Truthwitch (The Witchlands, #1)(18)

“You’re going home, to Guildmaster Alix’s,” Habim said eventually, tipping back the edge of the curtain and squinting outside. “You should have gone to him in the first place—he can keep you safe from the Bloodwitch.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” Safi finally withdrew her fingers from the latch and sat up to her full height. “I thought I was doing the right thing by not bringing trouble to Alix’s door.”

“How very considerate of you. Next time, though, try trusting the men charged with your safety.”

“Iseult keeps me safe too,” Safi said. “Yet notice that you’ve sent her away.”

Again, Habim ignored Safi’s bait. Instead, he dipped his chin to watch her from the tops of his eyes. “Speaking of Iseult, she requests that you please not slit my throat. She also apologizes for leaving and asks that you not lose her book.”

“Iseult … apologized?” That wasn’t like Iseult—at least not when this was so clearly Safi’s fault.

Which meant there was a hidden message here.

It was a game the girls had played over the years. One Mathew had taught them—Say one thing, but mean another—and it had been wildly fun during the more dull hours of Mathew’s history lessons.

It wasn’t fun now.

Don’t slit Habim’s throat—that meant to wait. To do as Habim ordered. Fine. Safi would obey for now. But the book … She couldn’t riddle out that part of the message.

“Iseult’s and my things,” Safi said slowly, “are in a sack at the harbor.”

“I already grabbed it. The driver’s holding it.” Another furtive glance behind the curtain before Habim pounded the roof.

The carriage clattered to a stop, and Habim offered Safi an inflectionless, “Stay out of trouble, please.” Then he swept through the door and melted into the cacophony of afternoon traffic.

With her fists never feeling as if they were squeezed tightly enough, Safi stepped into the city. Horses’ hooves, carriage wheels, and fancy boot heels drowned out her frustrated teeth grinding. Alix’s home was a many-columned mansion surrounded by a jungle of roses and jasmine. Like all the Dalmotti Guildmasters, he lived in the wealthiest corner of the city: the Eastern Canal District.

Safi had a bedroom inside, and the young, fair-haired Alix had always been kind to her. But this luxe, labyrinthine estate had never felt like home—not in the way that Iseult’s attic room always had.

Not in the way the girl’s new rooms were going to.

For several long moments, Safi stood at the iron gate and considered making a run for it. Her throat burned with a hunger for speed. But she knew she couldn’t find Iseult—not without risking the Bloodwitch.

Gods below, everything was falling apart, and it was all Safi’s fault. Safi had fallen for Chiseled Cheater’s charms. Then Safi had suggested the holdup.

It was always this way: Safi would initiate something over her head, and someone else would clean up the mess. That someone had been Iseult for six years now … but how many messes would Safi have to make before Iseult had had enough? One of these days, Iseult would give up on her like everyone else had. Safi just prayed—desperately, violently prayed—that it wasn’t today.

It isn’t though, her logic pointed out. Or Iseult wouldn’t have left a message with Habim or told you to find the book. Well, Safi would only be able to puzzle through Iseult’s coded message if she went inside Alix’s mansion as ordered.

So with her knuckles cracking against her thighs, she marched up to the gate and rang the bell.

*

Despite the flowers and incense jars in the Silk Guildmaster’s home, the smell wafting off the nearby canal always dominated Safi’s nose. There was no escaping it, and as Safi gazed from the window of her second-story bedroom, she tapped her toes on the sky blue rug. A frantic counterbeat to her heart.

Fine silk gowns were draped on the large four-poster bed that she rarely slept in. This wasn’t the first time Guildmaster Alix had crafted dresses for Safi—although these were far finer than anything she’d ever received before.

Footsteps clacked behind her. Mathew. Safi knew that loping stride, and when she turned to her tutor, she found his thin, freckled face was a mask of hard lines, his red hair aglow in the afternoon light.

Mathew and Habim could not have been more different—in looks or in personality—and of the two, Safi had always preferred Mathew. Perhaps because she knew Mathew regarded her more highly than Habim ever had. They were kindred spirits, she and Mathew. More inclined to act than to think, to laugh than to frown.

Even without his Wordwitchery, Mathew was a master criminal—a con man of the highest caliber. Habim had taught Safi to use her body as a weapon, yet it was Mathew who’d taught her to use her mind. Her words. And though Safi had never understood why Mathew insisted she learn his confidence skills, she’d always been too afraid to ask—just in case he then decided to stop.

Like Habim, Mathew currently wore the gray and blue livery of the Hasstrels, but unlike Habim, Mathew wasn’t a servant for Safi’s uncle.

“Your things.” Mathew flung a familiar bag onto the bed, and Safi made no move to retrieve it—though she did glance at it, checking for the shape of Iseult’s books …

There they were; a blue corner poked from the top.