THIRTY-ONE
The smell of stewing herbs and crisp, sun-dried linen awoke Aly. She opened her eyes, squinting against the bright magical lights that dotted the whitewashed walls of the ward. Her head pounded, nausea rising in her throat as she tried to sit up.
She fell back onto the soft down pillow, pressing a hand to her forehead. The room was filled with the sound of footsteps rushing from bed to bed, of bells pealing frantically for aid, but there were no moans of pain, no buzz of nurses chattering to their patients.
Aly tilted her head to the side, squinting one eye open to see a man lying in a plain wooden bed, the skin of his right arm shiny and red. The nurse at his bedside was talking to him, but Aly couldn’t make out the words, even though the nurse was only a couple of metres away.
Of course. The ward was enchanted to give patients privacy while still allowing the nurses to see everyone at once.
Voices wouldn’t carry from bed to bed, but the bells on the bedside cabinets would.
Aly idly wondered if a shriek of pain would break through the spell, but she wasn’t keen to try it; she’d probably vomit from the agony it would cause her own head.
She eased her head around to the other side to see Calum sitting next to her, his face creased with worry.
He was fiddling with something that flashed silver in the light, and after a moment Aly recognised it as Flora’s watch.
“I’m surprised no one’s told you to bugger off by now.
” Or that he hadn’t done so of his own accord.
She remembered him finding her in the stairwell at her flat—Grant’s flat—but was hazy on how she’d got to the hospital.
The corner of Calum’s mouth tilted up, his fingers stilling on the watch.
“That’s what the warrant card’s for.” Bitterness churned Aly’s insides.
How easy it must be, to have a wee card that granted access and deterred questions.
“Besides, don’t you remember? You gave them my surname.
They seem to think you’re my wife.” His cheeks went pink and Aly looked away quickly, her gaze falling on a stray bit of thread poking out of her sheet.
“It was the first name I could think of that wouldn’t get back to Grant.
” She knew better than to hope he was dead.
Iron would hurt him, certainly, but she hadn’t aimed well enough to do any damage.
“Or worse—my mother.” She peeked round, as though her words may have summoned her, but there was no sign of her mother’s fair hair.
“She works here, you know.” Aly thought as much, anyway; six years ago, her mum had been working at the hospital in the east end of town, and that was the one nearest Aly’s flat.
Calum let out a breath of a laugh and opened his mouth, but before he could speak, the nurse tending the patient next to Aly moved on to her bedside.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, scooping some herbs into a teapot and filling it with water from a ceramic jug.
He was tall and slender, his blond hair glinting silver in the glow from the magic lamps.
He wore a white linen apron and sleeve protectors over his tweed waistcoat and trousers. “Your husband’s been worried sick.”
The watch slipped out of Calum’s hand, landing softly on his kilt. His fingers fumbled as he picked it up, muttering a curse.
“I’m all right, I think. Other than the sore head.”
“This will help with that,” the nurse said, pouring a cup of the tisane and passing it to Aly.
Aly pushed herself to a seated position, clenching her eyes shut until the wave of nausea passed. She took the teacup and sipped the tisane, tasting chamomile and something acrid and bitter that told her it was infused with a healing spell.
“You have a concussion,” the nurse continued, setting the teapot on her bedside table.
Aly hoped the teapot was enchanted to keep the tisane warm; the bitter magic would be difficult to choke down if it was cold.
“It should clear up on its own in a few days, but for now you need rest and pain relief.” He pressed the back of his hand to Aly’s forehead, checking for signs of fever.
“Are you experiencing any problems with your vision?”
“Hard to tell,” Aly said, her voice coming out quieter than usual. “The light makes me nauseous.”
“That’s to be expected,” the nurse said. “How’s your knee?”
“My knee?” Aly fumbled at the covers with her free hand, the ghost of a memory prodding at the back of her mind. She threw the covers off to see her left knee covered in a clean bandage. It throbbed with a dull ache, but she hadn’t even noticed over the pain in her head. “Oh, it’s fine, I guess.”
“We got the glass out and there’s a healing salve on it,” the nurse said. “It should be healed in a couple of days.”
Aly nodded, then immediately regretted it as pain flashed through her forehead.
“I’ll come back to check on you when the tisane has had a chance to take effect,” the nurse said, bustling away.
