Page 47

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Oskar

Oskar spent the first several seconds after Guinevere walked out of his life wondering if it was possible to beat oneself to death.

How he wished he could run after her and beg for forgiveness. Tell her that he hadn’t meant any of it, that she was the best thing to ever happen to him.

But he couldn’t, because if she threw her lot in with his sorry own, it would be the worst thing to ever happen to her.

It was better that she hate him. With each harsh word dredged up from some dark part of him that was as unexpectedly cruel as it was desperate, he had been saving her from years of drudgery by his side, from what was certain to be the regret that would consume her.

It had been difficult, torturous, yet somehow also so very easy, his resigned heart rising to the task with determination.

He would do anything for her—even sever all that was sweet and good between them.

But, gods…he’d made her cry. Every tear had been a knife raked across his gut. That little flinch of hers—it would haunt him for the rest of his days. And the way she’d apologized, because he’d made her believe it was her fault, because he was scum, like her parents—

Oskar kicked his rucksack. It went flying across the stable, startling the horses.

“Oh, shut up,” he growled over the cacophony of disgruntled snorts and pointedly stomped hooves.

The animals fell silent, terrified.

Great. As though he needed more reasons to feel guilty.

Oskar dug the back of his hand into his eyes, a futile bid to stem the abrupt sting of tears welling up.

He couldn’t help but recall the last time he’d allowed himself to cry—in Guinevere’s arms, his battered heart turning over with the bittersweet realization that tears were no source of shame.

Tears meant that you had lived in the world, that you had been a part of it. Tears meant that you had loved someone.

Tears could even be a victory in their own way, a sign that you hadn’t let all the daily struggles—the myriad little uncaring cruelties—get the best of you.

Life could be hard, but he didn’t have to be. His mother had taught him that. Yet he’d driven Guinevere off with a callousness drawn from years of unending toil.

Ma, Oskar heard himself think, I fucked up.

He missed Idun more than ever. It was the memory of her that finally made his hand fall back to his side. That finally let the tears stream freely from his eyes. He would cry in secret for Guinevere; she deserved that much from him, just like his mother had. The two women he’d loved and lost.

Sniffling, Oskar went over to the rucksack.

He’d pick it up and be on his way, and Guinevere would go on to live her perfect life and give Wensleydale his perfect blond heirs, and soon Oskar would be a mere footnote in her history.

Just something that had happened to her on the Amber Road. It was as it should be.

The rucksack had landed on its side, its top flap loose. He crouched down and shoved the spilled contents back into place. His fingers closed around a length of leather, yanking it free from the tangle of his clothes.

And he stared at the Vigilance Stone dangling from his hand, glowing a bright, pale blue.

Evil intentions.

No more than thirty feet away.

Guinevere had just gone outside—

Panic roared within him. He was charging out of the stables before he knew it, running as fast as he could, but, in his state of mind, he felt as though he were running through treacle. Don’t let me be too late, he prayed to every god he knew. Please, don’t let me be too late.

It was an inside job.

Only the guards stationed directly along the sides of the mansion and in the hallway where the trunk was located had been killed.

The trunk was gone, too, the room where it had been kept covered in blood and torn limbs.

It had to be the work of either servants or guests, and, according to the butler, all the servants were accounted for and had been too busy with ball-related tasks to engage in a little light murder, robbery, and kidnapping, anyway.

This begged the question of how the Spider’s Web had managed to infiltrate Wensleydale’s heavily curated and cross-checked guest list. But, for Oskar, the how wasn’t important.

In terms of his priorities, it paled in comparison to the fact that Guinevere was nowhere to be found, and he was dangerously close to killing her useless parents.

Illiard sagged against the mantelpiece in the drawing room, his head in his hands. Betha was hunched in on herself in an armchair, sobbing noisily into a kerchief.

Wensleydale was…also nowhere to be found.

“His lordship apparently departed the ballroom a few minutes before you raised the alarm,” Captain Therault was telling Oskar. “It’s likely that he and Miss Guinevere were taken together, along with the artifact. The guests are being questioned as we speak.”

“Why would the mercenaries also kidnap Wensleydale?” Oskar turned to Illiard. “Did you already give him the key to the trunk?”

“There is no key,” Illiard moaned. “Not one you can put into a lock, at any rate. It’s—it’s magical. A blood spell.”

Oskar went very still. “Whose blood?” he snapped, even though he knew the answer deep in his heart, even though he was afraid to hear it confirmed.

There was a knock on the door. Therault excused himself, but Oskar hardly noticed the captain leave the room. All of his attention was focused on Illiard, who was shaking all over. Like a man whose worst fears had been realized.

Like a man, Oskar thought, fuming, who had known that this day might come.

“He found out.” Illiard had his back turned to the rest of the room, but a mirror hung over the mantelpiece, and Oskar could see his reflection, white as a sheet, a haunted look in those eyes that were so much like Guinevere’s. “He found out, somehow.”

“Who found out what?” When Illiard didn’t reply, Oskar marched over to him.

He grabbed the merchant by his collar and hauled him off his feet, ignoring Betha’s alarmed screech.

“Listen to me very carefully,” he said, knuckles clenching to white around starched fabric.

“Your daughter is in danger. I will save her, but in order to do that, I need to know everything. I don’t care that you’re her father—I once promised her that she would never face this world alone as long as I still drew breath, so if you don’t tell me what you’re hiding, I will rip it out of you. Have I made myself clear?”

