Chapter Eight #4
“Well,” Kehinde said, exhaling, “now that that’s settled, what would you say about a cup of tea?”
Kehinde sat before her in the kitchen of Devereux Place, delicately pouring two cups of tea from a celadon pot.
It was a variety she’d never tried before with condensed milk, heaps of sugar, and a spoonful of cocoa powder.
It was warm and blissfully sweet, settling over her like a blanket.
Outside the high kitchen windows, the aura of dawn had begun to lighten the sky by degrees, lifting inky black into serene blue.
They sat in silence while Elswyth drank.
When her hands—which had been shaking since the altercation in the alley—stopped trembling, Kehinde spoke.
“I apologize, Miss Elderwood. I should not have agreed to take you there tonight. What happened was my fault.”
“I practically dragged you. And if you had not been there, who knows what would have happened?”
Kehinde frowned, setting down his tea. “I had hoped it would not come to that.”
“And yet it is good to know what you are capable of. It would seem that between Percival’s rifles and your floromancy, I am in the company of dangerous men.”
“You still believe that we had a hand in your sister’s death? Even now?”
She frowned. No, she did not believe it, although she hesitated to discount any possibility completely. Kehinde had protected her from men who wanted to hurt her, or worse. She could not believe a man like Kehinde would kill Persephone.
“Secrets make any man difficult to trust. I do not know how you were able to defeat three armed men with only your bare hands. Or how your skin was able to deflect a bullet.”
Kehinde sighed. “Your uncle is not the only one in this house with a history, Miss Elderwood. Before we came to London, I was Percival’s companion on all his adventures.”
“And these adventures often required combat, did they? I know Percival is meant to be a great hunter, but I cannot imagine him doing anything more strenuous than fetching his next brandy.”
“Do not be so hasty in your assumptions. He may be growing older, but Lord Devereux is still one of the greatest marksmen alive.”
“And on these adventures… was it only animals you hunted?”
Kehinde’s smile hardened. “The world is a dangerous place, Miss Elderwood. And sometimes the men are more dangerous than the monsters.”
Elswyth paused, staring into her tea. “I fear this is a lesson I am beginning to learn.”
Kehinde considered her and then lifted the teapot to refill her cup. As he did, he winced, nearly dropping the pot. He grabbed his forearm where the bullet had grazed him.
“You’re bleeding,” Elswyth said, noting the red stain on his shirt sleeve. She extended a hand. “Here, let me see.”
“I’m fine, Miss Elderwood. I assure you, I am quite the fast healer.”
Elswyth kept her hand outstretched. Kehinde stalled for a moment before slowly offering his forearm. Elswyth unbuttoned his cuff and rolled up the sleeve, revealing the skin there.
Except it wasn’t skin at all. Beneath his sleeve, just past the wrist, was a stretch of shining black wood.
In the middle of his forearm, the wood was slightly cracked, revealing a thin line of blood.
It wasn’t smooth, as she’d initially thought.
She could see rows of small mounds, now cast in wood instead of skin.
The same pattern of scars that he bore on his face.
Elswyth looked at him, her lips parting slightly, and then back at his arm.
“Dendromancy,” she whispered. Her fingers touched his scars, now made from that impossibly hard wood.
Kehinde pulled his arm back, his eyes never leaving Elswyth. “That was not meant for you to see.”
Elswyth, hand still outstretched, pulled back as well. “Apologies. I don’t mean to touch you. That was inappropriate. But wood that can stop a bullet—it should be impossible.”
Kehinde smiled at her, a glint of something in his eye.
“Respectfully, Miss Elderwood—you have no idea what is possible.” He looked at the wood on his arm, concentrating for a moment.
As she watched, the black wood faded, absorbing back into Kehinde’s body, leaving only brown skin behind.
A bruise spread from the wound, purple-black with a red gash at its center.
Even the way he manipulated the wood should have been impossible—the amount of vitae it must have taken to summon wood of that density, over and over again…
Curiosity nagged at her, but Kehinde had made it clear that she shouldn’t pry. She would respect that.
Elswyth composed herself, finishing her cup of tea.
“May I?” she asked, gesturing toward his wound.
Kehinde nodded, and Elswyth crossed the room and returned with her botany kit, a leather case lined with vials of tinctures and pouches of herbs.
