Chapter 33 A Safe Passage
Leena was about to encircle her bed with salt when a knock came at her door at a quarter past one in the morning. She’d stayed awake later than usual in the despairing hope that Lord Avon would come forth, but he remained bitterly elusive.
She looked inquiringly at Theodore Daye, who had taken his usual position beside her bed.
She opened her door to find St. Silas darkening the threshold.
She hadn’t seen him save for briefly this morning, and a part of her had wondered if he’d been avoiding her since the cave.
She moved to let him in, grateful that she was still dressed in her yellow cotton skirt and that her hair was not a complete mess, still in the pins that Mrs. Van had painstakingly woven through her curls before dinner.
St. Silas had never visited her in her chamber; for him to be here must mean that there was something urgent to be said. His gaze dropped to the salt pouch in her hands, but he did not comment.
There was a grimness in his eyes tonight. Wordlessly, he stepped inside and withdrew a palm-sized book from inside his coat.
“The red diary,” Leena gasped. “How did you—?”
“The Hall of the Lake. Avons can cross. Call your ghost,” St. Silas responded succinctly.
Leena stared at him. She imagined St. Silas rowing across those dark waters, entirely unaffected by the coiling energy—so potent, so corrosive, enough to drive a man to drown himself.
Leena herself had felt the demon’s powers, felt its attempt to force her into submission, and she knew she would have succumbed to it had she been on the lake.
That St. Silas had survived simply because he was an Avon was nearly unfathomable—especially when she’d felt the demon’s craving for Avon blood.
Although Rami was her brother and there was very little she kept from him, she had not told him what she’d discovered about St. Silas in the cave.
But after the Tar incident, her faith in Rami’s ability to keep a calm head was shaken.
She could not trust he would not accidentally or purposely release such knowledge.
Before Leena could question him further, Theodore Daye had already stepped forward and motioned for Leena to place the book on the floor.
The ghost knelt beside it, one hand grazing the scarlet leather exterior.
He stayed in that position for a long time; Leena had never seen him so still.
His movements were often jerky, his skin itching, as if on fire.
“He’s here,” she whispered, not taking her eyes off Theodore.
The temperature in the room dropped. Goosebumps trailed her spine. Thin sheets of ice crept across the windowpane.
Finally, Theodore Daye stood up. He turned to the clock that hung on the wall, pointing toward the twelve o’clock position.
“Will Lord Avon’s ghost appear tomorrow at noon?” Leena asked.
Theodore Daye nodded.
Of course, it would be either noon or midnight—those witching hours when the separation between the dead and the living was thinner, and ghosts seemed able to take a step into their world more easily.
Leena’s eyes swerved to the clock again; it was now half past one in the morning. It could’ve been tonight. They had been so close.
“Where will Lord Avon appear?”
Theo pointed to this room.
“Here? In this chamber?” Leena clarified.
Another shaky nod.
She explained all this to St. Silas, who nodded briefly but did not say more for a few moments.
Leena sensed that the stillness around St. Silas was merely a prelude, as if he was trying to speak in a foreign language but didn’t know how.
She stayed quiet, folding her hands in front of her, patiently waiting.
“Is Theo still here?” St. Silas finally murmured, staring hard at the nothingness she’d been speaking to.
“Beside me,” Leena responded softly.
He nodded, his jaw ticcing.
Another silent moment. “Will you tell him something for me?”
She noted the color on his cheeks even as he was trying to control the look in his eyes. “You can speak to him yourself. He can hear you.”
St. Silas jerked at this. It was as if he had never contemplated the idea that he didn’t need Leena for his voice to breach the boundaries of death. He nodded imperceptibly. “Theo, I wish I could’ve done something different. I am sorry.”
Leena looked between the two of them: Theodore Daye, still a boy of perhaps fourteen, stunted by death, stood in jarring contrast to St. Silas, who was so vitally alive. Never had she seen the disparity between the living and the dead so starkly.
Theodore Daye’s eyes widened, as if this apology had been a strike and not a balm to him. He pulled at his hair, his entire body shaking, and the temperature of the room dropped even further. Then, as if he could bear it no longer, he disappeared.
“Theo forgives you.” Leena had no regrets in uttering this falsehood, not allowing herself to assess why she needed St. Silas to believe this.
“You have a terribly honest face, Miss Al-Sayer.” The words St. Silas had first used to describe her still echoed today.
