Crown of Whispers Read online

  Dorian looked away, and that faint concern disappeared from his face. “I see,” he said. He pulled a file folder from beneath his desk and slid it over toward her. “Read it thoroughly. Sign next to the tabs, please.”

  Beatrice took the folder and read over the documents inside—but her mind was only halfway on the paperwork. Dorian was openly studying her now, with that carefully blank expression that revealed nothing.

  I’m probably still just a crazy bitch to him, Beatrice thought bitterly, as she initialed her way through the form. Stupid Trix—overreacting to everything.

  Dorian clearly expected they would politely paper over the past while she was here. Maybe he thought they’d call each other old acquaintances—that Beatrice would pretend he’d never insulted her, and he would pretend in turn that she’d never slapped him across the face.

  Beatrice dug the pen savagely into the last sheet of the non-disclosure form as she signed her name.

  “For your information,” she told him, as she shoved the folder back in his direction, “I’m not interested in playing forgive and forget. I know exactly who you are, Dorian Moreau. And I doubt you’ve changed a bit.”

  Dorian didn’t respond as he filed her paperwork away. But Beatrice could see the gears turning behind his eyes as she stood up again.

  “Interesting choice of haircut,” he drawled, just as she reached the door.

  This time, Beatrice heard the irritation in his tone. Somehow, it calmed the worst of the pounding pressure in her head. She smiled, half-aggravated and half-relieved. So he is still human, after all, she thought.

  “Nice suit,” Beatrice replied, with a laziness she didn’t feel. “I’m impressed someone managed to tailor something to fit your giant ego.”

  Outside, she saw Zoe sitting at her desk, trying very hard to look as though she were reading the novel in front of her. But the secretary’s lips pursed very slightly, and Beatrice knew she was listening intently, trying to catch bits of their conversation.

  Beatrice strode back out into the front office. She pulled out her laptop and set it down next to Zoe. “I’m gonna need you to run me through your workday,” she said.

  Chapter 2

  TWELVE YEARS AGO

  Beatrice had been awake for more than thirty-six hours now.

  This wasn’t entirely unusual. For the last year of Beatrice’s life, sleep had been hard to come by for various reasons. Once an early riser, she now often found herself still awake at four in the morning, staving off a panic attack. Sometimes, it helped her to work through the night—hyper-focusing confused her body and allowed her to put off dealing with the real source of her stress.

  Today was different, however. It was eight in the morning—and after an entire night of frantic, fearful work, the weight had suddenly lifted from Beatrice’s shoulders. The world was fresh—brand new, and full of potential. Beatrice trudged past the campus computer science building in her boots and pajamas and heavy coat, blinking blearily against the winter sunlight. She wanted to laugh with triumph. She wanted to take a crazy risk. She wanted to hide in a panic. She wanted a goddamn coffee.

  “Beatrice?” The low male voice grabbed her attention belatedly, as her sleep-deprived brain struggled to react to its surroundings. Beatrice blinked. A tall, familiar figure had broken away from the other students walking down Rue University.

  Dorian Moreau still looked like a delicious male snack, even while bundled up for the winter. His long black coat draped over him in all the right places; the dusting of snow in his dark hair made Beatrice itch to grab the loose gray scarf around his neck and drag him down to her level so she could mess it up. They had never had that sort of relationship, of course—Dorian had always been far too focused on trying to outdo Beatrice’s test scores and steal the top of the class to worry about trivial things like dating.

  Dorian cut through the throngs of people in front of him to settle into a slow walk next to Beatrice. His empty aura pressed in around her, even without her Witchsight open; the noise around them subtly quieted, so that it felt like they were the only two people in the world. Dorian’s eyebrow quirked as he glanced down at her. “I was wondering where you’d gotten off to,” he observed. “You’re looking... different.”

  Beatrice shot him a loopy smile. “I’m just trying to pick up the computer science aesthetic,” she replied lightly. “I figure I’ll dye my hair some crazy color next and import myself some American Mountain Dew. It has illegal amounts of caffeine, did you know that?”

