Arthie rubbed at her temples and rubbed them some more before slamming her books shut and propping her elbows on the desk. Outside her window, a lazy sun inched toward the soggy remains of the night.
“It’s in the Athereum,” Jin repeated for the thirteenth time. His hair stuck up every which way, tinted blue by the fading moonlight.
Arthie pushed a brand-new tin of bourbon biscuits across her desk. Jin stopped his pacing and set down his jacket and umbrella. It was his weapon of choice—elegant, clean, and very him. Knife fight? Jin’s umbrella made an appearance. Confrontation? Umbrella. Stroll down the street? Umbrella. Unless Arthie made him pack a gun too.
“And yet, you agreed,” he said, opening the tin.
“I seemed to have agreed, yes.”
“Arthie,” Jin chastised.
“What, Jin? Did you see us having much of a choice?”
“He wants us to break into the Athereum.” Jin went back to paving a trench into the floorboards of her office. “We can save Spindrift some other way that doesn’t involve shaking hands with a shady Horned Guard.”
Laith wasn’t just any other Horned Guard. There were his treasonous words, of course, but also the venom with which he spoke them, and his conviction that the Ram had grown too powerful.
Still, Arthie wasn’t fond of the way her mind had recorded so much of him, like that he looked nothing like a peaky, despite his fair coloring and light hair. Or how his eyes were rimmed in the same kohl she sometimes saw on sailors, and how the twin flecks of black above the curve of his left eyebrow threatened to mesmerize her.
“And how’s that?” she asked, tidying her desk to distract herself.
“You have dirt on—”
“If we had dirt on half the people you’re thinking of, we would have buried them already.” She gave him a look. “This is the only way to ensure Spindrift isn’t threatened again. No more raids, no more proprietor.”
It was a small price to pay when the alternative would cost the Ram that mask of a crown. The very idea of the Ram lying awake because Arthie held something over the wretched monarch was enough to turn this night around.
“We’ve wanted to get at the Ram even before we were threatened with eviction,” Arthie added. Jin had hated the Ram since the fire all those years ago. “Why the cold feet?”
Jin rolled up the sleeves of his dark shirt to his forearms, gripping the back of a chair with a huff. The leathery skin along his right arm gleamed. “That was also before we learned that getting at the Ram requires breaking into the Athereum and trusting our enemies.”
“We’re working with the enemy, not trusting him. There’s a difference.”
Jin dragged a hand down his face.
“Spit it out,” she said, leaning back in her chair.
“You do realize that whoever is in possession of that ledger might want the Ram gone entirely, yes?” he asked, cracking open the window. She didn’t tell him that she knew who that was. “They’re not going to say, ‘pip pip cheerio, here you are!’ This is bigger than us. We blackmail to get what we want. We don’t usurp thrones and get in the way of people trying to usurp thrones. And your Horned Guard who waltzed in through your window and provided us with a way out of our predicament right when we fell into it will be there with us, waiting to double-cross you.” He stopped and looked at her. “What? Don’t give me that smug face.”
Arthie knew all this, of course. “We’ll just have to double-cross him first.”
“Wh—are you listening to yourself?” Jin asked. “That means letting him take the fall. The Athereum will kill the bloke.”
Arthie shrugged. “It’s either him or us at that point.”
Jin heaved a breath. “But we need him to get us to the Ram. What do you plan to do if you find the ledger? Walk up to the masked monarch yourself?”
“When we find it, it’ll give us a footstool to the throne. One, we’ll have our palace informants to help us, and two, if your parents could use their profession to get an audience with the Eagle, I’m sure we can, too.”
Jin was staring at her like she’d gone wild. “And what’s our profession, exactly?”
“Professional criminals, of course,” she said matter-of-factly.
A weary half-laugh broke out of him.
“When will you acknowledge that you’re in way over your head? All right. Fine. Let’s hear your astounding, top-notch plan for breaking into the Athereum so we can tell Reni what to carve on our tombstones when it all goes down terribly,” he said.
“Adventure?” she asked.
His brow furrowed. “What?”
“For our tombstones.”
“As if you’ll stay in your grave like a proper dead girl.” He knew her so well.
“Ambition keeps the heart pumping,” she said. “As for our plan, the Athereum’s annual display of altruism is around the corner. It’ll be an easy job. In and out.”
“The auction? Are you trying to get us in as blood companions on the Festival of Night?” Jin asked, like she’d lost her mind.
As ideal as that would have been, the Athereum didn’t work that way. Everyone and their uncle wanted a glimpse of the underworld, and the process of becoming a blood companion to an Athereum member was strenuous and complicated. There was no way Arthie and Jin of all people would pass that screening, no matter how much blackmail and bribery they pulled.
“No,” Arthie admitted.
“Which means we’ll need appointed markers to get in, and they don’t hand those out like candy,” he said, trying to prove a point. “It’s already impossible. We have two weeks, Arthie.”
“Matteo will have a marker,” she said. She’d stumbled on that realization quite recently, and something about their meeting tonight made her think he wouldn’t be that difficult to get on board. “Acquire his, and then we can forge the rest. Flick can forge them.”
Something shifted in his gaze at the mention of the forger.
“Hm,” Jin said reluctantly. “And if one of us really needed to slip in as a blood companion, I do have a favor to call in.”
“Precisely. We can do this, Jin.”
He knew she was right, just as she knew he was concerned. His reluctance wasn’t disregard, it was the opposite. There were days when she thought Spindrift meant more to him than to her. His expression was distant, and Arthie wondered if he was picturing his family estate. This was about more than Spindrift for him. Going down this path meant confronting his past too, which was a level of danger he didn’t want to face.
He heaved a heavy exhale.
“We’ll leverage the ledger for Spindrift and then some,” Arthie said, thinking about Jin’s parents. At this rate, ousting the Ram as Laith wanted would be horrible for business. “Vengeance never dies.”
“I want to live. I don’t want vengeance,” he said, shaking his head so vigorously she feared it would rattle right off. But she’d struck a chord—he too was thinking about his parents. “The ledger for Spindrift, and then we’re done.”
But Arthie was already putting together their crew in her mind. She’d need Jin, of course, and their forger. She’d need Laith’s ability to blend with the shadows, and they would certainly need an inside man.
Five people. She did like odd numbers.
She rose from her seat. “Rest up, brother. I want it enough for the both of us.”