It connected a few dots. “Is this where you got the info on that Galeran bloke?”
“Oui.” Jacques hissed the word. “I now know it was planted for me to find.Mon erreur.I pride myself on my integrity.”
I gritted my teeth. “Integrity is a dodgy concept out here in the underworld.”
Jacques stiffened. “L’intégrité personelleis the only thing over which you have control.”
“Integrity is the only thing that stands against chaos,” Anna whispered, and she met my gaze.
Jacques shot her a look past my bulk, and the bastard actually fluttered his eyelids at her. “Oui, Mademoiselle. You are entirely right.”
“Our Dragon wrote that,” I grumbled at him. The claim surprised me, and I felt Anna’s stride hitch beside me.Our Dragon.Was that really how I felt?
Talakai. Assassin. Poet, apparently. And ours?
Even my beast growled a grudging agreement.
The Satyr’s hood twitched. “He seems like ahommeintelligent. Here, go down this alley, and take the stairs to the top.”
In the approaching darkness, the four-story building was largely indistinguishable from its neighbors, with windows and doors accessing tiny balconies. The alley afforded a measure of privacy to the entrances.
Jacques led us up four long flights to a hallway, and partway along it, he unlocked a door into a small suite.
It was jam-packed. Shelves along every wall, with various items on them, in no particular order. A kitchenette that barely looked functional, as if he rarely cooked while in this realm.
The Satyr flicked on a few lights and went straight to a drawer. He grabbed a selection of items from it and approached us.
“If we are going to do this crazy thing,” he said, “we need to be armed with more than just a sword.” He handed Anna an eight-inch knife in a sheath and offered an even longer one to me.
“Don’t need it,” I growled.
The Satyr hesitated, and then nodded. He stripped off his trench coat, revealing a lean, rather hairy body in short trousers and a muscle shirt. He bent to strap the remaining two knives to his thigh and beneath his arm.
Anna strapped hers to her leg before wandering around the tiny apartment. Jacques put his trench coat back on and watched me nervously as I followed her.
There wasn’t much to see—a couple of chairs and an old couch. The place could be considered squalid until you looked into the bedroom. It featured a large double bed with an ornate wrought iron headboard that took up almost all the available space. It was festooned with silk cushions that matched the comforter, and stood out from the rest of the apartment like a peafowl amid bush chooks.
I froze. Stared at first the bed, and then Jacques.
He shrugged. “Je divertis souvent.”
Bloody hell. “What does that mean?”
The Satyr moved further away from me. “I am rarely alone when I am here,” he said.
It was only then that I deciphered many knickknacks on the shelves had a distinctive theme. Even the prints on the wall showed couples—and more—in positions that had me staring and then grinding my teeth together.
“I thought you used this realm to gather information,” I stated.
He waved at the prints. “Butmonsieur, that is what I am doing.” He waggled his bushy brows.
The Satyr used sex to get his info? Of course he did. I stalked away before I did something I might not regret.
Couldn’t go far, although I noticed a door leading to the small balcony—a second potential exit if things got dodgy.
“Is this stuff valuable?” Anna asked, perusing the shelves with raised brows.
“Des trucs? Non.” Jacques waved a hand. “Just odds and ends—things that appealed to me. I can’t sécuriséthis suite well enough to keep anything truly valuable here.” He came up beside Anna. “If you see something you like, you can have it.” His eyes gleamed.
