“It won’t.”
“It is shaking now.”
It was not. Not yet.
But Hatherleigh glanced down for the briefest instant.
There.
Gideon shifted his weight, readying himself.
Hatherleigh’s gaze snapped back. “Don’t move.”
Gideon went still again.
Patience.
Wait for an opportunity. Wait for rage. Wait for the mistake.
“Groby doesn't have money to pay you,” Gideon said.
“He will. Once he’s got the title.”
“A long shot.”
“He has what he needs.”
“What?”
“Evidence.” Hatherleigh’s hand rose to the edge of his mask, wiping away the sheen of sweat gathered there. “Enough of it.”
Gideon went still. “And when you cease to be useful?”
Hatherleigh said nothing.
“Men like that don’t keep loose ends,” Gideon said.
“He needs me.”
“No. He needs someone desperate enough to do what he would not risk himself.”
Hatherleigh’s nostrils flared.
“And if you think he will protect you afterward,” Gideon continued, “Then you’re more of a fool than I believed.”
“Silence.”
Gideon could see the resolve solidify in Hatherleigh’s face as his finger squeezed the trigger, and he realized in that moment that he’d miscalculated somewhere.
A strange noise like wind and then a thwack.
A grunt from Hatherleigh right before the flash.
A bang cracked through the garden.
Fire tore across Gideon’s upper arm and the force of it drove him back against one of the folly’s pillars.
For a moment, the garden tilted.
