Page 6 of Prisoner of Darkness and Dreams (Fated to the Sun and Stars #3)

Corrin

“ W hat do you have for me today, Mr. Melrose?”

I lean against the polished bar as I take a sip of my drink.

It goes down smoothly, leaving a fiery warmth behind.

Gregor knows his stuff—he has the best liquor this side of Hallowbane.

His bar is tucked away on its own down a side street, away from prying eyes and nosy neighbors.

Perfect for the kind of business I’m conducting today.

But if those are good reasons to relocate for this meeting, the quality of the alcohol is a better one.

That, and it means my office doesn’t have to be cleaned if things get messy.

“Here you go, Mr. Wadestaff.” Mr. Melrose, a stocky man in his fifties, holds out a coin purse.

His hand is steady, but I notice a slight twitch in his eye.

Interesting. I’ve been dealing with him for years, long enough to see his one small haberdashery transform into three of the most popular tailor’s shops in the city.

He comes to see me every month, but I’ve never seen this nervousness from him before.

“Warren, if you’d please.” I gesture to my assistant, who hovers behind Melrose’s chair in the empty bar.

Gregor is happy to close the bar down for a few hours during my fortnightly visits—a favor in return for me making sure his liquor gets to Hallowbane without any inspections.

Warren takes the bag from Melrose, opening it and swiftly calculating its contents .

He grunts and holds up five fingers. My brow furrows.

“It seems we have a problem, Mr. Melrose. You’re about fifty florins short. Did you count wrong?” I set my glass down, letting some shadows slide down the front of the bar toward Melrose’s feet. “Or did you think we wouldn’t notice?”

The haberdasher shakes his head, paling at the proximity of my shadows.

They do that to some people, bringing not just darkness but a sharp edge of panic.

“No, it’s not like that,” he says. “I was going to bring it up. You see, the ruined have been causing havoc these last few weeks. They’ve scared business away from the shops, and it’s affecting my profits.

I figured it’s only fair my fee should be less this month, Mr. Wadestaff.

” His eye doesn’t twitch this time, but his gaze does flick toward the door and then back to me.

Oh yes, my shadows aren’t the only reason he’s nervous.

“Is that so?” I ask, drawing the shadows in a tighter circle around Melrose’s chair. He instinctively pulls his feet back from the edge of the darkness, a bead of sweat forming on his temple. “Funny, I haven’t heard any reports of ruined swarming in your district. Warren?”

My assistant shakes his head. “No, Mr. Wadestaff. We’ve been keeping tabs since that incident two months ago.”

I nod. “That’s what I thought.”

“But it’s true,” Melrose insists, reaching into his satchel and pulling out a ledger. “You can check my books.”

Warren snatches the ledger from his hand before I need to give the order, opening it up and scanning the pages.

Warren might be physically intimidating, especially with his talent for fire, but the real reason I hired him was his passion for numbers.

And right now, I see the cogs turning as he studies Melrose’s accounts.

The haberdasher watches him tensely.

“It does seem like his profit margins are down,” Warren says eventually, closing the ledger. Melrose relaxes. “But there’s something missing.”

The stocky man before me stiffens. “That’s not?—”

“Oh dear, Mr. Melrose,” I sigh. “I was hoping you’d prove to be more honest than this.

You see, no matter what lies you’ve worked into your books, I happen to know that not only are your profits not down but for the last six months, you’ve owned the very profitable cobbler’s shop on Needle Street. Now where’s my share of that ?”

Melrose’s face flushes, and he makes to stand up. Warren’s heavy hand clamps onto his shoulder, pressing him back down into his chair. My shadows begin to creep up the wooden legs.

“I gave you time to inform me of this good fortune, but alas, you didn’t. You tried to cheat me, Melrose, and the time has come to pay up.”

“Cheat?” Melrose blusters, trying to squirm away from the darkness encroaching on him. “You’re the cheat! Claiming the profits of a hardworking man.” He’s pretending to be outraged, as if I can’t see the sweat soaking through his collar, peeking out from the underarms of his shirt.

“Don’t play the self-righteous victim with me,” I say, rolling my eyes. “And don’t pretend you’ve forgotten how this works.” I stand, stalking toward him.

“ I brought you out of that dirty alley and set you up in a real storefront,” I say.

“And since you’ve opened your doors, I have been the one to provide the muscle that stops Chalke’s gangs from looting your merchandise and burning your business to the ground.

Your shops wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for me. And how do you repay me?”

