His hand froze when he saw Casek Wearne standing there before him, looking for all the world like an angry, glowering granite statue. Unyielding. Unmoving. Unfeeling.

But as this granite statue did have family that was part of St. Nicholas’s congregation, Oliver didn’t snap at him. Much. “What is it?”

Casek’s gaze burned over him, the sort of burning that could have meant either ice or fire, and it annoyed Oliver to no end that he couldn’t tell which it was.

“Another package came for Beth.”

It was fire, sure and hot, that swept through him. “What? Are you involved in this? What do you know of my—”

“Ask Benna.” Casek took a step away, looking as though he meant to stride off without another word. But he paused, spun, and dug a piece of paper from his pocket. “She said to give you this, too, and see if you recognize it. And while you’re at it, tell her I delivered her message word for word. You owe me that much.”

“I owe you?” Laughable. But at least mention of Mabena had put the fire out. He didn’t know why she’d chosen this particular messenger, but she made sense as the sender. He took the paper, though he didn’t look down at it.

“It’s your fault she ever chose Cador, and don’t try to tell me it isn’t. You told your sister to convince her I only meant to hurt her.”

Oliver’s fingers tightened around the doorknob. “You’re not going to lay all this at my feet. As if Mabena ever listened to a thing I said.”

“Which is no doubt why you recruited Beth to help. Like a coward.”

If he dug his fingers in any harder, he’d leave dents in the wood. “I did nothing of the sort. But if Beth told her that, then it was because she had eyes to see. Why else would you ever want anything to do with—”

“Because it was Benna.”

Anguish. Anguish and . . . something else, something even deeper seeped through the granite. Were it anyone else, Oliver would have called it a glimpse of his soul. Of his heart.

But it was Casek Wearne. The one man who would surely never show him such a thing. “What was the package?”

“What?” The abrupt shift dropped confusion over Casek’s face, before he wiped it clean and put his usual expression of contempt back on. “You’ll have to ask Benna that too. I told you what she told me—not that you’ve grace enough to thank me for it. But not that I expect anything more of a Tremayne. Too good even to acknowledge us common folk, I know.”

If Mother had seen the smile Oliver let tilt his lips, she’d have boxed his ears, and rightly so. “Not all common folk. Just Wearnes.”