The Most Wicked Con Artist

"Cancel every engagement on my schedule for the next three days."

Davion burst through the door and strode across the office at a brisk pace. Liam, who had been working at his desk, rose quickly to take his coat. As Davion undid the button strangling his throat and rolled up both sleeves, the black tattoo inked down his muscular left arm came into view.

The geometric pattern might have been blazing fire, or the scales of a serpent. Shaking the rain from his wet hair, he fished out a cigarette and put it between his lips out of habit.

"Tighten the street inspections, and show my wife's photograph to the city constables. If they spot any woman who resembles her, they're to detain her. And bring me the entry logs from the checkpoints — I'll go through those myself."

"Do you believe the Madam has left the city, sir?"

"No. She'll still be here for now. But there's no harm in checking."

No need to rush. Davion thought, dragging a chair over to the desk.

Stupid woman. Right now she's probably luxuriating in the delusion that she's slipped away without a trace. She couldn't have imagined in her wildest dreams that I'd have her grave dug up a mere fortnight after the funeral.

He had been about to light the cigarette when he quietly lowered the lighter.

He had honored her will only because he'd believed it would be the last favor he'd ever grant her…

Perhaps it was a pointless gesture after all.

When he pictured Cecilia walking away untroubled, a bundle of banknotes in one hand and her suitcase in the other, something in his mind seemed to heat and smolder. There was no answer to be found in interrogating the reasons of someone who wasn't there, and since this was no simple case of a runaway wife, vexation crowded out anger.

"I trust you've kept that boy and the villagers properly in line?"

"Yes, sir. They were simple, honest folk. Ah — should we inform the Duchess of Sisldown of the Madam's 'resurrection'?"

Davion had been born the second son of the Dukedom of Sisldown and had earned the title of Count Winterhall after two tours of war. The Duchess of Sisldown, therefore, was his mother — or put another way, Cecilia's mother-in-law.

"Mother doesn't believe in magic or ghosts. Unless I show her my wife with her own eyes, she'll have me committed to an asylum for cracking under the pressure."

"Ah…"

"I'll fob the village elder off with some excuse about doing it after winter ends. Put out the most urgent fires first."

Davion drew Cecilia's photograph from a drawer and set it on the desk.

It was a portrait taken by chance before their wedding. In it, unfamiliar with the camera, Cecilia had clasped her hands together and gazed awkwardly into empty air.

Compared to how she'd looked recently, in the days when she had resolved to flee this estate, she was vivid and full of life. Back then her cheeks had still carried a soft roundness — a loveliness that could have made any man fall for her at first sight.

So much had happened since, and yet the day that photograph was taken felt as though it had been only yesterday. Davion stared quietly at his wife, trapped in black-and-white paper, then leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

"You probably thought you could slip out of my arms and live just fine on your own, but Cecilia has never once lived out in the world. She's a weed raised in a greenhouse, plain and simple."

Liam gave a silent nod of agreement and smoothly lifted the photograph away. A smile of utter confidence had already settled on Davion's lips.

"I'd wager she's holed up somewhere right now, crying her eyes out."

"…Ahh!"

Thud.

"Now THAT hits the spot!"

So this is… the taste of freedom?

Who would ever guess that the woman cackling and greedily wiping the foam from her lips had, only a fortnight ago, been the celebrated Countess of Winterhall?

Davion's prediction had struck true. Cecilia was dawdling, still loitering in the city. Everyone believed she was dead — what reason was there to hurry?

In fairness, the 1,000,000 Burnett Davion had buried with her as her death-money was not, objectively speaking, a fortune. With no way of knowing how things might turn out, she had resolved to stretch every coin as far as it would go.

And so Cecilia now drifted from one old, cheap inn on the city's edge to the next, dragging her travel suitcase behind her. Though incandescent bulbs had long since spread across the whole city, most of these establishments still stubbornly clung to oil lamps.

Even with her face hidden beneath a hooded cloak, Cecilia drew every eye in the room. A lone woman seated among a crowd of rough laborers — it was only natural.

A man nursing whiskey at the far end of the bar table sidled over and struck up a conversation.

"Something troubling you, miss? You're drinking awfully hard."

Ugh. The moment the stench of tobacco reached her, Cecilia wrinkled her nose and clapped a hand over it by reflex.

"I'm not a miss — I'm a married woman. And nothing's troubling me. I'm celebrating something wonderful, actually."

"Something wonderful?"

Cecilia nodded. She lowered her upper body, glanced warily around the room, then leaned in with a wicked little smile and whispered.

"Today marks exactly two weeks since I died."

She's absolutely plastered. The man shot a covert signal to his companions beneath the table.

Cecilia drained one last mug of beer, fished two silver coins from her pocket, and set them on the table. She could sense footsteps following her up the stairs, but she simply patted her belly, let out a loud belch, and made her way toward her room.

A few seconds later, a shrill scream tore through the darkness.

"Where the hell did this crow come from?!"

A crow the size of an eagle owl was flapping its wings menacingly, tearing at the men's hair. They were the ones who had been shadowing her.

Now! Seizing the opening, Cecilia darted into her inn room, bolted the door, and shoved a chair against it.

With no one around to say a word about it, the room was in a state no better than a pigsty. Kicking the scattered clutter roughly out of her path, she approached the windowsill and studied the evening sky intently.

Before long, a black shape streaked across the sky above, banked, and slipped neatly through the window.

"Good work out there, Ruby."

A strange language poured from Cecilia's lips — one no ordinary human could hope to hear, let alone interpret.

The crow circled the room once in an easy glide, then perched on a nearby coat rack and set about preening its feathers. Speaking in the same tongue, it delivered a sulky little scolding.

"Would it kill you to be careful, Cecilia? The males downstairs were staring at you like a pack of starving wolves."

"I know. I think they've figured out I'm staying here alone. I'll only stay tonight — first thing in the morning, I'll move to a different inn."

With that answer, she pulled her travel suitcase out from under the bed and began tossing her odds and ends inside. Ruby, too, trotted about the room in quick little strides, helping her pack.

Though he was now a crow imposing enough to intimidate grown men, Ruby had once been a hatchling like any other, waiting in the nest with his siblings, beaks gaping wide all day for whatever their mother brought home.

Back then, it had been Cecilia who saved him — climbing up the tree after a snake that had slithered toward the nest while his mother was away hunting.

In time, all his siblings flew off on their long journeys, but Ruby alone chose to stay at Cecilia's side and become her family.

"So when exactly are you planning to leave this city?"

"Once I've settled on a destination. I can't just hop on a train blindly."

"I vote south. Somewhere warm."

"Let's find out whether there's a southbound train first — and whether a crow can ride along."

The truth was, Cecilia had never once left this city in her entire life. She might have looked like she was taking her time, but in a corner of her heart, a fear of stepping into unknown lands had taken root all the same.

Still — she had to go.

If for no other reason than to spend the rest of her life without ever crossing paths with Davion again, she had to leave this place.

Throwing in one last beloved romance novel, Cecilia closed her suitcase.

The drinking was over now. She resolved to head out early the next morning and scout the neighboring cities, and went to bed early.

But just as with her marriage to Davion, Cecilia had an uncanny habit of fumbling the very first button in every corner of her life. This plan proved no different.

Everything was about to go wildly, strangely awry.