Chapter 3 A New Contract
Leena sat alone in St. Silas’s study as she waited for the medicine to be procured.
Outside, a hesitant dawn broke over the city.
She’d not spoken since she’d left the prison—not in the carriage, and not when she was escorted back into the house.
She was drained, so depleted that her tired body couldn’t even find joy in proving her secret true.
All she could remember was the prisoner staring at her from behind steel bars while the real murderer stood beside her—the accusing eyes, the face that had somehow morphed into that of her father.
She was sure that the ghost that haunted Colson would never allow himself to depart this world until his cellmate was liberated, if ever.
“You show an astounding lack of curiosity, madam,” St. Silas said, striding back into his study, a small parcel in his hand. Oddly enough, he carried a thick book in the other.
She knew what he was referring to. Still, she played the fool, her eyes on the items he carried, but he placed them on a shelf away from her sight. “Curiosity regarding what matter?”
His eyes glittered. “The matter of me…er…laying to rest one of my employees and condemning the other.”
“I’m an oddly incurious being, Mr. St. Silas,” she said through pursed lips.
They both knew that it didn’t matter what information Leena had on St. Silas.
Even if she did choose to go to the constable, anyone in New Algaraa District could attest to Leena’s eccentricities.
There was that incident that had occurred a handful of weeks after she’d begun to see the dead: Leena had run into the street dressed only in a white nightgown, the fabric billowing in the winter wind so that her bare feet and ankles showed, screaming that a tall man with sallow skin was trying to kill her.
Of course, when the neighbors investigated, there was no sallow-skinned man. He was a phantom.
A few similar scenes after that had cemented her reputation.
No matter how hard she tried to appear within the bounds of conventionality now—no matter that she had managed to secure employment as a laundress, that she always appeared kempt, that she spent her nights studying to be an Algaraan translator—her neighbors looked at her with faintly pitying, if not at times fearful, glances.
She didn’t have friends anymore, only a sick brother and the dead to keep her company these days.
“If I’ve learned anything from communing with the dead,” she said bitterly, “it is to keep the business of the living quiet.”
“Clever girl,” he remarked again. He sat down behind the desk and withdrew the contract they’d signed earlier. “Let us read our agreement once more to ensure both parties are satisfied.”
Leena resisted the urge to lean over and snatch the medication herself. This house, the Saint’s very presence, seemed to suffocate the breath from her lungs. She shivered, longing to be back home, to tuck herself under a knitted blanket.
“Hmm.” St. Silas’s brows furrowed in confusion.
Leena shifted, uneasy. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Hardly a problem on my part,” he said. “It is just that the contract specifies that only one course of medication is to be delivered.”
“Of course,” Leena said, with a nervous laugh. “I only need it for one person.”
“But how could that be when it is two people that are sick?” St. Silas leaned forward, eyes laced with false concern. “Or did you not know, Miss Al-Sayer, that you too are dying?”
Silence.
She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. “You are mistaken—”
“Sweeper’s Cough is highly contagious. Were you not aware?” He waved his hand as if he was sharing a minor, uninteresting fact.
Leena rose to her feet, her face flushed. “Do not jest with me, sir. I had the infection when I was only a babe.”
“Did you?” His look of incredulity was so drawn out that it was nothing short of mocking.
It made Leena doubt herself. She was sure her father had said she’d had it when she was little, but had he specifically said Sweeper’s Cough, or had he only said a cough?
Leena could not bring forth a clear memory, but she thought—she assumed—surely—
“It seems you have reevaluated your earlier certainty,” St. Silas noted with dry humor.
Leena shook her head firmly. “I do not even have a cough.”
He lazily reached for the book he had earlier placed on the shelf, the firelight glittering on the embossed title: Rayner’s Guide to Medical Maladies.
A section was already dog-eared, and the pages slammed open with a thud.
“Ah, right here. Sweeper’s Cough. The first sign: blue-tinged nails.
Peripheral cyanosis.” He swerved the textbook toward her, watching her steadily all the while.
Leena’s gaze snapped to the list of signs and symptoms labeled Sweeper’s Cough, then to her own nail beds; she staggered toward the fire to observe them over the glow.
Blue.
She pressed down on her index finger hard enough to sting, but the color didn’t diminish.
