“What are we going to do?”
He met her frightened gaze, taking care that his own face remained neutral. “What will my Sovereign Lady permit me to do?”
Luna shuddered. Getting to her feet, she backed away, her gaze studying the stretched-out form of Tobias, as though he held the answers she sought. She drew a long breath, held it for some heartbeats. Then: “You’ve got to remove his memories.”
Nigel nodded.
“Just the one memory though, right? You don’t need to do anything extreme?”
“I shouldn’t have to, no.”
Luna looked very pale. Sick. Not to mention frazzled and bedraggled and so adorable it made Nigel ache just to look at her. It hurt to see that line of disgust marring her sweet mouth. She hated everything about what he did, what he was, and it was enough to make a man wish he could go back in time and changeallhis life choices so that he never, ever pursued sorcery to begin with. So that he could somehow start from the ground up, crafting himself into the sort of person a woman like her could look at with . . . well, without disgust.
Nigel breathed out slowly, unable to relieve the heaviness in his heart. This afternoon they just shared together—this wonderful, terrifying, miraculous gift of an afternoon—was at an end. Never to be reclaimed. All that ease in her manner dissipated, replaced by the half-forgotten formality. And all those little half-glimpses of whatmighthave been faded to nothing.
Finally, Luna shot him a sharp glance. “Do it quickly then if you must, Mr. Grimm. I . . . I’ll just . . . step into the shop and check the flowers, shall I?”
Nigel nodded and watched Luna slip away. So eager to get away from him. Not that he could blame her. But that didn’t make it hurt any less.
He turned to the raven on his shoulder, catching her beady eye. “I’ll have to source from you, I’m afraid.”
She clacked her beak.“Never mind!”
“I’d do it myself,” he said, “only, I just used up rather a lot of lifeforce getting Garden back in order. I’m going to need time to replenish.”
“Never mind, never mind, never mind.”
“Thanks, Debbie.”
Nigel knelt beside the unconscious Tobias and began to shape a sigil over his forehead. He performed the energy-transference and used the Dire force to penetrate into Tobias Goddard’s mind. It was not a pleasant place to be. Nigel didn’t love delving into other people’s minds to begin with, but Tobias’s mind was such a singularlygreasyaffair. Like someone had been cooking in his mental kitchen with far too much fat in the frier, and it had spatteredeverywhere.
A very little shifting, and Nigel located all the most recent memories, isolated, and drew them out from Tobias’s brain. As they were so recent, there was no need to fill anything into the cracks—a mind like Tobias’s had so many empty spaces init already, one more wasn’t going to be noticed. Instead, Nigel simply drew a blank over the last twenty minutes or so.
The deed done, Nigel took care to seal any gaps in consciousness, just to make certain nothing seeped through. Then he closed up, like a surgeon, and sat back on his heels, looking down at the unconscious Tobias. The boy’s color looked a little better, a little fresher.
Nigel’s eyes narrowed. Mrs. Goddard’s concerns about the company her son was keeping sprang to mind. If this kid was involved with a bootlegger sorcery gang down by the harbor, that could spell trouble. One word mentioned in the wrong ear about a secret garden behind a boiler room door, and complications would arise. Very quickly. Nigel grimaced. He’d simply have to trust that he’d done a thorough job with that memory removal.
Tobias groaned suddenly, and his eyelids twitched. With a sigh, Nigel got up, gripped the boy under the shoulders, and hauled him the rest of the way into the passage. Hastily, he locked up Garden’s door again and slipped the key back into its polka-dot pot in the storage room. Then, returning to the passage, he pulled Tobias into a seated position. By now the boy was beginning to moan and blink.
“Come on, Tobias,” Nigel said, drawing one limp arm across his shoulders. “Let’s get you home to Mother’s, shall we? You’ve been on a bit of a bender, and your mam isn’t going to be best pleased with you.”
“Awwww,” Tobias moaned, struggling to get his feet under him. He staggered, slouched, and nearly pulled Nigel over on their way into the kitchen. “Don’t tell Mam!”
“No, no. It’ll be our little secret,” Nigel assured him. They proceeded into the alley behind the shop, and somehow Nigel managed to get the boy across to Mrs. Goddard’s back door. This he found unlocked, so he pushed it open and carried her soninside. “Mrs. Goddard?” he called out, even as Tobias hissed a desperate, “Shhhhhhh!”
No answer issued from deeper in the house, so Nigel simply passed through the kitchen and on to the back parlor. There he deposited Tobias on the couch in an ungentle heap. Something told him his landlady often discovered her son in similar straights and wouldn’t think much of it.
“And here’s hoping you won’t give me cause to regret not smiting you to oblivion on sight,” Nigel muttered as he left the room, then paused a moment, frowning. Gods, when was he everthatdarkly sorcerous?
With a little shudder, he exited Mrs. Goddard’s house, shutting the door carefully behind him. He crossed the alley to his own kitchen. The dinner platter sat in waiting on the counter, he noted. No doubt the reason for Tobias’s intrusion, running errands for his mother. Nigel’s gaze fastened on that platter as he pulled the door shut behind him. He wondered suddenly if he could convince Luna to stay on and share dinner with him? After all, she probably didn’t have any food back home, and it would be nice not to let their day end on a sour note. Sharing a meal was a harmless enough interaction, wasn’t it?
Then he remembered.
“Oh, great gods!” Nigel muttered and smacked a hand to his forehead. Because he already had a dinner date. With Bryony. At The King’s Crown. His gaze flashed to the kitchen clock. It was already past six. Surely it was too late now, wasn’t it? He couldn’t possibly make a date by seven. He’d just have to call up Mrs. Boggs’s, leave an apologetic message for Miss Braithwait. He’d say something unavoidable had come up, and maybe next week, and . . . and . . .
And then he could convince Luna to stay for dinner instead.
His stomach in knots, Nigel exited the kitchen and ventured back down the passage to the shop. He could already hear noisesof minor mayhem and suspected the flowers had not behaved as demurely as one might wish while their master was away.
