Page 14 of A Steeping of Blood (Blood and Tea #2)

FLICK

It wasn’t Flick’s first time riffling through the Ram’s ledger, but time hadn’t made it any easier.

The sight of her mother’s script transported Flick back to the Linden Estate, where she would try to catch her mother’s attention for a conversation over tea or breakfast or anytime, really, while Lady Linden jotted away at something or another.

The vanity in her words leaped off the page, the self-importance loud in the way she had signed off on the documents that were folded and tucked into the ledger.

Everywhere Flick looked was another reminder: Her mother was not a good person.

The signs had been blatant since Flick was imprisoned inside her own house, but a part of her had known long before she’d even begun forging out of her bedroom. She’d simply never pieced together the sentence. She’d never thought the words with such certainty and finality until now.

And it made Flick utterly sad.

Lonely too, in a way, until the emotion was washed away by a sudden presence drawing near, sifting through her thoughts.

“Close it, love,” Jin said beside her gently. Neither Matteo nor Arthie were paying them any heed. “That’s it.”

She dropped the cover and immediately felt a knot loosen in her chest.

“Better?” he asked.

How did he know she was struggling? That she saw her mother on every page?

She tilted her head back, and when her curls fell away, it was to find him close.

Her lips parted in surprise, and his eyes followed the movement.

His features softened, the anger in his gaze that he’d held since their reunion slipping away until it was just him again.

The old Jin.

The one she had kissed in an alcove of the Athereum meeting hall.

The one she had watched from afar for weeks as she worked with the Casimirs, wholly aware of his reputation with other girls across White Roaring even as she wished he would notice her.

She had missed the way he said her name, the way it rolled off his tongue with ease and slammed to a halt at the end, as if he was holding it back, as if he never wanted to let her go.

I’m sorry , Flick wanted to say. It’s my mother’s fault you can never enjoy a pastry again. It’s my mother’s fault you died .

“If anything, learning she’s the Ram is a good thing,” Jin said, and goodness , she had forgotten what it was like to hear the dips and rises of his musing tone.

Still, she furrowed her brow in confusion.

“It’s ever more obvious that someone like you can never be associated with someone like that,” Jin explained. “You’re too good for her.”

She ducked her head, her neck aflame. What a delight it was, to be seen. His words wrapped her in an embrace she’d craved since that night as she had huddled in silence and isolation from place to place.

“All right?” he asked, leaning closer. His hair fell over his eyes, the tattoo on his neck catching the lantern light.

Little heron , he said his parents had nicknamed him as a child.

Was he anxious to see them? Were they the same people as when he was younger, or had they, too, changed like Flick’s mother?

“All right,” she whispered. She only needed to tilt her chin up a little higher to close the distance between them and their lips would touch.

She didn’t dare move.

“—really, Arthie,” Matteo was saying before he turned back to Flick.

She pulled away from Jin with a quick breath. Her pulse raced like a hummingbird’s wings, and when he cast her a sideways glance, she knew he had heard it.

“Ceylan as in the island?” Matteo asked. “Surely you’re not serious.”

Jin straightened, and Flick felt the warmth dissipate, along with her embarrassment. She was almost grateful for the distraction. Almost.

“Do any of us look like we’re having a grand time right now?” Jin asked. “Of course she’s serious.”

Between them, Arthie looked stricken, hollow. She hadn’t looked great since her argument with Jin, but now she appeared worse.

Flick remembered that Arthie had fled from Ceylan years ago. What would it be like to return to a graveyard of one’s past self? That was how she imagined going back to the Linden Estate would be—and she had only been away from it for weeks.

A slow and lonely leak in a corner of the storeroom plinked in the heavy silence.

Jin was at war with himself. Flick could see him wanting to say something and holding himself back by gritting his teeth.

Matteo, surprisingly, shared the same uncertainty.

Flick saw him step to Arthie’s side and reach for her before dropping his hands to his sides, fingers flexing as if he was fighting the urge to touch her.

As if he had no qualms himself but wasn’t sure how Arthie would react.

Did Flick not feel the same? Every fiber of her being craved that nearness, to be close to Jin, to touch him, to make up for the excruciating days they’d spent apart.

“Did you know that the peakies wanted control of Ceylan because of its prime position in the ocean? Almost every trade route runs through there, granting an easy refuel port to every kingdom, country, and empire we know of,” Arthie said. She sounded like she was reading from a schoolbook.

