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CHAPTER 19
The magister is long gone by the time I come downstairs in the morning, but somehow I beat Remi to breakfast. When he finally appears and stumbles to his chair, I wrinkle my nose.
“You smell like the floor of an alehouse,” I say as his mother puts a plate in front of him.
He scowls. “If I’m not allowed to have any say as to what you do with your time, you have no right to comment on how I spend mine.”
Magister Thomas won’t appreciate Remi arriving for work in a foul mood. I offer him a buttered roll. “My concern is purely for your safety. There’s a killer wandering the streets.”
He takes the bread, his expression easing into a dismissive frown. “You didn’t seem worried for yourself.”
Mistress la Fontaine turns around from the hearth, one hand on her hip. “Did you go out last night, Cat?” she scolds.
Curse you, Remi.I grit my teeth under a false smile. “Just to check something at the Sanctum. And I wasn’t alone.”
“Who were you with?” she demands.
“Someone close enough to merit holding hands,” says Remi sourly.
If Remi had been where he could see us, how had I not heard him? I must have been distracted by Simon. Nothing untoward happened, though, and I have nothing to hide.
“I took the venatre to where I was when I saw the man running across the square,” I say calmly, refusing to be cowed by Remi’s accusing stare. “I was holding on to him as we walked along the roof because he was nervous being so high.”
The housekeeper snorts as she returns to her pot. “Any normal person would be.”
Remi’s green eyes narrow. “You both left rather suddenly.”
“How long were you watching us, Remi?” I growl.
He grins maliciously, his full lips parting just enough to see his teeth. “Long enough to know the Montcuirs wouldn’t like it if they saw what I did.”
I shove back from the table and jump to my feet. “You will mind your tongue and not start vicious gossip, Remone la Fontaine!”
The housekeeper swings around like she’s ready to pull us apart, but Remi only raises his eyebrows as he looks up at me, surprised and a little hurt. “Relax, Kitten. You know I’d never do anything to ruin your reputation.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” he says seriously. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t ruin it on your own.”
I have half a mind to reveal what I know about Remi’s true whereabouts the night Perrete was killed. It wouldn’t help his reputation, that’s for sure.
A knock on the front door interrupts. I yank my skirt around my knees as I turn on my heel and stomp to the model room. Juliane Montcuir stands on the street outside with Oudin behind her.
“I’m here to collect you,” she says before I can ask. “There’s been another murder.”
“Simon asked me to bring you,” Juliane explains as she guides me along the street, her arm in mine like we’re friends out for a stroll. “But he’ll have been there for over an hour already.”
“Who was it?” I ask.
“Another woman from Pleasure Road,” Oudin says quietly from where he walks behind us. His eyes dart between passing faces, though none appear to be paying us attention. “Her name was Ysabel.”
I don’t ask if he knew her as he did Perrete.
We navigate our way across the Sanctum Square, and my neck grows hot as we pass the place where I first took Simon’s hand. I wonder if Remi is right that his family would object if something developed between us. Juliane is holding my arm now like I’m an equal rather than an orphan of questionable parentage.
But then, Simon had pulled away last night, acting like touching me, even innocently, was a mistake. Maybeheobjects.
We angle away from the Pathway of Prayer, passing the tavern Simon marked as the one where Oudin—and Remi—had been the night of Perrete’s murder. A grassy area with a few trees and a walking path lies beyond the block of houses. It’s a popular place for courting couples, especially in twilight hours.
