FATAL CONTRACT

Chapter Three: The Study

The east study was at the corridor's end. Ava crept along the wall, each step landing in the shadow the corridor light could not reach. She had counted the patrol intervals — this mansion's guards circled every seven minutes, and only three had passed; she had a window.

The study door stood ajar, dark within.

Lucian had said he was going to the study. He should be inside.

Ava held her breath and pushed the door open a crack. No whiskey scent, no footsteps. The room was black; only a narrow band of moonlight fell from the window onto the carpet.

He was not there.

She slipped in and pulled the door shut behind her. The air held the smell of old paper and cigars. She dared not turn on a light, fearing it would leak through the door gap. The narrow band of moonlight was just enough to show the brass handles of the drawers.

Her father's handwriting said "Wait for me." The place he waited was most likely this study.

She crouched at the desk and pulled the first drawer. Locked. The second, also locked. The third was unlocked, holding a stack of yellowed contracts. The top one was half torn away, the tear ragged, as if someone had rushed to destroy it and not finished.

She drew out the torn page and read it by moonlight.

Two names were printed at the head of the page. Left: Su Zhengqing. Her father. The name on the right had been torn away, leaving only a half-line of small text: "(a certain) family… secret pact… blood…"

Not all of it was gone. One stroke had survived the tear — the across of a letter, flat at both ends with nothing standing up from either. An L is never only flat; its foot carries a stem. The only surname she had cause to fear was printed at the head of her own marriage contract, beside her name, in letters just this small. Locke. It began with that stem. So whatever the torn name was, it was not her husband's.

The tear had cut the word blood as well. Her fingertips went cold. Her father had signed a secret pact with another family, its contents touching blood. This ran completely against what she had been certain of — that Lucian was the enemy.

From behind came a very soft laugh.

Ava went rigid. She did not turn; first she felt for what was in the fold of her skirt. The dagger had long been taken by Lucian — empty.

"Looking for this?"

The voice came from the single armchair in the corner. Lucian leaned back in it, legs crossed, turning the silver dagger in his hand, its blade winking between his fingers.

He had been sitting there all along. From the moment she entered.

Ava's breath caught. She had thought herself light enough, yet he seemed to have calculated she would come.

"I removed the spring from the lock core long ago," he said. "From the moment you pulled the steel hairpin, I heard you."

So this study door had never been locked. He had let her in.

Lucian stood, slid the dagger back into his belt, and walked toward her. Ava retreated until the small of her back hit the desk edge. He reached out, one palm pressing the desktop at her side, the other bracing her on the other side, trapping her between his arms — close enough that she smelled the rust again, stronger than before, as if he had just come from somewhere.

She raised a hand to push him away; he caught her wrist and pinned it to the desk edge. Not heavy, yet she could not move. As he leaned down, his collar opened wider, and she glimpsed a small dark-red mark below his collarbone — thorns, identical to the one on his wrist, only larger, as if grown into the flesh along some old line of his own.

"What you looked at tonight," he lowered his head, voice pressed very low, "is enough to kill you ten times over."

Ava tilted her head back to look at him, not flinching. "Then kill me."

"Kill you?" He gave a smile that was not a smile.

Ava waited for more. He gave none.

Two seconds passed before he spoke: "I don't explain. But I can give you a path. I'm investigating your father's death. You give me two things: stand at my side when you're meant to appear, and the names of your father's old men still reachable."

Just those two. No third.

Ava stared at him. She had expected him to want something else — no one in this mansion would be so courteous as to ask only for an appearance and a list.

"Why should I trust you."

"Because you won't leave this door tonight unless I let you."

He stepped back half an inch but did not take the torn page from her hand. She clutched it, knuckles white. He glanced at it and said nothing.

He let her keep it.

Ava's breath hit her throat. This was the second time tonight he had not taken something back from her hand — the first was that photograph.

"Don't ask," he said. "Follow me, and see for yourself."

Before Ava could speak, he suddenly leaned down, his teeth pressing her lower lip, biting out a small pain, like a beast taking a prey's measure before the kill. The taste of rust spread between their lips.

She did not close her eyes. The instant he drew back, she bit down on his lower lip in return. He gave a muffled grunt; the rust grew stronger — this time her teeth had broken his skin.

Lucian drew back half an inch. He raised a hand, thumb wiping the blood seeping from the corner of his lip, his fingertip stained dark red. He stared at that blood for two seconds.

He gave a low laugh.

"Quite a temper, my wife."

She stared at the cut at the corner of his lip. The blood still seeped; there was no sign of it closing.

In the hall she had seen dirtier wounds — from drink that quickened the blood, or something in the basement that would not let a cut close. She laid those two explanations out and found them plausible. Only, the conviction with which she convinced herself did not hold to the bottom.

He released the hand braced on the desk and stepped back a pace, lips still a thread apart, and said in a rough voice: "Since you're so eager to be my wife — tomorrow night's family banquet, I'll take you to meet the enemy who killed your father."

Ava leaned against the desk, the small pain on her lip pulsing, the taste of rust still on her tongue — his blood.

Lucian walked to the door, pulled it open, and looked at her sidelong.

"Now, get back to your room. Before tomorrow night, don't go looking for death again."

The door closed. Ava raised a hand to touch her numb lip, then looked down at the torn page in her hand.

The enemy who killed her father, to be met tomorrow night. Yet she was suddenly unsure whether she was investigating a case or had already stepped into the trap he had laid.

She folded the torn page, tucked it against her skin, and laid it with the photograph.

On the desk edge lay one more thing — the silver dagger, its handle wound with black cord, its silver edge trapping a corner of moonlight. She had not heard him set it down.

She looked at it for two seconds, then gathered it in with the torn page.

Tomorrow night's banquet — she would be there.