Chapter 11
Riella cracked the door and peeked into the hallway.
Guards pushed and shoved their way through the mayhem of outraged men and women in varying states of undress. Most were expelled from their rooms during the search. Madame Quaan and Gerret were nowhere to be seen, nor was the Count.
Yvette leaned against the wall nearby, her dark curls loose, smoking a cigar with a bored expression.
Riella waved to get her attention. “Where are Madame Quaan and Gerret?”
She crossed the hallway, dodging a gray-haired man frantically trying to button his shirt. “In the Count’s room. Trying to keep the guards out long enough to untie him.” Yvette snickered and angled her head to blow a trio of smoke rings. “Quaan’s out for your blood. She told them you’re violent and wanted for robbery.”
“We need to get into her study, and best we do it now, while she’s waylaid with the Count.”
Yvette’s eyes widened in delight. “Do you really mean to rob her?” she whispered. “How can I help?”
Riella frowned, thinking. “Do you know anything about the magic guarding her riches?”
The siren could handle steel and padlocks, but magic was a different and potentially far trickier challenge.
“Only that no one can open it except for her,” replied Yvette. “When we first moved to this house, she had a mage enchant the stronghold for her. I couldn’t get close enough to find out any particulars, though.”
“Alright, that’s still helpful. You’ve been here a long time, then?”
Yvette’s face shuttered. She glanced over her shoulder, feigning distraction. With a stab of shame, Riella realized she’d asked a rude question. The complexities of the human world seemed never-ending.
“I’ll find Odeya and Sehild,” said Yvette when she’d gathered herself, turning back to Riella. “We’ll delay Madame Quaan and Gerret for as long as possible.” She tugged a lace shawl from around her shoulders and pressed it into Riella’s hands. “I’d cover my hair, if I were you. Madame Quaan described you to the guards.”
“Thank you.” Riella put the shawl over her head and tied it under her chin. “Jarin said something similar about my hair.”
Yvette had been about to leave, but halted at this information, arching her brow. “Who’s Jarin?”
“Oh.” The siren opened the door wider to reveal the pirate adjusting his belt. “I’m working with him. Don’t ask why.”
Yvette snickered. “I don’t need you to tell me why. Just look at him. Go ahead, then. And good luck.”
The dark-haired woman gave an ironic salute, then wove down the hallway through the melee toward the Count’s room.
Riella and Jarin emerged and hastened in the opposite direction. He shoved his way through the royal guards, who took one look at him and turned their gazes, allowing him and Riella to reach the stairs quickly and without incident.
The first real obstacle lay at the bottom of the stairs, where the door was locked with three deadbolts. Riella could break them easily enough, but smashing the metal from the doorframe would create a tremendous noise.
The guards may’ve overlooked Jarin when they believed he was a customer at this establishment, but if he started actively robbing the place, they’d have to intervene.
“I need you to cause a diversion up in the hallway,” she said to him. “Something loud.”
She had expected him to be confused, or argue, or ask how. But he nodded without saying a word and ascended the stairs, as if he did this all the time. Which, she reflected, he probably did.
Moments later, a crash came from the hallway, followed by cursing and screams, then more crashing. Riella couldn’t see the mayhem from the bottom of the stairs, but she felt sure it was Jarin’s doing, and took it as her cue.
She drove her fist into the biggest of the metal locks. The door cracked, along with most of the frame, but the locks held. The hidden mechanisms were sturdier than she’d thought. Undeterred, she punched it again, making it loosen further. If Madame Quaan took such great lengths to secure her office, there was sure to be something of value inside.
The noise upstairs began subsiding. Jarin would only be able to cause so much chaos without risking arrest. There was no time to waste. Her next strike would need to break the door down.
A wild idea occurred to her as she drew her fist back again. What if she kicked the door instead? Would that work better?
Dubious, she braced herself by pressing her hands against either side of the narrow entryway. After awkwardly drawing back one leg, she drove the sole of her foot into the main lock. The entire door flew into the study, the locks demolishing most of the frame as well, leaving behind a giant hole.
Laughing in delight, and with a newfound respect for her legs, she stepped into the study. Jarin joined her moments later, nodding in admiration at the damage she’d caused.
“The guards have the Count,” he said. “He’s trying to bribe them, but he’s got no gold on him. Very sad.”
“Did you see Madame Quaan and Gerret?”
“She’s trying to argue the Count’s case, but I don’t think it’s doing much good. I guess the Countess pays better.”
Riella nodded, surveying the study. “We don’t have much time, then.”
The room was small, stuffy, and almost entirely decorated with gray. Gray tiled floor, gray wallpaper, and a wide marble desk with a neat stack of parchment on top. There was nothing personal about the study—no art or trinkets or even books. Nothing that suggested any kind of heart.
The stronghold was built into the wall behind the desk. Its door was round and made of steel, like Yvette said, with two arms attached to the front, running in opposite directions. There was no sign of magic, but enchantments were not often visible to the naked eye.
Riella went to grab the metal arms.
“Don’t!” Jarin strode to her. “You don’t know what’ll happen.”
The siren sighed, stopping just short of grasping them. “Then what do you suggest? We’re getting into this stronghold. I made promises.”
He tried to nudge her out of the way. “Let me do it.”
She shoved him back, because his proximity annoyed her, on multiple fronts. First, he was in her way. Second, he was trying to stop her from doing as she pleased. And third, she caught his scent whenever he got close, and that scent made her stomach do backward somersaults.
