Page 166 of The Sinner's Bargain

“Have you always wanted to be a guard?” I asked him as we climbed up the steps of Quadrant Four as he now called it.

Cyrus stayed behind me, careful to keep his distance, but still close enough to help if my foot slipped on the slippery beams jutting out of the mud.

“I wanted to join the circus once,” he mused as we reached the top. “It only lasted a week, but no, not always.”

I glanced sideways at him. “I’ve never been to a circus. It was in a book I read once though. It was very sad. I don’t think I could live that life.”

His blue eyes met mine, contemplative. “I’ve been once. Abigail took us when it was passing through.”

“What was she like?” I blurted before the topic could get changed.

“Abigail?” At my nod, he shrugged. “Amazing. Kind. Sweet. Loving. Never had a bad thing to say about anyone. An incredible mother. Beautiful.”

I studied his side profile, the distant stare in his gaze. “You loved her.”

A muscle worked in his throat, but he nodded. “I did. She loved me when no one else did.” He cast me a sad little side glance. “Took me in and raised me when she didn’t have to.”

It took everything in me not to reach for him. “I’m sorry.”

He nodded slowly and faced forward again. “Aerys and Thoran were never the same after she passed. None of us were,” he murmured quietly.

I fingered the rings Thoran had given me. His mother’s rings. I hadn’t been lying when I told him I felt her when I wore them. She was a warm, comforting presence at my shoulder. But it was the love she had for Thoran and her family that I felt most. It was like a second heartbeat in my chest. The kind of motherly love I’d only ever read about in books.

Mother never believed in that sort of nonsense. The dead stayed dead, but I had to wonder. There were too many shadows that lingered a little too long in the corners of Lacroix House. There was that ever-present sensation of being watched when I knew I was alone. Ghosts may not be real, but something lived within the walls of my new home, and I hadn’t decided yet if it was friendly or not.

Thoran never did get away for lunch, a blessing when the bookshop had been brimming all afternoon until we closed up for the evening. Everyone had somehow heard the news that Thoran Lacroix had married and just needed to meet me.

Ivelle, poor soul, had done the majority of the work filling orders. I ran them to the tables and cleared away the dishes afterwards. At one point, I had to drag Cyrus over to help, a task I knew wasn’t in his job description, but he helped. He joined Ivelle behind the counter with a pen and pad, scribbling orders and passing them to Ivelle to fill.

I would have helped. Writing orders wasn’t a hard task to do, except I couldn’t move two feet without someone demanding to know something about me.

“How did you meet?”

“When did you get married?”

“How are you liking the house?”

“Did you hear about the other wives?”

“When do you plan on starting a family?”

There were also those who felt they needed to offer their advice.

“A happy marriage comes from a full husband. As long as you feed him, you should be happy.”

“Don’t listen to the talk around here. People are just nosy. Mr. Lacroix would never kill anyone.”

The overwhelming urge to tell everyone to sit down and shut up startled even me, but I managed to keep my smile and answered what I could and politely ignored the others. I found it hilarious that Mother’s training on how to handle busybodies actually came in handy.

“Holy Jane Austen’s petticoat.” Ivelle dropped down on the sofa and swung an arm over her eyes. “That is the busiest we have been ... ever.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said, taking the same armchair Thoran had wrapped my hands up in weeks ago. “I feel like this is my fault.”

Ivelle sprung up. “Are you kidding? We made more in one afternoon than we’ve made in a whole week. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to work like every day now. At this rate, we can get a karaoke machine by the end of the month.”

I frowned. “Another machine?”

I loathed the espresso machine. The little beast.

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