Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
I ride Ada out into the bright midday sun.
The clouds have thinned to wisps since this morning and a cool breeze carries the promise of rain and a salty whisper from the distant sea.
A storm’s coming in a few hours, but I’ll aim to be home before it breaks.
For now, I let the city speak—hooves clopping, voices overlapping, the pulse of London thick in the air.
I drift without direction until the Tower looms again, slowing as I pass the work entrance and spot a gleaming black carriage with Crown livery, pulled by a pair of enormous draft horses.
My gut twists. Richard. I’m not ready to face him, but he’s here, at my workplace.
Panic spikes and I dig my heels into Ada’s flanks harder than intended.
She snorts in outrage and surges forward, carrying us across the Thames to Borough Market.
It’s the loudest, most chaotic corner of the city, ideal for both eavesdropping and vanishing.
I stable Ada nearby, slip her a treat, and murmur apologies for the rough kick.
She’s skittish, ears pinned, dodging my hand at first; it unnerves me so I talk softly, coaxing, wishing I could decode her grunts and snuffles.
She finally relaxes, letting me wrap my arms around her neck and I stroke the trophies braided into her mane without thinking, listening to her heart thunder down to a steady rhythm.
I notice the hair around my victims’ locks fading, bleaching to a pale grey.
Ada’s heartbeat steadies, and mine follows.
I step back, give her a quick brush-down, then pull on my mask and hat before slipping into the market’s midday roar.
Hawkers bark deals over heaps of wilted greens and dubious fish; urchins flit like shadows, pockets lighter by the second.
Beggars rattle cups, whores flash ankles and promise more for a coin.
The chatter is familiar—witches, burnings, the lord with the charred groin—until a new thread surfaces.
“That royal constable? Two pyres in a fortnight. I also heard he burnt a witch up in York. Mark my words, he’ll have the killer who murdered the Lord and the man in the woods locked up before long.”
A slurred bellow slices through the noise and I edge closer, pausing at a fruit stall to buy two apples, then lean against a wall nearby, biting into one while I watch.
The man is shirtless, bald, face boiled red with drink. His trousers are a map of vomit, mud, and worse. He clutches a bottle like a prayer and roars to no one in particular.
“They killed my wife! The bastard… killed my Blair, my beautiful Blair…” He trails off, gulps from the bottle and draws a ragged breath like a man readying for battle. “They called her a witch! But she wasn’t! She was a good, God-loving woman, and they burnt her for it!” he bellows.
His voice cracks as he slumps against the wall, sobbing in wet, drunken hiccups. “I’ll kill ’em… I’ll kill ’em all… even the king…” The last words slur into a whisper.
I reach into my coin purse that's attached to my belt and I flick a coin. It pings off his chest.
“You’ll do what?”
“I’ll kill them all! Even the king!” He lurches upright from the wall, swaying, eyes scanning the crowd for the source. I melt behind a stall and into the mouth of an alley, peering out as the market freezes to watch.
I want no part of the centre ring, but I’m not leaving the show.
A bystander steps in, daring him to repeat it. Words flare into shouts. Fists clench. Just as the first punch cocks back, a voice like a cannon cracks across the square.
“Clear off, clear off! Break it up! City Guard!”
The mob pivots and William Richard strides through, constables fanning behind him. I sink deeper into the shadows, my mask hiding everything but my eyes.
Richard parts the crowd with the casual authority of a man who knows no one will test him.
His hardwood club juts forward like a royal warrant; the wood is mirror-bright, oiled to a sheen.
I know weapons, and that stick is loved the way I love Malenia—though his affection probably stops short of midnight blood rituals.
He plants the tip against the drunk’s sternum and shoves him flat to the wall. “Who, exactly, are you planning to kill?”
The man blinks, the fog of liquor thinning under raw adrenaline. Recognition dawns and his face cycles from shock to fury in a heartbeat. “You murdered her, you bastard!”
Richard tilts an eyebrow and the club whistles through the air, thumping onto the drunk’s temple. The blow isn’t brutal, just precise, and the man folds like wet parchment. I hate that I’m impressed.
He’s up again before the echo dies, fuelled by rage and cheap gin. “I’ll sober up,” he slurs, blood already threading his beard. “Then I’ll find you. And your king.”
He spits but the glob never lands.
The club blurs, teeth scatter across the cobbles in a pink mist and the drunk drops hard, jaw hanging crooked.
That strike was lightning; I barely tracked the motion.
My pulse stutters. He’s smaller than me, leaner, but the speed—Christ, the speed.
Up close, he’d be lethal. I file the thought away: when the time comes, I’ll need to keep my distance.
Richard looms over the wreckage, club tip hovering above the ruined mouth.
“You threaten me or the king again,” Richard snarls, voice steady despite the flush in his cheeks, “and I’ll have you dancing at the end of a rope before your mother finishes swallowing the next mistake she made with your father.”
A single bark of laughter escapes the crowd but quickly dies under a hissed curse.
Richard lets the silence stretch, then sweeps his gaze across every face. “Any assault on me, my men, or the Crown will be treated as high treason. Justice will be fast, legal, and final. Am I clear?”
For a moment, there’s only silence.
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir,” one voice pipes up and a low mutter of agreement ripples outward.
