Back in Spindrift, Arthie slung her coat over her arm and headed up the stairs to tally the day’s invoices in her office. Too tired to sleep, she’d told Jin. The numbers would help her clear the fog in her mind.
Seeing the glee of her rivals would feel even worse than losing Spindrift itself. If there was anyone outside the Ram who would rejoice, it would be the Athereum. The underworld was home to White Roaring’s elite vampires, a society standing by its own rules and regulations. It was just as powerful as the monarchy, even if unofficially.
Most notably, the Athereum wasn’t fond of Arthie’s catering to the common vampire any more than she was fond of their pretension.
With a sigh, Arthie closed the glass-paneled doors behind her and settled in her chair, not bothering with the light. She cracked open the cabinet by her desk and took out her slowly diminishing decanter of coconut water. The liquid inside sloshed as she poured exactly a quarter of a cup and drained it, clarity returning when she set down her glass.
That was when she realized two things: There was a breeze coming in from the window she had closed hours ago, and a figure was silhouetted on the sill.
She slammed on the light switch under her desk, dousing her intruder in hazy gold.
A boy. A Horned Guard.
He sat against the window frame with far more gall than he should have had the sense to display. In her office. In her home.
“The great Arthie Casimir.” His voice lilted in an accent that hinted of elsewhere, and his white hair sat stark against his brow. He couldn’t have been much older than her.
The Horned Guard was large, with numerous ranks to enforce Ettenian law on every level. The lighter a guard’s uniform was in color, the higher they were ranked.
His uniform was snow white. A captain.
Arthie lunged out of her chair, finding a grip on the checkered scarf he had draped around his shoulders. They staggered, shoes scuffing the floorboards, until she threw him up against the wall.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t flay you,” Arthie hissed, pressing her knife against his neck. He might have been a head taller, and she might have been alone, but she didn’t care.
“Because I can give you what you need,” he said, and she took pride in the strain in his voice.
“All I need right now is a shovel to dig your grave,” Arthie seethed.
His chest heaved. His features were rugged, a ruthless sort of beautiful.
“Tell me,” he said softly, tilting closer until his throat bobbed against her blade, “do you remember what it’s like to live?”
She stumbled back, releasing his shirt. Her mind and limbs were slow to communicate. His eyes clutched hers, knocking her off-kilter, and she saw herself in them. An unshakable pain. An endless torment.
He straightened his clothes, severing the connection, and before he could blink, she cocked her pistol and the night went quiet. The shutters ceased their creaking, and a restless silence crowded through the window.
“Such vain weapons, guns. Loud. Violent. Jarring,” he mused before his voice fell flat. “Put that away.”
“You forget, guard,” Arthie murmured. “Spindrift is my home, and you’ve set foot in the wrong den.”
“Oh, but I hear that in a fortnight Spindrift will be brought to the ground and your cargo blown back to the sea,” he said, unaffected by the barrel pointing at his chest. “We’ll have ourselves a tempest of tea on the horizon.”
Arthie took a step closer to him, her aim steady. “Now you’re simply begging to die.”
“I will not beg for what’s been promised.” He took an equal step closer, and the barrel of her gun settled over his heart. She felt the warmth of his exhale, the cool sting of mint on his breath.
He lowered his chin.
“I’d like to propose an alliance.” There was something dark in the timbre of his voice when he said it. “The palace is in lockdown, leaving staff and many officials trapped, because the Ram is in a frenzy. Confidential documents have gone missing. Specifically, a ledger.”
The Ram, in a frenzy. If only Arthie could rejoice. But at least now she knew why she hadn’t heard from her snitchers. The palace really was under lockdown.
“It’s damning enough to threaten royal rule,” he continued. “The Council could oust the Ram.”
The Council was as arcane as the way they chose their monarchs and the masks they hid behind. By all appearances, they offered so little resistance that the Ram ruled the empire autocratically. If it could spur the Council into action, the ledger was damning indeed.
“And how do you know this?” she asked.
He gave her a look. “I work for the Ram.”
“Every Horned Guard does.” She wouldn’t let him get away with half-truths, especially when his uniform was nothing like a typical guard’s.