  Dorian blinked. “You left civil law?” he asked. He sounded genuinely shocked. And why wouldn’t he be? Beatrice thought bitterly. She’d had a number of law offices feeling her out for an internship, before everything had come crashing down around her ears.

  “I decided to be generous and give you the top of the grade curve,” Beatrice lied extravagantly. “Profites-en. I hope you’ve been enjoying it.”

  Dorian frowned thoughtfully. “It feels unearned,” he said seriously. “But I can’t say I’m not enjoying it at all.” He knitted his brow. “Are you sick? You’re shivering an awful lot.”

  Beatrice yawned slowly. Her body had indeed begun to tremble—mostly, it was due to lack of sleep, but the cold air certainly wasn’t helping. “I just pulled an all-nighter,” she said. “I’m a bit of a wreck.”

  “You never do things by halves, do you?” Dorian murmured. Before she knew quite what was happening, he’d shrugged off his coat and tucked it around her shoulders. The lingering warmth of his body heat enfolded her; the tangy scent of his cologne made her giddy and light-headed.

  Oh, Beatrice thought. That’s nice.

  “Where are you headed?” Dorian asked, in a business-like tone. “I’ll see you there.”

  Beatrice stopped walking and turned to look up at him. He was close enough to touch—it would be a small matter to run her hand along the faint stubble of his jaw, to lean up on her tiptoes and kiss him—

  She flushed, and shook her head to clear away the thought. “I was just going to get a victory coffee,” Beatrice told him. “We’ll see if I stay awake long enough to finish it.”

  Something flickered behind Dorian’s mysterious gray eyes at that. It was difficult to read him even at the best of times though, and Beatrice was far from at her best. “I’d be pleased to keep you company,” Dorian told her. Then, after a brief pause, he said: “Particularly if you aren’t dating anyone at the moment.”

  Beatrice blinked. Am I dreaming? she wondered. Or did Dorian Moreau just ask me out on a date while I’m stomping around in boots and pajamas?

  Then, because lack of sleep had utterly demolished her filters, she said: “Yeah. I’d really like that, actually.”

  Dorian shot her a half-smile. “I promise I won’t hold it against you if you fall asleep in the middle,” he assured her.

  An hour later found Beatrice curled up next to him in a booth at Tim Horton’s as he sipped at a fresh hot chocolate, with her head on his shoulder and her eyes fluttering closed. Dorian wrapped his arm gingerly around her shoulders—and though Beatrice had every reason to worry about jumping into a relationship just now, she decided that this one was off to a very fine start.

  And if a sinister whisper curled in at the edges of her consciousness—if a distant silhouette hung upon the edges of her vision—they were both easily forgotten as she fell asleep.

  PRESENT DAY

  “So... you and Dorian know each other, I guess?” Zoe asked innocently.

  Beatrice narrowed her eyes at the computer screen in front of her. The secretary’s offended manner had utterly disappeared in the last hour, replaced by an obvious, burning curiosity. Zoe was currently settled next to Beatrice in an extra office chair she’d dragged around the desk for the purpose.

  Beatrice ignored the question. “When was the last time this computer was restarted?” she asked instead.

  “Uh...” Zoe glanced at the screen and pursed her lips. “Probably never. Is that a bad thing?”
/>   “Yes,” Beatrice sighed. “That’s a bad thing. You’ve got a backlog of security updates here that require a restart to install properly.” She frowned at the computer. “You ought to be doing daily backups onto a local disk, too.”

  Zoe blinked at that. “Uh… you want me to make more copies of the info on the computer?” she asked carefully, as though she wasn’t sure she’d heard Beatrice correctly.

  “Yes,” Beatrice told her. “Encrypted copies, obviously. But your office is at pretty high-risk for a ransomware attack. I’ve had to handle two law offices and a hospital with ransomware infections this year already.”

