Chapter 35 A Duel of Honor #2
Beside Hargreaves, Martin crumpled sideways onto the ground, blood pouring from his shoulder in rivulets, marking the snow like a butcher’s stockroom. His body lay unmoving, and Hargreaves could not say for sure if he still breathed.
Reckless fool.
Hargreaves did not spare Martin another glance. Alive or dead, he never suffered a fool.
Instead, his attention swung back to St. Silas, who had withdrawn a second pistol hidden inside his right boot, holding it in one hand and his wounded side with the other. Smoke still coiled from the muzzle, from the shot that felled Martin.
“Drop the sword,” St. Silas said, punctuating each word like an attack.
Hargreaves allowed the blade to fall from his hand, the crimson on the steel splattering the snow.
He knew that he should’ve searched Bram at the start of the duel for both the red diary and a concealed weapon, but being so close to such a ferocious beast, even with a pistol in his own hand, did not bode well for Hargreaves.
Instead, he’d waited until he had a chance to weaken St. Silas entirely.
A hidden weapon complicated Hargreaves’s plan, but did not ruin it.
In his peripheral vision, he saw the Al-Sayer boy drop to his knees, stretching his arm to reach for Hargreaves’s discarded blade.
“My apologies, Bramwell,” Hargreaves began. St. Silas’s eyes hardened at the use of his given name.
St. Silas struggled to his feet, the pistol still firm in his hand. “I have one bullet left, Hargreaves. I would be very wise with my next words, if I were you.”
The snow had begun to fall with force, as if attempting to shroud their shame.
“My sword—the very same one that sliced you—was coated with rare demon poison.” Hargreaves watched St. Silas’s expression, but there was neither a flicker to his eyelids nor a tightening of his brows.
If he was afraid, he did not show it. “Without the antidote, you will be in your grave in less than a week.”
Silence.
The weight of Hargreaves’s own actions bore down on him. For a moment he did not see the Saint of Silence, but a small child with two missing front teeth, showing him the birdhouse he was building in a tree.
Then St. Silas barked out a laugh, jarring Hargreaves, raising the hair at the nape of his neck.
Even facing death, Bramwell was more fearless than his father.
“What will you tell me next, Hargreaves? That only you have the antidote but require something in exchange for it?”
“The red diary.” Hargreaves locked the image of the small child away into the recesses of his mind, instead looking unblinkingly at the man before him. “Your ancestor’s red diary.”
St. Silas was motionless, the gun unwavering in his hand, the vicious laughter still in his eyes. At this revelation, the Al-Sayer boy froze, still on his knees, still trying to reach for Hargreaves’s discarded sword.
“Then we shall drop all pretenses,” St. Silas murmured, inclining his head in a mock bow. “Why is it that you want the Avon diary?”
Hargreaves stepped forward once more, but halted as the gun moved from his chest to his head.
He raised his palms like a priest granting a blessing right there in the cold wasteland of the meadow.
“To help you, Bramwell. I promised you that I would bring you back from the demons twelve years ago, and I will. But I cannot do so without the Avon diary.”
“Your notion of helping is quite skewed, my lord. Do you poison all those you desire to help?” St. Silas’s smooth voice, so similar to that of his father, continued to carry hints of savage amusement.
The Al-Sayer boy had finally reached the sword, slicing the rope around his ankle in one fluid motion. Freed, he did not hesitate to press the poisoned tip against Hargreaves’s own collar.
“Shall I run him through, Saint?” the Al-Sayer boy spat.
Hargreaves’s face remained mild, although he felt the first inklings of apprehension settle in his chest. “I would not do that—”
“Yes, yes, I know.” St. Silas cut him off. “The antidote. I do not doubt, however, that I can procure it very easily in Golborne, so your existence is entirely useless to me.” He turned away from him, locking his pistol. “Run him through, Rami.”
Although it was the Al-Sayer boy who was holding the blade firmly against his skin, Hargreaves didn’t lift his gaze from St. Silas. “Have the demons ever told you how to break your indenture?”
A sudden stiffening to St. Silas’s back.
“You do not know,” Hargreaves continued, undeterred. “That is why you are searching for Percy’s ghost. You wish to ask him what it was he traded his son for all those years ago, so that you may trade it back for your freedom. Am I not right?”
“Of course you are right. You were there, after all.” St. Silas unlocked his pistol again, but kept it aimed at the blood-splattered snow. “And I venture to guess that you know exactly what object it was that you sold me for. Am I not right?”
“I am surprised you did not come to me sooner, Bramwell. You know that as your godfather, I would’ve given you the information you sought unhesitatingly.”
“What a fool I would be to return to the man who would, it seems, go past selling me to outright killing me.” St. Silas released another cold laugh. “After all, look at where we are now. Poisoned, with only a week to live.”
“What has happened today was done out of necessity, as was the case twelve years ago.” Hargreaves did not allow the emotion of bartering off the young Bramwell to overtake his voice now. “But you were never alone. We had allowed that servant-boy—Theodore Daye, was it?—to accompany you.”
“Ah, yes. Theo and I were the first real taste of human currency. The Wake then found it had a ferocious appetite for it.” If St. Silas’s look had been vicious before, it was past malevolent now. “I hear your business is flourishing, my lord.”
What would be the difference, Hargreaves thought, if the prisoners rotted in Newtorn Prison or rotted with the demons? At least with the latter, their sentence would be magnanimously reduced.
“I am surprised you know so much of the goings-on of the Wake. We do try to keep our…business tightly sealed, especially from the disreputable Saint.”
The Saint raised his brows mockingly. “If that is the case, I highly suggest you shoot Orley in the face, for he has been most obliging in trading your secrets with me.”
