Page 22 of By the Horns (Royal Artifactual Guild #2)

Thirteen

Raptor

Rooster to Raptor: The entire shipment due to go to the south has gone missing. Tell me you have an update.

Raptor to Rooster: When there’s an update, I’ll let you know.

I’m on edge as Gwenna goes to bed early Fifthday night, citing a headache. She’s still in bed the next morning when I wake up, and I take my time dressing in my uniform, waiting to see if she’ll address me. She doesn’t, though, just pulls the blankets over her head and rolls over.

We’re supposed to go to the wedding of Master Siskin and Artificer Tern later today, but I’m concerned. Gwenna hasn’t been herself since she raced to the necessary yesterday and emerged a while later, eyes red from weeping.

Was it something I said?

Kipp is in the kitchen when I head over, and I grab a handful of nuts and several apples, eating as I ponder the problem with Gwenna. “She said anything to you?” I ask him.

He shrugs, settling his large shell in the corner of the kitchen. Last weekend, he’d moved his shell house to a warm corner in the kitchen near the hearth and moved it back to his bed when Master Jay scolded him. I suspect he’s going to move it in every weekend. Good for him.

“You know her better than I do. Think I hurt her feelings somehow?”

Kipp huffs, shaking his head. He finishes settling his shell in place, gives it a friendly pat, and then scrambles onto the table. He picks up a handful of berries and sits across from me on the tabletop, regarding me with a serene expression.

“You’d think I’d be better with women, given that I’ve bedded so many,” I tell him ruefully. “But in my life, women have usually just one role, and not a good one. I spend the rest of my time with artificers, either moving through tunnels or rescuing them when they get lost.”

Kipp eats a berry, watching me.

“I’m just trying to be respectful of her is all,” I say between bites.

He nods once, then continues eating a blueberry like I would an apple.

“If I muck something up, you’ll tell me? I’d rather know than have to tiptoe around, guessing.”

The slitherskin pops the rest of his berry into his mouth and tackles the next one, nodding again.

“Do you know what’s bothering her? Did she tell you?”

He taps his nose and gives me a look.

“Good talk.” I knock on the table twice. “Let’s do this again.”

With my last apple in hand, I exit the kitchen, only to run into Gwenna. She has a bag in her arms and gives me a surprised look.

“There you are. You—”

“If you’ll excuse me, I have to go to the necessary.” She darts away before I can finish my words, and as she does, a metallic scent trails after her. Blood.

Aaaaaah. Her menses.

Hot relief hits me. That I haven’t somehow mucked this up and she doesn’t hate me. I don’t know why it matters so much, just that it does. I enjoy talking to her. I like her sass and her pert responses. I like that she doesn’t make it easy for me.

Sarya crosses my mind, and hot guilt replaces my relief.

I’ve not gone to any of the brothels in search of her recently.

I feel as if I’m abandoning her. It’s just that being in a Five is time-consuming, and I’m supposed to be watching everyone for Hawk and Head Guild Master Rooster.

Add in my concern over Gwenna and the extra tutoring I’ll be giving her and… well.

I’ll go looking for Sarya tomorrow, I decide.

The wedding and Gwenna today, the hunt for the woman of my dreams tomorrow.

I’m putting off Sarya again, but it’s the last time.

No more potions for me. The one I took a few days ago is going to be my last. It’s messing up my priorities.

It’ll mean I’ll crave sex, but hopefully I can find Sarya before it starts to become a real problem.

I find ways to keep myself busy while I wait for Gwenna to emerge from the necessary without making it seem like I’m waiting on her.

Both Hemmen and Arrod have taken the weekend as an opportunity to disappear.

Neither one is in the nest this morning.

I should be bothered by that—one of the core tenets of a working Five is that you’re close and get along.

But I’m too set in my ways. I’m older than them and crabby at the thought of babysitting a pair of idiots, especially when one might be our thief.

Hmm.

Now’s the perfect time for me to check their belongings to see if they really are thieves.

I head to the dormitory room and make my bed, tucking the blankets tightly under the too-small mattress that I wish curses upon every evening.

Gwenna’s bed is made, and Kipp’s is undisturbed except for a circular ripple in the blankets where he’d kept his shell atop the folded coverlets.

Hemmen’s bed is made, Arrod’s is not. I glance around the room, then mess up Hemmen’s bed.

Then I get to work “making” their beds again.

I flip the mattresses and feel all along the undersides, looking for holes.

I shake out the blankets. I beat the pillows.

I peer under the beds. When none of that leads anywhere, I dig through Hemmen’s bag, and then Arrod’s.

There’s nothing of interest. Hemmen’s bag just has a couple of books in it and a box of old letters, and Arrod’s has nothing but clothing and what might be the ugliest velvet hat I’ve ever seen.

Annoyed, I move to shove everything back into Arrod’s bag when I notice Kipp standing by the double doors.

He has another berry in his hand, casually eating it as he watches me ransack their things.

“Lost a sock,” I tell him to explain away my actions. Never mind that Taurians don’t wear socks. Or shoes.

He just licks his eyeball with that long tongue of his and goes back to eating his berry. When he finishes it, he turns and walks away. Huh.

I’m tempted to check his bed, too, but whatever he has of value would be in his shell, and it’s currently in the kitchen.

I toss Arrod’s bag back into its spot by the head of the bed just as Gwenna enters the room, wearing a pretty dress and a tightly fitting bodice over a fluffy white chemise.

She touches her black hair, which has been braided into a crown atop her head, and her cheeks grow pink as I regard her.

“Is my braid crooked?” she asks. “It’s bloody hard to braid without a mirror. ”

“Come here and I’ll check it for you,” I say, waving her toward me.

She approaches without hesitation, sitting on the edge of my bed.

