“Lord Commander,” Roman said, but his voice was hoarse, like it hurt to speak. “I—”
“Or have you lost all your sense as well?”
“No, sir.” He dutifully stepped forward again. Iris could feel him gazing at the fingers she had laced tightly on her lap. The shine of her wedding ring.
Roman hesitated.
If he touches me, I will sunder in two, she thought, fire in her blood. If he touches me, I will come undone.
Iris set her hands on the keys before Roman could reach down. But she still felt him, his presence close behind her. She could hear the sigh that unspooled from him.
“There now,” Dacre said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it, Iris?”
She couldn’t answer. Her head ached when she realized how he had coerced her. How she had acquiesced to writing for him. Something she never wanted to do.
“Tell me when you’re ready,” he said, triumph gleaming in his eyes.
She sat there for a few more minutes, her hands frozen on the keys, her gaze on the strike bars. She wrestled with her vast disappointment, the slippery ghost of her fear, the anger, the longing, the words that had gathered and formed a painful dam in her chest.
But was she truly surrendering if she was staying alive? If she only gave him her hands?
Iris lifted her eyes. She looked at Dacre’s neck, the cords of his throat that moved when he drank the last of the tea.
“I’m ready,” she said.
{43}
Courtesy of Inkridden Iris
The afternoon air had cooled into evening by the time Tobias drove Iris away from the Kitt estate. But the city felt unnaturally quiet for what was normally its busiest hour.
Iris noticed most of the streets were empty, litter gathering at the curbs like flotsam in a river. Stores had already closed for the day. Flowers had been set in windowsills for the chancellor, who was still fighting for his life at the hospital. No children played in the yards or in the park, and people strode along the sidewalks with their coats belted tight and their eyes wide with worry. Doors were locked against the world, as if the war couldn’t cross a threshold uninvited.
Iris knew better. She also knew Oath was shaken over Dacre’s arrival and the fallout from the assassination attempt. Innocent people had died, and fresh graves were being dug in the cemetery. They wouldn’t be the last, and the city felt like it was balancing on the edge of a knife, waiting to see which way it would fall.
Come tomorrow at noon, they would have their answer. She reached for the paper tucked into her pocket. A page inked with Dacre’s words.
The sun was sinking behind the buildings, casting the clouds overhead in gold, when Tobias parked in front of the print factory. This was a place that never slept, printing newspapers through the midnight hour so they were ready to be picked up by newsboys at dawn. Iris could only hope that she wasn’t too late to catch the Inkridden Tribune.
She slipped from the back seat, her legs shaky. “Thank you, Tobias. I can’t tell you how much your help meant to me today.”
He nodded, his arm hooked over the back of the seat. “Do you want me to wait here for you?”
Iris hesitated. Curfew was fast approaching, but this day was far from over. “Can you do one more thing for me?”
“Of course.”
“Could you drive to the Inkridden Tribune and bring Helena here? Tell her it’s extremely important.”
“I’m on it.” Tobias was already shifting the roadster into first gear. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Iris watched him speed away, tasting the exhaust from the car.
She hurried up the stairs to the factory entrance, feeling the sting in her right foot. She wondered if her wounds were bleeding, but didn’t have time to worry about it as she slipped through the heavy front doors.
“Excuse me?” Iris approached an older lady who sat behind a desk in the lobby. “I need to speak with Mr. Lawrence, the head printer.”
The lady scrutinized Iris through her thick spectacles. Her gray-blond hair was wound in a tight bun. She looked like she never broke rules.
“He’s busy in the composing room, overseeing the linotypes. But I can schedule you for an appointment tomorrow. He’s open from noon to one, and then from—”
“I’m afraid this is incredibly urgent,” Iris said with a forced smile. Try to be pleasant, she told herself, even as she felt like screaming. “I’m a reporter with the Inkridden Tribune, and I have an edit for tomorrow’s paper.”
“Edits aren’t accepted this late.”