He hesitated a beat. “I’m one of several high captains sworn to act with discretion because the Ram doesn’t want the disappearance known.”
She’d heard of high captains but had never seen one to know they really existed.
“Known by whom?” Arthie asked, sensing that he was choosing his words with great care.
“Officials, advisers,” he said, then worked his jaw. “Potentially other countries. A confidential ledger does mean illicit transactions.”
Which meant this was trade related, possibly even connected to the East Jeevant Company. Her distaste for both the Ram and the EJC only continued to grow.
But things like that didn’t just go missing. No, it was stolen by someone who knew exactly what they were doing.
“And you’ve been tasked with retrieving it,” she surmised. With a mirthless laugh, she dug the barrel into his rib cage, forcing him back against the wall. “Do you think I’m desperate enough to work for the Ram?”
“Do you think I’m reckless enough to confide in White Roaring’s favorite criminal?”
What a compliment.
He looked like he was trying to calm himself. “We might be on opposite sides of the law, Casimir, but we can both agree the Ram has too much power.”
This boy just might be the first Horned Guard she ever agreed with.
“And I have no intention of handing over the ledger to anyone,” he continued. “I want to take the Ram down with it.”
“Treasonous words, but I have no desire to get involved with politics,” Arthie replied.
“No? Not even if you can leverage that ledger to save Spindrift first?”
He might even be the first Horned Guard to leave her speechless. To give her hope.
“If I use the ledger to save Spindrift,” she said, “you lose any chance of toppling the Ram with it.”
The boy grinned. “Oh, but you’re smart enough to do both.”
She wouldn’t give in to his flattery. She might have been smart enough to do both, but that didn’t mean she would. As much as she’d love to see the Ram gone, Arthie preferred her method of chaos. She couldn’t blackmail someone she’d nixed. She couldn’t be a thorn in someone’s side if they no longer existed.
The high captain didn’t need to know that. Besides, she had no reason to fix a country that wasn’t hers.
She pulled back, holstering her pistol. “And why should I believe you?”
He could easily make use of Arthie and her crew’s resources, steal the ledger, and turn tail. He could go even further and claim Arthie had stolen it and lock them up for good. They might agree about the Ram’s reign, but that didn’t change the fact that the boy in front of her worked for the monarch.
And nothing good ever came from partnering with the enemy.
“You holstered your pistol because you’ve already decided you don’t have to,” he said.
He was perceptive.
“But I doubt I’m the only high captain who thought you might be of use. I’m offering you a deal. The others won’t be so friendly.”
She knew cunning when she saw it. “I don’t like being threatened.”
“Then don’t let them threaten you.”
If what he said about the other captains was true, they’d no sooner discuss their plans with the Ram than come directly to Arthie.
“All right,” she said, gathering the invoices on her desk. “Where was it last seen?”
“In the Athereum.”
The Athereum. That all-powerful vampire society where entrance was restricted to those with dedicated markers, and trespassers were killed with a stake through the heart. She couldn’t waltz in. No one could.
“White Roaring is full of petty crooks. Take your pick. The Horned Guard seizing Spindrift doesn’t make me a criminal any more than it makes you a saint, so enjoy your tea. I wish I could say it was a pleasure, but I’m not one to lie.”
She started for the door to see him out.
“Are you aware of what happened to the museum known as the Curio?” he said from behind her.
She paused.
“Priceless artifacts stolen and replaced with those from the private collections of White Roaring’s elites, all in a single night. They still haven’t caught the robbers or the relics they stole from the museum that stood where your establishment does now. Such an odd coincidence, isn’t it?”
It wasn’t coincidence. It was her and Jin, and he knew it. Arthie chewed the inside of her cheek. He’d somehow sniffed them out. But how?
“Did you know there were rumors of a young brown girl in the museum that very morning?” he asked. “Foreigners aren’t known to peruse colonizer collections.”
She wouldn’t indulge him. “And because I was in the museum before the theft happened, you believe I’m capable of thievery.”
The guard almost looked amused. “You only need to be present in the room when the ledger goes missing again. This isn’t a job for a pickpocket. Whoever infiltrates the notorious society has to have the right connections and knowledge of vampires. That’s you.”
