FORTY-ONE
The tisane from Leslie had worked wonders. Within a few days, Aly’s sling was off and, though her shoulder was still tender and stiff, she could write a few words without the result looking like a child’s first letters.
“What happened?” Yvaani asked, her brow furrowed in suspicion, as Aly reached for a box above her head and winced.
“It’s nothing,” Aly said. “Just an old injury acting up. Those doss-house beds aren’t exactly stuffed with feathers.”
“As long as that’s all it is. The bruises on your neck are barely healed.”
Aly’s throat tightened at Yvaani’s concern.
She tried to tell herself that Yvaani was fretting she was reporting to Grant, but she knew Yvaani better than that.
Her old friend was worried for her. Despite Yvaani’s hesitance to hire her initially, now Aly found herself wondering if part of the reason Yvaani had agreed had been to help Aly get away from Grant for good.
And Aly had repaid Yvaani’s assistance with theft—and all she had to show for the betrayal was proof of what she’d suspected all along: Flora was dead and thrown in the sea.
The bell above the shop door rang before Aly could reply, a gust of wind blowing in alongside a girl of around fourteen, her blonde hair pulled into two tight plaits. “Message for Yvaani,” she said, holding out a scrap of paper.
Yvaani took the paper, pressing a penny into the messenger’s hand. The messenger rushed out and Yvaani scanned the paper, her lips puckering. She took a deep breath, then crossed to the door and threw the bolt with a thud that reverberated through Aly.
Yvaani turned to face Aly. Her eyes were puffy, like she hadn’t slept much. “We need to talk.”
Aly’s skin prickled. The messenger’s note was still clutched in Yvaani’s hand, too far away for Aly to see what it said.
Aly exhaled, trying to keep her voice light. “What about?”
“Did you hear about that fire down by the quay?” Yvaani ran a hand over her face.
Aly kept her expression carefully blank. “Aye.”
“It started in the tunnel where I was storing my goods. One of the oilskins hadn’t been removed and caught on a stray spark. It’s been a complete nightmare.”
“I’m sorry,” Aly said. “That’s rotten.”
“Are you?” Yvaani’s eyes bored into her.
“Because this letter”—her hand shook as she brandished the paper at Aly—“would suggest you’re not.
A witness—whose information I trust—reports seeing, ‘A tall, dark-haired man with a white streak in his hair carrying a small ginger woman from the scene’.
” Yvaani stepped towards Aly. “That sounds awfully like you and your copper, doesn’t it? ”
Aly’s skin was hot and feverish, but she kept her posture relaxed as she said, “Sounds like us, perhaps, but it wasn’t us.”
“How dare you.” Yvaani’s tone was quiet, but Aly heard the suppressed rage rumbling beneath the surface and took an involuntary step back. “Even now, when I know you did it, you haven’t even got the decency to tell the truth.”
“I told you—”
“It wasn’t you?” Yvaani snarled. “Because that’s not all the witness said.
He thought you both looked familiar, so he followed you.
Your copper’s called Erskine, isn’t he? He arrested my witness a while back.
And everyone round here knows your face.
” Her shoulders drooped, and her voice softened, and that was worse than her anger. “Why did you do it, Aly?”
Aly wrapped her arms around herself, her hands clutching her ribs. “You know the missing salchs? I had a lead on one of them, but I needed the fae ointment to try to find her. The fire was an accident. I only meant to take the ointment.”
Yvaani slumped against the counter. “You could have just asked.”
“I didn’t—” Aly swallowed and wet her lips. “I didn’t want you to get in trouble with your buyer. I thought—I thought I could nick it and make the place look ransacked, and you wouldn’t be harmed by it.”
“Well, we can see how well that idea of yours worked out.” Yvaani pressed herself off the counter, squaring her shoulders.
“I’ll have to let you go. You stole from me and lied about it, and even if I was willing to forgive all that for the sake of the missing folk—which I’m not—I can’t afford it after you burned all my goods. ”
“I’m sorry,” Aly said. She didn’t bother trying to protest. Yvaani was right. Without a backward glance at her sometime friend, she crossed the shop, threw the bolt back, and opened the front door, bringing in the briny scent of the sea on a gust of air.
