RISING (#2, of Crows and Thorns)

Chapter 38

I moved to the waterbed, with its pastel-floral bedding which had been turned down earlier by the servants. A waterbed. I tsked at the monstrosity with its suede curves. It was a pain in the ass to clamber into at night, and whoever invented the thing needed to be ended.

The wyrm daggers I'd left here earlier were on top of my weapons bag seated on an old-fashioned luggage holder beside the bed. The leather was worn and frayed from a long line of ancestors using it, and the bone of the blades contrasted against the black leather.

I stroked my fingers through my scruffy beard, pacing back and forth, wondering what to do next and how to go about it.

Tabitha was in a world of danger. If Laurena woke up to find the mane of hair she gloried in shorn off, she was going to turn this place upside down in a vicious quest to find the person responsible and enact retribution. The only thing shielding Tabitha was the fact that there were a vast number of guests here tonight. The perpetrator could be any one of us—a servant or one of the upper ranks—and with Laurena's charming personality, there'd be a slew of suspects.

I could understand Tabitha's rationale, hiding the fact Laurena's hair had been cut off at the Deniauds tonight by bewitching her with a glamour potion.

Since the actual heist had occurred here at the Deniauds, in three days' time when Laurena was back on the Wychthorn estate and she woke up to discover herself pretty much fucking bald, there would be no incriminating evidence, not a wisp of cut hair in her surroundings.

Laurena could still point the finger at someone at the Wychthorns, and I'd seen the worry scoring Tabitha's pretty face at the thought that an innocent might take the blame for something she'd done. However, more plausibly, it wouldn't take Laurena long before she'd come to the correct conclusion that it had indeed happened at the Deniauds. But three days after the Servants' Dance, it would be a mess to figure out who had been there and their whereabouts on the night.

Tabitha might get away with it if I managed to get my hands on some more glamour potion. There were a few daughters here I could steal a vial from, and amongst them, the first that came to mind—Rosa Battagli and Irma-the-liar Szarvas. I could steal into one of their rooms, thieve a potion, and then find my way back into Laurena's bedroom. Though, it was one hells of a risk going for it a second time.

Cutting the hair of a Wychthorn Princess was quite the protest from a servant. Tabitha could have done something else to Laurena that was less obvious and less confrontational. Despite how ferociously Tabitha had spoken about defending my sister, I called bull-fucking-shit on that. This wasn't for revenge. She needed the hair for some other reason, I was positive of it. Whatever reason Tabitha had, I'd figure it out later, right now I needed to help her get out of this fix.

I undid a few more top buttons on my shirt as anger bubbled beneath my skin, thinking about what Tabitha had shared with me.

Laurena had threatened my twin sister to stay away from Byron.

Was it merely because Laurena was fearful Val would end up marrying into the Wychthorn family and become the matriarch of Great House Wychthorn? Was her reason as simple and shallow as Laurena being embarrassed by my sister's stuttering? Or was it because my family was enforcers? We did the dirty work for Upper House Novak, keeping the crime syndicates under control and the money flowing to the Horned Gods. As far as most of the Upper Houses thought, we were from the wrong side of the Houses, considered no better than thugs. Yet they needed us as a line of defense so they didn't have to pick up blades and coat their hands with blood.

The inky waves of wyrmfire coiling up my arms were stark against my tan as I rolled up my shirt sleeves. My thoughts wandered to what Tabitha had overheard Laurena say about Gratian and myself. Because the term was brothers. I didn't give a fuck what Laurena had inferred about me, but what had Gratian done? Had he become involved with Laurena at some point?