Chapter 18
CHAPTER
Azrian
The Registry building’s schematics sprawled across Azrian’s desk like battle plans, which, he supposed, they essentially were.
“The Binding Gala once more.” Caelen traced the map’s faded arteries. “Hard to believe half the Season’s gone already. Why are we hunched over these maps like thieves plotting a heist?”
Azrian smoothed a corner of the parchment that insisted on curling, the gesture automatic, precise.
He needn’t say a word for Caelen to understand him. “We are to plot a heist, then?”
With his hands clasped behind his back, Azrian moved to the window. Atop the hill of Imperial Crown, the Registry Spire choked the view, its green copper dome a poisonous jewel against the darkening sky.
His butler appeared at the door of the study. “Miss Almarien, my lord.”
“Show her in, please.”
Caelen whipped his head to Azrian. “I’m sorry, did I hear that right? Miss Almarien is here? In your home? To plot a heist?”
Azrian ran a hand over his face. “Yes, Thornevail. Are you done now, or would you like to say heist a few more times?”
“Heist, heist, heist. I’m finished, now.”
Azrian did not dignify the performance with a response.
Miss Almarien appeared in the doorway, arms folded across her chest, the hem of her gown dark where rain had licked it, hair twisted back in a way that bared the stubborn line of her jaw. “Is this how the Emperor’s finest amuse themselves when left unsupervised?”
Caelen grinned. “You wound me, Miss Almarien. I was hoping you’d join us.”
He stepped forward, his smile bright, and reached for Miss Almarien’s hand. He bowed over it with a practiced grace and pressed his lips to her knuckles. “We have not been formally introduced. Caelen Thornevail, at your service, my lady.”
The words were clean, unburdened by longing or artifice. No heat in his gaze, no hidden meaning. It was only Caelen being Caelen, unselfconscious and perfectly in command of himself.
“Pleasure’s all mine.” Her smile was warm, genuine, the kind she’d not once worn for him . “And Sabine’s fine, between friends. We are to plot a heist together, are we not?”
Caelen’s lips curled into a wolfish grin. “I knew I liked you.”
And just like that, they were friends . Azrian should’ve been glad of the matter.
Caelen’s heart was fully claimed elsewhere, and Miss Almarien was but an assignment Azrian was bound to by imperial decree, one that he’d be rid of sooner rather than later, threads willing.
The two of them striking a friendship would’ve been the most enviable outcome.
Then why did he feel a flare, sharp and cold as a knife pressed to bone?
It was irrational and unacceptable.
Azrian tapped on the maps, bringing the group’s attention back to his desk. “Shall we get back to the matter at hand?”
Caelen helped Miss Almarien into one of the leather chairs before leaning against the edge of the desk.
“The entire Gilt will be at the Gala,” Azrian said, tracing the main hall on the map. “Every clerk will be needed upstairs. Security elsewhere will be thin.”
“Not that they’ve ever needed it,” Caelen added. “Who would be mad enough to infiltrate the Registry during its biggest social event of the Season?”
Azrian’s answering smile was more threat than pleasantry. “Precisely.” His finger mapped the path, down three levels to the archival vaults. “Anything that could be of use to us will be stored here”—his finger tapped an area marked with red pen—”in the restricted section.”
“What matter of security makes the section restricted?” Miss Almarien asked.
“Guard rotations, every fifteen minutes.” Azrian pointed to where he’d marked them, also in red. “Elaborate locking mechanisms.”
“Wards?”
“The room is built with Stone affinity, to make weaving within it near impossible. But that won’t be a problem for us. We won’t be using any magic unless a contingency plan is needed.”
She leaned back in her chair. “If I’m understanding correctly, then the tasks will include opening locked doors, leafing through many documents quickly, and memorizing information.” She counted each off on her fingers. “You couldn’t have devised a better heist for me if you’d tried, my lord.”
Caelen grinned.
Azrian scowled. “Thornevail will keep watch. Should we be discovered, I will handle the aforementioned contingency plan.”
Caelen drummed his fingers on the map. “So what exactly are we hoping to uncover? I assume it’s more than records of who waltzed with whom.”
