Chapter 5
Kit
The next day was a quieter one. Aside from the butcher stopping in to have his knives sharpened, Penny and I were left to ourselves at the forge.
He kept busy—hunched over his worktable and doing his best to hide his newest project while trying not to appear obvious about it—and I put a good dent in the orders on the repair rack.
It wasn’t until the sun started to set and Penny was packing up to head home that things took a strange turn.
He caught the tie of my apron, presumably intending to pull me into the corner of the shop hidden from view of the square to steal a kiss, just as a shadow filled the doorway.
He yanked his hand back like he’d been burned, then turned away from the newcomer under the guise of grabbing his satchel from its hook on the wall.
It was one of the faceless messengers. After Anders’s visit the day before, I was sure they were there to announce the fourth Oath, though it seemed strange for the assignment to be given at dusk instead of dawn.
“Kit Koesters,” the man said in a drone, “the Right Hand requests your presence at the Ossuary.”
Penny glanced at me over his shoulder. His brows drew down until there was a little wrinkle between them that I wanted to rub away with my thumb.
“Right now?” I asked. “I still have to close up.”
The man nodded and gestured toward the Ossuary. “Immediately. I am to escort you.”
Penny turned to face the messenger. His hands gripped the strap of his satchel so tightly his knuckles went white. “What’s this about?” he asked.
“It is not my place to ask such questions,” the man said.
“Then I’ll make it mine,” Penny replied, inching closer to me.
The messenger turned sharply toward him.
“Pen,” I hissed, a warning in my tone.
The messenger huffed. “Come, Mister Koesters. We mustn’t leave the Right Hand waiting.”
Tension crept up the back of my neck as I tugged off my gloves and apron and set them aside. It wasn’t like Levitt to use official channels to summon me. We were friends, and friends stopped by to chat. They didn’t send ominous messengers as escorts.
“Let’s go then,” Penny said. He’d clearly caught on to my unease.
The messenger raised a hand and shook his head. “The summons is for Mister Koesters alone.”
Penny stepped forward to put himself between the messenger and me. “Why?” he asked.
“It is not my place,” the messenger repeated, “to ask such questions.” He pointed at Penny. “Nor is it yours.”
Penny set his shoulders back. “Well, I’ll just wait in the atrium, then. Levitt need never know I’m there.”
I swung my cloak around my shoulders. “Someone has to close up.” I gestured to the coals glowing in the firepot.
A few months ago, that would have been an impossible ask.
Penny's fear of fire had lessened during his time in the forge.
At first, he must have thought it a punishment to be trapped so near such constant flames and heat.
But now he seemed almost at ease in the shop, no longer flinching when I pumped the bellows and often crowding up against me while I worked to steal sly kisses.
He was less fearful and more competent, plenty able to extinguish the embers and close up for the day while I was otherwise engaged.
But it wasn't a lack of ability that made the crease between Penny's eyebrows deepen as he glanced at me. “We can do that later,” he insisted.
“We can’t leave it unattended, Pen.” I offered what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “You close up, and I’ll meet you back at home.”
His eyes flicked between the messenger and me. “I don't see the harm in—”
“Time is wasting, Mister Koesters,” the messenger called over Penny’s protest.
I grabbed Penny’s shoulder and turned him to face me. “Close up. I’ll meet you at home.” When he looked ready to argue again, I tightened my grip. “Please.”
Grimacing, he dipped his head in a nod, then stepped out of my way.
I followed the messenger to the doorway, where I paused to check Penny’s concerned face. “See you at dinner.” My smile didn't move the frown from his lips. I was certain a parting kiss would have done the trick, but not with the messenger looking on.
Exiting the stall, I had to practically jog to keep up with my escort as he seemed to glide across the square toward the Ossuary. When we arrived, he threw the double doors wide and bustled inside. I barely managed to dart in behind him before the doors swung shut again.
I expected him to stop at the table in the atrium and direct me ahead, but he carried on through the door to the right and up the stairs.
After ascending several flights, he finally stopped on the uppermost landing and knocked on the Right Hand’s door.
Across the way, Merrick’s office stood dark and empty, and I briefly wondered what duties kept him so often out of the Ossuary before Levitt’s door opened.
“Ah, Kit. Come in.” He gestured with the stump of his right wrist, then nodded at the messenger. “Thank you. You're dismissed.”
The messenger dipped his head and started down the stairs while I stepped past Levitt and into his chambers.
“Sit, please” Levitt said. He crossed to the pair of armchairs in front of the windows on the eastern wall of the room. He dropped into one and motioned for me to take the other.
“You couldn’t have come to get me yourself?” I asked while perching on the edge of my seat. I was too uneasy to relax, and judging by the stiff set of Levitt’s shoulders, so was he.
“I'm afraid this is a… delicate matter,” he said. His eyes looked like caramel in the firelight as they bored into mine. “And I had to be conscious of the timing of this meeting.”
“Has Merrick accused me of something else?” My attempt at a light tone fell flat.
Levitt shook his head. “No. He’s the accused this time.”
I sank back into my seat as surprise momentarily replaced my unease. “Accused of what?”
Levitt and I studied each other, mutually scrutinizing for several moments, before he spoke again. “How are you, Kit? How is Penny? Recovering well from the hemlock?”
My brows drew down. “I’m not sure what that has to do with Merrick—”
“Humor me.” Levitt propped an elbow on his knee and leaned in. “Please.”
“I fared better than Penny did,” I said. “I’m mostly back to normal now. And he’s doing well enough, all things considered.”
It wasn’t the whole truth, but I was leery of letting anyone know the lingering effects Penny still suffered from the poison.
