Page 69 of The Toymaker's Son

ChapterTwenty-Six

Valentine

This wasn’t right. I watched the wagon clatter down Minerva’s main street, drawing the stares of all the townspeople. None of them would question Devere’s guilt because Rochefort—Adair—had manipulated them all into thinking Devere had killed his own father.

He wouldn’t get a fair trial, if it went that far. There was no justice here. Just a sandbox for Adair to play in. But if I said too much, he’d kick it all down and begin again, making Devere forget, hurting him more than this injustice.

I couldn’t lose his kiss to a dream…

“Come to the house tonight,” Rochefort said. “Let us talk over dinner.”

Rage was a visceral heat inside my veins. I bit my tongue to keep from lashing out. “Why did you bring me here if you witnessed Devere kill his father?” I turned and caught the lord’s scheming grin. “What is my purpose if not to find the killer? Whatdidyou witness, exactly?”

“Your tone is rather confrontational.”

I’d show him confrontational if it wouldn’t get me arrested on the spot.

“Come to dinner,” he said again. “No hard feelings?”

“I’m not having dinner with you.” This man—whatever he was—had tried to lock me in his room, and prior to that, he’d been inclined to rape me.

“I understand this must be quite a shock. You believed him a friend, no? Now to learn he killed his father. It must make you wonder if you ever knew Devere Barella at all.”

The world carried on around us. People bustled back and forth, going about their day. Carriages rattled by. I’d have loved nothing more than to punch the smirk off the lord’s artificially handsome face. What did he look like beneath his aristocratic mask? Yet, even knowing he was something otherworldly, part of me continued to desire him. It wasn’t natural. Now I knew he was fae, that twisted attraction made a strange kind of sense. If I called him out on the street, in front of a dozen witnesses, what would he do? Click his fingers and reset it all? At least if we went around again, Devere wouldn’t be in jail.

But he’d lose the memory of our kiss and my touch.

How could I protect Devere without further hurting him?

I needed to know more about the fae I was up against.

“You and I have much to discuss,” Rochefort said. He raised a hand, indicating for his driver, waiting down the street, to bring the carriage up. “Come to the house tonight, and you have my word I will do nothing you don’t want me to.”

I swallowed the knot in my throat. “Dinner tonight.”Again. “Very well.” There had to be a way to break this bubble he’d placed Minerva and its people in. To free them and free Devere.

His carriage pulled up, and he climbed in. “I look forward to it.” He thumped the carriage roof and took off with his typical dramatic clatter of marching horses and glittering opulence.

I returned to the store, locked the door, and fell back against it with a sigh. Toy trains chugged, a music box tinkled somewhere, and the wall of clocks ticked and chimed. The toy store’s warmth wrapped around me, always a sanctuary, always a home.

Jigsaw pieces lay scattered about, joined now by model horses. I tidied them and set right the displays. This store was special, like Devere was special. It had a soul, and so did he. He was more than mechanical parts, more than Adair’s magic. Iknewhim. His fleeting touch, his icy stubbornness, the taste of his lips on mine. I touched my mouth, still feeling the soft press of his kiss there. All of it was real.

I’d stay in the store, and from here, I’d dismantle Adair’s game, piece by piece. That was the real reason for my return to Minerva.

To save the town, save Devere, and perhaps even save myself.

* * *

Devere’s workshop collection of tools and parts and little contraptions baffled as much as they fascinated. I hunted through boxes of spare parts and racks of tools, looking for clues to a world I was only now discovering. Among the chaos, behind an old sheet, I discovered a bookshelf. Each shelf was cluttered with toy parts, but it was the cobweb-coated stack of books on the bottom shelf that caught my eye, and the lone book on the top of the pile, its pages curled and cover clean of dust.

The Wonder & Wickedness of the Fae.I knew this book. Devere had been reading it at the counter when I’d first returned to Minerva.

The hardcover creaked as I opened it, and inside, faded penmanship declared the book as belonging to Jacapo Barella.

Perhaps Jacapo’s grief-driven encounter with a fae hadn’t been by chance.

With a few hours left before my dinner with Adair, I made tea, took the book with me to the fireplace, and settled into the armchair to read. A few pages in, and it soon became clear the author—a name I did not recognize—was either infatuated with the fae orwasfae, such was the awe and reverence in their tone.

They also did not believe in getting to the point. With my hours almost up, I’d learned only that accepting any kind of gift from a fae, including food and wine, surrendered one’s will. No doubt, there were many more rules and etiquette within the book’s page, but I’d run out of time and hurried to dress for dinner with a creature who, according to the book, might either seduce me, kill me, or drive me mad.

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