NINE #2
Aly herself had dressed for the occasion, just as she had the last time she’d been here.
Then, she’d worn some good woollens and let herself get caught in the rain before approaching, her hair in loose ginger ropes around her face, the picture of a respectable woman in dire circumstances.
This time, she was that same woman, but after a bath and a hot meal, her wool replaced with striped silk and taffeta.
She considered the seal on the back of the envelope.
It wouldn’t take much magic to re-melt it onto paper.
There was no need to read it, really—Grant had told her the contents of it—and yet .
. . he’d been off this morning. She’d convinced him she wasn’t informing, she was sure of it—cold sweat broke out on her limbs at the prospect of him even suspecting her—but he’d been quiet and distant after they’d had sex.
That was different. Warm and affectionate, she could handle.
Cruel and violent, she was used to. But Grant was a man who loved the sound of his own voice.
He usually told Aly what he was up to, even the things she didn’t like—sometimes she thought he did that just because he enjoyed hearing her argue, knowing that in the end she’d do nothing more to stop him, no matter how much her insides knotted with guilt.
Before she could break the seal, the heavy wooden door in front of her swung open. Edzan flushed when she saw Aly. “You,” she snarled. “You thief.” Her greying black hair was in a neat bun, with just one stray tendril falling into her face.
Aly smiled sweetly. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She held the letter out. “But I think you’ll want to read this before you decide to make a scene.”
Edzan stared at the letter like it was a rotten fish. “What is the meaning of this?”
“My employer asked me to deliver this. He said it was important that you vote appropriately in order to keep your doings secret.”
Edzan snatched the letter from Aly’s hand, tearing open the seal and unfolding it. The colour drained from her face as her eyes slid down the page. “This is—this is despicable.”
Aly’s stomach churned. No one liked being blackmailed, to be sure, but she appeared more put off by the contents of the letter than what Aly had said. More put off than she should have been by being told to vote against giving the guilds more power.
“Leave,” Edzan commanded. “If you—or your employer—ever darken my doorstep again, I’m calling the police.”
Aly thumped down the stairs and strode off, thrusting her hands into her pockets.
Grant was up to something, and he was hiding it from her, his second-in-command.
Which meant that whatever it was, it was worse than his usual criminal affairs.
Aly couldn’t think of much worse than the torture, extortion, and baseless cruelty he already got up to.
Not much, other than murder.
Aly’s boots pounded on the wooden stairs, her breath coming in short gasps. She could still go home and pretend Grant had been telling her the truth.
But Edzan’s face flashed into her mind again, the look of utter disgust not at what Aly had said, but at what the letter contained. She had to find out the truth.
The heavy velvet curtains in Grant’s office were open, the sunlight glittering on the canal outside. He looked up from his desk when she stepped into the room.
“Were you successful?”
“Aye. She wasn’t happy.”
Grant raised an eyebrow. “Would you be, if someone was blackmailing you?”
Aly stepped closer, her hands curling into fists in her pockets.
“It wasn’t the blackmail that bothered her.
” She kept a close eye on Grant, searching for any sign of a reaction.
“It was what she was being blackmailed to do. It seemed an excessive reaction to just being asked to vote against expanding guild powers.”
Grant set his pen down next to the inkwell on his desk. “Then she must have had an excessive reaction to just being asked to vote against expanding guild powers.” He looked at Aly, his gaze pinning her in place. “I’d never lie to you, Aly, you know that.”
Aly forced her hands to uncurl. She had to trust that he was telling the truth. She couldn’t trust him to be kind or fair, but she had always been able to trust his honesty. If she no longer had that, then she was truly unsafe around him.
“Do you have my four shillings?”
Aly dug in her pocket, pulling out the two shillings and eleven pence—she’d spent another ha’penny on food—she had left.
“This is all I’ve got. Give me until the end of the day, and I can get the rest.” She wasn’t sure how—a shilling was two weeks’ rent on her old garret flat—but she’d find it somehow.
Grant shook his head, tutting. “Not good enough, my dear.”
“You said I had till the end of the week,” Aly protested. “It’s only Wednesday.”
“And I pay on Wednesdays, so this is the end of the week.” He lifted a hand, beckoning her. “Roll up your sleeve.”
Aly hesitated.
Grant sighed. “I haven’t got all day.”
Aly smoothed her face. “It’s just these clothes—getting blood out of silk is murder.”
“Take them off, then.” Grant gave a dismissive wave.
Aly’s fingers trembled as she unfastened the clasps on her bodice, slipping her arms out and laying it carefully over the back of a chair.
The petticoat followed, then her tie-on pockets, leaving her in her shift and stays.
Her hand shook as she folded the cuff of her chemise back, feeling terribly exposed.
She’d been unclothed in front of Grant many times before, and she was hardly naked in a shift that fell to her wrists and knees, but she felt vulnerable in her undergarments, rolling her sleeve up to reveal a network of upraised scars that laced up her arm like gauntlets.
Aly had plenty of ordinary scars, from the fine webbed lines on her cheekbone where a jar had struck her to the slash across her belly where a mark had caught her in the midst of stealing and had tried to run her through with a broken bottle, but the ones on her arms were unique.
They were cold to the touch, the skin around them grey and puckered, the same colour as the sagging flesh on the half-eaten bodies occasionally dredged out of the canals.
In idle moments, Aly had found herself wondering if there was a limit, if eventually her arms would decay and drop off, or if the rot in them would spread through her body and choke the life out of her.
She suppressed a shudder, sitting on the desk next to Grant’s chair.
His hand was warm and firm as he gripped her wrist, holding her arm in place.
Cold steel bit into her skin and she gave an involuntary jerk, but Grant held her fast. There was the sting as the blade parted her flesh, then Grant clapped a hand over her arm and pulled.
A scream clawed its way up Aly’s throat, and she clenched her teeth to keep it in. Fishhooks burrowed under her skin, digging her magic out and leaving chips of ice in their wake. She gripped the edge of the desk with her free hand, the carvings digging into her palm.
A faint smile spread on Grant’s face, his eyes half-closed with pleasure. He tilted his head back, his mahogany hair sliding over his shoulders, euphoria written on his face.
Aly gritted her teeth against the pain, counting her heartbeats until, after an eternity, Grant pulled away. He tossed a cloth at her and she pressed it over the cut in her arm. Another scar to add to the dozens already there.
Grant threw an envelope onto the desk. It made a disconcertingly quiet clink. “There’s your pay for the week, less the eight shillings you owe me.”
Aly turned to him, her mouth dropping open. “Eight? I was only short four shillings.” Eight shillings was nearly the entirety of her weekly pay.
“Aye, it was four, but you didn’t furnish them, so now it’s eight.” He stood and straightened his jacket. “Lock the door on your way out.” And without another glance at her, he was gone.