Crown of Briars Read online

  Zoe shot him a sideways look as he leaned back into the couch, tucking his arms behind his head. “Simon must have had something interesting for you.” She did her best to keep her voice light. “You don’t often give up your lunch hour.”

  Her attempt at deception failed utterly. Dorian’s slate grey eyes flicked over toward her. “You don’t often talk this much about business,” he said. We decided that was a bad idea, his tone implied.

  Zoe pressed her lips together. “I didn’t need the help today,” she said. “But he thought I did. Not many people would’ve stepped into the middle of that mess. Maybe it’s kind of nice knowing someone has my back if I need it.”

  Dorian frowned openly at that. “Pandering to the secretary is a common method of social engineering,” he told her. “It costs little and gains a lot. This is a man who sold his soul to a faerie lord. He could be using you, for all you know.”

  “He’s not.” At her firm, immediate answer, Dorian knitted his brow. A second later, he nodded.

  “That was foolish of me. Of course you would know.” He shrugged. “I was only being half-serious in this case, anyway. I know he’s not using you for anything. He knows I don’t have what he needs.”

  Zoe sat up a bit straighter at that. “You don’t?” She couldn’t help sounding a bit shocked. “You mean he asked you a question you can’t answer? Then why does he keep coming back?”

  A bit of real irritation crossed Dorian’s face now. “Since you insist on knowing: he asked me to keep an ear to the ground, in case I should come across what he’s looking for. He still brings me interesting information in the hopes that day will come and I will be able to pay him back.” The irritation, Zoe realized, wasn’t directed at her — it was self-directed. Dorian wasn’t used to not knowing the answers. He hated admitting to blind spots in his impressive lexicon of knowledge.

  Zoe narrowed her eyes. “You feel bad for him,” she accused. “That’s why you keep making time for him.” It was possibly the worst thing of which she could accuse her boss.

  “And here you are, breaking all manner of unspoken rules for him,” Dorian replied, neatly evading the accusation. “Do you know the proverb about stones and glass houses, Zoe?”

  Zoe folded back into the couch, vaguely embarrassed. She wasn’t sure why, exactly. Simon was easy to like. If even La Voûte had a soft spot for him, someone like Zoe probably never stood a chance.

  She hesitated. There was only one rule that she had absolutely never crossed with Dorian — one thing that she had never dared to ask him before. But if he really was upset at not being able to answer Simon’s questions, then maybe…

  “What is it Simon wants to know?” She meant the question to come off confident, but her voice faltered awkwardly halfway through it.

  Dorian looked at her sharply. The congenial atmosphere buckled, and Zoe knew that he hadn’t been expecting that particular trespass.

  “I work for you,” she said. “I want to help. Is that so crazy?”

  Dorian’s eyes went flat. “You don’t want to ask me this, Zoe,” he said. “When it’s business, I have rules. I don’t want to have to enforce them on you, of all people.”

  Right. Dorian’s Rules. They were a package deal, along with his strange powers. Zoe wasn’t a hundred percent certain what would happen if he ever broke them — or, for that matter, whether he could break them.

  First among them was the rule: All secrets must have a price.

  Zoe set her jaw. “Let’s play pretend for a second. What would these rules involve, if I decided that I did want to ask you this?”

  Dorian closed his eyes. This was clearly a conversation that he desperately did not want to have. But he pushed up to a seated position anyway, his tone suddenly cold. “I can tell you what Monsieur Leclair asked me for,” he said. “That is a secret that he has technically given to me. But client questions are one of the most sensitive secrets I can trade. If you ask me to tell you this secret, Zoe… you will need to give me a secret of equal value. Something valuable in its own right, and also something that you do not wish to tell me.” He met her eyes directly. “Anyone could trade me for that information, if they offered something of great enough value themselves.”

  Zoe’s mouth went dry. They both knew what he was talking about.

  Screaming in the dark, drenched in blood, can’t stop looking, can’t unsee, he won’t let me—

  “Zoe!”

  Dorian had taken her by the shoulders. For the first time in years, she looked at his face and saw open concern. It was that expression, that look that he’d given her when she’d first woken up screaming on the tatty couch in his old apartment.

