Chapter 6
Chapter Six
EMORY
I banged on Driscoll and Leoni’s door.
“Go away.” Driscoll’s groggy voice floated from inside.
“It’s me,” I whisper-yelled, looking up and down the hallway, hoping I wasn’t waking anyone else. If someone saw me, my entire cover could be blown. While Fyriad was one of the bigger courts, Karstad, where we resided often felt like a small village, everyone knowing each other—and each other’s business. Once word of my husband’s death—and my coinciding disappearance—spread, people would be looking for me, and I needed to be gone before they had a chance to find me.
I knocked again and the door swung open.
“Would you please stop doing that?” Driscoll gritted out, shirtless, his bare chest and lean torso on display.
A tunic flew through the air and hit him in the face.
“Put on a shirt,” Leoni said from behind him. “Lady Emory doesn’t need to see you half naked.”
“You see me half naked all the time,” Driscoll shot back.
“Not because I want to,” Leoni said with an eye roll as she sat on the edge of her bed, pulling her boots on. “I don’t have a choice when we’re together night and day, but she, at least, should.”
Driscoll turned. “You know, you should be more grateful. I don’t just let anybody gaze upon my beautiful bare skin.”
“Put. On. The. Shirt,” she gritted out.
“Okay, okay.” He stretched it overhead while I stood in the doorway, shooting nervous glances down the hall.
“Can I come in?” I asked.
“Oh, right.” Driscoll gestured inside.
I stepped in, and he shut the door behind him.
“Excuse shorty, over here. She gets grumpy when she hasn’t been fed.”
Leoni shot him a look. “That’s you.”
He stroked his clean-shaven chin. “Oh. Right. She’s just generally a grumpy person.”
This time, it was a boot that she threw at his head. He ducked and sank down onto his bed.
I stepped further in, setting down the chest, which was growing heavy in my arms. The room was small with just two beds and a fire that made the space feel blazing hot. Two chairs sat in front of the hearth, but I scuttled to the opposite corner of the room, wishing I could open a window and let some of the frosty air in. Just moments ago I’d been freezing, but now that my body was balanced again, I craved the winter elements.
Driscoll gestured to the fire. “Don’t you want to sit down?” His gaze bounced between me and the flames. “Oh, right. You’re a frosty. Forgot. You all like it abnormally cold.” He shuddered.
“A frosty?” I asked.
Leoni finished putting on her other boot. “Ignore him. He likes his nicknames.” She looked closer at me, seeing my nightgown, then her gaze trailed up to my neck, where the scarf hid my bruises.
“Your husband let you leave your house?” Driscoll wrinkled his nose, staring at the low cut of my nightgown. “In that?”
“We came to an understanding.” I let out a nervous laugh. “Turns out he knew my identity all along, and I just couldn’t wait to come see you both. ”
Driscoll scratched his head. “Huh. Didn’t really take your husband to be that understanding. Not after everything you told us about him when we first met.”
“Enough about my husband,” I said, voice sharper than I’d intended. “I’m here to learn about the bolt. You said the bone collector took it. I need more information if I’m going to track him and find it.”
Leoni and Driscoll shot each other looks, some silent conversation happening between them before Driscoll finally gave a nod, and Leoni turned to me. “We’re actually the ones who found the bolt. Hidden in Spirit Sky’s tower.”
I gasped. From all my research, I’d known the bolt had to be hidden somewhere sacred, and I’d even mused that it might be in his tower. The tower he often used to imprison and torture those who angered him. But no one knew the exact location of it. Records never indicated where the tower might be located in the sky court. So I’d never known where to look. But they’d actually found it. Unbelievable.
Leoni shifted on the bed. Sunlight shone through the little window of their room, full and bright and highlighting the gold shimmers in her red hair. “Right after we found it, he came. The bone collector. And then he mentioned a white rabbit who’d also been looking for it. We put the pieces together.”
She stared pointedly at the cloak wrapped around my shoulders, the same cloak I’d been wearing when I first met them over a month ago. That alone wouldn’t be enough to identify me. Many women wore fur cloaks. But this coupled with everything else I’d revealed about myself? Well, that was damning. Stupid bone collector. I wrung my hands together.
“Does the bone collector know you’re Lady Emory? Do you know who he is?”
“No and no,” I snapped. We’d always been careful to keep our identities secret from each other—and everyone else.
I swore.
I’d worn that white fur cloak on my outings as the white rabbit to keep myself hidden, but over the years I’d been spotted in it while in a few compromising positions where I’d taken—stolen—valuable items. Before I knew it, my reputation had spread to the frost queen—and she’d dubbed me the white rabbit. I wasn’t famous or anything. Most people had no idea who I was. It was mainly the frost queen and anyone who worked for her or worked at the academy.
