Flick shoved the invitation between the pages to mark her place and threw the ledger in her bag. She pulled her tweed hat over her curls and slung her satchel across her chest, then she snatched up the kitten against her protests, trying to find comfort in the bundle of warmth.
She turned and froze, her thoughts rushing to the day the Horned Guard had appeared at her mother’s door to whisk her away. That had been terrifying, but only until she’d stumbled into the Horned Guard’scarriage and into Jin’s lap, someone who was decidedly as far removed from a guard as one could be.
This was nowhere near the same. These were not guards, and the Jin she knew certainly wouldn’t be among them.
They were covered in black, unidentifiable but overly conspicuous, and armed to the teeth—she saw the waiting hilts of blades strapped to their arms and legs, the guns holstered within reach.
Her mother’s men. Seven of them.
All she could see of them were their eyes, staring at her through the slits in their masks, but she knew they were here for her. So many days of hiding, of constantly looking over her shoulder, and not once had she stopped to plan what she would do if shedidget caught.
What would Jin do?she asked herself. No, Jin was too suave and too charming to find himself in a situation like this. He would have talked himself out of it already.
Look sharp, came Arthie’s voice in her head. Arthie wouldn’t see seven assailants and panic. She’d be smug. Seven men for one girl? That meant they thought she was dangerous.
Flick lifted her chin, meeting the eyes of the man closest to her, trying her hardest not to tighten her hand around the bag by her side where she’d kept the ledger safe since she’d been entrusted with it that night. It was almost as impossible as doing up one’s own corset laces.
“Where is the ledger?” the man asked.
Don’t panic, don’t panic.
“The tea is fairly bland, if you were contemplating some,” she said.
“It will be easier if you come with us quietly,” the man said. His slate-gray gaze was hard and remorseless. He turned to the man at his right. “Apprehend that thing.”
She should have been relieved he was more concerned with Laith’s cat than the ledger, but she knew what these men were capable of.
“That thingis a kitten, and she has a name,” Flick said, aggrieved on the babe’s behalf. There was power in a name. Identity. Admittedly, Flick hadn’t decided on one for the kitten yet. She’d plucked the ball of fur up while fleeing the Athereum meeting hall with the ledger, and though she belonged to Laith, Flick had grown ever more fond of her every day since. “It’s—it’s—”
“I don’t care,” the man said, and gestured to the others. All six of them swept forward.
Two grabbed for the kitten, but she leaped from Flick’s arms with mystical fluidity, scurrying back against the wall and hissing up at the men.
“It sounds like a bloody snake!” one of them exclaimed, shrinking back.
Asnake? No, she was too precious of a gem to be likened to a snake. She was a gem! What was the name she’d considered that night? Pearl? Diamond? No, no—nothing so pompous.Opal. Yes, that was it. Opal was the perfect name for her.
You’re distracting yourself again.
“Leave her alone!” Flick shouted.
They didn’t seem to hear her. She took a step back as the other four stepped toward her. She had no pistol or knife—nor did she know how to use either. She didn’t even have her lighter anymore.
She gripped the dusty chair rail behind her and tried to kick the man closest to her, but she was still so new to wearing trousers that when she swung out her leg, she forgot she wasn’t kicking through the many layers of a gown and nearly teetered off-balance.
They didn’t even laugh. She felt their pity, heard it in their silence. When they began working for her mother, had they ever thought they’d be in a position where they had to apprehend her own daughter?
Had her mother thought that? Did they even know who the Ram really was?
The questions flooded her with a barrage of emotion, drowning the resistance out of her.
She didn’t fight as they clamped hot fingers around her arms, whirled her around and gripped her wrists. She didn’t fight as they cornered her precious kitten—her Opal—and dropped her in a basket, throwing the lid on tight before she could escape. She didn’t fight as they shoved her down the stairs and dragged her past the smug-faced waiter to the doors of the tea shop.
Two frosted-glass doors, almost and yet nothing like the doors of Spindrift, that place that had slowly been on its way to becoming home. That crew that had slowly become family.
It didn’t matter what her mother thought.
Flick couldn’t go without a fight. Not this time. She planted her feet on the floor and pulled back against the men, yanking herself out of their hold because they weren’t expecting it.
