Twenty minutes later, they looked at each other across the table. The office was a wreck. They had left nothing untouched. The ledgers, if they existed, eluded them.
Richard braced himself on the table. He felt another bout of dizziness coming on. He’d gotten through the first one a few minutes ago, but now the vertigo was back. Taking wounds came with a price.
“Richard,” Charlotte said.
He turned.
A bloody figure stood in the doorway, his hair and clothes stained with gore and soot. His eyes were tired, and he was carrying a bloody crowbar. A huge black dog panted by his side.
“Jack?” Richard said.
“Hi.” Jack dropped the crowbar. It clanged on the floor.
“How are you?” Charlotte asked.
“Good,” he said, his voice dull. “I’m all funned out. I think we should go to the ship now. The city is burning, the fire’s coming this way, and the smoke is making my throat itch.”
“We can’t leave yet.” Charlotte sighed. “We’ve looked everywhere, but we haven’t found the ledgers. We have to find them, or all this was for nothing.”
“Did you look in the safe?” Jack asked.
“What safe?” The room had no safe, only a table and the shelves, and he had knocked on all the clear walls looking for a hollow spot.
“In the fireplace.”
Richard turned to the fireplace. It was a typical Weird limestone fireplace without a mantel. No fire was laid out and the fire pit was perfectly clean. No soot marks. It definitely hadn’t been used, but this far south it might have been conceived as decorative. Richard moved to it, probing the stones with his hand. “What makes you think there is a safe in it?”
Jack sat by Charlotte on the floor. “There’s no chimney. It smells like the dead woman’s perfume—I can scent it from here. Also, there’s a doorstop.”
“Where?” Charlotte asked, brushing debris from Jack’s hair.
Jack pointed to the ground. A small ornate doorstop designed to be slid under a door sat by the desk. If the front of the fireplace swung open like a door, it was in the perfect position to be grabbed and wedged under it.
There was no reason for the bookkeeper to spend time at the fireplace. She wouldn’t have gone anywhere near it. Richard knocked at the stones. If there was some mechanism to unlock it, he couldn’t see it. He picked up his sword.
“Maybe there is a hidden switch,” Charlotte said.
“It would take too long.” He concentrated, feeding magic into the blade, forcing it toward the tip of the sword. The flash-coated edge glowed brighter and brighter, until it blazed like a tiny star. Richard raised the sword and forced the tip into the limestone, testing it. The blade sank into the fireplace, cutting through the rock with surprising ease. No more than half an inch, he decided. If there was a safe, he didn’t want to damage the contents. He dropped to one knee, slashed horizontally across the fireplace, rose, and slashed again at his eye level.
The front of the fireplace slid half an inch. Richard stepped back. The cut section crashed down and fell with a loud thud, its back exposed—wooden boards with a thin layer of limestone affixed to its front. Inside the gutted fireplace, shelves gaped, containing five small black books and one red one.
He turned to Jack. “Well done.”
“You’re a genius.” Charlotte hugged the boy.
Richard pulled out the books and brought them over to Charlotte. His hands shook.
She opened the first black book, and her eyes widened as she read.
He flipped through the red volume, scanning the pages filled with neat rows of accounting figures. Investments and payments, to and from five names. Here they were, the people directly profiting from the sale of human beings. Lord Casside, a rich blueblood who’d made his money in the import and export trade. He’d seen him once at Declan’s house during a formal dinner. Lady Ermine. He had no idea who she was, but he would find out. Baron Rene, another unfamiliar name. Lord Maedoc, a retired general, a decorated war hero. And . . .
“Viscount Robert Brennan.”
“The king’s cousin?” Charlotte asked.
Richard nodded. So it was true. The bookkeeper truly served the spear. Robert Brennan, the seventh person in line for the throne. Never in his calculations had he ever thought that the chain of command went that high.
“You’re shocked,” Charlotte said.
“I don’t understand.” Richard leaned against the desk. “He was born wearing a silk shirt. He has wealth, status, the privilege afforded to his bloodline, the best education one can buy . . .”
All the things that had been denied to Richard. An education was a double-edged sword: it broadened his horizons, and, at the same time, it made him painfully aware of the opportunities he would never have. There was a time when he felt trapped in the Mire, aware of the world outside the Edge but unable to get to it, chained to the swamp. He had neither the breeding, nor the money, nor the opportunity to make it past the Louisiana troops guarding the border with the Edge, but he had the intellect and the education to understand the full futility of his position. He would’ve killed to open just one door and escape. Brennan had all the advantages. Every door was open to him.
“Why? Why do this? He’s like a millionaire who’s robbing beggars.”
“Who knows,” Charlotte said. “Maybe it’s the thrill of doing something criminal.”
She sounded exhausted. Worry stabbed at him. He had to get her and the boy out of here.
He cut a section of the gauzy curtain, stacked the books on it, and tied it into a makeshift bag. Stealing was criminal. This was an atrocity. More so, because Brennan, born into privilege, had a duty. He had a responsibility to wield his influence for the benefit of the realm, and instead he spat on it. Whatever sickness drove Brennan to rule over the slave trade, Richard would make sure he paid. He would make certain. He had promised it to Sophie, and he would see it through.
Richard sheathed his sword and handed the bag of books to Jack. “This is vitally important. Guard it.”