She expected him to forbid her from leaving, as he had done previously. After all, she was his ghost-seer and was valuable to him. If he did forbid her, Leena thought with rising panic, there was little she could do to gainsay his command.
Filled with dread, she quickened her steps toward the door before he could stop her. “I cannot wait until tomorrow morning.”
His voice was hard, an angry tilt to his mouth. “How will you get there?”
“I’ll walk.”
“It’s raining.”
“It won’t kill me.”
She opened the door to the courtyard, but he slammed it shut with his palm.
Leena waited with a held breath. Now his command would drop. Now he would force her back to her chamber.
It did not come.
Instead, he continued, in barely concealed irritation, “Orley is the worst sort of creature. He will want something in return for any information about your damned brother. What will you give him?”
“For my brother, anything.”
His eyes flickered down the length of her body, his eyebrows raised in a silent question. An irate flush rose on Leena’s cheeks, recalling in more detail than she wanted to admit the look he’d given her last night when he’d seen her in her nightgown—his tight throat, his burning eyes.
“Notthat,” she croaked, more furious because of how unbalanced he made her feel beneath his gaze.
He stepped forward, looming over her in the narrow hallway. His very presence was a knife. “No, you will merely tell Orley thatyou can see the dead. The one secret that makes you exceedingly valuable to me.”
Rather than answer, Leena turned away once more.
The words seemed driven out of him. “I will go with you.”
She lurched to face him, gaping. “Why?”
He shrugged his shoulders, an indolent gesture that seemed almost forced. “Protecting my own interests, Miss Al-Sayer. Isn’t it obvious?”
—
The smog from the factories that lined Ridgeways touched everything, smothering lungs and blackening hearts. Shops were shuttered, debris piled on the pavement, and rough sleepers warmed their hands on makeshift fires contained in steel cans. So many of these people, Leena thought, were not Algaraan refugees, but native Mors who did not even have enough coins to house themselves. Little wonder revolution brewed.
Further along the road were the laundry factories, and Leena’s hands burned just thinking about the harsh lyes stored there. She credited St. Silas for one thing: She would never have to lean over those steaming vats of water again for as long as she lived.
The carriage stopped at the only establishment that seemed to be thriving at this time of night. Welcoming lights blazed through the windows, and three heavyset men stood guard. A few spirits mingled among the downtrodden, but they were only hazy specters, filtering in and out of existence like dying candlelight.
Once she stepped out from the carriage, a thickly perfumed smell wafted in the air, triggering a memory: Margery sitting in a lonely house as the sugary smoke coiling from her hookah masked the scent of neglect.
Tar.
Apprehension filled her stomach at the realization that Orley’s was a place that dealt the drug. Leena pulled Margery’s timepiecefrom her bodice and held it in her hand now as a reminder of her friend.
St. Silas nodded at one of the mean brutes who stood over the entrance, and he let them pass with a bow of deference. St. Silas then led her through a hallway and into a large circular room thick with smoke. Leena froze at the threshold. Tulle curtains hung from the ceiling for privacy, but did little to hide the various men and women lying on beds. Tiny fires burned in hookahs all through the room, small lighthouses leading the blank travelers home.
St. Silas turned to urge her through, but his gaze caught the glint of gold within Leena’s clenched fingers. He inclined his head to look closer, but when he saw the name engraved on the cover—Fray,in bold cursive letters—he wrenched himself back.
“Where did you get this?” he hissed, startling her from her thoughts.
“It was given to me,” Leena replied, astonished, looking down at the timepiece.
“Bywho?”
