Chapter 6 The Interrogation #2
“Drowned,” Leena finally replied into the still room, that single word echoing like water droplets in a cave. “Her pockets were filled with rocks.”
He absorbed the information hungrily. “That’s why they lied about the cause of her death.
” Mr. St. Silas’s brows furrowed as if rapidly working through a puzzle.
Watching him carefully once more, Leena wondered why a tragic family affair would interest him to this extent.
Surely he had a thousand better secrets.
“I believe it is your turn now, sir,” Leena challenged after a long interim.
Mr. St. Silas sat down again, folding his arms over the hard planes of his chest. “The Wake is a group of aristocrats that tends to work in the shadows, dealing in all manner of…business.”
“What do they have to do with prisoners?” Leena asked, her own hunger now showing. She thought of her baba. Why else, as her mother had warned, would this Wake take him?
Mr. St. Silas played this game too well.
Now it was his turn to drag out the silence to torture.
Finally, his response came, slow and calculated.
“There is a booming business involved in trading prisoners, both across Morland and…to other continents. Most aristo families have not safeguarded their wealth sufficiently, so they must find other ways to restore their family coffers. Smuggling prisoners out of Newtorn Prison and…selling them…is extraordinarily profitable these days.”
Leena’s mouth went dry, and a wave of nausea rolled through her stomach.
“Who do they sell the prisoners to?” Leena edged forward in her seat in agitation.
“I believe I have met my end of the bargain, Miss Al-Sayer—surely you must agree?” Mr. St. Silas glanced away from her and toward the timepiece attached to his waistcoat, a habit Leena noticed he regularly displayed.
“If you would like more information, then you must be willing to trade another secret in turn.”
Fury burned Leena’s face like a kiss.
“What do you want to know?” she spat through gritted teeth.
There was devilry in his eyes. “From you? More and more. Everything.”
“So that you can find other ways to use me for your own gain?”
His answering smirk was lazy. “Was there a doubt?”
Leena seethed silently. Just as he was siphoning her for precious information, she would do the same to him, until she bled him dry of every single fact about the Wake. Then she would find his ghost and be rid of him.
Whether fate or chance had intertwined their paths, one certainty was growing with every passing minute: Mr. St. Silas would be the answer to finding her father—to saving him, as her mother had begged Leena to do—just as Leena was the answer to the Saint’s missing ghost.
Mr. St. Silas stood and walked toward the canvas situated in the corner of the large study, deftly removing the oilcloth that had been covering it. “I had Lord Avon’s portrait sent for.”
Leena swallowed her anger, turning her attention toward the ghost she was indentured to find.
“Is the depiction accurate?” She rose to view the painting better.
“True enough, but he was significantly less holy,” Mr. St. Silas replied dryly.
Leena understood what he meant.
Lord Avon was divine—a fatal mix of power, vitality, and consequence.
His aristocratic features, finely molded over sharp bones, were both remote and compelling.
He sat in a wingback chair by a window, a hound by his feet, an easy athleticism to the set of his shoulders.
He was unadorned with finery except for a wedding band on one hand and a silver ring on the other, carrying a red leather book in a relaxed hold.
The scenery behind him was muted in the face of his glory; his fair hair muffled the sun; his blue eyes deadened the sky.
All at once, he seemed to be both cradled by the world and superior to it.
Only death could claim such a man.
“What illness killed him?” Leena whispered, remembering his obituary in one of the old newspapers she’d found.
“None,” Mr. St. Silas responded, his voice carrying no deference to the departed. “He was murdered—a sword through the heart.”
Leena’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “He was murdered? By whom?”
“Unknown.”
“Any guesses?”
Mr. St. Silas leaned back on the edge of his desk, his expression undisturbed. “It does not concern me.”
“I’ve done my own research.” Leena attempted to rearrange the tenuous image she’d built of Lord Avon with this new piece of unsettling information. “The cause of death in his obituary didn’t mention murder. It was far more tame than that: undisclosed illness.”
He didn’t answer her. Instead, he raised a brow. “What do you know about the aristos, Miss Al-Sayer?”
She shrugged. “I briefly interacted with a few of them while I worked in Hythe House.”
“Then you will know that Avon is an old name, with a line that can be traced back to the first families in the country.” A deliberate pause. “What is the one thing that the aristos value above everything else?”
“Power? Wealth?”
“Legacy.” Mr. St. Silas’s voice held an odd note. “If Percival Avon died in mysterious circumstances, then it’s not worth the scandal to investigate any further.”
Leena could only stare at him in astonishment. That sort of ideology—a loyalty to an intangible concept—was far beyond her world of drudgery.
Seeing the incomprehension on her face, Mr. St. Silas smiled grimly. “For the aristos, the endurance of their legacy must be protected above all else. Very likely, Lord Avon would rather his death certificate be written with lies than have his family name tarnished with the truth.”
Leena’s face reflected a sharp bitterness. There was a certain privilege to having the resources to seek justice, but choosing not to, while the Al-Sayers—unmoored in this country, a fragmented family without influence and without power—would never have the chance to find justice for their father…
Mr. St. Silas didn’t miss her disgust.
“And he left no heirs,” Leena said after a long moment.
Mr. St. Silas regarded the portrait impassively. “By that point, there was no one left in this world to inquire after him.”
