Page 72 of The Toymaker's Son

“Oh, hello, Hush. You really should be with Valentine. He needs you more than I do.”

I backed Russo to his desk and pinned him there. His fingernails dug under my hold on his neck in a useless effort to pry me off.

Hush dashed over his cheek and plunged into his gaping mouth. He gagged, and she was gone, vanished down his throat.

“I suspect that cannot be good,” I told him, then let go. The constable coughed, stumbled, and sprawled over his desk, choking. A good person would have helped, but as I caught sight of the swinging noose in the corner of my eye, it became clear there were no good people here. Hush would finish him off.

I made for the door. The hike through the forest to Rochefort Manor would take several hours. I could only hope Valentine had yet to frustrate Adair, but knowing Val as I did, I would not have long to save him and the memories of our love.

ChapterTwenty-Eight

Valentine

The dining room décor, with its array of delicious wine and food, was eerily familiar. I’d stood in the exact same spot beside the table before, waiting for the lord. Hush had been with me then, but this time, there were no moving lumps beneath the bright white tablecloth.

The food appeared normal, but so did the house and the servants. Were they fae too? I’d never seen any of the staff in the town. Were there more like Adair? A whole world of them somewhere, hidden inside reality’s folds.

Someone should study them. I just hoped to survive them.

Adair breezed into the room, exquisitely handsome in his dinner suit, with his blond hair slicked back, accentuating a proud, solid face.A mask. Not his true face.Perhaps he was a hideously ugly troll beneath this charade. It would be easier to resist him knowing none of his charm was real.

“Good evening, Mr. Anzio. There’s no need to stand on display. Please, do take a seat.”

The book hadn’t suggested there was any harm in sitting with a fae. I pulled out the chair at the place set for me at Rochefort’s right side, while he took the seat at the head of the table.

“This is far too much food for two men to dine on,” I remarked, hoping he couldn’t hear my heart flutter.

He cast a glance at the table. “Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” Taking the napkin, he flung it out, laid it on his lap, and picked up his glass of wine. “How are you faring, Valentine? You seem a little… nervous.”

“Nervous? No. Not at all. I’m fine, thank you.” I fussed with my own napkin and tried to remember where on the timeline this was all supposed to be. I’d only just arrived in Minerva, hired by Rochefort to find Jacapo’s killer. Yet, with Devere’s revelations, it felt as though I’d lived months in moments. I’d also been here before, in this seat, eating the food at his table. Memories old and new muddled together.

“I wouldn’t be too concerned about Mr. Barella. He’s very good at looking after himself.”

“Devere, yes… Do you know him well?” I picked up my glass, then remembered not to drink and hovered it halfway to my lips.

“I do believe you already know the answer to that.”

“I do?” I placed the glass down again, hoping he hadn’t noticed. “Then enlighten me as to what I already know.”

He sat back, lowered his glass, and tapped his fingers on the tabletop. The thin smile faded, and the temperature in the room cooled, making the blazing fire spit in the hearth.

“Did it ever occur to you that you’re entirely wrong about him?”

I coughed a slight laugh. “I er… I am often wrong, but I’m also a good judge of character. He’s innocent—”

“Through your studies?” He waved a hand. “As an investigator of the criminal mind?”

“Well yes, but we each have our own judgments, a gut sense of a man, if you will.”

He considered my words and leaned forward. “What if everything you knew about someone were a lie?”

Was he trying to trip me up, or was he genuinely curious? “I like to think I’d see through the lie, eventually.”

“And if you didn’t?”

“Then I’d be blissfully ignorant, I suppose. I do not know what I do not know.”

He flashed a stunning grin. “You do not know what you do not know.I like that, Mr. Anzio. You are a clever man, indeed. What of Mr. Barella? Or Devere… as you know him. What do you make of him?”

---