Lyra sat propped against pillows. Kaelen, a dark shadow at the footboard, leaning against the carved post as if he'd stood there all his life.
The single note lay between them on the coverlet, indecent in its neatness.The wolf is not yours to keep.He belongs to the Queen."Speculate," she said, because naming made fear small.
Kaelen's gaze skimmed the script. "Expensive paper. Confident hand. A man used to obedience."
"Delan loves the theatrics," Lyra answered. "And his pen.""The Queen breathes confidence," he said. "A clever captain would mimic it to make the threat stick.""Or the Queen is reminding me who leashes whom," Lyra said, and hated the cold that sentence put under her ribs. "Routes?""Roofline.
Then the kitchen. Wedge under the lower hinge to silence it." He nodded toward her side. "You're bleeding again.""I'll wait for the town physician," she said, too quickly."No," he said, as if that settled it .
He came to the bedside, untied the blood-flecked bandage with careful fingers, and reached for the linen and salve on her table like a man born to useful orders. Heat prickled under her skin where his breath warmed it.
He didn't rush, didn't leer, didn't fumble. It would have been easier if he had.She stared at him until the air stopped being mischievous.
"Do you want my gratitude?""No," he said. "I want you alive."A rap cracked the quiet, hard knuckles, urgent."Enter," Lyra called.
Hemsley all but stumbled in, white as his neckcloth, a folded summons shaking in his hands. "A runner from the palace, my lady. Her Majesty…" He swallowed. "You are to attend at once. With… your bodyguard."Of course.
The Queen had an appetite for pretty traps. Lyra held out her hand, Hemsley set it upon her hands like a man passing a live coal. She broke the seal, read the graceful, pitiless script, and slid the paper beneath the pillow as if tucking a knife out of sight."Now?" Kaelen asked."Before dawn," she responed. "We will not run to her door in a sweat. We will arrive inconveniently composed."His mouth edged toward trouble.
"As you wish.""You can leave me now," she said, because she needed him near and hated needing anything at all.
"He bowed the old bow that didn't belong to a sellsword and took his leave, she could still feel his ever watchful eyes, even as he pretended to retire.
Lyra set the note aside and blew out one candle.Sleep took its time. When it came, it walked on soft paws and brought a dream with it.
Pewter morning tinted the townhouse, the air smelled of citrus and frost. Kaelen returned from the yard with a sliver of wax balanced on the tip of a knife and frost combed through his hair.Lyra bent close.
A crescent flaw spidered the pale lump, a tiny star nick interrupting the curve. She knew that crack. The Queen's outer office had a set of old seals repaired years ago, one left that exact star. Not proof. A suggestion with teeth."Palace wax," she said.
"They want me to know without being able to say I know.""Or Delan wants you to think the queen already has it in, for you." Kaelen countered.
"He likes to watch people choose the wrong enemy.""He enjoys many cheap pleasures," Lyra agreed. She set the wax on her blotter and drew on gloves that fit like rules. "Ori!"The clerk appeared with ink-stained fingers and three apologies preloaded. She roasted him briefly, then handed him a stack of tasks that would take the day and redeem his pride.
Hemsley hovered, wringing his hands into a damp rope."My lady… Seren has arrived."Lyra didn't show relief, even though she did feel it.They found Seren in the back parlor on the edge of a chaise, hair cleverly rearranged to hide mischief a mirror would not forgive. She rose too quickly, swayed, righted herself on will.
Her eyes shone nerves, not tears."My lady," Seren said, and darted one fascinated glance at Kaelen before fixing on Lyra's hands. "Forgive me, I went to my sister's. She's been ill. I sat with her and fell asleep.
When I woke, it was already dreadfully late." She tried a smile that landed somewhere shy of honest. "I would have sent a boy, but…""You had no coin," Lyra finished coldly. "And you thought I would scold you less if you carried your lie yourself."Seren's chin tipped up a fraction, a small, proud rebellion. "I am not lying.
"Kaelen stood behind Lyra's shoulder, not a word wasted, He just watched Seren like he watched doors.Lyra's fan tapped once against her glove and stilled. She had trained Seren to be quick and to survive, both traits made for excellent liars.
"No gentleman then?" she asked, voice even. Color rose along Seren's throat, either offense or memory. "No, my lady. I would never."Lyra's gaze pinned her a heartbeat longer, then slid away. "Very well," she said.
"Do not let me wait for you again."
"Yes, my lady," Seren breathed, relief flooding her face so fast it made Lyra's irritated.
The girl curtsied and fled, gratitude trailing like perfume.Only when the door closed did Kaelen speak. "You know she's lying."Lyra turned to the window, the light made a blade of her profile. "Seren is foolish, not treacherous. She dares not defy me."
"She already has," he said. No heat, only certainty. "And she will again.""You don't know her.""I know patterns," he said. "A house doesn't get one note through the shutter by accident. It gets that note because someone opened the way.
You felt the breach last night and still you forgive the person most likely to be the cause."Lyra's shoulders squared. "Mind your suspicion."
"Mind your pride," he returned, soft enough that it landed lower than anger. "It makes a clean blindfold."She faced him then, cool as a portrait "Seren has many sins, but she is mine.""For now," he added.Silence pressed on the glass between them. He didn't flinch. She didn't, either.Hemsley's cough rattled the doorway like a bad omen.
"The carriage," he said. "It waits, my lady."Lyra slid the single note into her sleeve. Kaelen's hand hovered, only briefly, near her elbow as she passed, the ghost of support he did not presume to offer. She did not take it.
She did not miss it.They stepped into the cold together. The townhouse watched them go with blind windows. The street's frost cracked under the carriage wheels. Kaelen sat opposite, all spare black and a quiet threat of a man who could turn a room with a breath. Lyra watched the city yawning awake and imagined threading a leash through every mouth that would speak against her.
At the palace gate, guards snapped to attention. The Court of Mirrors loomed beyond, glittering and rotten."Remember," Lyra said, low, as the carriage swayed toward the marble steps. "In public you obey. In private you argue."He inclined his head. "Say when."
The carriage halted and the door swung open, Captain Delan waited at the top of the stairs, a small, satisfied cut of a smile on his mouth. Behind him, doors yawned toward the throne room where the Queen liked to dress mercy in mirrors and deceit while calling it justice.
Lyra put her foot to the step, every line of her a weapon. Kaelen rose, a half-step behind, dangerous and impossibly composed.
From within, a herald's voice rang bright and merciless: "Her Majesty will see the Fixer and the wolf."
Lyra's fan snapped once, a promise and a threat. "Time to appease a queen,"she said.
"Or hunt one," Kaelen murmured. Together, they stepped into the light.