Flick glazed her lips with a fresh coat of pink as she crossed the street. She had missed it. The carriages rattling past, the horses trotting away from the newsboys waving papers with the day’s gossip, the hustle and bustle and how insignificant it made her feel. How she could walk and laugh and twirl and no one would scrutinize or rebuke her. She passed a few Plodders with the lurid yellow popped collars common to the gang, and then a stand displaying flowers in the same color as her lavender dress and lopsided cap.
Everyone knew who lived at 337 Alms Place, but Flick didn’t know how Matteo Andoni fit into Arthie and Jin’s plans. Surely he hadn’t allied with them. Flick unlatched the gate and stepped onto the cobblestone walkway, where Arthie, Jin, and someone she didn’t recognize were waiting.
What would her mother think if she saw her now? Did her mother even know she’d been arrested? Had it only made her angrier, or did she miss her? It would be over soon, Flick told herself. She was going to fix everything.
Jin turned at Flick’s approaching footsteps, and she wondered if she imagined his eyes brightening at the sight of her. “I knew you couldn’t resist an invitation.”
“Hello, Jin,” she said.
“Flick.” Arthie inclined her head. “Glad you could join us. I thought you could use some fresh air. I’m sure mother dearest will forgive you for it.”
Flick froze, but Arthie turned away almost instantly. They were just words, Flick told herself. Arthie couldn’t know what Flick was planning.
“We haven’t met,” the boy she didn’t recognize said. He was far more cordial than she had expected. “You must be the talented forger I’ve heard much about. Honored to make your acquaintance.”
“My name is Flick,” she said, abashed.
“Laith,” he said, tipping his head.
Jin scowled. “I don’t think you want to get chummy with the Horned Guard.”
Flick gasped, stepping away from him. “You—”
“Your secret is safe with me,” Laith said. His voice had a calmness to it that settled her nerves. “As far as I know, Felicity Linden is locked behind bars.”
Up ahead, the manor door opened and a butler stepped out.
“Afternoon, Ivor,” Jin called. “It’s your favorite dashing duo again!”
The man called Ivor looked disdainful.
“Here to see Matteo,” Arthie added.
Though Flick hesitated to call Arthie graceful, there was precision in her movements. She lived and breathed a type of fluidity born from confidence, and Flick was envious of her boldness.
Ivor drew himself up to his full height, which was really only a smidge taller than Arthie, and his mustache puffed out with his chest. “Master Andoni is not taking visitors.”
“Remember our meeting last night? He’ll want to see me,” Arthie said. It sounded like a threat, though Flick didn’t understand how Arthie could threaten someone as well-loved as him. “Go on. We’ll wait.”
Ivor glared and turned on his heel. Arthie leisurely pulled out her watch with one hand, the other hand in her pocket.
“Matteo Andoni?” Laith asked when they were alone. “Is that how you intend to fetch the ledger? With a rake?”
Arthie looked back. Her eyes were molten honey beneath the brim of her cap. “We’ll have our ledger without you insulting my methods.”
Something small squeezed through the gate and stumbled to the guard’s ankle. “There you are.”
It was a kitten. Her fur was dove gray and mostly white, as bright as his hair. Her tiny claws dug into the leather of his boots, and both Arthie and Jin looked skeptical when he crouched and picked her up with gentle hands.
Flick gasped. “She’s adorable! Where did you get such a precious darling?”
“I found her cornered and pawing at a snake. Poor thing would have died if I hadn’t found her in time,” Laith said, and then his gaze turned distant. “I know a helpless soul when I see one.”
“I want to know what the skinny bloke mixes in his tea,” Jin said under his breath, flummoxed. Flick had to admit the guard’s words were a tad sanctimonious.
“Of course the saint would have a cat,” Arthie said.
Laith rubbed the kitten’s chin and looked at Arthie. “You know, criminal, I’d prefer if you called me by my name. The sooner you treat me like a member of your crew, the easier it will be for all of us.”
She smiled, sweet and amiable and threatening, and Flick stepped between them before they could snap at each other’s throats. She scratched under the babe’s chin until her yellow-green, marble-like eyes fell to slits. “Does she have a name?”
