Chapter 17 The Injured Boy
Leena saw St. Silas from the landing early the next day.
He was exiting his study, followed closely by another man.
A tradesman, Leena guessed from the man’s clothes, well made but functional.
It was at odds with St. Silas’s manner of dress, always darkly elegant, the superior quality of fabric molding precisely to the broad contours of his shoulders, the waistcoat tapering to his narrow hips.
For one unchecked moment, Leena allowed her eyes to follow the hard lines of his body, now pausing for a moment on the large hand that had lingered protectively on her lower back in Orley’s office.
She pulled her attention back to her surroundings, acutely aware that she was falling into such foolish thoughts more and more lately.
Leena loitered on the top step, hidden within the shadows. The conversation she had had with St. Silas the previous day was still heavy on her mind, and she’d been hoping to avoid him that morning to allow things between them to settle back into their usual habit.
The tradesman stopped at the threshold, swiping a hand through his thinning hair. “I trust in your discretion, sir, and I have no doubt you will guard my secret well.”
St. Silas only took confessions in his study from a select few. Leena was rarely privy to those conversations, but sometimes he made her watch unobserved, searching for any phantoms that may have haunted those valuable customers.
St. Silas’s bow was polite.
Leena had seen this before; cruelty always followed his civility. “I am the very soul of discretion, Mr. Marlow.”
Mr. Marlow released a long sigh. “You do intend to send one of your men today to clean up the mess? I cannot have the other servants stumbling upon the scene. It would cause a scandal, not to mention the magistrate might become involved.”
“My deepest sympathy,” St. Silas murmured. She almost wanted to shout at the tradesman to look closer into St. Silas’s expression; his eyes were hard, without a sliver of pity. “Have no fear. I shall attend to the matter myself.”
While the tradesman found comfort in St. Silas’s words, Leena knew this for exactly what it was—a threat.
Her feet were rooted firmly to the ground as the tradesman walked the expanse of the hallway, before exiting through the back door to the courtyard.
St. Silas stayed standing by his study, all hints of a polite smile vanishing from his mouth, retribution in his harsh stare.
Suddenly, St. Silas looked up at her in the stairwell, her hand firmly gripping the banister. He did not look surprised by her presence. Any evidence of what had occurred between them last night was gone from his face.
“Any ghosts following Marlow?” was all he asked her.
Leena shook her head. “What do you have planned for him?”
“How do you know I have any plans for him?”
“You are hard to read,” she said quietly, “but your eyes do not always contain themselves.”
His brows shot up. There was a tension about him, passing and subtle, the muscles of his jaw taut, before his countenance turned cool.
She could tell that what she’d said had momentarily disconcerted him.
The Saint of Silence was the one to devour secrets; it was clear that he derived no joy from the fact that she also watched him.
“Madam,” he said, bowing once to her before continuing down the hallway, following Marlow like a beast trailing blood.
—
She was awoken in the middle of the night by a hurried knock on her chamber door.
Leena was out of bed instantly, not bothering even to greet Theo Daye as he stood at the edge of the salt circle, before rushing to unlock the latch and swing the door open.
Mrs. Van stood on the threshold, also in her nightclothes, looking less stern with her hair braided to the side rather than in her habitual tight bun.
“Is it Rami?” Leena asked, her heart straining in her chest.
“No, he sleeps soundly. It is the master. He has sent word that he will need our urgent presence in the kitchen.”
“At this hour?” Leena’s eyes swerved to the heavy grandfather clock in the hallway, but she could not see the hand within the dim light of Mrs. Van’s lantern. “It must be near midnight.”
“Only just after.” Mrs. Van nodded at her nightgown. “Make haste with your attire, Miss Al-Sayer. The master does not like to be kept waiting.”
While the rest of the house was frigid, the kitchen was warm, a healthy fire spitting from the grate.
Leena rubbed the sleep from her eyes, but the bone-deep fatigue still clung to her, giving the night a disorienting edge.
The housekeeper had given her a moment to change, and Leena had shrugged into one of her favorite faded cotton dresses, wrapping an apron over the front.
She wasn’t sure what they were waiting for, but she rushed to help Mrs. Van light the tallow candles, filling the kitchen with a steady, pulsing glow. Just as Leena lit the last wick, she heard heavy footsteps in the hallway.
She let go of the box of matches and nervously reached for her copper coins, jumping when the door slammed open.