She took a vial marked “Essence of Calendula” and began applying the viscous yellow substance onto the wound.
He winced with each movement of her fingers, but they were both silent while she worked.
Elswyth hesitated and then said, “I suppose I owe you an apology. Persephone would have been well protected in this house. I was wrong to imply otherwise.”
Kehinde arched an eyebrow, sipping his tea. “Am I cleared of your suspicion so easily?”
“If you are responsible for Persephone’s disappearance, you would not assist me in searching for her.
And you have your own reasons for wanting to find Persephone’s killer, if you and my uncle are suspected by the police.
If I can trust nothing else, I will count on your sense of self preservation. ”
Kehinde smiled, all dimples and clever eyes. “If you’re certain… but you should be careful who you trust, Miss Elderwood. Even more so, those you follow into dark places.”
Elswyth accepted the gentle rebuke in silence.
Perhaps she had been na?ve to allow herself to wind up alone with a man she barely knew in a place where another woman had been murdered not long before.
But if Kehinde had not been there, what would have happened to her?
It was becoming increasingly clear that she could not find her sister on her own.
She needed to be careful who she trusted, yes, but she needed allies, too.
“I will be more cautious in the future, Kehinde. And thank you. For coming to my aid.”
Kehinde shrugged and sipped his tea. “It would not have been necessary if you had respected your uncle’s wishes and stayed inside.”
“And yet we learned so much.”
“Such as? From where I sit, we have little more than eldren tales and a ruined gown.”
“Persephone’s gown,” Elswyth said firmly. “I am not mistaken. It was a gift from our father and embroidered with elderwood branches. Persephone was in the Rows the night she was murdered. I am sure of it.”
A chill settled over his features. He looked to the end of the table, where the gown lay spread across the wood. Now the red stain over the stomach was plain to see, even beneath the brown and the black filth.
“You’re certain it’s hers?” Kehinde said.
“I know it, Kehinde.”
“And you understand what this means, then?”
“Yes,” Elswyth said, her voice shaking. “It means that something horrible has happened to her.” Somewhere deep inside herself, Elswyth had hidden a belief that her sister might still be alive.
That everyone else had been mistaken. But here was Persephone’s gown, and it was stained with blood.
Evidence that she had suffered and died in a filthy alleyway so very far from home.
“What I don’t understand is why,” Elswyth said. “What possible reason would she have to visit the Rows?”
“We do not know how she arrived there. But we know how she left,” Kehinde said.
“The black coach,” Elswyth said. “The one the girl described.”
He nodded. “A fine black coach. Gillie said that she saw Persephone entering it. Why would she enter a coach with a stranger?”
Elswyth thought for a moment. “If she was running from something, or bleeding like the girl said, I suppose she would have entered any coach she could.”
“That, or she knew the person inside,” Kehinde said. He looked at her significantly, and she understood.
“Or at the very least, she trusted them because their coach was expensive and she believed she had a reason to,” Elswyth replied.
“Precisely. Now the question is, was the person in the coach the one who murdered her?”
“It would seem logical. But then why was Persephone already bleeding when she got into the coach?” Elswyth said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“It also doesn’t prove any sort of connection to the Reaper, as you claim,” Kehinde said.
Elswyth hesitated, her fingers tying off a stitch. “I suppose. But what are the chances that two killers would be hunting women in the Rows at the same time?”
“London is a dangerous city.”
Elswyth inserted the needle again, perhaps too quickly.
“But then there is the matter of timing. One victim a month since September, save for the month of November. The very same month Persephone disappeared. I know that this is not enough on its own. But when I went to the police station to discuss the bouquet, the detective assigned to Persephone’s disappearance is also the detective assigned to the Reaper murders. Why? What do they have in common?”
Kehinde considered. “That is curious, yes. But it is still within the realm of coincidence.”
Elswyth shook her head while she tied off another stitch. “And it felt as though Inspector Reed was deliberately trying to scare me away. I assume it is because I am a woman. He does not believe I should be involving myself. But he knows something. Something he will not share.”
“Perhaps… or perhaps there is another reason he does not want you involved. And why the killer’s coach was so fine.”
