Chapter 10: Eight Arms in the Street

Lorcan's POV

I did not sleep.

I sat on the kitchen floor with my back against the cold stove and watched the open door.

Bess brought me tea and left it by my knee.

"She'll be back," she said.

"She's with Tristram."

"She's with a man who gave her a dress," Bess said. "That's not the same as with him."

I did not answer.

At dawn I stood up and put on my coat.

My skin had been white for eight hours, and I could not make it stop.

The guards on the walkway did not move.

They had orders to watch the window, not the door, and I walked past them unseen.

Tristram's house stood at the top of the harbour hill, behind its black iron fence.

I had never been inside it.

I did not mean to go in.

I meant to stand at the gate until she came out, and say two things.

I was wrong, and the door was still open.

I was halfway up the street when I saw the Regent's carriage.

It stood at the gate with its door ajar, and four grey-coated guards were on the pavement.

Morwenna was between two of them.

She wore the red velvet gown.

Her hair was down, and her face was pale, and one of the guards had her by the arm.

"I'm a guest of the Chancellor," she was saying. "Let go."

"The register lists you as a pet, miss." The guard's voice was bored.

"A pet that leaves her owner's house is a stray," he said. "The Regent has ordered strays collected."

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