The Trust and their accountants were working hard to subvert whatever bargains and rules tied them from acting above ground and in Inara. They wanted the kingdom more than anything, freedom to steal without repercussion the sacrifices required to pay magic’s toll. She lay down her quill to rub her temple and sensed something shift near the edge of the room.
Nim startled, reaching automatically to her thigh, but she was weaponless. Her breath rushed out of her at the sight of Warrick, though she wasn’t certain how long he’d been watching from the shadows. “You have to stop sneaking up on me.”
He gave her a smile that said it was not his fault that she had been so engrossed in her work that she forgot her surroundings. She narrowed her gaze on him but gave it up for blinking away the echo of lines caused by staring at so much print.
“Overworking yourself on the first day, my lady?” He came to lean on the desk beside her, so tall that she had to shift back in her chair to stare up at him.
“There is a lot to go through. And I’m not used to being idle.”
He eyed her attempt at surreptitiously stretching a hand. “Maris tells me you’ve worked through lunch.”
“Thank you for alerting me that she’s a traitor to my secrets.”
Warrick smirked, but his gaze trailed from her hand down the length of her skirt, split as it was to reveal her slim pants. He reached forward, lifting a bit of the material aside as if to inspect it, but Nim wasn’t fooled. “So you’ve come to vet my uniform, my lord?”
His green eyes rose to meet hers, an intimation rolling off of him that made her warm all the way through. “By all means, do report for dress inspection, my lady.”
She stared at him for a long moment, the heat only ebbing when he held out a hand.
“I do understand that you are not normally idle,” he said, “so I would like to escort you to the gardens for a stroll. It will not do you well to spend too many hours crooked over ledgers.”
Nim placed her hand in his, their fingers bare aside from the thin silver band that circled hers. “I suppose you would know something about that.” Her voice was more timid than usual, but Warrick had a way of stealing from her the very stubbornness she’d always relied on to get through.
His thumb slid over the back of her hand, and Nim had the sense that it was the last touch he would be allowed, since they were leaving the privacy of her room. The intimation said that he did not relish the idea, and she found she didn’t, either. She stood, pressing his hand to the desk beside him as she leaned forward, caging him not unlike the way he’d done to her the first time they’d met. An indecent grin slid across Warrick’s lips as she peered down at him.
“Trapped,” she whispered.
Warrick only hummed in agreement. As the sound rumbled through her, she could feel that he was remembering, too, how he’d watched her scale his desk and then the feeling when they were near to one another. Trapped, he seemed to think, was not a strong enough word for what he was.
She eased closer to steal a kiss, his mouth soft and warm as the hand she’d not pinned slid to her waist. She was going to have to marry him, the king’s warning be damned, or at some point, they would be caught in just such a situation—unfit behavior for agents of the crown. She was going to have to find a way to break free from the ties to magic before Stewart or anyone else discovered her secret.
She nipped Warrick’s lip then drew away, flipping the edge of her skirt to straighten the fabric. “Now,” she said, “that stroll.”
After a quiet walk through a private garden near the center of the castle grounds, Nim had returned to her study to find that a late lunch had been set out for her, along with a new collection of documents and scrolls. She did feel better after the air and a bit of sun, but she could not deny that Warrick’s presence had done the most for her mood. She settled in to return to what was by all appearances going to be an endless task and found that she did not dislike the idea. Research had always suited her, and the possibility of learning more about those around her and better understanding the dangers the Trust presented would afford her more security than she’d ever known.
When a quiet knock sounded at the door hours later, Nim glanced up and blinked her weary eyes at Maris.
“My lady,” she said. “I’ve come to drag you back to your rooms. You should prep to go down for supper, unless you prefer to stay in again.”
Nim returned her quill to its place and stretched her fingers, imagining a formal dinner with the lords and ladies of court. No, she didn’t think she would be eager to join them anytime soon, and Warrick’s post kept him occupied well into the evening hours. “I believe I’ll take dinner in my rooms, if it’s no bother.”
“Of course not.” Maris’s tone gave no impression whatsoever, but the small tip to the edge of her mouth seemed to imply that Nim had made a solid choice.
As Nim stood, her gaze caught on the edge of a document beneath the stack, one she’d not yet gotten to. She tugged it free of the others, running a finger over parchment that was strangely familiar. Her flesh brushed against the ink, written in a heavy, slanted hand, and Nim jerked her finger back as if bitten. The words seemed harmless enough, but in them was a recognizable magic. Unease skittered over her, but Calum was locked away beneath the castle. Then again, if he had woven his magic into the document, he would have done so before he was captured.
He could not hurt her any longer.
She left the parchment where it lay to be passed on for further inspection, and turned to meet Maris. They walked in a measured pace through the corridors. Nim was starting to become familiar with the layout of her new rooms, which overlapped the remembered routes of her childhood. She wondered where Warrick had been when she was a child, if they had both resided inside the castle then. She would never have known who he was, given the secret her mother and father had kept. It was probably ill-advised to ask whether the head of the Trust had delivered him to the king’s doorstep when he was a babe or if he had been with his mother longer.
Nim shuddered at the memory of her encounter with the head of the Trust and the depth of power she had felt then. It seemed impossible to imagine her anger or cruelty, when even her pleasure at seeing Nim had been impossibly torturous. It had been so long ago, and yet, the horror in her father’s face as he turned to find her, barefoot and slight in the massive chamber that held a queen… that image had never left her. It was the first time she’d known real fear, the first time she’d had a true understanding of that other world, the first time the magic had touched her.
“My lady,” Maris said, turning to stand at the open door to her suite.
Nim shoved the thoughts away and locked them into a box in her mind, aware that she should keep a tighter rein. There were too many memories in the castle, too many ways she might slip.
She sighed as she strode across the room and unfastened the closures on her jacket. Tossing it over a chair, she stood in the light before her writing desk. A bit of metal on the quill shone with reflected light from the lowering sun, and she stared at it quizzically. She was certain the metal had been silver before, but maybe that had been the adornments on the quill in her other room. Behind her, the space was empty, Maris having gone about preparations for the evening’s meal. Nim’s gaze caught on the panel that hid the secret corridor then grazed the mantle, the table, the remaining doors.