Chapter Thirty-One
Before I could scream, before I could so much as think to move, the thick curtains hanging along the right side of the window were shoved aside, and a stocky figure in black lunged
for me.
The scent of the dockyards burst in the air, exploding my pulse with it. I wrenched myself away from his grasping hands, but
my heel caught the hem of my night rail, and with the sound of ripping fabric, I fell, crashing into the edge of the bed.
The man was on me in an instant. His knees dug painfully into my belly, pinning me so firmly with his weight I couldn’t breathe
in to scream. He slapped a hard gloved hand over my mouth regardless.
Only his eyes were visible in the knit mask, and they were wild with excitement. I bucked, thrashing my legs with increasing
desperation as he reached back into a pouch on his belt for something—a small vial.
“Don’t know why ’e’s going to the trouble when yer nothin’ much to look at.” He leaned down until his face hovered above mine,
lifting the bottom of his mask, likely to uncork the vial with his teeth. “There’s a good little bitch. It’ll be over quick
enough—”
A shadow materialized behind him, as if she had flown across the room on a shaft of moonlight. My eyes widened as Mrs. Keyes
raised the needle in her fist, then brought it down with the force of a hammer strike, jamming it into the side of his neck.
Blood sprayed over me in a hot gush as he gasped, too shocked to even cry out.
The intruder hacked, blood spurting from the wound as he fell sideways, crashing onto the floor. He flailed in silent agony
like a beached fish, one hand desperately clasped over the needle protruding from his neck.
Mrs. Keyes advanced on him, stepping a booted foot onto his wrist until he released the small vial. It rolled beneath the
vanity, out of his groping reach.
“There’s a good little bitch,” she said, watching his writhing and gurgling dispassionately. “It’ll be over quick enough.”
I hauled myself up until I was leaning back against the bed frame, staring mutely at the gruesome scene.
The door to the bedchamber burst open with a shout, spilling Willie’s and Tommy’s essences into the blood-drenched air a moment
before the rest of them.
I knew Hugh was there by the sound of his distinct clipped steps, and then he was beside me, kneeling, his hands on my face.
The urgency and fear in his eyes finally sparked something other than astonishment.
“Viola—Viola, are you all right?” he asked roughly. When I tried to look at the man—the body—Hugh turned me back toward him, searching
my head and the blood splattered over my chest for any sign of injury. I gripped his wrists, stopping him.
“It’s not mine,” I told him softly. “I’m all right.”
Some of the color returned to his face. He nodded but didn’t release me.
“Good Lord, Mrs. Keyes,” Willie said mildly. Both he and Tommy were in their nightshirts, their faces still lined from their
pillows. “Feels like a knock to the head would’ve sufficed.”
She lifted a shoulder, removing her needle and shoving a decorative silk pillow against the gushing wound. “Old habits, et
cetera.”
“Fleming’s going to expire on the spot when we tell him we have to throw out another carpet,” Tommy said, scratching at his
jaw. “Two bodies in a week is a bit high, even for us.”
“Two and a quarter, if you count the hands,” Willie said. “Or would it be an eighth, do you reckon?”
Tommy seemed to consider this. “Less than that. A hundredth?”
I had the oddest sense that I was watching the world move around me rather than existing in it. The blood was cooling on my
skin and night rail, turning the latter sticky in a way that made me want to vomit.
“Exactly how many bodies is normal?” I asked, with a calmness I didn’t feel. “Wait—two?”
Hugh finally tore his gaze away from me, but only to level what I assume was one of his darker glares at the others.
Willie sighed. “I’ll get a tarp and lye.”
“And I’ll fetch some hot water for her ladyship,” Tommy said. “Mrs. Silver and Fizzy are keeping Fleming trapped in the kitchen
for now.”
“Tell Fleming . . .” I tried clearing my throat, but it didn’t strengthen my voice the way I’d hoped. “Tell him that it was
only a bad dream.”
There was no need to distress him until morning, when he saw the carpet carried out.
Hugh sat back, his expression softening as he helped me up from the ground, guiding me away from the body toward the chairs
arranged in front of the hearth. He tried to lower me into the nearest one, but I resisted. It was damn near impossible to
get blood fully out of silk, and I wasn’t about to ruin the cushion.
“I’m fine,” I told him again, pulling out of his reach to sit instead on the wood bench at the end of the bed. Hugh hovered
beside me a moment longer, as if not yet convinced. His eyes seemed to darken with his thoughts, and I knew he was torturing
himself over this, too.
Finally, he tore himself away and strode toward the body, crouching. After a moment, he began a thorough search of it—for
tattoos, scars, anything he might have been carrying on him that could have identified him.
