Page 7 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

The duchess required so much of her that Nore barely slept anymore, even though she spent hours walking the streets, leaving and receiving messages; even though it had been years since Nore had had a fulfilling relationship of any variety, since she was too busy with her work.

By the gods, she knew the risks too well.

“Of course,” Nore said. “I’ll adjust my priorities accordingly.” Which meant, simply: she would do more of everything and sleep even less. If she didn’t have Kota, she wasn’t sure how she’d keep her actual business running alongside the duchess’s growing demands.

“Very good,” Celestine said. She looked Nore over as if she could read her mind. “One last thing: Are you happy, Ms. Gordon?” Celestine said, addressing her formally in the identity she herself had created for Nore—she did it so rarely that Nore flinched as if she’d been struck.

“I am content,” she said quickly, “as I ever have been. As I ever hope to be.”

“Yes, but are you happy?”

Nore looked up, meeting the duchess’s shrewd gaze. In moments like these, she wondered how anyone could ever think her vacuous.

And oh, how Nore treasured the intelligence in that gaze, the cold honesty—even as she feared it when turned back on her. It was the same gaze they shared in interrogation rooms, dripping with damp, with the iron tang of blood in the air. It was a gaze that she caught on her own face in the mirror sometimes, unaware until she recognized the duchess’s features laid over hers, and each time it filled her with an odd discomfort she could not decipher.

It had been over a decade since Nore had first entered the duchess’s service, and in that time, Nore had learned all manner of things—and the duchess had come to represent all manner of things to her. Nore had sworn allegiance to the Lindle crown, yes, but she had done it on her knees at the duchess’s feet. She’d been barely more than a girl then and had known nothing of the world. But now, Celestine was more than her handler: she had become something almost like a mother, when Nore had no ability to go back to her own; a confidante and a mentor; and sometimes, even, a friend.

But above all, Nore knew the duchess was her employer.

She knew, too, what the duchess was asking: happiness left room for mistakes. Joy made one careless. Nore would not make that mistake again.

“No,” she said.

“Good,” the duchess said. She nodded to Nore, dismissing her. These meetings never lasted long. “Focus on catching the thief, Finch.”

The words nearly rose, bubbling from her stomach: I’m begging you. You have dozens of spies who focus on Idistra, so leave me out of it. But Nore squashed them. Swallowed them down.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Nore said. “Thank you.”

Before she could second-guess herself, Nore gathered her cape and secured it around her shoulders, pulling the hood up before she exited onto the street. A carriage pulled up right as her foot hit the pavement. When she pulled herself into the carriage and gripped the velvet under her fingers, she felt as if her whole body deflated.

She closed her eyes. You are a tool, she reminded herself. You are the first and last defense of the crown. If there is peril pertaining to Idistra that may impact Lindan, you must go look into Idistra. It is for the greater good.

This time, no matter how many languages she tried, how many times she rephrased, not even Nore could believe her own lies.

Nore woke in the dead of night to Grimsby’s hot, heavy weight on her chest and Sparrow’s eyes glimmering from the depth of the shadows. They must’ve made some sound to rouse her, or perhaps her body just knew better now.

“Well, hello there,” Nore said, rubbing her eyes. She didn’t bother with the light. Sparrow didn’t like it when she disrupted her routine for them in any fashion. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

They reached into their coat, withdrawing a leather portfolio wrapped in cord. “Dove sent additional information on Idistra.” They dropped it at the foot of her bed; Grimsby hissed at the intrusion and skittered away, slinking under the bed.

Nore sat up, tucking her knees to her chest, illuminated in the silvery moonlight through the window. She didn’t care if Sparrow saw through her thin chemise or if they judged the cat hair on her nightgown or sheets. She’d given up her modesty and privacy with everything else when she’d joined Celestine in earnest. She reached for the papers.

“I don’t need to remind you of protocol, I suspect,” Sparrow said.

Nore snorted. She didn’t need to be reminded: everything in this folder was to be burned as soon as she committed the information to memory, and she was to do her studying quickly.

She flipped through the pages. They were written in a mix of ciphers, and her head ached at the thought of decoding it all, digesting it, making her own notes in a new and innocuous code. She closed the folder. “Thank you,” Nore said.

Sparrow nodded and slipped back through the window. Nore waited, upright, until she was certain they were gone. Then she got up and went to her tiny kitchen to make a cup of tea.

Grimsby emerged from under the bed to follow her, blinking sleepily from the corner where his bowl sat, knowing that if she was up this early, he could at least get a treat out of it. It was just past four in the morning.

Nore slipped a bit of boiled chicken into Grimsby’s bowl. He bit her ankle in gratitude.

She drank her tea. She leaned her hip against the stove and watched the horizon lighten in the distance. She did not think of the Idistran accent in all its nuances, nor how much she once wanted to visit Luthar, on Idistra’s southeastern coast. She did not think of the way Idistran magic had been relayed to her, the explanation a murmur against her skin. She did not move to start unraveling the coded papers—the familiarity was too close for that, and she needed to think straight.

She could not keep dismissing the feeling in her gut.