he might be able to kill Thorne in this moment, with the witch down . . . but to attack him would be to endanger the baby. And Christian would not do that.
“Master, I’m sorry!” Brenna cried brokenly, beginning to weep. “I love you! I didn’t know!”
“Shut up,” Thorne told her, and Brenna broke into a storm of weeping, rolling to cover her face, her bleeding nose. Christian found himself stirred by pity. The white woman on the ground did not deserve it, but what could one do but pity her . . . or any woman who loved such a creature as Arlen Thorne?
“We will find the girl,” Thorne said quietly. “No matter where you take her.”
“You will try,” Christian replied, and though he meant to say no more, he found his mouth running on without him, as though another man spoke with his voice. “But you will have to come through me. I swear it.”
“And what is your word worth?” Thorne demanded caustically . . . but beneath the sarcasm, his face had gone pale. The sapphire at Christian’s chest burned and burned.
“I have watched you, Lazarus, more closely than you know. You have no loyalty . . . unless it be to the Creche itself. You’re a fine figurehead for the tunnels. You know where all of us belong.”
Bubbles in the ale, Christian thought distantly. Here was another Wigan, another great believer in the hierarchy of the Creche, the natural order; Christian only wondered that he had not seen it from the first. Thorne and Brenna were both Creche babies, likely sold in their first weeks of life, just as Christian had been himself, and they had each learned the great lesson of the tunnels: in a world where brutality was a constant, it was infinitely better to be the one holding the whip. Christian was struck with sorrow for the child Thorne, so long lost . . . but he did not confuse that child with the man who stood before him.
“Is this about your whore?”
Christian’s hand clenched on the mace. Thorne was trying to draw him out, he knew it, and yet the draw was effective, for he moved forward a few inches, his feet scuffling of their own accord.
“Her name was Maura,” Christian said flatly. “I know it was you who brought her to that place.”
“And why not? The children needed a nursemaid. All the whore wanted was a steady supply of poppy, and I secured it. Who else had ever done so much for her, Lazarus? Had you?”
Great God, he means it! Thorne truly believed that he had acted the best part here, and in a flash of understanding, Christian realized that Arlen Thorne was just as dangerous as his witch, perhaps even more so. Brenna, after all, was only an instrument, but a man with Thorne’s lack of conscience could justify anything.
“You took Maura,” he said stonily. “But you will not have the child, not unless you come through me.”
Thorne stared at him for another long moment, his eyes burning with sheer hatred, and something more pitiable: an impotent fury. Thorne did not just want the sapphire, Christian realized. He wanted to kill the child. More than that, he needed to kill her.
Why? Christian wondered again. What has she done?
And then: What will she do?
None too gently, Thorne pulled Brenna from the ground. Christian winced as he heard the tendons in the witch’s elbow pop. Thorne got an arm beneath her and began hauling her toward the break in the wall. Christian thought they would simply melt away, but in the end Thorne himself was unable; he paused in the opening, turning his baleful gaze back to Christian.
“You will regret this, Lazarus. One day I will hold the power of this kingdom in my hands, and I will not forget.”
“Good. Because I forget nothing either.”
Thorne glared at him for another moment, and then he and Brenna disappeared through the break. Christian waited several long minutes—he would never know how many—with the child clutched in one hand and his mace in the other, before he came to believe that they were really gone.
The horse nickered companionably as Christian touched her flank with one hand. He did so almost absentmindedly, staring down at the baby in his arms. She was going to start crying again, and he could not bear it. Slowly, fearing an explosion, he dug in his saddlebags for the other bottle. He offered it to the girl, turning the spout downward