Page 21 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

Nore chewed her lip. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Recite them. I want to ensure you understand.”

Nore cleared her throat delicately. “I will live with you until my eighteenth birthday, and then I am responsible for my own lodging and upkeep. I will be punctual and obedient. Whatever you ask, I will do.”

“Good. And?”

Nore kept her gaze on her hands, twisted in her lap. “I will not drink in excess, smoke, or engage in any sort of delinquency. I will not take a lover. I will not accept distractions. I will not soil my reputation in any way that betrays your name or badly represents your business.”

“Elinore.”

She looked up at her new Aunt Edith. Her wrinkled skin looked like shifting sand dunes in the flickering firelight. “Yes, Ms. Gordon?” She had been instructed by Celestine, explicitly, that though she must always refer to her as “Aunt Edith” to outsiders, she was not to refer to her by any true term of familiarity or endearment.

“Do not disappoint me,” Edith said.

“Yes, Ms. Gordon.”

Edith dismissed Nore to dress for dinner, and Nore followed one of the servants upstairs to her new room. Just the bed was nearly the size of Nore’s room in Arlowe. There was a new set of spellbooks on the bed, to make up for her lack of education, and a full set of clothing in the wardrobe to suit her new station. She stood there, in the middle of it all, and looked at the finery, then at her own face in the mirror.

She was a girl. Barely more than that. A girl, surrounded by riches for the first time in her life—with the complete understanding that, if she did what was asked of her, all of it would someday be hers.

Mother,

I told you: if you speak of him again, I will cease writing to you entirely. Do not write of him. Do not ask. Excise his name and person from your memory. Whatever happiness you thought we had, I have been repaid tenfold by grief.

And yes. I am well, thank you.

Letter to Golda Barber from Nore Gordon, her daughter, 1631 UCE

six

NORE STRAIGHTENED THE PAPERS on her desk. She wore black leather gloves and a traveling cloak. Her hair was pinned up around her head, and one of the pins was digging in behind her left ear. She was already just on the edge of punctual, but she felt that uneasy reluctance to move any time she thought of spending an entire mission with Caspian Khari.

“Is there anything else you need from me?” Kota asked. Nore was pleased that they were back to normal, for the most part, since the business with the thief had resolved.

At least her business would survive the next month, even if Nore didn’t. Which reminded her of something else that needed survival: “You know the instructions for taking care of my cat until my return?”

Kota sighed, subdued. After all, Grimsby tolerated only Nore and bit everyone else. That wasn’t to say Grimsby didn’t bite Nore—he did, but she read the love in every clamp of his teeth on her flesh. She had felt quite a lot of those loving teeth this morning when she’d carted Grimsby across town to her nicer apartment, where Kota would take care of him.

“Yes,” Kota said finally. “I remember.”

“Wonderful. I think that’s all, then,” Nore said, her hands dancing over her dress pockets. She withdrew her spare office and house keys and, after only a moment of hesitation, handed them to Kota. The young woman was chewing on her lip as if she was desperately trying to keep from smiling.

“Kota.”

“Yes?”

“I’m trusting you with a lot, you know.”

That steely determination snapped back into place. “I know,” Kota said.

“Good.”

Nore pushed her hands deep in her pockets as she turned to go.

“Ms. Gordon?”

She hesitated. “Yes?”