Chapter 8 Little Distractions
Leena’s botany book had been gone for three weeks.
And every moment in between she had worried about Rami, and how he was faring. Every day she longed to steal out and visit both him and Margery, to assure herself that they were both safe and well.
Instead she was perpetually confined to the confession room.
Leena had learned to curb her tongue around the ghosts that swirled in with the confessors, manacled to the living.
The worst phantoms were the ones that followed the customers who came to confess at noon; it was that damned hour.
It breathed life into the dead. Those ghosts looked more solid; their misery carried weight.
Leena kept her head lowered, mutinous eyes on the paper as she wrote Mr. St. Silas notes about all the ghosts that followed his customers.
Whenever Mrs. Van brought in the refreshments, Leena tried to keep her wrathful gaze to herself.
She cursed Mrs. Van for informing her master about A Guide to Botany.
She cursed the new clothes that had been commissioned for her and hand-delivered by the housekeeper to her room—each of the six boxes filled with corsets made of whalebone, silk stockings, soft cotton chemises, dresses of the finest material in colors of dark gray, light blue, and forest green.
They even included gloves and a smart hat for when she needed to present herself outside the shop.
No longer did she dress in her own worn but loved clothes; now she felt as sterile and cold as the rest of the establishment.
When she initially stepped into the confession room attired in her expensive new garments, Mr. St. Silas looked her up and down with a barely concealed smirk, causing her to gnash her teeth together forcefully to stop herself from replying in kind.
It was in these new clothes that she now sat and watched as the confessors yet again fell prey to Mr. St. Silas’s damning silence.
She had begun to clear her throat during those moments of unforgiving quiet. Sometimes she would shift in her chair, causing the legs to creak. Other times, she would sneeze. Or tap her fingers. Anything to fill the silence that Mr. St. Silas was enforcing.
During the short break that morning, Leena kept her gaze on the dark liquid sloshing in her cup. She never took milk in her coffee, preferring it the way Algaraans made it, thick and slightly caramelized.
“Have you been counting?” Mr. St. Silas asked mildly, forcing her gaze to meet his. The smile he wore erased the callous lines of his face, forcing his handsomeness to be acknowledged—even by Leena, who often felt herself in the presence of a being more monster than human.
His fingers tapped on his timepiece, mimicking the way hers had done on her knee during the last consultation.
She knew instinctively that his smile was a prelude to some sort of savagery. Mr. St. Silas always hid his worst forms of barbarity beneath a veneer of civility.
Wearily, she asked him, “Counting what?”
He looked surprised by her question. “Why, counting the number of pages you’ve burned from your botany book?”
Leena’s heart sank. “Only three.” She barely mouthed the words.
“Come, Miss Al-Sayer, there is no denying your cleverness. I think with your most recent dedication to interrupting my sessions, you must have known it would be a little more than that.”
“You are mistaken. I’ve not been interrupt—”
“Your face,” he cut in, “is terribly honest. It reveals even the smallest emotion.” Regarding her measured look, his tone was derisive. “I fear that I have not worked you hard enough if you have the time to pine over a book about weeds.”
“Well, it is a pity you think so, for it would mean that I have successfully cheated the Saint of Silence.”
His brows rose slightly. His hard frame leaned back against the chair, his long legs outstretched before him in a careless gesture. “Oh, how so?”
“If I am indeed not meeting your standards, as you say, and still had six new silk and velvet dresses commissioned for me, three full meals daily, lodgings fully paid, my house rent in New Algaraa District also fully paid for, and”—her smile widened to mirror his—“a smart new hat with ribbon and feather trimmings, then I am surprised, sir, that you have allowed my negligence to go on for so long and have not taken me to task much sooner.”
They both stared at each other hard, each with a smile on their face that was more a snarl than any sentiment of enjoyment.
“How many pages,” he murmured, “do you think your reply has cost you?”
“I should think”—she spoke between her teeth—“that it was worth my entire book.”
He barked out a laugh. “That is a relief. I was growing weary of spending my evenings feeding the flames.”
Leena tried not to jerk, crossing her fingers behind her back, praying that his threat was not in earnest. “I am glad to be of service.”
