TWENTY-SEVEN #4
It feels like bodies are showing up everywhere but here. As if heart collectors are afraid to step foot in Marius territory and face its wolves. Or maybe they’re afraid of facing Bishop himself.
“Do you think this killer is a scion?”
His mouth flattens into a thin line. “You’ve been talking to Hadrian.”
“I’ve been putting two and two together, because I’m not as oblivious as you both think I am.” I cross my arms over my chest, wincing a little when my biceps strain. I hate that he has a point about the soreness. “But yes, I’ve been talking to Hadrian. Is that a problem?”
Bishop scowls. “I don’t think you’re oblivious.” He pauses. “And I’m not keeping anything from you.”
I arch a brow. Except that mouth. Those hands. Stars, I have to get this out of my system before he ruins me.
“I’m not keeping anything from you anymore,” he corrects himself, misinterpreting my glazed stare. “You’ve had enough on your mind. Heart collectors don’t seem like top priority, since you …”
He doesn’t finish the thought, but he doesn’t have to.
Since I decided to stay.
Since everything became so much more complicated and keeps getting even more complicated every day.
Since Kieren …
His name is enough to remind me why I still care. Why I keep showing up here when my body wants to collapse. Why I can’t be the one to cross the line. Why I can’t let myself be weak ever again.
“I still care who assassinated the king,” I murmur, even if I’m not foolish enough to believe catching the killer will restore my reputation anymore. The idea that he thinks I stopped caring, that I just gave up, lands heavy on my chest. “Even if I’m not going home.”
He runs his tongue over his lower lip, eyes drifting inward.
“Aren’t you going to ask to come with me?” he finally says, like maybe he wants me to this time.
The tightness at my core begins to throb.
Too soon.
I want to ignore the tiny voice that says he’s asking me to step over that line. Want to believe I’m ready to give in to whatever this is, to whatever we both know is happening between us.
My eyes find my feet, instead, afraid he’ll see right through me. “The ground will freeze soon. I’m nearly done in the garden, but if I don’t get the rest of the new plants in the soil before it does …”
Bishop tips his head, even as his throat slides. My eyes track the movement. “Don’t overwork yourself out there, either,” he says. “You need rest.”
He’s going to be the death of me. “Do you coddle all your conscripts this much?”
He nearly smiles. “No, but they’re better at taking orders.”
I stare him down.
“Okay.” He rolls his eyes. “Maybe the trick is that I can order them at all. I’m still trying to figure out how to get you to do a starsdamned thing I ask of you.”
I bite back a laugh that threatens to bubble out of me from nowhere. “You could start with please.”
“Please?” He snorts, shaking his head. “You would never be that easy on me.”
I shrug and reach for my sword, but he holds it back. “I can put it away,” I say. “Isn’t that one of your very important rules? Put shit back?”
“I’ll do it.” Our eyes lock, and something tangles in my chest. Fuck, this man can see right through me. But he looks away with a smirk, that invisible armor back in place. “I can’t have your arms falling off.”
I play along and give him the middle finger before reaching down for the pack I brought with me. Maybe it’s safer to stick to this. To keep retreating to our sides of the line. To deliver these half-barbed taunts.
I’m trying to survive, after all.
Despite Bishop’s insistence that I need to hit the baths, all I want is a cold shower as I track down the mountainside. To wash the grime off … and for other reasons.
But I stop at the Bellatorum. The pack on my shoulders feels heavier as I step into the Commons, but I force myself to walk into the closest communal room.
This is part of it. Part of letting him go.
Setting the bag on a table, I reach in for the items weighing me down.
My body screams as I lift the stack of clothes, but it’s not the kind of pain the baths could touch.
“He can’t use them anymore,” I mutter under my breath, but the reminder doesn’t help.
I place Kieren’s folded clothes on the table anyway, leaving his boots sitting next to them. A boy not much older than Andry eyes them as I turn away quickly.
I don’t wait to see if he takes anything.
I’m so preoccupied as I leave, I don’t hear my name being called until Shea grabs my shoulder.
I tense instinctively, hands curling to fists, and she leaps back.
“Sorry!” She gives me a nervous smile. She’s out of uniform today, but there’s a faint crease between her eyebrows like she’s been carrying a thought too long.
“I just wanted to catch you and thank you for those books you gave my brother.” She glances over my shoulder. “Are you training today?”
“Um, no.” I can’t hide my surprise. How does she know about that? Isn’t the whole point of him dragging my ass halfway up the mountain so we can have privacy?