  “Breathe,” he demanded. It was that direct, no-nonsense voice that did it.

  Zoe gasped in a breath. Her heart was beating hard in her chest. Her head was light and dizzy.

  “M’fine,” she said.

  She wasn’t. But they both knew that anyway.

  Dorian was not, as a rule, a terribly affectionate man. But he tugged her forward into an awkward, fatherly hug anyway. Zoe closed her eyes, and let the comforting emptiness of his aura surround her.

  When her breathing had finally steadied out, Dorian spoke very quietly. “Don’t make me do this,” he begged. There was no hardness left in his voice now. “I don’t want to do it, Zoe.”

  Zoe swallowed hard. She nodded against his chest.

  The strange, arcane rules that bound Dorian wouldn’t let him make exceptions; not even for her. If she asked him for a secret that valuable, he would have to ask her the one thing he knew she didn’t want to tell him — the thing she feared any of his other clients learning, above all else. That wouldn’t just hurt her; it would hurt him too.

  She owed him more than that.

  “I won’t ask,” she rasped. “I won’t. Just… forget about it.”

  Dorian released her, and they each took a moment to compose themselves. Zoe straightened out her button-down, evading his eyes.

  “C'était ton jumeau!” sobbed the woman on-screen. “Il a prétendu être toi!”

  She swiveled her head toward the television incredulously. “Oh my god, really?” she demanded. “We’re into evil twins now? This is getting ridiculous!”

  “Mais oui,” Dorian said, his voice carefully neutral once again. “It was inevitable.”

  Zoe tossed herself back into the couch, crunching her legs up to her chest. She wrinkled her nose. “I’m gonna need some popcorn to get through this,” she muttered.

  Only a week later, and Zoe had nearly managed to suppress her memory of the awkward conversation. That afternoon, in fact, she had more pressing problems to deal with.

  “No, I’m sorry, we’ll have to reschedule your meeting for today. I know it’s inconvenient, and I’m quite sorry for your trouble. Something unavoidable has come up. Thank you for your understanding!”

  The voice on the other end of the office line was not understanding. But Zoe quickly set down the phone anyway.

  She reached up to rub at her face in exasperation. Dorian had suggested that the seigneur of Montreal had no particular attachment to Vivienne’s success, but she could swear that the dratted vampire had dragged Dorian out of his office at the last minute just to get some tiny, petty revenge on the both of them. It was one thing to upset his seneschal, and another thing entirely to deny him a face-to-face meeting — even if said meeting was utterly last-minute and inconvenient.

  Zoe had been forced to call every last appointment left on the books, kindly informing them that they wouldn’t be seeing Dorian that day after all. Lord only knew when the seigneur would let him leave the meeting. She’d had to promise to lock up the office herself; she’d soon be stuck on a crowded metro car with half the working population of the city, instead of hitching a ride in the passenger seat of Dorian’s black sedan.

  Her mouth curled with distaste at the thought. She would have to walk home alone, in the dark. Damn that damned vampire, semi-royalty or not!


  Zoe’s worried thoughts stuttered as something pinged on her Witchsight. She glanced toward the office door, confused by the unexpected imagery.

  It was Simon standing at the office door… but Zoe knew instantly that something was very wrong with him. Outwardly, nothing much had changed: his white-blond hair was a bit messier than usual, and maybe he had a bit more of a pale cast to his skin, but his green eyes were still as bright as ever behind his glasses, and he was wearing his usual absent smile.

  Spiritually, Zoe thought at first that she might have been looking at an utterly different person. The soft scent of spring had dimmed to barely a whisper; the kindness that normally threaded through Simon’s aura had been utterly overcome by that terrible black misery. A large swath of it was curled around something that lay against his chest, attached to a silver chain around his neck.

  Her unusually keen Witchsight dug even deeper than that, though, and she recoiled at what she saw there. There were fresh, hideous injuries on the Wanderer’s soul — great blackened gashes that didn’t even bleed. Something cold and awful had torn into him… and while Simon was somehow still standing afterward, Zoe knew that he couldn’t possibly be immune to the resulting agony.

