He nodded, writing that part verbatim. As they wrote a few more lines to perfect the details of the contract, it reminded her of the endless afternoons she’d spent haggling in the Old Market, bothcustomer and merchant wanting to get the upper hand without losing the trade altogether.
Then, the tip of his pen hovering over the contract, he asked her abruptly, “Are there others like you?”
Leena had tried to find out in the early days. She’d spoken to Algaraan clerics; she’d sat on the wooden benches of the grand and empty cathedrals; she’d gone to see so-called mystics and shamans. She’d learned very quickly that those claiming to have such powers were mostly con men, bleeding the grieving of their purses. She’d been so afraid of being lumped in with these swindlers that she’d kept her ability quiet. “None that I know of.”
“Does that make you feel unique?” There was only mild curiosity in his tone, an indifferent scientist dissecting a cadaver.
Leena’s lips thinned. She would not allow him to see how much his question unsettled her, though she was sure that was exactly why he’d askedit.
“Please add the name of the ghost that you require me to find,” she replied instead.
Another look was leveled at her before he finally wrote a name.
Percival Avon, 16th Marquess of Avon, Master of Weavingshaw.
Lord Avon,Leena thought.An aristocrat.
“Why do you seek him?” she asked, but she was met with only stony silence.
She kept a close eye as St. Silas continued to draft the contract, working herself past the point of exhaustion until the letters began to blur. Several times she forced him to change the wording of a few sentences. Each time he did so without complaint, and Leena swore that he seemed amused when she caught any of his escape clauses. That frightened her. If St. Silas was so adept at drafting contracts and planting loopholes, then there were bound to be a few more she missed.Especiallyin her current state.
“One last thing I’d like to add,” she said in a rush. She attemptedto keep her tone brusque, but relics of long-held pain bled through. “If you die before me, don’t become a restless spirit.Please—” St. Silas looked sharply at her. “Please, don’t come back to haunt me.”
He considered her statement detachedly, his mouth a firm line, then moved to add it to the contract.
The housekeeper was called in once more to witness the signing. She didn’t question this new contract, her face perfectly neutral—a well-trained servant—but Leena sensed her disapproval. She didn’t linger afterward, the door shutting firmly behind her.
Leena couldn’t tear her gaze away from the loop of her own signature, the second one signed that night—the first written in hope, this one in despair.
St. Silas looked victorious.
Shehatedhim.
“I will send for you in a week. The Trimexicillin should have worked by then.” He dismissed her easily, as if granting her the next week was an act of benevolence. “Mrs. Van, my housekeeper, will provide you with the second medication upon your exit. You will go home in my carriage. A copy of the contract will be delivered to you.”
“Another course of the medication has already been prepared,” Leena said, almost dully. She could barely lift her head. “You knew I’d agree to your terms from the very beginning, didn’t you?”
“Aye, madam. In my line of work, it is dangerous practice to allow your customers to take you by surprise.”
“Was it a lie?” she asked, staring down at her hands. They were red and chapped from her current work as a laundress—the only employment she could find—and she resisted the urge to tuck them away. “When you told me that I was one of the few to come to you with a request for kindness?”
Her cheeks flushed. She thought she was impervious to flattery, but a part of herhadbelieved it and been proud ofit.
He didn’t pause. “I’m afraid it was. We all help and hurt others in equal measure. It is not special to want to save someone else.” Hemoved around his desk and toward the door as if already thinking ahead to more important matters. But before reaching the threshold he turned. “If it’s any consolation, you were the first one tosurpriseme, though.”
That was no consolation. “And if the medication does not work? If Rami’s too far gone?”
The Saint waved this away as if it were a minor nuisance. “Then I’ll pay his life’s worth in gold.”
“His life cannot be measured in gold. No life can.”
“Why, of course it can, madam.” His eyes fell briefly to the timepiece attached to his chest, then to the contract on his desk. “You’ve just set the price.”
Leena spent thedays following her confession in a tangle of fevers and nightmares.
Rami fared no better. She could hear his coughing through the walls—a continuous rattle that never ceased even with the medication she forced past his clenched teeth. He was delirious, his eyes hazy, and more than once he pleaded with her to send away the landlord, even though the rent was not due for another three weeks.
On the first night after taking the Trimexicillin, it made no difference to either Leena or Rami. The fever still scraped across her skin like raw metal; she was sure she was hemorrhaging heat and could not stopit.