“What do you…” Elswyth started, but the words died in her mouth as the pieces fell together.
“The Reaper is a nobleman. That’s why Persephone got into his coach.
That’s why Inspector Reed tried to scare me away.
He’s trying to cover up what really happened to Persephone and the other women.
Someone—someone powerful—has coerced his silence. ”
“Yes. Someone very noble or very rich,” Kehinde said. “Most often, when a person is murdered, it is by someone they know. Persephone was nobility. It would follow that her killer was also nobility.”
Elswyth took a sip of her tea. Her nerves felt frayed; she doubted she would sleep that night. “This is troubling, Kehinde.”
“To say the least. What are you thinking?” Kehinde asked.
Elswyth stared at the wall, then through the window, where the moon shone down from the treetops.
“I don’t know. Perhaps this is all madness.
Perhaps Persephone is not connected to the other women at all.
But her gown is evidence that she was in the Rows that night… why? I thought I knew my sister.”
Kehinde shrugged, sipping his tea. “As you said before, everyone has their secrets.”
Elswyth looked the man up and down: Kehinde, who had seemed so gentle. And yet he’d defeated three armed men with little more than a scratch to show for it.
“Indeed.” She packed away the mortar and pestle, the vial of marigold tincture, and the jar of powdered yarrow. “Either way, I will require protection if I am to continue investigating Persephone’s disappearance,” she said. “Mr. Ogunlana, I would like to retain your services.”
Kehinde raised an eyebrow, lips opening into a bewildered smile. “Ha! Even after all we went through, you wish to continue,” he said.
“Of course. This is only the start. If I am to find Persephone, I will need to return to the Rows. I have to ask more questions, perhaps find Gillie if I can. And I will need help. I cannot pay much, but I can offer a small sum—”
“I do not need your money,” he said. “And as much as I would like to clear my name and your uncle’s, Parliament is in session and your uncle needs my assistance. I have my own work to do.”
“But—”
Kehinde stopped her, raising his hand. “But neither can I let you leave the house unprotected. And if the Reaper truly is a nobleman, then you will need to look for him in places I cannot follow. Therefore, in the interest of clearing any suspicion or blame cast on Percival and myself, I will help you in what ways I can.”
Elswyth’s heart leapt. “I would be in your debt, and—”
He stopped her again. “As I said, you cannot leave the house unprotected, and I cannot be there to protect you. And so you will need to learn to protect yourself.”
Elswyth frowned, setting down her botany kit. “With violence, you mean. As you did tonight.”
“I hope it does not come to that. But you are playing a dangerous game, Elswyth. You must be ready.”
“But, Kehinde, look at me. I am not strong enough. I could not do what you did to those men tonight.”
“But you are a floromancer. A talented floromancer can kill with only a touch.”
Elswyth froze. She flexed her left hand and felt a slow prickle move up her scar. Then she moved to the other side of the kitchen, toward where the knives glittered on the wall, to wash her tools in the sink.
“I will not kill, Kehinde,” she said. She gestured to the sutures on his arm. “I use my abilities to heal, to study. Never to kill.”
“Taking him alive would be preferable, yes. Having him stand trial for his crimes would certainly clear my name and Percival’s.
But to whom will he stand trial? You said yourself that Inspector Reed and the police may have been corrupted.
Do you really think the corruption stops with them?
If we do discover the man’s identity—who will provide the justice you seek?
And will you still feel so certain when his knife is at your throat? ”
She turned the faucet and began to scrub the blood from her hands. “I will not kill,” she said. “Never again.”
Kehinde stared at her, eyes tracing her scar. If he was startled by her admission, he did not show it. “The choice is yours, Elswyth. But if you seek the Reaper, you must learn to defend yourself. Whether you use what I teach you is your choice, but I will not leave you unarmed.”
Elswyth hesitated. If Kehinde had not been there with her tonight, what would have happened? She had promised herself that she would never kill again. But if she did discover the identity of the man who killed Persephone, and the law would not provide justice… what would she do then?
“You are hesitating,” Kehinde said. “I wonder: Will the Reaper?”
Elswyth felt the blood rush into her scar until it seemed to crawl under her clothes. She wanted nothing more than to scratch it off. Instead, she nodded slowly. “Teach me.”