Chapter 38
Bennett led us back into the alley, but instead of into the gambling hall, we marched down the narrow, puddled space that reeked like urine and through another door, this one stained with years of grime. The dark hallway was unlit, and Bennett cursed as a rat scurried by somewhere near our feet.
He lifted a torch from the wall and stepped back through the still-open door to hold it against the gaslamp flickering on the outside wall. The torch leaped to life, and we pressed into the darkness.
This hall was filthy. Muddy boots had walked here for centuries, it seemed. Rusty brown smears ran in little wavy horizontal lines down the floor, like dead bodies had been dragged through this hall. A foul smell wafted from the other end of the hall, and I held my finger under my nose.
We turned a corner and another hallway opened before us, lined with wooden doors. A man sat at the end of the hall, a bottle hanging from his large fingers. He set the bottle down and sat up straighter when he spotted Bennett.
“Evening, Borris,” my brother said.
Borris wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and slowly stood. He towered over my brother, his thick neck covered with stubble that met the chest hair peeking out of his shirt. “What’s this? This ain’t the hen house.”
Bennett sniffed and turned away, as if slapped. Then, more composed, he said, “This is my sister, you wretched idiot. Now open up.”
Borris stared at my brother a minute, then his eyes slid to me and Vanya. “You have a sister?” His mouth curled up sickeningly.
“Touch her and I’ll feed your fingers to my dog. Then I’ll kill you.”
I cringed but was grateful when Borris jostled his enormous self over toward the nearest door, unhooking a key ring from his belt. The lock clicked, and Borris stepped back with a grunt.
He handed my brother another key and said, “Didn’t know we’d be letting him go.”
“Never you mind, rodent.” Bennett handed Borris one of the coins Vanya had given him. “Run along now and tell Tucker that you were overpowered by the duke’s thugs.”
Borris squinted like he wasn’t sure whether to be offended or not. But he ambled off down the hall, leaving us alone. Bennett turned to us. “Just this one time, Ar. I hope you know what you’re doing. I might lose my head for this.”
He swung the door open.
The room was pitch black. No windows. Bennett stood against the door, holding it open for me, and the light from his torch fell into the room.
I gasped and clapped a hand to my mouth.
Chained to the opposite wall was Rush, his arms over his head, white as sheets and bloody at the wrists where the iron rubbed.
His head snapped up, his eyes focusing on me.
“Ari.” His eyes frantically searched my face.
His legs were splayed on the floor, and his shirt was missing.
The nasty bruise on his stomach was now one of many dark places, all confined to his stomach and chest. Not a single blow had gone to his face.
I rushed forward and fell to my knees before him. His hair was draped across his forehead.
“Are you okay?” He jerked forward against the chains. “Did they hurt you? Did they touch you?”
“I’m fine,” I breathed, looking at his bruises.
“Why are you here?” His eyes traveled to my brother holding the torch. His jaw flexed.
“We’re getting you out.”
Bennett stepped forward and unlocked the shackles. Rush’s arms fell into his lap and lay there, limp, for several seconds. He slumped forward and I caught him, letting his forehead rest against my shoulder.
When the blood returned to his hands, he lifted one and cupped my waist gently. Then, without warning, his fingers fisted in the fabric of my shirt and he looked up at me, eyes bright and fierce.
“You shouldn’t have come, Ari,” he said, holding my gaze with such ferocity I couldn’t stop blinking. “These are not nice people. And even if one of them is your brother, I hate to think what I’ll have to do to them if they ever hurt you.”
He stood, the muscles in his body creating shadowed grooves. I forced my gaze away and stood beside him. To my surprise, his cold fingers threaded through mine, squeezing hard.
“Let’s go.” He surged forward, barely limping, and as he tugged me along, my eyes snagged on a tattoo in the middle of his back.
A simple black line with the upward point of an arrow drawn through the middle rather than the end of the line.
I’d seen the symbol painted on walls and etched into glass windows.
In the doorway, he paused and glanced back at me. “Something wrong?”
“What is that?” I asked, eyes on the tattoo.
His jaw flexed briefly, then, “It’s the symbol for the Archivists.” Without any further explanation, he slipped from the room. Bennett’s warning played in my head as I stared at the black symbol on Rush’s back.
Vanya slid more money into my brother’s waiting hand. He nodded at her, then led us out a different door than the one we’d entered. This one deposited us in a mostly empty side street, where a couple walked a little ways down the road.
