
More of that philanthropy Magda had mentioned. Was this another stroke of good luck? Or was it fate leading her? Lux peered up at him. She searched for pity, but he only seemed resolute.
She was not too proud, though, even if it had been pity. Not for this. “Suppose I am interested. How do I find this person? I have a map if it would be easier to show me.”
“It would be easier to show you. Personally. Being as he’s at the manor.”
Behind them, Mistress Lefroy tied her boot with irritated yanks.
“You won’t need to investigate the poisoner?”
“That’s more Silas’s expertise.” His hand left Lux. “For what it’s worth, it’s rare for a brilliance to be broken.”
Lux wedged the knife back against her waist, her pots and vials clinking. “I didn’t realize your manor was open to visitors.”
Corvin caught the sachet of bat wings before it plummeted.
He placed it within her mortar. “Once a year on Hallowed Day’s Eve and by invitation only.
I’d gift you one officially, but it seems your hands are already full.
The Hallowed Banquet brings in the most influential and powerful minds; you’re welcome to attend it as well.
Consider it an appreciation for all you’ve done here tonight. ”
There it was. The honey atop the teacake.
Her despair dwindled in wake of what he offered. A chance to fix what she’d broken… Powerful people who, in her seventeen years of experience, were often corrupt…
And the sea.
But she would have to be strategic. She might even have to be…
charming. Lux glanced at Silas and found his hands folded as Mistress Lefroy’s had been—and were now again.
They murmured together, words she couldn’t quite understand.
There was something about him. The way he bent over the woman beside him.
He’d been about to entomb her, he’d said. But where?
If it weren’t for the fact that her body felt as if it held lightning inside it, Lux might have sat longer with these questions, but she could feel the opportunity Corvin presented like a freshly laid road.
She could do this. She’d managed the Light in Ghadra on enough occasions and had even attended a masquerade with only minor mishaps.
She could pretend to fit amongst this great manor, with its prayers and bookwork and renowned banquet of important people. Just for a short while.
But Corvin must have grown unsettled by her silence, as he said, “If this doesn’t work into whatever plans you have for yourself, I understand. My invitation remains open indefinitely.” He leaned in. “But my carriage leaves in the morning.”
Lux stilled her tapping foot at once. “What time?”