Page 66 of Tusk Love

It was an inside job.

Only the guards stationed directly along the sides of the mansion and in the hallway where the trunk was located had been killed. The trunk was gone, too, the room where it had been kept covered in blood and torn limbs. It had to be the work of either servants or guests, and, according to the butler, all the servants were accounted for and had been too busy with ball-related tasks to engage in a little light murder, robbery, and kidnapping, anyway.

This begged the question of how the Spider’s Web had managed to infiltrate Wensleydale’s heavily curated and cross-checked guest list. But, for Oskar, thehowwasn’t important. In terms of his priorities, it paled in comparison to the fact that Guinevere was nowhere to be found, and he was dangerously close to killing her useless parents.

Illiard sagged against the mantelpiece in the drawing room, his head in his hands. Betha was hunched in on herself in an armchair, sobbing noisily into a kerchief.

Wensleydale was…also nowhere to be found.

“His lordship apparently departed the ballroom a few minutes before you raised the alarm,” Captain Therault was telling Oskar. “It’s likely that he and Miss Guinevere were taken together, along with the artifact. The guests are being questioned as we speak.”

“Why would the mercenaries also kidnap Wensleydale?” Oskar turned to Illiard. “Did you already give him the key to the trunk?”

“There is no key,” Illiard moaned. “Not one you can put into a lock, at any rate. It’s—it’s magical. A blood spell.”

Oskar went very still. “Whose blood?” he snapped, even though he knew the answer deep in his heart, even though he was afraid to hear it confirmed.

There was a knock on the door. Therault excused himself, but Oskar hardly noticed the captain leave the room. All of his attention was focused on Illiard, who was shaking all over. Like a man whose worst fears had been realized.

Like a man, Oskar thought, fuming, who had known that this day might come.

“He found out.” Illiard had his back turned to the rest of the room, but a mirror hung over the mantelpiece, and Oskar could see his reflection, white as a sheet, a haunted look in those eyes that were so much like Guinevere’s. “He found out, somehow.”

“Who found out what?” When Illiard didn’t reply, Oskar marched over to him. He grabbed the merchant by his collar and hauled him off his feet, ignoring Betha’s alarmed screech. “Listen to me very carefully,” he said, knuckles clenching to white around starched fabric. “Your daughter is in danger. I will save her, but in order to do that, I need to knoweverything.I don’t care that you’re her father—I once promised her that she would never face this world alone as long as I still drew breath, so if you don’t tell me what you’re hiding,I will rip it out of you.Have I made myself clear?”

Illiard’s lips parted, but no sound emerged. The last lingering threads of Oskar’s patience frayed apart, and he shook the man until the latter’s teeth rattled.

“Stop!” Betha wailed. “For gods’ sake, Illiard, just tell him!”

Illiard was full-on blubbering now. “I stole it. The trunk. I didn’t win it in a card game.” He clawed in vain at Oskar’s fists, still locked against his throat. “In Yrrosa, there was an arcanist named Accanfal living at the edge of town. He hired me on as a gardener. Paid me a pittance. I could barely make ends meet, and my wife was pregnant.”

Something in his gaze begged Oskar to understand, and the truthwas that it wasn’t difficult to do so. Yrrosa was as much of a shithole as the Dustbellows. Of course he knew to what lengths desperation could drive a man. But there wasn’t much room for compassion within him, not when Guinevere had been thrown to the wolves somewhere out there. He tightened his grip on Illiard’s collar, a silent command to get on with it.

“One day I was trimming the rosebushes,” Illiard continued, “when I heard a scream. Looked up and saw the arcanist flying out of his laboratory window, right over my head. He was on fire. The other servants all ran to help him, but I—I got curious. I snuck into the laboratory and there was the trunk, lying open amidst all the other paraphernalia.” He swallowed nervously. “Jewelry like I’d never seen—diadems, necklaces, more—all gold, all studded with gems. All in one trunk. The temptation—too great—”

Oskar belatedly realized that Illiard wasn’t pausing for dramatic effect; rather, Oskar’s fingers had twisted even more tightly into his collar, cutting off his airway. The man was practically turning purple.

“So you took it and ran.” Oskar let go without much ceremony. Illiard collapsed at his feet.

“Yes,” the merchant wheezed. “Stole a horse and raced back to town to grab Betha, and we fled.”

After he regained his breath, the rest of the sorry tale came spilling out of him. Illiard and Betha had hit the road, selling off pieces from the set here and there, each one fetching enormous sums. Eventually,though, Accanfal had picked up the trail, cornering them in Cyrengreen—and it was only then that they realized that the arcanist had survived the accident. He was the one who’d set the woods ablaze.

And Hammie, the warden of the forest who had saved Illiard and Betha then—who had made the totem for their child, knowing she would need it in her life to come—he’d seen the trunk and the jewelry, and he had revealed what exactly it was that Illiard had stolen.

Oskar tensed up even more as he learned the true nature of the Parure. Of all the deities it could have been connected to, it had to beher.The gods had a twisted sense of humor.

“And you still didn’t want to give it up, even after finding out what it really was,” he said in disgust. “Rather than get rid of it, you hired someone to seal the trunk with your only child’s blood.”

“It wouldn’t have worked with mine or Betha’s,” Illiard mumbled. “The sealing spell needed to feed off another magic user. It neededhermagic.”

“The same magic that you reviled all her life?” Oskar spat. “You sure didn’t have any problem using it for your own purposes, you spineless sack of offal.”

The other man gulped, then hurried through the rest of his story as though he hoped that would take some of the heat off him. “We found another arcanist who was willing to do it. A ring from the Parure ensured his service and his silence, but we knew we’d never be able to sell the rest, lest Accanfal track us again. So we headed to Rexxentrum and bought a house in the Shimmer Ward, and we kept Guinevere there with the trunk.”

“Youlocked her up,you mean.” Oskar wasn’t one to kick a man when he was down—in this case, quite literally, on the carpeted floor in a pathetic heap—but he was sorely tempted to do so now. “You made her world small because of your greed. You browbeat every perceived fault out of her because of your ambition. But the plain and simple truth is that she’s worth ten of you.” He glared at Betha. “And of you.”

“Well, it was all for nothing, wasn’t it?” sobbed Betha. “Accanfal found us in the end—because of your big mouth, Illiard, you drunken boor—and even him taking her was for nothing, because the blood has to be givenwillingly.That’s the condition of the spell.”

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