The Blood Spell (Ravenspire, #4)(25)
“We need to replace the door. Get a stronger lock. And you shouldn’t stay here alone at night.” He was pacing, anger a flush of heat beneath his skin.
No matter how annoying Blue could be, she and Pierre were practically family. No one threatened his family and got away with it.
“We’ve already ordered a new door. New lock. It’ll be fine, Kellan. These things happen sometimes.” She sounded unconvinced. He watched her for a moment as she bit her lip, but she said nothing more.
“I’ll personally ask the Gaillard magistrate to post more guards in the merchant district at night.”
“Thank you.” She offered him a small smile.
And then Pierre was in the storeroom, launching himself at the prince and laughing as he scooped the tall boy into a fierce embrace. Kellan leaned into it and let himself imagine, just for a moment, that the arms wrapped around him belonged to his father, and that the weight of his kingdom’s future no longer rested on his shoulders alone.
TEN
BLUE STAYED IN the shop’s storeroom long past sunset to get all the stock replenished and the morning’s orders filled, humming Mama’s lullaby as she worked. She refined silver and blended it with copper for strength and durability to fill an order from the Gaillards. Hung her recently harvested bolla root to dry and ground date pits into dust with her mortar and pestle before storing the dust in an amber jar. Crushed wintermint into tinctures of yaeringlei oil and sealed them shut with wax, her stomach churning as the spicy sweet scent filled the air.
And through it all she worried about the recent break-in.
She’d told Kellan the truth. These things did happen sometimes. But she worried that this wasn’t a regular robbery. While a number of items had been taken, plenty of Blue’s most valuable supplies had been left untouched. Supplies that were in easy reach on the shelves close to the damaged back door. Finished goods hadn’t been taken from the shop floor, though they were in easy reach too. But the evidence of Blue’s latest nearly successful attempt to turn lead into gold, evidence sealed inside a pot on the stove, had been taken.
Why would someone ransack the shop enough to find her almost-gold but leave so many truly valuable items behind?
Worry slithered through her, churning up her thoughts and sending her heart racing at odd moments. She hadn’t told Papa that someone had taken the results of her experiments. Especially when he’d been so upset about Dinah Chauveau coming into their shop to question him about the magistrate’s investigation into the fake gold Blue had tried to give Maurice at the market. If he knew someone had taken one of her failed attempts, he’d tell her to stop, and everything she’d worked so hard for would be lost.
Papa had been uneasy about letting her work late again, but she hadn’t had much of a choice. Lucian wasn’t able to start doing deliveries until the next morning, and she had more orders to fill than she’d had hours in her workday. Papa had only agreed to allow her to stay when she told him Kellan had requested extra guards in the area. He’d wanted to wait with her, but the shirella orchard needed harvesting while it was still light, and he’d already arranged to hire a crew of workers to help in the afternoon and early evening.
Blue had assured him that she’d stay alert and take no chances. Still, he’d made her promise to stay inside with the door locked and wait until he returned to escort her home.
Guilt sat heavy on her chest as she stirred the cream she was making and reached for its next ingredient. She’d never lied to Papa before. And she wasn’t lying, exactly. She just wasn’t telling him the whole truth. The guilt swirled into her stomach, slick and miserable, and she closed her eyes.
Not telling him the whole truth was the same as lying. Papa would see no difference between the two, and she couldn’t bear to betray his trust in her. She’d tell him about the stolen experiment. Maybe she could keep working on it at the farmhouse instead of the shop. If the person who’d stolen the almost-gold broke in again looking for more and found none, maybe they would believe it had been a yellow rock Blue had purchased, rather than the result of alchemy.
Something scraped against the newly installed door that led to the alley, and Blue jumped, dropping the tincture she was holding. It smashed to the storeroom floor, releasing a thick wave of wintermint.
Cursing, Blue grabbed a rag and crouched below her worktable. She dabbed at the puddle of oil with its slivers of glass, blinking against the sharp sting of so much spice in the air.
The knob on the alley door rattled, and Blue froze. Lifting her eyes, she saw the knob turn back and forth as someone tested it to see if it was locked.
It was. Locked and triple bolted. The doorway itself was reinforced with a double layer of wood as well. Papa had taken no chances.
Had the same person who’d broken in before returned to see if there were more chunks of almost-gold to steal? Would they go away if they realized someone was still in the shop?
Panic blazed through her, making it impossible to think. Should she be silent? Be loud? Race out the front calling for the guards Kellan had said he’d ask the magistrate to post in the area?
Blue scrambled to her feet, the oil-soaked rag clutched in her hand. “Who’s there?” she called loudly.
The knob stopped moving. Blue waited one breath, two, and then crept toward the door. Her heart thundered against her ears, and her entire body shook.