Was this all it took? One sleepless night and a brief lull in conversation?
She pushed back, the blush in her cheeks transforming from one of sleep to deep mortification. She didn’t want to, but she looked to Shaw anyway, ready to apologize.
A soft snore left his parted lips, his head laid back and turned toward her, eyes closed and relaxed in sleep. For the first time in many days, he appeared his age again, and Lux didn’t feel the least bit ashamed as she watched him breathe. A soft smile pulled at her lips.
The carriage rolled to a stop.
Tawny eyes flicked open, narrowed and unfocused.
“You snore.”
Shaw blinked his confusion away, glancing around the interior of the carriage with a furrowed brow. “I do not.”
“I won’t tell a soul.”
He glowered at her until the door clicked beneath his fingers. “Are you coming in?”
“If you make me tea.”
He huffed but gripped her hand, stepping down from the carriage.
Lux stumbled into him when he stilled at the alley’s mouth. She choked on a breath when she realized why.
Shaw’s door hung by one bent hinge; it threatened to give up its fight at any moment.
She knew how bad it would be.
For once, she begged to be wrong.
“Devil below,” she breathed, feeding the fire flaring in her chest. But Shaw didn’t hear her. He was already moving between the buildings, stepping through the doorway and into the narrow hall.
She came upon him as he knelt in the entryway, and Lux brought her fingers to her lips.
The paintings.
Please… Not his paintings.
They’d been mutilated, utterly destroyed. With precise strokes of a blade, the once-beautiful array of living color and light had fallen to shredded ribbons strewn about their feet, dangling from frames. The sight of them running through Shaw’s fingers now made her eyes prick.
He stood, and without glancing toward her, continued into the kitchen.
The cupboards had been thrown wide, dishes pulled and tossed aside, food trampled across the floorboards, but her gazelanded and remained on a bird, painted in flight, shattered and unmoving upon the ground. Every teacup lay in ruin.
“What have youdone?” Lux demanded of the mayor, his ears far away; if he weren’t, he’d be dead. She picked up the bird, its edges biting into her fingertips, and Shaw returned from his bedroom.
“Tell me you still have the journal.”
Flames leapt from his eyes.
They mirrored Lux’s own.
“I have it.”
He nodded, a curt jerk of his head. “This ends today.”
“Shaw—”
He cut her off with a downward slash of his hand. “I won’t live beneath the weight of his threats against me. Against my family. Against you. Thisendstoday.”