  She doubled over at her desk, trying to keep her lunch in her stomach where it belonged. Stop that! She gritted her teeth. You’ve seen worse. You can deal with this!

  Zoe closed her eyes and forced herself to count to ten. Simon had to be here for a reason. She needed to find her brain.

  The warlock entered without comment, his manner subdued. The warmth that he normally carried with him was lukewarm, pathetic. He had not, Zoe realized, bothered to tuck his scarf around his neck; neither was his coat fully buttoned to the top. What was left of the cold must have bothered him terribly… but what was a little cold, compared to those horrible mental injuries?

  He smiled tiredly at Zoe, and she clenched her fingers on her knees beneath the desk. “Miss Zoe,” he said cordially, as though everything was quite normal. “It’s good to see you again.”

  Zoe set her jaw. God, he was a wreck. What was he doing even walking around?

  “I guess you’re here for something from Dorian,” she said. “I’m afraid he’s had to run off for the afternoon. But… maybe I could help you instead?”

  Please, she thought, let me help you.

  Simon blinked slowly. A lost, confused expression flickered across his face. “I don’t… you know, I don’t know exactly why I’m here,” he admitted. “I only meant to make an appointment. But I suppose I could have called. Perhaps I needed the walk.”

  Zoe cringed. “Yeah, uh… his schedule’s pretty up-in-the-air at the moment. I just had to re-sort things for the next two weeks. I’ll… I’ll try to see what I can manage…” Her voice wavered slightly on the words, and she cursed herself.

  This shit I’m feeling isn’t mine. It doesn’t belong to me, it’s his.

  Simon’s aura twinged abruptly, drawing her attention back to him. His eyes had fallen on the little French child’s novel she’d left out on her desk. Zoe flushed in embarrassment. Briefly, she considered shoving Le Petit Prince under the desk and pretending that it belonged to someone else.

  “C’est le temps que tu as perdu pour ta rose qui rend ta rose importante,” Simon quoted. A wan smile crossed his face. “I wonder if La Voûte subscribes to that theory of value.”

  Zoe felt her flush recede slightly. “What — the more you waste time on something, the more valuable it becomes?” She shrugged. “Might be a little too existential for him.”

  “Is that yours?” Simon asked. “It looks well-read.”

  She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “…yeah. It’s the first book I ever read when I started learning French. Guess it kind of stuck with me.”

  A tinge of bittersweet memory echoed in Simon’s aura. “I like Saint-Exupery,” he said. “I find him an antidote to French nihilism. He never apologized for believing that there is worth in the world.”

  Of course you would love him, Zoe thought. That’s so you.

  He’d captured her attention again. That black grief was so close now — she could feel it on her skin. The ache of looking at it hit her somewhere just beneath her breastbone.

  Never before had she been so keenly aware of the magic boiling in her blood.

  I could help. I could fix… fix some of this. No one would need to know.

  Except for Simon. There would be no hiding it from him if she touched his soul with her power, knitted up some of those gashes. She wouldn’t even know where to begin with all this damage, but perhaps she could at least dull the pain for a bit, let him get a good night’s sleep…

  “Miss Zoe?” Worry — faint, familiar worry — wavered through the blackness that consumed him. Zoe realized that she’d allowed little tears to gather at the corners of her eyes. Simon reached out to take her hand; she choked at his touch, unable to stop herself.

  Zoe forced a hesitant smile. “Oh, um, look at me,” she stuttered. “I’m so embarrassed. It’s… it’s the wrong time of month is all. I'm crying over the most ridiculous things. I’m so sorry.” She squeezed his hand between hers.

  Simon relaxed slightly. “You don’t need to be embarrassed on my account, Miss Zoe,” he reassured her. “I promise I’ve seen worse. There’s very little in this world that can outdo a faerie lord for irrational mood swings.”

  Zoe laughed in spite of herself. There was a wan smile on Simon’s face now that almost looked genuine. She let out a slow breath, forcing her emotions under control.

