Bart dropped the tray in his hands, the poison-laced cups clattering to the floor as he rushed across the room. For a moment he just rested his hand on her shoulder, but Shan continued to tremble. He pulled her close, letting her tuck her head against his shoulder. In a brief moment of weakness, Shan buried her face against her friend. “You’re free,” he whispered. “You’re both free.”

“We’re all free,” Shan said, clutching her skirt. “But we’re not done yet.”

“I know,” Bart said. “But it’s okay to feel.”

Shan pulled away, slipping out of the embrace with ease. Bart didn’t chase her—he knew better than that. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to her feet, to put some steel in her spine. “There will be time for feeling later. Now we have bodies to dispose of.”

Bart inclined his head. “As you say.”

Shan ripped her knife from her father’s neck, ignoring the loud, squelching noise that accompanied it. Drawing a handkerchief from her sleeve, she carefully wiped all traces of blood away, scrubbing until the metal shone. She dropped the soiled handkerchief into a small linen bag—the proof of death collected—then slipped it into her corset, tucked safely away.

“The incinerator?”

“Already lit,” Bart replied. He was pulling long sheets of linen, sheets with which to wrap the dead, from where he had hidden them in the closet. Shan took one end in her hands, draping it over her father. With ruthless efficiency, she tucked the ends in around him, rolling him into the cloth. It was a clunky, undignified end for a Blood Worker, but Shan didn’t care.

He had lost the mercy of a clean, dignified death long ago.

Together they cleaned up every bit of blood, soaking it into the excess cloth they had brought for this precise reason. She was especially meticulous in this regard—aside from what they needed to prove his death to the Council, they couldn’t let one drop of blood get away. Lord Antonin LeClaire might be dead, but there was still a lot a Blood Worker could do with his blood.

So, like her father, into the incinerator it would go.

With Bart grabbing the shoulders and Shan scooping up the legs, they made their way past the corpses of her father’s personal guards and down into the bowels of the LeClaire townhouse. It was a tricky journey, moving the body round tight corners and down narrow staircases, but it had to be done.