Page 147 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

Nore took a shuddery breath. She heard the fear coloring his voice. He did not want to die. She did not want him to die. She brought her hand around, tracing the line of his jaw, his beard catching on her thumb.

“Do you want me to?” she asked.

Caspian drew a breath. Shook his head. “Take care of my cat for me, Finch,” he whispered, his eyes still closed.

Nore laughed, the sound wet with tears. “He’s not your fucking cat,” she said.

“No,” Caspian agreed, looking up at her with sadness and adoration in equal measure. “He’s yours.”

I have been thinking long and hard about your plans for promotion, and I concur that you should be in a role more befitting of your station. I think I have uncovered a mechanism to make that little plan of yours work, and I think we can agree to some kind of equitable exchange.

Gail Borrel to Dove, 1636 UCE

thirty

THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE she could think to do—if she left Celestine, it would mean her life and livelihood were forfeit. If she did anything outside her usual routine, Celestine would know and investigate further: look into the stone, or Caspian, or set another spy to tail her. There was no way to save Caspian. For the first time in her life, she felt well and truly trapped.

She did the only thing she could think to do: she acted normal and went to work, and she schemed.

For a few hours the following morning, she buried herself in her work. She lost herself in her work. Because if she kept working, if she kept pushing, she didn’t have to examine the feelings that were threatening to splinter her apart.

She could avoid it no longer as the morning turned to afternoon—she was running out of time, and she was no closer to a solution. Nore ran finger along the marble grapes on her desk. It had been a present from Cas for their third wedding anniversary. A joke more than anything else.

When would she go back to that peace of looking at her own possessions, her own life, and seeing him written all over it?

She felt herself a tightrope walker at one of the city’s fairs: there she was, on that rope, struggling for balance; under her yawned the gaping cavern of loneliness that Nore had transformed her life into. She was only one breath away from falling.

Perhaps, one death away from falling.

Nore ran the formula through her brain, soundproofing a small bubble around herself, locking the door. She walked to the window and looked out at the harbor. Nore stood, watching the ships, barely fighting back as the sobs crawled up her throat.

Scheming was not enough; Nore was out of time, and she could not keep pretending.

She gripped the windowsill, her breathing uneven, her heart pounding in her chest. She couldn’t let him die. She couldn’t watch, knowing he was gone; she couldn’t not go, pretending she could forget he ever existed. She was not going to mourn Caspian Khari—she was not going to let him die now, not here, not like this.

To save Caspian was to turn her back on her entire life, on everything she had built. To let him die was to turn her back on the person she thought she was—and she would never forgive herself.

If she saved him, she would never be safe in Nettlepool again. Nore thought of this, watching the ships in the harbor, the realization rocking through her.

And oh, how she hated Nettlepool.

She hurried into action. “Kota,” she said, throwing her cloak on over her shoulders. Her clerk came, uncertainly, and joined Nore in the office. Nore shut the door behind her.

“There’s something I need to do. I need you to take care of things for the afternoon—possibly longer.”

Kota rubbed her eyes. “Ms. Gordon, shall I call the healer? You don’t seem—”

“I’m fine,” Nore insisted. “Better than I’ve felt in years.”

If her clerk had any follow-up questions, she asked them to Nore’s retreating back as, for possibly the last time, Nore left her office.

No side routes, no complications, no alleyways. Nore made her way straight home and climbed the stairs to her apartment. Grimsby hissed when she threw open the door, then ran under the bed.

It took her only minutes to pack, to put away the things she knew she would miss, she would want. She found Caspian’s wedding ring in her jewelry box and put it on a chain around her neck, then packed her clothes and papers and a few extra rations of food for Grimsby. She left these items on her bed, ready to go, and turned to her trunks from Locke, still packed—she hadn’t been able to bear it, taking everything out.

She rifled through until she found the box she wanted. She opened it and counted the vials, then put them securely in her pocket.

Then she turned to her papers. She knew she needed something, yet she couldn’t be certain of what. She dug through her papers until she found what she wanted: the sheets Caspian had copied for her, the unfamiliar spells from the ancient Lindle spellbook they’d found. She took these and the reports from Gail and stuffed them into her pockets. She was certain she was bringing too much, or leaving something behind, or had missed some vital thing.