Hargreaves did not let his growing irritation show. He knew Orley had no allegiances to anyone, not even to the gang he ruled, and was as likely to work with a person as to slit his throat. Still, he had served his purpose.
“You are very right: Orley is unhinged. But for the right price, he is still willing to be of service. For example”—Hargreaves knew he was going to take special delight in this revelation—“he has been controlling poor Theodore for a very long time. Upon my instructions, Orley sent Theodore to appear before your Miss Al-Sayer, claiming to possess the ability to bring forth Percy’s ghost.”
Hargreaves marked the blazing fury that hardened St. Silas’s dark eyes. “Let me guess—to lure me here to find the red diary for you?”
Hargreaves released a long, almost apologetic exhalation of breath. “Percy’s ghost was never coming to save you.”
With interest, Hargreaves looked for any show of dismay in Bramwell’s face. There was none; only a jeering indifference. Hargreaves shifted, halting when the pistol focused on his chest.
“And yet,” St. Silas continued, “you still fail to mention why you have such a fascinating obsession with the Avon diary. It leaves one almost…in sympathy for all your efforts over the years.”
It was Hargreaves’s turn to bark out a laugh.
“I doubt you show sympathy for anyone, Bramwell, and least of all for me.”
St. Silas did not respond, waiting patiently for a reply.
When there was no immediate answer forthcoming, the Al-Sayer boy’s voice cracked in the air. “You know about Leena’s…ability?”
The boy pressed the sword more firmly into Hargreaves’s exposed neck, almost drawing blood and wounding him with the same poison that now coursed through St. Silas’s veins.
“Mr. Al-Sayer, I would strongly suggest you drop the sword. Your father’s life depends on the choices you make now,” Hargreaves said.
The Al-Sayer boy stilled. “What do you know about my father?”
Hargreaves was struggling to think past the tip of the poisoned blade tight against his neck. “Lift your blade if you desire an answer.”
After a pause, the sword was edged slightly away.
“He is a prisoner.” Hargreaves’s reply was curt. “Under the explicit watch of my guards.”
Taking hold of the conversation once more, before the Al-Sayer boy did anything reckless, Hargreaves spoke directly to Bramwell, finally reaching the heart of the matter.
“You cannot kill me, Bramwell—if not for the antidote, then for the very real fact that, in the entirety of the human world, it is only I who knows how to break your demon contract.”
St. Silas still seemed unimpressed. “In which case, there are many ways to drag secrets out of a body that do not amount to killing him.”
“Torture?” Hargreaves asked, once more assaulted by recollections of Percy, who also would have sunk to any form of depravity to keep hold of Weavingshaw.
St. Silas brushed the snow off his jacket in an unbothered gesture, but the other hand still holding the pistol was white-knuckled and tense. “Being left to the demons, my lord, makes you demon-like yourself.”
“But forcing answers from me in such a manner will still take time. Especially”—Hargreaves spoke easily, belying the threat beneath his words—“as Miss Al-Sayer is back at Weavingshaw with no one but Kilworth to offer…protection.”
St. Silas stilled, an arrested expression on his face.
“What did you say?” he whispered softly.
There, the crack in the formidable armor. Hargreaves’s eyes blazed in triumph.
Hargreaves had observed—with rapidly growing interest—the interactions between St. Silas and the Al-Sayer girl.
At the best of times St. Silas was difficult to read, but there were moments—as she was leaving the room, as she smiled up at him—when his eyes could not hide themselves, watching her in unmistakable fascination.
“Indeed, Kilworth could not stop speaking of her. I have grown weary of hearing him obsessively describe the color of her lips, the long, slender neck that had him…well…”
St. Silas crossed the space between them in two long strides, pulling Hargreaves out of Rami’s hold by the collar and brutally smashing his forehead into Hargreaves’s nose, before shoving the muzzle of his pistol against his temple, all but cracking the bone with its force.
The pain was instantaneous and shocking.
Hargreaves had never felt anything like it. The ridges of his nose shifted, fire burning through the rest of his face with agony.
“If you lay one finger on her, I will make certain your decaying flesh will be a feast for the wolves.” St. Silas’s words were a snarl. “Kilworth I will personally gut.”
Hargreaves spat blood on the snow. “I have no doubt you are true to your threats. However, I urge you to exercise restraint. I have sent for the assistance of several Black Coats; they will be here imminently—perhaps within the hour.”
Ignoring him, St. Silas roughly patted Hargreaves’s jacket until he found both hidden guns, pulling them out and throwing them toward the feet of the Al-Sayer boy.
“Ready the carriage,” St. Silas barked toward Rami. “Now. Your sister is left alone with that reptile.”
Then, rearing back, St. Silas brought the barrel of his pistol down hard against Hargreaves’s skull.
Another strike of pain erupted across Hargreaves’s head like an earthquake, and he collapsed onto the ground with his cheek pressing painfully against the ice.
“Do not think,” St. Silas said softly, “that I have been complacent or forgetful in those years I’ve been the Saint of Silence. I was always going to return for you.”
In spite of the blood flowing through his teeth, Hargreaves smiled, the ghost of memories soothing the throb behind his eyelids.
“You are your father’s son, Bramwell Avon, and you are a neck running toward an ax—just as he was.”
Bram spat inches from Hargreaves’s head where he lay prostrate in the snow. Then, distantly, Hargreaves watched the blur of St. Silas’s leather boots recede toward the carriage.
The clatter of carriage wheels struck the ground
The horses surged into motion.
They were gone.
And Hargreaves remembered that it was in this exact spot that Percy had drawn his last breaths.