Page 98 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

“I don’t know. I don’t think we can risk another waning, and I need to do more research. And even if we did…”

Another deep sigh, and another drag of the cigarette.

A beat, then Gail said, “Well. Let us leave it, then. See if she makes it to the end of the festival and declares her choice. If she doesn’t, we will move on to the secondary plan—it’s not pleasant, but necessity rarely is.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep me informed of your progress.” The wood creaked again as Gail straightened.

“I will.”

The door opened, footsteps sounding as they moved from the carpeted office to the wood floor of the hall—and then they were gone. Nore pulled free and crawled out, frowning at the place where they had been for a heartbeat, another; then Caspian was shifting, his hand locking on her ankle.

“What were you doing?” he hissed.

“Spying,” Nore murmured; as if it wasn’t obvious. Her brain was spinning, the pieces coming together: a selection of suitors had been presented to the High Lady, and there would have to be a choice made soon, or—or what?

It’s not pleasant, but necessity rarely is. She did not know if that meant they would try to kill Locke or some other equally insidious trap. And though Nore knew she had been on the other side of this, caught up in the web of information that led to assassinations and convenient removals…

She could not find a reason for why, but she had no desire to be put in the middle of the downfall of the High Lady. Something about the idea filled her with an odd, uneasy dread.

She stood, rubbing her head as she tried to put it together—then remembered the phantom ache in her stomach and the lingering heat, the scorching reminder of Caspian’s mouth, and what they’d been doing only moments before.

Nore turned. Caspian was looking at her.

“We should…”

“Yeah,” Caspian said, fastening his trousers. His lips pressed into a line as he met her eye. Nore blushed scarlet, her body turning traitor again.

He started for the door, his back to her as she made herself decent and readjusted her skirt. Her hair was a lost cause, but then again, so was her heart. “Cas,” she said.

He turned back, his smile tight. “We don’t need to speak of it,” he said. He didn’t give her the opportunity to respond before he left her there in the moonlight, alone.

before

Nore woke in the big bed that had once been hers at Edith’s, in the sterile room coldly decorated with furnishings she’d never afford. In her heart, she ached for her own bed, for Cas’s homemade quilt that was a wedding present from his mother, delivered from Idistra months after they took their vows; for her evil, ugly cat; for the warm press of her husband’s body against hers.

Nore couldn’t help it. Even though it hurt, she sat up, and she cried.

She only remembered her arrival last night in fits and starts: tumbling out of the carriage, being carried in from the street by one of the servants. Someone had gone to wake Edith, Lula had called for the doctor, and she’d been seen to in the small hours of the morning. The doctor treated her stab wound and set her broken wrist. She remembered someone’s hand stroking her hair, but she did not think it was Edith.

When she was done crying, she carefully swung her feet over the bed and stepped on the frigid floor. Nore had been given quite a lot of pain-relief draughts, and the healer deduced Cas had used some extensive magic on her to start the healing process, so she wasn’t in agony, but she still hurt. She made her way unsteadily across the floor to the mirror, a fresh round of tears rising as she took in her own reflection.

He’d done this to her. Cas had done this to her.

Even though he hadn’t known it was her, he had raised his blade to kill another person as easily as he raised it to cut bread in the mornings. There had been no hesitation. No thought.

Nore forced herself to be stone-faced as she took it in: the purple bruise on her jaw, the bruising that went from elbow to fingertips, the pattern of his hands marked into her skin. She lifted her dress and examined the stab wound, now stitched and treated by Edith’s doctor, covered in magic salve that made her fingers tingle when she prodded the edge of it.

Nore dropped her dress and gripped the edge of the table, the sobs threatening again.

How much blood was on her husband’s hands?

But then, she thought of the night she asked him to marry her: the cuts and scrapes, like he’d fallen through a glass window. If he had taken her home, if she’d let him tend her wounds as she had tended his that night years ago, what would he have told her? Would she have listened, been convinced?

What was she going to say to the duchess?

The door flew open, and Nore spun to face the intruder to her feelings, wincing at the pain of her sudden movement—but it was only Edith, already dressed for the day.