Leena desperately wanted to ask St. Silas who Theodore Daye was to him and why he was apologizing to the young ghost. But Leena knew that there were secrets better left untold, buried deep within the chest like a second heart.
In the silence that ensued, St. Silas picked up the red diary, slipping it into his coat pocket again, before he turned toward the window, the snow obscuring the glass and the light of the moon.
“You need to prepare your bags tonight. Immediately after Theo summons Percival, we will be leaving.” He continued to stare out of the window as he said this. “However, should we meet any…complications beforehand, do not wait for Percival. Leave as soon as you can.”
Leena’s mind was working rapidly, trying to make sense of what he was saying but failing to understand the reason behind the sudden urgency suppressed by his seemingly calm tone.
She had already known that they would be leaving Weavingshaw as soon as Percival’s ghost was found, but this new shift—for St. Silas to willingly abandon his plan before its completion—was no less than astounding.
“Mrs. Van has been given instructions that—unless I tell her otherwise and we are able to await Percival—she will collect you shortly after dawn to return directly to Golborne.” He turned away from the window to look at her once more.
“I do not trust Martin. Mrs. Van knows the halls of Weavingshaw unquestionably. She will be able to lead you out and into the pre-arranged carriage without being seen.”
“Wait—”
“If I do not meet you in Golborne,” he continued, as if not hearing her interruption, “you will find in the bottom drawer of my desk an envelope. That is yours.”
“Wait,” she interjected forcefully again. “The way you are speaking, it is as if you’re expecting an execution of some kind tomorrow. What’s happened to make you speak this way?”
He didn’t respond immediately.
“My lord,” she insisted, walking up to him. “What has happened?”
His face was blank. “There will be a duel tomorrow at dawn. I have every confidence that it will end in our favor and we should continue with our plans as before. However,” he said slowly, “I am also preparing for the…unexpected.”
Leena absorbed his words. “The Tar has been discovered, hasn’t it?” An angry flush crept across her cheeks. “Where is Rami? Allow me to kill him before the duel tomorrow. This is the fault of his rash, impulsive behavior!”
“He is currently locked away, and he is to have no visitors tonight, but he is in no danger,” St. Silas replied. Then, after another pause, “He will not be fighting in the duel.”
She reared back. “You are fighting in his place?”
“I told you from the very beginning to leave your brother behind, but I’ve learned now that telling you anything will result in the opposite happening.” It was not quite laughter in his eyes, but something close to it.
Leena did not find humor in this.
A hundred questions filtered through her mind, but the inescapable one was why St. Silas would take the place of her brother, especially as Rami was no favorite of his.
“Why are you fighting instead of Rami?”
St. Silas shrugged. “I’ve been waiting for a chance to dispose of Martin.”
“Why?” she persisted, although a part of her already knew the answer.
He raised his brows at her. “I do not think you will like the answer.”
“For Weavingshaw?”
“For Weavingshaw.”
The flames were roaring in the fireplace, but in spite of it, Leena felt chilled.
She nodded once, turning to look at the drifting snow outside the window. “Is the duel won at first blood?”
Leena, from having Rami as a brother, knew the rules of combat. There were two eventualities, agreed upon before the fight took place: The duel would be concluded either when the first blood was drawn, or when one fighter was dead.
St. Silas’s answer was swift. “Do I look like the sort of man who stops at first blood?”
Leena emitted a humorless laugh. “No, you do not.”
“And so I repeat: If I am slain, Mrs. Van will be one of the first to know the outcome, and all three of you must therefore abandon the search and leave immediately.”
Leena had an image of St. Silas lying on a patch of isolated moor. The hot blood leaving his body would melt the surrounding snow, until the soil was seen beneath. She gasped at the image and, not for the first time, fought to hold back tears. She wished they were all far away from Weavingshaw.
He saw the look on her face, and his hard eyes softened imperceptibly. “Upon my return from the duel, which is far more likely, we will have the luxury of awaiting Percival’s ghost undisturbed.”
Leena’s eyes snapped to him. “If Mr. Martin is slain, would Weavingshaw finally be yours?”
“It is a start.” The look that came upon St. Silas whenever she challenged him about Weavingshaw was always the same: warlike, blood-filled.
“Is it swords or pistols?” she asked after some time.
“Swords.”