Page 75 of A Steeping of Blood
Sora and Shaw exchanged a glance.
Matteo splayed his hands. “It’s just us.”
“And when have we not been enough?” Arthie asked.
“Though I’d like to preface our next excursion by saying we’re typically a lot better at our jobs than this,” Jin said. “We just didn’t know what to expect coming in here.”
“And what exactly is your job?” Sora asked as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“We’re criminals,” Arthie said, past ready to plot their escape. “The good kind, anyway. Just as you’re about to be.”
24ARTHIE
Arthie lifted a brow when the Siwangs unrolled blueprint records of the sanatorium, and even a layout of the fort. The sheets were thin and coated, stamped in the corners with the sigil of the EJC, a mighty ship in the center of a circle, the wordsEast Jeevant Companyrunning along the curve.
“Am I to believe you had these lying about?” she asked.
“This sanatorium is our domain, essentially, so we were a part of its construction,” Sora explained. “I might have snuck some records away after. Shaw and I repurposed little nooks throughout as safe spaces for notes, goods we’ve stashed over the years, and the like.”
Arthie could see where Jin had gotten his sticky fingers.
Shaw was staring at the EJC sigil. “I don’t know why it came as such a shock to hear that the Ram is Lady Linden. The crown and the EJC work so closely together that I can’tnotsee them as one and the same.”
Arthie didn’t say it was a shock to them all, even Lady Linden’s daughter. When the Siwangs turned to Jin, she took the blueprints over to Matteo.
“These are excruciating to read,” she said, smoothing her hand over the many layers and trying to make sense of them. She didn’t need the minute details that constructing a building required, she needed something that was as easy as their Athereum infiltration plans.
She looked at Matteo. He was waiting.
“I do offer my services, for a fee,” he said with a wink, his low voice meant for her alone.
Arthie chewed the inside of her lip, shutting down the prickle in her chest. Goodness, now wasnotthe time. “We can discuss payment later.”
“What a flirt, darling,” he replied, pulling the sketches toward him and plucking a pen from Sora’s desk. He paused. “There’s another option, you know.”
“Oh?” she asked, indulging him. “I didn’t realize my scheming skills had competition.”
He removed the Horned Guard uniform and folded up his sleeves to his forearms. Arthie removed hers too.
“Fight our way out,” he said. “We’re armed. The Siwangs are bound to know where we can find weaponry. This sanatorium is vile. Do they deserve anything less than our worst?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. There was chaos, and then there was reckless abandon. Arthie liked to think she had a handle on the balance.
“I don’t see us leavingwithouta fight, but we can’t rush out of here guns blazing. We need a plan.”
Matteo gave her a dramatic sigh. “As you say.”
It wasn’t his usual cavalier attitude. He was afraid, Arthie realized. He was standing in the middle of a place he had feared since vampires went missing off of White Roaring’s streets.
But when he sat in Sora’s chair and smoothed out the clean sheet of paper, a calmness seemed to come over him. His lean arms flexed as he traced neat lines, the green of his eyes intent.That’s enough of that. She swallowed and turned to give Jin his umbrella, surprised he hadn’t noticed it in her hands.
“You picked it up,” Jin said.
“Of course I did.”
Shaw noticed. “Is that my old umbrella?”
“It’s Jin’s weapon of choice,” Arthie quipped.
