Page 81 of A Steeping of Blood (Blood and Tea #2)
ARTHIE
It was a quiet morning, one Arthie hadn’t seen too often as of late.
The paper announcing the Ram’s removal from office, her numerous scandals, and a recounting of the Tribute to the Written Word three weeks ago sat on a table beside a collection of paints and brushes soaking in a glass, awaiting their master.
He would never return.
Arthie spent most of her days here in the studio inside Matteo’s house. Turmoil still lingered on the streets and Sidharth had warned her it might not be safe, but Arthie could handle herself.
The Council had resumed control in the Ram’s ousting until they could appoint a new leader. They had agreed it best to keep the Ram’s identity as a vampire from public knowledge, for it was hard enough washing away the stain she had placed upon vampires as it was.
The humans she had kidnapped returned to their homes, the truth revealed, but despite the Council’s attempts to curtail the public’s anger, it lingered.
It had stemmed from debilitating fear, making it easy to sell one’s sanity to the Ram’s cause.
They wouldn’t so quickly believe vampires to be safe any more than they would see the wrongs in colonizing countries beyond Ettenia.
Arthie wasn’t worried. Like all things, their fears would settle with time as new ones arose. Such was the nature of man. She had seen it in Spindrift day after day as the posh and the privileged sat down for tea despite the open secret of what happened there after-hours.
She rose from Matteo’s armchair by the window, drawing a breath full of that nutty, chocolatey warmth.
She saw him everywhere: in the crisp white shirts she had found in his drawer that made excellent loungewear, in the flutes of blood she now drank without complaint, in the future that didn’t loom with a cruel, masked shadow.
“What are you going to do to his paints?” Chester asked Ivor as he dusted the room.
“Leave them,” Ivor said honestly. “Master Andoni had not painted with such vibrancy in a near decade. I quite like that his work was in bloom after many long years of winter.”
There was a canvas still on the easel, a black backdrop with a single, sweeping stroke of color in its center. A masterpiece never to be finished.
Chester was looking at it, head tilted. “It’s the same color as your hair, boss.”
Arthie knew. “Don’t you have work to do?”
He sighed and pulled Reni with him out of the room. They were in charge of a shipment due from Ceylan soon, an EJC ship helmed by one Captain Silas Vane, its hold full of coconuts for the vampires still recovering from imprisonment on the island.
The presses ran endlessly. They spoke about the Ram stoking the fear of the public unjustly, of weaponizing vampires, and kidnapping humans.
They spoke of Matteo Andoni, the prestigious painter who happened to be a vampire, meeting his demise as he saved the day.
They spoke of the Casimirs who were at the forefront of it all.
Linden was now housed in the deepest, darkest cell the Athereum had to offer. The public might not know she was a vampire, but it was a test of their faith in the Athereum. Those who knew she was a vampire didn’t want to risk placing her in a mortal prison.
Arthie picked up Calibore and crossed the room. Jin had taken Flick to the local bakery for pastries. He wouldn’t eat them, of course, but he would revel in the scents and sate his eyes. Every few days, Flick would send her mother a gift: the newspaper.
For Linden, lady no more, deserved to see what the papers were writing about her “utterly atrocious behavior,” as Flick would say. Her next gift was to be a coconut, which Linden would accept with zeal if she wanted to avoid possibly becoming a Ripper.
By her desk, Arthie turned Calibore over in her hands. The door opened almost soundlessly, and she closed her eyes for a beat, wholly aware of who it was.
“What are you doing?” Laith asked, greeting Opal and rubbing her ears. She purred, curling her tail around his arm.
He had healed from his wounds and was dressed again in robes as white as his hair, only there was no insignia of the Horned Guard embroidered upon them anymore.
Nor did he carry his sister’s snake cuff any longer.
No, he was a free soul now, untethered from the past, and Arthie was gradually beginning to look forward to his daily visits.
She opened the box in front of her and nestled Calibore inside. “Returning it to where it belongs.”
To the Arawiyan king.
It was never hers as much as it was never Ettenia’s to flaunt.
It had become a crutch, but Arthie never needed it when she was a weapon herself.
She smiled at the reminder. The door opened again as Jin and Flick returned, her cheeks pink and his eyes glazed.
Arthie closed the box up, and they watched as she sealed it with a sigh.
“Now what?” Jin asked.
“Well, I have a proposition for you,” Arthie said, handing him a card. He unfolded it and read the words, Flick peering over his shoulder before she let out a gleeful shriek.
“ Arthie, Jin, and Flick, ” Jin read, “ purveyors of blood and tea, present Spindrift at 337 Alms Place. ”
He looked up at her with a grin, and Arthie lifted her brows in question. Jin said not a word, only strode close and rapped his knuckles against hers.
It was all the answer she needed.