to slip away, like she hasn’t yet mustered the strength to wrangle her emotions. “The Mad Priest at his finest. You’re impossible to beat.”
“But you’ve tried.”
Her violet stare remains clear, unburdened. “More times than you’ll ever know.”
For a second, I can’t help but wonder if Edward Carrigan had nothing to do with the attempt on my life. Had Rowena set her sights on me, even then? Trailed along after me on Fournier Street, all while making sure to hug the shadows so that I never anticipated her attack?
I study her face, looking for a sign, confirmation—and find nothing.
Whatever her sins, I don’t think my almost death behind Christ Church Spitalfields is one of them. She’d boast about nearly taking me out, if that were the case. Rowena Carrigan isn’t exactly shy.
“They won’t let you leave Holly Village alive, you know,” she says now, clearly distrustful of my prolonged silence. “If I scream—”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Because you’re worried that they’ll find you here?”
“Because I’ll kill them all the second that they come through that door.”
A hiss escapes past her clenched teeth. “Was that your grand plan, then? You came here to slaughter us?”
“I came here for you.”
Her chin snaps back, suspicion weaving a thread through every line of her body. “You came to kill me, you mean.”
Yes.
But while taking her out might satisfy the vengeful corner of my soul, it won’t give me what I need most: answers. Whatever reason she and her . . . cult have for targeting Holyrood, it’s either fundamentally rooted in insanity or a fragment of some warped reality that’ll do us no good in leaving unmanaged. Tonight, The Bell & Hand went up in flames and the Palace met a fate not much better. At the end of the day, getting information trumps all plans I have for her father. The prime minister can wait a little while longer.
And, fact is, you can’t kill her.
The bullets from her revolver sit like iron weights in the front pocket of my trousers, removed from their chambers before she ever entered the room.
“I want information,” I clip out, sidestepping honesty to leave it dead and strangled behind me. I have a mission, a goal. And Rowena Carrigan is not a new addiction I can afford. Grabbing the book off the nightstand, I tuck it under my left arm. “Who do you take orders from?”
Scoffing, she lets her head fall back against the wardrobe. “You’re delusional if you think you can barge in here and interrogate me in my own home.”
“If handcuffs aren’t involved, then it’s not an interrogation.”
She doesn’t look amused. “I have nothing to say to you, Priest.”
“Really?” Sardonically, I raise a brow. “Nothing at all?”
Her jaw tightens mutinously. “Are you wanting an apology?”
“It wouldn’t be a bad start.”
Just to keep her on her toes, I make a point to grab the spindle-backed chair from the desk and set it down in front of her. Sit with my long legs to the left of her outstretched one, leaving space between us. Because I need this conversation not to devolve into an argument; because if I touch her, hear that goddamn whimper of hers again, I might—
Don’t fucking go there, Godwin.
“I’ll hand it to that big bastard of yours,” I drawl, opening the book in my lap to the dogeared page, “he tried.”
“And failed.”
At her grim tone, my lips twitch with morbid humor. “I caught the drawbridge’s pulleys on my way down. Total stroke of luck. Couldn’t recreate the moment even if I wanted.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’re cocky.”
“Don’t let that stop you—I’m waiting.”
Nostrils flaring, she clutches her knee like it’s either that or tackle me to the ground. I watch with silent fascination as her shoulders lift with a slow inhale. Then, in a tone carved from mock reverence, she murmurs, “Damien, I am so sorry . . .”
Satisfaction flares. “Wasn’t that hard, was it?”
“. . . that the pulleys got in your way.”
Every comeback, every scathing retort, dies on the tip of my tongue.
And the blasted woman knows it too.
Her full lips lift into a cunning smile that leaves me feeling strangely winded. I press a hand to my chest, fingers drifting up to clutch my right shoulder. Before I even have the chance to scrape together a mediocre response, she primly adds, “Your ego, Damien. It’s seriously overinflated.”
Jesus.
I open my mouth, then clamp it shut.
Rowena only taps her fingers against her kneecap. “Now that that’s out of the way, should we begin with our non-interrogation?”
The she-wolf strikes again.
Torn