Page 78 of A Lady’s Guide to Werewolves

Chapter Nineteen

Sorcha did not see him again until the next morning, when she took him to Hallow. They did not speak about the night before.

Even if she could not stop thinking about it.

He donned the shield of affable curator the moment they arrived. His glittering eyes were shielded by his spectacles again. As he moved through the crowd, people stopped to greet him and to eye Sorcha speculatively. The earl and the duke’s granddaughter.

She decided it would be faster to take the back streets, the crooked alleys not thrumming with students and visiting academics. She ducked into a narrow lane between two shops selling bewitched ink and books on poisonous flowers. Gargoyles watched her from above. One wore a pigeon as a hat, and the bird cooed a greeting. Sorcha scattered crumbs from her pocket and stepped over a puddle of liquid that was questionable in nature. A face appeared in the oily substance and glared at her.

Aidan noted the posters and placards pasted to the walls as the lane brought them to a set of water-worn stone steps.

Reward for the Red Cloak.

There were several more than there used to be.

Sorcha wrinkled her nose at the sketch of the tall, thin witch, swallowed by a red cloak that sent people fainting and screaming at their feet. There was more blood than she generally saw in a day’s work. And were those horns? Why were they lopsided? “That’s not very flattering.”

Aidan was not as amused. He looked as though he had been carved from stone. He ripped the poster down, folded it, and slipped it into the pocket of his dark-blue coat. He tore the others down and tossed them into the puddles as they walked on.

“There’s nowhere mentioned on there to bring any information on the Red Cloak,” she pointed out.

“Not in so many words.”

She halted, frowned. “How, then?”

“I’m not sure yet. In the ink, perhaps, or the paper. A spell on the drawing. I can see threads of magic, but not where they go. They’re tangled. Blurry.”

“Those blighters.” Still, it meant she was getting under their skin, didn’t it? If they were getting desperate, they might also get careless. She could use it against them.

“The look on your face is set to give me nightmares,” Aidan muttered.

“I’m only thinking.”

“Aye.”

She nudged him with her elbow, and he grunted. It was such an ordinary thing to do, an unremarkable gesture between friends. Between betrothed. For some reason it made her swallow against some undefinable emotion swelling in her throat. He was watching her, eyes shielded behind glass. “All right there?”

“Of course. Why do you ask?”

“Because you are leading us deeper into the parts of Hallow where even Iron Crows fear to tread. Is that a museum of murderous leprechauns?”

“Probably.”

“They don’t exist.”

She shrugged. “You never know.”

“But I do, actually.” He sounded disgruntled. “I’m serious.”

“You usually are,” she replied lightly. “It’s the museum curator in you.” She found she liked it more and more. “But there’s no harm in it,” she pointed out. “And they serve the best Devonshire Splits in Hallow.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Baked at Nettlestone Hall, I presume.”

“Naturally.”

“You didn’t bring me here for strawberry cream buns.”

“No.”