THIRTY-ONE #2
Calum inhaled as though he was going to speak, and Aly blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Did you get anywhere with tracking Flora’s watch?”
Calum blinked. “What? Oh.” He shook his head.
“Nothing. It was like there was some sort of block. I’ve been wanting to try with some fae ointment but, well, you know how hard that is to get hold of.
” Fae ointment, despite the name, didn’t actually have anything to do with the fae other than myth.
Supposedly it allowed people to see through glamours, but it also enabled them to see through ordinary human veiling spells.
And it was vanishingly rare and tremendously expensive.
It could only be acquired from a handful of manufacturers in Vaedhoun, all of whom guarded their formulas carefully.
It was the sort of thing Grant might keep in one of his caches, obtained through means only he knew, but the caches were locked to his employees’ magic; he’d know if she so much as opened one to look for the ointment.
The last thing she wanted was to draw his attention to her.
Besides, there was little use in it when Flora was likely untraceable because she was dead.
“So, we know who our murderer is, but we can’t get at him,” Aly said.
Calum gave a tight smile. “More or less.”
Aly leant her head back on the pillows. “We are so fucked.”
Steam slapped Aly’s face like a wet towel, curling her hair into a halo around her head as she stepped into the hospital baths.
It had been two days since she’d arrived in hospital.
Two days since Grant had tried to kill her and she’d stabbed him with iron in return.
Her head still felt like it was cracking open every time she saw a bright light, and she was prone to dizzy spells, but she had recovered well enough that a nurse had decided she could have a bath and properly wash the blood and grease out of her hair.
The baths were lit with beeswax candles that scented the air with honey, perched upon iron candelabra and stuffed into sconces lining the sandstone walls.
The shutters were closed over the windows, blocking out the dark winter morning.
Aly blinked, grateful for the low light after the harsh white magical lamps from the corridor.
A row of copper hip tubs stood on either side of the room, wooden folding screens standing like sentinels between them.
Steam scented with calendula curled off the bath before Aly, the water deep enough it would reach to her waist when she sat.
A rickety white wood table stood next to the tub, bearing a ceramic jug and a bar of soap in a dish.
The nurse helped Aly lift her shift over her head. The linen smelled sharp and musty, and she wrinkled her nose. It needed a wash as badly as she did.
“I’ll have an attendant bring you a fresh one,” the nurse said. Her fingertips froze, hovering over the bell on the table as her gaze fell to Aly’s arms.
Aly crossed her arms, trying to hide the scars that crept up her forearms, but the grey pallid lines were still visible over the tops of her arms and in the crook of her elbow.
The nurse’s lip curled, but she took Aly’s hand and helped her into the bath, careful not to touch her scars, as though she might be infected by association. The water was warm and welcoming, but Aly felt cold, thinking of the look of disgust on the nurse’s face.
The only person she had ever known who had accepted her scars had tried to kill her. He may have caused most of them in the first place, but he’d been the only person who had seen all of her and not rejected her.
She dipped the jug under the surface of the water, tilting her head back to pour the water through her hair.
There was nothing to be done about it besides make sure Calum never did see her scars, and in the meantime, there was no harm in enjoying her bath.
She grabbed the bar of soap and scraped it over her head, scrubbing the lather into the blood-matted hair on the side of her head.
The whole time, the nurse stood next to the bath, her chestnut hair pulled tightly back from her face in a severe plait, close enough to help but far enough not to hover.
“A fellow came round here this morning looking for an Aly Muir,” the nurse said, as Aly poured more water over her hair to rinse the suds out.
Aly’s throat seized and she spluttered, coughing on the water as she dropped the jug into the bath with a clatter. “Aly Muir?”
The nurse nodded, her expression shrewd. “He gave a description that matched you.”
“Muir’s my birth name,” Aly said quickly, her heart throbbing in her chest.
The tension in the nurse’s face smoothed over and she lifted the jug, scooping up water and pouring it over Aly’s head, her other hand shielding Aly’s face from the stream.
