silence? Who would take command of the Nexus and lead his agents safely through their next mission?
He had only to recall Cora’s captivity in an enemy dungeon for that particular point to be driven home. If the madman who had kidnapped her hadn’t carried a distorted version of love for her, Sebastian suspected she would have left the dungeon in pieces, rather than sustaining horrid bruises, cuts, and burn marks.
Still, he hesitated. If the request had come from his previous superintendent, William Wickham, Sebastian would have had fewer qualms about handing over such deadly information to a man he knew and trusted.
In the year since Reeves’s appointment, he had allowed Sebastian to run the Nexus as he saw fit. Sebastian was certain a gentleman with Reeves’s credentials—Oxford education, learned lawyer, King’s Printer—would look into the backgrounds of those closest to him. The same as Sebastian had done when Reeves accepted the appointment. If Latymer had whispered lies into Reeves’s ear, Sebastian would have to trust that the superintendent would use that clever mind of his to untangle the lies from the truth.
Tearing his gaze away from the blank sheet of paper, he strode to the window and pressed his forehead against a cool pane, savoring the contrast to his heated skin. He looked to the east, toward the widow’s estate. From this vantage point, he could just make out… nothing. With a new moon riding high in the sky, he could barely see the large urn-shaped flowerpots marking the entrance to the sunken garden.
Thoughts of the widow brought him back to his blunder on the terrace earlier in the day. Unobtrusively scanning an area for potential threats was one of the first tasks he’d mastered after joining the Alien Office. So, how was it that a widow from the country noticed his preoccupation, but skilled international spies could not?
From what little he had gleaned from his butler, Mrs. Ashcroft made a habit of detecting people’s failures. His steward’s in particular, and now his. Her keen observation skills weren’t the only reason for him to remain vigilant in her presence. While speaking with her earlier in the day, he’d had an annoying tendency to compare her honey-colored hair to that of a soft winter’s sun and her petite, yet perfectly proportioned figure to sculptures he’d seen of the Roman goddess Venus.
With Superintendent Reeves searching his private files and the widow distracting his thoughts, it was no wonder he’d bungled his surveillance of the garden and the shadowed tree line beyond. Sebastian closed his eyes and forced the tension from his neck, shoulders, and arms. He worked his way down his body until his knees unlocked, and he leaned his weight fully against the windowsill.
Damnation, he was tired. Intrigue had ruled his thoughts for so long that he could not recall a time when the Realm’s safety hadn’t commanded his daily schedule. Long hours, sleepless nights, and extended trips away from home. Add in a liberal dose of lies, deceptions, and countermeasures, and one had a recipe for growing older far faster than the body was designed to handle. His three and a half decades suddenly held the weight of a man twenty years his senior.
Pushing away from the window, he liberated his glass of its amber contents. The expensive liquor slid down his throat with practiced ease but refused to dull his disquieting thoughts. He grabbed the decanter and sat down at his desk with an uncharacteristic plop.
A glass in one hand and the decanter in the other, he rested his forearms on his desk, framing the sheet of paper. The emptiness mocked him. Burned his eyes with its challenging glare. Why hadn’t he thrown the bothersome thing back in the drawer and said to hell with Reeves and his debilitating demands? Because he couldn’t answer one simple question: Should he?
His heart began the familiar, painful tattoo while he watched ghostly vowels and consonants weave together to create forbidden links. Links that could one day force a power-driven ruler to his conquering knees.
Sebastian had sworn never to write down such valuable intelligence. If the information fell into the wrong hands, dozens of lives he was responsible for would be forfeited, and by extension, hundreds would perish. Should he?
Dear God, he didn’t know. Never in his life had he been so indecisive. But this decision could have ramifications far beyond his comprehension. And yet, if he did not give Reeves the list of secret service agents and something happened to him and