“And how long will you be in my service, I wonder?” Guardedly, she waited for him to continue. His dark eyes had turned coldly watchful. “I confess to being disappointed by your abilities thus far—especially as you have not yet found a single trace of Lord Avon.”
Mr. St. Silas might as well have been a carousel lamp.
One minute he was all but disinterested in the search for the elusive Avon ghost, and the next he was all churlish impatience, suddenly filling her schedule with post-confession visits to just about any location Lord Avon might have owned, lived in, or visited.
Already they had been to several places that Lord Avon had been known to frequent: the gentlemen’s club, the House of Lords, even His Lordship’s old tailor.
It had stirred up nothing but dust and Mr. St. Silas’s displeasure.
Yet he spoke now as if Leena had been purposely remiss, or lying about her ability to bring forth phantoms, although she desperately searched for the ghost everywhere they went.
Even now, to her own mind, she shied away from a real and growing fear.
What if Lord Avon had long left this world, never to be found?
What then? She could not possibly recall ghosts, nor could she stay imprisoned like this forever.
“I have been looking tirelessly,” Leena gritted out.
“Yet without any results to show for it.”
“You have given me startlingly little to go on.”
“I have given you enough.” He held out his gloved hands in a faintly contemptuous manner. “Have you been enjoying my company so much that you are loath to break the contract? Perhaps you require some motivation?”
Leena stiffened. “I am motivated well enough, thank you.”
“Clearly, it has had little effect on you.” He reached for the bell on his desk to alert whichever bruiser was outside to bring in the next confessor, but paused before ringing it. “By the by,” he said in the same moderate tone, “your brother. Does he know you work for me?”
Leena stilled.
Suddenly, all her subtle acts of defiance felt at best fruitless, and at worst sinister. Mr. St. Silas knew exactly what Rami meant to her, how she would turn the earth upside down to protect him; she herself had delivered that information to him.
Any trivial secret can lead to someone’s ruin.
Rami would find out soon enough that the excuse she’d given him for her absence was a lie. But what would he do when he learned about her contract?
Horror flashed through her mind as she thought of the real possibilities of Rami either coming here seeking retribution against the Saint of Silence, or joining the Black Coats to gain a semblance of power in an attempt to free her. Both possibilities ended in agony.
Leena should’ve told Rami the truth rather than lying to him; it would have been better coming cushioned from her own lips than if he found out on his own.
Leena tightened her hands into fists. She would need to see Rami very soon, even if it meant she crept out of this dreadful prison at night to do so.
She saw that Mr. St. Silas was watching her, a speculative look in his eyes. “Do not try it,” he warned softly.
Leena tilted her head in forceful submission before he could see her deliberation. “Yes, sir,” she whispered. Even though she did not look at him, she knew he had heard.
—
A man walked in, Morish, with a low-slung cap over his tawny hair.
He bowed deeply to Mr. St. Silas, and the sentiment was returned with only a slight incline of the Saint’s head.
The coat the man wore was of the darkest fabric—a Black Coat.
A twine of rope was attached to his lapel, reminding Leena of the girl handing out pamphlets in the market.
Four phantoms followed him: three boys and a girl, each carrying bullet holes in their skin.
The influence of the Rebels had begun to swell.
Leena, along with just about every person in the country, was well aware of the brewing discontent with the ruling class and its indifferent king.
The latest information Leena had managed to learn through one of the Saint’s scullery maids was that the rural villages outside the capital, which were most affected by the heavy taxes and food shortages, were beginning to organize tentative riots against their wealthy landlords.
Even the most violent of the Black Coats had started to show real interest in joining the rebellion, or so claimed more than a few constables who had come in, not to confess but to report news to Mr. St. Silas.
Often Mr. St. Silas dismissed her for these reports, but Leena had still managed to catch snippets of their conversations.
“It’s cold in here,” the Black Coat now said, his breath coming out foggy. It made sense that he felt the chill when four phantoms flanked him so closely. Leena could sense their wrath toward the living man like ice forming on her skin.
Leena kept her head low this time and wordlessly wrote a note detailing the odd array of ghosts that followed the Black Coat. She slid it over, and Mr. St. Silas barely glanced at it before turning to the man.