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I grabbed the beetle off the desk and returned to the bed, waiting for the laudanum to gather me up and whisk me away. The beetle hadn’t worked since Devere had left. There was something in that, some kind of clue I couldn’t unpick. The beetle had been present in Jacapo’s body at the undertaker’s, and it had been there when Rochefort had assaulted me. It had found its way back to me, when I’d thought it lost. But whatever powered it no longer worked.
Because the beetle and Devere were connected.
Not just connected, though. He’dcraftedit.
Of course he had! Why hadn’t I seen it before?
I lifted the little beetle in the air and turned it over. Firelight slid across its gleaming metal shell. The intricate method in which it was made, its color—purple—identical to the lining of Devere’s coat. Not just similar. Exactly the same glossy purple. The beetlefeltlike his. And if he’d made the beetle… had he made my bird too? The pinhead rivets, the tiny interconnected cogs. They were the same.
Jacapo hadn’t made my bird. Devere had as a boy,beforewe’d become friends.
More recently, Devere had found my bird in the rubble of my burned home, and recognizing it, he’d left it at my parents’ grave, because I’d been gone from his life, just like he was gone from mine now. Vanished. Run away.
The thoughts swirled, the pieces so close to slotting together, but infuriating in the way they were mismatched. They couldn’t be forced. If I forced the clues together, they’d break apart.
Strange… The outside noises had disappeared. No more chatter from adjacent rooms, no clomp of boots, no rattle of carriages passing by outside.
I sat up and checked the fogged window. The sun hadn’t yet set, but the shadows were long. There should have been carriages on the road, the clop of hooves, and the background hum of people. Silence smothered everything but my crackling fire. It wasn’t right.
I pushed from the bed and left the room, heading downstairs. When I’d returned from the church, the inn had been busy, like most days, but now the tables and booths were empty. The fireplaces glowed, throwing out heat, and the flames danced, drawing me closer.
A man sat in the chair beside the farthest fireplace, his face turned away. A slip of purple silk tied his hair back. So simple a thing, that purple tie, but it hit like a punch to the chest.
“Dev?”
“What are you doing, Valentine?” he asked, keeping his face turned toward the fire.
“Looking for you.” He was here? Just him… but this couldn’t be real. It felt real. The heat from the fires, the creaking boards under my boots. “Where is everyone?”
“Go back to Massalia. There’s nothing here for you.”
A trickle of fear cooled my spine, some sense that everything was not as it appeared. A dream? I’d never had one so vivid before. I skimmed a hand along the glossy wooden bar top, with its dips and cracks from use, and approached Dev’s side.
“I can’t leave,” I told him over the sound of my pounding heart. “Not without you.”
He gave a soft huff of a laugh. “I told you, I cannot leave.”
The warmth of the fire summoned me closer, or perhaps it was Devere I couldn’t resist. He still hadn’t looked over, but as I circled around him, he lifted his gaze and his beautiful eyes fixed on me. He smiled, but sadness tinged its warmth.
I took his beetle from my pocket and held it out. “I believe this is yours.”
“She doesn’t belong to anyone.” He rose from the chair, as graceful as silk through the fingers, and tapped the beetle in my hand.
She immediately buzzed back to life and spun in my palm, then raced up my sleeve and hopped onto the bar behind me, vanishing behind a row of bottles.
“How did you do that?”
He blinked and briefly cast his gaze to the ceiling, as though seeking answers there. “This isn’t real, Valentine.”
I glanced around us at the empty inn. “No, I suppose not. You’re not here, and I’m dreaming.” Did it matter if it wasn’t real? I half-smiled. “It’s good to see you.”
He mustered a twitching smile back.
“I almost began to think you were dead, like everyone else.”
“Valentine, listen.” He swooped in and grabbed my arms, holding me rigid. “When you wake, you’ll forget much of this. That is where his strength lies. You must return to Massalia at once. Do you understand? You have already stayed too long. There’s nothing left here for you.”
He did care. He always had. “Youdon’t understand. There’s nothing there for me either.”
