FORTY-TWO
Aly spun round, drawing her dagger in the same movement. The weapon shook in her hand as she levelled it at her assailant.
“Rory?” He was one of Grant’s lieutenants—his new deputy, for all Aly knew.
Rory glanced down at the knife, the tip just below the hem of his waistcoat. “Is that really necessary?”
Aly didn’t lower her blade. “Last time I saw one of the Wulver’s lot they tried to drown me. What do you want?”
“He wasn’t supposed to do that. The Wulver wants you brought to him alive.”
“So he can kill me himself?” She shrugged off Rory’s hand, stepping back.
“He knows you’re under the protection of another crime lord,” Rory said, shaking his head. “He just wants to talk.”
Aly scoffed. She knew better than to believe that.
“I’m all right, pal. Tell him he can fuck off.
” She hoped her bluster concealed the fear unfurling in her gut; it was only a matter of time before Grant learnt she was no longer working for Yvaani, and without the Leannan sìth’s protection there was nothing to stop him harming Aly.
She started to back away, keeping her eyes on Rory.
His arm shot out, closing over her wrist. He jerked her to him, pain tearing through her injured shoulder and darkening the edges of her vision.
She stumbled, her knife clattering to the cobblestones.
Panic clogged her throat. If Grant got his hands on her, he’d make drowning look like a good death.
Her boots scrabbled, unable to gain purchase on the damp cobblestones as Rory dragged her behind him like a sack full of coal.
The street was empty, and besides, if she screamed in this part of town people would run away from, not towards, the sound—especially if they recognised her and Rory. A crime lord sending his lieutenant after a wayward deputy was hardly the sort of thing anyone wanted to get involved with.
Aly sucked her teeth against the impending pain as she dropped her weight, jerking her wrist out of Rory’s grasp. Agony seared through her shoulder, blurring her vision, and she drew in a ragged gasp, swooping to pick up her knife.
Rory’s bulk slammed into her, knocking her to the ground.
She landed hard on the cobblestones, the air shooting out of her.
For a moment she lay there, stunned, unable to draw a single shuddering breath.
Then Rory’s hands clamped on her shoulders, his fingers digging into her flesh.
She writhed, driving an elbow up into his abdomen.
He let out a grunt, but his weight didn’t let up.
Her knife glinted on the ground before her, nearest her left hand.
She reached for it, clawing at the cobblestones as Rory bore down on her, his hands tightening on her arms. Her shoulder burned and she gritted her teeth, stretching her hand out further until her fingers closed on the hilt and she rolled, slashing the blade towards Rory’s face.
He threw out a hand to block the motion, the impact jarring her bones and travelling through her shoulder. Grabbing her wrist, he twisted it so the blade pointed at Aly’s throat, his other hand closing over her fingers around the hilt. The tendons in her arm screamed at the pressure from his grasp.
Sweat dripped down his auburn hair, stinging Aly’s eyes. She threw her right arm up, wedging her forearm below the other wrist. Her arms shook, the knife in Rory’s grasp filling her vision as it bore down on her, descending as surely as an anchor in the sea. Fear gripped Aly’s insides.
“I thought the Wulver wanted me alive,” she bit out, her arms quivering. Her left shoulder throbbed, and she didn’t know how much longer it would last.
“He does.” Rory spoke through gritted teeth. “But I don’t.”
Aly thrust her hips up, letting her elbows buckle at the same time.
Rory fell forwards and Aly threw herself to the side, rolling over so the knife slid past her head, close enough to shear off a lock of hair that had escaped her plait.
Pain seared across her forearm, blood dripping onto Rory’s grey waistcoat.
Aly tightened her grip on the knife when Rory threw out his hands to break the fall, her chest heaving as she pressed the edge of the blade into his throat.
Beneath her, his face twisted with hatred, his cheeks turning red.
She had to do it. He wanted her dead badly enough to disobey Grant’s direct orders.
Her hand trembled, from exhaustion as much as nerves. She couldn’t kill a man she had at her mercy. She had to—and she couldn’t.
Rory’s blood pulsed through his artery, his throat bulging over the edge of the blade with every heartbeat. Just a little more pressure, and she would sever it, the bright blood gushing forth like a wave. Nausea rose in her throat as silver flashed in the edge of her vision.
Rory’s knife drove towards Aly’s abdomen and she twisted, the blade slicing across her flank as she rolled off him, coming to a crouch with her hand clapped over her torso.
Rory was on his feet, too, and they circled each other, each looking for an opening.
Aly’s shoulder ached, and she wasn’t used to fighting with her right hand forwards.
It felt awkward and ungainly. She drew in a trembling breath.
“Why kill me?” she asked, playing for time as much as because she wanted the answer.
She backed towards the end of the alley.
It was a gamble—it meant going downhill and putting Rory at an advantage—but it was a busy enough street she stood a chance at losing him in the crowd if she could just slip away.
“Grant won’t appoint a new deputy until he’s certain you won’t come back.” Rory’s chest was heaving as much as Aly’s. “As long as you’re alive, he thinks you will.”
Aly scoffed. “Doesn’t he remember he tried to strangle me the last time I saw him? I’m not coming back.”
“Aye, well, do us all a favour and tell that to him.” Rory lunged for her, and she slid out of the way, stepping forwards on the outside of his arm and driving her knife between his ribs.