The sun was warm on her face as she stepped into the street.
Imbolc was approaching, but the winter storms were still enough of a risk it would be weeks before all the trade that depended on a steady stream of ships coming in would be thriving again.
The brothels would have a glut of new customers in a few weeks’ time, and stealing cash—the only thing she could steal, without a fence—was always easier from wealthy travellers, not locals.
Travellers were less likely to report to the police when they’d been swindled; they were too embarrassed to have been taken in by the sort of thing everyone warned them against. But it was all weeks away.
Weeks in which Aly would be reliant on Calum’s charity.
Aly rubbed her hands over her forearms, her scars burning.
There was one thing she had left to sell, something that was in high demand year-round and of little interest to visitors.
Her skin grew cold at the thought. It was excruciating and dangerous, and left her weak and exhausted.
There was no way Calum wouldn’t notice if she was living under his roof.
A tiny, foolish part of her brain suggested that he might not be bothered by it—or, if he was, it would only be for the risk to Aly. He cared about her, that much was obvious, and he knew all the missing people he sought were salchs yet still went to great lengths to find them.
Aly shook her head, remembering the look of disgust on his face in Leslie’s surgery.
He was just like everyone else in that regard.
Perhaps he was less inclined to look the other way when wealthy and connected people like Gibson paid for others’ magic, but like most people he would reserve the worst of his disdain for those selling it.
And it was, after all, a crime. Calum knew Aly had done worse—far worse—than letting strangers cut her open and bleed her dry, but if his horror was greater than his sympathy, he could arrest her for it.
She’d be thrown in prison—where there were likely other inmates who would leap at the chance to kill the Wulver’s deputy—or sentenced to transportation, forced to labour in a mine until her sentence was complete.
So caught up was she in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the footsteps approaching behind her until she heard the voice cracking through the air. “Oi! Wolf pup!”
Aly spun round, her shoulder twinging as she reached for a knife on instinct. She dropped her left hand, reaching instead with her right, her fingers curling around the hilt of the second blade at the small of her back.
A broad-shouldered man in tweed trousers stood behind her, his dark hair half up in a plait. His lips curled in a snarl, his entire body radiating hatred.
“You talking to me?” she said, resisting the urge to look behind her. She was in a narrow close between a warehouse and a canal; a stone wall stretched up on one side and the street plummeted away on the other.
“Aye, I’m talking to you.” The man stepped closer to Aly, and she willed herself not to step back. “I want to know what your boss has done with my pal Alec.”
Aly blinked. “I haven’t got a boss.”
“Then why did you respond when I called you Wolf pup?”
Aly spread her left hand out to her side, gesturing to the alley and keeping her right hand close to her blade. “We’re the only people in this close. Who else would you be talking to?”
“You’re the Wulver’s deputy, no?” The man took a step towards her, drawing a dagger from its sheath as he approached. He held it loose in his hand, but the blade was pointed at Aly. “I’ve seen you with him.”
Aly lifted her chin, her fingers tightening around the grip of her knife.
“Well, if you’ve seen me with him, you know he doesn’t appreciate threats to his people.
” She slid the dagger out of its scabbard, gripping it firmly in an effort to disguise that it was her weaker hand.
“And if you know who he is, you should also know he trains his people very well.”
The man shrugged. “Aye, but you’re a toty wee thing. I could best you.”
Aly leant a shoulder against the warehouse wall, tilting the blade to catch the sunlight. Her heart was pounding in her chest, but she kept her expression calm, bored even. “Do you want to test that?” She certainly didn’t. “Or we could have a conversation, like civilised adults.”
“The Wulver’s deputy, civilised? Aye, right.” But he lowered his knife, sheathing it.
Aly did likewise, keeping her hand on her hip, near the dagger’s hilt. “Now, can you tell me more about your pal Alec?” Was that the Redcap’s deputy? It was a common enough name.
The man’s eyes widened, and he took two steps back, then turned and fled. Aly stared after him. What had she said that was so terrifying?
Then a hand clamped down on her shoulder.