Chapter 2 2

"I'm listening," I replied, mostly because the alternative involved testing whether a locked door could survive a very determined shoulder, and I did not love my odds.

"Sit."

"I'll stand, thanks."

Something that might have been the beginning of a smile pulled at his mouth, gone as fast as it arrived. "Suit yourself. My name is Cassian Draven, though I suspect you already worked that out given the building we're standing in."

"The very large family crest on the door was a hint."

"I do love a woman who reads context clues." He finally took his boots off the desk, sitting forward, and the shift from lazy amusement to actual focus was almost alarming in how fast it happened.

"Here's what I know. Jonas Hale, mortician's assistant, twenty years in the trade, dead this morning with a Hollow Mark burned into his palm. Hollow Marks belong to the Kestrel bloodline, a family everyone in this city assumes went extinct eleven years ago. You, meanwhile, forge documents with a hand distinctive enough that I've been collecting samples of your work for two years, and you have a suspiciously well disguised scar on your wrist that matches the mark on a dead man's palm exactly."

"That's a lot of very specific detective work for a shipping executive."

"I'm not just a shipping executive."

"No kidding."

He didn't dignify that with an answer, which was somehow more irritating than if he'd argued.

"Someone is hunting Hollow Mark carriers, Miss Kestrel, and given that Jonas Hale is dead and you are, by every reasonable measure, supposed to be dead as well, I think that someone just found their second target."

My stomach dropped straight through the polished floor. "You think I'm next."

"I think you were always going to be next. I think Jonas was killed specifically to smoke you out of hiding, and I think whoever did it used my family's customs stamp to make sure the trail led directly to my doorstep, which means somebody wants House Draven blamed for this just as badly as they want you found." He steepled his fingers, watching me with an intensity that made me acutely aware of every exit I didn't currently have access to. "Which brings me to my offer."

"I can't wait."

"The ruling Houses' summit begins in four days. Every major family in Duskhaven will be under one roof for two weeks straight, which means whoever is hunting you will almost certainly make another move during it, because it's the only window all year where that many powerful people are distracted enough to miss something. I need eyes inside that summit that nobody suspects are looking for anything. You need a reason to be somewhere that dangerous without anyone connecting you to a supposedly dead Kestrel."

"So what, you want to hire me?"

"I want to marry you. Temporarily. Publicly. Extremely convincingly." He delivered it with the exact same tone he'd use to order dinner, which somehow made it worse.

"An engagement gives you a reason to be at every event, every dinner, every private meeting that matters, under a name and a story nobody will question, because nobody questions a Draven's choice of fiancée out loud, not if they value their kneecaps."

I laughed, sharp and disbelieving. "You want me to pretend to marry you."

"Pretend to be engaged to me. I'm not in a rush to actually marry anyone, least of all a woman who broke into my building under a fake name within an hour of meeting me." A ghost of real humor flickered behind his eyes.

"Though I'll admit, it's the most interesting first date I've had in years."

"This isn't a date."

"No. It's a business arrangement with excellent catering." He rose from behind the desk, closing some of the distance between us, and I hated how much effort it took not to step back. "You find whoever killed Jonas and is hunting your bloodline. I find out who's trying to frame my family for it. We both walk away from the summit exactly as unmarried as we started, and considerably safer than either of us currently is."

"And if I say no?"

"Then you walk out that door, and I never breathe a word of what I know about you to anyone, because frankly, blackmailing a woman who forges documents for a living seems like an excellent way to end up on the wrong side of a very creative revenge plot." He shrugged, easy, unbothered.

"But I don't think you're going to say no, Miss Kestrel. I think you've spent six years hiding from exactly this kind of danger, and some stubborn part of you is relieved someone finally handed you a reason to stop running from it instead."

"That's a very confident assumption for someone who's known me for twenty minutes."

"I'm a very confident man. Ask anyone. They'll tell you it's either my greatest strength or my most exhausting personality trait, depending who you ask and how recently I've annoyed them."

I hated that he was right. I hated more that he'd clearly enjoyed saying it.

"I have conditions," I countered instead of agreeing outright, because pride required at least the illusion of negotiating.

"Of course you do."

"I choose my own cover story. I keep my shop. And if I find out your family actually did kill Jonas, this deal is void and I disappear so completely you'll spend the next six years wondering if I was ever real in the first place."

"That's oddly specific."

"I've had six years to think about how I'd do it a second time. I've gotten very creative."

"Terrifying. Genuinely. I mean that as a compliment." He studied me a long moment, something almost admiring in it despite the circumstances. "One more thing. You'll need a believable reason for a shop owner from the lower districts to catch a Draven's eye in the first place. Nobody will buy true love at first sight, not with how fast this is moving."

"Tell them I forged something for you and you were impressed."

"That's uncomfortably close to the truth."

"The best lies always are." I crossed my arms.

"Tell them I forged a very difficult permit, and you fell for my devastating competence."

"Devastating competence. I like that. We'll workshop the exact wording, but the bones are solid."

Something sharpened in his expression, respect maybe, or its close cousin, wariness. "Agreed. Though for what it's worth, I don't think my family killed him. I think someone wants us to think that just as badly as they want you to think it."

"We'll see."

"We will." He extended a hand, and I stared at it a long moment before I finally shook it, and the second our palms touched, a faint, unmistakable warmth flickered up my scarred wrist, gone before I could be certain I hadn't imagined it.

"Welcome to House Draven, Miss Kestrel. Try not to forge anything incriminating on your way out."

I made it exactly three steps toward the door before it burst open from the outside, a guard stumbling in white faced and breathless, and whatever he said next made every trace of easy amusement vanish off Cassian's face in an instant.

"Sir, you need to see this. Someone just delivered a package addressed to your new fiancée, and it's already got half the household in a panic."