The first thing Leena’s exhausted mind noticed was the blood. So much of it. All over St. Silas, staining his white-collared shirt and his waistcoat a deep red. For one stunned moment, she could not move, her gaping eyes unable to comprehend what she was seeing.
St. Silas tore through the kitchen, his movements fluid and unimpeded, and she released a deep breath when she realized that he was not the one who was injured.
“Quickly.” His command was swift. “Where can I put him?”
Leena’s eyes fell to the bundle he carried in his arms. She staggered closer, her thoughts passing through her mind like bullets slowed by water.
The bundle stirred. A whimper escaped, then a small childish sob.
“On the table.” Mrs. Van hurried to strip the cloth off the aged wood.
Carefully, St. Silas eased the weight onto the table.
It was a boy, not much older than seven, wrapped in St. Silas’s coat.
Leena could not tear her gaze away from the boy’s pale skin, mottled with bruises shaped like handprints—over his brow, on his neck, trailing beneath his clothes. His shoulder was fixed at an awkward angle, the bone jutting from the socket. Small whimpers racked his body.
Leena was sure that she must’ve walked into a nightmare.
A flicker of movement by St. Silas’s shoulder caught Leena’s horrified gaze.
A ghost stood over the boy.
It was clear that the phantom had returned not to comfort the living, but to rage at them. It took her turbulent mind a second to recognize him as the tradesman from that morning, Mr. Marlow.
Mr. Marlow’s ghost flared with fury. Even in the dim light, Leena could see the phantom’s clothes hung off him in a bloodied mess.
St. Silas’s dagger was lodged in his chest.
All at once, the tradesman’s words came back to her: You do intend to send one of your men today to clean up the mess?
She had thought the worst of St. Silas’s reaction that morning. But that same burning anger St. Silas had shown then now thrummed through Leena’s own veins, and she could not stop the accusation pouring from her mouth. “You did this to him!”
The entirety of Leena’s livid focus was on the ghost, and she did not notice St. Silas and Mrs. Van momentarily halt, turning to stare at her.
“No, madam.” St. Silas looked at her with an expression he had never worn before, but his tone was cold when he replied, jerking her attention away from the phantom that hovered over him. “While I cannot usually fault your reasoning, I’m afraid you are wrong on this account.”
Leena blinked, unsure what he was speaking of, her gaze returning to Mr. Marlow’s phantom, who watched the child with dark hatred.
She jolted into action once Mrs. Van called her name sharply.
She aided Mrs. Van in removing the coat from the boy, revealing stretches of skin marked only with pain.
Leena’s one small comfort at the awful scene before them was that there existed no better healer and apothecary than Mrs. Van with her endless supply of strange herbs, rare medicinals, and thick books lining the kitchen cabinets.
If there was ever a chance for amends, the child would find it here—ironically, in the Saint of Silence’s own residence.
Leena’s hands shook as she unbuttoned the child’s shirt collar, wincing whenever she caused the boy to shriek. Hot tears formed at the back of her own eyes and she could not speak past the lump in her throat.
“Who is he?” Mrs. Van asked, and Leena had never heard such strong emotion waver her voice before.
“A servant-boy.” St. Silas’s voice remained steady.
His back was bent as he held a strip of gauze to the boy’s forehead, stemming the bleeding from a deep gash across his scalp.
The firelight cast St. Silas’s face in shadow, and Leena could not read his expression, but his shoulders were coiled as if he was ready to fight again.
“He had accidentally broken one of his master’s vases while polishing it.
Clearly, his master was not the forgiving sort. ”
“Please…please…” The boy’s lips barely moved as he spoke, but Leena could not catch what it was he asked for.
“Do not be afraid. Your master is dead now.” St. Silas’s voice did not sound like his own—or not like what Leena had ever heard from him. “The dead cannot bother the living.”
Then St. Silas caught Leena’s eyes briefly, as if to say, The dead cannot bother most of the living.
St. Silas’s words seemed to bring a measure of comfort to the child, for his whimpers quietened momentarily. When the boy did speak next, his voice was a barely formed whisper. “Will you please…continue…the story…”
Leena had long abandoned undoing the buttons, and was now cutting through the boy’s shirt in order to view the extent of the damage to his shoulder, but she stumbled and leveled an astonished look at St. Silas.
St. Silas’s mouth was a grim line. He did not return her look this time.