Page 58 of Reap & Sow

“No, indeed.” Kit trailed a nail along the desk, scraping. “Your children, however…”

Eda’s stomach dropped.

Wolfram put down his glass. “Do not play with me, Kit’rath.”

“Who’s playing?”

“I have known you some twenty years. Little we’ve conversed in that time, but you are no stranger to me. You know my children’s names. Knew them in the cradle. How dare you—”

“And I can know them in the grave, if I decide to put them there.”

“You are bluffing.”

“Are you willing to find out?”

Wolfram hesitated. In a flash, Kit’s claws were out. The window was thrown open—

“Stop!” Wolfram cried.

Kit paused, crouched like a jungle cat on the sill. The sound of a girl’s playful laughter carried on the breeze.

Eda realized she’d moved to stop him, too, hand outstretched. “Kit,” she hissed.

Molten eyes slid toward her in a gray visage, level and calculating. Fear rushed through her like a tide. What could she do if he really wanted to hurt those children? What could anyone do? He wouldn’t, she told herself. He wouldn’t.

Hated that she wasn’t sure.

“You’ve made your point,” Wolfram said, gripping his desk. “I will help you.”

“How?” Kit did not move.

“I have—I can get plans of the keep. The layout. I can have them brought here within the hour. I’ve a man inside the Order who could retrieve them without a recorded request. The keep is old, and the original records show forgotten passages that don’t officially exist. There’s a reason the Order keeps such documents to themselves.”

“Will that be enough?” Eda dared to ask. Her disdain for the man lessened some, to see him so concerned for his children.

“It is the best I can do for you without implicating myself. I care about this city, Miss Shaw. My city. I cannot keep it safe from the inside of a cell.”

Whether personal greed had first spurred Abelard Wolfram to make a deal with a demon, his dedication to Blackbridge didn’t seem false. Eda’s mind raced ahead of herself. “Tenelle has suspicions of the bishop. If you want to stay above her reproach and help the people, you could do worse than work with her to unearth Florian’s role in all of this. The Gateway…he must still have access to it. It might be enough to prove his treason.”

The room hung quiet. Wolfram huffed. “For a girl who has made some very ill-advised decisions”—his eyes slid to Kit—“you are not entirely witless. I see now why Kit’rath chose you to break his streak of abstinence.”

Eda set her jaw. “I chose him, actually.”

Kit snickered. Some of that unbearable tension bled away, but Eda stood pinned beneath Wolfram’s scrutiny. She wondered if it was the witch he saw now or the woman.

She feared she might be both.

Sixteen

They left through an ivy-covered gate in the back garden, Kit trotting beside her on deft paws. Eda refastened her mantle, mindful of the leather-bound plans folded inside her cloak pocket. She blabbered as they walked, if only because he couldn’t interrupt her.

“It might actually work. I mean, these are genuine historical documents. Over two hundred years old! The governor mentioned security protocols, too, which will be immensely helpful. The fact that he even let us have this—” She paused. In the shadow beneath an overstreet bridge, Eda regarded her feline companion warily. She’d almost forgotten why the governor had given them such valuable papers. “You didn’t mean it, did you? When you threatened his children.”

Kit transformed in a swirl of smoke. “It worked well enough.”

Indignation stirred. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Abelard believed I’d hurt them, if I felt I had to.”