Page 108 of Gilded Locks

“First, there’s someone who wants to see you. I was so happy to oblige in delivering the message. It was so thoughtful of you to tell me just where to look for you. What was it you wanted to dowith me? ‘Explore dilapidated sheds on the edge of town’?” He laughed again.

Grace felt sick as she remembered the day she’d questioned him in the fields. She’d said that, given him a clue to where she met with the Rogue.

She didn’t give up fighting, but her spirit felt a bit broken. Her fault. This was her fault.

As soon as the porch of her manor came into view, she knew what she was about to see. The flag with the Arelli coat of arms lay in torn bits on the porch, the bear unrecognizable. Jagged-edged holes marred the walls of her home, leaving it vulnerable to any monster who wished to enter.

Grace shook her head. She didn’t want to see this.

But James kept leading her forward, his tight grip on her arm digging into her bicep. She felt a trickle of blood on her neck where he’d nicked her.

As they entered her home, Grace shuddered. Splintered remnants of boards pried from the walls and floor and misshapen memorabilia swept from shelves peppered the narrow strips of flooring left in the front room. Shattered glass piled at the base of the broken mirror, and her grandmother’s rug, shorn in two, lay discarded in the exposed dirt beneath what had once been an oakwood floor.

Bile rose in her throat, and she fought the urge to vomit. Her home… She felt violated, unsafe.

James wound her through the mess and into the kitchen. As in the front room, gaping holes pocked the floor and walls like screaming mouths crying out with the pain Grace felt. The cupboard doors hung lopsided from hinges, empty but for shards of broken jars, sticky residue, and scattered crumbs. Her family’s fresh food was gone. Taken, eaten, or disposed of, she didn’t know.

The dining room sent another surge of sick up her throat and she gagged. The table, upended and cracked, lay in a mound across the room by pieces of crushed chairs. While these walls were barely damaged, the floorboards hiding the secret nook had been removed. The secret store of supplies sat untouched. This, the mayor hadn’t taken. He’d left it there as proof of their actions.

James led Grace upstairs to the bedrooms. Her legs wobbled, adrenaline fading, leaving exhaustion in its wake. She needed to fight back. Had to fight back.

But the energy had left her. She felt broken.

When they reached her bedroom, she cringed. But the room seemed almost pristine compared to the downstairs. Items were scattered on the floor, but saw none of the destruction to the furniture and wood frame she expected. Not yet, at least. A blacksmith’s hammer, grimy with soot, had been tossed on the worn table in the corner of her room.

James pulled his knife away and pushed Grace. She gasped and collapsed onto the floor. When she looked up, scanning for the vile man, she saw the mayor standing by her bed. The trunk she usually kept beneath it was flung on top of the bedsheets, its contents strewn across the length of the bed, and in his left hand, the mayor held her verdure cloak.

So that was why he’d been breaking in. He was searching for the Rogue’s disguise.

“Care to explain yourself, young lady?”

Grace stared at the mayor and said nothing.

James kicked at her and she skittered on her hands and knees to escape the blow. She wasn’t as devoid of energy as she’d thought.

“Answer the man,” James growled.

Grace took the time to climb to her feet, bringing herself to her full height, wincing as the small cuts on her neck stung when she raised her nose in the air. “That’s my cloak.”

“It is. And tell me, what does it mean?”

Grace glared at him. “It means that I am the Rogue.” It wouldn’t save Garrick completely. She wasn’t ignorant of the proof he wore on his back, but she wasn’t going to deny who she really was any longer.

“That’s right.”

“But she’s not the only one.”

The mayor turned his malicious snarl on James. “Idiot boy. She’s the only Rogue if I say she is.”

James scoffed. “You might want to take a look at the hangman’s platform before you insult my intelligence. I found her and Garrick Clairmont in an embrace. The sheriff’s son is wearing a cloak just like that. His mask was on the floor.”

The mayor’s eyes had grown twice their size as James spoke. After he’d finished, the mayor began a growl that grew in sound until it morphed into a shout. “Clairmont!”

Mayor Nautin stormed out of Grace’s room, down the stairs and out of the house. James didn’t have a hold on her any longer.

Grace dropped to a low crouch, spinning, and swept James’s legs out from under him. As he fell, she darted for her window. Forget the stairs where the mayor waited. She slammed the pane open and slipped a foot onto the terrace roof.

James grabbed her and threw her toward the floor.

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