Page 100 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

It took all Nore’s concentration not to cry, vomit, or faint as she went through the back stairwell after Celestine. In the alley of the building, they drew their cloaks and were handed into one of the duchess’s carriages. Nore winced with every rut in the road.

Celestine did not speak.

Nore recognized the prison when they arrived. She’d been here more than once with Pidge, sitting in a back room, listening to the interrogations.

Now, she followed Celestine into the gloomy depths, to the chamber on the second-lowest floor. She had no preparation before Celestine was pulling her through a door, and there was Cas, flanked by two guards.

Nore froze in the doorway like a frightened rabbit.

Caspian met her gaze, his open and honest, as if he had never kept anything from her at all. His hands were bound behind his back, his shirt stained with what she suspected was her own blood. He had a gag in his mouth, and he made no attempt to speak—it would only come out garbled anyway.

“So this is my thief,” Celestine said, her voice sweet as spun sugar. “Younger than I expected.” She moved across the room, but Nore stayed frozen, unable to come any closer. Caspian’s gaze did not leave her face, even as Celestine gripped his chin and turned it this way and that, as if admiring him. “Handsomer than I expected, too.”

Please, he seemed to beg with his eyes. Trust me.

She could not.

“Little bird,” Celestine called. “Come here.”

Nore forced herself to move, one step at a time. She stopped when she was just behind Celestine, only a few feet away from Caspian’s knee. She read the tension in every line of his body.

“Closer,” Celestine said.

Nore inched closer until she was standing next to Celestine, nearly framed between Cas’s knees.

“What punishment do you think he should have?” Celestine asked.

Nore tore her gaze away from Cas’s, looking at her employer. “What?”

“He’s your first catch, Nore. Your first traitor. As a reward, I will let you decide what to do with him.” She smiled up at Nore, beatific. “Should he die for his crime?”

“No,” Nore gasped before she could stop herself, before she could think better of it and what weakness the response revealed. Nore took a deep breath and stepped back. She needed to put some space between her and Caspian. “What is the… traditional punishment for thieves?”

“A finger,” Celestine said, as if she were only discussing her dinner.

Nore nodded, swallowing hard. “A finger then.” She did not look at Cas. She couldn’t.

It took a bit of preparation. Nore moved against the wall, forcing herself to be still as a statue, as if that would make her invisible. She knew Caspian still watched her, but she could not force herself to look at him. When the specialist came, they unbound Cas’s hands. He moved them in front of his body, stretching his hands; Nore closed her eyes against all the times those hands had been on her body.

“Which finger?” Celestine asked.

She was going to be sick. But she could not be weak—and this was what the duchess was really doing. It was a test of mettle. A demonstration of how far Nore would go.

Nore forced herself out to the very edge of her own sanity.

She walked across the room, holding her head high. In her mind, she gripped the enchantments that covered the bruises on her face, her arm, any residual on the rest of her body. With one sharp tug, she ripped them away. She emerged from the shadows looking like Cas’s worst nightmare.

She knelt in front of him, still not meeting his gaze. Nore reached for his hand and pulled off his ring, the symbol of their marriage. “That one,” she said.

Above her, Cas drew a sharp breath.

Nore pocketed the ring and retreated to the wall. She stood with Celestine, out of the way, as it was done. She watched the knife. She listened to Caspian’s grunt of pain. She watched the magician come in, stop the bleeding. She watched them take him away.

“You did well,” Celestine said when they were alone in the room. She reached over in the silence and took Nore’s hand.

It was two days later when Nore crept back into the prison. Just that afternoon, Nore had taken her oath to the crown, on her knees before the duchess. After, Celestine presented her with her own coin of service, and Edith signed the business over to Nore in a meeting that felt far less important than it actually was. Once it was finished, Celestine had kissed Nore’s hand and asked her to choose a code name, explaining that the crown’s spies usually identified with birds, for ease.

“Finch,” Nore had said, without a second thought.