“Oh.” Her face falls a little. “Well, if you ever need someone to practice with …”
I have half a mind to take her up on the offer, but then I remember Bishop’s threat. “I was training, but only for an hour,” I confess. “Lord Grumpiness commands I rest.”
“It went that badly, huh?” Her laugh is infectious.
“I think my last slice almost cut his dick off, so …”
“That would be a tragedy.” Shea cackles, then winces like she’s trying not to laugh too loudly. “But I’ll keep my condolences ready.”
Not as tragic as him never using the damn thing.
I offer a shared grin, but when I shift my weight, the movement sends a warning twinge up my calf.
Shea notices. “Are you okay?”
“I know I’m supposed to act tough.” I sigh, glancing around to make sure no one is listening to us. “But everything hurts, and I think I’m dying.”
She laughs. “You could go to—”
I hold up a hand to stop her before she says baths. “I’m just going to pass out in bed, wake up, and probably help Lenora prep for Twelvetide.”
Maybe keep digging at that stubborn stump in the garden before guests start arriving in a few days.
But even as I say it, a flicker of panic hits me. Resting. Cooking. I need to be doing more than that.
“You’re coming to the party, right?” I ask, remembering that Bishop said knights were invited, even ones in training.
Shea’s gaze drifts past me to the Bellatorum’s gate. “I was invited, but I’m not sure if I can bring my brother.” Her shoulders droop slightly like she’s just remembered the responsibility she carries after a glimpse of something easier.
Another mouth for Lenora to feed and spoil with small gifts? One that probably hasn’t had anything home-cooked in Stars know how long? She would kill me herself if I said no. “I think he’d be more than welcome.”
She beams, sighing under her breath. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a Twelvetide party. The conscripts play cards and get drunk,” she quickly adds, “but it’s not the same.”
“It was my sister’s favorite. We got ready together every year.” I would let Isidore pick everything out, let her do my hair and dress me up like a doll. It meant so much to her, and I didn’t care.
“My mother’s, too.” Her smile is so wide it creases her eyes before faltering. “I’d give anything to have one more Twelvetide with her.”
I know the feeling. Like yesterday when I found a pile of dresses—the ones I’d ordered in Wolf’s Keep—on my bed after I finished training and caught myself wishing Isidore would be there to help me choose one. “Come early and get ready with me,” I blurt out.
She shifts a little, looking down at her breeches. “I’ll probably just wear my uniform. I don’t ….”
“Bishop’s housekeeper made me order all these dresses.
” I grab her hand. There are three gowns, each boxed and carefully wrapped in tissue paper nearly as delicate as the dresses themselves.
Three, which is two more than I know what to do with.
Given how different my daily wardrobe of borrowed uniforms and gardening dirt is, I’ve yet to feel brave enough to try one on. “You can borrow one of them.”
She chews on her lower lip before she nods. “As long as Breccan won’t be in the way …”
“We’ll drop him off in the library.”
Hadrian will love that.
“Okay.” She grins. “It’s a date.”
Her relieved smile stays with me most of the way back to the house, something warm on another otherwise cold, lonely day.
But as soon as I reach the bridge, my thoughts ricochet back to Bishop.
His hand on mine, the look he gave me before he left, the way he noticed my body giving out … and refused to let it.
And now he’s trekking off to investigate another murder, leaving the safety of Vennaro’s borders—the only region untouched by heart collectors in months. The realization drops in my stomach like a stone, sending ripples of unease through me.
Lenora stops me at the door, fussing as she helps me out of my coat.
I let her, my arms too tired to even manage the buttons.
When I warn her about a somewhat small guest for Twelvetide, she tuts that I don’t have to ask, then forces a plate of biscuits smothered in butter and preserves into my icy fingers before shooing me off to rest.
I head for the library instead.
Hadrian’s head appears over one of the upper tier’s railings as soon as I step inside. “That better not be jam on those biscuits.”
“Good morning to you, too.” I devour half of one, tucking it away in two bites, as he clatters down the spiral stairs. By the time he reaches the main floor, I’ve deposited the plate on the table—safely away from any of his precious books.
He grunts but doesn’t immediately order me out.
“Did we get a Civicus today?” I ask.
“It’s right there …” He waves to the armchairs by the fire, then glances over and frowns. “Taliesin must have stolen it.”
It’s clear from the tone of his voice that this would be a capital offense if we were all living under his regime.