“Very good,” the Saint murmured. “Now ask who killed him.”
Leena shook her head. “Somewhere between the living world and the dead one, ghosts lose their ability to speak. I can only see them.”
“Ask him to point to his murderer, then.”
She swallowed thickly and turned to face the phantom. “Sir, is the man who killed you in this room?”
The phantom watched her. She felt his anger like birds pecking her skin. He stepped toward the prisoner, partially blocking him, as if to shield Colson from their gaze. Leena thought it was an oddly protective gesture. Finally, the ghost gave a nod.
“Point to him.”
A hard gesture, firm and sure—not toward the prostrate prisoner, but toward Mr. St. Silas. She stared up at the Saint as a dawning horror mounted, transforming her features and draining the color from her cheeks. He saw the change and a slow smile spread across his face.
“Congratulations are in order, Miss Leena Al-Sayer.” The Saint bowed his head—not a remorseful action, but one of vicious triumph. “Championof the dead.”
Leena sat alonein St. Silas’s study as she waited for the medicine to be procured. Outside, a hesitant dawn broke over the city. She’d not spoken since she’d left the prison—not in the carriage, and not when she was escorted back into the house. She was drained, so depleted that her tired body couldn’t even find joy in proving her secret true. All she could remember was the prisoner staring at her from behind steel bars while the real murderer stood beside her—the accusing eyes, the face that had somehow morphed into that of her father.
She was sure that the ghost that haunted Colson would never allow himself to depart this world until his cellmate was liberated, if ever.
“You show an astounding lack of curiosity, madam,” St. Silas said, striding back into his study, a small parcel in his hand. Oddly enough, he carried a thick book in the other.
She knew what he was referring to. Still, she played the fool, her eyes on the items he carried, but he placed them on a shelf away from her sight. “Curiosity regarding what matter?”
His eyes glittered. “The matter of me…er…laying to restone of my employees and condemning the other.”
“I’m an oddly incurious being, Mr. St. Silas,” she said through pursed lips. They both knew that it didn’t matter what information Leena had on St. Silas. Even if she did choose to go to the constable, anyone in New Algaraa District could attest to Leena’s eccentricities. There was that incident that had occurred a handful of weeks after she’d begun to see the dead: Leena had run into the street dressed only in a white nightgown, the fabric billowing in the winter wind so that her bare feet and ankles showed, screaming that a tall man with sallow skin was trying to kill her. Of course, when the neighbors investigated, there was no sallow-skinned man. He was a phantom.
A few similar scenes after that had cemented her reputation. No matter how hard she tried to appear within the bounds of conventionality now—no matter that she had managed to secure employment as a laundress, that she always appeared kempt, that she spent her nights studying to be an Algaraan translator—her neighbors looked at her with faintly pitying, if not at times fearful, glances. She didn’t have friends anymore, only a sick brother and the dead to keep her company these days.
“If I’ve learned anything from communing with the dead,” she said bitterly, “it is to keep the business of the living quiet.”
“Clever girl,” he remarked again. He sat down behind the desk and withdrew the contract they’d signed earlier. “Let us read our agreement once more to ensure both parties are satisfied.”
Leena resisted the urge to lean over and snatch the medication herself. This house, the Saint’s very presence, seemed to suffocate the breath from her lungs. She shivered, longing to be back home, to tuck herself under a knitted blanket.
“Hmm.” St. Silas’s brows furrowed in confusion.
Leena shifted, uneasy. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Hardly a problem on my part,” he said. “It is just that the contract specifies that only one course of medication is to be delivered.”
“Of course,” Leena said, with a nervous laugh. “I only need it for one person.”
“But how could that be when it is two people that are sick?” St. Silas leaned forward, eyes laced with false concern. “Or did you not know, Miss Al-Sayer, that you too are dying?”
Silence.
She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. “You are mistaken—”
“Sweeper’s Cough is highly contagious. Were you not aware?” He waved his hand as if he was sharing a minor, uninteresting fact.
Leena rose to her feet, her face flushed. “Do not jest with me, sir. I had the infection when I was only a babe.”
“Did you?” His look of incredulity was so drawn out that it was nothing short of mocking. It made Leena doubt herself. She wassureher father had said she’d had it when she was little, but had he specifically said Sweeper’s Cough, or had he only said a cough? Leena could not bring forth a clear memory, but she thought—she assumed—surely—
“It seems you have reevaluated your earlier certainty,” St. Silas noted with dry humor.
Leena shook her head firmly. “I do not even have a cough.”
