“No.”
Kaldar moved his head from side to side. “Well, one out of two isn’t bad. Rich and unmarried would be perfect, married and poor would be two strikes out, nothing good there. Poor and unmarried, I can work with that. Library it is. Besides, you’ll get to meet my sister.”
William tried to imagine a female version of Kaldar and got a mud-splattered woman with Kaldar’s face and blue stubble on her cheeks. Clearly he needed food and some shut-eye.
“This way. And we turn here through that door, and here we are.” Kaldar held the door open for him. “This way, Lord . . . What is your name, I don’t think I ever got it.”
He could not strangle Kaldar because he was Cerise’s cousin and she was fond of him. But he really wanted to. “William.”
“William it is. Please. Into the library.”
William stepped through the door. A large room stretched before him, the walls covered with floor-to-ceiling shelves and crammed with books. Soft chairs stood in the corners, a large table waited to the left, and at the opposite wall by a window, a woman sat in a chair working yarn into some sort of lacy thing with a metal hook.
She sat in a rectangle of afternoon light spilling through the window. Her hair was soft and almost gold, and the sunlight played on it, making it shine. She looked up with a small smile, the glowing hair around her head like a nimbus, and William decided she looked like an icon from one of the Broken’s cathedrals.
“Catherine! I bring you Lord Blueblood William. Cerise found him in the swamp. He must be fed and I need to go get him some food, so can you please babysit him while I’m gone? I can’t have him wandering through the house. We don’t know what he’s made of, and he might snap and devour the children.”
Catherine smiled again. She had a soft gentle smile. “My brother has the tact of a rhino. Please come sit by me, Lord William.”
Anything was better than Kaldar. William walked over and sat down in a chair next to her. “Just William.”
“Nice to meet you.” Her voice was calm and soothing. Her hands kept moving, weaving the yarn with the hook, completely independent of her. She wore rubber gloves, the kind he’d seen on CSI, except it looked like she wore two pairs, one on top of the other. Her lacy thing rested on a rubber apron, and her yarn came from a bucket filled with liquid.
Odd.
“How did the hearing go?” she asked.
“We won, sort of,” Kaldar said. “We die at dawn.”
“The court gave the Sheeriles twenty-four hours,” William corrected.
“Yes, but ‘we die at dawn the day after tomorrow’ doesn’t sound nearly as dramatic.”
“Does it have to be dramatic all the time?” Catherine murmured.
“Of course. Everyone has a talent. Yours is crocheting and mine is making melodramatic statements.”
Catherine shook her head and glanced at her work. The yarn thing was a complicated mess of waves, spiked wheels, and some odd mesh.
“What is that?” William asked.
“It’s a shawl,” Catherine said.
“Why is the yarn wet?”
“It’s a special type of crochet.” Catherine smiled. “For a very special person.”
Kaldar snorted. “Kaitlin will love it, I’m sure.”
He’d heard the name before . . . Kaitlin Sheerile. Lagar and Peva’s mother.
Why the hell would they be crocheting a shawl for Kaitlin? Maybe there was a message on it.
William leaned forward and caught a trace of an odor, bitter and very weak. It nipped at his nostrils and his instincts screeched.
Bad! Bad, bad, bad.
Poison. He’d never smelled it before, but he knew with simple lupine certainty that it was poisonous and he had to stay away from it.
He made himself reach over for the shawl.
“No!” Kaldar clamped his hand on William’s wrist.
“You mustn’t touch,” Catherine said. “It’s very delicate and it will stain your fingers. That’s why I’m wearing gloves. See?” She wiggled her fingers at him.
She lied. This pretty icon woman with a nice smile lied and didn’t blink an eye.
He had to say something human here. “Sorry.”
“That’s all right.” Kaldar’s fingers slipped off his wrist. “She isn’t offended, are you, Cath?”
“Not at all.” Catherine offered him a nice warm smile. Her hands kept crocheting poisoned yarn.
Hell of a family.
“Right, well, I’m off to procure some vittles.” Kaldar turned on his toes and sauntered off.
Catherine leaned to him. “Drove you crazy, yes?”
“He talks.” A lot. Too much. He jabbers like a teenage girl on a cell phone. He stands too close to me, and I might snap his neck if he keeps breathing on me.
“That he does,” Catherine agreed. “But he’s not a bad sort. As brothers go, I could’ve done much worse. Are you and Cerise together? Like together-together?”
William froze. Human manners were clear as mud, but he was pretty sure that’s something you weren’t supposed to ask.
Catherine blinked her long eyelashes at him, the same serene smile on her face.
“No,” he said.
A faint grimace touched Catherine’s face. “That’s a shame. Are there any plans for the two of you to be together?”
“No.”
“I see. Don’t tell her I asked. She doesn’t like it when we pry.”
“I won’t.”
“Thank you.” Catherine exhaled.
This family was like a minefield. He needed to sit still and keep his mouth shut, before he got into any more trouble. And if someone offered him a handmade sweater, he’d snap their neck and take off for the woods.
Lark came into the library carrying a basket that smelled of freshly baked bread and rabbit meat with cooked mushrooms. William’s mouth filled with drool. He was starving. Almost enough to not care if the food was poisoned.
The kid knelt by him. She was clean and her hair was brushed. She looked like a smaller version of Cerise. Lark pulled the cloth off the basket and pulled out a pocket of baked dough. “Pirogi,” she said. “Are you the one who killed Peva?”