Aly sipped at her tisane, leaning back on the soft pillows.
The taste didn’t get any better the more she drank, but her headache dimmed.
Soon she could turn her head to watch the sunlight streaming through tall, narrow windows situated between each bed and the sound of trolleys rattling across the flagstone floor no longer felt like a rod being driven into her skull.
Calum was silent for a while as she drank her tisane, letting her drain the cup and pouring her a second one before he spoke again.
“What happened? With Grant, I mean.” He reached in his pocket, pulling out his notebook.
Without thinking, Aly stretched out a hand to stop him.
Her sleeve rode up and she snatched her hand back before he could see the scars on her wrist. She was in a pale shift, made of coarse linen that had been bleached through many washings and line drying.
For a frantic moment, she feared Calum had seen her scars—someone certainly must have done, when they tended to her and changed her—but, no, she would see it on his face, she was sure of that.
She’d witnessed the disgust in his expression when she’d told him that Flora was a salch, despite knowing it was an act of desperation on Flora’s part.
He knew what Grant was like, and he knew of Aly’s destitution, but she didn’t think his understanding and his fondness for her would outweigh the revulsion he felt for salching.
Calum put his notebook back in his pocket, his eyebrow raised in question.
Aly stared down at the golden liquid in her teacup, realisations clashing together in her mind.
Grant’s refusal to help Aly when Calum arrested her, his interrogation days earlier about Calum, even the note he’d received before Calum had arrived, it all pointed to one thing.
“Grant has a mole in the police station.” It was a risk, telling Calum.
For all she knew, he was the mole. But there had been fear on his face when she’d awoken, even before he’d noticed she was looking at him.
And if he’d been the mole, Grant would have had more than supposition to go on.
Calum’s jaw clenched. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” His brow wrinkled. “But what makes you say that?”
“He knew you were coming this morning. He got a letter—one he threw in the fire before I could read it.” She looked down, picking at the stray thread in her sheet, tugging it so the fabric rippled.
“That was why he kissed me then. He wanted you to see, wanted to see how you’d react.
And that was why he didn’t help get me off.
He wanted to see if you’d let me go.” She looked up at his pale face.
“And you did. He doesn’t know I’m cliping on him.
Or, at least, I don’t think he does. I told him I was trying to get information about your investigation on his behalf, to find out who dumped a body behind the Copper Kettle.
I didn’t tell him I already knew the answer.
” She took a trembling breath. “I think he believed me.”
Calum sucked his teeth. “But he still attacked you?”
Aly’s fingers tightened around her teacup. “He said he couldn’t trust me. I think he was scared I might learn the truth.” She chewed on her lower lip. “Maybe I should have told him I already knew. Pretended I didn’t care and just wanted to help him. Maybe that would have stopped him.”
Calum reached out and curled his fingers around Aly’s free hand. His grip was warm, his calluses rough against the smooth skin on the back of her hand. “Don’t think like that. He tried to kill you. That’s not your fault.”
Aly swallowed the lump in her throat. “But if I . . .”
“Look at me, Aly.” Her eyes stung as she kept them trained on the blanket in her lap. “Look at me.” She blinked the moisture away, tilting her head up to see Calum staring at her in earnest, his grey eyes like storm clouds. “It’s not your fault. The blame lies with him and him alone.”
Aly pressed her eyes tightly closed to keep the tears in. She didn’t deserve this kindness, not with all she herself had done on Grant’s orders.
“Do you have somewhere to stay?” Calum asked, his voice tight with concern.
Aly’s stomach plummeted. She hadn’t even thought about that. The only home she had was owned by Grant, and if she went back there, he’d kill her. She had nothing but the clothes she’d fled in. “I’ll find somewhere,” she said, giving a hollow smile.
“Come stay with me,” Calum said. “There’s plenty of room.”
Aly shook her head. She couldn’t. She couldn’t go from depending on one powerful man to another. “I can’t.”
“Aly—”
“I can’t.” She bit the words out, squeezing her eyes shut.
Méabh’s lugs, she wanted to. She wanted to stay in his cosy house and have him cook for her and care for her.
But that would only lead her into more trouble later.
Flora’s watch, still in Calum’s hand, glimmered through the tears blurring her vision.