Hexmaker (Hexworld Book 2), page 18
“Hexed shoes,” Mal had suggested. “They don’t leave any scent behind for the coppers to track.” He’d gotten a glare from several of the detectives. Owen had glared back; perhaps Mal had been a thief, but he wasn’t any more, and his knowledge could be of use.
In the end, there had been no clues of any kind. No one had seen anything suspicious. The device might has well have disappeared into thin air.
It was a black eye for the MWP, no doubt.
Now, only Mal, Dominic, Rook, and Owen remained in the lab. Dominic came to stand by Owen, putting a comforting hand to his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m sure this isn’t how you wanted to spend your last day here.”
“Not exactly,” Owen agreed.
“We were going to have a party,” Rook said. “Cicero had it all planned. There’s this little resort on—”
Owen held up his hand. “I appreciate the thought,” he said. “But Ferguson has everyone going over the Coven from top to bottom, looking for evidence. I understand.”
“Maybe later,” said Dominic. “Once you get back from your honeymoon and settled in your new life.”
The thought hurt. Could he stand to see them again, knowing they were still working with the MWP? To ask if any new forensic hexman had been hired, or if Dominic was doing his best to fill the position? “I’d like that,” Owen said.
He held out his hand, and Dominic clasped it solemnly. “It’s been a pleasure working with you, Owen,” he said. “I wish you much happiness. And congratulations on your marriage tomorrow.”
None of Owen’s friends would be there. Not his real friends, anyway. None of them had enough money, enough influence, to have made the guest list.
“Thank you, Dominic,” he said.
Dominic looked down at him—then hauled him into an embrace. They clapped one another on the back, and tears unexpectedly stung Owen’s eyes.
Dominic released him and stepped away. Without speaking again, he made for the door. Rook glanced after him, then back and Owen. “Good luck,” he said. “You, too, Mal.”
Then he flashed into crow form and glided after his witch.
Mal came over to Owen. Their hands touched, then curled together. “I’m sorry about your party,” Mal said.
Owen snorted. “Considering that Cicero planned it, it might be just as well. Whatever resort he had in mind is probably full of exotic dancing and half-naked men.”
Mal laughed. “And you suddenly don’t appreciate half-naked men?”
“I do, but…I’d rather spend tonight with you.” Owen met Mal’s amber gaze. “One last time.”
Something like grief seemed to shadow Mal’s eyes. It couldn’t be, of course—unlike Owen, Mal would remain free to do whatever he wished with whomever he wished.
“Aye,” he said quietly. “One last time. Let’s go home and make it memorable then, shall we?”
As soon as they reached the ante chamber of the apartment, Mal flung himself on Owen, kissing him ravenously. Owen held him close, feeling the press of Mal’s erection through their trousers. Tried to memorize the taste of his mouth, the scent of his arousal.
Tomorrow morning, Owen would walk into the cathedral. Stand before his parents, before every important person in New York City, and before God. Speak the vows that would bind Edith and him together for the rest of their lives.
So few hours left. He could feel the life he’d built falling away, one piece at a time. His job at the MWP was already gone. Next was his affair with Mal.
“I want you,” Owen whispered. “Body and soul, and everything in between.”
“Do you now?” Mal’s ocher eyes narrowed slightly, and he grabbed Owen through his trousers. “Oh, I have plans for you,” he murmured, squeezing. “You’ll get everything you can take, and more.”
Owen’s breath came short. “Yes. Please.”
Mal let go. “I’ll get the ropes ready. You go fetch the dilators from my room. And think about all the nasty things I’m going to do to you with them.”
Owen nodded, trembling. “Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good boy.” Mal swatted him on the backside. “Don’t make me wait.”
Owen scurried to Mal’s room. He’d seldom set foot in here—no point in making a habit out of something that couldn’t continue, after all. It smelled of Mal—a faint musk, underlain with something earthy and wild. Owen hesitated a moment; he’d forgotten to ask where the box was kept. Somewhere the servants wouldn’t pry when they came in to clean, no doubt.
