Chapter 28
Ezra dropped the jokes, the innuendo, let the mask fall away—for real this time.
He wasn’t sure how to act, how to respond to anything Analise said, or to the looks she gave him.
He was trying to show her the man he was, or the man he wanted to be, but whenever he saw her, his chest burnt and he clenched his fists so he couldn’t touch her.
Part of him wished they’d agreed to sleep together and leave it at that, but another part of him craved this.
They were both lonely, starved of true affection. And they were both equally terrified of the vulnerability that came with needing to fill the hole inside but not knowing how to go about it. They recognised it in each other.
When they weren’t training at dawn or in some clandestine meeting, it was the two of them in the club until it opened each night.
Sometimes they didn’t see Jem or Lira for days, but he and Analise stuck to their routine.
They’d spar banter about stupid things, avoid the important things, share a meal, then she’d sit somewhere and read the book Blackwood gave her while he read whatever newspaper or pamphlet was lying around.
The crowds would arrive, she would vanish into her room and he would plaster on a smile and spend the night joking with people he’d never seen before.
But it was empty, an act that no one seemed to see through except her.
The Canem Club was large enough that, if they wanted, they could avoid seeing each other, but somehow, they always found themselves together.
Whether it was in the kitchen or the front bar, or in the confines of the hall outside their rooms, whenever Ezra turned around, Analise was there.
He found himself looking for her more than he had before, walking into a room and knowing instantly that she was in there, or had been moments before.
‘Ezra…’ They were seated at the table near the window in the front bar where she liked to read.
She wasn’t reading today, but a newspaper sat on the table and they’d chosen to have breakfast there.
Analise made porridge, and while it was slightly lumpy, it was edible.
He’d continued teaching her to cook. She’d tested every ounce of his patience, but they were getting somewhere.
‘You said that you’d been taught to fear death witches. What were you told?’
Ezra shifted uncomfortably in his seat, remembering that horrible conversation. ‘That having power over death wasn’t natural because it went against God’s order.’
Analise tapped her finger on her chin, frowning. ‘Who told you that?’
‘The Gendarme operates under missives from the Crown, which takes its religious instruction from the Church.’
‘But why would the Church, after so long, suddenly tell the Crown that death witches were dangerous?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe that’s a question for the Order’s good friend, Father Blackwood.’
‘You don’t trust him?’
‘I don’t. He asked me to find you but wouldn’t tell me why, appealing to my desire to save my own arse. Then Jem tells me not to let the Church get hold of you, but he wouldn’t tell me why. I decided to trust Jem over Father Blackwood.’
‘You really were trying to keep me safe, weren’t you?’
Ezra nodded. ‘I told you that you were too quick to judge a man.’
‘Yes, you have layers … like an onion.’
‘That’s a terrible analogy, but you tried,’ he said, giving her a smile.
She smiled back and they fell into silence.
Analise looked out the window, watching people pass.
Morning light brushed her face and pale blue shimmered over her.
Calm, Ezra thought. She was calm. He’d been wondering what the colours meant and now, he’d figured it out—her magical aura mirrored her mood.
That fascinated him. If he toyed with her, teased her a bit, would that blue turn as red as her hair?
She frowned when she caught him watching her. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ He tossed her his best smirk, the one he was working out annoyed her. Her magic shimmered red momentarily, then vanished. Analise opened the newspaper, doing her best to ignore him.
‘Anything interesting?’
She nodded, not lifting her eyes. “‘Man found missing his cock for being an absolute fucking arse.”’
‘Admit it,’ Ezra rested his elbows on the table and leaned towards her. ‘You like my cock.’
She slid the paper over with a little smile. Shrouded in blue once more, she picked up her tea and looked out the window, that smile not shifting.
‘Would it be wrong of me to spoil this lovely moment?’
Analise laughed, turning back to him. ‘You’re asking permission now?’
‘I like you, Analise,’ he said.
She sobered instantly.
‘This is hard, sitting here like this and not touching you. I really want to touch you.’
‘Sometimes, I want you to touch me, and sometimes I can’t stand the thought of it—but I also can’t stand the thought of you touching someone else.’ Analise dropped her eyes back to her bowl, picking up her spoon and poking at the remains of her porridge. ‘The truth is, I’m scared.’
