Engraved: Book Five of The St. Croix Chronicles Read Online Free PDF Page A

something of a problem,” I murmured, glancing in either direction from within the cover of Ashmore’s embrace.
    No shadows loomed from the path, though footsteps occasionally rustled slowly by. There were other paths, especially behind the hedges nearby, and I had no doubt a couple strolled arm in arm somewhere beyond—searching for a suitably dark patch, naturally.
    I could picture the workings of this late night pleasure garden so easily, for it came with years of familiarity, but I could not shed the feeling that something did not operate quite so smoothly as it should.
    The whole felt off-kilter. Different. Like a tea that tasted black and bitter when one expects three lumps of sugar.
    Beyond us, rising like a jewel in the dark, the circus tent glowed eerily crimson. Stained, likely, by the blood my young associate, Maddie Ruth, had claimed spilled there night after night.
    The girls what come back from his shows are bleeding
,
some broken so awful
,
they won’t talk of it.
    She’d been speaking of Hawke, but I had little doubt this report to be entirely accurate. Especially now that Marceaux had come to roost. If Hawke had been stripped of his role, then perhaps not all of what Maddie Ruth had described could be laid at his feet.
    The thought gave me some hope. The Menagerie had taken on a patently sinister edge, one that had little to do with the thrill of discovery and everything to do with death.
    If Hawke was entirely to blame, I wasn’t certain how to reconcile that with my intentions.
    “He could be anywhere,” I said slowly, frowning at that glowing jewel I feared so much, “especially if Maddie Ruth’s report is true. His boarding was in the manor across the grounds, but I don’t believe the Veil would lock him there.”
    “You think him locked up?”
    “Cage the one called Cage?” I asked with a lift of my eyebrows, and Ashmore inclined his head at the irony of it. It was exactly the sort of punishment the Veil would consider just. “There’s a prison in the opposite direction,” I continued, tilting my head to the left. “I’d found him there once.”
    Freed him, only to be used and discarded within the same night.
    “There’s also the Veil’s meeting hall,” I said firmly, thrusting such thoughts aside, “but I don’t know why he’d be there.” Or why Hawke had chosen to remain within, shirtless and bathed in a heat that had caused his skin to glisten and shine.
    The first of those moments wherein I thought something wrong with him.
    And wrong with me.
    It seemed there was no part of this Menagerie that did not evoke a memory of the man who had imprinted himself upon me.
    This was the sort of thing one took laudanum for.
    I blew out a hard breath.
    Ashmore studied the grounds over my head. “If I suggest that we split up, will you get into trouble?”
    “Perhaps.” Though I hoped not. “Shall I suggest we meet after a brief measure near the sweets’ halls?”
    “What are you about, minx?”
    “Information from the only source likely to remain discreet enough for my purposes.” I had no choice but to be careful. Flailing selfishly had only earned me this current set of trials. I thumped him once upon the chest, and stepped back. “I’ll go visit the girls. You come find me soon.”
    “Why them?”
    “Because of all who operate within these walls,” I said, smoothing my borrowed hair, “’tis the sweets that know the most. By and large, them what pay for a bit of flesh tend to assume open legs mean closed ears.”
    It was too dark to know for certain, but I thought I saw Ashmore’s cheeks redden.
    He was, for all his advanced years, a gentleman.
    We parted on an agreement, and I made my way through familiar paths. The midnight sweets had once considered me something of a mascot—a female collector bold as brass, eager to take on a domain dominated by the men they served.
    That friendship had cost them in blood and numbers. I was not certain I’d receive a warm