Laith looked as if he hadn’t even considered that she might need a name. Flick thought names were important. They told you a lot about someone, which was why she felt she was more of a Flick than a Felicity. She’d outgrown her name when her mother had outgrown her love.
The front door swung open again, and the butler appeared.
“Aren’t you going to invite us in, Ivor?” Arthie asked, like they were vampires who needed inviting.
Ivor hesitantly stepped onto the threshold with a frown so deep it looked right about ready to slip off.
“Come in,” he said, in as much of a grouse as a respectable butler could muster. “Welcome to the Andoni Residence.”
Flick’s heart was racing in her rib cage as the butler led them through the house, first past a receiving room, then down a hall lined with cabinets stocked with antiquities. The air felt rich and homely all at once, making her wish for a blanket and a book to curl up with on one of the oversize armchairs they’d passed along the way.
She was pulled from the fantasy when Arthie murmured something to Jin, who proceeded to turn a keen eye to their surroundings—and not, it seemed, to appreciate the decor.
Was Flick wading into something she should not be involved in? You were arrested, she reminded herself. Even if she wasn’t in a prison cell, she couldn’t wade much further than that.
Still, she was a sheep among wolves, dainty and colorful compared to their sharp lines and dark cuts. She was meant for needlework and gossip, not pistols and blackmail. Young women of her age and status were swooning over suitors and naming future children, not marching with the likes of the Casimirs.
Flick liked that about Arthie. She not only defied society, she owned that defiance. She had forged a crown for herself when the world told her she was not meant to have one. Flick wondered if Laith saw the same in Arthie, and if that was why he watched her so intently. For it wasn’t the scrutiny a guard gave a criminal, no. She wondered if Arthie shared Laith’s interest. If there was ever a type Flick didn’t want to involve herself with, it was the Horned Guard. She had too many crimes to her name.
“Almost done giving us the tour then, Ivor?” Jin called as they turned down yet another hall. “Can’t wait to see the kitchen pantry.”
Not that I’m here to involve myself with anyone, she reasoned when Jin closed in beside her and she had to remind herself to breathe.
The butler ignored him, leading them into a wide and well-furnished parlor, its drawn drapes standing in contrast to the chandelier bathing the room and its crimson baroque walls in gilded warmth. It was as rich as her mother’s estate, but it oozed comfort and warmth.
“No,” a voice was saying. “I’d rather not.”
A figure stepped through another door, more statue than man, far too beautiful to be real. Matteo Andoni. A girl was beside him, insisting on something, and noticing her flushed skin and low-cut bodice, Flick could tell what he was turning down. Matteo was widely desired, but it was well-known that he kept to himself. He wasn’t the rake Laith said he was.
Flick’s hand flew to her throat when the girl turned around. It was Beatrice MacArdle. She had snickered at Flick’s gown last season, and now here she was with her own mostly undone. The girl said something else, but Matteo shook his head, and she turned with a screech before stomping out of the parlor.
“A little warning would have been appreciated, old boy,” he said, voice low. He was a lot younger than Flick thought he’d be. “I was quite busy.”
Ivor didn’t bat an eye. “Apologies, sire.”
“Did you just turn down Miss MacArdle?” Jin asked with a whistle as the butler closed the doors behind himself. Flick didn’t like that he knew her.
“The voices and faces blur together when they all want the same thing,” Matteo said almost tiredly, but then he saw Arthie, and a grin curved his mouth. “Two visits in less than a day? Oh, darling, I knew you would miss me.”
“Sit down, Andoni,” Arthie said. “We have to talk.”
He looked at her through hooded emerald eyes, the slow drawl of his voice making Flick feel as if she was listening in on something she shouldn’t. “That tone gives me shivers.”
Arthie bristled. “Sit down, or I’ll put another bullet in you.”
Flick sputtered. “You shot the Matteo Andoni?”
“That would be me,” Jin replied, leaning against a wall and crossing his arms. Flick didn’t understand how the pose made him even more attractive.