She smells like flowers, soap, and fresh cotton, the tang of blood only a slight note now.

I don’t mind it, as long as I know she’s not in pain.

Even so, I’m aware of her tears from yesterday, and I play with how to approach that in my mind even as I unbraid her hair for her. “Let me redo this for you.”

“I don’t mean to be a bother.”

“You say that a lot.”

She hesitates. “It’s a bad habit of mine. I worked as a maid for a very long time before coming here.”

“Ah. So you’re more comfortable being invisible.” I finish unbraiding her hair and shake it loose.

“Precisely. Invisible is safe in a lot of ways. If you’re invisible, no one points out that the shelves need dusting. No handing you chores just because you happen to be standing nearby. No men deciding that because you’re a servant, you’re fair game.”

I bite back a growl.

“It’s a difficult habit to break.” She tilts her head slightly, leaning into my touch. “I had no idea you were so good at braiding.”

“I have three younger sisters, and they liked ribbons braided into their manes,” I tell her, my fingers brushing against her scalp.

Her hair is softer and silkier than that of my sisters, but it also has a lot less body to it.

It’s fine and clings to my calluses like cobwebs.

“And occasionally there’s a tunnel rope that has to be braided to reinforce it. ”

“Well, thank you.” She sits tall and straight. “Where are your sisters now? And your parents?”

“Living in a farming village over in the Southwind Plains. It’s called Clover Hollow.”

“It sounds very pastoral.”

“It is, and that’s why I couldn’t wait to leave when I was younger.

” I twine her hair around my fingers as I braid, easily working her smooth locks into a crown once more.

“I wasn’t cut out to be a farmer. I wanted adventure, so I left for here as soon as one of my sisters mated and her mate took over the farm.

My parents live there with them, but they’re both older and don’t quite get the need for adventure. ”

“It’s hard when you don’t want the same thing as your parents,” she agrees.

“Is that your story?” I ask. “Why you’re here?”

“I’m here since someone needed to follow Aspeth—sorry, Sparrow—because I didn’t want her going to Vastwarren alone.

She’s very trusting, and I worried someone would take advantage of her.

” Her hands are clasped calmly in her lap.

“It didn’t occur to me until we stepped foot in the city that I could become an artificer, too.

I thought I’d spend my entire life working at Honori Hold.

The highest I’d be able to reach would be that I might end up as a chambermaid to whatever lady Lord Honori remarried. ”

“Sounds…dull.”

“Oh, it is.” She chuckles, the sound soft and rueful. “In a way, coming here has ruined me. Now that I see I can be something other than a maid, it’ll break me if I have to go back to it. I’ll do anything to stay.”

Gwenna says it so casually, so cheerfully, that I pause to absorb what she’s said. Anything, huh? Said like a true thief. The part of me that’s supposed to be looking for clues about the culprit knows that this is vital information I should pass on. That this makes her suspicious.

But the young Taurian male who left his family behind because they didn’t understand why he felt the need to do something other than farming? He knows just what she means.

“I’m going to help you pass,” I tell her. “You don’t have to worry about that. We’ll make it happen.”

“I would appreciate it.” Her voice is soft again. “My mother’s still working in the kitchens, and it’s getting harder and harder on her. I’d love for her to come here and join me, but I can’t afford it. Not yet.”

“And your father?”

“Never met him. Just a visiting lord who thought he could do whatever he wanted with a servant.”

I digest that, and decide it makes me angry. “If you ever find out who it is, let me know and I’ll cram my big Taurian fist down his throat.”

She laughs. “You’re eager to punch some throats.”

“I really am.” But more than that, I like her laughter.

I like making her smile, because it feels like I’ve done something important to earn that instead of her tartness.

I finish her braid, and when she hands me a pin, I tuck it into the end to anchor the tail of her hair underneath the plait so it doesn’t show. “All done.”

Gwenna touches it carefully and then tilts her head back to smile at me. “You did an excellent job.”

“Like I said, three sisters.” I offer her a hand to stand up, and she takes it. I study her expression carefully. “You don’t have to go to the wedding with me if you don’t feel up to it. I noticed you cried yesterday.”

“Oh.” She manages a fainter smile and pulls her hand from mine, crossing the room. “Those were just…emotional tears. A lot has been on my mind lately, and one worry was taken off my plate, so to speak.”

A worry off her plate? That’s suspicious. I keep my voice casual, even though my senses are on alert. “And do you have a lot of worries?”

“You have no idea.” She says the words cheerfully, but it feels forced.

It also mucking pisses me off, because the more she says shit like that, the more I worry she’s the thief after all.

She’s too likeable to be the piece of shit that the guild’s been trying to catch, but she’s also making me wonder what’s going on.

“You wanna try me?” I give her a teasing smile. “I can be a really good listener.”

“They’re not your problems.” She smooths a hand down the front of her dress. “And this is all I have to wear that’s suitable for a wedding. I don’t have to go if I’ll embarrass you. I really do understand.”

I eye her, with her round, pink cheeks and her black, glossy hair pulled into an unadorned braid-crown.

Her clothing is plain and clearly mended more than once if you look closely.

Her skirt is a dark shade of blue with no adornment, and her bodice is a deep brown with only a frayed ribbon sewn along the scooped neck as a nod to fanciness.

She wears no jewelry, but to me, she’s stunningly beautiful.

Her magnificent cleavage is shown off by the bodice that plumps her breasts and reveals a nipped waist. She’s short and curvy, but it’s the sparkle in her eye that I can’t look away from.

If she’s the thief, it’s smart for me to get in close and learn all her secrets. Seduce her to find out information. Become her confidant. But if she is the thief, it’ll absolutely gut me.

I hold my hand out to her. “I would be honored to have such a lovely date for the wedding.”

Gwenna puts her hand in mine with a smile.