Page 15 of Reap & Sow

He stood in the foyer, eyes everywhere as he took in the surrounding maze of shelves, the eclectic collection of curiosities swelling about the borders of the room. He grinned and mimed at her, Nice stuff!

Eda rolled her eyes.

She pointed him toward the back of the shop through the stacks. Gregory turned away and raised his hand in a gesture of acknowledgment. As he did, his sleeve fell back. Something reflective caught the edges of the moonlight before he was swallowed by the dark.

Eda stopped. Her heartbeat stuttered.

Chainmail.

No. She was just on edge, jumping to absurd conclusions. It could have been anything. A silver bracelet, perhaps.

On the wrist of a man with supposedly nothing to his name.

Eda’s mind spun in a death roll, quicker even than her pulse. He’d asked her who was in the house. Why?

That little voice of warning that sounded so like Ben hissed, He’d care to know what sort of protection you had.

Poor men at betting tables did not wear chainmail. No common citizen had access to such a thing, let alone a reason to wear it. Was he even drunk? Eda realized that she hadn’t actually seen Gregory take a sip of anything at the Crooked Hand. He didn’t smell like alcohol. The group he was with—none of them were drinking, either. They’d been clean and well fed. She’d noted as much and still hadn’t considered what it might mean.

The possibility whistled in Eda’s ears like a howling wind.

A Blade.

She had no idea they operated in disguise like this.

He’ll notice that I’m not behind him. He’ll sense something amiss. Numbly, Eda followed in Gregory’s wake, slipping between the stacks. She thought frantically of what to do, how to get out of this, how to make it all go away. She could be wrong, but if she wasn’t…saints. Ben and Lawrie were asleep upstairs; they had no idea—

Calm down. This time, the voice was butter soft and dark as burned sugar. She thought of clever ice-chip eyes. You know exactly what you need to do.

Eda scanned the shelves, cursing her mortal eyesight. A weapon. She’d feel better with something more substantial than her little penknife to hand, if it came to it.

She grasped at the items crowding the bottom shelf, desperate. There! A fire poker, from a mid-century collection Lawrie kept meticulously arranged like flowers in a vase. She recognized it without being able to see the swirling design in the dark. Eda drew it out, held it behind her back.

Around the next corner, Gregory’s dark silhouette waited by the cellar. His head turned. “What’s taking so long?”

She’d thought his ease with making a Pact had been mere drunk bravado. Maybe it was all an act. A trap she’d walked right into. “Sorry.” Her heart pounded. Strike him, that velvet voice whispered urgently. Strike him now, while he’s unprepared.

She could not make out Gregory’s expression. “It’s in here, right?” he said. “The mirror?”

Eda froze. Her palm flexed cold and clammy around the poker. Very few people knew the form Gateways usually took, and she’d never mentioned a mirror. Not to him.

“I…I need the key. It’s still in the foyer. Let me…”

She spun away. She needed to wake Ben and Lawrie. She couldn’t just attack him, not on her own. Not if there was any chance she was wrong.

Footsteps rushed toward her.

Eda twisted in alarm. She lashed out.

Gregory was quicker. He snatched her wrist, blocking her swing. Dim moonlight reflected in his eyes as he glanced pointedly at the poker, trapped between them like a sword. “That’s not very nice.”

Then he struck her in the face.

Five

Eda’s swimming head had room for only two thoughts. The first: Being punched really bloody hurt. The second: She had to get away. Now.

She ignored the searing pain in her mouth—he’d cut the inside of her lip—and scrambled to get up where she’d fallen. Gregory dove on her. She inhaled to scream, but his hand closed around her throat.