Chapter 24
With hours to wait until negotiations finished for the day, Nic made a start on the box.
He’d sent Ambrose for paper and quills and ink, then pushed him into a chair at the sitting room table, a sigil dictionary in hand.
The young man didn’t have the Brilliance but he could read, and Nic needed all the help he could get.
It hadn’t taken long for Ambrose to get the hang of looking up each sigil, and for a time, the only sound in the room was the flip of pages and the scratch of quill on paper. It wasn’t until the clock struck four in the afternoon that Ambrose cleared his throat.
“Excuse me, my lord, but… what is this for?”
“So we can open the box,” Nic said absently, mulling over the possible meanings of a pair of sigils.
“But why? What is inside?”
“No idea.”
“Oh.”
A few minutes went by, then Ambrose added, “Is this one of those things I shouldn’t tell anyone about, my lord?”
“Not a word, Ambrose. Not a word.”
The clock was just creeping past five when a quiet knock fell upon the door. Nic’s gaze snapped up, fixing to the woodwork before Ambrose even moved to open it. When he did, the door swung open to reveal Dashiell, still attired in his formal work coat and breeches.
“It’s Master sa Vare to see you, my lord,” Ambrose said.
“Yes, I can see that, Ambrose. Um, you can go. No, don’t worry about this,” Nic added when the valet glanced at their unfinished work. “I’ll ring for you when I need you.”
“Yes, my lord. As you wish.”
A bow and the valet hurried out, leaving the vowsmith to close the door behind him. With his heart beating fast and a smile fluttering on his lips, Nic rose from the table.
“You’re rather earlier than I expected given the time limit you’re working under.”
“That’s because your father is far more concerned about getting it done than arguing the details.
” Dashiell said. “He doesn’t even join us most of the time, since he’s not allowed to actually negotiate, which means as long as we don’t fall behind, I can choose not to sit longer than I must.” He came to sit on the edge of the table and flicked Nic’s cheek.
“And why would I with you waiting for me? Although—” The vowsmith glanced down at the strewn papers.
“You seem to be in the middle of something.” He picked up the box and turned it over. “Oh, a trick box. It’s smithed shut?”
“So it seems. Leaf and I found it today and I want to know what’s inside.”
“Found it where?”
Nic met Dashiell’s questioning stare, ready to lie, but no lie would come. “On a bookshelf in Lord Francis’s rooms. Leaf thinks the Faceless Man might be his ghost come back to ruin us.”
“You know, before coming here I would have said I didn’t believe in ghosts, but this house feels alive now in a way it didn’t when we were young. And we had better imaginations back then too.”
As he spoke, Dashiell turned the box over, examining each of the sides. “How did you find it?”
“I… felt it. Not fresh, but not old either.”
“I thought you might say that, because see these two lines of smithing on either side? They’re visual binders.
A less potent version is commonly used inverted to find important files, while this is technically illegal.
Ven ek amor zef lejorn si,” Dashiell read.
“Not easy to pull off, but when done right it’s like a command that refuses to be seen, a slippery space for your eyes.
Looking at it, you would see the book beside it, say, then the one on the other side, with the space between made up of both like they stretch to fill it. ”
As Dashiell explained, Nic found himself staring at the box. Not just any trick box then, rather a very expensive and illegal one.
A wry smile twitched Dashiell’s lips. “You really want to open it. What do you think you’ll find inside?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sick of secrets, Dash. The estate. The money. The debts. And now people are dying for my marriage contract. Somewhere there’s a clue that will help untangle this riddle and maybe this is it.”
The vowsmith gave a sharp nod. “All right. It shouldn’t take too long with both of us working.
At the very least I promise to be more useful than Ambrose.
” As he spoke, he drew off his coat and laid it over the arm of the sofa, before pulling out the chair Ambrose had recently vacated.
“You even have the dictionaries ready to go,” he added, rolling up his shirtsleeves and laying bare lithe arms.
When Nic didn’t immediately join him at the table, Dashiell looked up, an eyebrow cocked in question. “Everything all right?”
“Yes. Just distracted by your arms.”
Dashiell tried not to grin and failed, his lips twitching. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can get properly distracted,” he said, drawing the box close.
“Yes, but really it was rude of you to roll up your sleeves like that. Casual, getting-down-to-business Dashiell really does it for me.”
“I’ll have to remember that.”