  Zoe knitted her brow at that. There was a look on her face that suggested she had no idea what Beatrice had just said, and that she was just a bit embarrassed to admit it. “And ransomware is…”

  “Most security problems have to do with confidentiality,” Beatrice told her. “Keeping stuff a secret, I mean. But some attackers go after the availability of information. Ransomware viruses encrypt your computer and hold all your data hostage. Properly-encrypted data is basically the same as white noise—it’s absolutely useless trash if you don’t have the key to unlock it. The virus author extorts you for money in return for that key.” She paused. “If you’ve got info on this machine that you need in order to do your job, then you can’t keep just one copy of it. I can recommend an automatic backup drive before I go.”

  Beatrice flicked the coin between her fingers again, trying not to show her annoyance. There was no reason she should have been so offended by the little problems. No one had perfect security—even people in the industry often got sloppy in little ways, annoyed into taking shortcuts for the sake of day-to-day convenience. It was Beatrice’s job to find ways to improve things. All of this was just business.

  How could Dorian have dated me for so long and learned so little about security? Beatrice thought in annoyance. The complaint interjected itself before she had the chance to shove it away.

  “Oh,” Zoe said sheepishly. “Yeah, that’s… helpful, thanks. And I guess I’ll start turning the computer off at the end of the day, too.” The secretary’s bright green eyes stayed fixed upon Beatrice though, and not on the screen in front of them. “Come on,” Zoe pleaded suddenly. “Throw me a bone here. Dorian never talks about himself. Most people around here figure he was born in a suit and tie.”

  Beatrice’s jaw twitched. “You know he’s probably listening from his office?” she pointed out.

  Zoe grinned. “Yeah,” she said. “It’d probably bug him if you started dishing on him.”

  It was a transparent tactic to get her talking… but it was an effective one.

  Beatrice stuffed the coin into her blouse pocket. “Dorian and I went to CEGEP together,” she said stiffly. “University, too. We were both in civil law.”

  “Civil law?” Zoe knitted her brow. “Wow. Fancy computer security is kind of a jump from there. How’d that happen?”

  Beatrice paused her hands on the keyboard. Nope, she thought. We’re not going there. “Dorian cheated on his Chemistry tests all the time,” Beatrice continued blithely, diverting the subject. “He took the TA out for beers in return for the answers.”

  Zoe gaped, and Beatrice knew she’d successfully rerouted the conversation. “He did what?” the secretary asked. “Seriously?”

  “You could always go ask him,” Beatrice said. “Of course… he might have forgotten. He’s very good at forgetting things that are inconvenient for him.” She couldn’t help the slight edge that slipped into her voice at that.

  “Oh.” Zoe blinked. “...huh.” For a second, it seemed as though the secretary might pursue the comment further—but she glanced toward the back office instead and shut her mouth, frowning. Zoe cleared her throat uncomfortably. “So… do I have to do anything special to install these updates after I restart, or…”

  Beatrice considered the other woman for a long moment. The revelation that Zoe’s boss was anything less than a saint seemed jarring to her. Maybe you shouldn’t have asked if you didn’t want to hear the answers, Beatrice thought. But she turned her attention back to the computer in front of them and went back to the main subject of discussion.

  Beatrice soon finished her investigation of the front desk’s computer—there was very little information of consequence on it, and she suspected that most of what she was looking for would be in the back office anyway. She headed for the door at the back once again, glad for the excuse to be rid of the nosy secretary’s company.

  Maybe it was petty of Beatrice to enter without knocking. But as she did, she was astonished to see Dorian sitting behind his desk with his head in his hands. He looked up in surprise—and for just a moment, she saw an obvious grimace of pain on his features.

  Is he having a migraine? Beatrice thought, bewildered. A hint of concern crept into her heart before she could safely quash it.

  Dorian’s pained expression disappeared again, smoothed away into that careful mask of his. “Problem?” he asked her coolly.

  Beatrice pressed her lips together. His problems aren’t mine anymore, she thought. “I’m done out front,” she said. “I’m going to need your office now. And your phone.” She paused, and added: “You don’t have to stay. I’m sure there’s an ambulance out there you could be chasing instead.”

  Dorian shot her a brittle smile and shoved to his feet. He slid his phone across the desk toward her. “I’ll get out of your hair then,” he said, “before it drips enough to dye me pink.”