“There was no record of that name, of course, so he was sent away, but I can tell the receptionist that’s you, in case he comes back. ”
“No.” The word came out sharp as a knife. “I mean—no, thank you. I don’t wish to see anyone who knows me by that name.”
“Understood. I won’t say anything.” The nurse scrubbed more soap into the matted hair on Aly’s head, her fingertips firm on Aly’s scalp.
“Where are my clothes?” She needed to get out.
If Grant was looking for her—and he was the only man likely to be looking for her as Aly Muir—she had to leave, before he figured out she’d used Calum’s name.
He had a mole in Calum’s station house, after all; he could find out Calum’s surname readily enough.
“An attendant is fetching you a clean shift,” the nurse said, pouring more water over Aly’s hair.
“No.” Aly shook her head. “I mean my real clothes. The ones I wore when I came in here.”
The nurse’s arm paused, dipping the jug into the bathwater. “I don’t think it’s wise for you to leave yet.”
“I have to, I—” She wasn’t safe there, wasn’t safe anywhere until Grant was gone and she was beyond his reach. “You can’t keep me here against my will, can you?”
The nurse pressed her lips together. “We cannot.” She reached for a towel and helped Aly to her feet, wrapping her in the squishy diamond-weave linen.
“I’ll have your clothes brought here.” She rang the bell on the table, and moments later an attendant appeared at her shoulder.
After a murmured direction from the nurse, the attendant departed, returning soon after with Aly’s clothes and setting them on the small table next to the bath.
Aly pawed through the pile, already suspecting what she’d find. Her knives were gone. Whether Calum had taken them or the hospital had, she was weaponless now. She suppressed a sigh and began to dress.
Her linen shift had been laundered and pressed.
It smelled of lavender and sunshine as she pulled it over her head.
She laced her stays loosely in front of her, then twisted them around and tightened the spiral lacing along her spine until they were firm around her torso, before following with the rest of her clothing.
The garments were all good quality and fit her well, but they weren’t hers.
The clothes she had owned, the half-dozen threadbare linen sarks, the patched waistcoat and the kilt that sat a little too low on her waist, were all in Grant’s flat.
All she had left that was hers, truly hers, was her coat.
She reached for it now and fingered the fabric buttons, scraps of grey and blue and brown wool she’d scavenged and painstakingly stitched by rushlight, stopping every quarter hour to move the rush further in its holder, wash the tallow from her hands, and start again.
The coat had originally had silver buttons, ten of them shining and bright down the front. She’d saved up her earnings from her apprenticeship for months to pay for it to be re-cut for her, and had been so pleased with herself for saving up for quality workmanship.
That had lasted about three months. Soon she was wishing she’d saved the money and bought a cheap and fraying second-hand coat.
She’d considered selling the coat, but it would only need to be replaced, and so instead she’d sold the buttons, wincing every time the pawnbroker’s scissors flashed, and another button tumbled off the coat.
She’d kept the coat because she’d needed something to wear—and she’d kept it as a reminder. It was a symbol of how quickly her finances could change, of how swiftly she could go from stable to destitute.
She had two shillings and thruppence in the pocket of her coat. She didn’t need to check—there was never a time when she didn’t know the exact accounting of her pockets, not since three months after she’d had the coat tailored.
Two shillings and thruppence, and she needed to find somewhere to live. And her employer had just tried to kill her.
Panic clawed at the back of her throat as she sorted through her options. Anything that would draw Grant’s attention was out. That meant no salching, no conning her way into rich people’s homes, and certainly no selling anything he’d given her.
She poked a hand in her pocket, counting the coins in her purse, the fleeting hope that she’d misremembered cratering as she counted out two shillings and thruppence. She had few choices left to earn money, and none of them were good.
She took a shaking breath, thanked the nurse, and limped out. There weren’t any good choices, but the alternative was worse.