Chapter 24
The kitchen smells wrong.
Not because I'm hungry—I rarely notice hunger anymore—but because Olivia gets this specific face when I skip meals. Concerned but trying not to nag, which somehow makes it worse than if she just yelled.
The kitchen should smell like rosemary and whatever she calls that sauce nobody admits to liking but everyone takes seconds of. Instead it smells like Ridge and Finn attempting soup.
"Where is she?"
Ridge flinches. "Market. With Joss. Said something about yarn and nutmeg."
Yarn. She's been knitting something for weeks, won't tell me what, keeps hiding it when I walk in. Probably mittens because she worries about everyone's circulation.
"When?"
"Four hours ago? She said she'd be back for lunch prep."
Four hours. She's never gone that long. Finn's cutting carrots wrong—different sizes—and the detail shouldn't matter but it does.
My shadows coil tighter around my feet.
"Boss?" Ridge has stopped destroying vegetables. "Should we—"
"Keep cooking. She'll be upset if lunch is late."
I'm already moving. Mrs. Pembleton's yarn shop first. The bell sounds obscene in the quiet.
The old woman looks up from her knitting, sees me, freezes. Her eyes track the shadows pooling at my feet.
"Olivia Caldris. Was she here?"
Her hands shake. "I don't—who are you? What do you want with—"
The shadows spread across her counter. "Was. She. Here."
"No!" The word comes out strangled. "She usually comes Tuesday for her black wool order. I've been holding it special for her. Please, I don't want trouble—"
Black wool she didn't pick up. Today's Tuesday. She never misses her wool order. Mrs. Pembleton watches the darkness move with appropriate terror.
The spice merchant's next. He backs against his shelf, bottles rattling.
"The woman who buys nutmeg. Olivia. When did you see her?"
"I don't—are you—" His eyes fixate on the shadows curling around my wrists. "Haven't seen her today. She's very particular about her nutmeg, that one. Says the pre-ground stuff is basically sawdust. Please, I'm just a merchant—"
I follow her usual route until I reach the alley between Hemlock and Crane. Her scent lingers, faint under something else. Sanctified oil. The kind that makes my teeth ache. Radiant Court.
Tooth materializes from shadow—still looks queasy after. "Boss. Found something."
He leads me to a narrow side street. Coins scatter across muddy cobblestones. Her basket overturned, the reinforced handle broken. She loved that basket. A crumpled shopping list in her handwriting, smeared with street grime. Black wool, nutmeg, thread.
"Get everyone. Now."
Back at the estate, straight to the library. Her knitting basket sits by her chair where afternoon light hits. Inside: black wool, good needles, and a hat. Almost finished. Black, practical, warm.
Mine. Who else would she knit solid black for? But there, worked into the inside band where nobody would see: a line of blue thread. Dark blue, nearly invisible against the black. Her signature. Her secret.
My legs give out. I sink into her chair—lavender and paint—and my hands won't stop shaking. The shadows go completely still. For the first time in twenty-seven years, they stop moving entirely.
She noticed my ears get cold. When did she notice that? I've been freezing every winter for forty-one years and nobody's ever thought to do anything about it, and she was secretly knitting me a hat with her signature hidden inside.
The door explodes inward.
"WHERE IS SHE?"
Arthur stands there with fresh bruises, breathing wrong, murder in his green eyes. Water magic coils around his fists.
My shadows form blades before I can think. We're both moving, both ready to destroy each other, when we see what the other is holding—me with her hat, him with what looks like a note in her handwriting.
"Stand down," I tell my people. "Let him through."
The water dissipates slowly. He crosses the room in five strides. "Where. Is. She."
"Taken. This morning."
"The Radiant Court?"
"Who else uses sanctified oil?"
"Joss was supposed to be protecting her." His voice cracks on 'protecting.'
Joss.
Last week: "Let me handle her schedule, you focus on territory." Two days ago: "I know all her patterns, I can protect her better than anyone." Yesterday: "Trust me, Ruvan. Haven't I always had your back?"
Twenty years. Twenty years of never questioning her. The night my mentor died, Joss held the perimeter. When the Brass Hands tried assassination five years ago, she identified the traitor. Every victory, every survival.
"She needs structure," Joss had said about Olivia. "Predictable routines are safer." And I agreed because Joss was always right about security. Joss who knew exactly when to suggest market trips. Joss who volunteered to escort her.
The shadows explode outward. Windows crack. Books fly off shelves. The chair splinters.
"That traitorous bitch."
Arthur sees it too, water magic responding. "Your lieutenant sold her out."
"She thinks Olivia made me weak. Thinks she's saving me from myself." I can see it now—every helpful suggestion was isolation. Every security measure was control. She built Olivia's cage one routine at a time, and I thanked her for it.
"Saving you? You're planning systematic murder with meal breaks now."
The war room fills with my expanded guild, all forty-seven arranging themselves by height because Olivia mentioned once it makes group photos better.
"The healer's been taken."
The chaos is immediate.
"But she was teaching me the bigger words!" Tooth clutches his book, upside down in distress.
"We've been practicing bread for her birthday," Ridge confesses.
Someone asks if we should eat first because she'd be upset if we went into battle hungry.
"Actually yes. Everyone eat."
Arthur stares. "You're feeding them before—"
"You want to explain to her why we went into battle hungry? Remember that lecture? An hour about proper nutrition and tactical efficiency?"
His mouth closes. We both lived through it.
"I know their safehouses." He spreads a map across the table. The abandoned brewery everyone thinks is haunted. The tannery that isn't actually burned down. Temple tunnels that supposedly collapsed. Places I couldn't know without inside information.
"Been tracking them for months."
"And you didn't share?"
"Would you have trusted me?"
No. We both know it.
He marks another spot. "She'll be looking for ways to help them. Probably offering to cook or organizing their storage."
"She'll be angry about the hat."
We both look at it. Almost finished except for a few rows. My shadows reach for it, gentle.
"She hates leaving things unfinished," Arthur says.
Grimm interrupts. "Dock rat spotted your lieutenant. Old tannery. Having tea."
Of course she's having tea. Celebrating with proper ceramic and probably those cookies she pretends she doesn't steal.
"She thinks caring about meals is weakness," I say. "Twenty years and she doesn't know me at all."
Gray Streak clears his throat. "Ceremony's at moonrise. New moon tonight."
"Eighteen hours," Arthur and I say together.
We coordinate over maps while someone brings sandwiches. I pocket several rolls—she gets hungry after stress. Arthur does the same. We catch each other doing it.
"She's allergic to poppy," I tell him.
"I know."
"Makes her break out in hives."
"I know, Ruvan."
The teams assemble. Fed, armed, ready. Someone mentions they soaked tomorrow's beans because "she'll be upset if dinner's late."
"About Joss," Arthur says quietly.
"She dies after."
"After?"
"After we feed her. Even traitors shouldn't die hungry. She'd be disappointed."
"Gods. She really has ruined us both."
I touch the hat in my pocket. She was going to give it to me, probably with detailed instructions about wool care.
"Let's go before she reorganizes their entire cult," Arthur says, half joking.
My shadows pull toward the temple district, desperate.
Time to find out if the Radiant Court understands what they've taken. Not just a healer. Not leverage. Someone who will notice their uneven furniture and offer to help fix it while being held hostage.
The hat weighs nothing in my pocket.
The Radiant Court thinks they've captured a healer to burn.
They have no idea they've taken someone who's about to critique their cult management while actively bleeding.