  “Pas drôle, Dorian,” Beatrice drawled, resisting the urge to look down at her blouse again. “You already insulted my hair. It isn’t sexy to repeat yourself.”

  Dorian had been headed past her—but he turned abruptly at that, and pressed his hand into the wall just next to Beatrice’s head. His eyes burned into hers, focused with a quiet intensity. He leaned in close, and the scent of chocolate and cologne enfolded her so that her knees went strangely weak.

  Beatrice’s body reacted instantly. Heat flooded her face; every inch of her skin tingled with the awareness of how close he was. Lingering hurt eased away, replaced by an unquestionable desire to have him cross that last inch—to brush her cheek and claim her lips, to haul her up against him and press her into the wall—

  Beatrice tried desperately to banish that image from her mind. But that just brought her back to the present. Dorian was close enough to kiss her now. If she leaned herself just a little bit forward...

  “I believe you just implied you weren’t attracted to me,” Dorian murmured finally. “Menteuse.”

  He took a step back. As he did, the cool air of the office rushed in to fill the void of his presence, chilling Beatrice and snapping her back to reality. Angry shame rushed through her.

  “Décrisse!” Beatrice hissed at him. “I’ve got work to do, you asshole.”

  Still, she found herself avoiding Dorian’s eyes as he turned for the door. Beatrice’s Punk Corporate Trixie façade had developed a worrying crack, and she was suddenly terrified that he might see it.

  Focus, she reminded herself. Just breathe. You’ve got work to do.

  But as the door closed behind Dorian again, Beatrice knew that most of her focus had gone with him.

  In the end, Beatrice had to dig out her headphones and put one of her most reliable playlists on full blast in order to get her concentration back. Said playlist was aptly named Calme-toi, câlisse—but Beatrice was probably the only person in the world who would find it soothing. The list bounced between neurohop, trance tunes, and an assortment of other pounding EDM mixes. A therapist had once suggested that the deep, predictable beats helped her sync her breathing and lower her blood pressure.

  Beatrice spent a good two hours going through the phone, the laptop computer on the desk, and the router in the corner. Interestingly, the laptop wasn’t connected directly to the Internet, and probably never had been. Some cursory poking around at the printer suggested that Dorian pulled files off the computer with a USB wh
en he needed to print or email them. Maybe he had learned something from Beatrice after all; his office wasn’t exactly high-tech, but he’d compartmentalized all of the most important information far away from any outside connections.

  The router was broadcasting publicly, of course, and its only safeguard was a password. Few offices that Beatrice had ever been to bothered to whitelist devices by MAC address, but she noted it down as a suggestion for later anyway. Beatrice’s little notebook was quickly filling up with the sort of commonplace issues she could rattle off in her sleep. Still—the truth of the matter was that Dorian’s office was going to fare far better on its technical assessment than most of the other small businesses she’d inspected.

  As long as Dorian’s phone checked out, of course.

  The phone was... uncomfortable. Beatrice had to work up the nerve to tackle it, knowing that there might be personal things on it. She tried to keep her searches technological in nature, automating her tests so that she didn’t have to see the content—but it was hard for Beatrice to avoid noticing the large number of text messages between Dorian and Zoe.

  Dorian and his secretary sent text messages to each other? Why bother, if they were in the same office?

  It struck Beatrice that Dorian and Zoe had been uncommonly familiar with one another ever since she’d gotten here. A spike of uncomfortable jealousy nudged its way up beneath her collarbone at the thought. It’s fine, Beatrice told herself. If Dorian wants to sleep with the secretary, that’s his own business. It doesn’t matter to me anymore.

  She flicked off the phone and took a long breath to steady herself.

  Magical defenses, Beatrice thought. That’s what I’ve got left to do.

  She got back to her feet, casting her gaze over the room with a slow inward breath... and opened up her Witchsight.

  New feelings and impressions surged into Beatrice’s mind, layering themselves over her normal senses like a cacophonous blanket. Witchsight wasn’t exactly another form of sight—it was another stream of information entirely—but the human brain generally interpreted that information as familiar sights, sounds, and even tastes.