My Lady Quicksilver

Four

“Bloody hell,” Garrett muttered, standing in the middle of the foyer and turning in circles as he examined the scene.

Lynch moved slowly, cataloging each inch of room and analyzing it. One of the servants lay on the grand staircase. She’d obviously tried to flee before Lord Falcone got to her. The woman lay sprawled across the carpeted stairs in her mobcap and apron, blood dripping from the torn gash in her throat. It was messy—made with blunt teeth and not a blade.

The butler had almost made it to the door before he too was cut down. A spreading pool of blood beneath his crumpled body soaked into the carpet. Lynch’s brows drew together. “It’s the same as the Haversham case,” he murmured. “Falcone was more interested in killing them by this stage. No doubt he glutted himself upstairs.” Kneeling down, he touched the sticky pool beneath the butler. His vision blurred momentarily, his sense of smell heightening even as his mouth watered. He wanted to touch his fingertip to his tongue but years of control had taught him better.

Behind him, Rosa scribbled furiously in her notepad, taking down his words. Her skin was pale, her lips compressed, but she gave no other sign that this scene bothered her—or she was determined not to.

Rubbing his fingertips together, he looked up the stairs. Golden lamplight bathed the walls. Falcone had not bothered to update to modern conveniences like gaslight. Some of the older blue bloods were like that.

Perry slipped silently into the room, her dark hair slicked back beneath a cap. “A bloodbath,” she murmured, exchanging an uneasy glance with Garrett. Her nostrils flared, scenting the air, the blood. As one of the five who made up Lynch’s Hand—his best—she needed to be on scene. Perry had gifts of her own, beyond driving a steam carriage through hairpin turns at breakneck speed. With one sniff she could place a man to the London borough he came from.

“Find Falcone,” Lynch commanded. “I want a full CV count by morning.” If Falcone had been close to the Fade, Lynch needed to know.

Barrons appeared at the top of the stairs, lean and moving with a swordsman’s grace. Dressed in black velvet, the only sign of color was a ruby stickpin in the stark white cravat at his throat.

“Barrons.” Lynch nodded, a sign of respect to the young lord. Barrons was often involved in matters requiring an inquisitive mind. Their paths crossed regularly at these events; no doubt the prince consort wished to be kept apprised.

“Falcone’s up here,” Barrons called, his voice carrying the inflection of the well bred. “He’s still alive.”

“Still alive?” Lynch hurried up the stairs. Behind him came the swish of skirts and the lemon-and-linen smell he couldn’t quite escape.

The two men exchanged a look.

“If you can call it that. I’ve managed to subdue him in the study. I’ll warn you, it’s not pretty,” Barrons said, his gaze drifting over Lynch’s shoulder toward Rosa.

“It rarely is,” Lynch replied. He had the brief instinct to step in front of her, his shoulders bristling.

Barrons didn’t have the look of a man eyeing a fine woman, but something about his perusal chilled Lynch to the core. He turned and offered his hand to Rosa to help her up the last three steps.

She eyed it for a moment, then reached out with her right hand and accepted it. Too late, he recalled her aversion to being touched there. But then her warm, slim fingers were sliding over his, the kid leather beneath his touch smooth and well-worn.

“Barrons, this is Mrs. Marberry, my new secretary,” he introduced.

“A pleasure.” Barrons nodded.

Rosa smiled, but Lynch had the feeling it wasn’t genuine. “The pleasure is mine, my lord. I never expected to be rubbing shoulders with someone from the Council of Dukes itself.”

Barrons studied her, then glanced away. “An honorary member, my dear. I stand in my father’s place until he recovers.”

Lynch said nothing. The Duke of Caine had been afflicted with a mysterious illness for years. The chances of him recovering were slim and Barrons knew it.

The fact that the craving virus was a possessive disease was not unknown. It tolerated no other viruses or illnesses in its host’s body. Yet few dared tell Barrons that to his face. He knew it. The man was no fool, after all.

Whatever illness afflicted his father, he kept rumors of it under lock and key.

Barrons gestured toward the study. “Perhaps we’d best view Falcone first. Your men can deal with the bodies. They’re through there.” He gestured behind him, at the library and the bedrooms.

Though Lynch wanted to see the bodies himself, Falcone was of the greater interest to him. “I was unable to examine Haversham properly. He’d killed himself before we arrived. I thought it guilt at the time.”

Barrons shot him a sober look. “I don’t believe so. I don’t believe Haversham had enough control of his senses to suffer such an emotion.”

