Chapter 7 How Good Are You at Fighting

"What do you mean?" Josephine asked, in the mild voice of a woman being asked about the weather.

"Don't play dumb with me!" Reginald was shouting so loudly that the speaker crackled. "The bank turned down our loan this afternoon, and the other side said the order came straight from Lord Veyron. He is going after us, Josephine. Why would he, unless you put the idea in his head?"

"Then take it up with Lord Veyron."

"You are his wife now! If you hadn't agreed to everything he asked..."

"Do you think he treats me like a normal wife?" She let exactly as much tired bitterness into her voice as she wanted him to hear. "I'm a substitute your family pushed through the door. He barely looks at me. If he hates the Titans, he has his own reasons, and nobody consulted me."

The line went quiet. She could hear him breathing, and she almost pitied how badly he wanted to believe her.

"Josephine, listen to me..."

She hung up.

Fenna's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. "Madam? Is everything all right?"

"Perfectly," Josephine said, and set the phone face down on her knee.

Across the city, Reginald Titan hurled his phone onto the sofa and rounded on his wife.

"This is your doing! Your brilliant marriage scheme! Josephine won't even acknowledge us, and Lord Veyron treats us like enemies. Your plan didn't just fail, it made everything worse!" His finger shook an inch from her nose. "If this loan isn't sorted out by the end of the week, you and Seraphina can pack your things and get out of my house. Lord Veyron hates the pair of you anyway!"

Odette's face lost all its color. She snatched up her phone and called the hospital with trembling fingers.

"Seraphina, what do I do? Your father says..."

In the hospital room, Seraphina glanced at Alistair Vance, who sat beside her bed with a laptop on his knees, frowning at a spreadsheet. She dropped her voice to a sweet murmur. "Mom, I'm sorry, Alistair is working. I don't want to disturb him."

She slipped out of bed as lightly as a cat, walked into the bathroom, and closed the door. At the soft click, Alistair looked up and smiled to himself. Such a beautiful girl, and so considerate. He was a lucky man.

Behind the door, Seraphina listened to her mother until Odette ran out of breath. Then she laughed, a small, bright, completely unworried sound.

"Mom, tell Dad not to panic. I'll take care of it."

"How? The loan..."

"You'll know when the time comes."

Odette let out a long breath. She turned on Reginald. "Seraphina says she has a way. So stop shouting and trust her. When has Seraphina ever let you down?"

Reginald opened his mouth, then closed it. He could not think of a single time.

The bank looked exactly as Josephine remembered it, and that was the worst part.

Fenna parked at the curb. Josephine stepped out and stood at the foot of the marble stairs, looking up at the glass front, the polished brass doors, the neat gray lettering. Sunlight slid across the windows like a slow, indifferent eye.

Her mother had left her a safe deposit box in this building. In her last life, she had not known it existed until the day Reginald and the bank's manager tied her to a chair in a basement and demanded the password. They had kicked her. Slapped her. Then they had taken needles and driven them under her nails, one at a time, until she gave it up.

What she remembered more clearly than the pain was Reginald's face afterward. Bright, hungry, almost joyful, as he lifted the lid and read whatever was inside. She never learned what it was. She only learned that within a year, the Titans and the Vances had begun to rule Virelia.

Mom, I'm sorry, she said silently. This time I won't lose it.

Fenna came up beside her and shivered. Josephine stood at the foot of those stairs radiating a cold so complete that the doorman had stopped holding the door. "Madam?"

Josephine turned her head. "How good are you at fighting?"

Fenna puffed out her chest. "Against ordinary people, one against ten is no problem. Against trained fighters, it depends on their level. But don't worry, Madam. Even then, I can protect you."

"And if I asked you to hurt someone? Or worse."

Fenna blinked her big round eyes and answered with perfect seriousness. "In self-defense, killing is fine. But no one in Eryndor has ever dared lay a hand on the Veyron family."

"Good." Josephine started up the stairs. "In a few minutes I'm going to beat up a fat man. Don't kill him. I promised Lord Veyron I wouldn't cause trouble, and beating someone without killing him shouldn't count."

"Oh," said Fenna, and followed her up with the contented air of someone whose day had just improved.

The staff greeted them the moment they stepped inside. Once Josephine mentioned the safe deposit box, a polite young woman escorted them to the elevator, then down a quiet corridor to the second door on the left. The manager's office.

