Page 8 of Of Blood and Roses

Manny harrumphed at that, and the silence settled between them.

Killian had debated telling his friend about hiring the Bastards to track down Elyse. He expected Manny would only scold him for it, reminding him for the thousandth time that he needed to let the Guard handle it, and that he should find a way to move on. Manny didn’t seem to understand that Killian would never move on, perhaps not even after Elyse was caught.

And yet other times Manny would look at him with nothing but brotherly sympathy in his eyes, as he did now. His faith in Killian felt misplaced. It made him shift, driving his boots into the sand.

“Is there a reason you came to find me?” he asked.

Manny gave him a one-sided grin. “I’ve got the day off tomorrow. Thought you and I could get a pint tonight. Or six.”

Killian didn’t return his smile. “Not tonight.”

Tonight he had things to do. He’d promised Siamus he would get him a quarter million in gold, which meant he had to—quite literally—dig it up.

After Elyse’s escape, her shoppe had been infested with guards. By daylight, they crowded into the cottage, tearing apart the shelves in search of any evidence they could find. But at night, they posted only a handful of guards to keep a lookout.

Killian had watched from the woods for several days, waiting for his opportunity. It had finally come on the fourth night when he recognized one of the guards on duty. Andrew had been in Killian’s regiment for years. Killian had trained him from a rascally teen to a respectable adult, and he hoped the soldier still held him in high esteem, even after all that had happened.

Killian waited until Andrew was alone, then approached him from behind and clamped a hand over his mouth.

“You ought to know better than that, soldier,” Killian taunted him, letting just enough humor into his voice to let Andrew know he meant him no harm. “I’m going to uncover your mouth now. And you’re not going to shout, right?”

Andrew had nodded his head vigorously, and Killian released him. The young soldier immediately turned and grasped Killian’s forearm.

“Sir,” he breathed out. But it was of pure habit. Killian no longer held such a title.

“It’s good to see you, Andrew,” Killian had said, letting a genuine smile play at his lips.

“You too, sir. But—” Andrew cast a glance over each shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

Killian kept his voice low but commanding. “I need to get into the shoppe and have a look around. I might be able to spot something the Guard missed.”

Even in the faint moonlight, Killian could see the way Andrew’s face paled. He hadn’t needed to say why he might have an additional intuition; the implication was there. He had known Elyse intimately.

“All right,” Andrew ceded. “But be quick—and quiet.”

Killian had smirked. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

Andrew had helped him sneak into the cottage unnoticed, and from there he had snatched up as many spellbooks and personal items as he could carry—including the enormous ledger that held all the shoppe’s data on sales and inventory.

He’d spent the next few days riffling through the accumulation. He tried every spell he could find to track Elyse down, but they’d all proven ineffective. Wherever she was, simple tracking measures wouldn’t work.

He’d spent most of the time looking through a small notebook. It seemed Elyse had scribbled random thoughts on the parchment, and she’d used the same code as the one in the ledger, the code he’d deciphered to discover she was King Cyril’s assassin. So he’d gotten to work, unraveling each passage. Some were meaningful, others appeared to be nothing more than simple to-do lists. The page that stood out to him the most was the one that seemed to be some sort of coordinates.

As soon as he’d gotten the chance, Killian had gone into the forest behind the cottage, following the directions of the coordinates. There didn’t appear to be anything special about the areas that had been jotted down, but Killian hadn’t expected to find anything obvious. So, he’d returned the next day with a shovel and gotten to work.

After perhaps an hour, the shovel’s head struck something hard. With renewed vigor, Killian unearthed the object—a metal chest.

The chest was large but surprisingly light. Killian’s heart had nearly beat out of his chest as he hoisted it from the ground with ease and undid the latch. He almost fell over backward when he lifted the lid to find gold coins—so many of them, they threatened to spill over the sides.

He lost track of time as he counted the coins. One hundred, two hundred, three hundred… They never seemed to end. Finally, he set the last gold coin in a pile beside the others.

Five hundred thousand.

A half million in gold.

He’d just sat there completely bewildered, gold scattered around him. Elyse was rich—disgustingly so. She had never complained about money, but she hadn’t flaunted her wealth either. Her clothes had been simple, her home small. And yet she had a fortune stashed in the woods.

Realization dawned on him that this might not be the only cache. He’d quickly dumped most of the coin back into the chest—pocketing a small sum for himself—and then dug a new hole a hundred yards away. He marked down the new coordinates in the notebook, then made for the next set in Elyse’s journal.