The Vampire & Her Witch-Chapter 1460: A Fishy Conversation (Part Two)

The alcove smelled of fish guts and damp wood, and the crates that formed its walls were crusted with packing salt and the silvery residue of scales. It wasn’t the sort of place where a lady of Jocelynn’s station would normally find herself, but nothing about Jocelynn’s life had been normal since the night Owain murdered her sister.

Devlin positioned himself at the entrance, his broad shoulders blocking most of the gap while his eyes kept watch on the market beyond. Jean stood to one side with his arms folded loosely, giving Jocelynn as much space as the narrow alcove allowed.

She broke the seal and unfolded the letter.

The handwriting was Isabell’s. The page was filled with the crisp, angular script of an engineer who valued precision over flourish. Jocelynn recognized it from the correspondence Isabell had sent her father over the years regarding the renovations to Blackwell Manor, and the familiarity of those neat, sharp letters struck her harder than she’d expected.

She read the letter quickly, desperate to know what had happened to one of the only friends she had in Lothian March since Isabell had gone missing on the same night that the demon raids began.

The letter, however, was frustratingly thin on details. Isabell was alive and moving freely. She and Marcel were cooperating closely. They had a plan to bring Owain to account for his crimes, but the plan required patience and precise timing. Jocelynn must not, must not, underlined twice in Isabell’s firm hand, make any move against Owain before they arrived in the city. When they came, the letter promised that he would meet the fate he deserved.

And she could trust Jean. Isabell had never met him, but the letter claimed that he was blood kin to Marcel, and Isabell wrote that she would trust Marcel with her own life. That trust extended to his family.

Jocelynn read the letter twice, then folded it and pressed it against her chest, feeling the paper through the layers of wool and linen as if she could absorb Isabell’s certainty through the fabric.

Isabell was alive. Isabell, who had supervised the renovations that made Blackwell Manor strong enough to weather a century of storms. Isabell, who had shown a mischievous girl the worker’s passages when she should have been at her lessons. Isabell, who had stayed loyal to Ashlynn’s memory even after crossing the sea.

And Marcel, whose network of agents in Lothian City had helped Albyn evade the Inquisition so he could rescue her, was working with Isabell to make a move against Owain.

Jocelynn wanted to believe this changed things. She wanted to feel the sharp, bright prick of hope that pushed against the inside of her ribs like a seedling breaking through frozen ground.

But she’d lost her cousin Eleanor in a dungeon while the laws of the land failed to protect her from a madman’s cruelty. She’d watched Owain casually admit to poisoning his own father and walk into the morning sun with clean hands and a charming smile as if the way he’d gotten away with murdering her sister proved that no one would ever hold him accountable for his crimes.

So long as he proved himself to be the greatest threat to the demons lurking at the edge of the kingdom, the world proved all too willing to let him get away with murder, and she struggled to believe that Isabell and Marcel had managed to find a way to pull Owain down.

After several heartbeats of silence as she struggled to regain her composure, Jocelynn handed the letter back to Jean.

He took it without a word, turned to the nearest torch, and held the paper to the fire. It caught quickly, Isabell’s neat handwriting curling and blackening into ash. He held it until the flame reached his fingers, then let the last scrap fall to the wet stones where it dissolved into nothing.

"She’s asking me to wait for her," Jocelynn said, watching the last thread of smoke disappear.

"She is," Jean said calmly, as if he already knew what had been written in the letter. Perhaps he did, or perhaps Isabell had written her own instructions for the mysterious cook.

"And you?" Jocelynn asked. "You still think I should be patient?"

"I think you’ve already decided what you intend to do, my lady," Jean said in a tone that was carefully neutral. "I’m not here to change your mind. I’m here to make sure the people you care about don’t share in the cost, and to encourage you to choose a timing that will deliver the best results," he said calmly.

"Results that might not require you to wed a man you do not love, just to achieve your goals," he added quietly.

The words settled into her chest like a stone finding the riverbed. He knew. Not the details, perhaps, but the shape of it, what she intended to do on the night of her wedding to Owain Lothian... He knew.

"I want to marry Owain," Jocelynn said, and her voice was steady despite the way her nails bit into her palms beneath the folds of her cloak. "I need to marry him. That is what I desire, and nothing in that letter changes it."

Jean said nothing. He waited, allowing silence to draw more out of Jocelynn than any questions would.

"But I will not see the people who followed me here destroyed by the wars that are coming," she continued. "The Holy War, and what comes after. My household, my father’s sailors, the servants and attendants who followed me here all the way from Blackwell County... They deserve to go home," Jocelynn said firmly.

"Charlotte has agreed to guide them through the canyon to my uncle’s lands beyond it," Jocelynn said bluntly, no longer bothering to conceal the details of her plan. "But I need a way to get them out of the city without Owain’s men noticing they’ve gone."

"How many?" Jean asked.

"Thirty-seven. Men and women, knights and Templars too," Jocelynn answered. "Captain Devlin can provide you with a list."

Jean was quiet for a moment, his eyes unfocused as he sank into his thoughts, then he nodded.

"The Gilded Horn," he said. "My uncle’s restaurant. It’s closed while I serve at the Manor, and the building has cellars that connect to passages leading out of the city. Send your people there after the sunsets and before first light on the morning of the Grand Ceremony. Not during daylight. Not after sunrise," he emphasized.

"The window is narrow, my lady," Jean said. "If they arrive while the neighbours can see them coming and going, they’ll be turned away. The restaurant is supposed to be shuttered, and I can’t explain away thirty-seven visitors."

"Before first light," Jocelynn repeated. "The morning of the Grand Ceremony."

"The city will be consumed with preparations," Jean said. "Guards will be repositioning to secure the route between the Great Temple and Lothian Manor. My humble restaurant will be the last thing on anyone’s mind. But your people must be inside before the sky begins to lighten."

Jocelynn looked over her shoulder at Devlin. The captain’s face was carefully blank, but she could see the calculations running behind his eyes, along with a hefty measure of reluctance at being sent away from her when she needed the support of her people the most.

"Can you manage it?" she asked.

"Before first light, the Gilded Horn," Devlin said with a heavy sigh. "I’ll have them there."

"And from the Gilded Horn to Otker Canyon?" Jocelynn asked, turning back to Jean.

"That’s my concern, not yours," Jean said with a slight smile. "I wouldn’t dare to disappoint my uncle or Master Isabell. I promise, I’ll see that your people are well cared for and reach their destination safely."

"Thank you," she said. "For the letter, and for this."

"The advice in that letter is sound, my lady," Jean said, and for the first time, something that might have been genuine concern crossed his features. "The best outcome for everyone, including you, is the one where you’re patient."

Jocelynn smiled, and it was the saddest expression she’d worn since the night they placed Eleanor on a pyre in the temple yard.

"I’ll consider it," she said, knowing that she wouldn’t. Patience was a luxury for people who believed tomorrow would be better than today, and Jocelynn had stopped believing that the night Eleanor had given her life in order to preserve Jocelynn’s.

She turned and walked out of the alcove, Devlin falling into step beside her. The morning light had strengthened, burning away the worst of the fog and casting the market in cold, hard detail. In a few hours, Owain would return from the lodge, and the requirements of preparing for tomorrow’s Grand Ceremony would close around her like the iron bars of the dungeon beneath Lothian Manor.

But her people would be free. That was the one thing she could still give them, the last debt she could repay before she settled the only one that mattered...