“Ah, you could become the Duchess of Seren, then. That throne is open to anyone who could ascend the mountain and break the new moon curse.”

“Which I hear is not nearly as simple as it sounds,” I said. “The mountain doors won’t open unless all the wraiths are together. And who knows where the seven of them are hiding these days, if that legend is even true.”

“How do you know this?” he asked sharply.

I bit the inside of my cheek, the pain my punishment for speaking so freely. “Just a rumor, Your Grace. My mother used to tell me a few mountain stories when I was a girl.”

The duke’s calculating silence continued to roar.

I felt the urge to state, “I’m not a madcap, if that’s what you truly want to know.”

“I think we all are madcaps, in one way or another. And a warden like you already has all the training one would need to defeat whatever nightmares lurk in that old mountain fortress,” the duke countered, arching his brow. “But as you said, Miss Neven. The wraiths are but a myth. Faces in a card game meant to frighten young children. Now, then. I have taken more than enough of your time today.”

I rose, thoughts muddled by all he had said to me, and began to follow him to the library doors until I remembered the dream tax. “Your Grace, the tax . . .”

He paused and gave me a smile, one that crinkled the corners of his eyes. I wasn’t fooled by the gentleness of his demeanor. I saw the glint of greed within him. “My collector will arrive later today, Miss Neven. The money never passes through my hands, not until it has been marked and accounted for.”

I curtsied and waited until Mrs. Stirling had seen the duke out, and the house fell quiet once more. But I could smell a trace of the duke’s cologne again, and I opened a window to let the potent fragrance escape. The library seemed to soften in relief that the duke was gone, and I approached the hidden safe in the wall.

I whispered the spell into the dust motes and watched the safe’s door appear in the wall with a mercurial gleam. The door conceded to yawn open beneath my hand, recognizing me, and I stared at the bundles of coins that rested within its belly.

A small portion of this money was mine, for Phelan and I took a percentage and split it between ourselves. My first proper paycheck, I thought before locating the bundles Phelan had set aside for the tax collector.

Four bags, each the size of a cantaloupe, swollen with coins. I studied them, one by one, and felt their weight in my palm.

So much money, I thought with a disbelieving heart. So much money.