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“Is that why you look so disheveled?” Elle’s mouth pulled into a self-satisfied moue. “He could get it cheaper across the street.”

“The dishevelment is the fault of your brother, actually.” Lore turned and leaned against the counter. “And barbs about Madam’s girls don’t suit you, Elle-Flower. It’s work like any other. To think otherwise just proves you dull.”

Another eye roll. Elle made a face when she sipped her weak tea, and sharp satisfaction hitched Lore’s smile higher. She took a long, luxurious swallow of coffee and drifted toward the stairs. There’d been a message waiting for her at the tavern—Val needed her help with a drop today. It was risky business, having her work while she was deep undercover with another operation, but hands were low. People kept getting hired out from under them on the docks.

And Lore had skills that no one else did.

She’d have to come up with an excuse for why she’d be gone all day, but if she woke Michal up with some kissing, he wouldn’t question her further. She found herself smiling at the idea. She liked kissing Michal. That was dangerous.

The smile dropped.

The stairs of the row house were rickety, like pretty much everything else in the structure, and the fourth one squeaked something awful. Lore winced when her heel ground into it, sloshing coffee over the side of her mug and burning her fingers.

Michal was sitting up when Lore pushed aside the ratty curtain closing off their room, sheets tangled around his waist and dripping off the mattress to pool on the floor. It was unclear whether it was the squeaking stair or her loud curse when she burned herself that had woken him.

He pushed his dark hair out of his eyes, squinted. “Coffee?”

“Last cup, but I’ll share if you come get it.”

“That’s generous, since I assume you need it.” He grumbled as he levered himself up from the floor-bound mattress, holding the sheet around his naked hips. “You had another nightmare last night. Thrashed around like the Night Witch herself was after you.”

Her cheeks colored, but Lore just shrugged. The nightmares were a recent development, and random. She could never remember much about them, only vague impressions that didn’t quite match with the terrified feeling they left behind. Blue, open sky, a churning sea. Some dark shape twisting through the air, like smoke but thicker.

Lore held out the coffee. “Sorry if I kept you awake.”

“At least you didn’t scream this time.” Michal took a long drink from her proffered mug, though his face twisted up when he swallowed. “No milk?”

“Elle used the last of it.” Lore shrugged and took the cup back, draining the rest.

Michal ran a hand through his hair to tame it into submission while he bent to pull clothes from the piles on the floor. The sheet fell, and Lore allowed herself a moment to ogle.

“I have another drop today,” he said as he got dressed. “So I’ll probably be gone until the evening.”

That made her life much easier. Lore propped her hips on the windowsill and watched him dress, hoping her relief didn’t show on her face. “Gilbert is working you hard.”

“Demand has gone up, and the team is dwindling. People keep getting hired on the docks to move cargo, getting paid more than Gilbert can afford to match.” Michal gave the room a narrow-eyed survey before spotting his boot beneath a pile of sheets in the corner. “The Presque Mort and the bloodcoats have all been busy getting ready for the Sun Prince’s Consecration tomorrow, and everyone is taking advantage of them having their proverbial backs turned.”

It seemed like Gilbert was doing far more business during the security lull than was wise, but that wasn’t Lore’s problem. That’s what she told herself, at least, when worry for Michal squeezed a fist around her insides. “Must be some deeply holy Consecration they’re planning, if the Presque Mort are invited. They aren’t known for being the best party guests.”

Michal huffed a laugh as he pulled his boots on. “Especially not if your party includes poison.” He rolled his neck, working out stiffness from their rock-hard mattress, and stood.

“Be careful tonight,” Lore said, then immediately clenched her teeth. She hadn’t meant to say it. She hadn’t meant to mean it.

A lazy smile lifted his mouth. Michal sauntered over, cupped her face in his hands. “Are you worried about me, Lore?”

She scowled but didn’t shake him off. “Don’t get used to it.”

A laugh rumbled through his chest, pressed against her own, and then his lips were on hers. Lore sighed and kissed him back, her hands wrapping around his shoulders, tugging him close.

It’d be over soon, so she might as well enjoy it while it lasted.

Despite Michal’s warmth, Lore still felt like shivering. She could feel Mortem everywhere—the cloth of Michal’s shirt, the stones in the street outside, the chipped ceramic of the mug on the windowsill. Even as her awareness of it grew, a steady climb over the last few months, she was usually able to ignore it, but Pierre’s unexpected foxglove had thrown her off balance. Mortem wasn’t as thick here on the outskirts of Dellaire as it was closer to the Citadel—closer to the Buried Goddess’s body far beneath it, leaking the magic of death—but it was still enough to make her skin crawl.

The Harbor District, on the southern edge of Dellaire, was as far as Mortem would let her go. She could try to hop a ship, try to trek out on the winding roads that led into the rest of Auverraine, but it’d be pointless. The threads of Mortem would just wind her back, woven into her very marrow. She was tied into this damn city as surely as death was tied into life, as surely as the crescent moon burned into the bottom curve of her palm.

Michal’s mouth found her throat, and she arched into him, closing her eyes tight. Her fingers clawed into his hair, and his arm cinched around her waist like he might lift her up, carry her to their mattress on the floor, make her forget that this was something finite.

The fact that she wanted to forget was enough to make her push him away, masking it as playful. “You don’t want to be late.”