Chapter 21

After dressing outside, I hustled to Orin's bedroom. I had three, maybe four minutes before I was sure he would come waltzing in, but he had Chaos hiding somewhere, hopefully in this house, and I aimed to find her. She wouldn't sit properly above the door frame, but I dragged my fingers over the ledge anyway. I rummaged through his clothes several times, noting how he kept his performance attire hanging and the rest of his clothing neatly folded. He lived two lives, separate, but the same.

It only occurred to me when I heard the stairs creak that I hadn't checked for loose floorboards beneath the bed. But he was coming, so I'd have to save it for later.

Sneaking out, I zipped across the hall, keeping the door to my borrowed bedroom open just enough to watch that infuriating man saunter into his room, whistling in perfect pitch as if he were a fucking songbird. I cursed the golden band on my arm and sat heavily on the edge of my bed.

A crash downstairs turned the house into an uproar of Quill screaming at her dog while Orin's mother yelled about catching whatever he'd just stolen from the kitchen, and Hollis laughing a great, big, belly laugh. Within seconds, my door flew open, and Boo dashed into the room, a whole cooked chicken in his mouth. He tried darting under the bed but didn't fit, so half of him hung out, that white long-hair tail thumping against the floor in victory.

"Boo!" Quill shouted, rounding the corner, only to stop dead in her tracks the moment her eyes landed on me. "Oh, Boo! Please. He doesn't mean to be naughty. He's a really good boy. I promise."

Her big, blue eyes welled with tears as she glanced between me and the dog, bringing her delicate fingers to her mouth. Gods. She thought I was going to kill him. I needed to stop flinging empty threats around so much.

"Please don't be afraid. I promise I won't hurt him. Or you."

She took a tiny step forward, but I suspected that was all she could commit to.

I pushed off the bed and inched backward. Quill looked at Orin's door, no doubt for a place to run if I made any sudden movements. Smart girl.

Falling to my hands and knees, I knelt beside the dog, snatching his collar and dragging him out. He still had half a chicken in his mouth, but when I tried to take it out, he snarled.

Quill gasped.

"That is quite enough," I said, pointing a firm finger at the little beast. He whimpered and dropped the meat to the floor, tongue hanging. I buried my hands into his soft fur, scratching behind his dark copper ears until his leg began twitching. "Yes. You are a good boy, aren't you? A good, naughty boy."

He pressed his nose to my face and licked, chicken breath ruining the bath I'd had, but it was worth every second.

"I've always wanted a dog," I said.

Maybe an animal would have loved me loyally. However, my father never agreed, and it wasn't a battle I was willing to have as a child. Somewhere along the years of becoming Death's Maiden, I'd let the dream go.

"I think he likes you," Quill whispered, daring to step into the room.

"They say dogs are excellent judges of character." Hollis stepped out from behind the door, as if he'd been there to protect her, just in case.

"What does that say about Orin and what happened last night?" she asked, peeking at his room again.

"I don't think hellhounds count, Quilly," he answered, patting her on the head. "Best take the chicken back to Miss Elowen and see if there's anything to be salvaged."

She groaned, shoulders slumping as she grabbed Boo's collar, swiped the chicken from the floor, and pulled her dog to the hall. "I'm going to be on dish duty for a week, thanks to you."

I waited until she'd gotten all the way down the stairs before I asked, "Is she Paesha's daughter?"

Hollis laughed. "No. But I can see why you think that. She and Paesha have a special bond. There's a lot in abandonment that only those who have been through it can understand. But she's really all of ours now. Lady Visha gifted her to the Maestro, but he didn't know what to do with her. The Syndicate takes care of her, but she's her own person. She's got an old soul, that girl."

"So, she's just alone?"

He tucked his hands behind his back, dipping a chin. "I think we're all a little bit alone. Don't you?"

I hated the way his piercing gaze felt so personal. As if he truly did know something about me.

"Some of us chose to be alone, Old Man."

