“I willnae tell ye anything until ye agree. Do we have a deal?”
Lily knew she couldn’t trust any of them, but the need to know what they’d done with Oskar burned like a hot coal in the pit of her stomach.
“All right,” she breathed. “I’ll do what I can.”
Lily gently untied the knot of the makeshift bandage and eased it down Alfred’s leg, wincing at the sight of the gruesome injury beneath. Although the fracture was clean, the swelling and discoloration indicated that it had deteriorated since she’d last seen it. Alfred had clearly not been following her advice in taking care of the injury, and she suspected he might eventually lose his leg. Still, she would do what she could.
She ran her hands over the leg, probing with her fingertips as gently as she could. Even so, Alfred gasped and went rigid with pain.
“The bones have moved,” Lily said. “You’ve been putting too much pressure on it and haven’t kept it splinted properly. They are no longer aligned and need to be reset again.” She looked up at Alice and Eberwyn. “Hold him down. This is going to hurt.”
Alice and Eberwyn exchanged a fierce look, but Alice nodded reluctantly. They took their positions, Alice grabbing Alfred’s loose arm and Eberwyn his good leg, pinning him down.
Lily steadied herself, her hands shaking slightly as she prepared to reset the fracture. She took a steadying breath and summoned all her strength.
She grabbed Alfred’s leg and started to manipulate it, twisting and pulling until she heard the satisfying snap of the bones realigning.
Alfred roared in pain, his face contorted in agony as his leg shifted back into place. Alice and Eberwyn held on tight, bracing themselves as Lily finished the gruesome task.
Lily paused for a moment, her breath coming in short gasps, and then she gently straightened Alfred’s leg and wrapped it in fresh bandages.
“Do you have anything for swelling and pain?” she asked Alice. “Because he’s going to need both.”
Alice nodded to a small pottery bottle sitting on the table. “Tincture from the opium poppy.”
Lily winced. Opium? That was highly addictive. “All right. If there’s nothing else, then give him no more than a few drops at a time. Enough to take the edge off the pain and let him sleep.”
Alice nodded, a little of the fury abating from her gaze to be replaced by something like grudging respect. Lily didn’t care. She had no interest in these people’s respect. All she wanted was to know where Oskar was.
She wiped her hands on a rag and then tossed it onto the table before turning to Eberwyn.
“I’ve kept up my part of the bargain, now you need to keep yours. Where is Oskar? What have you done to him?” She tried to keep the desperation out of her voice, but wasn’t sure she succeeded.
Eberwyn smirked, his eyes gleaming in the firelight. “First, let me explain something to ye, Lily. We are not the villains here. We are fighting for a cause much greater than ourselves.”
“Oh, really? So you’re some sort of hero, is that right?” Lily retorted. “In my experience, the good guys don’t go around kidnapping people!”
“Ye will discover the truth soon enough. But let me reassure ye, we have no intention of harming Oskar. He’s important to our plan. In fact, he’s proving invaluable.”
Lily’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about? Oskar would never help you.”
“Oh? Are ye sure about that? Perhaps ye dinna know him as well as ye think ye do. Right now, he’s out doing our work. He is going to be the key to our victory.”
“You’re lying,” Lily said although a sick feeling was uncurling in her stomach.
“Ye know I’m not. Oskar has remembered where his true loyalties lie. I’m afraid he’s betrayed ye, Lily, and betrayed the Order of the Osprey.” He grinned suddenly, a smile full of cruelty and glee.
“Oskar works for us now.”
EVERYTHING LOOKED NORMAL. As Oskar stalked through the winter-wrapped streets of the city, life went on as it always did, as though nothing had changed. As though Oskar’s life hadn’t suddenly imploded.
How could that be? How could the world continue moving when everything he’d built his life on had collapsed beneath his feet?
He wanted to bellow at the hawkers who badgered him as he marched past them. He wanted to yell at the goodwives gossiping on their front steps. He wanted to rage at the children running around playing their games of tag.
How could they be so oblivious? How could they be so caught up in the petty, unimportant details of their day-to-day lives when everything he knew had crumbled?
Oskar stopped in the middle of the street, his heart thumping. The only thing that gave him a sense of control was the job he had been given. That was where he found a sliver of purpose. And yet, it only served to highlight everything he had lost.
