Before long, Ari had thoroughly searched every room but Teague’s study, which was also locked. Other than the empty pipe box in the wall and another yellowed copy of Magic in the Moonlight: A Nursery Primer on a small shelf in the back parlor, the only remarkable thing she’d found was that Maarit was a complete failure at housekeeping.
There was dust on every surface. Candle wax had dripped from sconces and hardened on the floor. And Ari was positive the rugs hadn’t been taken outside for a good beating in at least a year.
This is what came of hiring a housekeeper old enough to have seen the birth of Súndraille itself.
Ari used her finger to draw a line through the dust on the mantel in the front parlor and wondered how much time she had left before Maarit returned. A quick glance at the curio shelves showed her that all the fae relics seemed to be asleep. If she was going to risk snooping where it really mattered, now was the time.
She’d start by seeing if she could pick the lock to Teague’s study. Unlike the enormous lock on the door to Teague’s personal quarters, the lock to his study looked relatively simple. Ari had learned the skill of opening simple locks with a hairpin when she was eleven and Thad took to locking himself away after he’d endured yet another bout of Father telling him he had to work extra hard, be extra perfect to make up for his bastard birth.
For a moment, the pain of missing Thad and the pain of missing her mother flared into something unbearable. Something that stung her eyes with tears and filled her limbs with heaviness.
She blinked away the tears and made herself move away from the mantel before she could collapse in front of it and cry. Missing her family wasn’t going to get her any closer to Teague’s secrets.
Dusting the house, however, was.
Minutes later, Ari had collected a soft cloth and some lemon oil from the broom closet and a hairpin from her hair. To really sell her story in case she got caught, she started dusting in the back parlor. The lemon oil was nearly impossible to open—further proof that Maarit hadn’t properly cleaned in ages and should probably retire—but soon Ari had the parlor gleaming and smelling like a citrus orchard. The next logical room to clean was the room beside it, which just happened to be Teague’s study.
Far be it from Ari to be illogical.
Pausing outside the locked door, Ari held her breath and listened. Rain fell in soft waves against the windows. The house creaked and settled, but there was no sound of breathing. No faint hiss as one of the relics turned to look for her.
She was alone.
Telling herself that that fact should make her happy instead of miserable, she straightened the hairpin and slid it into the lock. In seconds, the door was open. Bending the hairpin back into shape, she slid it into her hair and entered the study.
It was depressingly normal.
An enormous desk dominated the room. Neat rows of quills and inkpots lined the top of the desk while equally neat stacks of parchment were centered on its surface. An entire wall was lined with bookshelves and an enormous floor-to-ceiling cabinet whose doors were nearly as big as the door to Ari’s bedroom, and there were a few knickknacks here and there, but nothing that said, “Look at me, for I am the key to Teague’s undoing.”
She rounded the desk, polish in hand, and studied its contents. The top desk drawer contained pots of ink, a few spare quills, and a dagger for sharpening them. The bottom drawer held ledgers whose cracked leather bindings looked at least one hundred years old.
She turned her attention to the stacks of parchment on the desktop. One stack was blank. One looked like shipping orders and bills to be delivered to out-of-town customers. And one was a stack of contracts like the one Thad had signed, except that on these the spaces for the debtor’s name, the price of the debt, and the bloody thumbprint were blank. Teague’s signature was already in place, however. The thought that he needed to be prepared for granting dozens of wishes in a short space of time made Ari feel sick.
Still, this could work to her advantage. She could take the contract and read the stupid thing as many times as it took to find a loophole. She grabbed the top sheet, folded it quickly, and then turned her back to the door so she could stuff it down her bodice and into her chemise. The parchment smelled faintly like the woodsy scent of the fae tea Maarit had given her on her first morning at the villa.
She’d just finished adjusting herself when something in the far corner of the room caught her eye. Frowning, she took a few steps forward so she could see by the dim light of the closest window.
A bronze statue, nearly tall enough to reach Ari’s waist, showed a woman with a wolf’s head, bird’s talons for hands, and goat hooves for feet. Dust clung to it, but there was something familiar about it. Something Ari had seen recently.
She took another step toward it, dust cloth raised, and it hit her.
This was the woman whose picture was in Magic in the Moonlight: A Nursery Primer beside the poem about the monster whose source of power was a secret she’d buried at her birth.
If this statue was in Teague’s study, locked away from prying eyes, then it meant something to him. Maybe it was a gift from someone he cared about, and he thought keeping it in here was safest. Or maybe it was piece of the puzzle Ari needed to solve. She needed to study the poem again.
She took another step toward the statue, and its eyes flew open. Ari froze beneath its blank, white gaze just as a voice behind her said, “What are you doing in here?”
Ari spun around to find Maarit standing in the doorway, glaring.
TWENTY-NINE
“I ASKED YOU what you were doing in here.” Maarit crossed the threshold, and Ari’s pulse roared in her ears. Behind her, the wall began breathing in quick, shuddering gasps. Ari shivered and refused to look at it.
This was a disaster. If Maarit thought Ari was spying on Teague, she’d tell him, and then Ari would lose everything. Desperately hoping her story would hold up, Ari started talking.
“I’m cleaning,” Ari said in the most matter-of-fact voice she could summon with her heart pounding and her knees shaking. Marching back to the desk, she picked up the rag and lemon oil to prove her point, trying hard to move without making the parchment hidden in her chemise rustle.
Maarit’s eyes narrowed. “I do the cleaning.”
That was debatable.
Ari gave her a little smile. “I know you do. But you were nice enough to go to the market for me. I wanted to do something nice in return.”
“This door was locked.”
Ari frowned. “It opened right up.” It really had. Teague should invest in better locks.
Maarit furrowed her brow and turned to examine the doorknob. “It was locked. I’m sure of it.”
Ari shrugged. The parchment in her undergarments rustled, and she quickly reached to straighten a stack on the desk, making plenty of noise as she did so. Maarit looked up. “Get away from those! You aren’t supposed to be here.”