She suddenly recalled that just the previous morning she had worried about the lack of blood flow to Rami’s hand, his fingers cold, the outermost joints stiff and blue.
She’d put a mitten on him to warm them, although his body raged with a temperature.
“Even now you look fever-touched to me,” St. Silas said, seemingly amused at her agitation. “How long have you been caring for your brother? Sharing cups and linen?”
Leena slapped a hand against her own forehead. Was she running a temperature? She could not tell, but her teeth chattered from the cold. “Then why aren’t you afraid of catching it?”
He shrugged. “While you may have…unfortunate doubts, I, however, am certain I had the illness as a child.”
Her mind reeling, Leena sat back down slowly.
Now she understood. The study suddenly felt like a cage.
“What. Do. You. Want?” she rasped.
All manner of false concern dropped from his voice. He leaned even farther forward, eyes edged in hunger, eager for the slaughter.
“Hardly anything that is not worth your life. What is your life worth, Miss Al-Sayer?”
She was all fire now, lifting herself from the chair, her palms slamming on the desk, face slanting closer to his. “Do not toy with me, Mr. St. Silas. My life wasn’t worth a farthing before you knew of my curse. The question is: What is my life worth to you?”
They stared at each other in silence, both breathing heavily—one in anticipation and the other in turmoil.
“Consider it a trade,” he said, breaking their moment of stillness. “Come into my employment and I will give you medication that will save your life.”
She seethed. “I cannot imagine the morally depraved task you will assign to me as your employee.”
He gave a slow grin. “I tend to leave the depravity to myself.”
“To work under such a man—”
His brows rose faintly. “No one said anything about you working under me.”
Her face flushed at the obvious implication, but he continued smoothly, “And I am not asking you for anything that should repulse your morals. I need you to find someone. A ghost.”
Leena sat back down in the armchair. Then rose to stand by the fire. If only she wasn’t so cold, perhaps she could think straight.
“You did this on purpose,” Leena ground out. She remembered the odd expression that had crossed his face when he’d first seen her hands prior to visiting the prison; he must’ve known since then. “You ascertained I was unwell, so you manufactured a situation to use me.”
His glance was remorseless. “Of course I did.”
Her fist felt heavy with the desire to redden his cheek.
“I will not work with you, sir.” She turned her back to him, gripping the mantel to steady herself. St. Silas’s voice stopped her, starving tone underlying careful words.
“How honorable and uninspired. You will expose your secret for your brother’s sake, but to work with the likes of me is less preferable than death?”
She twisted to face him once more. “Not moral, but wise. Do you know that ghosts tremble when I speak your name?”
He looked oddly pleased by this revelation.
“We will set a new contract,” he said.
“You’ve tricked me once,” Leena countered. Her head felt foggy, her hold on the mantel tightening. “I do not want to be shackled to anyone.”
His answer was careful. “I will not shackle you.”
“You will, when my only other choice is death.”
His voice lowered, and there seemed to be something close to anger in it. “Some get even less of a choice.”
She thought of Mr. Jamil, his face bloated with drink, the scars on his lips a furious red. She thought of Margery, whose nightmares from her confession lingered on. She thought of terrified Wardens, of swirling rumors, of condemned prisoners.
She stared at him for a long moment. “Tell me why you killed your last employee.”
St. Silas looked momentarily taken aback by this new line of questioning. “I could’ve sworn that you alleged yourself to be an incurious being.”
“Curiosity tends to be piqued when one’s life is in question.”
“Loyalty,” he said after a pause of deliberation. “Or the lack thereof. My former secretaries were plotting to kill me and take possession of the business. In truth, it was their lack of subtlety that offended me.”
“And not their plan to murder you?”
He flashed another grin. “I find vulgarity to be a worse crime.”
“And will you hurt me if I ever displease you?” She hated that her words were slightly unsteady, the black dots floating in and out of her vision like dark moons.
The remnants of a grin lingered on his lips, but he watched her with narrowed eyes. “Do you plan on wrapping your pretty hands around my throat?”
She shook her head mutely.
“Then you have nothing to fear from me.”
Her fevered mind trailed back to Newtorn Prison, but this time, instead of Colson morphing into her father, it was herself sitting behind the bars. The Saint stood on the other side, whispering to the prison walls that they would make a feast of her yet.
“What are you thinking?” St. Silas asked.