Bennett shrugged out of his jacket. “Here,” he said, handing it to Rush. “So you don’t stand out like a horse in a dragon race.”
Rush stuffed his arms in the jacket, which was too wide and too short in the arms. His raw wrists were visible. The two men stared at each other with anger in their eyes for several seconds. Finally, Rush said, “Next time we meet, Snake, we aren’t friends.”
My brother nodded, “We aren’t now.”
“Enough of that,” Vanya said, shoving the last of the money into my brother’s hands.
Rush tugged me closer to his side. “Come on.”
As we stepped out into the yellow-tinted fog, my brother hissed, “Remember what I said.”
As we walked, Rush’s limp grew worse. He leaned heavily on me, but I said nothing.
“Not school,” he said. “Not tonight.”
We boarded the train with a few late-night travelers, most of whom pointedly avoided looking at us. A few stared outright, however, at Rush’s bruised abdomen and bleeding wrists visible beneath the too-small jacket.
When we entered the dark foyer of the townhome, the acrid smell of soot welcomed us.
Vanya busied herself with the lights, and I hurried downstairs to fetch a few clean towels and oil for his wounds.
I checked his upstairs bath, but I couldn’t find the magical healing ointment we’d used weeks ago.
So I grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the sideboard in the drawing room and met Rush in the foyer, where he was slumped against the wall on the bench beneath a portrait of his grandfather.
I doused a hand towel with whiskey and pulled one of his wrists toward me. I hesitated before touching his skin.
“I couldn’t find the other stuff,” I said, knowing he’d understand.
“I used it up a while ago.” He pressed my hand down over his wound and hissed.
I dabbed at the wound, then proceeded to the next, twitching each time he grunted in pain.
When I was finished, he exhaled and leaned back against the wall.
I stood and turned half aside so I wouldn’t stare at him.
Vanya was hovering in the doorway, watching with concern.
“Thank you,” Rush breathed, his head tipped back.
I huffed, thinking of what my brother had said about him. “What else can I do? Are you hungry?”
“Famished.” He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to stand. I helped, but he waved me away. “But I need a bath first.”
I blushed violently. “I’ll find us something to eat. Vanya, come on.” Then I paused. “Do you…need help getting upstairs?”
The edges of his mouth tipped up, and that lazy smirk had everything inside me unraveling. “I’m not sure which would be worse, admitting I can’t do it or not watching you blush scarlet as you help me up those steps.”
“You can get yourself up those steps.” I tossed the whiskey- and blood-stained towel at him. He caught it, but a faint wince flickered across his face.
He chuckled and hobbled toward the stairs. I watched him take five steps before I rolled my eyes and moved to help him. And I hated how my cheeks blazed as he wrapped his arm around me, splaying the too-small jacket open wider.
At the top of the stairs, I released him. “Think you can make it the rest of the way?”
“I don’t know. I might need some help with the bath.”
I slapped his shoulder so hard I had to shake out my hand. He laughed a throaty laugh as he limped into his bedroom.
“Looks like you’re making yourself at home.” He glanced at the wrinkled bed, and a jolt shot through me that I feared he could feel all the way across the room.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Vanya stood over a bubbling pot. She twirled through the kitchen, singing a song in her native tongue. Whatever she was cooking, it smelled divine.
Rush joined us shortly, sitting across from me, leaning onto his elbows. For a long moment, we said nothing, sharing a silence that felt strangely more comfortable than words.
His lips twitched at the sides and he leaned back, sprawling out in the chair. His shirt was unkempt, his collar nowhere in sight. “What are you making over there?” he asked Vanya.
“It’s called dal. Simple, delicious.”
“Where’d you get all the ingredients?” I wondered.
Vanya tasted the soupy dish. “I bought them on my way here. Figured you could use some sustenance.”
I smiled, and it felt marvelous. Then a dry sob burst out as guilt struck me. How could I be happy when Myth was gone? “He’s gone. I can’t…what am I supposed to do now?”
Rush rose and ambled to the counter where Vanya worked. He leaned against it, turning his eyes back to me. “He’s not dead. Yet.”
“What?” My hands slapped the table.
Vanya added a pinch of something to the pot.
“How much does she know?” asked Rush, nodding at Vanya.
“All of it.”
He sighed, his chin dropping. “All right. Well, if my father thinks Myth still has his flame, he’s not going to kill him, remember? He’ll want to use his magic.” He looked at me with a sympathetic tilt to his brows.