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“Bring me everything you collected during the original inquiry. The charter, the tax records, the names of its solicitor, and every ship or merchant associated with the company.”

“Of course, Your Grace.”

I returned my attention to Lord Chandler. “How long has this Hartley fellow been in Valemer?”

He shrugged. “Since before I had this post. Maybe fifteen years. Give or take.”

That was a long time to embed himself in Valemer’s underbelly. I could send my men to The Lanterns to root him out, but The Devouring had already proved a difficult target to catch. If I showed up with a host of men, they’d scatter like roaches. No, this had to be handled delicately.

The meeting continued for another hour, and for the first time in years, I was a part of it. I asked questions. Issued orders. Corrected assumptions.

I wasn’t the man I used to be. I hadn’t come out the other side of grief unscathed, but I was practicing who I was going to be from now on. By the end of the meeting, Lord Chandler’s journal was filled with tasks, Admiral Tribideau had three new patrol routes, and Severin wore a look somewhere between pride and frustration.

It was the most useful Thursday morning I had spent in nearly a decade.

Once the others were dismissed, I remained at the table to write two letters.

To Bastien, I disclosed everything I knew about The Devouring and the attack at Widow Martell’s. I did not mention Renaud at any point. I intended to handle him myself. To Marius, I told him I believed his dreams pointed to a reckoning and that I knew which direction the tide was coming from.

Two birds took flight with the scrolls, and I stepped out of the Harbormaster’s office with the sun high over the bay. The sunlight prickled angrily against my cool skin.

While Valemer’s heat didn’t bother me, the sun drained my energy faster than the moon. When I spent more than an hour in the sun, I required more blood. It was one of the fail-safes the elders placed on our power when they created the spell to make vampires. They didn’t want us to be all-powerful, lest we turn toward corruption.

And while the prickle was draining, I endured it easily. The pressure in the air had risen, weakening the morning breeze. Sailors crowded the quay, hauling ropes and rolling barrels toward waiting ships.

It made me want to sail. To show Adrien new constellations. And maybe Cora too.

She said last night was just for fun, but she’d let me hold her afterward. She’d fallen asleep so quickly in my arms, with her head resting on my shoulder.

I didn’t know what all this meant, but I knew it wasn’t just fun. Distractedly, I turned away from the harbor where I’d first fished Cora out of the water, and found my horse where I’d left him. I ran my hand down his nose, and from the corner of my eye caught sight of Renaud.

He was dressed in a fine pale blue frock coat detailed with gold. Two of his guards waited behind him.

“You were difficult to find this morning,” my brother said.

“I was working.”

“So I heard.” Renaud’s gaze traveled over me, taking in my clothes and hair. “You look remarkably restored.” He slapped my shoulder. “Almost like you found something new to live for.”

I tightened my grip on my gloves.

Despite scrubbing Cora’s scent from my skin in a hot bath after our night together, I could tell he smelled her. My brother’s smile widened. I wanted to knock it from his face.

Instead, I pulled on one glove, then the other. “What do you want?”

“Have you spoken to Roselyn?”

“I have written to him.”

“Good. I look forward to hearing about his response. Caspien’s nameday ball is next week, after all,” he reminded me. As if I wasn’t hosting it in my home and at my expense. “On that day, Caspien will become a man and my true heir. And you will see to it that I secure the final two votes necessary to succeed. If not, well, my tongue might slip about a secret of yours.”

I leveled Renaud with a look laced with murder. I had to restrain myself from ripping his throat out for uttering such a veiled threat because doing so would gain me nothing. I’d outsailed men much more cunning than him while he sat at The Pearl and let others command his ships. I may have fallen into a decade of neglect, but he had spent a lifetime enjoying the ignorance his privilege bought.

He waved, then strolled away.

I mounted my horse and rode back toward Château du Mer. Cora had said she had her own ways to find Hartley once her magick returned, but I’d seen how quickly her magick depleted when she’d attacked those Devouring members. I didn’t want her to end up magickless for another seven days when I had intelligence on where this man might be.

Which meant I needed to stop at a dressmaker’s shop.