"I'm not a thief—I'm a doctor," I tell them, and then I kiss him.
The room snaps. Candlelight jumps off lacquer and gilt. Bernardo is a shadow in the doorway with his palms out, and three nurses are halfway between protocol and panic with trays of medicine that clink like coins they can't spend.
"Miss Griffin," Bernardo says. "This is not—"
"Save it," I cut in. I pull my satchel open with one hand and set my shrine on the bedside table with the other. "Move aside."
"I know the rules," Bernardo says. Anger is a low sound in his throat. "You can't—"
I plant my mouth on Eldon Crosby's lips like I mean it. The nurses gasp. One of them drops a bottle; it shatters. Nobody touches me. Nobody reaches for him. Everyone has rehearsed a million ways to be distant from him and none of those rehearsals include a girl kissing the heir.
Eldon is pale where skin shows and bandage where flesh does not. He smells wrong—the scent of old rot and fresh copper makes the nurses step back another inch. They make small animal noises, the kind people make when they're deciding which side of a fight they want to be on.
My mouth finds a place under the rotten breath. I don't think. I work.
"Don't you—" Bernardo starts. "You can't—"
"Bernardo, shut the door if you want him alive," I say, and my
