Chapter 24 · The Scent of Treason

The glass was still skittering across the floor when he moved.

His palm was flat between my shoulder blades, shoving me behind him. Then he was through the door with a blade in his fist, and I was alone in a room that smelled like cedar and cold iron, listening to a man die in the hall.

A thud. A grunt that didn't finish. Something heavy going down on stone.

Boots. Then nothing.

I didn't move. My hand stayed splayed on the doorframe. I counted lamp flames till counting stopped helping, and then the house went quiet the way a house goes quiet after something with teeth has walked through it.

The door swung open. Valerius came in bloody to the elbow, knuckles split.

“Don't look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I'm the villain in your story.”

“You killed a man in my hallway.”

“He had a knife against your door.” He crossed to the basin, ran the tap, watched the water go pink. “A knife. Past my guards. Past my claim.” He shut it off. “Six feet from you.”

My stomach rolled. Not at the blood —