Chapter 3 A New Contract #2
She startled, and grasped the first answer to give him. “I was wondering if you tear hearts for a living.”
His response was quick and fierce. “Make no mistake, madam, that is exactly what I do.”
She tried to make sense of his words, but she felt oddly deflated, as if she was sinking, sinking, sinking…
No—no!
Panic welled in her body. She remembered the language books she had left on her windowsill, the ones she had spent nights poring over in hopes of one day finding employment as a translator.
How she had learned to conjugate all the verbs in Morish and Algaraan, memorized all the rules of grammar, practiced and practiced and practiced until her tongue ran ragged.
She knew how the Mors viewed the Algaraans—uncivilized people who knew only how to wage wars between themselves, a country that exported only refugees.
She dreamed of one day translating her mother’s Algaraan poetry books, to show the world that her people knew more about beauty because they had seen so much destruction.
Leena would not allow herself to die now—not when she had just learned to dream again amid the chaos left by the dead.
“A new contract,” Leena said, sitting back down in the armchair, sinking her nails into the plush fabric. She watched as St. Silas took out a fresh leaf, but interrupted him before he set ink to paper. “You will release me from your employment the moment I find the ghost that you seek.”
The pen paused and he stole a glance at her. A tic in his jaw.
“As you wish, madam,” he said after a long moment. “But you will work as my secretary until you have finished this task.”
She nodded; she’d been expecting that. “You will provide me with all the necessities for life—including food, clothing, and medicine.”
“You will take lodging here,” he added, then raised a hand when she opened her mouth to protest. “Not for my benefit, madam. I am a feared man, not a loved one. Enemies I have by the handful. They will not hesitate to harm you as retaliation to me.”
She knew this. Still, the confirmation made her heart sink. “Then you will provide an allowance to ensure that the rent of my house is paid, so that I have somewhere to go back to once all this is over.”
She watched him copy this down.
“You will also make all adjustments to ensure my safety…” She momentarily lost her train of thought, the fever roaring in her ears. “…remains intact.”
He nodded, writing that part verbatim. As they wrote a few more lines to perfect the details of the contract, it reminded her of the endless afternoons she’d spent haggling in the Old Market, both customer and merchant wanting to get the upper hand without losing the trade altogether.
Then, the tip of his pen hovering over the contract, he asked her abruptly, “Are there others like you?”
Leena had tried to find out in the early days.
She’d spoken to Algaraan clerics; she’d sat on the wooden benches of the grand and empty cathedrals; she’d gone to see so-called mystics and shamans.
She’d learned very quickly that those claiming to have such powers were mostly con men, bleeding the grieving of their purses.
She’d been so afraid of being lumped in with these swindlers that she’d kept her ability quiet. “None that I know of.”
“Does that make you feel unique?” There was only mild curiosity in his tone, an indifferent scientist dissecting a cadaver.
Leena’s lips thinned. She would not allow him to see how much his question unsettled her, though she was sure that was exactly why he’d asked it.
“Please add the name of the ghost that you require me to find,” she replied instead.
Another look was leveled at her before he finally wrote a name.
Percival Avon, 16th Marquess of Avon, Master of Weavingshaw.
Lord Avon, Leena thought. An aristocrat.
“Why do you seek him?” she asked, but she was met with only stony silence.
She kept a close eye as St. Silas continued to draft the contract, working herself past the point of exhaustion until the letters began to blur.
Several times she forced him to change the wording of a few sentences.
Each time he did so without complaint, and Leena swore that he seemed amused when she caught any of his escape clauses.
That frightened her. If St. Silas was so adept at drafting contracts and planting loopholes, then there were bound to be a few more she missed. Especially in her current state.
“One last thing I’d like to add,” she said in a rush. She attempted to keep her tone brusque, but relics of long-held pain bled through. “If you die before me, don’t become a restless spirit. Please—” St. Silas looked sharply at her. “Please, don’t come back to haunt me.”
He considered her statement detachedly, his mouth a firm line, then moved to add it to the contract.
The housekeeper was called in once more to witness the signing. She didn’t question this new contract, her face perfectly neutral—a well-trained servant—but Leena sensed her disapproval. She didn’t linger afterward, the door shutting firmly behind her.
Leena couldn’t tear her gaze away from the loop of her own signature, the second one signed that night—the first written in hope, this one in despair.
St. Silas looked victorious.
She hated him.
“I will send for you in a week. The Trimexicillin should have worked by then.” He dismissed her easily, as if granting her the next week was an act of benevolence.
“Mrs. Van, my housekeeper, will provide you with the second medication upon your exit. You will go home in my carriage. A copy of the contract will be delivered to you.”
“Another course of the medication has already been prepared,” Leena said, almost dully. She could barely lift her head. “You knew I’d agree to your terms from the very beginning, didn’t you?”
“Aye, madam. In my line of work, it is dangerous practice to allow your customers to take you by surprise.”
“Was it a lie?” she asked, staring down at her hands. They were red and chapped from her current work as a laundress—the only employment she could find—and she resisted the urge to tuck them away. “When you told me that I was one of the few to come to you with a request for kindness?”
Her cheeks flushed. She thought she was impervious to flattery, but a part of her had believed it and been proud of it.
He didn’t pause. “I’m afraid it was. We all help and hurt others in equal measure.
It is not special to want to save someone else.
” He moved around his desk and toward the door as if already thinking ahead to more important matters.
But before reaching the threshold he turned.
“If it’s any consolation, you were the first one to surprise me, though. ”
That was no consolation. “And if the medication does not work? If Rami’s too far gone?”
The Saint waved this away as if it were a minor nuisance. “Then I’ll pay his life’s worth in gold.”
“His life cannot be measured in gold. No life can.”
“Why, of course it can, madam.” His eyes fell briefly to the timepiece attached to his chest, then to the contract on his desk. “You’ve just set the price.”