Page 51 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Dabney grumbled, retrieving a cloth from his pocket to clean the blood from his claws. “I had hoped that with a little assistance she would have cracked.”

Samuel squared his shoulders, making sure the mask of Lord Aberforth was securely attached before speaking. “I have better things to be doing with my time, and you know it. Besides, aren’t you always boasting about the skill of your Guards? I’m sure they’ll handle it in no time.”

Dabney looked him over from head to toe, assessing. “That is right, Lord Aberforth.”

There was an almost grudging respect there, as if he’d expected Samuel to cry or whine or kick his feet like a child.

Samuel couldn’t lie to himself—he wished he could do all that, but it wouldn’t get him anywhere.

No, if he wanted to do something about Dabney, he would need to get his hands dirty himself.

Perhaps…

No, that was a thought for another time. “Is there anything else you need me for?”

“No,” Dabney muttered. “As you can see, our people have things in hand.”

What an absurd statement. This hadn’t been a fight, it was a beatdown, and every soul in this building knew it.

“Quite.” He slipped his pocket watch away. “What will happen to this place?”

“Well, we have no use for a gambling den, but perhaps we can repurpose it,” Dabney said, that excitement creeping back. “I think this space would make a great Blood Factory, don’t you? Perhaps Miss Lovell will be our most favored guest.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, just that she will be getting a punishment that fits the crime.” He only continued after Samuel gestured for him to, a quiet command to get on with it. “She’s going to suffer for a long time, drained again and again, until she has absolutely nothing left to give.”

Dabney’s smile had turned absolutely feral, his thin lips pulled back to show all his teeth, a hunger for blood that belied the potential that lay at the heart of Blood Working.

He would have made a most terrifying vampire.

“I see.” Samuel turned away to hide the pallor that came over him. There was nothing he could do to stop this. He had to get out of here, send word to the rebellion of what had happened, protect that Blood Healer they were working with.

He had to find a way to contain the threat that was Dabney, permanently.

And, perhaps most pressingly, talk to the one person who might be able to help Monique, if she dared be brave enough to do anything about it.

“I’m taking the carriage,” he announced as he stepped past Dabney, not caring that it inconvenienced the man. “I expect a full written report on my desk by the morning.”

“As my lord commands,” Dabney replied, with only the barest bit of sarcasm, but Samuel did not bother with it.

He needed to get to the Academy.

Samuel cut through the top floor of the Academy with purpose, striding past the tables and low couches, the places where Blood Workers could meet and work together. But Shan wasn’t there—no, she was in her office, behind a closed door, shut out from reality in a cocoon of her own making.

He knocked twice, only to hear her tired voice call out, “Enter.”

The door eased open under his touch, not the slightest creak of the hinges, and Shan didn’t even look up from her work, scribbling furiously in one of her many notebooks.

Long strands of hair hung loose around her face, having slipped from the tight bun, giving her a slightly bedraggled look, only made worse by the dark circles under her eyes.

She reminded him so much of Isaac, not even a year ago, when he had been in the same role.

The exhaustion was writ into her very marrow, and Samuel wanted to pull her away, tucked under some blankets where the world couldn’t touch her.

But Shan never responded well to concern or care, and it broke his tender heart into countless aching fragments.

If she wouldn’t respond to care, perhaps she would respond to logic. He closed the door behind him, clearing his throat to get her attention before her name fell from his lips.

Shan sat up straighter, pen going still in her fingers, as she looked up in shock. A flash of guilt crossed her expression, like she hadn’t expected him to find her here. Like she didn’t want him here. “Samuel. I didn’t expect—”

He cut her off, unable to bear the rejection, however small, however well intended. She was always trying to protect him but couldn’t see how much it hurt.

“It’s a pressing matter,” he said, barreling over till she quieted. “And one that you need to be aware of, Lady LeClaire.”

“Of course.” She gestured for him to sit, wrapping herself in the airs of her official title and station.

They were not meeting as lovers, but as political allies—as the Royal Blood Worker and the Councillor of Law.

Their true selves were hidden behind layers of deceit, and though she wasn’t even five feet away from him, close enough for him to reach out and grab her, if he wanted, Samuel had never felt so alone.

“After a raid earlier this evening, the Guard have brought in a new prisoner accused of sedition. Due to the serious nature of her crimes, she has been isolated in prison, where she will be drained, again and again, until her body gives out.” He kept his eyes on her expression, the way exasperation had crept it.

What was it to her? Another small tale of suffering, another little tragedy, inconsequential in the grander scheme of things.

He could see the thoughts that flashed across her dark eyes, could almost hear her voice in the back of his head, warning him that the price of progress never came for free.

