Leena wore the timepiece now, tucked beneath her bodice—as if she carried a bit of home with her.
She smoothed a damp palm across her stiff skirts, holding her tattered suitcase with the other, aware that she was twenty minutes late for the agreed time at which she was to present herself.
Something worse than dread weighed down her spine—a stab of forewarning that told her crossing the threshold into the Saint’s house would irrevocably change her.
Leena had migration in her blood, inherited in the womb, but this last migration would be the worst. She would be running toward bloodshed rather than fleeing fromit.
A few rain droplets spattered her cheeks, the chilly autumn windtwisting mist and smog through the city. The brown bricks of the Saint’s residence seemed to be siphoning the air from Leena’s lungs.
Although Mr. St. Silas lived in a genteel area, there was nothing genteel about this building nor the residents inside it. She wondered briefly if the neighbors saw this house as their district’s greatest shame.
She lifted her fist, but halted before her knuckles hit the door, a quake in her chest.
Suddenly, as if the weather sensed Leena’s unease, the sky unhinged its jaw to release a torrent of rainwater just as the door swung open—before Leena had the chance to knock.
Mr. St. Silas was on the other side with gloves in his hands as if preparing to leave.
He checked his step. His brows drew together upon seeing her and his lips tightened; it was clear to her he was in a menacing mood. He met her gaze with cool civility, then bowed—an insolent incline of his head.
“Your health has improved.” He took in her thin shawl, the worn boots, the drenched hemline with a contemptuous lift of his lips. “All radiance; you should thank me.”
It was the first time she’d seen him since signing the contract. Leena’s gaze quickened to details about him that she’d missed that night: the shaved bristles on his jaw, the faint scar on his throat in the shape of a knife wound, the freshly bruised knuckles.
He stood still under her scrutiny, but his mouth quivered upward as if daring her to share her assessment.
She didn’t.
Instead she said, “This is a business transaction, Mr. St. Silas. I do not owe you my gratitude.”
His brows rose faintly. “No, you owe me your time.”
He stepped aside, opening the passageway for her.
Still, Leena didn’t move. “Were you on your way out to come fetch me? Did you think I would go back on my word?”
“I had no doubt, Miss Al-Sayer, that youwouldfulfill your endof the contract.” His voice was mild. “Even if I had to drag you here myself to do so.”
She met his eyes with a hard stare of her own. She could easily visualize the methods which he would have deployed todragher.
Then—deliberately—she took a step over the threshold as if to prove to him that she did so of her own volition. Her dress dripped on his gleaming hardwood floors, but if he noticed, he didn’t comment.
He walked briskly ahead of her. “Come. I’ll give you a tour.”
The house waswider than it was tall, and seemed to have all the comforts in the world—except warmth. Despite the fires blazing in most rooms, a chill still pervaded Leena’s bones. There was something eerily empty about this house—a house that was as discreet and shut in as its master.
With Mr. St. Silas leading her, she noticed that the dining parlor looked untouched and the drawing room seemed unused. Even the bedroom that Leena was soon to inhabit, much more luxurious than the lumpy bed she was used to sleeping on, was desolate. This house felt like a stopping place—solely practical and utterly detached, like a posting inn that had been forced to become a home. She kept pace with Mr. St. Silas, his tour short and perfunctory, his hair even darker within the pools of light from the sconces. He didn’t look in the least bothered by the presence of a stranger in his home—especially one who could see the dead—as if he knew that the house would keep all his secrets.
How could he leave the blistering world outside—a world designed to cut and bruise—only to hang his coat and wipe his shoes in a house made of sterility and stone? Did he seek the cold? Shyaway from softness? Leena thought of the house she’d just left behind, small as it was, cluttered with childhood drawings and familiar smells. Another place that had burrowed into her heart.
At the very least,she thought,the Saint’s house will never haunt me in the same way.
Their last stop was Mr. St. Silas’s study, and the only room within the house that seemed inhabited. It was unchanged from Leena’s last visit. Multiple ledgers encircled the room, some tattered and worn, others unopened and unused. The only new addition was a medium-sized canvas wrapped in oilcloth leaning against a shelf. It stood out in a place that shunned sentimentality.
Mr. St. Silas ordered tea to be brought in before taking a seat behind his desk. His hair was cut shorter than previously. His eyes—black as ink, a drowning well—seemed to swallow the light rather than reflect it: quick to assess, slow to reveal.
It occurred to Leena that she was in a room alone with him. That she would be alone with him day in and day out. Not for the first time did she worry about her safety, or how she would protect herself if all the rumors that swirled around the Saint of Silence were true.
The silence stretched between them. Neither was willing to break it, both locked in a battle in which the victor was the last to speak.