“Then you think he was murdered? I examined the body myself. The entry and exit wounds seemed consistent with suicide and powder burn was found on his hands and jaw. I could smell other people on his skin, but I assumed they were his victims.”

“Like I said, I don’t believe Haversham had the faculty to kill himself.”

They strode along the carpeted hall. It was darker here, a single candle burning in the sconce.

“What should I expect?” he asked. “Was Falcone close to the Fade?”

“Falcone’s barely forty.”

“There’s neither rhyme nor reason to the Fade,” Lynch argued. “Sometimes the virus colonizes a man swifter than it does others. I’ve seen an eighty-year-old with a CV count as low as twenty-three.”

“There’s no sign of albinism,” Barrons countered. “His skin carries a healthy glow, his hair is still light brown, and his eyes are hazel. If his CV count were higher, his color would have begun to fade before now.”

Muffled screams began to penetrate. Lynch’s gaze locked on the closed study. “How precisely did you subdue him?”

“I shot him with a dart of hemlock,” Barrons replied. “It paralyzed him for barely a minute.”

“A minute?” Rosa blurted.

Lynch had almost forgotten her. Almost.

The two men looked back.

“My apologies,” she said. “I’ve read of these new hemlock concoctions in a scientific journal. I thought they paralyzed a blue blood for nearly ten minutes?”

No scientific journal would dare speak of such a thing. Lynch’s lashes lowered in consideration, running over her. The propaganda pamphlets the humanists printed, however, were a different story. Did his secretary have humanist tendencies? Or was she simply one of the many curious in London who read the pamphlets when they were distributed?

He knew a man, an informant who was emphatically loyal to the Echelon, who liked to read the pamphlets, regardless of his loyalties. Jovan thought the caricatures of the prince consort as a pale, bloated vulture hovering over the queen were humorous.

“The amount of time the concoction paralyzes depends upon the amount of craving virus in the blood,” Barrons explained. “The higher the CV levels, the quicker paralysis wears off. I’ve tested it on myself, actually. It takes me four and a half minutes to begin regaining control of my limbs.”

Which meant Barrons had a high CV count. Lynch filed that away for future thought.

“Then if Lord Falcone doesn’t have a high CV count, how on earth did he manage to recover so swiftly?” Rosa frowned.

“That is the question,” Barrons said. “There’s no explanation. In fact, there’s no explanation for his state at all.”

The three of them stopped in front of the study door. From within came the muffled sounds of a thud. Then something splintered.

Barrons reached grimly for the dart gun at his side. “I tied him to the chair,” he admitted. “I believe he’s just broken it. Be prepared for anything.”

Reaching for the door, he eased it open and slipped inside. Lynch clutched his cane-sword and glanced at Rosa. “Stay there,” he snapped, and hurried after Barrons. If he allowed the Duke of Caine’s heir to get killed, then his own head would be forfeit.

The room was silent and dark, a breeze blowing through the gauzy curtains. The splintered remains of the chair littered a rug in front of the desk, with rope discarded in bloodied pools.

Barrons hurried to the window and looked out. “Bloody hell,” he swore. “He must have gone through it.”

The hair along the back of Lynch’s neck lifted.

“This is a catastrophe. If he gets loose in the city, it’ll cause mass hysteria,” Barrons said. “We have to capture him before he goes too far.”

“What are we dealing with here?” Lynch asked, aware of everything the young lord had not said in front of Rosa.

“A blue blood acting like he’s in the Fade when he isn’t. Presume you’re facing a vampire, Lynch, and you might come close to the truth.”

Lynch stilled. Becoming such a creature was the only fear a blue blood had. A vampire could kill hundreds before he was brought down—and had in the past. But the Echelon had become adept at controlling such matters. If a lord somehow managed to alter his CV readings, then the telltale signs of the Fade began to show in his flesh. He began to stink of rot, his body slowly deforming into a wiry, maggot-pale quadrupedal creature.

The hair along his spine tickled. Lynch scrubbed at the back of his neck. Barrons strode past him toward the door but Lynch hesitated. He could smell something now. Something sweet, like flavored ices or sugared buns.

Blood dripped.

“Barrons,” he said slowly. “I don’t think he went out the window.”

The lord reached for the door, his gaze snapping back over his shoulder. Lynch slowly rolled his eyes up and Barrons’s head lifted. He didn’t need to see what had caught the lord’s attention to know where Falcone was.

Barrons jerked his pistol up and Lynch dove out of the way as the man who’d once been Falcone dropped from the plaster ceiling. It landed where he’d been standing and as Lynch rolled to his feet, it sprang for Barrons.