  His aura lightened where their hands touched. Simple human contact had cut through that misery, if only for a moment. Simon made as though to release her hands, but Zoe tightened her grip on him, and he looked at her with a start.

  You didn’t always need magic to help people feel better, she remembered.

  “I’m clearly in need of some chocolate,” Zoe told him. “I have to close things down soon anyway. Would… would you mind coming with me? I don’t really like closing up the office alone.”

  Asking a client to chocolate was incredibly unprofessional. There was no getting around it. But the thought of doing nothing and letting him walk away in that state was just… unthinkable.

  Another faint thread of relief rippled through his aura. Simon nodded slowly, and she let him go, satisfied. The phone on the desk rang, and she shot it a wary look. It was the number she’d just called — no doubt looking to scream at her a bit more. “You know,” Zoe said. “It’s close enough to closing.” She pushed to her feet and collected her things abruptly as the ringing went on.

  Simon glanced curiously at the phone. His lips quirked upward just a bit further. “Someone you know?” he asked.

  Zoe shot him a plaintive look. “I wasn’t at the desk,” she said. “That’s what you’ll say if anyone asks, isn’t it?”

  The warlock chuckled and put a hand to his heart. “On my honor,” he promised.

  Chapter 3

  When Zoe had first walked around Montreal — in her right mind, anyway — she had found it alien, and just a bit overwhelming. At the time, she hadn’t known a lick of French, so all the signs and the idle street chatter had been mostly foreign to her. People will switch to English if you ask, Dorian had told her reassuringly, and he was right. But none of that had jarred her nearly as much as the sheer feeling of the city to her Witchsight.

  No matter what time of year, no matter the weather, Montreal was simply alive. There was always a festival or a concert going on, and people were always excited about something. It was enough to give her a headache sometimes, though she appreciated the generally positive atmosphere in other respects.

  All of Zoe’s hard feelings toward the city had melted away overnight, however, when she learned about its chocolate shops. Shops. Plural.

  The first time Dorian had taken her to a chocolaterie, Zoe had taken one look at the literal wall of cocoa beans from around the world, then turned back to him and said: I am nev
er leaving this city.

  That had earned a rare laugh from him.

  Zoe had since become convinced that a good chocolaterie could cure all woes, or at least put a sizeable dent in them. There was one only a few blocks from Dorian’s office, which she had been to so many times now that the owners knew her on sight.

  Simon, still wilted and shivering in the cold, nonetheless made an effort to open the door for her. Zoe shook her head and smiled, holding it open for him in turn. As the two of them nudged into a bright red booth near the middle of the shop, a young, tattooed waiter bustled toward them with his notepad out. “Brownie and a classic hot chocolate, semi-sweet?” he asked Zoe blithely, in heavily-accented English. He blinked as he looked up and saw Simon with her. “Oh! Sorry, sorry. And what would you like, sir?”

  “You’ve been here often, I see,” Simon observed to Zoe. That wan smile on his face was getting a bit stronger already.

  “Nah,” she joked. “Jérôme is just psychic. Aren’t you, Jérôme?”

  The young waiter shot her a deadpan expression worthy of La Voûte himself. “A secret,” he said, his English breaking further from humor. “I learn it in waiter school. You are not s’posed to know.”

  Simon gave him a wry look. “I suppose I’ll take another of whatever she’s having,” he said. “Merci.”

  Jérôme grinned at him. “Parfait,” he said. He glanced at Zoe and winked. “You have a pretty boyfriend. Don’t worry. I look but will not touch.”

  Zoe’s face went bright red. “Uh,” she said eloquently. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she called out, but Jérôme spirited off before she could finish. She coughed into her hand, forcing a laugh to paper over the awkwardness. “Er. Sorry about that.”

  Simon chuckled. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. And because he was who he was, she felt the uncomfortable moment pass harmlessly overhead. The warlock tucked his chin into his hand — Zoe thought that maybe half of him was actually present, while the other half was still distant, buried underneath that dark haze. “If I’m going to be honest, I’ve had a difficult few days. I’m just glad not to be at home.”