“How do you know this?” he asked sharply.
I bit the inside of my cheek, the pain my punishment for speaking so freely. “Just a rumor, Your Grace. My mother used to tell me a few mountain stories when I was a girl.”
The duke’s calculating silence continued to roar.
I felt the urge to state, “I’m not a madcap, if that’s what you truly want to know.”
“I think we all are madcaps, in one way or another. And a warden like you already has all the training one would need to defeat whatever nightmares lurk in that old mountain fortress,” the duke countered, arching his brow. “But as you said, Miss Neven. The wraiths are but a myth. Faces in a card game meant to frighten young children. Now, then. I have taken more than enough of your time today.”
I rose, thoughts muddled by all he had said to me, and began to follow him to the library doors until I remembered the dream tax. “Your Grace, the tax . . .”
He paused and gave me a smile, one that crinkled the corners of his eyes. I wasn’t fooled by the gentleness of his demeanor. I saw the glint of greed within him. “My collector will arrive later today, Miss Neven. The money never passes through my hands, not until it has been marked and accounted for.”
I curtsied and waited until Mrs. Stirling had seen the duke out, and the house fell quiet once more. But I could smell a trace of the duke’s cologne again, and I opened a window to let the potent fragrance escape. The library seemed to soften in relief that the duke was gone, and I approached the hidden safe in the wall.
I whispered the spell into the dust motes and watched the safe’s door appear in the wall with a mercurial gleam. The door conceded to yawn open beneath my hand, recognizing me, and I stared at the bundles of coins that rested within its belly.
A small portion of this money was mine, for Phelan and I took a percentage and split it between ourselves. My first proper paycheck, I thought before locating the bundles Phelan had set aside for the tax collector.
Four bags, each the size of a cantaloupe, swollen with coins. I studied them, one by one, and felt their weight in my palm.
So much money, I thought with a disbelieving heart. So much money.
Two days after the duke’s visit, I received a request from the smith to come to his shop. It was a tricky place to find, and I walked past it twice before I finally found the shop door, which was so unremarkable that it nearly blended into the brick wall.
The doorbell rang when I entered. The shop was composed of a small chamber, smelling of leather and iron and cleaning oil. Swords of all kinds were displayed on one wall, as well as axes and daggers. A few suits of armor caught my attention. I paused before a steel-plated set that reminded me of the one the knight wore, only far less sinister. Indeed, I felt as if I had stepped back in time. All these weapons and armor . . . not many people possessed such things anymore. They were figments of the past. And the air was dusted with nostalgia, with the memory of fading things.
“May I help you?”
I turned to see a middle-aged man with thinning brown hair and sharp eyes, a pair of wire spectacles perched on his hawk nose. He wore a leather apron, and his hands were covered in grime.
“I’m Anna Neven,” I said.
“Ah, yes. I need to take your measurements.” He hurried behind his desk and found a spool of measuring tape.
I had told the duke that armor would slow Phelan and me down considerably. And I wanted to protest until the smith measured my height and my left arm, studying my shoulder and the way I stood.
“You’re not making armor?” I asked.
“No. A shield.”
A shield would be helpful, I thought. Although I remembered how the knight’s sword had shattered Phelan’s rapier like it had been composed of glass. It could just as easily sunder a buckler, but I held my doubt.
“How long have you been practicing deviah?” I asked.
The smith glanced at me, a suspicious arch in his brow. “Long enough, I suppose.”
“Were you a warden before?”
“No. But I am familiar with avertana.”
“Do you often create enchanted armor?”
He gave me an exasperated expression. “Do you often come into shops and ask a hundred questions?”
I blushed. “I’m sorry. I just find your vein of work quite fascinating.”
That mollified his gruffness. Slightly. “Creating enchanted armor is extremely difficult, even for the most experienced magicians. It would take years to achieve one suit. Now, then, Miss Neven. I’ll deliver the shields to Mr. Vesper’s town house when they are ready.” He wrote down a few notes, which I took as his way of dismissing me.
I began to leave the shop when something caught my eye. A leather weapon belt, hanging overhead. It was the twin to the one I had possessed, the one my father had purchased for me when I began to fight at his side on the streets of Hereswith. The twin to the one Olivette had worn the other day.
My breath caught.
The resemblance was uncanny, undeniable. Papa must have bought it from this shop.
“Another question, Miss Neven?” the smith asked, noticing my rapt attention.
I wondered if this smith was Olivette’s father, remembering how she had told me that her father had made the weapon belt for her. And I opened my mouth to ask more about the belt, to tell him I knew Olivette, but something gave me pause. A warning, as if I had felt a draft. “No. Good day to you, sir.”
That afternoon, I began writing my exposé at Phelan’s desk. I used his ink and quill, and a blank journal I had purchased, and started listing the things I wanted to include:
—The countess buys art supplies (for herself?) and is a magician. Potential deviah?
—The countess poisoned her late husband, the count, because . . . ? (She was bored of him/she had a liaison with the duke/he had uncovered a secret of hers she wanted to keep buried.)
—Lennox and Phelan may or may not be the duke’s children.
—Phelan failed his entrance exams, holds no illumination, and would have never become a magician if it wasn’t for the duke’s influence.
“Miss Neven?” Mrs. Stirling opened the library door. It startled me so badly my quill shot across the page, and I hastened to close my journal. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but a visitor has come to borrow one of Mr. Vesper’s books.”
“Yes, give me one moment and then send them in, Mrs. Stirling.”
She nodded and left. I hurried to charm my journal so no one but me could read it before opening the enchanted safe, retrieving the purse with the red ribbon. It was swollen with coins, and I wondered what Phelan had set this sum aside for.
A creak sounded on the threshold.
I spun to greet the visitor, only to stiffen in shock. Words froze on my tongue as I stared at the girl from the art shop. Blythe.
She gave me a tentative smile, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. “I’m so sorry to interrupt you, but I’m here to borrow one of Mr. Vesper’s books. He said you could help me.”
I swallowed my shock, as well as the hope that she would remember me. I was in disguise, and I had nearly forgotten it.
“Y-yes, of course.” I walked to her and extended the coin purse.
Her delight was tangible. She beamed at the purse, cupping it with both hands. “Oh, this is so much more than I thought it would be! Please thank Mr. Vesper for me!”