Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment, #2)(72)

That article had just been printed yesterday morning. Iris gnawed on her lip. “How do you know this?”

“Here.” Attie tossed an envelope across the table. “This was waiting on Helena’s desk first thing this morning.”

Iris slid a letter from the envelope, startled when flowers spilled free. Two anemones, one red and one white, pressed flat. “Flowers?”

“I think it’s their leader’s calling card,” Attie replied. “A way to express the importance of an order, maybe? Although I have a theory.”

“Which is?”

“The flowers represent Dacre and Enva, and how the Graveyard hopes to bury them both eternally.”

Iris studied the anemones before she unfolded the letter and read:

To Ms. Hammond of the Inkridden Tribune,

From this day forward, we ask that you run all articles pertaining to gods and soldiers by us first for approval. Failure to do so will result in undesirable consequences to your paper. Let us remind you that we have the good of the people in mind, first and foremost, and as such we must ensure all avenues are united in that ideal. You can send any future articles care of the chancellor for approval.

Sincerely,

The Graveyard

“This is absurd.” Iris shoved the letter back into its envelope with the flowers. “I don’t see how they can give Helena orders.”

“Oath is changing, Iris,” Attie said. “My mum says it’s the same at university. The dean has given her a long list of things to avoid saying, for fear it will get back to the Graveyard.”

“This bloody Graveyard,” Iris murmured. “We leave the city for less than two weeks, and they take over. I don’t understand why—”

“Excuse me, Winnow?”

Iris cut herself off and glanced to her left. One of the assistants had approached her and Attie’s table, a pot of coffee in one hand, a notepad in the other.

“Is something wrong, Treanne?” Iris asked, but she bit her tongue. She needed to be careful. She shouldn’t be spouting her irritation about the Graveyard in the office, or any public place. There was no telling who was a part of that group, as Sarah had explained.

“You have a phone call. It’s waiting on you.”

“Oh.” Iris stood with a frown. She wasn’t expecting a call, and she resisted the urge to glance at Attie before she walked to where the lone telephone sat on the wall.

Iris cleared her throat and took hold of the receiver, raising it to her ear.

“This is Iris Winnow speaking.”

A crackle of static. Iris thought whoever it was must have hung up, but then she heard them breathing. A slow, deep exhale on the line.

“Hello?” she said. “Who is this?”

Another beat of stilted silence, and then a familiar voice said, “Iris E. Winnow?”

Iris felt the breath freeze in her lungs. Her eyes went wide as she stared at news clippings on the bulletin board, gripping the receiver until it felt like the blood had drained from her hand.

Kitt.

She made herself swallow his name until it sat like a stone in her throat. Something was wrong. She had sensed it last night, and she could hear it in the way he spoke now.

“Yes,” she said, unable to hide the softness in her voice. “This is Iris.”

“I have a message for you,” Roman said. “It must be delivered in person. Are you familiar with Gould’s Café?”

Iris was quiet, her mind reeling. She was trying to pick apart every word he was saying in hopes she could understand what was happening. She was trying to glean the words he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—say.

“Winnow?” he prompted.

He hadn’t called her that in a long while. It took her back in time, as if they had flipped pages in a volume, returning to those Gazette chapters.

She said in a careful tone, “Yes, I know Gould’s.”

“When can you meet me there?”

“I can come now.”

“Good,” Roman said, but it sounded more like a sigh. Iris couldn’t tell if it was spun from relief or longing. “I’ll see you there in twenty.”

He hung up the receiver.

It was so abrupt that Iris stood for a minute more, gazing at nothing.

But her heart was like thunder in her chest as she kept the receiver by her ear. As she listened to the empty waves of static.

The realization hit her with a gasp. Roman was in Oath. She was about to drink tea with him.

Iris set the receiver down on its hook with a clatter.

She rushed to the door and left the Inkridden Tribune without a backward glance.





{33}

Milk and Honey




Roman waited at a small table in the corner of the café, coat slung over the back of his chair. He had called Iris from one of the public phones just outside the train station, unwilling to risk using the one at his parents’ house. It had taken all his wits to sneak out of the estate to begin with. He couldn’t use the front gates without detection and so he had strayed deep in the gardens, where he knew there was a break in the property fence, far from sight of the back windows.

He drummed his fingers over his thighs, his gaze remaining on the café doors, watching people come and go. None of whom were Iris, but he had wanted to be the first one here, and by the ticking of the clock on the wall … she still had eight minutes to arrive on time.