"Yes. And some of us are plagued by it."

Orin hadn't leftthe house. I'd been hoping to follow him again, but, though I paced in my room, waiting for him to make a move, it seemed he knew it and sat idle out of spite.

The second I opened the door, he did the same, leaning on the frame with one arm while tenderly holding his stomach with the other as he lifted a brow. "Going somewhere, Maiden?"

The way his dark glare pinned me to the spot irritated me. I couldn't see the murderer in those eyes. Perhaps because I loathed seeing it in mine.

"Am I not allowed?"

"Thank you for asking permission," he answered with a smile curling his lips. "I think you better stay here today."

"It was rhetorical," I shouted after he shut his door. "I'll leave if I damn well please."

"But where would you go?" Quill's shy voice from the other end of the hall surprised me.

Her muted footsteps were not nearly as loud as the limp that tormented Hollis most days. But the surprise came from her choice to speak. She hadn't spoken to me again after the chicken debacle with Boo. Likely because Paesha kept her at arm's reach. The Huntress couldn't control the dog, though, and he'd plowed into my borrowed bedroom every single morning, burying his wet nose into my cheek until I crawled out of bed and snuck him a handful of whatever food I'd managed to sneak away. Mostly for his loyalty, but also because there was something so soothing about being enjoyed. As if the world surrendered to me just a teeny bit.

Quill didn't live solely in the Syndicate house. She had a strange attachment to the Maestro, and, though I wanted to figure that out, as well, I couldn't solve the mystery of my new husband, find the true Life Maiden if it wasn't him, and start poking around Drexel Vanhoff without inviting more trouble than it was worth. I'd have to pick my battles.

"That's the beauty of adulthood, kid. You can go wherever you want, whenever you want." I raised my voice. "Take notes, Husband."

She'd vanished back down the stairs with no more questions, and I hadn't pushed.

Through the following week, I'd made small talk with Hollis and had been as gentle with Quill as I could be, but she was still completely terrified. The mind of a child was innocent. But their mouths were loose and their secrets easy to coax free. She was my target.

Lying in the garden, when the back door slammed open and her sweet little voice called for her pup, I pressed my lips together to hide the smile from a well-laid plan.

"Boo!" she shouted, hands cupped around her mouth as she faced the river.

I sat up slowly, making sure she knew I was there. I didn't want to scare her, just… help.

"Ha-have you seen my dog?" she asked, hiking her dress to get down the stairs.

I shook my head. "No."

"I'm not allowed to chase him over the hill."

A fact I knew.

"I could go with you, if you want."

She dropped the bottom of her dress, tapping her lips with a finger as she contemplated. "Will you leave Elowen's knife here?"

"Cross my heart," I promised.

"Okay, but we can't tell Paesha. She says you're dangerous."

"Paesha is smart, and she's right. I am dangerous. But not to you."

Shoving the toe of her boot into the dirt, she managed a small smile. "Well, Boo listens to you, and sometimes he growls at Paesha, so maybe you're not so, so bad. Maybe just medium bad."

"I'll settle for medium bad," I said, holding my hand out toward the child.

She swiped her curls from her face, showcasing her hesitation. But as I dropped my hand, she reached forward and took it anyway.

"Medium bad," she whispered to herself.

"How old are you, Quill?" I asked, as we followed the trail I'd taken earlier with the dog, leading him away from the house.

"Eight and a half. How old are you?"

I couldn't help the genuine smile. "I'm twenty-six, twenty-seven next month."

"Oh! We can have a party. Orin can play, and Paesha can dance, and Thea will make you something so neat. Probably not a knife, though, because… you know. But maybe a necklace like she made me for my birthday, see?"

She pulled a tiny locket from beneath the lace collar of her little dress. "It's got a picture of the Maestro in there. But it's kind of hard to make out."

"The Maestro? Why him?"

"He's my friend. And he keeps me safe. And he gives me candy, and I get to sit in a special seat on show nights."

"I see."