The wardrobe seemed most likely, so he went to it and opened the doors. Hunkering down, he shifted aside Mal’s shoes. As he did so, he knocked over a small pouch shoved behind them. It toppled over with a heavy thunk, and the end of a silver chain fell out.
A chain that looked very familiar.
Owen’s heart beat in his ears. His hand wavered over it. It couldn’t be. He was mistaken.
Mal wouldn’t do that to him.
He picked up the pouch and upended it. The Star of Winter tumbled out into his hand.
Mal stripped back the thick comforter and top sheet. The fireplace would help warm the air, and he’d keep Owen’s blood too high to notice any chill. Humming to himself, he took the rope from where he’d stowed it in Owen’s dresser. And a few silk handkerchiefs. One would do as a blindfold, but perhaps a gag was in order as well? Owen would like that—it would mean a total surrender of control.
He heard Owen step into the room behind him. “Good boy,” he started as he turned, but the words died away on his lips.
Owen stood in the door, his face ashen. In his hand wasn’t the box Mal had sent him to fetch, but the replica of the Star of Winter.
For a long moment, silence hung between them, broken only by the soft crackle of the fire, the moan of the wind past the window.
“I can explain,” Mal said at last, mind scrambling for some way to explain.
“Don’t bother.” Owen’s voice was hoarse, his eyes gone gray as sleet. “I defended you to Kirk. I told him you couldn’t possibly have stolen it.”
“Stolen…” Oh hell. He had to have misheard. “Someone stole it?” Owen’s expression of shock shifted toward outrage, and Mal hastily added, “The real one, I mean? Because that ain’t. It’s just paste and glass. You can break one of the diamonds with your shoe.”
Owen hurled the necklace to the floor with such suddenness it caused Mal to jump. Glass turned to powder under his heel.
“S-See?” Mal said, because Owen’s expression hadn’t changed. “Just glass and paste, like I said.” Saint Mary, let him find some way through this. “So what’s this about the real thing being stolen?”
“Stop pretending to be surprised.” Owen’s voice was cold, flat, but his hands trembled at his sides. “What happened? Did you forget to take the replica with you that night? Or did you not have time to replace the necklace after you pocketed it?”
“I know this looks bad,” Mal said, holding his hands up. Fear coursed through his veins—even if he told Owen everything this very moment, would Owen forgive him? “But I can explain.”
“I can explain it, too.” Owen’s frigid tone seemed to leach all the heat from the room. “You’re a thief and a liar. I must have been out of my mind to have ever trusted you. But don’t worry. I see you now for what you truly are.”
Mal couldn’t get enough breath. His heart labored in his chest, as if his blood had turned thick. Frozen, maybe, gone to slush before Owen’s icy glare.
“Owen,” he tried, though what he could say, he didn’t know.
“Did you steal the device as well?”
“Nay!” Mal took a step toward him, but Owen moved back, and he stopped. “I swear, I didn’t.”
Owen shook his head slowly. “As if your word means anything. Get out.”
Mal’s lips had gone numb. “Wh-what?”
“Get out.” Owen stepped aside and pointed at the door.
No, this wasn’t happening. Owen wasn’t throwing him out on the street.
This wasn’t happening again.
“You can’t,” Mal said. “Our bond. You’re my witch.”
A look of disgust tightened Owen’s features. “A mistake from the beginning. I’ll call upon Tom Halloran at my first opportunity and ask him to break it. Now. Get. Out.”
Mal’s walk through the apartment to the door felt like something out of a nightmare. He had to wake up.
“Wait,” Owen said.
Thank God. Mal turned, and found Owen behind him. He’d picked up the violin case from where it still remained on the ante room table.
“I don’t know how much your cut of the theft was,” Owen snarled, thrusting the violin into Mal’s arms so hard it staggered him. “But this should be enough to get you out of the city. Take this to your precious fence and use the money to leave New York. I don’t ever want to set eyes on you again.”
