It was Orley who answered. “Unfortunately, my dear, my customers require the strictest of confidentiality—”
She cut him off impatiently. “What is your price?”
He wagged one long finger. “From you, nothing. No offense, but, lovely though you are, you are of little importance to me.”
She knew that this was precisely why St. Silas had elected to come with her, but his demand for caution did not matter. Her brother’s life lay in her ability to bargain for it—and shewouldbargain, once again, with whatever she had. “I do, in fact, have a payment that you’ll never receive from anyone else—”
“Iwill tell you something, Orley,” St. Silas interrupted smoothly, a hand in his pocket.
Leena’s eyes widened and Orley gasped. The prospect of a secret from the Saint seemed to excite him beyond measure. Even the ghost of the servant-boy jolted, shrunken eyes widening in shock as he stared intently at St. Silas. Distantly, Leena wondered if this ghost had been one of the Saint’s confessors in his previous life.
She looked up at St. Silas mutely.Why…?
“Protecting my interests,” he reminded her flatly.
It wasn’t an act of kindness; it was an act of commerce.
Orley began without hesitation, licking his lips as if preparing for a meal. “Tell me something that has wounded you.”
The Saint was still for a long moment, his countenance carefully remote. Then he tilted his jaw upward, exposing his throat and the thin pink line that ran in the shape of a knife’s blade. He’d taken the request literally, confessing the history of something that had left a scar on his body, although Leena didn’t think Orley had meant it in that way. “Courtesy of a mother whose son went mad after confessing to me.”
Orley’s tongue poked out as if tasting the air. “How old were you?”
“A few days past seventeen. I’d only just begun my business.”
Leena’s gaze sharpened on him, but the Saint’s attention was on Orley, not a flicker of emotion crossing his face. He was carved from stone, unwavering, dark brows set and firm, corrosive eyes that knew how to conceal every shift of expression.
“What did you do to the mother?” Once more Orley’s eyes seemed to expand, the dark overtaking the white entirely, before constricting suddenly—though Leena told herself shakily that it was likely a trick of the candlelight.
St. Silas’s drawl was bored. “I took the knife from her.”
“And then…?”
Leena held her breath as she waited for his answer.
“It is not relevant.”
Orley edged forward, a frustrated notch puckering his cheeks. “Then you’ve delivered an incomplete payment.” This exchange baffled Leena—why was St. Silas’s own confession important to Orley, and why did he consider it incomplete?
St. Silas’s mouth curled into impatience before he molded his face into indifference once more. “That is all; I merely took the knife from her. Make no mistake—rarely do I forgive any threat against my life.”
Very briefly, the Saint’s eyes pierced Leena.
Yet he’d forgiven her. She’d pointed a pistol at him and he had not punished her for it. Perhaps even the Saint of Silence had rare inclinations to mercy.
Leena wanted to continue to think of him always as a beast. Any shred of kindness attributed to the Saint would discolor the image she’d built of him in her head. She understood monsters—their selfish wants, their relentless desires. It was the monsters that flickered in and out of humanity that could never be accounted for.
It was for this reason that the next question burst from her own mouth, even though she knew such interruptions usually brought the wrath of St. Silas down upon her. “How old was the son?”
She imagined a young boy sitting on that wooden seat in the Saint’s confession room, sobbing as his secret was written in the ledgers, the pain ripping through him with jagged cruelty.
His answer surprised her. “Older than me.” Then, as if sensing where Leena’s mind had taken her, he met her gaze again. “I do not take the confessions of children, Miss Al-Sayer.”
She filtered through all the confessions she’d witnessed, and she was shocked to realize that she’d never once seen a child cross the threshold into the Saint’s shop.
Orley continued in a low whisper. “Do you regret reaping the confession from the son? Do you ever feel any shame?”
St. Silas showed his teeth. “If it is shame you want, Orley, youwon’tget it from me.”
