“Don’t— But what of the contract?”
“Hang the contract!” exclaimed Mortimer, and Alora recoiled at the sudden rise in volume. He noticed and softened right after. “Do you have nowhere else to go? Nowhere else you’d like to be?”
“My dream is here,” she replied, quiet.
Mortimer must have noticed her forlorn look, because he reached out and gripped her shoulders. “What dream is there to be had if you lose to him?”
His words were a catalyst to an eruption long simmering beneath the surface. It soon spewed a fury that scorched everything inside. Alora reached up to grip the backs of Mortimer’s hands where they held onto her and felt that feeling harden to stone. Her eyes burned into his.
“Iwon’tlose.”
***
Alora rolled the vial of tonic purchased from Potions and Peculiarities between her fingers. It shimmered a ghastly orange under the lamplight, and she shuddered as she brought the dropper to her lips. Bash could do with some tweaking of his recipes.
Mrs. Flops leapt onto the bed and stretched alongside her, a yawn revealing overlarge front teeth. Alora gave her head a scratch, thinking aloud. “It tastes terrible, but I think it’s working, Mrs. Flops. I suppose I should be grateful for that. It’s just so strange, isn’t it? A mansion built upon memory oil, and I’m the one struggling to maintain mine. Maybe it’s another way for my body to tell me that something isn’t right, along with the alarm in my stomach and in my heart.”
She examined her room, the moss-green walls, an arched bookcase, and the newly purchased mirror. She’d fixed the scratches in the flooring where the shattering in her dreams had harmed it. She’d fixed where the walls had burned.
“I probably should have listened to it from the beginning, but that’s hope for you. I wanted my own shop too much.” Alora reached to dim the lamp—she couldn’t bring herself to douse it completely—and yawned. “The Urchin captain saved Reginald, who is now Mortimer. Because he was important to someone important to him. Who would an Urchin care for?”
But she’d seen the way Mortimer had stared at her. She’d be a fool to misunderstand.
“He’s a bad sort, though. Look at what he’s done. Look at who he commands! It’s probably him that enforces the rule that keeps Lennox and all the others locked away. For all I know, he’s out bludgeoning innocents right now. And he lied to me, remember? That once. No, I couldnever.” Suddenly too hot, she tossed off the blankets. Because she couldn’t tell the rabbit how their sparring made her heart quicken, or that his touch made her skin flush with want.
What sort of person have I become?
It was a thought that segued aggressively into another.
“Bash is hiding something from me, Mrs. Flops. What do you think it is?”
Alora fell fast asleep waiting on the answer, though she thought it might have brushed her fingertips just as dreams carried her away.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Alora couldn’t help peering beneath the rim of the driver’s wide-brimmed hat. The man was an Urchin. He must be.
His face was unmasked, however, revealing a large mustache and a narrow jaw, and his nose appeared as if it’d been broken and reset more than once. He stared back at Alora in a challenge, his eyes light and cold. He wasn’t the captain; she was sure of it. The desire to prove himself rolled off him in waves she’d not felt while in the other Urchin’s presence.
He turned his head away to scowl once more at the lane, and she thought,Fetching wood and rugs isn’t helping his ego any.
Her fingers knotted beneath the hem of the golden cloak, and she used the jostling of the fine wagon to put a little more distance between herself and the driver. She didn’t know whether he’d do anything if she bumped into him, but she certainly knew he wouldn’t appreciate it.
She settled back with a sigh. It hadn’t crossed her mind to add cushions to her own cart, as she never took it any great distance, but the gold cushions in the otherwise white wagon werecomfortable enough that she made a mental note to commission some at her next opportunity. But the horses she would forgo, never mind they were fine and white and looked to have been carved from the same mold.
Master Merridon and his appearances.She rolled her eyes skyward.
“I’m sure this isn’t how you wanted to spend your morning, but thank you all the same.”
A brief scoff stirred the air beside her. “Please, Miss Pennigrim, don’t speak to me.”
Alora’s mouth fell wide as she twisted her torso to stare at him.Of all the rude—
The thought disintegrated to dust. Alora peered into the silver-edged ferns lining Opulence’s lane and thought surely,surely,they weren’t staring back.
“Specter wolf,” she murmured.
A large body, gray and silver, with eyes like pale orbs, tracked them through the shadows. The morning was cool yet, but nowhere near cold enough to cause the chills racing along her spine. When the creature focused on her, teeth bared, Alora lost her breath. Without thinking, she reached out to grip the driver’s arm, her opposite pointing across his chest and into the wood beyond.
