“Good luck with your hunting, Des.”
She waved and closed the door behind him, still feeling a little floaty and lightheaded. It wasn’t until she had returned to her seat and taken several deep breaths, trying to decide if she was still certain she hated Destrier Whitlow, that she reached for her sketchbook.
The top page was gone.
Chapter 15
Aurelie
The moment Aurelie noticed that Des had stolen her drawing, she did the only sensible thing she could: panic.
It took over an hour of pacing the halls of her uncle’s cottage before she calmed down enough to think things through.
“It’s all right,” she said to herself, because without Kiara there to act as the voice of reason, it was the best she could do. “He found a drawing of a door, not the Helping Hand or any of my other inventions. It wasn’t labeled or particularly good. Even if he turns it in to his commander, they can’t prove anything. Perhaps I just like drawing doors. It’s not a crime!”
Truthfully, it could have been far worse. She could only thank her lucky stars this was a new sketchbook, because normally they were filled with portraits of demons. If he’d torn off the top page to find a drawing of a crab-pinceredveritashoving books into its maw, Aurelie would be in serious trouble.
She froze in front of the hall mirror. Her hair had finally dried into dark waves, and for a moment, she tried to see herself as Des saw her. Wide green eyes, pale skin, a full lower lip that she’d used to good effect on Uncle Leo when she was little. He’d been defenseless in the face of Aurelie’s pout for years.
She’d seen what most female Iron Guard members looked like: strong, somber, severe. All the things Aurelie had been told not to be.
And for a moment, she wished she could be like those women, who wouldn’t cower in the face of one of Des’s temper tantrums, who would chase him down and demand their property back. He’d likely never created anything in his entire life, only torn things apart, leaving demons—and people—in his wake like refuse. He should be called Destroyer, not Destrier, she thought bitterly.
She took a deep breath. She may not have inherited large muscles or nerves of steel, but she’d been given a brilliant mind and the vision to imagine a future different from the world she knew. She didn’t need the approval of Destrier Whitlow. She only needed herself.
Aurelie returned to her lab and made herself a cup of coffee, starting on a new schematic while she sipped. If—when, more likely—the Iron Guard came to question her, she would be ready with an explanation. She would confuse them with academic jargon about physics, how the portal wasn’t a portal at all but rather a sophisticated demon-trapping device. Or perhaps she’d claim it was something she’d found while perusing Florian’s book. Everyone hated him anyway; she might as well capitalize on that.
Or, if she was truly desperate, she could claim it was something she’d seen in a dream. No one could prove otherwise.
Mephisto was gone for most of the day, and it was quiet aside from the ticking of the clock and the scratch of her pencil. She had to re-create her work from this morning, but fortunately she remembered most of it. Tucked away in her favorite place, it was easy to lose herself in the work and ignore the fact that she could be arrested at any moment.
Hours later, she’d only managed to string together three runes: awakening; energy; shadow.
She had no idea what it meant.
She fell asleep at some point, her cheek pressed to a sketchbook, her fourth cup of coffee slowly growing cold beside her, only to be awoken by a rather troubling dream.
Aurelie sometimes dreamt about her parents, occasionally about Uncle Leo or Kiara, but most of her dreams were not connected to any real person or place that she could name. Which was why this particular dream had been so disturbing. She’d been back in Uncle Leo’s study with Des. She swore she could smell the spilled tea on her dress and the clean, masculine scent on Des’s tunic.
Only he hadn’t been wearing the tunic, and she hadn’t been wearing her dress, and the hand that had braced itself beside her head was somewhere else entirely.
Recalling it made her blush so profusely she had to open her window to let in some cool air. What was the matter with her? Des had deliberately played her for a fool so he could steal her drawing, and she wasdreamingabout him? To think, she’d believed they were connecting in some way! It was all too mortifying to bear.
She walked to her washbasin to splash some cold sense into herself and caught her reflection. The ghost of a charcoal rune was slashed against her cheek from where she’d slept on her notebook:shadow.
She scowled as she scrubbed it away. Des had been like a shadow this past week. A looming storm cloud following her wherever she went. But she wasn’t going to sit here and wait for Des to make a move. Forward momentum had kept her going all these years, ever since her parents died.
From that day forward, Aurelie had never let anything stop her. And she wasn’t about to start with Destroyer Sodding Whitlow.
Chapter 16
Des
Des walked back toward the Iron Fortress with Aurelie’s sketch clutched in his hand. He hadn’t taken the time to study it, hadn’t even really thought it through when he took it. But the moment he saw it resting on a tea tray, he’d known it was something dangerous, the same way he knew when a shadow contained a hidden demon. It had been far too easy to confiscate it while he pretended to inspect the smudge on her forehead.
A small, distant part of him felt some guilt for using her naivete against her. He knew she’d likely never been that close to a man before, and while physical proximity was not something Des sought out, he was also used to it.
But his touch had clearly elicited a reaction in Aurelie. Her pupils had dilated to take up nearly all of her green irises, and a flush had crept up her exposed neck all the way to her hairline. No wonder she kept it covered most of the time. Only a few bared inches and she was no longer the persnickety schoolmarm, but something softer, compliant. He had a feeling she’d never let him get that close to her if she were dressed in her usual armor.