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“Truth,” Yves said quietly. However, there was understanding in his eyes.

“There ain’t no ghost following me. Is there?” he asked.

I stared at the man pinned to the table, cursing the pathetic weasel. I’d wanted him to say Mama sent him. It would’ve made things simple. I could’ve written off her help in the mausoleum as manipulation.

Instead, he was forcing me to confront the fact that maybe I was wrong. Maybe this had nothing to do with my mother, and my complicated feelings had too blinded me to see the truth. Someone had placed Hartley in my path—someone who wanted a Kemp witch and her relics.

And the most likely suspects were Lou or someone connected to The Minuit Company.

I forced out my next question. “Did this letter instruct you to sleep with me?”

Hartley’s gaze dragged over me, but some surviving instinct kept him from smiling. “You’re the one who invited me upstairs.”

Yves made no sign indicating it was a lie.

Relief washed over me.

Grief, rage, and too much liquor had blurred the edges of every choice I made, but Hartley had not been ordered into my bed. I had wanted a distraction, and I had taken it. The choice had been reckless, but it was still mine.

Now that I’d gotten that answer, I needed to ask about The Devouring.

“Where is Lou?” I asked.

“No clue. The whole operation has gone underground. Haven’t heard from them.”

“Yet you’re waving around one of his medallions like you’re still in the club,” I seethed.

Yves tightened his hold on Hartley’s wrists until he yelped. “Speak.”

“A coach house beyond the north gate,” Hartley said. “Saw him there four nights ago.”

My stomach tightened. “Where are they going?”

“Lou didn’t tell me. Only said I was to wait here.”

Yves studied him for a moment. “He’s telling the truth.”

A location from four nights ago wasn’t enough to help us find them now.

“If you lead us to Lou,” Yves said. “I will purchase and burn every gambling note in your name, pardon your part in delivering Cora to The Devouring. But this is a one-time offer, and it’s the best you’re ever going to get.”

Hartley let out an ugly laugh. “You think I care about my debts? I know how to work just enough to skirt a full collection.”

“Then what do you want?” Yves asked.

A dark desire flashed in Hartley’s eyes. “You can’t buy what I want, Your Grace. No one can.”

Goosebumps lifted on my skin. I didn’t think Hartley’s menace was coming from the twenty percent he didn’t get from my sale or the fact that I’d chosen Yves over him.

Hartley might not be magickal, but his desire had weight. He was going to do whatever it took to get what he wanted.

Yves’s attention shifted to the hedges. “Cora, get back!”

A second later, Yves was hauling Hartley off the table just as a knife buried itself in the wood right where Hartley’s throat had been. A masked man wearing a Devouring medallion lunged out of the hedges, a second knife in his hand.

Hartley scrambled backward, dragging his bad leg through the dirt. “Wait. I didn’t tell them⁠—”

The man came after him despite his plea.