Chapter Eighteen
The darkness receded, black to gray, gray to dim lamplight. A room materialized, large and furnished with supple leather sofas and high-backed chairs. Alora blinked slowly against the change, forcing her breaths deep rather than shallow. Both were recommended to her by the Urchin releasing her now.
But she didn’t, couldn’t have, accounted for his hands to move. To slip the strap from her ankle and remove her shoe with a gentleness so at odds with the look of him. She bit at the inside of her cheek as she studied his profile.
“These are the shoes you chose when digging for secrets in the dark?”
Alora scowled at his shadowed hood when it turned toward her. “I was not digging. It was happenstance. I was at the end of a date when I saw that man.”
“A date?”
His voice changed around the word. She didn’t imagine it. The pitch of it caused her eyes to narrow at his form. “You’ll not seek him out. He has nothing to do with any of this.”
“Protective of him, are you? It must have gone well.”
Bitterness? From her kidnapper? Let him think whatever he likes. So long as he left Mr. Lofte alone. Alora couldn’t imagine facing down his aunt should anything happen to him because of her.
“Where have you brought me?”
“Somewhere safe. As I said.”
She’d argued with him well over half their journey.
Berated, rather. At least at first. For him to put her down, to tell her what he planned.
To give her back the light he’d broken. But he’d ignored every demand, scoffed at every threat.
He’d told her he wouldn’t hurt her. That he was only taking her somewhere secret.
Somewhere safe. And she’d believed him. Just as she believed him now.
What a fool she was, to believe someone she didn’t trust.
There were two windows, each blocked by heavy, black curtains. No fireplace warmed the space. Instead, there were lamps, two of which were lit upon the end tables that bracketed the sofa. She didn’t recognize any of it.
“At least tell me we’re still in Enver.”
“Considering I cannot manipulate time and space, yes. We’re not so far from your home.”
“How would you know where my home is?” At first, she frowned up at him, where he draped a blanket over her legs, propping her swollen ankle onto a pillow. Then her expression melted into one of realization. “You’ve been there. It was you who brought my cloak back.”
The Urchin’s fingers stilled where they cupped her heel. “Your Opulence cloak was missing?”
“Yes. I’d left it behind. In the Room of—”
“Love?”
If his hand weren’t so tender on her skin, she might have leapt back at the danger in his voice. As it was, she merely stiffened. And nodded.
The Urchin replaced her heel with care, but Alora could see the shift in his form. How every muscle beneath his dark clothing seemed to vibrate with tension.
“If you didn’t return it—” she began and faltered.
“I did not.”
A stone settled in her stomach. “William?”
“Most likely.”
She thought she’d feel terror. That William would have not only tricked her back at Opulence but now sought her out. Knew where she lived, and where she slept. But she didn’t. Instead, white fury seared through her. “How dare he!”
She could feel the Urchin’s attention on her face, on her fingers gripping the sofa beneath her until they blanched. How dare he. Imaginings coursed through her. Of the punishments she wished to exact. Appendages she yearned to remove.
“I should have choked the light from him.”
Alora stuttered over her thinking. Slowly, she surfaced from her many inspirations, enough that she watched the Urchin move to another lamp and snap the matchstick before it reached its destination. He tossed it away with a growl.
Another strike. Another broken match.
“Maybe you should leave it,” Alora suggested.
“Leave it? I can’t leave it. William has always toyed with boundaries, crossed several, but he has dropped over the edge with this. Merridon will hear of it, and he will intervene. You won’t be punished; I won’t allow it. You will finish your project, quick as you can, and leave Opulence be.”
“I meant the match.”
“What?”
Her eyes widened at his full attention, body turned toward her, towering above. “I meant to leave the match. There’s enough lamplight.”
A loud exhale left the Urchin then, the tension in his shoulders easing some. A breathless laugh echoed between them, a sound she’d never heard. “Leave the match…” She startled when the box clattered onto the table. “Miss Pennigrim—” he began.
Alora, she corrected inside.
They both turned toward the door when it swung in.
“What is it now, Mer—” The stranger ceased speaking at seeing Alora sprawled upon the sofa. Another Urchin. Another black cowl and masked jaw, though this one’s hands were uncovered.
Alora ceased thinking at all. All except for one thought. I’ve made another grave mistake.
“Well. If this isn’t a first,” droned the new arrival.
She pushed to the heels of her palms and flinched when the grip of a hand found her bare shoulder. She couldn’t help glancing down at it. “He’s a healer,” said the man beside her.