Richard gives a curt nod, hooks the club to his belt, adjusts his uniform and hat with deliberate care, then turns and strides back to his constables. The market exhales as he leaves and enters his carriage.
Curiously, I slip through the alleys and tail him.
I know it’s a mistake from the first step; we’re barely five blocks from the Tower when the carriage jerks to a halt and Richard leaps down.
I’ve been tailing at a brisk clip, ducking into alleys to sprint ahead, using every shortcut I know, and I step out of one just as he turns toward the shop beside me.
His eyes snap to mine, flicking to my mask, my hat.
He knows.
I force my gaze forward, striding past without faltering. At the corner I risk a glance back: he’s framed in the doorway, watching me. I round the bend and bolt, pulse hammering. I was trying to hunt him, but he’s already hunting me. And he’s better at it.
I abandon the chase and double back to the stable for Ada.
Half an hour in the saddle brings me within a block of Lord Hale’s shuttered manor. A fat white X of chalk brands the front door I splintered the other night: City Guard seal. I circle, stable Ada at a dingy yard two streets over, and linger with her longer than I should.
She’s twitchy again, her ears flicking as she shies away from my palm and the unease continues to gnaw at me.
I run my fingers along her mane and see it: the strands braided with my trophies have become even more ashen, the colour bleeding outward like frost. I frown, unsettled, until that familiar warmth brushes my skin.
Gray.
I ache for his voice, but no blood has been spilt today; the urge is a low ember, banked for now.
The sun slips, and the rainclouds I scented earlier roll in with a distant growl; the storm is coming. I leave Ada, circling wide to the rear wall, and vault it with a running leap. My fingers catch the coping, and I haul myself up, roll over, and drop into a crouch on the far side.
Empty.
Good.
I ghost across the yard, testing the back doors—locked—then climb to a second-floor window.
London mud clings to my boots like tar; I scrape what I can, but soon give up, and peel the shoes off entirely, setting them on the sill and slipping inside barefoot, hunting for any thread that might lead back to me.
I trace my own bootprints to the front door—now barricaded inside and out with fresh planks. Continuing up the stairs, I move past the spot where I chased the whore into the night, to the closet I splintered and the floor that drank a nobleman’s life. The blood has dried to a near-black crust.
The air is thick with it. Iron, rot, red.
My head lolls, the same fevered bliss from the other night flooding in, hot and sudden. Scent becomes touch, becomes pulse and heat pools low. My knees buckle and I slap a palm to the wall to stay upright, breath hitching. When I open my eyes, the Lord is waiting.
Jaw unhinged, cheek torn open, skull folded like wet parchment. The charred ruin between his legs still smokes in memory.
A low moan slips out of me as pleasure coils tight, shocking in its speed. I sag against the wall, thighs trembling, chasing the crest.
Tap-tap-tap.
Glass rattles and my eyes fly open. A crow perches on the sill, black eyes fixed on me, beak drumming a frantic warning.
Caw. The sound punches through the haze. A spike of dread slams into me: go, now.
Caw.
I bolt. As I swing out the window, the front boards groan and splinter. I jam my boots on, laces flapping, and leap from the low roof. I hit the ground rolling, spring up, and vault the wall in one frantic surge. I land in the alley, yank the laces tight, and run.
The sky has bruised to violet; the storm is almost on me. Looping wide, I cut through back lots, and pause only to peer around a corner two blocks down. Richard’s carriage sits at the curb, two constables lounging beside it. One turns, eyes sweeping my way.
If I’d stayed in that house any longer, Richard would have caught me.
Fuck.
I step into the open, cross the street at a deliberate stroll, then sprint the instant I’m clear. Ada’s stable is a blur of hooves and panic; there’s no question about it—a masked figure skulking near the murder scene will be reported within the hour.
I’ve fucked up. Royally fucked up.
Three-quarters of an hour later, Ada thunders past the farmer’s pasture.
The red scarecrow leers, its crow-skull head fixed on me.
A sharp caw overhead comes from my crow gliding above, black wings cutting the bruised sky.
Comfort and warning in one. I glance back, half-expecting Richard’s carriage to materialise.
How many times can one man cross my path in a single day without intent?
Lightning forks and thunder growls. Ada needs no urging—she flies for home, sweat darkening her coat.
In the barn, I work the brush in long strokes while she steams and shivers.
She’s wired, ears twitching, until apples and soft nonsense finally coax her calm.
I press my forehead to her neck, then check the trophies.
The grey has marched another finger’s breadth through her mane.
I stare, uneasy. What price is she paying for carrying pieces of the dead?
Inside, supper comes together without a single scorched edge.
I eat, bathe, and Maude’s last scream flickers across my mind like a snuffed candle as I curl beneath my quilt with Romeo and Juliet, pages soft as moth wings.
I linger on the tomb scene, on lovers who trade breath for breath.
Is that love? To burn the world and yourself with it?
Warmth settles over me—Gray’s answer is wordless but certain. Am I walking the path he wants? Will more blood open the door between us? I’ll need it, yes… but Richard is a blade at my throat. He was everywhere today. One slip, one careless glance, and the mask becomes my noose.
I let the thought drift, sinking deeper into my bed as sleep tugs at me.
The last thing I see is a pair of eyes that have no face.