Hot coppery blood drenched her hand as a grunt escaped Rory’s lips.
She hefted her shoulder under him, shoving him off her knife.
He crumpled to the ground, moaning, his knife falling out of his grasp.
Aly kicked it away, dropping her own knife to the ground as she heaved his body into the canal.
Her healing shoulder screamed with the effort, and she gritted her teeth, rolling his body over the edge of the street to splash in the water below.
The tide was going out soon, and would take his body far from the city.
She scooped up her knife, wrapping it and her bloody hand in a handkerchief and stuffing them into her pocket, eyes darting from one person to the next, hoping they didn’t notice as she hurried away and onto the main road.
Her lungs were caught in a vice as she walked through the streets, head down and gaze fixed on the cobblestones.
She’d killed a man and, for the first time, it hadn’t been on Grant’s orders.
It had been her own doing, her own choice to shove his body into the canal, never to be found by his loved ones.
Pain throbbed in her side and she stopped, leaning against a wall.
With frantic hands she felt for the wound, her breath catching as she peeled apart the slice in her bodice.
Relief washed through her as she inspected the cut.
Her stays had taken the worst of it. There was a long, jagged cut in the top layer of fabric, the reeds visible and scored but unbroken beneath.
The knife had glanced off her stays and only bruised her.
The cold seeped into her; it had begun to snow, and her sleeve was coated with blood.
She winced, hoping it would come out. The coat was all she had left of her father, and easily the nicest item she owned.
She looked around, seeking any sort of familiarity in her surroundings, and spotted the sign of the Copper Kettle swinging in the wind.
Somehow, her feet had taken her to the place she’d so often sought safety.
From there, she trudged back to Calum’s house, darting glances over her shoulder every so often, but there was no sign of pursuit.
She found Calum in the kitchen, chopping vegetables. The fire was roaring, and she sat next to it, shivering.
Calum’s eyes widened when he saw her. “Aly, what happened?”
Aly looked down at her blood-crusted sleeve. “Oh, most of that’s not mine.”
“Most of it?” Calum made a beckoning gesture. “Give it here, I should be able to get the blood out if I soak it now.” He lifted a large copper basin onto the table, and without so much as a word from him it began to fill with water.
“How are you doing that?” She’d never seen anyone materialise water out of nothing before. It wasn’t something that should be possible. “Where’s the water coming from?”
“The moisture in the air.” He said it as if it was obvious—and perhaps to him, with his globe lights and tracking spells, it was. He gestured for her coat. “If it’s not yours, whose is it?”
Aly eased her arms out of the coat. “One of Grant’s goons.
” She passed the coat to Calum and began unfastening the hooks on her bodice.
“Apparently Grant still thinks I might go back to him and has been sending folk out to find me. And,” she went on, passing the bodice to Calum, “it seems some of them would rather bring him my dead body than my live one because they’re vying for my position.
” She looked down. Her skirt was splattered with rusty blood as well, and she unfastened the buttons at either side, slipping out of it.
She took off her pockets and dropped them on the table with a thud, taking out the handkerchief-wrapped knife and checking the pocket itself for blood.
The worn patchwork fabric seemed to be unharmed.
Calum took the skirt, careful to immerse the bloodiest parts of each garment.
He turned back to Aly, his eyes darkening as he looked at her in her shift and stays.
Aly’s skin heated under his gaze as it slid across her breasts and down her torso.
His jaw slackened and he took a step towards her, then stopped.
“What happened to your arm?”
Aly looked down. Rory’s blood hadn’t penetrated to her shift, and there was only a single slash of red on the white linen, where her own knife had sliced across her arm under Rory’s weight.
“It’s nothing,” she said quickly. “Just a surface wound.”
Calum reached for her. “Let me take a look.”
Aly shook her head, her heartbeat thudding in her ears. He couldn’t see her forearms. “It’s fine, really.”
“Don’t be absurd.” A huff of a laugh escaped his lips.
“It’s nothing to worry about.” Aly slipped past him, lowering herself into a chair next to her bloodied knife. “I need to clean this before it rusts.”
“Why won’t you let me take a look?” Calum leant against the table, folding his arms.
“Because there’s nothing to see,” Aly said.
Calum grabbed her arm when she reached for the knife.
“Then there’s no harm in me looking, is there?
” His hand was warm on her forearm, the fingertips of his free hand whispering over the inside of her wrist. She tried to pull back, her breath catching in her throat, but his grip was firm, and before she could stop him, he’d lifted her sleeve back.
For a moment, time stopped, the two of them suspended in a tableau with her hand in Calum’s, his fingers on her sleeve.
Then the illusion shattered, crashing down around Aly like the broken window she had fallen through when she was twelve.
She knew the exact moment Calum saw her scars and knew that she would never forget the way his expression twisted from tenderness to fury, his lip curling in a snarl.
“Get out of my house,” he growled.
Aly jerked her hand back, her entire body trembling.
This was no more than she had expected, but everything she had hoped wouldn’t happen.
He had cared for her, but all it had taken was a glance at her scars, a peek at what she had stooped to in desperation, to destroy it.
“Calum, please.” Her voice shook. “I can explain.”
Calum reached for the knife on the table, and there was no affection in his expression. “Now.”
Aly stood, so quickly the chair clattered to the floor behind her, and fled.