Chapter 184 — One Last Errand

Chapter 184: Chapter 184 — One Last Errand

~ Cassian ~

At first, Cassian had assumed he had missed something.

Publishing accounts were rarely as simple as sales multiplied by price, and Raven had deliberately built enough distance between herself and R. Vale that money sometimes moved through more than one hand before reaching her.

So Cassian checked again.

Then he had someone else check.

When those figures returned with the same problem, he sent them through a third set of hands.

By the time the final accounting came back, there was nothing left to misunderstand.

Raven had been cheated out of thousands of coins.

The exact amount was still being established because several older distributions had moved through intermediaries, but the scale of it was already obvious.

Cassian had stared at the numbers for almost a minute before realizing just how angry they had made him.

Not because Raven needed his money.

That would have been considerably simpler.

None of this was his.

It was hers.

Every coin had come from pages she had written while serving a House that had apparently given her very little worth calling her own. Readers had bought those pages. Publishers had printed them.

Sellers had profited from them, and somewhere in the middle someone had looked at an author with no public name, no House attached to her correspondence and nobody important enough to start asking uncomfortable questions.

So they kept what they thought they could get away with keeping.

Cassian’s jaw tightened.

The sealed letter on the table had corrected that misunderstanding.

It did not contain Raven’s name, nor did it expose R. Vale. It simply informed the people involved that House Blade had reviewed the accounts surrounding the author of Beyond the Chains, expected a complete accounting of every unpaid amount before the end of the month and would consider any missing record an intentional omission.

Cassian had also arranged for everything recovered to be kept separately under the same protected author identity until Raven could take control of it herself.

He had no intention of telling her yet.

Partly because he knew exactly how that conversation was likely to go once Raven discovered he had involved House Blade in her business without warning, but mostly because he wanted the money secured first.

Someone had already taken enough from her.

They were not keeping this too.

"Cass?"

Cassian looked down to find Sylvia watching him.

"You stopped listening."

"I was listening."

"What did I say?"

Cassian considered the question for just long enough to betray himself.

Her eyes narrowed triumphantly. "That is what I thought."

He stared at her for a second before flicking two fingers lightly against her forehead.

"Ow."

"That did not hurt."

Sylvia rubbed the spot anyway. "It did..."

She frowned, clearly searching for something.

Cassian waited.

A moment later her face brightened slightly.

"Emotionally."

Cassian’s mouth twitched. "Tragic."

She looked pleased enough with herself that he suspected the injury had already been forgotten.

Cassian picked up the sealed case and handed it to her, and the playfulness disappeared from Sylvia’s face the moment she had it. She held the case carefully in both hands and looked down at it.

"I won’t lose it."

"I know."

"And nobody opens it."

"Nobody."

She nodded with exaggerated seriousness, making Cassian ruffle her hair again.

"You did well."

Her seriousness survived for approximately two seconds before she looked back up at him.

"So you’re going back now?"

Cassian’s hand paused.

Valerius came to mind before he could stop it.

More specifically, a white-haired woman with an impressive ability to make almost every straightforward situation needlessly complicated.

His wolf stirred immediately.

That reaction had become predictable over the last six days.

From the moment Cassian crossed the academy boundary, his wolf had pressed at him with the same growing demand often enough that ignoring it had become an exercise in patience.

Raven.

Go back.

Cassian closed his eyes briefly.

Soon.

The pressure eased, although not by much.

When he opened his eyes again, Sylvia was still watching him.

"What?"

"You made a face."

"I did not."

"You did."

Cassian reached for the leather folder containing his notes. "Everything is fine."

Her expression made it very clear she did not believe him.

Fortunately, she was six and the original question still mattered more.

"You didn’t answer me."

"I am going back to Valerius."

Her face brightened. "Now?"

"Not yet."

The brightness vanished again.

Cassian tucked the folder beneath one arm and checked the table for anything else he intended to take. "I have one more thing to do first."

"What?"

