“I have all the protection I need.” Savannah didn’t say another word as she followed one and only one step behind Jameson—down the emerald path.
Eventually, they came to a golden door. Familiar words were etched over the doorframe:Where angels fear to tread, have your fun instead. But be warned…
“The house always wins,” Savannah said behind Jameson.
“Indeed it does.” A figure slipped out of the shadows.
I know you, Jameson thought. A year and a half earlier, Jameson had encoded the boy as being eleven or twelve, but the boy looked a lot older now—fourteen, at least, and a great deal taller and broader through the shoulders than he’d been the last time Jameson had seen him.
“You, I was expecting,” the boy told Jameson. “Her, on the other hand…”
Savannah slipped past Jameson. “I’m here to see the duchess,” she announced. “And to call in a debt.”
“You’re here without invitation. Andyou”—the boy turned on Jameson—“were not authorized to bring a guest.”
“He did not bring me,” Savannah said haughtily.
“In that case,” the boy replied, looking Savannah up and down, cocking his head to the side, “it would be wise for him to step aside.”
“I can’t do that.” Jameson wished he could, but that didn’t stop his next words from coming out as a borderline growl. “I can’t let you hurt her.”
“Pity, that,” the boy said.
“You sound just like Rohan.” Now it was Savannah’s turn to look the boy up and down. “The tilt of your head. The way you stand. It’s uncanny.”
“Is it?”
Savannah took another steptowardthe threat.Damn it, Savannah.
Jameson prepared himself tomove, to shove Savannah behind him if necessary, but the boy stood eerily still as Savannah reached back and began to unzip her smoky gray gown. She stopped halfway down and slipped the gown off her shoulder.
What the hell is she doing?
The boy stepped forward—far too close to Savannah for Jameson’s liking—and eyed the skin that Grayson’s sister had bared.
He’s not just looking. He’s reading, Jameson realized. Rohan—he’d inked a message of some sort directly onto Savannah’s skin.
“Rohanwasthe house before,” Savannah said, her voice quiet and somehow, in true Grayson style, all the more terrifying for it. “He will be again. And he marked me for a reason.”
Jameson shifted his weight to the balls of his feet and did his best to silently warn the boy:If you go for her throat…
But the boy didn’t. With the slightest bow of his head, he stepped aside, clearing Savannah’s path to the golden door.
She pushed it open and stepped through, and Jameson surged past her. “Stay behind me this time,” he ordered—for all the good that would do.
Eventually, one long, twisting corridor later, they both stepped into a room Jameson recognized, an upscale bar that held a ledger devoted to long-term bets. The last time Jameson had been in this room, two men had wagered on whether or not he would get himself killed before he turned thirty.
Still plenty of time for that.Jameson automatically scanned the room for the symbol: a triangle inside a circle inside a square. Nothing. Casting a warning look at Savannah, Jameson asked the bartender for the ledger. The man—who was, in a word,sizable—placed the ledger on the bar and grabbed Jameson’s wrist the moment he tried to pick it up.
“I have a message for you,” the bartender said calmly, “from the current Factotum.”
The duchess.“I dolovemessages,” Jameson replied.
“She once promised you a favor. Don’t waste it tonight. Don’t ask for something she cannot give you without devastating consequences for you both. Save your favor, and when the time is right, you’ll know.”
The bartender let loose of Jameson’s wrist, then turned his attentions to Savannah. “She’s expecting you—in the atrium.”
Savannah did not have to be told twice. She made her way toward the door the bartender had nodded to, and Jameson made to follow—withthe ledger.