“Her name,” Samuel pressed on with a little snarl, the anger bubbling to the surface—hot and ephemeral, steam slipping through his fingers, “is Monique Lovell, also known as the proprietress of the Fox Den. Which has been raided, nationalized, and set to become another Blood Factory.”

The irritated look faded into something softer, pain and disappointment flicking across her expression before she locked it down. If he hadn’t known her as well as he did, he wouldn’t have noticed it at all, and even if he had, he would have dismissed it with the simple way she responded.

“How unfortunate.”

“Unfortunate?” he repeated, unable to hide how the anger became a roiling blaze in his chest, a wave of darkness that crept upwards from the deepest pits of himself, nails ripping through the thin gossamer of self-control, urging him to give into his wrath.

The temptation of his power sat thick and heavy on his tongue, truly back and aching to be used.

But he had already let it slip on Shan once, so he swallowed it back down, even if it choked him.

It was fine, though. The single word he had uttered had been enough, the shame of it cutting through her more brutally than any rage ever could have.

“Unfortunate,” Shan repeated. “Because there is nothing we can do about it. Sedition, you said?”

“Caught spreading seditious literature, if you must know.” They shared a long, significant look, not daring to speak more plainly, even within the privacy of her office.

They both knew what it meant—she had been helping Anton, and for that kindness, she was facing a sentence that even Samuel couldn’t predict.

“As well as the unforgivable crime of helping those hurt by the Guard.

“None of the Unblooded caught under this new… clause,” Samuel spat, hesitating to even call it a law when it was wasn’t one, technically.

Just a line in the King’s decrees that had been enacted last year, with none of the proper procedures in place, “have had a trial yet. Have any plans for a trial. They are just sitting in cells, rotting, and after everything Lovell has done for you, this is how you repay her?”

“She didn’t do it for me,” Shan said, leaning back in her chair. She crossed her arms over her chest, the claws glittering in the witch light, and Samuel clenched gloved fingers in his lap, feeling the harsh gap between them like a gulf he couldn’t cross. “She did it for the Sparrow.”

“And you’re not the Sparrow?”

“No,” Shan said, with an empty kind of bitterness that hit him like the crash of water, cooling his flames to embers. She did not rage, did not fight, just accepted it like a part of her had been ripped from her chest.

And maybe it had been, because how could one be the Royal Blood Worker and the Sparrow at the same time? They were two forces working in contradiction to each other, and not even Shan was skilled enough in self-deception to hold them apart.

Reaching across the table, he held his hand palm up in offering, and Shan inched forward, resting her clawed-tipped hand in his, clenching it so tightly that he could feel his bones creak. But he took it without complaint, because she was not doing nearly as well as she pretended to be.

And he had come here to pull her out of the abyss, not to cast to the darkness below.

“The Matron was an ally, Shan,” he said, softly, “perhaps even a friend. And though you might not be the Sparrow any longer, you still owe her.”

“Samuel,” she huffed, with a bitter little laugh. “Still thinking that people in our position have friends.”

“You can, if you choose to.” He pulled his hand away, settled back in his chair as he let her process. “You don’t have to give into the system just because it’s all that exists.”

“And what other option is there?” Shan tilted her head to the side, assessing. “We cannot simply will something better into being.”

No, they couldn’t. They would have to fight for it, destroy what already existed to keep the rot from spreading further. To build something new and better from the ashes. But he could tell that Shan did not want to hear that, could not hear that.

Her entire being was caught up in the world she strove to create, and who was he to rip that all away from her? No, this was a decision she had to come to on her own, and all he could do was put her on the path.

So, he didn’t fight it. Pushing to his feet, Samuel looked down at her with pity and the desperate taste of hope.

“Regardless of the state of the world, I thought you ought to know what happened to her. If you do decide to speak to her, I’m sure it can be arranged.

You are, after all, the Royal Blood Worker, and she is a lowly seditionist.”

“It wouldn’t be out of my domain,” Shan admitted, and that was as much of an offering as he could hope to get from her. An admission that she would, at least, consider it.

“Precisely.” He bent at the waist, a proper bow, the kind that was wholly unnecessary. They were alone, and he was her fiancé, but the bite of formality was enough to make his point. She was wrong—he had learned and could turn the politest movement into a barb meant to bruise.

Shan inclined her head, conceding the point, though it felt like a hollow victory. “I shall see you soon, darling?”

“Soon,” he agreed, then slipped out of the office and back into the Academy proper. The weight lifted from his shoulders as he left her behind, even as his chest tightened in pain.

Seeing his beloved should not feel like a battle, but he had made a promise. He would pull Shan back to their side, even if it was the last thing he did.

He couldn’t leave her, not after everything she had done for him.