Gunfire spat in the dark room, momentarily singeing Lynch’s vision. All he could see were a pair of dark forms grappling and then Barrons’s yelp as the young lord went down.

Lynch had his own pistol up, but the center of his vision was a mess of glittering lights. Leaping forward, he reached for Falcone and yanked with all his strength, tearing the creature off the fallen lord. Blood stained the air. He could taste it in his mouth, smell it thick in his nostrils. There was no time to see the damage however. Falcone twisted in a way not even a blue blood should be able to and leaped for him.

A blow smashed into his hand and the pistol skittered across the floor. Lynch ground his teeth as his arm was nearly wrenched clean out of the socket. He twisted back, avoiding another blow, and finally caught a good look at his adversary.

Falcone’s face twisted in an expression of rage, his eyes bloodshot and wild. Nothing human lurked there. Blood matted his hair and clothes, and the nails on his hand were sharp. Lynch had a split second to examine him before they raked toward his face.

Parrying with the cane-sword, he barely managed to block the first blow, then the next one, let alone use it to his advantage. Falcone was monstrously fast and each blow echoed up the muscle in Lynch’s forearm. Lynch ripped the sword free of the cane, but Falcone lashed out, nails screaming on steel as he knocked it out of Lynch’s hand.

“Help!” Barrons yelled, scrambling upright. Blood bubbled on his lips and his chest was a raw mess. He clutched at the stained velvet, trying to drag himself into a sitting position against the wall.

Falcone’s head turned at the sound and Lynch seized his chance. He leaped forward, tackling the man to the floor and using his own considerable strength to force Falcone onto his face. Yanking on an arm, he wrenched it up, putting a shoulder lock on the creature.

Light flooded into the room as the door opened.

Lynch recoiled from the bright glare just as Falcone gave a mighty heave beneath him. Rosa rushed inside, backlit by the light, a pistol in her hands and her face grim as her eyes locked on him.

“Get out!” he bellowed. “Get out of the house!”

Falcone strained, the tendons in his shoulder tearing. Lynch could feel his grip slipping, and horror sank its cold claws into his gut as he saw Rosa’s jaw drop in surprise.

“Run!” he screamed as Falcone rolled and threw him aside.

Lynch hit the wall, the breath whooshing out of him. He landed on hands and knees, just in time to see Rosa flee down the corridor. Falcone went after her in a blur.

“Perry! Garrett!” He shoved off the wall and lurched toward the door. Something hurt in his side. Maybe a cracked rib. No time though. He had to stop Falcone—before the creature tore Rosa’s throat out.

That thought burned through his chest like fire. Tearing through the door, he saw the flap of Falcone’s coattails as the lord bounded down the stairs. Rosa screamed out of sight and a gun barked.

“Bloody hell!” Garrett’s voice echoed through the entry.

Lynch sprinted along the corridor as shouts broke out. He didn’t know what was happening. More gunfire coughed. Perry screamed Garrett’s name and then the gunfire fell silent.

Vaulting over the rail of the staircase, Lynch leaped through the air, raking the scene with a sharp glance. Rosa tripped on the bottom step and went sprawling. Garrett was down, clawing at his chest. He was perhaps the only reason Rosa was still alive. Falcone had stopped to attack him first.

Lynch landed hard on the marble foyer below, the vibration shivering up his legs. Falcone ignored him, leaping on Rosa and riding her to the ground. Her head cracked on the marble tiles and the gun in her hand tumbled free.

No!

Blind rage turned his vision to shadows. The demon in him—the hungry, darker side of him—rose with a choking grip until he could barely see. The next thing he knew, he was hauling the creature off Rosa and throwing it into the wall. Falcone gathered his feet under him as he hit and rebounded off it with athletic grace.

Lynch had a knife in his hand before he knew it. Falcone hit him hard, blunt teeth sinking into his throat. Lynch drove the knife up, deep into the creature’s chest. As if realizing his intentions, Falcone jerked, his jaw opening. Lynch grabbed him and yanked him over his shoulder, slamming the lord flat on the ground. His bone handled knife hilt gleamed in the golden light, and he knelt down, using his knee to shove it home as he grabbed Falcone by the head and snapped his neck.

Silence fell, broken only by the gasping wheeze from Garrett’s throat.

Lynch staggered off the body, the shadows draining from his vision. He felt light-headed all of a sudden. Rosa was on her feet, her mouth parted in shock as she stared at him.