The next morning, Mal carried the violin down the street toward Madam Galpern’s, his steps sluggish. He’d spent the night at a 24-hour restaurant, drinking cup after cup of coffee until the sun came up. His head ached and his throat hurt, and the cold, clear wind did nothing to make him feel better. Even the sunny sky seemed to mock him.
It was a beautiful day for a wedding. Was Owen already at the cathedral on Fifth Avenue?
Their bond was still intact, its soft warmth a mockery of the comfort it had so briefly offered. Mal could find out where Owen was. Could shift shape and beg Owen to just listen to him.
But what would be the point? Owen had made it clear enough he thought Mal was nothing but a liar and a thief.
And he was right. Maybe Mal didn’t steal the Star of Winter himself, but he also hadn’t told Owen that Madam Galpern had an interested buyer.
How could he have, though? She’d been the one to take him out of the orphanage and start training him up. He couldn’t betray her by telling the coppers she was planning a theft. She was the only one who’d ever seen anything of worth in him.
At least until Owen.
He’d tried to belong to two worlds at once. To Owen’s glittering, warm, safe world where money flowed like water, all the while staying loyal to Sophie and Madam Galpern, and keeping his mouth shut about the proposed job. Hell, he would have kept his mouth shut even if he’d known she had someone else ready to steal it at the Vandersee household. Though how the devil she’d found out Mrs. Yates had lent the necklace to Edith, he didn’t know. Someone on staff, no doubt.
His time with Owen had been like something out of a fantasy. A dream of fine food, of soft sheets and hot water and new clothes. And like any dream, he had to wake up eventually. Go back to the gutter where he belonged.
If Owen would have just listened to him. Given him half a minute to explain. But of course he’d been willing to think Mal a thief at the drop of a hat.
They’d been too different from the start. And to think, Mal had actually believed that Owen cared about him. What an idiot he’d been.
No one else was in the shop, thank Mary. A frown creased Madam Galpern’s brown face when Mal stepped inside. “What on earth are you doing here, Malachi?”
He hefted the violin in its case. “I’ve got something for you.”
One perfect eyebrow arched. “Oh really? I thought you were reformed.”
His head ached. More than anything, he wanted to curl up and drift off to sleep. Preferably to wake up in Owen’s arms and find it had all been a terrible dream. “The violin ain’t stolen. And I’m sorry I let you down,” he said. “Though it sounds like you had someone on the Vandersee staff who came through anyway.”
A tiny hint of surprise flickered over her face, there and gone so quickly he wasn’t certain he’d actually seen it. “That’s none of your concern, Malachi. And I still don’t know why you’re here. Surely in your new life, you have no need to sell a violin to make ends meet.”
He didn’t want to say the words…but he had no choice. She wouldn’t do business with him if she thought he was with the coppers. “Owen—Dr. Yates—threw me out. Thanks to your plot. I didn’t inform on you, but he found the fake necklace where I’d hidden it. He thinks I’m a thief.”
“You are a thief, my dear.”
“Right.” He swallowed thickly. “Owen ordered me to leave town, and gave me the violin to raise funds. So that’s what I’m doing.”
“How generous of him,” she murmured. “And he didn’t turn you over to the police?”
Mal had plenty of time at the restaurant last night to think it over. “Didn’t want the scandal. His own familiar, stealing from his bride-to-be? Better I disappear all quiet-like than it reach the papers. They’ve got enough money that the loss of the Star won’t impact more than their pride.”
“I see.” She looked at him for a long moment, as if considering.
“Please.” He’d beg if he had to. “I’m selling the violin no matter what, and I hoped you’d give me a fair price. For old time’s sake. And I…I wanted to say goodbye. To you and Sophie.” He swallowed. “I know I let you down.”
Just like he’d let Owen down. Just like he’d let his parents down, all those years ago. He’d never be good enough for anyone, it seemed.
Madam Galpern sighed. “Turn the sign to closed and come upstairs.”
Mal did so, then followed her to the lavish sitting room. “Why don’t you sit down and let me pour us drinks,” she suggested.
