14. Nico
NICO
By the following evening, the museum has doubled its guards, and the stolen vellum has been copied twice.
The salon glitters like a trap built by someone with taste.
Candlelight moves over the parquet in long gold ribbons, catching crystal, gilt frames, the dull shine of old varnish on older paintings.
Beeswax hangs in the warm air, and beneath it, faint to anyone who isn't a vampire, the cool mineral note of blood.
A string trio plays something restrained in the corner.
Servants drift with trays. Half the room is human money pretending to be cultured.
The other half is older than the building, and just as practiced at pretending.
Riley's hand rests on my forearm, light, perfectly placed.
"Smile," she murmurs without moving her lips. "You look like you're pricing coffins."
I let myself look at her, which is its own discipline.
Her dress is dark, deliberate, and she wears it like a tool.
Underneath the silk she is still athletic, and that steady pulse beats that I feel through me.
The performance asks me to stand close, lean in, let the room read us as one thing.
The trouble is how little performance that actually requires.
"You clean up," I say.
"You sound surprised, kinda insulting." Her mouth curves. "Try to look like you adore me. People are watching."
They are. And then one of them stops being a guest and becomes our host. Casimir approaches, and the room parts for him. Blond at the temples, a suit the color of wet slate, an unhurried smile that has buried more men than my reputation has.
"The famous Black Fang." He takes my hand with both of his, warm, lingering. "And his companion. I confess I did not expect company. You travel so rarely with anyone you cannot replace. Good to see you again."
"Times change," I say.
"Do they?" His gaze slides to Riley, appraising. "Prague was such a noisy affair. So much fuss over one small black stone. You have a gift, mademoiselle, for being where remarkable things go missing."
Riley doesn't blink. "I have a gift for being underestimated."
He laughs, delighted, and I trust him less for it.
"She's rather sharp," Casimir tells me, as though she's vintage.
"She has nerve. You'll need it, both of you, if you intend to keep pulling at this particular thread.
The fragment you found is part of a much longer trail.
" He spreads his fingers. "I know. My ledgers remember every owner who ever lied about provenance.
I could save you a great deal of bleeding. "
"Generous," I say.
"Practical. I dislike waste, and I dislike watching capable men make poor decisions. You were always so cold, Serrano. Efficient. Lately you seem—warmer. Distracted. I wonder if it improves your judgment or ruins it."
"Worry about your own."
He only smiles and lets the question sit in his silence as he walks off. Riley's fingers tighten on my arm—not nerves. A signal.
"The woman by the harpist," she breathes. "Gray gloves. She's circled us twice. She's not drinking, and she keeps touching her ring."
I follow without turning my head. Tall, polished, a study in expensive boredom. On her finger, a band worked into a circle deliberately left open—a ring split at the top. The First Voice mark. Lucien's people wear secrecy ending as jewelry, I guess now.
"Stay close," I tell Riley. "Let her come."
She does, and up close she smells of bergamot and old funerals.
"What a striking pair." Her stare goes straight to Riley's small clutch, then back up. "You carry something precious. The night is so much lighter when we stop hiding what we are, don't you agree? Soon no one will have to."
"Soon, when is that?" Riley says.
The woman reaches—just a touch, fingertips toward Riley's bag, the gesture disguised as steadying herself. I take her wrist before her glove meets the silk.
I don't squeeze. I don't have to. I hold it hard so she understands the difference between my courtesy and my capacity, and I let her see what lives under my skin.
"You'll want to admire from a distance," I say, very quietly. "I'm told I photograph poorly. So does anyone who reaches into her things."
Her composure flickers. She withdraws her hand with a thin smile and folds back into the room like smoke.
Riley exhales. "Friend of yours?"
"A message from someone who isn't here." My control is no longer level. Something low and old wants to follow that woman and make sure she never reports anything again. I don't move though, I stay where I am. Casimir reappears at my shoulder, having seen all of it. He doesn't apologize.
"You allow Lucien's hounds at your table," I say.
"I allow useful people at my table." He swirls his wine.
"Her faction buys. They buy desperately, and the desperate overpay.
I am not a believer, Serrano. I am a collector.
I keep every door open until I see which one money walks through.
Which brings me to my offer. The names you need are in my ledgers, and my ledgers do not leave my home.
Come to the Loire. Be my guest. Three days, every record at your disposal, and we both learn something.
" His smile widens. "Surely two people so attached at the arm can survive a weekend in the country. "
It's a trap dressed as hospitality, and he knows I know it. His house, his ground, his rules, and Lucien's people already watching to see if we walk in. I turn to Riley.
"It's your call," I say.
Something passes over her face—surprise, then resolve.
"The trail dies without those ledgers," she says. "We go."
Casimir claps once, pleased as a man closing a sale. "Wonderful. My driver will collect you."
The woman in red slips toward the terrace, already lifting a phone to her ear.
Casimir watches us with the patience of someone certain the prize is already his.
And I stand with Riley's hand on my arm, knowing exactly how dangerous he is, knowing the country house is worse—and knowing, with a quiet I can't reason away, that pretending is becoming a stranger sort of risk.