“Stay there,” he snarled, stabbing a finger toward her. One last glance at Falcone—he wasn’t getting up again—and he staggered toward Garrett.

Perry was on her knees, hands clamped over the wound on Garrett’s chest.

“How bad is it?” Lynch demanded. Not Garrett. He’d been only a boy when Lynch took him on, streetwise and full of an insincere charm he used to protect himself, running along at Lynch’s heels, emulating him, driving him insane with a thousand and one questions.

He reached out and tilted Garrett’s head to the side.

Garrett winced. “I’ll live,” he gasped. With a bloody smile, he added, “Can’t leave so many bereft women behind. They’ll be…crying for days.”

Perry shrugged out of her coat and pressed it over the mess in Garrett’s chest. Lynch saw blood pumping through an artery and felt the iron grip of those icy fingers rake his gut again. The heart. Falcone had hit the heart. There was no surer way to kill a blue blood.

“He needs a physician,” Perry said in an emotionless tone, but that didn’t mean she felt nothing. When she looked up, light gleamed off her eyes, suspiciously bright. “Fast.”

Lynch straightened and looked around. “Where the bloody hell are the Coldrush Guards Barrons brought with him?”

Nobody could answer that.

“Rosa, I need you to fetch help,” he said, trying to prioritize needs in his mind. Lynch liked Barrons enough that he didn’t wish to see the lord die—but more than that, he knew losing the Duke of Caine’s heir would be a monumental catastrophe. Garrett however…Garrett was personal.

“I’ve got him, sir,” Perry said softly, seeing the dilemma in his face.

He nodded shortly. “Barrons is down. I need to see if he’s going to survive. Rosa, send for a physician or a doctor. Even a bloody midwife will do.”

Rosa’s gloved hands were clenched in her navy skirts as she stared at him with those liquid-dark eyes. She made no move to obey.

Had the fright shocked her insensible? “What?” he snapped.

“You’re bleeding.” Her lips compressed, a hint of defiance glinting in her eyes. “Quite badly.”

He slapped a hand to his throat and felt the wetness there. The room stank of blood—most of it not his, thank goodness. But the smell of it… Lynch almost groaned, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. That was the only sign of his discomposure, but she saw it.

“I’ve had worse,” Lynch said, tugging the collar of his leather coat up. Gesturing toward the door, he added, “Hurry. Before the others bleed to death. And then make sure you stay outside until this is dealt with.”

Lynch needed her out of here. He’d not risk her life again and right now, with the way she was looking at him and the intoxicating scent of blood, he just might be the one who lost control.

Rosalind shivered on the doorstep of the mansion, tucking her cape-jacket tight about her shoulders. More of the Nighthawks had arrived in the last hour, as well as a pair of physicians and enough Coldrush Guards to secure the mansion. Crowds of curious onlookers loomed beyond their impassive forms, desperate to know more of what had happened.

“Was it them humanists?” a blue blood lord called, his top hat bobbing in the crowd.

“A vampire?” another cried, waving his walking stick.

Panic edged their voices and the crowd murmured. Rosalind edged back into the concealment of the trailing roses that cascaded over the entrance and tugged her bonnet up around her face. Nobody would know her here, yet vulnerability rode her. She was surrounded by too many blue bloods—half the Echelon it seemed, clad in their flamboyant velvets and silks. Even at this time of the day, gaudy feathers bobbed in ladies’ bonnets and Rosalind caught a glimpse of several white wigs and powdered faces in the crowd—older blue bloods, by the look of it, those still mired in fashions from the past. Or perhaps seeking to hide the effects of the Fade. Who knew?

“Rosa?”

Lynch’s voice cut through her scrutiny. Rosalind turned swiftly, her skirts slithering over the tiled portico and her heart leaping into her throat. She was used to keeping a cool head in moments of stress, but once the excitement had settled, she couldn’t seem to stop her heart from pounding. So close. Falcone’s eyes had been full of madness and hunger. She’d heard his harsh panting as he chased her down the hall, knowing that she’d never make it in time, knowing that he would have her… And then Garrett had looked up, his eyes widening in shock before he smoothly drew his pistol and put a bullet into Falcone’s chest.

He’d saved her life. A second more and Falcone would have had her. As it was, the shot had barely slowed him. Rosalind had stumbled down the stairs, Garrett launching himself past her to meet the maddened lord—another action that saved her.

It was easy to despise the blue bloods after everything they’d done to her, but Garrett had risked his life for hers without a thought. She didn’t like that. It didn’t fit her view of the world.