“Why?” she demanded. “The magic won’t care which one of us does it.”
“I’m trying to be chivalrous.” The pirate sighed, shaking his head. “You are maddening.”
“I am not!”
“You don’t get to decide if I find you maddening.”
“We’re wasting time. And I don’t need your protection.”
Before he could stop her, Riella gripped the arms and pulled with all her strength. The metal groaned, then clanked, but the door did not budge. The metal arms broke off in her hands, leaving behind a featureless round metal surface.
She raised her brows at Jarin. “See? It didn’t hurt me.”
“You were lucky.”
She ran her hand around the circular door, looking for a crack or seam large enough to slide her talons into. “What’s the magic of it, then?”
Jarin frowned, putting his hands on the door, too. Riella took hers away. The way his veins popped in his wrists and hands against his tanned skin was strangely indecent.
“The door sits perfectly flush with the wall,” he said.
“So, we have to open it by force?”
He stood back, next to her. “That can’t be right. The whole point of magic is to circumvent force.”
Riella shrugged. “In my experience, anything can be broken with enough force.”
To demonstrate, she kicked the metal door. Upon connection, a blinding pain surged up her leg, sending her sprawling backward. She cried out and Jarin caught her before she hit the floor.
“The harder you strike the door, the more pain it delivers to you,” came a cold, clear voice from the doorway. “It’ll never open for you, siren, no matter how much you try.”
Madame Quaan stood in the remains of the office doorway, with Gerret.
Riella snarled. “I will kill you both. Slavers.”
She got to her feet, her injured leg still smarting.
“I doubt it,” replied the Madame. She crossed the room to Riella, Gerret on her heels like a ghastly shadow. “Sirens can’t hurt women. It goes against your rules.”
“I can make an exception,” said Riella.
But even as she said the threat, her words rang false. The rule may not have been set in stone, but harming any woman went against the very fiber of a siren’s heart and soul. In a way—perhaps the truest way—that was stronger than any rule.
Madame Quaan seemed to sense Riella’s uncertainty, because she laughed. “You may have physical strength, but you have little else going for you.”
Yvette rushed into the room, her dress torn and her dark hair askew.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Riella. “I tried to delay her as much as I could. The guards are taking the Count.”
Madame Quaan’s expression changed in an instant, from mirth to cold fury. She rounded on Yvette, her tone becoming venomous.
“This is why you were pestering me?” she spat at her subordinate. “You colluded against me in my own house?”
Yvette’s face drained of color and she cringed, like an abused animal who’d been long beaten into submission.
Her fear only seemed to incense the madame further.
“After all I have done for you!” she went on. “You worthless, ungrateful traitor! You will never be good for anything except for lying on your back and?—”
Riella sunk her talons into Madame Quaan’s shoulder blades and flung her against the wall, where she crumpled to the floor.
Gerret lunged at the siren, his black robes whipping the air with his speed, but Jarin intercepted. He punched Gerret in the face repeatedly with great force, making bones crack and blood fly, until the man’s eyes rolled back in his head. Jarin let him collapse on the tiles and stepped away from the body, massaging his bloodied fists.
Covering her mouth with her hand, Yvette gazed at Madame Quaan slumped on the ground. The madame stirred, raising her head. Riella lifted her with one hand and pinned her against the wall by her throat.
“If you say one more word to her,” said the siren through gritted teeth. “I will disembowel you with my bare hands. And this time, I do mean it.”
Madame Quaan hesitated, searching the siren’s face. She must’ve discerned that Riella was telling the truth, because she visibly quailed, swallowing hard under Riella’s hand.
“Now, open the stronghold,” said Riella.
“I can’t.” Her voice wavered slightly, but her eyes were as icy as ever. “Only my blood will open it, but the blood has to be willingly given. And I don’t give it to you willingly. I will never, no matter what you do, because nothing in this world means anything to me, except what’s in that stronghold. I’ll gladly die before I relinquish all I have worked for. Especially to a mutant half-breed like you, or a common criminal like him.”
Her eyes slid in Jarin’s direction. With a triumphant smirk, she removed one of her gloves and held up her hand. Cuts and scars crisscrossed her palm many times over. Some marks were old and silvery, while others were fresh and pink.
Riella’s heart sank. Naturally, a person this shrewd and heartless would protect her riches with her very love for those riches. It was brilliant, if not highly inconvenient for Riella and her cause.
“Let’s try anyway.” Jarin scowled, reaching for the handle of his cutlass. “We’ll try until she bleeds out.”
“No!” said Yvette, stepping forward.
Madame Quaan blinked at her, as if she’d forgotten the younger woman was even there.
Yvette’s face was still pale, but her chin now had a determined jut. “Don’t bother.”
Taking a discreet, bone-handled dagger from the sleeve of her dress, she crossed the room.
In front of the stronghold, she touched the short blade to the palm of her hand. Madame Quaan’s expression morphed from confusion to horror, her mouth falling open in realization. Riella shared a puzzled glance with Jarin.
“I’m not completely ungrateful, mother,” said Yvette to Madame Quaan. “I am very grateful for your arrogance. You constantly overestimate yourself, and underestimate every person around you. Most of all, me.”
Madame Quaan struggled against Riella’s steely grip, gasping and spitting in panic. The older woman could do nothing except watch as Yvette cut her hand and pressed her bleeding palm to the metal door.