Isla arrived at Mercer's warehouse office just after dark, slipping through the side entrance he'd shown her only days earlier. She didn't bother knocking. Mercer looked up from the ledgers spread across his desk and knew immediately, from the set of her shoulders, that whatever she'd come to say wasn't good.
"Wren met with Hale today," she said.
Mercer set down his pen. "I know. He told me himself, days ago, that it was coming."
"I don't think you know what happened inside that meeting." Isla pulled the hood of her cloak back and dropped into the chair across from his desk. "I had someone watching the building. Wren was in there almost an hour."
"An hour's a long time for a simple consulting offer."
"That's what worries me," Isla leaned forward. "My source inside Hale's household con
