Page 67

The Book of Ribs had started all her troubles, and here she was, on the cusp of ending them, so even as her stomach roiled, she forcefully said, “Nothing will stop me from taking it.”

Penbrook dangled the pouch. “Then you should have the honor.”

As the music from the ball hummed against the window—a fast tune that seemed to warn Fia to hurry, hurry, hurry—she snatched the sack from Penbrook and lunged for the book as if it might otherwise scamper away. Grimacing, she closed her fingers around its layers of heaving tissue, beneath which must have squirmed tooth and tendon, knucklebone and nail, so eager to poke their way free. Quickly, quickly, and all the while shuddering, she wrangled the grimoire into the bag, then cinched the drawstrings shut.

The Book of Ribs went immediately still, as if she’d suffocated it.

“Still have all your fingers?” Penbrook feigned counting them.

“I do.” But they were trembling. She didn’t know what Sebastian Smith would do once he realized the grimoire was gone. What exactly he was capable of.

“Here, let me carry it,” Penbrook offered. “Unless you have a hidden pocket in that gown somewhere.”

“You didn’t add any when you remade it.”

“My mistake.”

Usually Fia bemoaned the dress’s lack of pockets, but now she was more than happy to have an excuse to turn over the distasteful volume. “Thank you.” Their hands brushed in the exchange. “Penn?”

Tucking the book into the pocket of his coat, he looked at her warily.

“If not for you… I might never have found the grimoire.” Her throat prickled with heat. “If not for you…”

Well, she didn’t really know how to finish the sentence in a way that wouldn’t completely embarrass them both.

Abruptly, Penbrook stood, pulling Fia up alongside him. His fingers were warm at her elbow, and then they were gone. Maybe he was just as unused to gratitude as he was to compliments.

His eyes roved to the door. “Did you hear—”

Fia pressed her hand to Penbrook’s mouth, stanching whatever words would have followed. Because she heard it too—footsteps, more than one pair, striding softly down the hall. Oh, her spell really might have triggered some magical alarm!

“The thieves,” she hissed, and this time Penbrook’s fingertips fell to her lips, quieting her rising voice.

With their mouths ridiculously covered by the other’s hand, they blinked wide eyes at each other before jumping apart.

There was the sound of doors opening and footsteps approaching as whoever was coming stalked the hall. Looking for someone who didn’t belong.

Fia spun a circle, hoping to spy another door leading to a separate room or to a wardrobe, anywhere they could tuck away and hide. But there were only the bookshelves and the fireplace, the side table and the chaise. Nothing large enough to conceal them.

It was too risky to cast her shrouding spell as she’d done at Thistledown. There would be no time to dispel her golden dust, which would give them away—if she was even able to veil Penbrook at all. She’d never tried to mask anyone other than herself. And she wasn’t sure Penbrook was in any shape to use his magic. He’d nearly fallen asleep in the hallway, so even a simple spell might knock him out completely.

As they’d done in all the other rooms, and in unspoken agreement, they hurried their fingers over the walls and the shelves, pulling on sconces and pushing against molding, desperately searching for another cloaked closet or a secret passage as those footsteps drew nearer and nearer.

And then Fia felt something give. A panel in the wall opened beneath her palm, and she stumbled forward into the darkness. Penbrook dashed in on her heels just before the hidden door snicked shut.

Dust swirled around them and slowly settled, but her heart did not. She thought it might burst out of her chest. They stood very close together, the passageway narrow, the depth unknown. She could hear Penbrook breathing, could smell his rain-soft scent. Could feel the firmness of his chest and the overlapping of their cold, cold toes.

“Look,” a muffled voice said from inside the room, and Fia was sure they’d been caught, despite the wall hiding them.

There was the thinnest of cracks where the hidden panel did not quite meet the wall, and Fia—hoping no one would catch the gleam of her eye—pressed her face to the slit through which she could see the corner of the room. Done up in a pearl-beaded gown and a maroon suit, a couple—entirely oblivious to Fia and Penbrook—stepped closer together and stole a kiss.

Quickly, Fia drew back, giving them their privacy and smothering a laugh behind her hand. “It’s not the thieves,” she breathed into Penbrook’s ear. “No one knows we’re here.”

Despite her reassurance, he remained tense at her side, and though she could barely see him, she knew something was wrong.

“Penbrook?” she whispered.

“Are the walls closing in?”