We stopped outside the low fence. On the other side was a small garden, and then a grand two-story house made of white marble. Moonlight fell across the red-painted door and glinted against the tall windows beside it.
“How do you know that no one lives here?” Paige asked. “Look.” She jerked her chin towards the building. “There are curtains in those windows. If a house is unoccupied, it doesn’t usually have curtains.”
Next to me, Henry chuckled. “So, you’ve got burglary on that already rather extensive resume of yours too?”
“Says the guy working for a dark mage.”
“Deflecting, huh? Suspicious.”
“I’m a forger.” She raised her chin and tried to give Henry an offended look. It worked terribly when she had to crane her neck to look up at him. “Not a burglar.”
“So how did you know about the curtains?”
“I usually hire a thief when I need to… acquire an original. But sometimes when it’s a document I don’t want others to know about, I carry out the acquisition myself.”
Amusement pulled at his lips as he raised his eyebrows at her. “By burgling the place?”
“I…” Drawing her eyebrows down in a mock scowl, she slapped his ribs with the back of her hand. “Shut up. My point is, that’s usually what a house looks like from the outside when there are people inside.” She turned back to me and Audrey. “So how do you know that it’s empty?”
“We stayed here when we came to kidnap Lance last time,” I said. “The people who owned the house were renting it out because they’d moved to Malgrave.”
“They might have come back.”
“They haven’t.”
“When we were in Malgrave, we tracked them down,” Audrey picked up. She paused for a few seconds and then cleared her throat. “And bought the house from them.”
Both Henry and Paige’s eyebrows shot up. Levi only watched us with cunning eyes, his expression betraying nothing.
“You’ve bought this house?” Paige blurted out, and swung an arm towards the building. “Why?”
Audrey and I exchanged a long look.
Then she lifted her shoulders in a light shrug. “For the future.”
For a moment, no one said anything. Then it was as if a candle was lit behind both Henry and Paige’s eyes when they finally connected the dots. Matching grins bloomed on their faces.
“Aww,” Paige began. “That’s so—”
Embarrassment flickered across Audrey’s face, and she held up a hand. “Do not finish that sentence.”
“I agree,” Henry said. His damn eyes practically glittered as he turned to grin at me. “That’s so—”
“If you say cute, I’m gonna kick your ass.”
He snorted. “Yeah, ’cause that’s worked out so well for you before.”
“There won’t be a future for any of you,” Levi drawled before I could retort. Cocking his head, he shot a pointed look between us and the house. “Unless you stop this insufferable bickering and go unlock that door right now.”
Audrey gave him a lethal smile. “Careful now. Or I might make you sleep out here on the street instead.”
My whole body tensed, and I snapped my gaze to Levi. But he only watched her with a matching lethal smile on his own lips while she breezed past him and sauntered up to the door.
It still shocked me that he didn’t retaliate when she said things like that. If anyone, literally anyone else, had spoken to him with such blatant disrespect, he would’ve made them crawl at his feet and grovel for mercy. But for some reason, he tolerated Audrey’s sharp tongue. It made me wonder what his wife was like. Whether she possessed an equally sharp tongue and if that was why Levi tolerated Audrey’s too.
The faint jasmine scent that had hung in the night air outside disappeared when we all stepped across the threshold and closed the red front door behind us. I scanned the hallway ahead. It looked exactly the same as last time we’d been here.
Emotions crashed over me. They were so intense that I had to brace myself on the smooth marble wall. There were so many memories in this house.
This was the place where I had locked Audrey into that empty third room for almost half a day. It was where she had almost poisoned me to death when I asked her about her family. The place where I had told her about my childhood. Where I had ripped open her dress and then washed her hair and body for her after she had helped me bury a dead body in the parliament gardens. It was the place where we had kissed for the first time. And fucked for the first time.
My heart squeezed almost painfully when I swept my gaze over the darkened hall and the rooms visible beyond.
This house, right here, was where I had begun falling in love with Audrey Sable.
