Page 101 of A Reign of Roses
Arwen nodded. “And too quiet.” Her long dark hair had beenpulled back with an onyx ribbon and it swirled in the sharp wind. “Where is everybody?”
They were right. Despite the sunny winter’s day, the winding street was silent and bare of horses and carriages. Bare of any people at all.
“They’re working. Mainspring is the quarter reserved for those dedicated to the craft and nothing else.”
“And those successful enough to own land here,” Griffin added.
Arwen observed one of the painterly cream-white homes with its fine black detailing and picket fence. “Crafts like portraits? Sculpting?”
I shook my head. “The sculptors and artists live in a more boisterous region of Revue, where there’s far more wine and women. These residents build clever mechanisms. They write dissertations and spend hours poring over philosophical texts.”
“So this historian and ledger-maker is someone quite serious.”
“Oleander crafts the finest tomes in Evendell,” Mari said to her. “Dagan has a few of his original works back in the Shadowhold library.”
“I actually sent a noble of mine here years ago to offer him a stay in Willowridge.” I’d hoped the old man might bring some of his impressive young apprentices and peers. Willowridge had a bounty of artists and restaurateurs, poets and novelists…I thought Oleander might fit in nicely and help to draw more like him to the capital.
“But?”
I shrugged. “He refused. I never found out why.”
I’d sent Lady Kleio, one of my most persuasive dignitaries. She’d returned with little more than a regretful shake of her head, and for whatever reason—perhaps I’d been distracted with the ancient Bladethat had just disappeared from my vault at the time—I’d never pressed the issue.
As we neared the elderly man’s home, it occurred to me how lonely living in Mainspring must’ve been. These men and women, working on their novels or machinery day in and day out. And I thought then how close I’d come to a similarly solitary existence—revenge my sole craft. Stealing me away from any meaningful human contact, bringing out the most brutish, selfish parts of me.
I reached for Arwen’s hand and she laced her fingers between mine contentedly.
Oleander’s house was a little weather-beaten and could have used a fresh coat of oxblood paint. The two-story manor was still affluent, and the wrought-iron fence and oil lamps glinted in the stark sunlight.
Griffin led the way. The ornate knocker rang out into the garden, and we waited.
Water trickled from a stone fountain. A breeze rustled Arwen’s lengthy hair. Mari fidgeted with her spinach-colored velvet cloak. “Maybe he isn’t home.”
Griffin frowned before tramping off the stone path into the grass spotted with patches of snow like a speckled egg. He leaned against one of the bowed windows.
“There’s a fire still crackling inside.”
Worry flickered in Arwen’s bright olive eyes. “How long until we’re expected to meet with the Scarlet Queen?”
There was no clock tower for miles, but the sun had anchored itself in the middle of the clear blue sky. “A few hours at most.”
Not enough time to come up with another plan. And my father would have his lighte reserves back soon—we couldn’t postpone.
My heart had begun to thud. I drew a hand down my face in frustration. Nothing was easy. Nothing.
“What if someone got to him first?” Mari posed. “Found out about our plan?”
The thought of yet another betrayal…after Aleksander, Amelia…I didn’t allow myself to touch that rage.
“There’s no evidence of a struggle.” Griffin’s nose hovered against the bookmaker’s window.
Without another word I moved past Arwen, Mari, and my commander and slammed the heel of my boot into the dark red door. Tendrils of smoke black as oblivion spun from my foot. The hinges of the door swung open so violently it nearly wrenched clean off.
I stalked through the warm foyer and away from the sound of Mari’s squeaks.
Griffin had been right. The fireplace in the sitting room was crackling and full of life, oil lamps were hot and candles still burning. But the vaguely cluttered house was too quiet and I followed an instinct past the grand staircase and that cozy sitting room and deeper into the bowels of the home.
In the darkly tiled kitchen, a fresh kettle curled steam into the air. I made a left and my boots echoed down a hallway dotted with doors. Between them hung ornate gold-and-silver-framed glass casings with leather-bound history books on display. Fine embossing, edges sprayed with paint—work that could only have belonged to the missing bookmaker.