“We don’t want to reveal who you are.” Leoni held up her hands. “We just want you to get that bolt. If you do, Princess Poppy of the sky court will pardon you and your crimes as the white rabbit.”
I took a step back. That wasn’t something I ever expected. “So Princess Poppy is the one who sent you?” I asked, and they nodded.
I bit my lip. “Why does she want the bolt?”
“She doesn’t,” Leoni said. “She just doesn’t want it in the wrong hands.” She and Driscoll looked at each other. “Think of the power whoever has it could wield.”
I raised a brow. “And you trust me with that power?”
“More than the bone collector,” Driscoll muttered. “What do you know about him?”
Much more than I’d ever bargained for. I sighed and looked out the window at the sleepy royal city coming to life. Frost elementals made their way through the snowy streets; carriages with horses bumped along. Others pushed carts full of steaming hot coffee and egg buns, their breaths puffing into the air. Everyone wore boots and thick pants with jackets over their tunics.
I turned back to them. “I don’t know much,” I admitted, though it tasted like a lie. I didn’t know his name or what he looked like underneath that black hood that covered his face. But I knew his movements, knew that he was as passionate about history as me. I knew his best barbs, since he’d slung them at me time and time again. I knew his handwriting. I knew that he thought it was funny when I insulted him. That he was competitive. I felt like I knew his soul, yet I couldn’t name hardly any tangible facts about him. “He started appearing years ago in the same places I was. We’d go after the same objects.” He’d taken quite a few artifacts right from under my nose, which had infuriated me. “He was always cloaked like I was.”
I’d summarized our relationship so neatly, so easily, yet it felt far, far more complicated than I was letting on.
“I have seen him use fire,” I said cautiously after noticing the crestfallen looks on Driscoll’s and Leoni’s faces. “So he’s from the fire court, but he must live here because he’s always frequenting the same locations as me. He wouldn’t be able to do that if he were living in Gilraeth.”
The fire court would easily take a month by horseback to travel from Fyriad, and even longer from Valoris, the sky court, where I also had run into the bone collector on a few occasions.
Leoni bit her lip. “We already knew he had fire magic. That’s what he used to steal the bolt from us.”
“I believe he lives in Fyriad.” I began pacing the way I did when my mind started piecing information together. “The majority of our encounters have happened here, so it makes sense.”
“Well that’s a start.” Leoni’s blue eyes lit up. “Surely we can find a fire elemental in the frost court. He wouldn’t exactly blend in.”
“So when do we start?” Driscoll rubbed his hands together.
“There’s no we,” I said. I worked alone, and that was the way I preferred it. I didn’t trust anyone enough to work with them. “You all have done your duty, and you can go back to Princess Poppy and let her know I’ll get that bolt. I’ll start questioning residents. Discreetly. Finding anything I can about fire elementals who reside here.”
Driscoll sent me a pointed look. “And are you going to do the questioning while wearing that?” He gestured to my nightgown, which barely grazed the tops of my boots. “It might serve as a good distraction, but I’d wager it may be a little too distracting to get the information you want.”
My cheeks burned and I wrapped my cloak around myself. “Right. I probably need to find something appropriate to wear.”
“So go back to your house and get dressed and we’ll meet?—”
“No,” I burst out. Too quickly. Too loudly.
Driscoll and Leoni both stilled.
“We don’t have time.” I looked away. “And like I said, I don’t need your help.”
“We’ve been ordered to help you find it,” Leoni said. “A direct order from Princess Poppy. I’m her captain of the guard, and I won’t disobey.”
Damnit.
“Are you hiding something from us?” Leoni asked as she strapped a belt around her trousers, a sword hanging from it, the steel glinting in the rays of the sun.
“Kinda seems like it,” Driscoll mumbled as he shoved on his boots.
Before I could answer, a loud knock banged on the door. “Open up!” a voice yelled, and my stomach hardened to a rock.
Driscoll stood and started walking to the door, but I ran in front of him. “Wait, don’t.” I flung my arms, blocking his pathway. “Don’t open that door.”
His brows furrowed. “Why not?”
“You’re under arrest for harboring a criminal,” the voice yelled, “and are hereby being summoned by the queen of the frost court.”
Driscoll’s eyes widened while Leoni’s face paled, her hand now resting on the hilt of her sword.
“What criminal?” Driscoll yelled. “There’s been a mistake. We don’t have a criminal in here.” He glanced over his shoulder at us with wild eyes.
“Lady Emory Growley,” the voice said. “Under arrest for the murder of her husband.”