Page 65 of For the Love of the Quest

“She makes you stupid,” Worthing said, crouching down in front of her with all the condescension of a scolding parent. “You didn’t cover your tracks.”

Thomasin couldn’t disagree. Edith had made her stupid. Happy, and unforgivably stupid. Worthing still watched her with pitying eyes, waiting for her to fire back. She waited too, waited for that familiar anger to rise in her like a tide.

She felt nothing.

Her fingers sifted through the dirt. She slumped down on her heels and craned her neck back so she was looking right up at the pointed line of Worthing’s chin. “You could be in London right now, with the syndicate all to yourself. Yet you’re here with me. Sounds like I make you stupid too.” The words might have been cutting, but they sounded dull and resigned.

“I don’t like loose ends.”

“I wouldn’t have come back,” Thomasin said.

Worthing scoffed. “I knew your little pet would tire of you eventually. Once she ran back to her palace, you would come back for yours. I couldn’t risk that. And look at this.” Worthing spread his arms wide, gesturing at the deserted forest around them. “I was right. She’s gone and left you.”

“And I still don’t want the syndicate,” Thomasin growled.

“Oh really? Then what do you plan to do?”

Thomasin hadn’t an earthly clue. Her plan had been to travel the world with Edith. To go on adventure after adventure, and then maybe even settling down somewhere would feel like an adventure because it would be with Edith. She made everything exciting and joyous. Now, Thomasin’s future stretched out before her like a scorched sheet of parchment, blank and blackened. Or more likely, the parchment was entirely gone, burned to ash.

“It doesn’t matter what I say. You’re going to kill me either way.” She wasn’t scared when she said it. But she was when he shook his head, thin lips twitching into a smile.

“Not quite yet,” he said, then looked over his shoulder and called out, “We’re ready for you, Chief.”

Thomasin scrambled to get her feet under her, but Worthing whipped out his gun and aimed it at her head. The message was clear: Don’t move.

The chief inspector sauntered out from behind a copse of trees. It wasn’t just Edith’s father, then. Worthing had gone and made a deal with both of them. Edith for money. Herself for the syndicate’s immunity from the police. It was the perfect plan, really. Everything Worthing wanted, tied up in a neat little bow. And she was the only one who would have to pay the price.

“How far the fearsome Lord of the Sunless Syndicate has fallen,” the chief said when he came to stand next to Worthing. The two looked like old friends. Ironic, considering all the tirades Worthing had gone on about the, as he had often called him, cowardly, buffoonish chief inspector.

“I assume your wife does not send her regards?” Thomasin said with a grimace.

The chief knocked the look from her face with a sudden kick to her jaw. She saw black as she fell to the side. Blood dripped from where she bit through her lip, and she spit a wad of it on the ground.

“I’ll take that as a no,” she said.

“You wretched whore,” the inspector spat.

Worthing crouched in front of her as if to examine the bruise she could feel blooming along her jaw with a vengeance.

“I offered to kill you for him, to do all the dirty work and let him stay in London. He refused.” Worthing gave an amused shrug and cast his gaze over to his companion.

The chief licked his lower lip. “I wanted to be sure you suffered the proper amount before your execution. I wanted to see it with my own eyes.”

“I’m honored,” Thomasin said. When she pushed up on an elbow, Worthing closed his hand around her bicep and hauled her to her feet. He wrenched her arms backward, pinning her wrists behind her back. She watched idly as the chief joined Worthing. Then, she felt the rough bite of rope on her skin. They tied her hands tight, the bones of her wrists screaming in protest, her shoulders pulled back so far they began to throb.

A hand fisted in her hair, yanking so her chin tipped up to the sky. Worthing’s face came into view, and he was smiling as he removed her weapons. One by one, each dagger. The obvious ones, the well-hidden ones, they were all taken from their sheaths and dropped unceremoniously on the ground, where Worthing made sure to kick them out of reach from her feet. It made a distant, broken part of her smile. He was still scared of her, even tied up and complacent.

The pistols were next. Those he kept for himself, tucking them into his jacket and his waistband. Thomasin didn’t blame him. The daggers were of varying quality—she had collected them throughout the course of her whole life. But the pistols. Those were expensive.

The chief inspector kept his own gun trained on her as Worthing led her away. Her mind was blank as she lifted one foot afteranother. She wasn’t even paying particular attention to where they were going. Thomasin found she didn’t want to know. But she couldn’t help but listen as the chief said, “Where are we taking her? The boat?”

“No,” Worthing said, the words clipped. “Lord Darling didn’t want blood on his precious deck.”

“Well, I completely agree. This is ugly business. Not meant for polite society.”

She could hear the undercurrent of malice in Worthing’s voice when he responded, “Of course, Chief.”

The inspector didn’t notice anything, though, just nodded smugly. If Thomasin cared, she would have noted this newly revealed advantage. The contempt between the two men could be manipulated, stoked. Worthing thought he was in charge of their little scheme, but the chief inspector was surehewas the one in charge. That was a weakness that Thomasin could easily exploit. A sly word here, a nudge there, and she could have them at each other’s throats. Which would provide the perfect opportunity for Thomasin to slip away.