Page 67

Chapter 61

Lotte

As the light from the stockroom flooded into the small dark room behind Lukas Schuld, Lotte’s eyes fell on a woman and three sleeping children.

“Don’t hurt him!” The woman had thrown her body over the three children when the crates crashed down. “He didn’t do anything. I swear he didn’t!”

“I know he didn’t.” Nora’s voice was calm, but she never took her eyes off Lukas Schuld. “That’s why I’m here. I want to know why he confessed to a murder he didn’t commit.”

Lotte didn’t have to be a mind reader to see the naked fear that flashed across his face at Nora’s words. “No, no, I did it.” There was a tremor in his voice. Whoever Lukas Schuld was covering for, that person scared him more than even Honora Holtzfall. “I killed Verity Holtzfall. I didn’t mean to, I—”

“No, you didn’t,” Nora cut him off. “When I find out who your employer is, I’ll let them know to hire a better actor next time they need someone to take the fall for a murder.”

Even without taking her hindern off, Lotte knew there were too many jumbled minds in here for her to get the truth. She could practically feel the fear and defiance radiating off the woman, and the sleeping children were beginning to stir.

She caught Nora’s eye, jerking her head toward the champagne-drenched hallway.

“Let’s speak outside, Mr.Schuld.”

When he stood to follow, Lukas Schuld was shaking like a leaf. His eyes darted between Lotte and Nora and then toward Theo and August standing in the back.

“You!” Lukas Schuld’s eyes widened as he saw August.

“Me.” August shrugged ruefully. And not for the first time, it occurred to Lotte that August was not at all what she’d expected from Nora’s journalist. But she liked him.

“Let’s save reunions for later,” Nora said. “I want the truth, Mr.Schuld.”

Lotte felt everyone’s attention on her as she passed the hindern charm off her hand. A dozen minds piped up at once. The half-formed dreams of the children in the next room, and the gnawing monstrous fear from their mother, scraps of thoughts coming from the dance hall. But she focused on Lukas Schuld standing in front of them, champagne pooling at his feet.

He was worrying these were his only shoes.

And suddenly Lotte saw Nora as Lukas Schuld did. Not a girl desperate for answers about her mother but a gleaming figure of vengeance. Lotte had always thought Nora’s resemblance to Leyla was strong. But for the first time, through Lukas Schuld’s eyes, Lotte saw a flash of Mercy Holtzfall in her cousin.

She was going to kill him.

He thought he had run from death when he escaped from the prison, but he would die now at the vengeful hands of the Holtzfall Heiress. A storm of panic rolled over his mind, obscuring any other thoughts Lotte might have been able to find there.

“Mr.Schuld.” Lotte stepped in between Nora and the man. “Tell me the truth.”

“I killed her.”

She has to believe me. I need her to believe me.

“What happened that night?” Lotte said, keeping his eyes on her. Drawing his mind away from Nora. From the fear of what she would do to him.

“It was late.” Lotte seized onto the truth of that thought, trying to pull it out of his mind like a thread. “I was leaving a bar.” That was a lie. He’d been home with Maggie and his girls. He hadn’t touched a drop of drink since the twins were born, although the damage of years of drinking and gambling was already done. But the words he was saying aloud clapped their hands over the truth, silencing it even as it threatened to rise up in protest. He was repeating the story the way he’d been instructed to tell it. He had to lull the truth to sleep.

“And Verity?” Lotte prompted.

He’d heard about Verity Holtzfall’s death the same way everyone else in the city had: newspaper headlines. But he’d barely heeded them. There were other things on his mind. It had been days and the baby’s fever was getting worse. And there was no money for medicine. He was striking with the rest of the crew, and Maggie had lost her job as a maid in a house in the 5th circle when she’d married him. The mistress of the house said she wanted a maid who would be working, not rushing home to coddle babies. Lotte could feel him sinking back down inside his mind even as he told the story he was supposed to. She followed him down. He’d been desperate. Terrified of what would happen if he didn’t get the baby her medicine.

So he’d done something stupid. He’d gone out one last time, with their last hundred zaub, for a game of cards.

And he lost. And he lost. He lost again and again. He lost bad. Always hoping he could win the next one. But he just sank deeper and deeper into the hole.

“I was walking home, and I saw her in her fancy clothing,” Lukas was saying, drawing out the lies just like he had practiced them. Just like he had told the police. In the depths of his mind, the truth huddled conspicuously, even as he tried hard not to look at it. Even as Lotte dove deeper for it. “I didn’t know who she was, except that she was dressed way too nice for the thirteenth circle. I’d already drunk my whole paycheck for the day, and I couldn’t go home to my wife empty-handed. I was desperate.” I was so, so desperate , the truth inside him echoed.

A man in a fine suit approached him as he left the card table in defeat and despair. The man had offered to wipe his debts out. And more than that. He offered him money. An impossible amount. It would clear his debt at the table and leave plenty to take the baby to a healer. And there’d be more money too, every month for Maggie and the girls. For the rest of their lives.

All he had to do was tell a lie.

“She was all dressed up in her emeralds.”

When the cops came for him, the man in the fine suit told him, they’d have her jewels to make the story convincing. They’d pretend he’d had them all along. All he’d have to do was confess to murder.

“I needed the money, bad.” Lotte could feel it all, his grief, his desperation, echoing in her mind. He’d taken the deal. It was an easy choice. Between his freedom and the baby’s life. When Maggie had asked where he’d gotten the money, he’d told her the truth. She’d sobbed and begged him not to do it. They would find another way. But it was too late.

He’d already struck a deal.

And the person holding the purse strings wasn’t someone to be trifled with.

Lotte snatched at that edge of the thought. Who? Where was the money coming from? But his mind was already racing ahead. The next day, the police came with the jewels, and Lukas told the lies he’d been instructed to tell. He let himself be locked up, his face plastered over every paper in the city. It was worth it. 2,000 zaub a month would be coming Maggie’s way for the rest of her life. It was the best thing he’d ever done for his family in his whole worthless life.

Lukas had told himself he could live with it.

Until he was sentenced to death.

Maybe he’d been stupid for not seeing that was the way it would go. Killing an Heiress was a crime too big for life in prison. No one would believe him if he changed his story now. And if he did, what would happen to Maggie and the girls? It would be more than just the money. They’d hurt them. Bad.

Who? Who would hurt them?

But if he was executed, would the man in the fine suit keep his word?

So when the blackout came, he’d run, along with the rest of the prison. He’d gone straight to Maggie and the girls, packed what they could, and taken them away from that tiny apartment, through the blackout.

By dawn, they were here. The dance hall was run by an old friend, one who’d clawed his way up in the world. He would hide them, albeit for a price, until they could make a run for it. They would go to the countryside—to the sea, maybe, take a boat on the Great Crossing. Even a man like him couldn’t follow them there.

“A man like who?” Lotte resurfaced from his thoughts. Lukas’s gaze snapped to her, even as he shied away from the question, the name he wouldn’t speak.

“Isengrim?” Nora pressed. “Is that who set you up?”

No.

“Was it another Holtzfall?” Nora pressed again. “Was it Modesty or Patience who bribed you? My uncle Prosper?” She hesitated before she said the next name. “Aunt Grace?”

No. The name slipped out of Lukas’s mind, unbidden. It spilled over Lotte’s lips.

“Oskar Wallen.”