Illiard’s lips parted, but no sound emerged. The last lingering threads of Oskar’s patience frayed apart, and he shook the man until the latter’s teeth rattled.

“Stop!” Betha wailed. “For gods’ sake, Illiard, just tell him!”

Illiard was full-on blubbering now. “I stole it. The trunk. I didn’t win it in a card game.

” He clawed in vain at Oskar’s fists, still locked against his throat.

“In Yrrosa, there was an arcanist named Accanfal living at the edge of town. He hired me on as a gardener. Paid me a pittance. I could barely make ends meet, and my wife was pregnant.”

Something in his gaze begged Oskar to understand, and the truth was that it wasn’t difficult to do so.

Yrrosa was as much of a shithole as the Dustbellows.

Of course he knew to what lengths desperation could drive a man.

But there wasn’t much room for compassion within him, not when Guinevere had been thrown to the wolves somewhere out there.

He tightened his grip on Illiard’s collar, a silent command to get on with it.

“One day I was trimming the rosebushes,” Illiard continued, “when I heard a scream. Looked up and saw the arcanist flying out of his laboratory window, right over my head. He was on fire. The other servants all ran to help him, but I—I got curious. I snuck into the laboratory and there was the trunk, lying open amidst all the other paraphernalia.” He swallowed nervously.

“Jewelry like I’d never seen—diadems, necklaces, more—all gold, all studded with gems. All in one trunk. The temptation—too great—”

Oskar belatedly realized that Illiard wasn’t pausing for dramatic effect; rather, Oskar’s fingers had twisted even more tightly into his collar, cutting off his airway. The man was practically turning purple.

“So you took it and ran.” Oskar let go without much ceremony. Illiard collapsed at his feet.

“Yes,” the merchant wheezed. “Stole a horse and raced back to town to grab Betha, and we fled.”

After he regained his breath, the rest of the sorry tale came spilling out of him.

Illiard and Betha had hit the road, selling off pieces from the set here and there, each one fetching enormous sums. Eventually,though, Accanfal had picked up the trail, cornering them in Cyrengreen—and it was only then that they realized that the arcanist had survived the accident.

He was the one who’d set the woods ablaze.

And Hammie, the warden of the forest who had saved Illiard and Betha then—who had made the totem for their child, knowing she would need it in her life to come—he’d seen the trunk and the jewelry, and he had revealed what exactly it was that Illiard had stolen.

Oskar tensed up even more as he learned the true nature of the Parure. Of all the deities it could have been connected to, it had to be her. The gods had a twisted sense of humor.

“And you still didn’t want to give it up, even after finding out what it really was,” he said in disgust. “Rather than get rid of it, you hired someone to seal the trunk with your only child’s blood.”

“It wouldn’t have worked with mine or Betha’s,” Illiard mumbled. “The sealing spell needed to feed off another magic user. It needed her magic.”

“The same magic that you reviled all her life?” Oskar spat. “You sure didn’t have any problem using it for your own purposes, you spineless sack of offal.”

The other man gulped, then hurried through the rest of his story as though he hoped that would take some of the heat off him.

“We found another arcanist who was willing to do it. A ring from the Parure ensured his service and his silence, but we knew we’d never be able to sell the rest, lest Accanfal track us again.

So we headed to Rexxentrum and bought a house in the Shimmer Ward, and we kept Guinevere there with the trunk. ”

“You locked her up, you mean.” Oskar wasn’t one to kick a man when he was down—in this case, quite literally, on the carpeted floor in a pathetic heap—but he was sorely tempted to do so now.

“You made her world small because of your greed. You browbeat every perceived fault out of her because of your ambition. But the plain and simple truth is that she’s worth ten of you. ” He glared at Betha. “And of you.”

“Well, it was all for nothing, wasn’t it?” sobbed Betha. “Accanfal found us in the end—because of your big mouth, Illiard, you drunken boor—and even him taking her was for nothing, because the blood has to be given willingly. That’s the condition of the spell.”

“Then that’s why the Spider’s Web took Wensleydale,” said Oskar.

“Accanfal will make her unseal the trunk in exchange for Wensleydale’s life—and she will do it, because that’s the kind of person she is.

In spite of the two of you.” A thought occurred to him.

Speaking of Wensleydale…“That whole thing about the Parure being a Truscan artifact—that was all bullshit, wasn’t it? Wensleydale knows.”

Illiard gave a miserable nod. “He didn’t want to marry a merchant’s daughter. So I said she’d come with a priceless enchanted treasure. And he and I concocted that cover story. The plan was for him to tell Guinevere the truth—and to get her to unseal the trunk—once they were married.”

“You,” Oskar said crisply, “are a horrible little man, and I will gut Wensleydale like a fish after I rescue him.” He headed to the door, reaching for the knob just as it flew open.

It was Captain Therault with an update. “Two of the guests are missing,” he told Oskar. “The Opal of the Ocean and her bodyguard.”

Oskar let out a curse. The barest bones of a frantic plan formed in his mind. “We need to watch all the city’s exits. Therault, you’ll secure the gates. I’ll take some of your men down with me to the docks.”

The captain saluted. He didn’t question the fact that a nameless peasant only tangentially related to his employer was now the one giving the orders. And thank the gods for that, because it was about damn time Oskar caught a break.