Bram staggered after her, lunging for the pistol that was hidden in Leena’s pocket.
Orley, expecting this, jammed his fist into Bram’s wound. Leena gasped as Bram let out a guttural moan before slumping onto the floor, unconscious. Blood bloomed through his shirt and stained the hardwood floor.
Orley wiped his hands delicately on a handkerchief. Theodore Daye stood by his elbow, refusing to meet Leena’s eyes.
“Now that he is asleep, my love,” Orley said pleasantly, “we can speak freely.”
Leena tore intoher pocket for her pistol, holding it aloft in trembling hands, but Orley barely spared it a glance.
“You’re a traitor, Theo.” The accusation came out choked from Leena’s throat.
Theodore Daye flinched.
She could make out dim shapes of furniture in the weak light filtering from the sconce, and a hallway that extended farther into darkness. She could not see another door or window other than the one behind her.
She made swift calculations in her head. She could shoot Orley and drag Bram out, but she quickly dismissed the idea. She could not lift Bram. So she would have to shoot Orley and barricade herself with Bram in this house. She peered uneasily at the hallway behind Orley’s shoulder, wondering if anyone else lingered in the shadows. She didn’t know how many bullets she had.
As if sensing her thoughts, Orley let out a high-pitched giggle. “Ah, my friends have joined the party.”
Mackenzie Crane stood blocking the entranceway, slamming the door shut and bolting it. He grinned at her, a smile crammed withthe stolen teeth of others, waving his bandaged hand at her like a greeting. A young Burr stood beside him, leaning against the windowpane.
She kept the pistol aimed at Orley, standing in front of Bram like a shield, but she knew that her actions were the desperate ones of a captured animal.
Orley watched her in fascination.
“Theodore told me how you treated him like a friend. It’s delightful. But Theo was mine all along, my dear.” The blacks of his eyes widened, thin lips moving as if he tasted something in the air. “Ah, your distress is so sweet.”
Leena’s grip on the pistol tightened. “You’re a demon.”
He sounded pleased. “So our mutual friend, Mr. St. Silas, has not left you completely in the dark.”
Leena’s eyes hardened at Orley’s gall to even utter Bram’s name.
“Can you see ghosts as well?” she grated out.
Once more, Orley’s tongue poked out to lick his lips. A trace of color appeared on his cheeks, as if he were drunk on her fright.
“No, I was not blessed with that gift,” he responded with an exaggerated sigh. “Mackenzie, have you ever heard of anyone possessing an ability quite like this lovely lady?”
Leena stilled as she waited for an answer. Her arm began to ache from holding the pistol aloft. She wished that Bram would stir, that he would give her any indication that he hadn’t been more gravely injured, but she didn’t dare turn her back to check on him.
Mackenzie’s answer came slowly, as if awakened from deep thought. “No, I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
A shiver ran down her spine and she thrust her pistol in the air. “You’ve lured us into a trap, Orley, using Theodore Daye. If you cannot see him, then how could you plan this?”
From behind Orley, Theodore’s eyes were wild in his thin face, pleading for Leena’s forgiveness. She turned away from him.
Orley held up a hand, the light glinting off the dozen rings he’dstuffed onto his elongated fingers. “I can speak to the dead. Their chattering is incessant, a gift that has always belonged to my family. We used to entertain at the courts of nobles.” He sniffed. “We used to beartists,before I was so unjustly banished to this world.”
There was so much new information striking Leena from every direction that she felt dull withit.
World?
Rather than allow herself to dwell on it, she released the safety on the pistol. From the side, she heard a similar click, and turned to see Burr holding a pistol of his own. This time his hands were steady, his gaunt boyish face splitting into a monstrous grin.
“For Adam,” he whispered, and Leena remembered with a shudder the Algaraan boy they had buried.
“Now, now, hold fire,” Orley cautioned. “We all can be of use to each other.”
