“You acquired a friend in prison?” she said, releasing me.
I eyed Kit, who was staring at the Wraith like he was in a dream.
“The boy–his name is Kit,” I said.
“You smell like soap-covered shit,” she said, lightly punching my arm before bending down in front of Kit. “Why don’t you head downstairs and find something to eat, tell them Val sent you.”
He swallowed hard and nodded once.
“Thank you, Miss,” he said.
She winked and waved him away. Despite her long scar over her eye, it was hard to be afraid of her. She was about as harmless as a fly, though one of the deadliest shots I’d ever known.
“As for you, you need to soak in a bath for at least three hours,” she said, shoving me towards my cabin.
“You know I’m the captain of this ship, right?” I asked, a slight tug pulling at my lips.
It was a strange sensation after months of numbness.
“You’ll have to take that up with the other captain of the Wraith,” Val said with a wicked smile.
My heart lurched in my chest, feeling too much at once. Part of me was livid with Rosamund. Not for taking command of my ship, but for interfering in a plan I spent over a decade enacting. She knew what she was doing when she enlisted Inu last night. Told her exactly what to say so that I would go with her. That was the problem with allowing people in and sharing secrets: you could be easily manipulated.
“And when will my rival be making her appearance?” I asked, hating the way my heart pounded harder in my chest.
This need I felt for her was a poison. It was an obsession, and it was as foul as any sewer rot in London. The best thing for Rosamund Bailey was if I had hanged, but she was blinded by poor judgment.
“Haven’t you heard, Prince Charming, you’re going to the ball?” Val’s eyes glittered with amusement.
Maybe it was the last few months catching up, but I couldn’t process the words she was saying. Almost like this was an alternate reality or a dream, and soon enough, I would awake back in Newgate once more.
Val turned down the way the boy went and hollered back, “Captain’s orders. She left a note in your room!”
I was a guest in my own home. Even washed and scrubbed till my skin was red, I felt out of place. Everything was how Ileft it, minus the repairs that’d been done, but there was the unmistakable sense of her on everything I touched. The smell of lavender and sea salt on my bed was undoubtedly hers. A shell and an empty vial that was added to my shelf of items I’d acquired over the years.
There was a new log started after mine with her dancing script over the last months. I’d read it twice over, but the letter in my hand I’d read over a dozen times and still couldn’t fathom understanding it. My mind just kept replaying the part where she claimed to have made a deal with Edmonds. It was one thing to assume it, but another to see it in her writing. Underneath, she promised to explain, but only in person, which meant it was far worse than I’d imagined.
It was agonizing to be away from her and not ask my questions. More than once, I stopped myself from walking into London and banging on the Bailey house door. If I knew one thing, it was that Rosamund Bailey’s scheming rarely ended well.
A knock on the door interrupted my brooding, and I slammed down her note that was already fraying at the edges from overuse. Obsession. If I had any decency in me, I would order the Wraith out of London and make the choice for her. She still thought there was something left to save in me, but she couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Come in,” I snapped.
“It’s good to see you, too, Captain,” Emille said, sliding into the room with a wooden box tucked under his arm.
I frowned, regretting snapping at my doctor. He was a good man who deserved better from me. I owed him my life several times over. The fact that it was only my forearm I was missing was due to his skill as a surgeon.
“How have you been, Emille?” I asked.
Emille shrugged and set down his box, holding out his hand to my chair. I sighed and acquiesced, lowering myself into a chair I’d sat in thousands of times, but now felt foreign to me. Like I was a guest in my own home.
“Better now that you are back. Let me see,” he ordered.
It was an inevitability I’d hoped to avoid as long as possible. I shrugged off my coat and began rolling up the tucked-in sleeve of my arm. The skin was rough and uneven; the scars dipped in while some protruded, reminding me of canyons. It could have been a lot worse. I was lucky Edmonds wanted me alive and that his doctor saw to it daily, but I held no doubts that it would have healed better under Emille’s care.
He frowned at what was left of my arm and ran his hand over the new skin. I still felt the ghost of my arm from time to time, but it lessened over the months.
“I have something for you,” he said.
