Page 61 of Bleeding for the Prince
Daniel passed on your email address. I was going to have paper copies couriered to you, but as you live with Prince Hyax, I didn’t want to risk spoiling the surprise. Attached are the finished sketches of the piece. I’ve also included the names of two jewellers who I’d recommend. For the base metal, I would suggest platinum, with emeralds for the detailing. I would consider two little rubies for the fangs, but I’ll leave that to you on whether it would be too cliché. I hope you think it fitting for a prince.
If you’re happy with the design, Daniel said he could contact one of the jewellers—he’s likely to be able to get you a better price given his business connections.
Let me know your thoughts.
Katherine.
Gwil opened the attachment labelledsketches. The original drawing she’d done in the bar had been amazing, but this was beyond brilliant. The platinum spiral down an obvious fae ear, set with emeralds and the two vampire fangs at the point gave the design a uniqueness he knew Hyax would love.
He replied, gushing at her talent, and taking up Daniel’s offer of help. He would have had to call in a few favours to get the names of a jeweller, so he was delighted that he had another option.
Gwil returned to his research, finding the names of the two women the lust potion had worked on. Emily Roas had been the bride-to-be, and her now wife was Lia Sprili, both dryads. A few cursory internet searches later, and he had their profile on a paranormal social media platform, and he saw they both worked for a supernatural accounting firm in the city where he assumed they’d met. They had shared interests in hiking and gardening, appeared to really like pasta and had a soft spot for Norwegian Forest cats, but nothing that would suggest they would be targeted for an attack. He supposed they might have messed up at work, or there was something not obvious from the various things they posted about. He checked Emily’s older posts, from when she was still engaged to her male fiancé and didn’t see anything that would have signalled she had the hots for her friend. She’d removed pictures of her ex, but he was able to find them. Fil Novos, who’d immigrated to the UK from Tallinn, was now working as a manager at a skincare firm in London. The fact he was originally an apothecary was not lost on Gwil.
Fil’s social media had been quiet since the breakup. A single post asking for space and understanding, and that life had a funny way of making sure things worked out the way they should. Gwil was pretty sure if he’d found out that Hyax was wanting to play tonsil hockey with his best mate and bang them harder than a bass drum, he’d have been sending out burn the world messages, not this quiet acceptance. He’d been an investigator a long time, and his gut told him that he needed to speak to Fil, as he was the one who would have the answers.
A few calls later, he had an address. It was late evening, and since Hyax would be out for some time, he thought he could get this part of the Dante case closed. He couldn’t move a dragon, but he could track down a jilted fiancé and have a chat.
Fil Novos lived out in zone four, not so far that Gwil felt he’d left the capital, but far enough to be in a place of suburbia and mundaneness. He’d thought if he ever moved out of London, he’d do so properly, maybe up a mountain, and not this midway point that pretended to be convenient but was actually an expensive pain in the arse to commute from. Gwil stood outside the Edwardian terrace, one of many that seemed popular in the area and were the mainstay of couples and young families. He guessed Fil got to keep the house in the split.
The lights were on, and he saw a flicker from a TV. He’d decided not to call ahead, preferring a surprise visit where Fil might talk to him instead of him legging it. Gwil rang the doorbell. He’d seen firsthand that unexpected visitors weren’t welcome, but at least he was only here to talk and not collect a debt. He was fifty-fifty whether Fil would answer.
He peered through the frosted glass pane of the door and could see someone hesitating at the end of the hall. He rang the bell again.
The figure moved towards the door, and Gwil heard a security chain being fitted, then the door opened a few inches.
“Are you Fil Novos?”
“Who wants to know?” He had a slight accent, but didn’t sound overly perturbed.
“My name is Gwil Hilt, I’m a private investigator. I’m looking into an incident on behalf of the department store, Dante’s.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
He wasn’t expecting any different response but took out his I.D. and proffered it through the gap. “Your ex-fiancée was involved. Look, I’m not here to cause you grief, and you won’t get into trouble by talking to me, but I do need to see if I can rule out what happened to Ms Roas from some other things going on.”
“You should talk to her.”
“You’re the apothecary, Mr Novos. I think you’d be best placed to answer my specific questions.”
His I.D. was snatched, and moments later, the security chain released and the door opened. Fil Novos was a lovely-looking lad, blond, blue-eyed, with a baby face, and despite his posture not being the best, he seemed to be in decent physical shape as well. “I guess I’d better put the kettle on.”
“You’re inviting me in?”
“Yes, oh, wait, are you a vampire? Not that it matters, but I thought that was a myth.”
“It is. I’m being polite and checking you’re happy for me to enter as it’s protocol.” He’d never understood the myth about vampires needing to be invited into a property; it made no sense, and he’d have had difficulty doing his job if it were true.
He followed Fil inside and was surprised to see packing boxes. “You leaving?”
“Yeah, I decided I wanted to move closer into the city. I’m downsizing to a flat since I don’t need a three-bed house.”
Fil pottered around his small kitchen making tea, and Gwil accepted a mug with a splash of milk and one sugar. He’d read that Fil had signed a non-disclosure agreement not to go to the press, which hadn’t surprised him. The surprise had been that he’d not asked for any money to do so, which had only made Gwil’s gut feeling stronger. “I don’t want to cause further upset, and I’m not going to rake over the details of what happened after the potion exploded or the fallout. I’m more interested in how a potion could be keyed to an individual and go off at a specific time. This wasn’t a random event.”
Dante’s had lumped the lust potion in with the other incidents, and until they’d discovered the dragon, so had Gwil and Hyax.
“Dante’s didn’t say anything to me. They should’ve had something in place to stop the potion spreading.”
“They do now. But they were thinking the potion attack was part of something else. Here’s the thing, I don’t think that was the case. I think you set off the potion, I don’t know how exactly, but I could find out. Or you could tell me and admit what happened, and I’ll see to it that Dante’s pays out to deal with the emotional suffering.”