“The emphasis is a nice touch.” Matteo sank into a velvet settee and slung his arms across either side. His legs were splayed indecently. As a matter of fact, his entire appearance was indecent, and Flick didn’t know how Arthie remained utterly unfazed. “But we did more than that, Arthie and I.”
No, not unfazed. A vein twitched in her jaw, her shoulders had stiffened, and there was a hint of color on her cheeks. Matteo observed every bit of it and then some. His very presence needled Arthie, and he knew it.
“Indeed,” she agreed, sweet as a bird. “After he declared his love for me, I had him shot in the heart.”
Flick’s laugh died in her throat. “He’s—you’re … you’re still alive though.”
Jin was enjoying this. “Alive? Matteo here’s been dead a long time.”
Matteo did nothing to refute the words. Laith’s eyes flared wide, and Flick’s thoughts ground to a halt.
A vampire.
Flick slipped her hand into her pocket for the comforting cold of her lighter. It was a reminder of another time, a time before the East Jeevant Company had drawn lines across her mother’s brow. Before it had stolen all her time and made her harsh, armoring her with animosity.
Matteo Andoni’s work was lauded across Ettenia, his youth and looks as much an allure as the timeless genius of his skill. There were portraits in her mother’s office commissioned from him, and she was the lady who refused to stand in the same room as a vampire, let alone shell out duvin for one.
“Is it true?” Flick asked him. It wasn’t as if vampires were easy to differentiate from humanfolk. They didn’t need to breathe, but often did out of habit. When well-fed, they had pulses and heartbeats. When cut, they bled the blood they’d drunk.
Matteo tilted his head as if he could see the confusion warring in her: to lean into her mother’s prejudice, or to see for herself if he was worth hating.
“Is there any reason it should or shouldn’t be?” he asked.
Flick bit her cheek. How did it feel to never die? To lose count of the setting suns and the fattening moons? How did it feel to watch the living, born from nothing, turn into nothing once more? Given enough time, a vampire could learn all there was to learn. Discoveries could be made, coffers filled to the brim and then some. Flick assumed it would feel powerful, to be immortal, to never age, to revel in the knowledge that only a wooden stake or prolonged exposure to silver and sunlight could kill you.
But at the end of the day, Flick thought, it must get very lonely.
Unnatural, her mother’s voice echoed in her skull, and Matteo’s beauty faded, the ivory of his skin dulling to the same pallor of a corpse. She set aside her astonishment and thought about how the secret could benefit her mother.
This was good, she convinced herself. This was exactly what she had hoped to find. I think. Her mother would be gobsmacked to learn what Matteo Andoni really was. She ignored the unease in her stomach and looked up to find Arthie watching her.
Speak, Flick.
“What about the job? Why am I here?” she asked, clearing her throat and changing the subject.
“Job?” Matteo asked, lifting his brows. “What job? And who is she?” His nostrils flared with an inhale, and she felt as if she was being sized up by a predator. “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”
Flick knew where, of course: in her mother’s parlor, years ago. She’d found it strange that the painter set appointments at unseemly hours, but it fit her mother’s equally unseemly schedule, which made everything perfectly all right.
“This is Flick,” Arthie answered. “Also known as Lady Linden’s daughter.”
Matteo looked to Arthie warily. “And why do we need the daughter of the EJC?”
Flick was the daughter of the founder of the EJC, so she didn’t know why the comment stung so much. She was like the moon, she told herself. This emptiness was merely a phase she needed to traverse in order to be full again.
“Because she happens to be a master forger,” Jin said, stepping closer to her. At his compliment Flick’s heart caught like a lighter snapping shut. “And we can’t do this without her.” He brushed his fingers against her exposed wrist, calming her for a beat before sending her pulse into a frenzy.
Jin passed a roll of paper to Arthie, who unfurled it across the glass table between them and Matteo. There were notes scrawled along one side, a wide space left blank on the other. Laith stepped closer, the kitten in his arms. Arthie centered herself in front of the paper, and suddenly every man in the room was as enraptured by her presence as Flick was just then.
And Flick could all but taste her mother’s forgiveness when Arthie spoke, giving her the ammunition she needed on a silver platter.
“We’re breaking into the Athereum to steal the Ram’s ledger.”