He continued despite her objection. “Think of it as an employment review.” This was one of the few times she’d seen Mr. St. Silas reveal more than he intended. “You have been a great disappointment.” His eyes were heavy-lidded with displeasure, and his fingers continued to tap with obvious impatience. “Within this period I’ve spent with you, you have proven yourself to be insubordinate, without discipline, obstinate, an immeasurable nuisance—”
Leena’s teeth gritted.
“—and full of temper.” Without waiting for a response, he continued, “I have given youmultiplechances, Miss Al-Sayer—more than I have given anyone else in recent memory. My patience wears exceedingly thin.”
“Yourpatience wears thin?” she cried incredulously. Every day, Leena battled feelings of panic and dread while sitting in those consultations, while searching for Lord Avon, while returning to her chamber alone and more desperate to free herself by the minute. All these emotions rose to the surface now, and she could not stop the words tearing from her tongue. “Oh, how Iloatheyou.”
There was a moment of loaded silence, his eyes glacial as they bored into her, before he continued silkily, “How unoriginal, Miss Al-Sayer, even coming from your pretty mouth. If you insist on remaining useless, at the very least be more interesting.”
The door slammed open just as Leena was about to reply.
A man entered.
In her fury, it took her a moment to recognize him as the same Black Coat who had confessed to betraying the rebels. He had changed drastically within the fortnight since she’d seen him last, his cheeks scratched raw by his own nails, eyes hollowed, mouth flaky and jagged like a scar. He did not sit in the wooden chair again. The same ghosts followed him—a silent death march.
She instinctively crouched lower upon seeing him again.
Mr. St. Silas, his attention drawn away from her, rose slowly to a standing position.
The man swallowed. “I-I keep seeing things after my confession—”
“I warned you, did I not?” Mr. St. Silas interrupted cuttingly. “Must I be blamed for your decision to seek me?”
The man trembled, his movements jerky and untethered, as he pointed a pistol at the Saint.
Leena’s heart slammed against her rib cage.
“Demons visit me in my mind. You’ve cursed me.” He held a necklace depicting the Saint of Healing—the idol of a woman holding a heart—in a fierce grip, while his other hand jabbed the pistol right at Mr. St. Silas’s own chest. “You’re the demon,Saint.You lure us in, you feed on us.” Then, as if he noticed Leena’s presence for the first time, he swerved the gun to point at her, his eyes wide.“Don’t look at me!”
Leena was suspended, unable to move or drop her gaze. The barrel of the pistol seemed to be pinning her in place as the man took a step toward her. She was so focused on the weapon that she did not notice Mr. St. Silas’s quick, lethal movements as he reached the man in a single step. The knife in his hands was a flash as it angled toward the Black Coat’s neck, slitting his throat without a moment’s hesitation.
Leena was still staring at the pistol as hot liquid from the man’s severed artery splashed across the room, a few droplets hitting her cheek.
It all happened within seconds.
St. Silas allowed the man’s body to crumple. The glittering red knife was still between his fingers. The blade had also caught the Saint of Healing necklace, and it swung back and forth on its string. She wondered if that was the same knife St. Silas used to slice the mouths of confessors who lied to him.
“Unfortunate business,” St. Silas said evenly, eyes flickering toward his coat which was left hanging on the arm of his chair. Distantly, she could see the gleam of a pistol poking out of the pocket.
Standing there, a dead man by his bloodied boots, the ruined icon necklace hanging from the tip of his weapon, a cursed ledger lying on the desk, St. Silas looked every inch the demon he’d been accused of being. Leena could not avert her gaze, her breath coming hard and uneven.
He caught her stare and lowered the knife by inches. “What is that expression in your eyes?”
It was the shock that loosened her tongue. “For a moment, you looked like one of those demons depicted on the stained-glass windows of old cathedrals.”
Leena had seen them in the churches, too. The Morish demons did not look like the monsters or jinns depicted in Algaraan tales, with powerful arms and unblinking eyes. Rather, they looked human—or a form of human, allowing them to walk the earth undetected, leaving behind minds putrefied with nightmares. She knew why the Black Coat had carried the idol of the Saint meant to ward away these unholy beings.
Why St. Silas should find that amusing, she did not know. “Can you stand on your own?”
Leena didn’t hear his question. Her shaking fingers touched her own cheeks, pulling back to see the man’s blood on her fingertips. “Is he…Is he dead?”
It was an utterly foolish question, and she knewit.
The man did not stir. His corpse was being drained of blood evenas they spoke, the acrid smell pooling in the room and overpowering the lavender she’d put into her hair that morning.
St. Silas did not bother answering. He strode toward her, holding out his hand.
Leena did not takeit.
