Page 3 of Until the Heart Stops
The amused expression on his face turned solemn as we both slowly turned to regard the remains beside us. He nodded and tugged apart the drawstrings before he dipped his hand into the pouch.
“Inkpots.”
I frowned. “Inkpots?”
Sure enough, he placed two glittering pots of ink onto the table one after the other. They were nicer than the usual ink I bought. I couldn’t help but frown at them. “Who would send me ink?”
Eamon rummaged around deeper in the pouch. “I don’t know. Did you need ink?”
The truth was Ididneed ink. I was close to running out and had been lamenting internally for a week now over how I would afford it when rent was due for our stall in a matter of days. Buying ink would have meant that I was tenoyistashort. But I didn’t want to admit such a thing to Eamon or that I’d been diluting the ink I had in the hope of making it last.
So instead, I shrugged. “I always need ink for bookkeeping.”
He mirrored the movement. “Perhaps it’s a gift from a kind patron or friend who noticed you were running low and looked to help.”
I eyed him, flipping the ledger open. “And you’re sure it wasn’t you?”
Eamon pulled a small rolled piece of parchment from the bottom of the bag and held it out to me. “I can assure you it was not. Not that I don’t love you, little witch, but I’m afraid my gifts are given elsewhere.”
I took the parchment. Eamon was a generous client as it was, but he did shower Adrienne, my best friend and blood giver, in gifts. She always tried to share them with me and our other best friend Noah if we could, but we usually refused. They were her treasures and keepsakes, but if it was extraoyista, she sometimes slipped it into the rent for the month for the small apartment we kept, regardless of how much we fought it.
“You look tired,” he murmured, reaching to sweep back a lock of my hair from my shoulder in a paternal sort of way.
I hummed, flipped my ledger closed and crossed my hands over the faded leather, rolling the parchmentbetween my fingers. “What every woman wants to hear, Eamon, thank you.”
His laugh was soft, like embers crackling in a fire. The sound was strangely homey, perhaps because I’d been hearing it my whole life, though usually threaded with the ringing laugh of my mother and grandmère.
“Are you going to read it?” he asked, gesturing to the tiny scroll.
I huffed, pulled my knife from the inside of my bodice and sliced open the black seal. The message was small, though written with such impeccable penmanship I was sure it came from a vampire. One would have to have been alive for centuries to have the sort of skill dancing across the parchment.
Beauty like yours deserves more than silver and gold.
More than diamond and platinum.
It is a beauty that spurns the gods, begins wars, parts the seas.
A beauty that makes even strong men fall to their knees,
hands outstretched in supplication, begging:
“Please, just a glance, just a look, that is all that I need.”
“Is it…good news?” Eamon hedged.
Heat crawled up the back of my neck and I cursed the flush no doubt bleeding across my cheeks. Quickly, I rolled back up the scroll and shoved it into the silver bag along with the ink. I had no idea who it could be from—I’d had lovers, yes, but it had been quite a bit of time since my last encounter. And, to be fair, none of them would have been able to afford such a gift.
Why me? Why this? And for it to appear so suddenly after such a tragedy…
“It’s nothing,” I answered, rising from the stool and gesturing toward the heavy drape. “Adrienne is waiting, if you’re ready.”
His eyes flashed with hunger as I drew back the curtain to reveal a small sitting room waiting on the other side. All thought of my mysterious present clearly vanished from his mind. There, in the center of the room, stood Adrienne, her blonde hair piled onto the top of her head with a few tendrils framing her heart-shaped face. Her silken skirts moved with her inhale before pooling around her as she curtsied, pressing three fingers to her lips.
“Serang lan nauth, Lord Azad,” she greeted in her wind chime voice reserved only for our patrons, perfectly composed after the evening’s terror.
We were far too used to horror in our world for it to be anything more than a passing moment.
Adrienne was anything but meek. Eamon knew this, however, and she’d told me a few times of how he liked to pull the fire out of her, how he’d begged her for more than her blood. But even here in the Souzterain we had rules we abided by. It was one thing to drink from a living source as vampires had done for thousands of years, but it was wholly another to drink while entwined within thepleasures of the flesh, as my grandmère once said.