Arthie wished Jin were here to hear all this praise. She returned to her desk and shuffled the mess on top of it.
“And once we worm our way into the Athereum, are we to grab every book we see until we find it?”
“It’s a bound ledger. Violet ribbon, standard leather casing. Nothing out of the ordinary, but it’s in the possession of a man named Penn Arundel who hasn’t been seen outside the Athereum in weeks.”
Sheets slipped out of her grasp and floated to the ground. Disquiet quivered through her at the name, but she couldn’t let him see it.
“And,” she started, stringing words together, “does the Ram know it’s in the Athereum?”
“Not to my knowledge,” the high captain said, and she wondered just how many guards with ears all over the city reported to him—and how much of those reports never made it to the Ram. “Otherwise we might have seen an army storming the place.”
Arthie didn’t think that would do any good, and the Ram had to have known as much. Vampires were a force to be reckoned with, but Athereum vampires with bottomless resources on hand? The Ram wouldn’t stand a chance. Still, Arthie couldn’t tell if the captain was certain the Ram didn’t know, or if he was assuming as much because no one had yet stormed the place.
“If only you weren’t so good at what you do, Casimir.” He gave the room a slow perusal, pausing at the double doors when laughter rose from the lower floor, free and unrestrained. She thought she heard sympathy in his voice. “Spindrift might never have grown to the point where it threatened the Ram’s ego.”
The Ram’s ego. That was a good way to put it. Arthie wasn’t a menace to society, she wasn’t ruining the economy. Spindrift wasn’t loud or brash or an eyesore. She, a lower-class immigrant, was successful, and that made people mad.
“Seems you’re on a quick path to becoming a criminal yourself,” Arthie said, refusing to let him get through to her.
He gave her a soft smile. “I’m no criminal. I still work for the law that you break by breathing.”
“Did you learn that from the little handbook the Horned Guard gives every recruit?” Arthie asked with a laugh. “What’s in it for you? The Ram might need a reckoning, but by allying with me, you’re risking your life.”
“Is that not the duty of a guard?” he asked.
Self-righteous sod. She didn’t believe him, but what he offered was enough to make her overlook it. For now.
When she said nothing, he tilted his head. “I take it you agree to the job then?”
She pinched her lips. She didn’t even know his name. “Have you ever seen a lion? The people you work for sometimes snatch them along with the tea, spices, and everything else they steal.”
He looked down at his wrist, and she saw that it was wrapped in a gauntlet with a blade along the inside. “I lived past the reign of one.”
For the sake of this job, Arthie hoped he was being figurative.
“One,” Arthie repeated with a mocking laugh. “And here you’re asking me to infiltrate the Athereum, very much a den of lions, and bring something back. No, for a job like that, I’ll need—”
“Duvin?” He looked disappointed.
Arthie scoffed. “I like my money hard-earned, thank you. I’ll need to put together a crew.”
She eyed him. He had sprung in through her second-story window. He was lithe and light-footed. Not only had he scaled the building, but he moved soundlessly too. And having a high captain of the Horned Guard on her side might prove useful.
If he was on her side. Yet another reason to keep him close.
“And if I’m breaking into the Athereum, you’re coming with me,” Arthie said. “Once I get that ledger, you will get me in front of the Ram.”
That particular bit was a lie. Once she had it, the captain would be her biggest threat—he’d be close enough to nick it from her and close enough to report her whereabouts to the Ram, if it turned out he actually was in an alliance with the monarch.
He’d be close enough to slit her throat.
No, Arthie told herself. There was no room for risk. She would take him with her into the Athereum and leave him there, then figure out a way to get in front of the Ram on her own.
“Fair enough,” he said, oblivious, then held out his hand.
She stared at it. “I’m not swapping spit.”
“I was going to formally introduce myself.” He strode to the window, climbing onto the ledge with an agility that rivaled a cat’s. When he turned back to her, his eyes were intent as if they shared a secret. “Laith Sayaad of Arawiya. I wish I could say it was a pleasure, but I’m not one to lie.”
And then he disappeared into the night.