Lynch had tried to hastily wash the blood from his skin and rake his hair back into place, but the same feverish glow that burned in her chest lit his eyes. “I need you. Come.”

Tugging her notebook and pencil out of her reticule, Rosalind followed him inside. The stale scent of death seemed to permeate the air in the grim afternoon light and two of the Coldrush Guards were stationed inside. Her gaze went immediately to where Lynch had launched himself over the railing of the banister. He’d landed lightly, the edges of his long leather coat flaring around him, his eyes cold with purpose, before he’d thrown himself at Falcone. Killed him in fact, with grim, efficient purpose. She hadn’t missed the way he’d moved; someone had taught him a brutal fighting style. Falcone had been stronger and faster, but Lynch knew how to disable a man with a few swift chops of the hand.

Rosalind looked up, light gleaming through the facets of the chandelier above. A good twenty-foot drop and he’d handled it like it were a step off the porch. A shiver worked its way along her spine.

Dangerous.

Blue bloods were superior in strength and speed to a human, but that didn’t always mean the balance was uneven. A trained assassin could cut down an untrained blue blood in hand-to-hand combat. Someone like Lynch though? Impossible.

If he ever realized who she was, Rosalind had no intentions of getting close enough to him to find out who would win.

“Here,” Lynch said, gesturing to the body by the stairs. Someone had draped a sheet over the corpse, but it clung wetly to Falcone, drenched in blood. “Write this down. We’ve taken an analysis of Falcone’s CV levels with the portable brass spectrometer. They came in at fifty-three percent. Note: Request Haversham’s CV levels when we return.”

The butler was covered with a coat someone had found. Rosalind frowned. “Do you usually cover the bodies?”

“No.”

He’d done it for her then. Her pencil paused, scratching to a halt. Then she hastily wrote the rest of his words.

“From what I can determine, Falcone was in the dining room with his family when the…seizure…took him,” he continued, starting up the stairs. “His cup was nearly full, but the decanter levels indicate he’d partaken of a quart of blood. He shouldn’t have been driven by the craving. His CV levels indicate he was far from close to the Fade. Something caused this then. An outside influence? A toxin? Was the blood he was drinking tampered with? Or some hitherto unknown disease that afflicts blue bloods—”

“Wait,” she called, trying to scribble furiously in her writing pad as she followed him up the stairs.

Lynch waited. “This way.” He started down the corridor, barely giving her pause. “What—”

“What happened to Garrett?” she asked, interrupting him. “And the duke’s son?”

“Barrons is recovering in Falcone’s room with the physicians. Thankfully his wounds are already healing, though they were serious enough at the time. As for Garrett, he’s in the kitchen. Doyle arrived through the back with the rest of my men and he’s trying to stitch him up.”

“Will he recover?” The thought shouldn’t have bothered her. One less blue blood for the world to worry about.

Lynch’s dark lashes shuttered his eyes. “Garrett’s stronger than he appears, but he’s lost a lot of blood. Perry had to give him some of hers.”

He strode through the doors ahead of him. Rosalind followed, a fistful of skirts in her hand. He might not have cared, she thought. Truly, for all the emotion he showed, Garrett could have been any man off the street.

“Here,” he said, gesturing to the dining room. Two bodies lay beneath the bloodied linens of the tablecloth. “This is where he was dining.”

Rosalind stumbled on the doorstep, her gaze narrowing on the small shapes beneath the table cloth. So small… Her throat tightened, the blood draining out of her face. Shards of porcelain littered the floor, a spilled decanter flooding the mahogany tabletop with a pool of spreading red wine. It dripped from the edge in a steady, monotonous plummet.

“It smells like…a bakery,” she murmured, swallowing hard against the flood of bile in the back of her throat. She couldn’t look at them again. How could anyone slaughter their own children? What manner of monster could do that?

A blue blood, a voice whispered in her mind.

Lynch stared at the scene as though absorbing it. “So it does. As did Falcone.” He turned to her to speak, then paused. “Rosa?”

She looked up and saw something that almost looked like concern on his face. “I’m—” The words dried up and she clapped a gloved hand to her lips. She wasn’t all right. All she could see were those tiny, twisted shapes beneath the bloodied linen.

Movement blurred. A hand wrapped around her elbow, Lynch’s large body stepping between her and the bodies. Then he was pushing her through the door, into the blinding light of well-lit corridor. The walls staggered by, a door opening in front of her. She moved like a puppet in his grasp, acid burning her throat.

