Exiting the Athereum was a much easier affair when Penn escorted Arthie and the others through the halls like they were royalty. On the street just outside the gates, Arthie inhaled the night breeze. The night had deepened, and in the darkness, she let her thoughts crash, one after the next.
Laith and his words before he was taken away. Jin and the betrayal in his eyes as he left her to walk home alone. Flick and the secrets she was bursting at the seams to spill. Penn warning them that Spindrift might no longer be safe. His offer to relocate them to his house on Imperial Square only rubbed salt on the wound.
White Roaring carried on as if nothing had changed. Lone carriages trundled, pleasure house doors slammed shut on rusty hinges, coins jangled in the hands of workers after a long day. It was only Arthie’s view of the world that had sustained another crack from a hammer since she’d broken into the Athereum. Weaponizing vampires—people, for all intents and purposes—wasn’t an ignorable evil.
Nor was leaving someone for dead.
There was that guilt, coiling thick in her throat. If she hadn’t stepped back into the vault, she would be sitting with Laith in that cell right now. If the vampires hadn’t burst through Penn’s door first, Laith might have slit her throat. Or he might not have.
Get behind me.
The words haunted her every step. Trundling in her ears like this wretched carriage beside her. Was there no other road in the city? Arthie shot a glare at the wagon’s unmarked covering and turned down another street, suddenly certain she’d seen the same pair of horses lingering outside the Athereum when she and Jin had gone their separate ways.
She paused and listened. Silence.
The carriage hadn’t followed her. She was being paranoid. She started walking again and heard the neigh of a horse followed by the sound of wheels rolling over cobblestone.
Drat it all.
Arthie ran her hand over her pistol and walked straight into the middle of the street, forcing the carriage to a halt. She held her hat against a gust of wind and circled past the horses, eyeing the driver as she went. He didn’t look her way, nor did she recognize him. If Jin was here, he’d give her a thousand different warnings as she marched to the door of the carriage, but she’d spent the last few hours breaking into the Athereum.
A carriage was nothing.
She heard a latch lift inside and thought, fleetingly, about the vampires being kidnapped. The door swung open to a yawning pit of darkness. No one emerged, nor did any sound. Arthie touched her pistol again and stepped inside.
“Arthie Casimir.”
The voice was modulated, muffled by something in front of the speaker’s mouth. Like a mask.
“And there’s the first reason I should kill you,” Arthie said. “You’ve been following me since Ivylock Street. What do you want?”
“You have something of mine,” said the voice.
Arthie tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
She heard a shuffle and the figure leaned into the moonlight, illuminating a gilded mask, shadows pooling into the pits of its eyes.
The Ram.
Fear dropped like a stone inside of her.
“My ledger.”
“Are you demanding or bargaining?” Arthie asked, willing her voice to remain calm.
“Give me the ledger, and you can keep your establishment.”
“That’s mighty generous of you, but it was my establishment until you threatened my proprietor,” Arthie said. “Wearing a mask doesn’t make you a better liar.”
There would be no end, Arthie knew, even if she handed over the ledger. It was as Laith had said: The Ram disliked Spindrift, and as long as Spindrift existed, the threat to it would remain. For as long the Ram existed, the threat would remain. This wasn’t only about Spindrift anymore. She couldn’t be a thorn in the Ram’s side anymore.
She needed the Ram gone.
For herself, for her crew, and for the vampires being snatched for a war that wasn’t theirs.
“My ledger for Spindrift,” the Ram repeated, and the carriage door swung open again.
Arthie stepped down, the weight of her pistol heavy at her side. If only it was as easy as firing a bullet through that pathetic mask.