Page 81 of The Tenth Muse

I smiled, taking a step towards the center of the room. “I believe we’ve already established that.”

Selene shook her head, those big eyes solemn. “With something else. There’s something you don’t know about me.”

My heart nearly stopped, my mouth went dry. How had this woman gotten the drop on me not once, but twice? What else didn’t I know? “What?”

“I’m something of a thief,” she admitted. “I steal books … For fun, usually.”

Whatever I’d thought she might be about to say, it was not that. I was completely without words. All I could do was repeat her. “For fun?”

She grinned. “Yes, typically. Sometimes I just feel that a book doesn’t belong with someone, and relocate it.”

I frowned. “You … relocate it.”

“Are you going to keep repeating everything I say?” she asked, her tone pert.

My head fell back as I laughed. Something about this was perfect. I was a con artist trying to transcend my class status, and she was a justice-minded book thief. I took the extra step to stand in front of her, pushing the chair aside to pull her forward by the knees. She gasped, grinning wildly at me as I took her face in my hands.

“You are something else,” I breathed. “What can I help you with?”

I pleaded with Aphora for her answer to be to make her scream a thousand screams of ecstasy, but that was not my fate. Not now, anyway.

“I need you to get me back into the Wyndsal house. Geyrion has a book that doesn’t belong to him, and it needs my help.”

I swiped my thumb over her bottom lip and she let out another of those little moans, the tip of her tongue darting out to capture the tip of my thumb between her lips. She sucked in, swirling her soft tongue over my sensitive skin.

“Wicked girl,” I breathed. “That is certainly one way to get what you want.”

Her eyes closed halfway as she released my thumb. “This isn’t even a smidge of what I want, Aurelia. What I want will take all night.”

I gritted my teeth together, trying to maintain some semblance of composure. “The wards have been reset. There’s a code.”

“Good,” she replied. “We can go tonight.”

“What is the rush?” I asked.

Selene drew a sharp breath in. “Lysistrata Endymion is in town for just tonight. She never leaves the Order of Mysteries. It’s my one chance.”

I narrowed my eyes, appreciating how sharp she was. “To do what?”

Selene bit her bottom lip, her eyes doing that terrible-wonderful thing they did that made me want to kiss her. “To returnTheBook of Hoursto her.”

It felt as though my heart had stopped.The Book of Hourswas one of the Order of Mysteries’ most precious books. There were no copies. No facsimiles. And someone had stolen it years ago. It was so precious that there was a vast reward for it, and not just that. If the person who returned it was a sorcière, they would have the opportunity to gain a fair amount of power within the Order.

And it had been there, in Geyrion’s house. The ticket to nearly everything I wanted—without a con. I could agree to help Selene, and then simply take it for myself. The trouble was, I wanted more than just status and stability now. I wanted her, and though it was possible that this was mere infatuation, I didn’t believe it was.

Whatever this was between us, it felt written in the stars. All these years of conning, clawing my way into a stable future, and Selene Krane simply fell into my lap. That earnest look was in her eyes now.

“I thought about whether it was wise to tell you. That’s why it took me so long to write,” she explained, her eyes darting from mine. “Because … obviously, you could go take the bookfor yourself and give it to Lysistrata without me. And then you wouldn’t need to be stuck with me anymore.”

The way she assumed the worst broke my heart. She knew what people said about her. That there were those who found her irritating, and she assumed I was one of them. That I’d agreed to seduce her out of need, not desire.

A sad smile played at her lips, and she bit her bottom lip again. It was clearly a nervous habit. “You can take it.” She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “You need it more than I do, and then you could open your own bookstore, or whatever you wanted, really. With the reward and the status it would bring you, I’d hardly be an asset to you. You could?—”

I kissed her. I should have asked first, but I couldn’t stand to hear her say another word against herself. She froze for a moment and I pulled back. “I am sorry,” I breathed. “I just?—”

She clutched at my shirt, pulling me down to her mouth again. Her lips met mine with sweet hesitation, her mouth opening for me like a flower. She was so soft as I gathered her in my arms, deepening the kiss. Her arms wound around my neck and the noises she made as she arched into me were pure bliss.

“We’ll get the book together tonight,” I said when I could bear to stop kissing her. “That is the only way I want it.”

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