Lynch pushed a window up and shoved her toward it. Fresh air swept that sickly sweet scent out of her nostrils and she clutched the window ledge, sucking in a choked breath. His hand settled in the small of her back tentatively, as if he wasn’t sure how welcome his touch would be.

“I shouldn’t have taken you in there.” Soft words. “My apologies.”

Rosalind shook her head, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry.” No matter how much she tried to shove the image away—into that small dark recess of her mind where lurked unimaginable memories—she couldn’t. It was tattooed on the back of her eyelids, burning its way into her stomach and throat.

A cool hand rubbed small circles against the curve of her spine. Rosalind gripped the sill and leaned out, drawing the coal-laden air of London into her lungs. Anything to rid herself of that bakery scent.

As if to distract herself, she focused on his touch. Her breath caught.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he replied, his cool exhale stirring the curls at the nape of her neck.

For the first time Rosalind realized how closely he stood, his legs pressing against her bustle and skirts. Nervousness etched its way down her spine. She hadn’t forgotten the look in his eyes when he killed Falcone—he’d enjoyed it, licking the taste of blood from his lips. It should have sickened her further, yet she found she couldn’t quite equate that monster with the man who stood behind her, his hand rubbing soothing circles against her skin.

Rosalind’s body responded to his nearness, but not with lust, not with the way the previous scene still haunted her. Instead, she relaxed back into his touch, her head bowing low as she took some small, guilty comfort from his closeness. She didn’t want to think about why his presence made her feel…safe?

She’d stood alone for so long, walling herself off from others after her husband’s death. She didn’t need the softening of a man’s touch or his presence to comfort her. She was strong enough without it.

Rosalind stiffened. He had to stop touching her. She didn’t like it. “I’m fine, sir.”

His touch hesitated, his fingertips skating over the smooth taffeta of her gown. “Very well.”

The sudden screaming absence of his touch made her feel almost cold. But no, that was nothing more than the chill breeze through the window. A shiver worked its way across her skin and she looked for anything to take her mind off the frozen melee of emotion that stirred her.

“What shall you tell the crowd?” she asked, examining the assembled blue bloods below.

“That we are investigating.” His voice was hard again. “They don’t need to be made aware of the full facts of the case.”

Rosalind’s fingers tightened on the windowsill. “If you don’t tell them, they’ll suspect worse. They’re already crying ‘vampire.’” She shook her head. “There’ve been too many people through the house: the Coldrush Guards, Lord Barrons, the physicians… You cannot keep all of them quiet. I would imagine it would be better to give the press some details, enough to still the fear.”

“You’re right,” he murmured. “Very wise of you, Rosa.”

“People fear what they don’t understand,” she said with a glance over her shoulder, then abruptly regretted the words.

Lynch stared back at her, his hands clasped behind his back. His gaze was hauntingly intense in the chill afternoon light. “So they do.” Slowly he bowed his head. “Take your time. I shall wait for you in the foyer when I’m done speaking to the journalists.”

She waited until she heard the door click behind her before letting out the breath she’d been holding. A glance outside showed the crowd baying at the iron-scrolled fence, fury and fear etched in stark emotion across their faces. For a moment they looked almost human, then she pursed her lips, her eyes narrowing.

There was nothing human about a blue blood, nothing at all. No matter what she thought of Lynch, she could never forget that.

As she turned away, her eye caught on a solitary figure leaning against the corner across the street, his arms crossed over his chest.

With his cap pulled low over his face and a heavy coat obscuring his throat and jaw, she shouldn’t have recognized him but she did. Mordecai. The leader of the mechs who’d tried to bomb the tower.

The satisfaction curling over his lips was unmistakably his—the smug grin that had always made her hackles rise. What was he doing here? Surveying his handiwork? Or simply enjoying the sight of the blue blood’s distress?

Her iron fingers jerked inside her glove unconsciously. He’d done something, she was certain of it. Somehow he’d been the cause of this, the reason those two small bodies lay still and silent beneath the white table cloth.

The reason she couldn’t find her brother Jeremy.

Rosalind was moving before she thought about it, the house a blur around her as she darted down the stairs to the foyer, her boot heels ringing on the polished tiles as she shoved the front door open.

Stopping on the edge of the portico, Rosalind caught her skirts in her hand in frustration. He was gone. The corner was empty, the crowd swallowing up any sign of him and trapping her here. There was no way she could push through them and the thought of being surrounded by so many of the enemy made her throat tighten.

I’ll find you. Her eyes narrowed. Then she’d make him regret ever sending her brother in to deliver the bomb.