A Dark and Starless Night

Chapter Eighteen

"Don?" Eve called, stepping into the silent house. The lanterns hadn't been lit yet, so she knew that Fan hadn't been working today.

"Don, are you here?" she said, voice heavy.

It wasn't like him to be late for an appointment, especially not one between them. Not after they'd argued. She made quick work of checking the house, moving from room to room without any sign of life. She didn't want to be out when it was dark, but her mind was already racing to a thousand different places. What if something had happened?

She headed out, grabbing her bag and tucking a cloak over it in case it got cold, but she hoped she wouldn't be out late enough to need it. She started at the courts, and a very helpful porter checked with his colleagues and told her that Don had left two hours ago. She headed to the palace, and the guard at the gate insisted that Don hadn't been by once during his shift, which he was five hours into. She tried not to let it worry her too much as she wrung her hands at her side while she walked to a place she knew he liked to drink.

She enquired after him at the bar, but the man insisted he hadn't seen Don for a week.

"He usually only comes in here during the day, miss," he said, pouring a pint for a bedraggled man at the end of the bar. "Usually with a few other lords and the like."

She nodded, thanking him. It took her three more tries to find a place where they had seen him that day.

"He was here about an hour ago," the serving girl said, looking unhappy. "Broiling for a fight and already reeking of alcohol."

"You're sure it was him?"

"I'm working-class," the girl said, a hard look at Eve, "not stupid. Although you nobles do tend to look alike." She sighed when Eve blushed. "I know his face well. He's very generous with gratuities. But, like I said, he wasn't in the most pleasant of humours, so he was asked to move on."

"Do you have any idea where he went?"

"The man he was with mentioned the Lock and Key, so you might try there."

"Thank you, and I'm sorry if he was unpleasant," she said, placing a coin on the counter beside the cup of water she had drank from.

The woman slipped the coin into her dress as Eve headed out. The Lock and Key was a tavern known for its gambling, of both the legal and illegal kind. It also didn't discriminate with its clients, never afraid to keep serving someone as long as they had coin on their person. She felt a trickle of uncertainty run through her as she made her way there, but she wasn't going to let that stop her. Not when Don could be in an awful state. She wondered what had driven him to drink so heavily as she made her way there. Luc was passive by nature, so she doubted it had anything to do with him.

She stepped inside the dimly lit tavern, glad it kept the gambling to the lower floor. She was even gladder to see Don slumped in a stool by the bar. Whoever had brought him here was nowhere in sight. Eve charged towards him, holding his shoulder firmly.

"What have you done to yourself?" she asked him, straightening him up. He mumbled something that she couldn't hear. He was covered in stains, and a splatter of blood coloured his shirt. "Are you hurt?"

"He got into a fight," the barman said, just as Eve's eyes landed on the bruise on Don's cheek. "He also hasn't paid his tab."

"Of course," Eve said, fishing out the amount from her purse.

"Can you manage him?" the man asked, giving her a look that said he didn't believe she could. But she would manage just fine. He wasn't heavy, and she was stronger than a girl of her station ought to be. They stumbled home, getting looks off their neighbours as she wrangled him through the door.