Before Melrose can answer, my shadows jump up, swallowing him like hungry wolves.

He shrieks as his world goes dark and the panic consumes him.

The shadows don’t have this effect on everyone, but it’s very useful when they do.

I stop by his side, plunging a hand into the blackness to pull out the other coin purse that’s been weighing down his pocket since he walked in here.

I pass it to Warren and return to the bar, my shadows retreating across the floor. I take another sip of my drink, then turn to face the wide-eyed man.

“It’s clear I’ve been too lenient with you—but I’m willing to learn from my mistakes. And I would hope that you are too, because from today, Melrose, your protection fee has gone up . Understand?”

He’s trembling like a leaf, eyes wide with terror. Seems he’s the type who’s especially affected by my shadows .

“You should consider yourself lucky that the cost of your dishonesty is so low,” I say cooly. “Now, get out of my sight before I devise some worse punishment.”

Melrose stumbles from his chair, grabbing his satchel and the ledger Warren offers to him.

“I-I’ll make sure these books are corrected, Mr. Wadestaff,” he promises.

“Good man,” I reply, though of course, he’s anything but.

When he’s escaped the bar, I sigh, downing the rest of my drink.

“Help a man thrive, and all he does is turn into a greedy fool,” I say.

“Yes, Mr. Wadestaff,” Warren says. “Well, some of them,” he adds.

I chuckle. “You always were an optimist.”

Footsteps thunder on the stairs down into the bar, and Ari, my door boy, comes bursting in. His eyes are wide, and he’s pale.

“Sir, it’s the gambling house,” he gasps. “There’s trouble. He said he’d kill us if we stopped him.”

“Who said?” I demand.

“The Nightmare Prince.”

The place is in chaos when I get there. I can only thank the gods it’s not yet midday, and most of the people at the card tables are the drunks and gambling addicts who wouldn’t leave even if the place was on fire.

They barely look up from the card tables to acknowledge the commotion from the hallway.

On the other hand, my staff are a mess. Rosa’s crying over one of my bouncers, Vasily, who’s lying unconscious on the stairs.

I check he has no major injuries before turning to Ari.

“Run and get the healer on Yard Road.”

On the second floor, some of the working girls huddle in a frightened group, staring at Damien and Caleb trying to break down a door with little success. It appears to have been fused shut by a jungle of knotty roots .

“Are any of our people hurt?” I ask.

“No,” says Lana. “They told me to get out before they started doing anything to him.”

I’m about to ask what they “started” when a blood-curdling scream carries through the closed door.

“Who’s the client?” I ask instead.

Lana bites her lip. “Bearer Polis.”

Fuck . I elbow my way past my men.

“Damien, stop wasting your time and get some water or—Wait a minute. Lana, aren’t you a half-decent aquari?”

She nods, pushing up the sleeves of her silky robe as I beckon her over.

“Great,” I say. “Now Warren, burn the fucking door down.”

The screams briefly stop when smoke starts curling under the bottom of the door from Warren’s flames. There’s the sound of rapid footsteps and a groaning, cracking noise as the roots retreat.

“Step aside,” I warn as someone wrenches the smoldering wood off its hinges and hurls it outward into the corridor. Lana immediately starts dousing it while I peer inside, just in time to see Prince Leonidas returning to the side of the bed.

The scene before me is worse than I’d imagined.

Polis lies naked on the mattress. His wrists are bound with more of the thick roots, and he’s worried them bloody straining against them—not that it seems to have done him any good.

And besides, the raw state of his wrists is nothing compared to the intricate picture carved into his chest—an image of Ethira’s scythe and the symbol of the Temple that’s causing his blood to spill down his sides and stain the sheets.

Prince Leonidas stands over Polis with a bloody knife in his hand. A man with brown hair I don’t recognize is beside him. The caster of the roots, most likely.

“Are you insane?” I bark, eyes darting from the brutalized bearer to the fae prince and his accomplice. The moment I try to get closer, the unknown man steps in front of me .

“That’s far enough, Mr. Wadestaff,” he says firmly. He’s oddly familiar—something about his facial expressions and the color of his hair, but I’m not able to place him before I’m distracted by the begging sobs from the bearer.

“Wadestaff, stop them. They’re maniacs—” More roots clamber across the bed, gagging the cleric so his shrieks are muffled.

I won’t deny the vicious surge of satisfaction at the sight. A high and mighty bearer, laid low, made to feel as weak and helpless as all the other people he’s victimized over the years. Made to hurt as he so richly deserves.