Chapter Sixteen- The Cost Of A Clerk

Seren's POV

It was easiest to bring him in from the servants door and Caelum definitely didn’t want a two hundred wolves staring at him as he bled onto the floor.

I followed behind the stretcher. No one told me not. Marcus was lying there on the stretcher looking pale with his sleeve turned back and soaked through to his elbow. He was still wearing the Redmoor coat like Pia said, it was too long on him. He’d been slashed on the side and was panting wetly.

"Marguerite!" Caelum snapped at the runner.

She appeared in front of him, before he’d even finished speaking. Her pale eyes flicked from my face to his wound. Her mind was racing with thoughts of the pantry, the cottage and the girl who’d been listening behind the curtain. She was worried she hadn’t been careful enough.

"It’s not your fault." I whispered.

"Hmm." Marguerite muttered before rolling up her sleeves.

He didn’t die. I just want to get that clear. For a while I wasn’t sure I wanted him too.

Marguerite worked over him the cold room off the kitchens. It was the butchery area so it had a drain and was well lit. Rysen stood at the doorway with his arms crossed, Caelum stood at his head and I stood at the bottom of the table with my hands gripping the wooden edge looking at the man I’d met once. The man who’d read out my price like a shopping list.

She moved away from him, wiping her hands on her apron. "He’ll be fine. As long as he doesn’t do any dumb stuff. He’s lost a lot of blood and he’s scared. Which is worse."

His eyes fluttered open.

He looked to me first. He blinked and I saw something flash across his face. Maybe guilt or maybe just pure exhaustion.

"L-Luna." He rasped.

"Don’t call me that."

"I’m sorry." He coughed. Marguerite brought the cup of water to his lips and he gulped it down, frowning. "I’m here to tell you everything. I swear on all the contracts I’ve ever written."

"I don’t really trust your word."

"No." He almost smiled. "You shouldn’t."

Caelum’s voice was sharp as a blade being drawn. "Start talking. And know that if you hold something back I will find it. I don’t miss things clerk."

Marcus turned his head and for the first time I realised how old he was. Not in years, but in weight. He looked as if he’d been carrying something up a long flight of stairs for ages.

"I’ve worked in the Hollis Transfer Office for twenty years. I’ve written two thousand contracts. Sales, bindings, transfers. I never questioned what was inside them. It was easier."

"Get on with it." Rysen said.

"Right." He shut his eyes. "Four months ago Davan came to see me. He wanted to sell a girl. Young, unshifted and no real family. He wanted her sold quickly and discreetly. I wrote out the usual terms and as usual checked your name against the old registry to make sure there weren’t any liens."

My stomach twisted. "And?"

"It wasn’t Seren." He said so quietly I almost didn’t hear him. "It was never Seren. You were always known as Luna by the nurse at the foundling home. You were born with a different name. Your mother’s file had been sealed by the northern council eighteen years ago."

Silence fell.

I realised I was gripping the edge so hard my knuckles were white. I could feel the ache in my back and felt something deep in my stomach. My wolf had gone still. She always did when she picked up something familiar.

"My mother is dead."

"That’s what it says in her file." His eyes opened and locked with mine. "There’s a death stamp and signature. But the signature belongs to a clerk who retired a week later and died within the year. And the name on the sealed file... Luna..."

"Say it."

"Isolde Varn."

I didn’t recognise the name. I’d never heard it in my life. Yet every hair on my arms stood on end and the invisible string connecting us all together tensed. Both my twins went stiff beside me.

"Varn." Caelum echoed. "A Redmoor line."

"The Redmoor line." Marcus’s voice cracked. "The daughters of the old Alpha. Thorne’s younger sister."

I probably would have collapsed if Rysen hadn’t caught my elbow.

"No." I whispered. "No. It’s not possible. Thorne never said anything. He looked at me like I was a stranger."

"Like an asset." Marcus tried to sit up and flinched. Marguerite pushed him back down. "That’s why I got paid. Three months ago I told him what I’d found. He already knew his sister had a daughter. He’d been searching for her for eighteen years. Isolde ran north the night she was supposed to bond with an approved mate. She was pregnant and hid you away at the foundling home before vanishing."

My mouth was dry. "And Davan?"

"He didn’t know. He sold you cheaply as he thought you were worthless." A bitter expression passed over his face. "The joke is he had the most valuable women in the north living in his flat for three years and sold you like a piece of furniture."

A calm fury washed over me. One I may have laughed at.

"So Thorne paid you for the information?" Rysen asked slowly. "And waited until she shifted white and everyone in the north knew?"

"No." Marcus shook his head. Tears ran through his hair. "He paid me to ensure you were sold to Vord territory. Discreetly. Specifically. The only thing that can wake a white line in the old texts is a twin bond. He needed you to be mated and pregnant. So he could legally claim the children as the closest blood Alpha of her line."

No one breathed.

I placed my hands flat against my stomach. My wolf growled softly.

"He used me." Caelum said, his voice eerily calm. "He used me. My contract. He toyed with us all. Made me feel like I’d won."

"I’m so sorry." He whispered. "I’m so sorry. I sold you. Everything. I told myself it was just paper. Then tonight he found out I’d copied the sealed file. He sent two men after me with knives. I ran. I didn’t know where else to go."

"You ran to the woman you sold."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you were the only one in this room who looked at me." His voice was barely audible. "Like I was a person."

I didn’t answer. I didn’t trust my voice.

Marguerite cleared her throat. "That’s enough. He’s talked himself half to death."

---

I was stood outside in the hallway. I didn’t remember walking out. The torches were low. A door slammed. I leant against the cold stone and slid down to sit on the floor. My legs were bent awkwardly around my stomach.

Isolde Varn.

I whispered it. Just like I had two in the garden. It tasted like something I should have known was missing.

A mother. Possibly alive. Possibly hunted. Someone who had ran through the dark with a child inside her and gave me away to keep me safe. Someone who may still be somewhere in the north with my face or me with hers.

Caelum sat down beside me. Rysen on the other side. We stayed silent for a while.

"I never knew her voice," I eventually said. "I tried to remember. In Davan’s flat. At night. But there was nothing. Just a blank."

"We’ll find her." Rysen said.

"You don’t know that."

"I do. Just like I know my name. We’ll find her Seren." His hand slipped under mine and squeezed.

I rested my head against Caelum’s shoulder and felt my babies wiggle.

Somewhere in the north my Uncle was counting down five days.

Somewhere further away a woman had been running for eighteen years.

I was done being found.

I was going to find her.