He nods back and then makes his way out of the room.
Meanwhile, Roxana walks to the end of the table and sets down a familiar-looking linen bag. “Here are some of your things,” she says, “I’ll step out so you can get dressed. Once you’re ready to go, we have transportation arranged to bring you home.”
I thank her. As she leaves, I rise shakily, glad I’m alone and have no need to mask my reactions anymore.
Before I do anything else, I give myself a moment, leaning against the table with my eyes closed. I breathe slowly through my mouth and attempt to settle my pounding heart and calm the pain in my body. After a few moments pass, I move to the linen bag and begin to rifle through it.
As I review the options, though, it is clear I don’t want to wear any of it. Whoever packed it thoughtfully sent some of my favorite things from before I was arrested. However, the short skirts, long stockings, puffed sleeves, and frills everywhere seem far too foreign for me to be willing to wear them now.
Instead, I open the door to the hallway. As I hoped, Roxana is standing just outside.
“I don’t want to wear any of that,” I say to her and hear the note of annoyance in my voice.
“I wondered,” she says conspiratorially. “Whenever men pack for us, it’s a disaster. I have some other things here you could try.” She pulls a thin pile of folded clothing out of her leather bag and hands it to me.
“Thank you,” I say, meeting her eyes and meaning it.
She smiles brilliantly at me, and her face goes from rather plain to intoxicating in a moment.
I can’t help but smile back. Then I go back into the room and sort through this clothing. It all feels better than my old clothes, but it’s not mine, so I choose one dress. The dress is dark green, long-sleeved, and cowled. The material it is made out of is stretchy. It is fitted through the upper body to my hips, but then falls more loosely to mid calf. There are two slits along the fronts of my legs that go to my mid-thigh, conveniently ending just below where the evidence of my torture begins.
I pull it on along with a pair of my boots that someone, my guess is Lent, sent with. I leave the uniform piled on the floor, collect the linen bag with my clothes, and carry the remaining pile of clothes back to Roxana.
She looks me up and down, her expression appraising. “It suits you,” she says with a smile.
Then I follow her out of a maze of hallways to a desk with a city official sitting behind it. They watch me closely. The bright wings behind their shoulders make me flinch involuntarily. Thankfully, Roxana talks with them, and I don’t need to speak. They hand over a paper-wrapped package with “her things,” which she hands to me. I manage to stuff it into the linen bag on my shoulder.
With that done, she walks me out to a waiting carriage at the front of the building. I feel my shoulders relax as we get outside. As I walk towards it, I wonder if the boys will be waiting for meinside. I don’t feel quite ready to face them. When I peer into the door of the carriage, though it is blessedly empty. As I sit, I see her standing just outside the door.
“Be safe?” she says.
I nod without looking at her. It’s a lie, safety is the furthest thing from my mind.
SOMETHING UNSAID
Despite the fact that I’ve been on this route a couple of times now, I guess I hadn’t understood how far the angel stronghold is from the mansion. As time passes, I somehow manage some fitful sleep, and of course, the dreams won’t leave me alone, even now.
In this dream, I am in manacles in a small stone space. The dream moves back instead of forward. Even knowing this is a vision and not real, I feel dizzy with the odd movement. I see myself, surrounded by blackness, carving a twisting shape onto the underside of my wrist with the point of a small knife. It burns, and then the skin there is covered with flame. As I scream and thrash in the dream, I am suddenly jolted into wakefulness.
As I wake with my heart pounding, I register that the carriage driver just knocked on the roof. Finding the carriage stopped, before I can be dragged out by the driver, I remove myself and stand on shaking legs outside the mansion.
Home.
There is nothing else to do at the moment, so I square my shoulders, firm up my legs the best I can, and walk to the front door. When I get there, I pause, unsure what to do.
Do I knock? Just walk in? Is anyone even there?
Before I can decide, the door opens and I see Lent standing there, staring at me, his hand still on the doorknob. I am frozen for a moment, but while I’m trying to decide what is appropriate, he steps forward and wraps his arms around me. He is gentle, but I still have to exert every bit of control to keep myself from crying out as he presses against my battered body.
As he embraces me, I hear someone call out from behind him, but it’s muffled with my ear pressed against Lent’s chest.
The rumble as he responds, “Just a minute,” makes me wince slightly, and with that, he pulls back and looks at me again. Concern is clear on his face.
“It’s so good to see you, Lent,” I say quietly.
He swallows, his jaw slack as though he wants to say something. Instead, he simply nods at me, his face uncharacteristically serious. Then he steps aside to allow me through the door.
As I walk into the entry hall, I see the other boys at various points in the room. They look mostly as I remember them, although their faces are clearly horrified by the injuries they can see.