"An errand."

"What kind?"

"The kind you are not coming with me for."

"I didn’t say I was."

"You were about to."

Sylvia opened her mouth, paused, then slowly closed it.

Cassian raised an eyebrow.

She frowned at him. "What errand?"

"You ask too many questions."

That earned him a look of deep suspicion, but Cassian was already taking his coat from the back of the chair. He headed toward the door and stopped beside her long enough to tap the top of the sealed case.

"Remember."

"I remember."

"And behave."

"I do behave."

Cassian looked at her.

Sylvia hugged the case closer to her chest. "Most of the time."

"That was not reassuring."

She smiled.

It was the last thing Cassian saw before he stepped into the corridor.

The smile stayed with him for several steps before House Blade began working its way back beneath his skin.

The halls had not changed much over the years, which was part of the problem. The same pale stone stretched beneath the high windows while servants moved quietly through corridors where every sound seemed to carry farther than it should.

Cassian passed the western corridor without turning his head.

There was nothing there he needed.

He kept walking until the main doors finally opened ahead of him, and by the time they closed again at his back, breathing felt considerably easier.

~~~~~

Night had settled completely by the time Cassian stopped moving.

The forest around him was quiet except for the occasional movement of leaves beneath the wind. From where he crouched high among the branches, he could see enough of the estate beyond the trees to follow the lights burning behind several windows and the patrols moving through the outer grounds.

A servant crossed one of the lower courtyards carrying something Cassian could not make out from this distance before disappearing beneath an archway.

Cassian continued watching after she was gone, taking his time as another patrol completed its route.

The estate was larger than Raven had ever made it sound.

For some reason, that irritated him.

She had described corridors, kitchens, servants’ stairs and rooms as though they were simply pieces of somewhere she once happened to live rather than a place that had contained almost her entire life.

Cassian’s gaze moved slowly toward the upper floors.

Somewhere inside that estate was the room Raven had slept in for years, and beneath one of its floorboards were nearly everything she had once managed to keep for herself.

Her writing.

Letters from her publisher.

The savings that had mattered enough for her to count every coin carefully.

Whatever else had survived the night she ran.

Cassian’s eyes narrowed slightly as the name finally settled properly in his thoughts.

House Blackthorn.

He had never had a reason to come here before.

Now he sat hidden in a tree at the edge of Blackthorn territory dressed entirely in black, with his coat left behind and a fitted vest close enough to his body that nothing would catch when he moved. Dark trousers disappeared into his boots, while the hood resting against his shoulders waited for the moment he crossed the estate boundary.

If anybody saw his hair, the disguise became pointless.

Cassian shifted slightly against the branch and ran Raven’s directions through his head once more.

Servants’ quarters on the third floor, directly above the kitchens.

Loose floorboard beside the wall where her old crate had been.

Simple enough.

Getting there without anyone discovering that Cassian Blade had entered another Alpha family’s estate in the middle of the night was considerably less simple.

House Blackthorn did not possess House Blade’s reach or raw power, but that did not make its territory harmless. Breaking into another House while concealing his identity was the sort of thing that became considerably more complicated the moment somebody survived long enough to start asking why.

If Cassian was caught, leaving would not be the difficult part.

Explaining why he had been there at all would be.

His wolf stirred again, this time with no interest whatsoever in the patrol passing below.

Raven.

Cassian exhaled quietly through his nose as the pressure returned, stronger now that the distance between them had shortened.

Soon.

First, he finished this.

He waited until the nearest patrol disappeared around the eastern corner before reaching for his hood. The cloth came over his head, and Cassian pulled it forward until the last trace of white disappeared beneath the black.

House Blackthorn remained quiet beneath him.

His wolf rose closer to the surface, sharpening the darkness until the movements below became easier to separate from the shadows surrounding them.

A faint silver-white glow touched Cassian’s eyes as he studied the estate one final time.

Then, for the first time since arriving, a small smile touched his mouth.

"Showtime."