Page 27 of A Steeping of Blood
“All right,” she whispered. She only needed to tilt her chin up a little higher to close the distance between them and their lips would touch.
She didn’t dare move.
“—really, Arthie,” Matteo was saying before he turned back to Flick.
She pulled away from Jin with a quick breath. Her pulse raced like a hummingbird’s wings, and when he cast her a sideways glance, she knew he had heard it.
“Ceylan as in the island?” Matteo asked. “Surely you’re not serious.”
Jin straightened, and Flick felt the warmth dissipate, along with her embarrassment. She was almost grateful for the distraction. Almost.
“Do any of us look like we’re having a grand time right now?” Jin asked. “Of course she’s serious.”
Between them, Arthie looked stricken, hollow. She hadn’t looked great since her argument with Jin, but now she appeared worse.
Flick remembered that Arthie had fled from Ceylan years ago. What would it be like to return to a graveyard of one’s past self? That was how she imagined going back to the Linden Estate would be—and she had only been away from it for weeks.
A slow and lonely leak in a corner of the storeroom plinked in the heavy silence.
Jin was at war with himself. Flick could see him wanting to say something and holding himself back by gritting his teeth. Matteo, surprisingly, shared the same uncertainty. Flick saw him step to Arthie’s side and reach for her before dropping his hands to his sides, fingers flexing as if he was fighting the urge to touch her. As if he had no qualms himself but wasn’t sure how Arthie would react.
Did Flick not feel the same? Every fiber of her being craved that nearness, to be close to Jin, to touch him, to make up for the excruciating days they’d spent apart.
“Did you know that the peakies wanted control of Ceylan because of its prime position in the ocean? Almost every trade route runs through there, granting an easy refuel port to every kingdom, country, and empire we know of,” Arthie said. She sounded like she was reading from a schoolbook.
“Boss?” Chester asked finally, reaching for her hand.
Arthie swallowed. It was business to the Ram, duvin to be had. For Arthie, it had been home.
“Right,” she said, though she still sounded distant. Detached from herself. Her hand strayed to her pistol and stayed there. “I—I wasn’t anticipating needing to leave Ettenia, or even White Roaring.”
Let alone go to Ceylan.
Flick heard her unspoken words, but as she watched, Arthie rearranged herself. As though she were breaking off pieces of herself and tucking them away, out of sight and thus out of mind.
“Yet, here we are,” she said, her tone resolute, and Flick could have imagined they were back in Spindrift, in control of the situation and resources, their future gripped tight in Arthie’s hand as she spelled out the perfect plan. “That’s why Penn didn’t tell us Jin’s parents are alive. He knew we’d go to Ceylan. He knewI’dgo.”
She stopped and dropped her gaze before she could say any more. Penn had been trying to protect them. Hadhebeen trying to retrieve Jin’s parents himself before his untimely death?
Arthie walked over to one of the crates, and the others gravitated toward her as if they had no choice in the matter. She pulled out a card from her jacket and set it down on the mottled wood, the edges foiled in gold. It was the invitation.
“Someone at the Athereum had this. Several someones. Lords and ladies, of course, ones I didn’t even know were vampires,” Arthie said, tapping it on the crate. “Apparently, only the upper echelon of White Roaring will be in attendance. We’re barely just bouncing back aftera week, and the Ram is already making strides. First a headline blaspheming Spindrift, now this.”
Jin took it, reading through. “She’s hosting a tribute to the fallen press that she herself obliterated? What a woman.”
Flick wasn’t particularly proud of the way his words stung.
“And we’re going,” Arthie said, sitting on the crate.
Matteo was studying her. “You think it’s a cover.”
“Indeed, and if she wants to make a show of herself in front of high society, I want us all there. We’ll give them a show.”
Flick heard the promise in Arthie’s voice. She didn’t know what Arthie had planned—she didn’t think Arthie herself knew just yet, but there was no refuting the certainty in her tone.
“But first, Ceylan,” Arthie said. “The island might be smaller than Ettenia, but we know little of the Ram’s actual operations, neither the layout nor locations. Flick, keep reading through the ledger. Tell me everything.”
“Nor can we verify that my parents are truly there,” Jin reminded her, sitting down and setting his umbrella across his legs.
