Chapter Twenty-Three #3
“I know,” Elswyth said. “I know, and I’m so sorry, I never meant to hurt her.
But now you see. Now you see why I cannot kill, why I will not.
Never again, Uncle. I promised myself, promised my father.
I will never take another life. If the Reaper comes for me again, I will fight, but I will do so without killing.
Next time, I’ll be ready. I’ll be better. ”
Percival stopped, burying his head in his hands. When he spoke, Elswyth could see that he had started to cry. “There will not be a next time, Elswyth,” he said.
Elswyth wiped her eyes. “What do you mean? You just said that he would try and have me killed again.”
“He would try that, if he could. If you were still a threat to him. Still investigating. But you will not be—you are to leave London as soon as you are able.”
Elswyth sat frozen. Memories of the conversation she’d overheard between Percival and Kehinde surfaced. She’d half-thought they were a dream. “But—but—this attack, Uncle, it means I’m close—”
Percival looked away. “You can save yourself, Elswyth. If you continue down this path, then you will surely die. And I will not let that happen. Not when I have already lost your sister.”
Elswyth began to stutter. “Is this… is this because of what I’ve told you? Is this because of my mother—”
Percival put up a hand to silence her. His face was stone cold. “As soon as you are able,” he said.
Elswyth lay there, too weak to argue, a dumbstruck expression on her face. All of it, all her hard work, and she was to be sent home. Persephone was never to be found, or avenged.
Percival approached her. He lay a hand on her shoulder, but the motion felt distant. It seemed he could scarcely look at her. “I know that this is difficult for you. You may hate me. But now, at least, you will have a long life in which to forgive me.”
Percival turned from her and moved toward the door.
Not for the first time, Elswyth thought he’d grown older in the past few months.
He moved more slowly, his limp more pronounced, and he relied more on his cane.
He seemed almost broken. Did he despise her now, as her father did? Was she a monster to him, too?
Percival half-turned as he left the room, giving her a sad smile, and closed the door behind him. Elswyth heard the distinct click of the lock engaging.
And she was alone.
Days passed in the house. The door to Elswyth’s chambers remained locked except when she was being watched over.
She took her meals abed, and Mrs. Rose came and doted on her every day.
She read the letters Elswyth had received from the few sympathetic ladies who had written her with half-hearted invitations to tea when she was feeling better.
But the season was slowly coming to a close.
Day by day, important events ticked on, and Elswyth was trapped in a bruised body, in a locked room.
Her body was healing quickly, though, that was true.
Every day the scars grew fainter, and the bruises less pronounced, fading from black to blue to green, and finally to a sickly yellow.
She moved about the room with less pain.
Dr. Gall came almost daily to check the bandages and apply his salves, and each time he was more and more surprised.
She didn’t tell him exactly how she had healed so quickly—how she could still feel Mr. Clipper’s vitae swimming through her body, feeding into her wounds.
How she’d killed another so that she might live.
Monster, her father had said. What have you done?
Dr. Gall did pry, unable to deny his own natural curiosity.
Elswyth even considered telling him the truth.
But what would become of her then? Would he still respect her as a scientist, or would she become just another specimen, something to be studied?
No—no one could know the secrets of her ability. No one could see her as she truly was.
To Mrs. Rose’s credit, she adamantly disagreed with Uncle Percival on the matter of Elswyth’s departure from London.
She berated him whenever he was in the house, which was not often.
He spent nearly all his days at Parliament dealing with the riots brought on by famine and hysteria over the Reaper murders.
Elswyth heard her arguing with him up and down the staircase as he tried to ready for bed.
“I’m quite sure that we’re close to a visit from Daniel de Lyon, which is the first step, you know, to a proposal—”
“She has a proposal already. Cousin Ficus will do, if it keeps my niece safe.”
“Yes, but what of all the work we’ve done? Would it not be a waste to deny her a better match? To deny her a chance at love?”
“Forgive me if I’m mistaken, but love is rather difficult when one party is dead.”
“I’ve never felt that way at all,” Mrs. Rose said. “Really, Percival, don’t you think you might be overreacting—”
“You may address me as Lord Devereux, Mrs. Rose. I am not usually one to remind one of one’s place, but do remember that you are a guest in my house and an employee of my family.
