Page 92 of A Fragile Enchantment

Tucked away between dark-windowed shops and busy coffeehouses, Nightingale’s rose up out of the gloom and the protective arms of the oaks, all ostentatious white stone and imposing crenelations. On the other side of a wrought-iron fence, twin gas lamps burned like the eyes of a massive beast in the dark. Out front, a massive bow window, nearly opaque and streaked with black beads of water, overlooked the street. If she squinted, she could see the shapes of people moving just beyond it. It made even Sinclair’s lovely home look like a dollhouse.

“That does not make me feel better,” she said weakly.

“Youhave nothing to worry about, my darling, innocent companion. Men come here to gamble and bicker among themselves. Mostly cards or hazards. There’s also betting books. They wager on things like who’s going to get married this Season, or whose marriage is going to collapse. I heard Lord Bowsworth once made a two-hundred-guinea bet on a raindrop race.”

Those were the kinds of men she would anger, if she succeeded tonight. Or perhaps some of them had already betted against Kitand Rosa. She swallowed down the knot of nerves in her throat. “Right.”

He tapped his walking stick against the wet cobblestone, then gestured toward a lattice that ran up the side of the building like a ladder. Wisteria threaded through its rungs, its sweet scent carried on the breeze. “See that there? You can climb up to get to the balcony. In the meantime, I’ll create a distraction. As soon as Kit is left to his own devices, he’s going to make a beeline for it. I guarantee it. You use your wiles. He realizes what a stubborn ass he’s been. He calls the wedding off. Crisis avoided.”

She nodded.

Sinclair frowned up at the balcony. “Are you sure you can do this? You have a way of tripping over air.”

“Ghosts push me, I’ll have you know!” She huffed. “Have a little faith.”

“Very well,” he said skeptically. “I’ll see you soon.”

As he strolled through the gate, the very picture of confidence, Niamh slipped around the side of the building. Here, the light hardly reached the narrow alleyway, and as the mist scythed lazily over the streetlamps, the darkness guttered around her. A shadow cleaved from the others and glided toward her. Niamh bit down on a scream. But it was only a black cat, trotting busily past her. It registered her presence with a soft, inquisitivemrow?

She blew out a breath, beyond exasperated with herself. For the good of her people, Castilia, and the man she loved, she could do this.

Niamh grabbed the lattice. The iron was slick and cold against her palms, and when she eased her weight onto the first foothold, the entire structure groaned in protest. She did her best to ignore that as she hauled herself up rung by rung. This close, the scent of the wisteria turned cloying, and the flowers tickled her nose as she climbed. Her breath grew thready, but she refused to think of how far below her the ground was. At last, she closed her shakingfingers around the railing of the balcony. As carefully as she could, she eased herself up onto it—then all but melted onto the floor. She lay on her back, chest heaving, as the stars spun overhead and her vision pulsed black. Remembering to breathe while climbing had not been high on her list of priorities.

Maybe Sinclair had been right to worry. This was by far the worst idea she’d ever gone through with, in a very long list of very bad ideas.

Once she caught her breath, she got to her feet and waited. Light from inside spilled out onto the floor a bare meter away from her. From here, she could just barely make out the club within. A miasmatic haze hung over everything, but she could hear the clink of glasses and the laughter and shouts of men as they staked their fortunes. Most of them clustered around tables and lingered at the bar. There were, disappointingly, far fewer hunting tools than Sinclair had led her to believe. She should’ve known better than to listen to a single word he said.

The balcony doors flew open. Niamh swallowed a squeak of surprise.

Kit stalked to the railing and leaned over it. He took in a ragged gulp of air, as though he’d been holding his breath all night. He carried the smell of the club on him: acrid tobacco smoke and the sickly sweet sharpness of liquor. It couldn’t have been easy for him to be in this environment. His skin was paler than usual and slick with sweat. No one paid him much mind. They were too deep in their card games and their cups.

But as miserable and stressed as he looked, her heart still gave a desperate lurch at the sight of him. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows; his jacket must’ve lain forgotten on the back of some chair. She wished she could touch him again. She wished she had any right to. The lit end of his cigar burned like a will-o’-the-wisp. He puffed restlessly at it, too absorbed in his own thoughts to take notice of her standing in the dark like a fool.

“Kit.”

He nearly jumped out of his skin. She had to admit it was satisfying to bedoingthe startling for once. He blinked, then blinked again, as though she were a horrible vision he might dispel with enough effort. But when that failed, he stared. She couldn’t track the emotions that passed over his face. Each one of them bludgeoned her. At last, he predictably settled on anger. “What the hell are you doing here?”

I wanted to see you.The words hovered right there, on the tip of her tongue.I wanted to speak with you.But he hadn’t fled at the very sight of her. Now that she’d hurdled that first obstacle, she couldn’t jeopardize this opportunity.

“I wanted to apologize. I’m sorry.”

“Yes,” he said dismissively. “You’ve said that already. Now that you’ve gotten what you’ve come for, you can go.”

“Wait, please.” She took a step toward him, and he threw himself against the railing as though she’d aimed a knife at him. Chastened, she retreated a few paces, where the wisteria tumbled down like a curtain. His wary eyes flashed like a cat’s in the dark, but he did not move again.

“I wrote to Lovelace—to Sinclair—when you told me to be careful,” she continued. “He wrote to me when I first arrived, but he never forced me to spy on you. I never intended to, and I never did. But I was foolish to believe that I could handle everything on my own. You’re right that I am a coward. Iamalways running, without any regard for my own well-being. But this time, I hurt someone else, too.” Her voice trembled, and she squeezed her eyes shut to hold back her tears. “I should have said something much sooner. I regret every moment I didn’t trust you with the truth. It was my own recklessness that landed us here. I’m so sorry.”

Kit fell quiet for a long moment. He tapped the ashes of his cigar off on the railing. “There’s no sense dwelling on what you should have done. It’s over.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” she said breathlessly.

He listened without interruption as she described Sinclair’s plan. Kit had always been terrible at hiding his feelings, but as she spoke, he remained unsettlingly blank. With the cigar smoke shimmering before his face, it was as though they stood on opposite sides of the veil between worlds.

“No,” he said. “Sinclair has tried it his way for years. I’m done playing these games. I’m done. I’m not making a fool of myself again—especially not for you two and your harebrained schemes.”

“You didn’t even consider it!”

“I don’t need to.”