‘I’m scared as well,’ he admitted, making her glance at him in surprise. ‘I’m scared because I’m exceptionally skilled at fucking things up, and I don’t want to fuck this, whatever it is, up.’
She was silent for a moment. ‘The mark on your shoulder—you truly don’t remember meeting the Devil somewhere?’
‘No. But’—Ezra shook his head—‘I must have, mustn’t I?’
Analise sat back and tapped her fingers on the edge of her cup, her expression thoughtful. ‘What if someone could help you?’
‘Like who?’
‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe Charles has got some ideas—a potion or something.’
Ezra laughed. ‘I am not eating or drinking anything that comes out of that lab.’
‘Talk to Jem, Ezra.’
The seer was younger than Ezra expected.
As soon as Jem told him about her, Ezra conjured an image in his mind of a wizened old woman, hair the colour of snow and lines like trenches on her skin.
But the woman who walked into the dark and empty front bar to meet him after midnight was fresh-faced, not much older than him.
Her name was Sybil, and according to Jem, she could pull the past from someone’s head.
Sybil swept into the room in a flurry of dark skirts and jewellery, her strawberry-blonde hair bundled artfully on top of her head. People must either pay well for her services, Ezra thought, watching her approach him, or she’d been born into the wealth she clearly displayed.
She didn’t speak, striding over to the table and arranging herself on the chair opposite him. He could smell her perfume and the pearls that dripped from her ears shimmered in the lamp light.
He didn’t know much about seers and their magic.
People spoke about how seers, like mystics, read tea-leaves or palms, used crystal balls or interpreted what they saw in flames or water.
Some used the tarot. But Sybil carried nothing with her—no cards, no cup or tea pot, no bag containing a crystal ball or other paraphernalia.
She didn’t ask to inspect his palm, either. She didn’t say a word.
Ezra cleared his throat; sharp blue eyes met his. He opened his mouth, but she held up a delicate hand. Her palm was tattooed with a decorative eye.
‘Don’t speak,’ she commanded, her voice low and husky. ‘I cannot know anything about you or what you seek to know.’
‘Then how can you help?’ Ezra challenged.
Her lips twitched. ‘You don’t believe in my gifts. That’s fine. You will,’ she added with such certainty a shiver ran down his spine. ‘It is not your future I will be showing you, but the moment that began to shape it.’
She laid her hands on the table between them, tattooed palms up, and Ezra understood he was to place his hands in hers.
All he wanted when he fled the Gendarme was to be able to disappear into the crowd, to get lost in the sea of humanity that flowed through the city.
But it’s impossible for a hunted man to not leave a footprint.
He’d been lucky, so far, that they hadn’t found him.
The moment he left the Gendarme was the moment all the opportunities of his life became lost to him, replaced with the smoky oblivion of opium and the crunching of knuckles against flesh.
Is that where he was going, Ezra wondered? Into those moments lost to his memory?
‘Are you ready?’ Sybil asked.
Ezra took a deep breath, and lay his hands over hers. He wasn’t sure she was going to be able to do anything to help him. Most seers were charlatans, their visions vague and designed to be twisted to fit any individual and any situation.
Sybil closed her eyes and then, Ezra could feel her inside his head, sliding through his mind like water. He instinctively tried to pull his hands away at the intrusion, but she closed her fingers around his.
‘No,’ she murmured. ‘Don’t fight me. Let me show you the thing you don’t want to see.’
Ezra swallowed. His heartbeat slowed, his stomach rolled, and a chill washed through him.
‘Relax,’ Sybil whispered. ‘Remember.’
The past tumbled back on itself.
Opium brought oblivion. It was grey, its edges tinged with red. Purgatory, Ezra decided. This must be purgatory. He was conscious, but not, completely untethered. It was wonderful.
The floor of the den was covered in mattresses, narrow paths between them like dirty back alleys.
Smoke choked the air from dozens of pipes and the scent of opium threaded through each piece of dingy furniture and curtain.
Through the haze in his head, Ezra could hear the ships on the river.
The docks were nearby, and if the single window in the den was open, he’d be able to smell the polluted filth of the water.