“What about Weavingshaw?” Leena demanded, not allowing him a chance to take control of the subject once more.
She was surprised to see a subtle flexion of his jaw.
“What about Weavingshaw?” he replied in measured tones.
“If Lord Avon left no relations, who inherited the estate?”
“It was purchased by a tradesman named Mr. Martin following Lord Avon’s death.” He relayed the information without much pause, and Leena felt relieved that at least some parts of her research were confirmed.
Yet the chime of her mother’s warning sounded once more in her ears: Beware the promise of Weavingshaw. Still, there was an ancient stirring in Leena’s bones, a deep understanding that Weavingshaw held the key to the Avons—and, therefore, a key to her own freedom.
“We must go to Weavingshaw.” Although her tone was decisive, she felt an odd ache in her words, that of a disobedient daughter. “The ghost of Lord Avon may haunt those halls.”
“I don’t doubt we will eventually have to step foot in Weavingshaw.” Mr. St. Silas’s words were stretched, grim. Leena could tell that the estate evoked some deep emotion in him, but whether it was hatred or love she could not say.
She wanted to question him further, to ask him why the grand house provoked such a reaction from him when everything else seemed not to bother him in the slightest. But she sensed that she would receive only harsh silence in exchange.
“One thing I’ve learned about the dead is that certain objects can anchor them to the living,” Leena began again, watching him from underneath her lashes to see if another subtle expression could be provoked by her words.
“Do you know of any trinkets, or even a person, that might’ve been important to His Lordship? ”
He shook his head, hooded eyes returning to the portrait.
Her heart sank. She’d hoped that she might be able to find Lord Avon waiting beside a loved one. Now she didn’t even know where to start.
“Why do you seek him?” Leena asked, no longer able to mask her impatience. She felt exasperation at his reticent answers. In theory, they were both on the same side. Surely more information would only help achieve their common end faster?
When he finally did give her an answer, Leena had to hide her surprise, trying to keep her face neutral so as not to show her ricocheting emotions.
“He owes me something, and I intend to take it back.”
Mr. St. Silas didn’t strike Leena as someone who accepted theft with grace. His words—and the memory of his previous secretaries—sat uneasily with her. Yet his answer was not enough, not really even a start, for Leena to use in any way. She opened her mouth to voice this, but he cut her off.
“Miss Al-Sayer, you’ll be shown to your room. Ready yourself for tomorrow.” It was clear from his voice that their conversation was over. With a flick of his hand, he rang the servants’ bell that sat on his desk, the single clatter echoing a finality.
Leena had never worked for an employer who held such a menacing quality without once raising his fist to her.
There was her most recent laundry Warden, who had slapped Leena for the slightest provocation, even though it was never her fault.
The desperation for money in a time of gnawing hunger across the country had kept Leena’s throbbing jaw locked and raging eyes lowered.
But it was not just the laundry Warden. There were also the ones before who strutted through the factories, who either growled and spat between missing teeth or leered from their seats at the women passing by.
Sometimes, they more than leered.
Those Leena had fought—tooth and nail and sometimes with broken shoe heels. All she had to show for those fights were days without bread, her starvation a bitter trophy for her dignity.
But Mr. St. Silas, Leena thought, looking at him now, was the opposite of dumb, brutish force. He instead had that sort of vicious presence that made one feel like exposed prey—uncertain where to step next, uncertain where the attack will come from and when.
Even if his body stood still, his eyes stalked—watchful, impatient, prowling.
He had that effect now as he looked at her with his hands in his pockets. Tall, powerful frame leaning back against the desk lazily, his posture deceptively relaxed while his eyes shone with sharpness—someone who always got what he wanted in the end.
It was far more lethal.
Leena would be a fool to underestimate the Saint or even to think that, underneath all that civilized attire and cultured accent, he was less of a threat to her than all her previous employers combined.
Here was a man who was not afraid to cause her real pain, and they both knew it. Already he had deceived her, indentured her, and separated her without a care from the only life she knew, throwing her into a perilous task from which she could not be certain she would emerge unharmed—or even alive.
A knock on the door thrust Leena from her bitter musings. It was Mrs. Van, summoned to lead her back to her new bedroom.
In truth, she was ready to leave the presence of Mr. St. Silas. Her day had been long and taxing before she even stood on his doorstep.
Leena was especially ready to leave the portrait of the last Avon, the golden lord who seemed to reject the very idea of death.
In her new chamber, everything was built for comfort.
The bedframe was made of rich mahogany, and a fireplace—a luxury she couldn’t even begin to fathom—was swept clean of soot.
Even the thick walls allowed privacy. No whispered fights bled through, no drunken shouts, no loud snores.
It was utterly soulless. Anyone could inhabit this room, sleep on the soft mattress beneath the thick covers, and leave in the morning without having made any dent in it.
It was a bedroom designed for transience.
Her suitcase waited for her in the wardrobe.
Not bothering to unpack, she found her nightgown and shimmied into it.
She drew out her Guide to Botany, rifling to the few remaining blank pages at the back.
She took her time now, writing down everything she’d learned today in the smallest possible handwriting: about the Wake, Weavingshaw, and Lord Avon, as well as her mother’s warnings.
Demon-kissed.
It was very little to go on—almost nothing. But it was a start.