A healer. An Urchin healer.
“The best there is. It will be effortless, painless—”
“Some effort, I’d say. I did have to get out of bed,” said the second Urchin, and he moved farther into the room, enough to latch the door closed. His voice, too, was rasping.
A singular moment flashed in Alora’s mind from back in the street. “When did you forget to fear me?”
She certainly remembered now. Her heart sped, her palms slick.
She didn’t want to give away any more of herself than she already had, but if she needed to in order to protect herself, she’d do what she must. If she imagined them asleep, would they fall to dreams?
They might never wake would be the problem. Or perhaps the solution?
The Urchin must have become alerted to her stress, because his fingers pressed deeper into her shoulder. “You won’t be harmed.”
“Where have you brought me?” she whispered, as the healer moved to pour himself a drink from a cart against the far wall.
“A meeting place.”
“Of Urchins.”
“Yes.”
His hand hadn’t moved, like he was worried she’d bolt. Which she wouldn’t. Not until she ensured they couldn’t follow.
“What is the damage then?” said the healer. He remained turned from her as to pull down his mask and drain his glass.
“Ankle sprain. Fairly certain it isn’t broken.”
“It isn’t,” said Alora in a near shout. A ball of panic began to grow in her chest. She didn’t want him to touch her. Didn’t want him to mend the bones. What if he made a mistake? What if he caused them to disappear entirely? There was no cure for that. Bones could not be regrown.
She would know.
“Let’s see, shall we?” The healer rubbed his hands together.
Distantly, Alora thought perhaps it was to warm them before he placed them against her skin. Directly in front of her though, it appeared a gleeful gesture. Like he couldn’t wait to dig around inside her with his ability. Her stare riveted on the rings adorning his thumbs.
“No.”
“Miss Pennigrim, please. That ankle requires attention.”
Alora tracked up the arm holding her, to the masked mouth, as it was all she could see. “I said I would go to the doctor.”
“They won’t heal you so well as him.”
“You can’t know that for sure.”
“Yes, I can.”
Her breaths were rapid. She could see the girl’s face, plain as the masked men in front of her now. Eirian’s square. A strange-shaped rabbit. The pothole. The blacksmith’s daughter sprawled between the two, her leg twisted beneath her. The surging crowds.
Alora had panicked, tried to imagine it whole. And had removed every bone within it instead. Nothing else to be done. Permanent ruination. And Alora would never forget her face.
“Please—”
“Alora—”
“No! I said no.” The Urchin healer moved one step closer, and the ball of panic burst. It engulfed her fully. “Stop.”
He stopped. Every part of him. His muscles, his breath. Maybe even his heart. The Urchin stood like a statue, frozen before her.
Her mouth fell wide. Damn! What had she done?
She swung her gaze to the Urchin beside her, and for a hellish moment thought she’d frozen him too. But the seconds passed, and he turned toward her, achingly slow.
“I think you’d better explain to me exactly what you can do.” His words were clipped. Angry.
Alora shrank into the cushions.
His hand abandoned her shoulder for the armrest beneath her. His opposite went to the back of the sofa, caging her in. “What are you capable of, Miss Pennigrim?”
“I won’t tell you.”
She could see his chest rise and fall above her, furious.
“He would not have touched you without your permission.”
“Just as every other victim of yours?”
Abruptly, the breaths she watched ceased. In one swift motion, the Urchin pushed from where he leaned above her. “That is not the same.”
“It is the same! You asked when I’d forgotten to fear you, and I haven’t. You can’t be trusted.”
“I won’t argue with you over what must be done. Now can you reverse it or not?”
Can you regrow her bones or not?
The answer had turned out to be ‘no’ back then.
She didn’t know how to imagine the girl’s leg whole without knowing what was missing.
She was young, unpracticed, and scared. She was already a strange commodity because of her ever-present rabbit.
It was such a terrible mistake. A shame she carried to this day.
Move, she imagined, and the healer stumbled forward.
“My apologies,” he stammered. “My leg must have fallen asleep. And my…arms.” He rubbed at his limbs.
Alora refused to look at the man beside her. Instead, she tossed off the blanket, uncaring that her dress was rucked up above her knees, and sat up.
“You’re a healer?”
“I am…” Except now he sounded uncertain.
“Thank you for coming. I’m sure it isn’t how you wanted to spend your night. But please, do not mend any bone without speaking of it to me first. I’ve a particularly bad memory I’d not like repeated.”