He said it lightly, but there was a tension to it. Azrian recognized it. He’d trained Caelen to see every ripple of danger, and now, Caelen looked for it in Azrian’s own face.
Miss Almarien did not hesitate. “Are you aware that the Bennetts bore a mark?”
Caelen stilled. He looked to Azrian, then to Miss Almarien, then back to Azrian, like the answer might be conjured from the tension between them. “You disobeyed orders.”
Azrian did not flinch. There was no point. “Remember when you first told me you thought these marks were a curse?”
The rain battered harder, as if it wished to drown the city.
“You may not have been wrong.”
“But the Registry said the marks—”
“The Registry says a great many things.” Each syllable was sharpened by memories of Evara, of the Registry telling him nothing could be done to ease her sufferings.
Caelen’s throat bobbed. “What do you believe, then?”
“That the marks may somehow put us in danger.” Azrian returned to the desk and braced against its surface.
“Perhaps the Children are targeting marked pairs with a deadlier version of the disease. Or perhaps the Registry miscalculated something with their magic, and the marks react poorly to the Fade, causing the infected to die more quickly. Whatever may be happening, the Registry cannot control it, and they’d rather bury the evidence than admit such a weakness. ”
Caelen worried the edge of a drawing. Then, the admission finally came: “I’m convinced Miss Celastra bears a mark.
She conceals it with admirable skill, but I cannot ignore the pull.
Whenever she’s near, it’s like my own mark is hot metal against skin.
It’s painful, and yet I never want it to go away. ”
The naked longing in Caelen’s voice struck Azrian with unexpected force. He fought for what felt like an interminable moment to keep his eyes on the map, but his body betrayed him, seeking her , wondering if she too recognized that particular ache.
When he looked up to Miss Almarien, he found her already watching him, and the pain of the mark was both searing and, unreasonably, welcomed. She severed their eye contact first. He stared at her profile long after she’d moved on to look at Caelen.
“Have you two discussed your… situation?” Miss Almarien asked.
Caelen’s smile was a crooked thing. “Our Lord Commander, here, ordered me to keep my own mark hidden.”
“It was more of a request.”
“I obeyed it nevertheless.” Caelen sighed, then.
“She’s been seeking me out lately, as though she can’t deny the pull either.
But I can’t offer her the future she deserves, so I don’t wish to pressure her.
” The words tumbled, quick and desperate.
“But if what you’re saying is true, then I should keep away from her. Shouldn’t I?”
The memory of Miss Almarien’s fingers brushing his at the Bennetts’ funeral was branded on Azrian’s memory. “That is a decision only you can make. But you deserve to make it with full knowledge of the risks.”
Caelen nodded slowly, then gestured to the schematics with renewed determination. “Then we’d better find proof of what those risks are.”
They spent the next hour mapping routes, timing guard changes, identifying potential hiding spots, and escape paths.
Caelen’s quick intelligence, the way he absorbed information and transmuted it into practical application, was no surprise to Azrian.
But the way Miss Almarien kept pace, how she offered insightful suggestions, forced him into even more grudging admiration.
At last, Azrian rolled up the papers.
Caelen stared at the scrolls, his voice oddly flat. “We are about to become exactly the traitors we were trained to hunt.”
“Let us not get ahead of ourselves,” Azrian attempted to reason. “We’re simply looking for answers that could save our own lives.”
“And what if the answers we find are not the ones the Registry has asked us to believe in? What do we do, then?”
Azrian had been asking himself the same thing, but it pained him to admit he didn’t have an answer. Finding evidence was one thing. Acting on it, another entirely. “That is a bridge we’ll cross if we indeed reach it.”
Caelen stood, then paused with a hand resting on the back of the chair. “If the worst happens, if Miss Celastra and I bond and the marks do ki—”
“It won’t.” The interruption was fierce, more than Azrian intended. Caelen startled, but Azrian pressed on, softer but no less certain. “Whatever game the Registry, or the Children, or the threads are playing, I won’t let them claim one of my own. That is a promise, Thornevail.”