“Boss?” Chester asked finally, reaching for her hand.

Arthie swallowed. It was business to the Ram, duvin to be had. For Arthie, it had been home.

“Right,” she said, though she still sounded distant. Detached from herself. Her hand strayed to her pistol and stayed there. “I—I wasn’t anticipating needing to leave Ettenia, or even White Roaring.”

Let alone go to Ceylan .

Flick heard her unspoken words, but as she watched, Arthie rearranged herself. As though she were breaking off pieces of herself and tucking them away, out of sight and thus out of mind.

“Yet, here we are,” she said, her tone resolute, and Flick could have imagined they were back in Spindrift, in control of the situation and resources, their future gripped tight in Arthie’s hand as she spelled out the perfect plan.

“That’s why Penn didn’t tell us Jin’s parents are alive.

He knew we’d go to Ceylan. He knew I’d go. ”

She stopped and dropped her gaze before she could say any more. Penn had been trying to protect them. Had he been trying to retrieve Jin’s parents himself before his untimely death?

Arthie walked over to one of the crates, and the others gravitated toward her as if they had no choice in the matter. She pulled out a card from her jacket and set it down on the mottled wood, the edges foiled in gold. It was the invitation.

“Someone at the Athereum had this. Several someones. Lords and ladies, of course, ones I didn’t even know were vampires,” Arthie said, tapping it on the crate.

“Apparently, only the upper echelon of White Roaring will be in attendance. We’re barely just bouncing back after a week, and the Ram is already making strides.

First a headline blaspheming Spindrift, now this. ”

Jin took it, reading through. “She’s hosting a tribute to the fallen press that she herself obliterated? What a woman.”

Flick wasn’t particularly proud of the way his words stung.

“And we’re going,” Arthie said, sitting on the crate.

Matteo was studying her. “You think it’s a cover.”

“Indeed, and if she wants to make a show of herself in front of high society, I want us all there. We’ll give them a show.”

Flick heard the promise in Arthie’s voice. She didn’t know what Arthie had planned—she didn’t think Arthie herself knew just yet, but there was no refuting the certainty in her tone.

“But first, Ceylan,” Arthie said. “The island might be smaller than Ettenia, but we know little of the Ram’s actual operations, neither the layout nor locations. Flick, keep reading through the ledger. Tell me everything.”

“Nor can we verify that my parents are truly there,” Jin reminded her, sitting down and setting his umbrella across his legs.

“As of six weeks ago, the Siwangs were in Ceylan,” Arthie said, gesturing to the ledger.

“When Laith came to us with the deal, the ledger had only just been stolen by Penn. That was less than a month ago. Enough time to change warehouses, perhaps, but an operation in a different country? Unlikely. We still have reason to trust the ledger—especially considering the fact that the Ram hasn’t stopped hunting Flick since that night.

And let’s not forget she burned down Spindrift for it. ”

Arthie had a point—several points, really.

“What’s our plan for the Siwangs?” Matteo asked.

“ SS and SS to administer before release ,” Arthie repeated. “That’s clear enough for me to assume they’re a step in whatever the Ram needs done.”

“Are they the good guys?” Chester asked dubiously.

Flick didn’t know if one could work for the Ram for a decade and still remain a good guy. There was a pause, as if everyone felt the same but was collectively waiting for Jin’s input on the question. He clenched his jaw and said nothing.

“It doesn’t matter,” Arthie finally said. “We’ll swoop in and snatch them away. It’ll put a stop to the process, even if temporary. Then we’ll bring them here and take a page out of Penn’s original plan of gathering proof. Like the ledger, the moment they’re with us, they work for us.”

She waited for Jin’s protest, but he remained quiet.

“We’re going there for the missing vampires too,” Matteo reminded, looking up from the ledger. He was holding Flick’s cipher in one hand. “There’s still no mention of the vampires being deployed to the Ram’s battles, which means they’re on Ceylan. We can’t just leave them there.”

Flick thought he had a point.

Emotion coiled in Matteo’s exhale. “Many of those missing vampires are my friends, but beyond that, they’re reminders that I could have been snatched from the streets myself. Any of us three could have and still can.”

Flick did not want to think of that reality. She felt for the missing vampires, but realizing it could have been one of them, one of her closest friends, or Jin , sent her pulse into a frenzy.