Read Stranger for Free Online

strengthened, grew proud. There was no artifice here. “It’s always been a source of honor for the Murphys, myself included. We stood up and fought for freedom, regardless of the price.”
    “A justifiable sense of pride.”
    She accepted this with a nod. “I can’t be a soldier—I don’t want to be one. But I can do something to help, something to stop the Heirs.”
    “Miss Murphy, your help
is not wanted.”
    She did not flinch from his hard words, even as he regretted having to say them. She pressed, “Tell me everything. About the exploitation of magic. About the barbarity of the Heirs. Let me write about them.”
    With a sharp movement, Catullus turned to go. Yet she dogged him, putting herself in his path.
    “You say no one will believe what I write,” she said insistently, “but I don’t think that’s true. The public
will
believe, Mr. Graves. And they won’t stand for such wickedness. They will rise up and—” She stopped, because he was laughing.
    Not an amused laugh, but a harsh and bitter one. “Newspapers mean nothing to these men. They couldn’t care less if you published their home addresses and bank accounts, plus a detailed description of every crime they had ever committed. A fly’s buzzing, nothing more.” He stepped closer, and, judging from the slightly alarmed look on her face, he must have cut a menacing figure. Good. She needed to be afraid.
    “And do you know what they do with flies?” He pounded one fist into his own palm. “Crush them. Destroy them utterly.”
    “But the public,” she foundered, “the government—” “Can do nothing. Not the president of your United States, and not even the Queen. The Heirs serve her Empire, but neither she nor the prime minister nor all the damned members of Parliament can touch them. They answer to no one but themselves and their greed. And they will take a tender morsel such as yourself and make you wish
all
the Murphys had died in the Revolution so that you might never have been born.”
    The pink in her cheeks was gone entirely. Her frecklesstood out like drops of blood upon her chalky face. Catullus realized he had been shouting. He
never
shouted.
    He collected himself, barely. A tug on his jacket, a straightening of his tie. “I do not like yelling at ladies,” he said after a moment. “I don’t like yelling at
you.
But the moment the Heirs of Albion become aware of your presence is the day you become one of the walking dead.”
    “Like you?” Her voice did not tremble.
    “Pardon?”
    “Are the Heirs aware of your presence?”
    “Yes.” More than aware. They hated him and his entire family. Considering that the Graves clan had been supplying the Blades of the Rose with inventions and mechanical assistance for generations, the Heirs would prefer if every single member of the Graves family were cold in their tombs.
    “Yet you’re still alive.”
    “Because, in this war of magic, I am a professional soldier. And you are a civilian.”
    “Civilians can fight. They did in the War of Independence.”
    “This isn’t flintlock muskets and single-shot pistols, Miss Murphy. It’s magic that can literally wipe a city off the face of the map. And I am telling you now for the last time “—he jabbed out with a forefinger—” you are not to get involved.”
    He spun on his heel and stormed away. This time, she did not try and stop him.
    Several hours later, he was bent over the cramped desk in his cabin, adjusting the tension in some steel springs, when a tap sounded at his door. He found a steward outside, holding his coat.
    “The lady said I was to give you this, sir,” the young sailor said.
    Catullus gave the lad a shilling and, after taking back the overcoat, sent him on his way.
    With the door to his cabin closed, Catullus found himself holding the coat up to his face, inhaling. He pictured her in the coat, how deceptively delicate she appeared in its voluminous folds.
    There. The scent of lemon blossom and