“We could have questioned the man,” he said. Rather bravely, I thought. It came exceedingly close to scolding Mrs. Keyes,
who still held the vicious needle in her hand.
“There’s no need,” she said simply, cleaning its length with a handkerchief before slipping it back into her braid. “Lady
Foxcourt knows who sent him.”
I stilled, pinned to the side of the bed by their expectant gazes. “I . . . well . . .”
“I expect you’ll have questions for me as well,” Mrs. Keyes said to me.
“Actually,” I told her, “you’ve answered the most pressing one. You’re . . .” I trailed off. She didn’t need me to tell her
who she was. The deadliest assassin in all of Albion’s history, and the sole person responsible for ending the Gallian Revolutionary Wars.
“. . . a hero. How did you know he was here?”
“I heard him creep past my window and thought this might be his destination.” She arched a brow. “How fortunate you were not
here for him to find.”
“Who is this man?” Hugh demanded, not letting me squirm away from the most pressing question.
“Goodness, can the poor child not be removed from this terrible scene?” came Mrs. Silver’s voice from the doorway.
She carried a can of steaming hot water in, closing the door behind her.
Careful to avoid dragging the hem of her wrapper in the various pools of blood, she made a large arc around the room to empty the can into the washbasin, only stopping to peer down at the man.
She clucked her tongue. “Really, Marina. The carotid?”
“Everyone’s a critic until they’re holding the needle,” Mrs. Keyes huffed as she moved around the room, lighting more candles.
“He dropped something, my love. I wasn’t sure if it was poison.”
“It was perfume,” I told them. “One meant for sleeping. I recognized the notes.”
“Ah,” Mrs. Silver said, bringing me a towel and the basin of hot water. I tried to take both from her, but she merely sat
and began to clean the man’s blood from me. There was a distant, almost dreamy look on her face.
“Nights like this make me reminisce,” she said, sensing my confusion. “I fell in love with Marina the first time she tried
to jab one of her needles through my eye, and she with me, after the third time I tried dosing her with cyanide.”
“It was really after the second time. You nearly had me with the wine,” Mrs. Keyes said with utter adoration. “Even after
the intense palpitations wore off, my heart still fluttered every time I thought of your face. It was as good as any reason
to stay alive during that war, knowing you were coming to try to finish me off.”
I looked between them with a pained smile, feeling a touch lightheaded. Not one but two assassins in the house. Surely that
had to be some record. Still, harrowing details aside, it was rather romantic, in its own mildly deranged sort of way.
“You were an assassin for Gallia?” I clarified.
Mrs. Silver nodded. “You seem—oh, what is the word?” It came to her quickly. “Quite sanguine about the fact.”
“Surprisingly so,” Hugh said in disbelief. “When did you suspect?”
“That everyone in the house wasn’t who they claimed to be?” I said as Mrs. Silver cleaned around my nose. “From the very first
night.”
Mrs. Keyes’s startling essence took on new meaning. God, how many lives did you have to claim before their blood stained your
soul to that degree?
“For one thing, there’s nightshade in the kitchen cupboard,” I said.
Hugh shot an accusatory look toward Mrs. Silver.
She lifted a shoulder in a perfectly Gallian shrug. “One simply does not know when a little deadly nightshade might be required.”
She turned to me, stroking a knuckle down my cheek as she marveled, “How clever your nose is.”
“Thank you,” I told her, resisting the urge to bask in that praise. To Mrs. Keyes, I said, “I don’t know that I ever would have guessed that you were the . . .” It was strangely difficult to make myself say it. “. . . the Black Needle.”
Mrs. Keyes smoothed a wisp of loose hair back. “In truth, I sometimes forget myself.”
“And it doesn’t bother you that everyone assumes that you’re a man?” I asked, irritated on her behalf. “That you’ve never
been recognized for it?”
“Darling girl,” Mrs. Keyes said, “one does not survive a war without making enemies, many of whom are still alive and would
be glad to find me. It was a privilege to start again here and to give myself a new name.”
“And you only had to do the impossible and kill General Auguste to earn it,” Hugh muttered.
“The last Lord Foxcourt was my handler during the war,” Mrs. Keyes explained before I could ask. “He helped Celine and me
with the arrangements.”
I thought of the painting down the hall, the way the artist had depicted the Black Needle as little more than shadows and
smoke. And yet, here she was before me, flesh and blood, a small woman with a spine of steel and an essence drenched with
blood.
“My God,” I said, mortified by the sudden realization. “Have you all been pretending to be staff for my sake?”