"Paesha says he's dangerous, too. But he's only small bad. If he's mad, he's mean sometimes, but only to bad guys. Not to me."

"Did you think he was mean to Orin? Is he a bad guy?" I waited, genuinely curious to see if she seemed to know anything at all about him.

"Orin is my best friend. I might marry him one day, too. Like you did."

I bit my bottom lip to keep from laughing. "Oh, yeah? He'd probably be a much nicer husband to you."

"Probably if you were only small bad and not medium bad, he'd be nicer to you, too."

"Probably," I agreed, marveling at how right she was. But I needed to redirect the conversation before we got to Boo. Stepping on my bootlace without her noticing, I drew up short, kneeling to retie it as I let go of her hand. "You never answered my question. Do you think the Maestro is mean to Orin?"

She bit her bottom lip and looked away, contemplating her answer. "Yes. I do. But I don't think he meant to be. The Maestro said it was a little bit of an accident because he thought the hound was going to play with Orin like how Boo does sometimes, but the dog was naughty, and Orin got hurt. And then the Maestro saved him. Because he's our friend."

"Makes sense." I switched feet, untying my bootlace without her noticing so I could delay her. "You know what I think? Oh, maybe I shouldn't say. It's probably just for grown-ups to talk about."

"I did say eight and a half."

"Right, right. Well, if you're sure you're almost there."

She studied her fingers for a moment. "I'm almost two whole hands. That's pretty close."

"It's just… don't you think it would have been better for Orin if the Life Maiden could have helped him?"

"Everyone knows she can't."

Heart quickening, I finally felt like I was on to something. "Right. But if she could, I mean. If Boo got hurt, let's say, shouldn't we take him to see her?"

She stopped, her eyes doubling in size. "But how could we when everyone knows she's dead?"

The hair on my arms rose at her very blunt response. She was dead. ‘Everyone' to a child was such a small group of people. Only those close to her. A secret well-kept, and if she had somehow found this out, it explained why Drexel held her close. Why the Syndicate kept her closer. Why she'd been treated with such favor. Had Orin killed the Life Maiden for Drexel and wasn't really harboring Life Maiden power?

"You're right," I answered numbly, wondering what the off-kiltered balance of power with only one of us meant for the world. "Everyone knows."

"Except Paesha and Thea. But Paesha can't find her, and Thea is a… oppymis."

"Oppymis?"

"Yeah, you know. She always sees things brighter."

We crested the hill, the child's confession confusing me more than ever as we peered down at the riverbank.

"An optimist?"

"Boo!" she shouted, tearing away from me to tackle her very muddy dog, who'd lay on the bank, chewing on a bone I'd left for him, his red collar miraculously stuck on a random piece of fishing twine that'd been haphazardly discarded.

"Well, what are the odds?" I tugged on my slipknot, setting the dog free, but he didn't budge, unwilling to give up the bone.

"Come on, you big oaf." Quill threw her entire body weight into the pup. He didn't give an inch.

I swiped the bone, and he was off the ground in a second, diligently at my side.

"Good boy," I muttered under my breath as he shoved his nose into my pocket, smelling the bits of roast I'd saved for him.

We walked toward the house together in mostly silence, save the giggles as Boo smothered Quill in muddy kisses when she'd taken the bone. From the top of the hill, she darted for the door, stopped in her tracks, and ran back to hug me.

"Maybe you're only small bad, Death Maiden."

"Maybe." I smiled down at her. "You can call me Dey, if you want to."

She lifted a shoulder. "I'll think about it." And then she was gone, running for the house at full speed, yelling at Boo about having to go to the bathhouse now.

I let the information swirl through my mind, turning the scenarios over and over again. If Paesha didn't think the Life Maiden was dead, then there couldn't be a great secret Quill was hoarding. Or maybe there was, but that wasn't the secret. I was starting to doubt whether any of them knew Orin was a murderer. She never claimed Orin thought the Life Maiden was alive, though. And that was very interesting to me.