It is not your place to question the decisions I make for my blood.
Now. Elswyth will marry Mr. Ficus. That is settled.
With that in mind, I think that your services as a matchmaker are no longer required. ”
“But—”
“You have been contracted until the end of the social season, and I will honor that contract. But I will not hear any more talk of this.”
There was a pause, and then Mrs. Rose said, “Like bloody hell you won’t.” For a moment, it seemed as though her elegant accent dropped, revealing something slightly more crass beneath.
Percival said nothing. Mrs. Rose cleared her throat.
“Apologies. But her father writes my checks, not you. And until I hear word from him dismissing me, I’ll keep on doing my job, which is to find Miss Elderwood the best possible match.
And I cannot do that if she leaves. So I will continue my lessons with her because…
because she deserves better than the life you lot have cooked up for her. And that is that, Lord Devereux.”
Percival mumbled something and then huffed. “Fine, fine. Continue your lessons if you must. But by the light of God’s green Eden, please, do it quietly.”
There was a small, satisfied sound from Mrs. Rose. Her usual accent returned, precise as ever. “Perfectly splendid, Lord Devereux. I shall call upon you again a-morrow.”
And Mrs. Rose’s small steps disappeared down the stairs.
That night, Elswyth awoke to a shadow over her bed.
Terror gripped her. In her mind’s eye, she saw Mr. Clipper’s violet teeth and smelled the poison and stink of him.
She thought of a man in her room again, another assassin, and felt as though she might scream.
But she would not be caught off-guard again.
No, this time, she remembered Kehinde’s training.
Elswyth pooled vitae into her left hand. From her fingertips, she summoned witch hazel thorns, dense and dark. Each one she filled with strychnine until the tips dripped with glistening poison.
She watched the shadow. It did not move, but it was surely in the shape of a man. When the thorns on her hand were ready, Elswyth sprung from her bed. She sliced her hand and the thorns sprayed through the air.
The shape moved. Her thorns thunked into something wooden, and for a moment Elswyth thought she’d hit the wall, that terror had made her delirious and there was no-one in her room at all.
Then a small light appeared in the corner: a little mushroom, glowing pale in the darkness.
More followed until the light illuminated the figure’s face.
Kehinde stood there, the lines of his scars casting shadows against his skin.
He had summoned a patch of foxfire to his hand, and now the mushrooms glowed like little moons, illuminating the corner of the room where he stood.
His other arm was raised defensively, and Elswyth saw where her thorns had embedded in the plate of Ebony armor he’d grown there.
He lowered his forearm and inspected the thorns.
“You are getting better at that,” he said.
“I have a good teacher. You frightened me half to death. I thought you were…”
Kehinde frowned, realizing. “Apologies. I should have considered… I was merely watching over you.”
“Watching over me? Or ensuring that I do not escape?”
“Our restrictions are for your own good,” Kehinde said. “If the Reaper really is Prince Oliver, there is nowhere in this city that you are safe. Letting you out of the house would be exposing you to another attack.”
“I can defend myself,” Elswyth said.
Kehinde looked her up and down. His eyes shone in the pale glow of the mushrooms. “So you can. It would seem that my simple poisons pale in comparison to… other methods. I suppose I now understand your reluctance to kill.”
“You don’t understand me at all. You and Percival see me as nothing but another damsel to be protected. A princess, locked away in a tower.”
“Are there not dragons about, Elswyth?” Kehinde said. “The tower is how we can protect you, for now.”
“And what of your other princess—is my life worth Persephone’s?”
Kehinde frowned. The lines around his mouth seemed to furrow and deepen in the ghostly light of the mushrooms. “We can only do what we can do, and that is protecting the sister we have.”
“And yet you do nothing! I am the only one who searches for answers. Percival is in Parliament, Mrs. Rose cares only for my marriage prospects, and you have become nothing but a warden. If I leave London, then Persephone will be lost forever. We will never know what became of her.”
“I can continue searching once you are safe—” Kehinde started.
“I shall believe that when I see it,” Elswyth spat. “You should be out looking for her killer right now, instead of guarding me like some delicate flower. You never cared for me or my sister. You only sought to prove your own innocence.”
“That is not true,” Kehinde said. “I—”