The Cavs were still in order, though Blukke had a talk with the man who’d claimed the fighting pit. Dante didn’t give a shit about it. As far as he was concerned, the place could be burned down. Blukke, however, said it was rightfully theirs and made a deal with the man so he could continue running it as long as he gave them a cut of his profits. Standing in the vault of the Bench, Dante didn’t know why he bothered. They wouldn’t be able to spend all this gold in two lifetimes.
The giant chest that had been full of parchment was now over three quarters empty, and Dante gritted his teeth at the wild mess of papers that littered the floor around it. “You couldn’t have kept them in neat stacks as you went through them?”
He’d have to go through them all again to double check if they didn’t find anything and putting them in order would surely add an extra hour or two to that task.
Blukke shrugged, offering Dante that charming smile of his. “The next time I spend hours looking through our dead master’s papers looking for proof of who ordered the kidnapping of a princess so you can impress your girlfriend who you accidentally kidnapped because you thought she was said princess, I’ll be sure to keep them nice and orderly.” Blukke patted his breast pocket where Dante knew the princess’s pardon lay. “I will never understand how you became Lunin’s favored son. Fucking pardoned for that? Gifted this?” He stretched his arms wide, his smile turning awe-inspired.
Dante shook his head, clenching his jaw. He didn’t deserve any of it. “You got pardoned and gifted this, too.”
Blukke bent to extract a stack of unchecked papers from the chest. “Yes, but you also got that sweet, sweet--”
“Choose your words carefully,” Dante warned.
Blukke chuckled, dropping into a plush velvet chair that looked like the filigree design on the arms and back were made of gold. “That sweet, sweet woman of yours, of course.”
Dante breathed a laugh. He clapped Blukke’s shoulder as he dug out a stack of parchment for himself.
He was about to drop to the ground--Blukke’s chair being the only one in the vault--when the shifter tilted his head toward a small box of papers. “Those have stamps. I set them aside for you to look at; surely that counts for something.”
Dante smiled at his friend. “Everything you do counts for something. Thank you. You’ve been a great help, really.” He meant it. Roan never had anything to threaten Blukke with--the bowerbird shifter had gone along with everything for his friend’s benefit. Dante didn’t deserve that, either.
Dante placed his stack of papers back in the chest before picking up the small box that sat on a shelf of a doorless hutch. His stomach clenched at the paper on top, recognizing an assassination job he had completed. He really didn’t deserve any of this. He ignored the thought. Self-pity and self-hatred weren’t going to help him get back to Pregg.
If he even wanted to go back. He supposed he could technically leave at any time.
He flipped to the second page--a request to collect a debt. He flipped to the third page and blew out a breath at the offered price--one million golds. He flicked his eyes to Blukke. “Did you see this one? A fucking million golds. There’s not even that much in this room.”
Blukke laughed darkly. “Oh yeah, I saw it. Nearly wanted to go back in time so I could kill Sol myself for not offering it to me.”
Dante wondered who had gotten the job. He scanned the page. It had none of the information the other jobs listed. Only the offer and the objective: Diversion. Whatever that meant. But it had other haphazard scribbled words on it. Discreet, Trustworthy, Kind, and Protective were written together. On another area of the page was written: Unharmed and Untouched. Both words were underlined.
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“What the fuck is this?” he breathed. He flicked his eyes to the stamp, a star inside a circle with two of the points colored in. It seemed familiar, but all the shapes were running together. Dante couldn’t be sure if this was the one on the paper Sol had burned in front of him or not.
He shook his head and looked through the twenty or so other pages, recognizing a few more as jobs he’d done, and pocketed them. Nothing stood out aside from that bizarre million golds one. He’d look again later. Maybe ask Kallia if she recognized any of the stamps.
A few hours later, Dante and Blukke finally finished going through all the paperwork in the large chest. They’d come across a handful of other stamped jobs, which Dante pocketed with the others, though they didn’t seem to fit the plot against Kallia, either. He surveyed the mess and decided reorganizing and double checking would wait for another day.
Dante looked at his friend who was leaning back in the chair with his legs spread out and head thrown back, gripping the arms. The picture of a man who was sick of this shit. “Why don’t you take some of this gold and go do something for yourself? I’m sure Bristol will be fine without you.”
Blukke laughed, then straightened his posture, immediately transforming into a man ready for anything. “If that’s what I wanted to do, brother, that’s what I’d be doing. I’m a free man now, remember?”
Dante supposed he was right. The shifter probably enjoyed his time with Bristol nearly as much as Dante enjoyed his time with Prim, anyway. He was sure they’d find a way to sneak off together at some point before this was all over if they hadn’t already. The two men returned to the castle in the late afternoon, a heavy rain soaking them thoroughly as they walked through the city streets; it was too stormy for the bowerbird to fly and Dante chose not to abandon him for the sky.
They headed straight to Kallia’s chambers, leaving a trail of watery footprints that had a servant giving them a dirty look. Inside, the four escorts lined the wall, the princess and Bristol were huddled together on a single chaise discussing the Lanhami royals, and Prim was curled up asleep on another chaise.
The princess looked up from her conversation to call across the room. “Anything?”
Dante glanced at Prim, but Kallia’s loud voice hadn’t interrupted her sleep. He shook his head. Dante wanted to look over the papers that he’d wrapped in leather to keep dry again before passing them to the princess. The last time he’d handed off some evidence, he’d never gotten it back and now it was lost. He didn’t want to make that mistake again. “Not yet.”
Blukke strode across the space to take a seat at an open chaise, Bristol greeting him with that low voice Dante had heard her use exclusively with the shifter. At the princess’s raised brow, Blukke explained his choice to sit. “You now know we’re not technically guards. We’re…freelancing.”
Kallia rolled her eyes but allowed him to remain, though as the princess she had the authority to demand Blukke stand on his head if she wanted to--freelancer, guard, or whatever.
Dante took a seat on the only open chaise, sitting on the end nearest to Prim and looking over her. If Blukke was allowed to sit his wet body on the chaise, so was he.
“She’s been asleep for hours. We tried to wake her for lunch, but she wouldn’t rouse.” Bristol stood and walked around the low table in the center of the four chaises to lift Prim’s arm. It immediately dropped back on the cushion. Prim didn’t stir.
Prim needed the sleep, but Dante’s chest still tightened. He abandoned his chaise for hers, sliding her legs to make room for him to sit on the edge. He stroked her arm. “Bear?”
Nothing.
He turned to Kallia. “Did she eat or drink anything out of the ordinary?”
The princess furrowed her brows. “You think there’s something wrong with her?”
He didn’t know. She wasn’t poisoned. He’d be able to sense labored breathing or an irregular heartbeat or some other kind of physiological distress if she had been. But he’d never before seen her so deeply in sleep as to not be able to wake her.
“I’m going to take her to her room.” Helena would have to wait. Again.
Dante scooped Prim up and carried her downstairs, Sarasha following and planting herself outside Prim’s door as Dante took her inside and laid her on the bed. He locked the door behind him using a phantom hand.
Prim’s eyelids hadn’t so much as fluttered with the movement, or his cold, wet clothes pressed against her.
Dante removed his wet clothing and laid down beside her, wrapping his arm around her like he always did. For the first time, Prim didn’t interlock her fingers over his.