And what am I thanking him for? I wanted to ask. “Of course.”
“Thank you,” Blythe whispered again, sliding the purse into her leather satchel. “My brother is a warden of a few streets that have fallen on hard times and cannot pay the duke’s tax. So Mr. Vesper’s donation is much appreciated.”
“Phelan will be pleased to hear of it,” I said, struggling to hide my surprise. This side of Phelan was new to me. And I didn’t like how it made me doubt my prior assumptions of him.
“I also have a message, for you to give to Mr. Vesper,” Blythe said. “A few weeks ago, he asked me if I had seen someone named Clementine in the art shop. I told him there had been a pretty girl named Clem with red hair, and he wanted me to inform him if I ever saw her step foot in the shop again.”
“And has she?” I asked, clearing my throat.
Blythe shook her head. “No. But the strange thing is his mother, Lady Raven, also asked about the girl. She wanted me to follow Clem home the next time she visited the shop. I thought Mr. Vesper would be interested to know his mother is also looking for her. I hope Clem is not in any sort of trouble.”
“On the contrary,” I said with a slight grimace. “Perhaps they want to commission her.”
“Perhaps. Well, good day to you . . .”
“Anna. Anna Neven.”
“Anna,” Blythe said.
I remained standing in the library long after she departed. The shadows grew long, gnarled roots around me.
The Vespers knew I was in the city. And I thought of the spell I had planned, in case Phelan discovered who I was. The spell my father had insisted I have prepared.
At the time I created it, I had believed that I would never have to cast it.
Now? I was no longer sure.
25
Phelan returned after a week and a half’s absence, and he brought the first frost of autumn to the city. I reunited with him in the library that evening, where he stood before his shelves, frantically leafing through a book. And when that failed to entice him, he set it down and reached for another, his fingers swiping through the pages.
“You were away longer than you said you would be,” I greeted him, closing the library doors behind me.
Phelan turned. His hair was tousled, his clothes uncharacteristically wrinkled from the journey. “Yes, forgive me, Anna. I hope things were uneventful here?”
“Quite,” I said, joining him before the shelves. “The dream tax has been passed on to the collector. And I gave the red ribbon purse to your contact. She was very thankful for the amount.”
“Good. Did she have any other messages for me?”
“She hasn’t seen your old rival Cordelia—”
“Clementine,” Phelan corrected me.
“Yes, whatever her name is, in the art shop.”
He sighed and carelessly dropped a book on his desk. “Just the news I wanted to hear.”
“What else have you done to try and locate her?”
“I’ve contacted a few art shops and checked her Luminous Society files,” he said. “There’s not much there to glean, as both of her parents are highly private people and paid to have their records guarded. But it seems her mother is proficient in metamara and performed stagecraft, so I’ve begun to check with theaters in the area.”
My pulse skipped. I had never thought about him tracing my mother to me, because she went by her stage name, and had been doing so for nearly a decade, since she split with my father. Despite that, I was tempted to dismiss myself and send an urgent message to my parents, but I quenched the impulsivity and chose to take another route.
I lingered in the library, watching him draw book after book from his vast shelves.
“What are you looking for? Aside from Clementine, that is.”
“A certain volume,” he said. “I can’t remember its title, but it has an essay on trolls that I need.”
“Trolls?” I echoed, thinking of Mazarine. “Why is that? Did you encounter one?”
“Perhaps.” Phelan sounded distant, resuming his search.
I watched. There were moments when Phelan looked at me or when our skin brushed and I felt something electric pass between us. I told myself it was merely from two enemies being in close quarters, until I realized that I had—unfortunately—come to miss him during the time he was away. But more than those unsettling feelings . . . I needed to distract him from Mazarine, from hunting me and my parents.
“This house is far too quiet at night without you,” I said.
That brought him back to me. He met my gaze, and I wondered what he saw in my eyes, because Phelan smiled.
I took a step back, and it was like we were bound by an invisible tether, because he suddenly forgot about the mess of books around him and took a step forward.
“Leaving so soon, Anna?”
“Well, you’re knee deep in books,” I said, waving my hand. “We can talk more tomorrow.”
“Talk more about what?” he asked. “The fact that you missed me?”
I suddenly couldn’t tell if he was humoring me or deadly serious. “I never said that I missed you. I said that it was quiet here.”
He took another step closer. “Then let me be the first to confess. I missed you.”
“I have no doubt.”
“I should have taken you with me.”
I tried to imagine that scenario—going to Hereswith with him. Staying in my old house with him and his brother. Walking streets I knew like the lines on my palm, and pretending it all meant nothing to me.
“You should have.” My voice was husky, full of longings he would never understand.
“And I’m weary of trolls and dusty journeys and missing Clementines and having to deal with my brother’s snark,” he said, and the space between us closed a little more.
I had to tilt my chin to look up at him. “And what can I do about that?”
“Distract me.”
He shouldn’t challenge me with such a thing. I could give him all sorts of distractions, and I raised my hand and grasped the ribbon that held his hair at the nape of his neck. Slowly, I pulled it loose, and I listened to his breaths quicken as his dark hair spilled around his shoulders. Not once did he look away from me as my hands deftly unfastened the top two buttons of his waistcoat. My fingertips traced the faint scar my rapier had left on his cheekbone.
I stepped back to regard him. “Yes, you look much better as a rogue.”
Surely, that comment would offend him. But he laughed, and the sound was golden, incandescent. I longed to hear it again, as soon as it melted away.
“Come, the distraction is not over yet,” I said, inviting him to follow me from the library. “Go set a pot of tea to boil, and then meet me in the drawing room.”
“What for?”
“That would spoil the fun, now, wouldn’t it?”
He only arched his brow, but a smile lingered on his mouth. And I hated how I suddenly wanted to taste it.
Phelan took the corridor to the kitchen; I stepped into the drawing room and found the cards. I stoked the fire in the hearth and lit a few candles by magic, and then I sat in a high-backed chair and waited for him to arrive with the tea. He must have used magic as well to prepare it, because he arrived sooner than I anticipated. The mirth that had been in his eyes just moments ago waned when he saw Seven Wraiths laid out on the table.