I was barely maintaining it as it was.
The guard arguing fervently with us was the same one who had escorted us to the duke’s estate. “Come back in proper attire, and I will let you through,” he said for the hundredth time.
Steifan and I were both still in our traveling cloaks. The fabric was dark enough to hide the blood stains, and we used them to cover the more obvious stains on our clothing underneath.
I crossed my arms. “We are not leaving to simply change into our armor and return. Just the other day you didn’t want us passing with armor and weapons. Now you want us to have them?”
He glanced at the sword still obvious at my hip, even though it was mostly covered by my cloak. “You still have weapons, and now you don’t even look like hunters of the Helius Order. I won’t be up on charges of letting mercenaries past my guard.”
“But we’re not mercenaries,” I growled.
“But you look like mercenaries.”
I wanted to argue that we could just go through the bloody canals and bypass them, but one, I didn’t want him to know we knew about them, and two, I didn’t want to risk running into Egar again before we could confront the duke.
Steifan and I both turned at footsteps approaching our backs. It was the duke himself, looking disheveled and flustered. Surprisingly, he seemed relieved to see us. “I’ve been looking for you two everywhere. Come with me.” His beady eyes scorned the guards yet blocking our way. “What are you waiting for? Open the gate.”
The guards hurried to obey, and I couldn’t help my smug smile as Steifan and I followed the duke through the entrance.
Not saying a word, the duke led the way toward his estate.
I glanced at Steifan as we followed the duke’s podgy, brocade-clad form, my brows lifted in question.
Steifan shrugged. So we both didn’t know why the duke had sought us out personally, rather than sending Vannier or another servant.
We reached the estate, then waited while the duke ascended the short exterior stairs, opening the door himself. No sign of Vannier within. We went inside, and the duke shut and locked the door behind us.
“Upstairs,” he said. “I don’t want to risk someone listening at any of the windows.”
We followed him across the sitting room, then up the stairs. The situation was getting stranger and stranger, but my sword hadn’t warned me. We weren’t being lured into a trap.
Once we were upstairs, the duke gestured for us to go through the first doorway, which led into a large office. Open shutters let in a cool breeze. There were two chairs on the far side of the desk, opposite the over-cushioned monstrosity meant for the duke.
I decided against either chair, opting to lean my back lightly against the wall just inside the doorway.
The duke didn’t seem to take offense. He hurried around Steifan, then stood facing us both. He tugged a handkerchief from his vest pocket, wiping the sheen of sweat from his forehead. “I have something I must admit to both of you. My life is in danger.”
I crossed my arms, waiting for him to continue. If he was about to tell us everything, there was no need to threaten him yet with the information we had discovered.
He glanced around the office, as if someone else had followed us up the stairs, but we were entirely alone. I heard nary a sound from the rest of the house.
“I didn’t find Charlotte’s body here,” he breathed. “I found her rotting in the slums.”
He seemed to expect surprise from us, but neither of our faces gave anything away. I nodded for him to continue.
He licked his lips, considering his next words. “I knew she wasn’t killed by the vampire who bit her, but I needed a reason to bring in outside help. I wanted hunters to investigate her murder because too many of the city guard are involved.”
I lifted my brows. He had finally managed to surprise me. “You wanted us to investigate, even though you knew she wasn’t killed by a vampire?”
He nodded quickly, his eyes wide. “I can trust no one within the city. I needed outside help. I . . . I wanted out, and they killed her as a warning to me.”
I decided to put him out of his misery, if only to speed the conversation along. “You were involved in the kidnappings, and you knew they were being sold to vampires.”
He paled. “How did you—”
“You wanted us to investigate, did you not? We could tell Charlotte had been moved here through the canals after her death, and we found Jeramy DeRose. And you obviously know that two men and a vampire were killed in the canals last night, or else you wouldn’t have so desperately sought us out this morning.”
The duke hung his head, shuffling around the desk to slump down into his chair. He rubbed his eyes with one plump hand. “They think I sent you down into the canals. They’ve realized why I really called you here.”
I stepped toward the desk. “Who are they? Who is in charge?”
“So you haven’t figured out everything then,” he muttered. “Bellamy Montrant. He is the one who made the deal with the vampires. Charlotte had started a . . . business, else we would have gone destitute. When Bellamy approached me with an opportunity, I jumped at it. I would have done anything so that Charlotte could . . . ”
Steifan moved forward and took one of the chairs across the desk from the duke. “We know of Charlotte’s business, you can speak freely.”
I blinked at them both, realizing something. The duke was a terrible man, but he did have an ounce of honor to him after all. “That’s why you didn’t want us to have Charlotte’s ledger. You didn’t want anyone else