Mal sank into the chair, holding the violin case across his knees. Now that the moment was here, he found he didn’t want to sell it. He had to—he’d left Owen’s apartment with nothing else but the clothes on his back. Most of the coin in his pocket had gone to coffee throughout the long night. There was no choice but to turn the instrument over to Madam Galpern and take whatever money she gave him for it. He had no practical use for it, certainly.
But it was the last thing he had of Owen. The only thing. Well, except for the warm place the bond made behind his heart. Soon, even that would be gone thanks to the damned hexbreaker, and he’d have nothing.
He ran his fingers over the case, remembering how Owen had laughed that night in the park. How he’d come alive while playing, just as he’d come alive beneath Mal’s hands in bed. Forgotten his accursed duty, his responsibilities, for a few seconds and just been…happy.
Mal blinked rapidly. He’d been beaten for crying too many times as a child; he couldn’t break down in front of Madam Galpern now.
“So Dr. Yates believes you stole the Star of Winter,” she said from the sideboard. “That you are, in fact, a hardened criminal.”
“Aye,” Mal agreed miserably.
“So he wouldn’t be surprised—disappointed, no doubt, but hardly surprised—if you broke in here, intending to steal from me. I confronted you, and then…”
She turned from the sideboard, a pistol in her hand.
“Sadly, I was forced to defend myself,” she said, and leveled the gun at him.
Mal surged to his feet, but the bore of the gun followed him.
“I wouldn’t, my dear,” Madam Galpern warned.
Mal’s fingers were like ice where they still clutched the violin case. The black mouth of the gun seemed to swallow the morning light coming through the windows, and he couldn’t look away. “What’s going on?” There had to be some mistake. She wouldn’t threaten him like this. “I know I let you down, but I’m still one of yours.”
Madam Galpern sighed. “Don’t be stupid, my dear. You’ve done nothing but let me down for years.”
Ice water seeped down his spine, and his gut tensed. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“Why do you think I plucked you from the orphanage, so long ago?” she asked. “Because you had quick fingers? Don’t be ridiculous. This city is swarming with pickpockets, and second-story men can be found on any street corner. But familiars are far more rare.”
His pulse pounded at the base of his throat. “You only wanted me because I’m a familiar.”
“Certainly. It’s not as if there’s a shortage of red-haired Irish brats.” Her full mouth flexed into a scowl. “You were to work for me until you were ready to bond with one of my witches. Then you’d become really useful. But you refused.”
He shouldn’t give her any ideas, but he had no desire to be shot, either. “Then why not force me? If that’s all I was to you.”
She snorted. “I prefer that those in my employ work willingly. I’ve built my fortune on loyalty. Having someone who hated and resented me in the ranks seemed a risk. I hoped for a while you’d change your mind, but you were so horribly ungrateful. So when someone approached me, looking for a small, red-haired man to be the scapegoat for the Jacobs murder, you were the perfect choice.”
Mal’s head spun; it was all he could to do remain standing. He couldn’t believe this. She’d betrayed him. The entire job at the Jacobs mansion had been nothing but a ploy to get him on the property at the right time. Gilbert was meant to kill Jacobs, leave behind a red hair to incriminate Mal, set off the alarm, and abscond with the device while the servants chased Mal. And since the ledger page describing the device had been lost, no one would ever have even known anything had been stolen. Never imagined anyone had been there except for Mal.
There would have been no need for the police to look any further. Case closed.
Mal would have gone to the electric chair, no doubt about it. And the whole time, he would have maintained his silence about who had given him the job in the first place, because he couldn’t take his old friend Madam Galpern down with him. Couldn’t hurt the only person who had ever seen any value in him.
His mouth tasted like metal and ash.
“And Sophie?” he managed to ask. “What if she’d been caught? Would you have let her rot in prison?”
“Again, you’re being foolish.” Madam Galpern smiled. “Sophie is useful. Unlike you.”
Mal swung his violin case as hard as he could. There came the crack of the pistol firing, at the same instant as the case smashed into Madam Galpern’s arm.