Fenna pushed the door open. Josephine stepped in.

The fat manager sat behind a broad desk with his feet on an open drawer, watching a video on his phone. On the blotter beside him lay a stack of papers under a heavy glass paperweight. Without looking up, he bellowed, "Get out!"

Fenna crossed the room in two strides and took him by the collar. "Who should get out?"

She was small, round-faced, and smiling. The aura that came off her was something else entirely, and the manager felt his bladder reconsider its position. A grin cracked across his face. "No one, no one! Miss, could you let me go first?"

Fenna looked at Josephine. When Josephine nodded, she released him but did not step away. She stood at his shoulder, perfectly relaxed, like a cat that had already chosen its mouse.

The manager straightened his tie and turned to Josephine with an even broader smile. "Miss, how may I help you?"

Josephine laid her documents on the desk. "I would like to retrieve the contents of my safe deposit box."

He flipped through the papers carefully, then frowned with great, practiced regret. "Miss Titan, I'm afraid this box is not accessible for another year. It's in the terms... Aaaah!"

Fenna had taken hold of his ear.

Josephine let him scream for a few seconds. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet that it frightened him more than the noise had.

"A year. My mother's will says that as long as I am married, I may open it at any time. Reginald Titan told you to say that, didn't he? When did you two agree on it?"

"I don't know Mr. Titan!" the manager gasped through his teeth. "This bank only follows its customers' instructions."

"Mr. Titan?" Josephine tilted her head. "How do you know Reginald is Mr. Titan? Titan could be a woman. It could be me. It could be anyone."

The manager's mouth opened. Nothing came out of it.

"With a name like Reginald," he finally managed, "anyone would assume..."

Josephine's hand cracked across his face. A line of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth, and his fat cheek swelled. She took a tissue from her bag and wiped her fingers slowly, one by one, as if she had touched something unclean.

"Do you think I came here without evidence?" she asked. "I know the night you shook hands with Reginald. I know what he promised you, and what he wanted in return."

She did not, in fact, know the restaurant or the envelope or the number. She knew the man. A bank manager who would help tie a woman to a chair for a stranger's money had done it for a price, and every price came with a meeting. All she had to do was say it as though she had been standing in the room.

"You are still sitting in that chair," she said, "because I believe you will choose correctly between Reginald and me. What he promised may never arrive. What I can take from you, I can take right now."

Fenna let go of his ear and plucked the fruit knife from the desk. She spun it between her fingers a hand's width from his nose, and it flickered up and down, nearly kissing his cheek with every pass. His chair was pinned against the desk. There was nowhere to go.

But the knife was not what terrified him. It was the girl. She was young and slender and beautiful, and she looked at him as if he were the man who had murdered her father. Whatever came out of her mouth next, he understood, would be a verdict.

"I'll take you to the vault now," he said hoarsely. "Right now."

The safe deposit room lay beneath the bank, behind a steel door and two guards who would not meet his eyes. Josephine took out her key. The manager took out the bank's. Together they opened the first lock, and behind it, a keypad glowed faintly in the dark.

"Miss Titan, once you enter the password, it will open."

"Thank you." She waited until his footsteps had faded up the corridor, then looked at Fenna. Fenna nodded and stepped outside.

Alone, Josephine covered the keypad with both hands and pressed the code. The door opened with a quiet breath. Inside sat an iron box, plain and heavy.

She lifted the lid. The first thing she saw was a row of five gold bars.

She set them aside. Beneath them lay a thick folder of documents. Real estate. Property deeds. Shops. Shares. Government bonds. Everything her mother had ever owned, accounted for in her careful, upright handwriting.

At the very bottom were two notebooks, bound in worn gray cloth. The label on one read Medicine. On the other, Surgery.

Josephine opened the first. Page after page of prescriptions, each annotated and cross-referenced, each one more astonishing than the last. She opened the second, and found surgical procedures and experimental data that did not belong in any textbook she had ever seen.

Her heartbeat began to climb.

In her last life, Reginald had lifted the lid of this box with a bright, greedy face. Within a year, the Titans and the Vances had ruled Virelia.

She turned the page with a hand that would not stop shaking.

"So this is what you built your empire on, Reginald," she whispered into the silence. "Every page of it. And this time, it's mine."