Nic groaned and Dashiell tossed him a quill. “Here, make yourself useful. Let’s see how fast we can do this.” Lifting the box to peer at the tiny sigils, Dashiell went on, “Ready? I think this is where you were up to. Next is am. Lelos. Ves.”
Quill to page, Nic hastily scrawled as Dashiell read, pausing only when Dashiell needed to consult one of the books laid out on the table.
For the most part he was reading bare sigils, but occasionally he would interrupt his stream to add translations he already knew, like “That’s darkness” and “That means to prioritise; note that underneath.”
Nic did, enjoying the commanding ease with which Dashiell made his way around the box—all vowsmithing sigils unlike the tape had been. While he thumbed through one of the dictionaries, Nic said as much, causing the vowsmith to look up.
“Oh, are you trying to tell me that I’m being overbearing?”
“Let’s call it assertively competent,” Nic returned.
Dashiell’s eyes twinkled. “And you like that, do you?” In a breath, he’d leaned close, lips pressed to Nic’s without pause for permission.
Dashiell’s lips were soft, the kiss gentle yet needing, the fierce desire it owned barely contained like his self-control was fracturing.
Without thinking, Nic groaned against his mouth.
He wanted everything Dashiell was holding back, but no sooner was the sound out than the vowsmith pulled away, leaving him hungry.
“God I love that little groan of yours,” Dashiell said, and looked resolutely back at the book.
“That,” Nic said, “was very cruel.”
“Don’t worry, love, I always pay my debts.”
Love. Like darling. Single, beautiful names that thrilled him on Dashiell’s tongue.
“Ah, teth.” Dashiell snapped the book closed. “That’s an unusual one.”
Nic wrote the sigil down, but before the ink was dry, a knock fell upon the door for what felt like the dozenth time that day.
“Nicholas?”
The duke.
Nic sucked a sharp breath. They were just working on sigils, but between the existence of the box and Dashiell sitting there in his shirtsleeves, it was all trouble.
Hissing swear words between his teeth, Nic grabbed the box and thrust it at Dashiell, while lifting the tablecloth with his other hand.
“Are you serious?” Dashiell whispered.
“Just do it! He can’t see you here.”
The knock came again. “Nicholas?”
Dashiell slid beneath the table with the box, and though he was still rustling about getting comfortable, Nic couldn’t keep his father waiting.
“You can come in, sir. The door is unlocked.”
He opened a book to a random page and pretended to read, his heart thumping so hard the duke was sure to hear it. The handle turned, and with a creak of old hinges, the door swung in. Nic got to his feet in the required show of respect.
“Sir,” he said. “My apologies. I forgot Ambrose wasn’t in. Will you sit?”
The duke closed the door behind him, but shook his head.
“My errand is of no great length,” he said, eyeing the papers strewn over the table. “Although I am glad to see that you appear to be feeling better. And that you seem to be reapplying yourself to your vowsmithing studies. Something for which I have Master sa Vare to thank, I think.”
“Oh. Yes.” Nic had to swallow annoyance at the satisfaction in his father’s tone. “He has been helping me with a few things when he has the time, but I doubt I am proving a capable student.”
The duke hummed a note of disapproval. “Perhaps if you applied yourself, you might. But I did not come to argue this point, merely to enquire how Lady Leaf Serral is faring. What with the loss of her cousin.”
Displays of empathy had never been the duke’s forte, but before Nic could digest his surprise, his father added, “The finalisation of the contract may rest on her willingness to remain, after all.”
That at least was in character, but Nic couldn’t shake the feeling his father was looking around, that he had come for something else entirely.
He couldn’t know about the box, couldn’t know Dashiell sat huddled beneath the table, yet Nic felt laid bare as he said, “She is very upset, naturally. Although if you want to know whether I think she will ask Lord Charborough to break the contract, then no. I don’t think so. ”
The duke nodded, ever expressionless. “Good. It has been a trying time for us all, but we must, and will, get through it.”
“Yes, sir.”
With nothing but a lingering stare at the papers, as though he could force Nic to study through sheer determination, the duke stepped back into the hallway and closed the door behind him. Muffled footsteps retreated.
Letting out a relieved sigh, Nic dropped onto his chair. “You can come out now. He’s gone.”
Dashiell slid the box out onto his own vacated chair, but did not follow. Unseen beneath the tablecloth, he touched Nic’s knee, then slid his hand up the inside of one thigh.
“What are you doing?” Nic said as Dashiell’s other hand made the same journey up his other leg. “Dash?”