A slim hand slid into mine. I blinked, pulled out of my memories, and glanced down to find Audrey standing next to me. There was a soft smile on her lips as she looked up at me, as if she had been thinking the exact same thing. I squeezed her hand.
“So…” Henry began a bit awkwardly. “Sleeping arrangements?”
Realizing that the silence had begun to stretch, I cleared my throat while Audrey released my hand again. “There are three rooms upstairs, but only two of them have a bed.”
“Since this is your house, I’m assuming you two will be taking the master bedroom?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll take the other room then,” Levi announced.
I shifted my gaze to him and said carefully, “It’s a double bed.”
He just looked back at me, challenge dancing over his sharp cheekbones. “Good.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if—”
“I’ll take the couch,” Henry interrupted. Dragging a hand through his brown hair, he shrugged. “We should be able to get another bed delivered here sometime tomorrow, so it’s just for one night.”
“I’ll join you,” Paige said in a surprisingly cheerful voice, and nodded at Henry.
A satisfied smirk slid home on Levi’s mouth. Bastard. Given how friendly Henry and Paige had become these past few weeks, I was pretty sure they wouldn’t have minded sharing the double bed. That would’ve meant that only one person had to sleep on the couch. But because the arrogant King of Metal would never lower himself to such a thing, two people now had to take the couch while he commandeered the bed. Hell, I couldn’t wait for us to finish this mission so that he could go back to his damn kingdom in Malgrave.
“Excellent,” Levi said, that smug expression still on his face. “Now that that’s settled, what’s the plan for tomorrow?”
“As Audrey said back at Grant’s mansion, we can’t break into the academy to get the blade,” Paige said. “It’s impenetrable.”
I nodded. “Which is why the plan is to get them to take it to us.”
“Correct,” Audrey filled in. “And for that, we’ll need leverage.” She ran a hand along her jaw before shrugging one shoulder. “As I said earlier, a few loved ones usually does the trick.”
Levi gave her an approving nod.
“Only problem is,” Henry began. “How do we find them?”
“Or rather, how do we find the most effective ones?” Audrey continued. “Kidnapping someone’s wife and threatening her life won’t matter if the husband doesn’t actually care about her. We need to know exactly which loved one’s safety will make the members of parliament come crawling to the negotiating table.”
“Uhm, excuse me.” Paige flapped her hands in the air and raised her eyebrows while looking from face to face. “Did you forget the part where I’ve been the most sought-after forger in Eldar’s entire criminal underworld for the past six years?”
Audrey chuckled. “Humble too.”
“Shut it, Miss-oh-tremble-before-your-dark-mage-queen.” She failed pretty spectacularly at keeping the amusement from her face as she tried to glower at Audrey. “You’re not exactly the epitome of humility yourself.”
While trying to suppress her own smile, Audrey lifted her hands in surrender.
“Thank you.” Paige flicked her wavy blond hair behind her shoulder. “Now, where was I? Oh, right. I’m a very well-connected person in the underworld, which means that I have contacts who can find out what we need.”
“Alright then, problem solved.” I gave her an appreciative nod. “Let’s pay them a visit tomorrow.”
Everyone murmured agreement and nodded back.
Hoisting my pack up onto my shoulders again, I started towards the staircase farther down the hall. Behind me, Henry and Paige talked softly while drifting over to check out the dining room and the other large room meant for socializing that was located across the hall from it. Both Audrey and Levi followed me.
“Your room is on the right,” I spoke over my shoulder to Levi as we ascended the steps.
He didn’t answer, but I hadn’t really been expecting him to either. Instead, he just branched off as soon as we reached the upper floor and disappeared into his room. The door shut with a click behind him.
I set course for the master bedroom, but to my surprise, Audrey just walked right past it. Trailing to a halt outside the door, I blinked at her as she sauntered down the corridor.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To take a bath.” Turning around, she flashed me a sly smile while continuing to walk backwards. “You coming?”
Warmth flooded my chest.
With a wide smile on my lips, I followed my brilliant poison mage towards the bathroom and the luxurious sunken bath that had just been waiting for us to return and relive some old memories.
