Chapter 4: The Man Beside My Body

Cassian Vane did not pause beneath the Ashford crest.

That was the first thing Mira noticed. Most guests entering Ashford House looked up at the silver stag mounted over the doors, if only to show that they understood whose roof had admitted them. Cassian passed beneath it without a glance. His black evening coat fitted him too precisely to be fashionable; it looked like armour that had learned table manners.

Alistair’s hand tightened around Mira’s arm.

“No invitation?” she asked quietly.

“No manners,” he said.

Across the entrance hall, Cassian handed his coat to a footman. He was taller than she remembered, though memory had kept only the brief hard picture of him: a dark figure on wet stone, his face turned away while blood cooled under Mira’s shoulder. The man in front of her had a clean-shaven jaw and a pale scar at the edge of his right eyebrow. He looked neither guilty nor surprised to find the ballroom watching him.

Then he removed one glove.

The signet on his little finger caught the chandelier light.

Mira’s champagne glass slipped against its stem. Alistair caught it before it fell, his fingers closing over hers.

“Careful.” His smile stayed in place for the people nearby. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”

She could not make her hand obey him. The ring was black gold, square-faced, marked with a raven rising through a split circle. Exactly as it had lain inches from her cheek in the service corridor. Exactly as the masked man had worn it when he bent over her and took Helena’s brass key.

Cassian looked up.

For one thin second, the room narrowed to his eyes. Grey, not cold, but watchful in the way a locked door was watchful. He saw her staring at the ring. His expression did not change.

“Mira?” Alistair’s thumb pressed the back of her hand.

“I’m fine.” She eased the glass from his grip. “The room is warmer than I expected.”

It had been cold in the corridor when she died. She remembered that detail with the fidelity of an old wound: cold stone through the back of her dress, cold air sneaking under the service door, rainwater on the masked man’s sleeve. She had not seen Cassian’s face there. Only the ring, lifted as he reached for the key. Her mind had built the rest because dying people needed an enemy they could name.

“I’ll have someone open the terrace.”

“Don’t leave your guests on my account.”

She walked before he could insist. Her knees felt unreliable beneath the white silk of her dress, but she kept her pace measured through the crowd. A trustee offered congratulations. Mira answered him. Lady Pembroke asked whether the emerald was Colombian. Mira said she believed so. Each exchange lasted long enough to keep Alistair from following too closely.

At the far end of the ballroom, Cassian was speaking to no one. That seemed to be his preferred arrangement. Hosts, donors, and even a cabinet minister gave him a wide, polite circle. He accepted a glass of water from a passing waiter and said something that made the waiter blink, then hurry away.

Celeste appeared beside Mira with an empty flute in hand. “He has nerve.”

“You know him?”

“Everybody knows him.” Celeste watched Cassian through lowered lashes. “He doesn’t come to parties. He comes to count the exits.”

“A useful habit.”

Celeste looked at her. “You’re not usually impressed by rude men.”

“I’m not impressed.”

The orchestra began another dance. Alistair made his way toward them, delayed by a donor who wanted a photograph. Cassian moved first. Not through the crowd toward Mira, but along its edge, past the closed doors of the Palm Room and into the gallery beyond.

Mira set her champagne on a passing tray.

“Where are you going?” Celeste asked.

“To breathe.”

“Mira.” Alistair had reached them. His voice held the smooth warning she had seen him use on Celeste.

“Two minutes.” She kissed his cheek, giving the cameras a soft little picture. “Smile for them.”

The gallery was empty except for a maid collecting abandoned glasses. Cassian stood near the gilt mirror, studying the painted crack that ran through its centre. He had put his glove back on. The ring was hidden, which angered Mira more than it should have.

“Did you follow me?” he asked.

“This is my fiancé’s house.”

“A temporary distinction, I suspect.”

His voice was lower than she had expected. Not warm. Not theatrical. It carried no effort to charm her, and that unsettled her more than Alistair’s practiced attention.

Mira folded her hands so he would not see them shake. “Why are you here?”

“To speak to you.”

“Then you should have requested an appointment at the Foundation.”

“Your appointments are entered into a system the Ashfords can read.”

She stared at him.

Cassian turned from the mirror. “Your father kept better records than people gave him credit for. So did your mother.”

The mention of Helena hit like a misstep on stairs. “You knew my parents?”

“I knew of their work.”

“That is not an answer.”

“No.” He looked past her toward the ballroom. “But it is the answer you are getting while Alistair Ashford is within earshot.”

Mira stepped closer. “I saw your ring.”

For the first time, something moved behind his face. Not fear. Recognition, perhaps, of a statement with an edge he could not see.

“Many Vanes wear one,” he said.

“Do they?”

“Not all of us deserve the privilege.”

His gaze settled on her bare left hand, where Alistair’s emerald ring sat like a bright eye. “You should not be alone after midnight tonight.”

The gallery became very still.

“Is that a threat?”

“If it were, I would not have said it where you could repeat it.”

Alistair’s laugh travelled from the ballroom, too close now. Cassian reached into the inner pocket of his coat and placed a small ivory calling card on the marble console. It bore only his name and an address in Mayfair.

“Keep the key on you,” he said.

Mira’s breath stopped. Helena’s brass key rested against her ribs on a chain beneath the dress. No one at the gala should have known she carried it.

Cassian’s eyes went to hers. “Your father’s archive is no longer safe.”

Then Alistair came through the gallery door, smiling as if he had found his fiancée exactly where he expected her to be.

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