Weeks after the ritual, he still seemed weak and easily winded.
The wintry air did no favors for his condition, either, leaving him raspy and fighting that stubborn cough every time we ventured outside for long.
I was grateful to have him with me in the forge, where we were kept warm by the constant heat of the coals.
Penny himself hadn't mentioned his infirmity—he wasn't the type to complain or worry me for any reason—but I'd noticed. Even with someone like Levitt, who I mostly trusted, I couldn’t bring myself to expose something that could be viewed as a weakness.
Levitt nodded and sat back. “Good. That’s good. I’m glad to hear that.”
He fell quiet long enough that tension worked its way up my spine.
I wished I could crawl out of my skin to escape the discomfort.
He was being intentionally vague and diplomatic in his answers, and it was driving me mad.
I wasn’t used to him not being candid with me. I didn’t like this side of him.
“The accusations against Merrick,” I prompted. “You’re stalling.”
Levitt sighed and rubbed his hand over his face.
“Yes, I am. I apologize.” He swept his gaze over the square below, where the market stalls were fading into the murky dark of twilight.
“I had a very disturbing conversation with Isla this morning.” His eyes flicked briefly to mine. “Harlan’s apprentice.”
I nodded. “I know her.”
When he looked away again, my stomach twisted. I'd seen Isla as well. Very briefly and very strangely the day before. Her seemingly aimless visit had given me pause, and hearing Levitt mention her now made me wary all over again.
“She said she overheard a conversation the morning of the third Oath,” Levitt continued.
“Something she wasn't meant to hear. She wanted to bring it to me then, but she was afraid for her safety because she would have been seen. Today was the first time she was left alone long enough to come speak to me without anyone knowing.”
He was stalling still, and impatience made me bristle.
“Just come out with it,” I said, harshly enough to startle him.
“Merrick, Harlan, and her brother Otis were discussing plans for the third Oath.” He straightened and faced me again. “Plans to kill you and Penny.”
My entire body washed cold. “What?” I croaked. “How?”
Levitt's chest swelled with a deep breath that he let out in a rush before responding.
“They gave you a more concentrated form of hemlock. At least double strength.”
Hadn't Penny feared as much? The night before the Oath, he'd come to me with the deed to his farm and concern for his mother and sister.
He'd worried Merrick would attempt something devious.
It was one of the few times he'd been more worried about something than I was.
I'd reassured him, dismissed him, and now I felt like a fool.
I barked a bitter laugh. “So Klaus could give us what looked like the same amount and be none the wiser.” I could only assume that Penny’s brief time taking the daily hemlock had helped, despite the lingering sickness it had caused.
How else could he have survived what should have been potent enough to kill us both?
I remembered Merrick's empty office as fury seeped in where tension had been. “I assume they’ve been detained?”
Levitt looked away. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?!” My shout made him flinch, and he held up his hand in a placating gesture that only stoked my rage.
“All I have is Isla’s word. There’s no concrete proof that anything actually happened. It may well have been idle chatter, and pursuing it would be no better than Merrick bringing baseless claims to me.”
I lurched to my feet, every muscle strung taut as a bowstring as I loomed over him. “But you did pursue those. You indulged him, and you won’t do anything about this when we almost died?”
Levitt's eyes met mine. “Two people did die,” he said, his voice low and firm.
I shook my head before he finished speaking, too ready to correct the notion I'd given him before. “I watched Penny stop breathing, Lev. I watched him seize on my kitchen floor while his lips turned blue.”
And it haunted me. I still woke in the night to check on him, to put my hand on his chest and feel its rise and fall.
I tried daily not to consider what would have happened if Penny had succumbed to the poison.
The weight of that loss would have been staggering.
So much so I wasn't certain it wouldn't have dragged me down for good.
Levitt sat up straighter in his seat, and I almost believed he wasn’t intimidated by me. “I cannot risk my position while things are so precarious, and I am unwilling to risk Isla’s safety by making her accusations public. Besides, you said yourself that you and Penny are fine.”
My chest constricted, and for a moment it was like the air had been sucked out of the room. His words stung, a betrayal of what he’d told me just a few weeks before. He’d said he’d protect me, and I believed him. Now, it was clear he was only willing to protect himself.
The moment of hurt passed, overtaken by a rage that surged from deep inside me.
“He’s not fine!” I snarled.
I leaned in, bracing my hands on the arms of Levitt’s chair and bringing my face level with his. It took every ounce of self-control not to grab his shoulders and shake him until his head came loose. “He still has coughing fits. He can hardly breathe out in the cold.”
And I worried already about his condition persisting into spring.
Wondered what would happen when we returned to the farm, and his mother noticed him struggling.
I wondered what I would say to her, how I would explain that I'd taken her son somewhere unsafe and brought him back unwell. Possibly permanently.
I thought all of those things while angry words continued to spill out of my mouth.
“You won’t risk yourself or Isla,” I seethed, “but you’re willing to risk our lives? You’ll sit up here in your tower while I risk the most precious thing I’ve ever had in this world?”
I scoffed and straightened, consciously reining in my fury before it burned me up. “Clearly you’re too much of a coward to do what needs to be done.”
“That isn’t fair,” Levitt said softly.
“No? Well, neither is you knowing Merrick is trying to kill us and doing nothing to stop it! What makes you think he won’t try again?”
Levitt’s lips pressed a thin line, but he didn’t speak.
“If he succeeds next time,” I said, my voice edged in ice, “the blame is on you.”
I didn’t give him time to respond before I stalked to the door and let myself out, slamming it behind me.