I glanced across Claire’s desk and that’s when I noticed the open cupboard. There was an empty square on the floor of the cupboard. The indentation was rectangular. It was where the safe containing the knives and the horseshoes for the Quit Rents ceremony was kept. The safe had gone. There were marks in the plasterwork where the plaster and bricks had been chipped away to expose the bolts that anchored it, and dust on the floor where the anchors securing the safe to the wall had been levered out. Someone had taken their time and neatly removed the safe, which must have taken a while and caused a fair amount of noise, but no one had raised an alarm.
Scanning the room, I noted the scuff marks in the carpet. Checking the door handles to the Queen’s Remembrancer’s office, I opened it and scanned the room from the doorway. There was no one there and the room hadn’t changed at all. Even so, there was no sign of the safe or the people who’d taken it.
“What do you think you’re doing?” The voice came from the outer door. The woman from the other office was standing there looking severe.
I turned to face her. “The safe, where is it?” I asked her.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing in here, but if you do not leave right away I am calling security,” she threatened.
“This is not a game,” I told her. “Claire asked me here. Now where’s the safe?”
She went to shut the door on me, but I moved too quickly. Wrenching the door from her, I propelled her backwards. As she staggered back I caught her by the lapels of her jacket and lifted her up the wall with one hand. She squeaked in surprise, the seams in her jacket crackling as they took the strain. She tried to kick me but I pressed in close so our breath mingled, allowing her only limited movement.
I spread my glamour around us, deadening sound. “You can scream, no one will hear you.” She took that as an invitation, screaming her head off. True to my word, though, we remained alone.
I waited until she realised it too, and her screams petered out. “Earlier, you asked if you could help me. Now’s your chance. Where’s the safe?”
“Fuck you,” she said, through gritted teeth. You had to admire her. A foot off the ground, pinned to the wall and she was still spitting abuse.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “I risked my life for the contents of that safe. I know damned well that Claire wouldn’t let it out of her sight, so where is it?”
She glared at me.
“I’d play these games if it weren’t so fucking serious,” I said. “I’ll ask you once more.”
She shook her head, clamping her lips tight.
The air shifted in the corridor. The light faded, and dappled moonlight grew and shifted across the wall. Her eyes went wide, the whites around them stark in the pale light. My hand was outlined against her jacket, the purest black. Looking into her eyes I knew she was seeing me as a lightless hole in the world. A song hummed in my veins, a long note, low and loud, calling to me. I could feel tendrils of darkness, spreading from my hand under her clothes. Her eyes went wide. She screamed again, uninhibited, kicking and thrashing in my grip. “They came and took it! Some men. From a company. They took it away!”
I held back the tide rushing into me, gritting my own teeth against the flood that pressed for release. “When?”
“A little while ago. For pity’s sake!” she squeaked.
“Who took it?”
“Some men. They’re replacing it with a newer one.”
“How long?”
“Fifteen minutes. Twenty maybe?”
“Where?”
“I don’t know,” she wailed. Tears were running down her face. There was the certain knowledge in her eyes that I would kill her. A small part of me believed her. A small part of me wanted to, but she was telling the truth.
I released her and she collapsed like a sack of sand onto the floor. Her head lolled to one side. I forced back the wave of power and let the magic fade. Looking down at her, I wondered what was becoming of me. There were some things ordinary people weren’t meant to see and she’d just come very close to dying. Looking at her made me think of the stories that Claire had told us when we first met. She’d said that not everyone who dealt with the Feyre walked away unscathed, and I was beginning to see why. I needed to get better control of myself. I had almost killed her for no other reason than she wouldn’t give me what I wanted. That was what Raffmir would do, and I would not let myself sink to his level.
I squatted down in front of her. Her eyes were not focusing. She was in shock. Fifteen or twenty minutes maximum, she’d said. They’d only just gone — for a moment I wondered what would have happened if I’d walked in on them while they were cutting the safe loose.
If I left her where she was, someone would soon notice her. Perhaps they would call an ambulance or a doctor. It was more than I could do for her. I’d already done too much. Whoever had been here, they had a heavy safe containing the horseshoes, the nails and the two knives from the ceremony. Fifteen minutes with a heavy safe in this warren of a building.
There was every chance they were still here.
I jogged down the corridor, swerving round someone emerging from an office with a pile of folders, nearly knocking them off their feet. “Don’t run!” they called after me.
Ignoring them, I paused only to look through the windows into the courts along the hall. They had a safe, now where would they take it? Not into court. Out the front door? No, I would have encountered them already. They could cloak themselves in glamour but the safe would remain as it was. The iron inside it would protect it — that was why it was there. The iron in it should prevent them carrying it, so where were they? They must have found a way to counter it, to mask the nature of it.
Reaching the end of the corridor, I stopped. There were numerous stairways, up and down — difficult to get a heavy safe downstairs. If you were fey you couldn’t hold it with the knives inside it. Someone else was moving it. They must have human collaborators. It was the only way. Sprinting around the corner, I slipped between two gowned barristers in conversation. They shouted after me, but I was already past. There were display cases left and right — somewhere close there must be a goods lift. Somewhere, but where?
I rounded a corner and was presented with more corridors. I was running out of time. I could run around this maze all day and never find them. There must be a better way. My eyes settled on a small red box on the wall — fire alarm. Crude, yet effective. Now I was thinking.
Using the heel of my hand, I smashed the glass. Immediately sirens echoed down the corridor. There was a moment’s pause while everyone wondered whether it was a false alarm, and then they began moving. I kept ahead of the crowd, searching for misfits, the odd ones out, allowing myself to be shepherded towards the exits with the rest. Once outside I watched the doors, but no one emerged with a heavy object. There were lawyers, jurors, members of the public, police, but no one who looked like they would remove a safe. I moved down the street, heading for the side entrance. The restless autumn leaves swirled around my feet in the fickle breeze.
I peered through the iron railings under the stone arches into the courtyard of the Royal Courts of Justice, looking for anyone struggling with a heavy load. A wooden guard post was just beyond the railings manned by two security guards. This close, I could feel the dissonant hum of the iron railings between me and them. There was no way I could touch them, never mind climb over them and slip inside, and the proximity of so much iron was disrupting the glamour that made me less noticeable, drawing curious glances from the guards.