St. Silas continued, now addressing Mackenzie. “The only reason you aren’t shot within an inch of your life, Mackenzie, is because I want you to reveal the identity of the tradesman who hired you. I would be willing to let you live when I am content that I have received no lies.”
Mackenzie’s smile had vanished. Anger flashed in his eyes.
“You killed Adam,” Burr said with bewilderment. A muffled sob broke Burr’s voice, his large eyes wild in his young face. “They killed Adam, Mackenzie.”
“Shoot, boy,” Mackenzie yelled savagely.
At his order, another shot rang out, and Leena ducked her head.
A choked scream.
When Leena dared to look, it was Mackenzie on his knees, his right hand held before his face as if to block the shot. It had not. The bullet had torn through the tendons and fascia of his palm, a gaping bloodied hole now in the center of it. More gruesome still, the bullet had sliced his ear, only a torn lobe hanging by a thin thread of skin.
Mackenzie’s agonized screams filled the night air.
St. Silas looked at Mackenzie as if assessing his own aim. “I would have preferred to see yourfullear on the ground, but my angle was slightly off-center. Apologies.” The Saint sounded almost contrite.
Burr, whose horrified eyes ricocheted between the Saint’s gun and his bleeding master, was very aware that two guns were still pointed at him. Without any further show of bravery, he dropped his own pistol and turned his palms up in surrender.
“Who hired you?” St. Silas asked unhurriedly, as if he was having a pleasant conversation with an old friend. He walked toward the revolver on the ground and pocketedit.
Burr’s lips barely moved in response. “M-Mr. Martin.”
“How uninspired.” Although this revelation astonished Leena, St. Silas seemed unsurprised. Were they speaking of the verysametradesman who now owned Weavingshaw?
“Yes, sir. That’s all we know, I swear,” Burr stuttered.
St. Silas assessed the boy and the moaning Mackenzie dispassionately. “Leave, before I fancy shooting your remaining hand. Or practicing on the other ear.”
Mackenzie, still clutching his gaping palm, staggered to his feet. But just as he and Burr turned to leave, St. Silas stopped them. “The sword. Give it back.”
Both Al-Sayer siblings jolted.
His chin quivering beneath the glare of moonlight, Burr unsheathed the sword from his hip and threw it toward them on the grass. No one spoke as they watched the two Black Coats disappear through the winding woods.
“Thank you,” Rami said haltingly. His head swayed, and he grimaced as he attempted to stand on his own.
Leena could not look away from the body that lay unmoving by her feet, the blood staining the grass a midnight black. She still held the dagger in her hands, and she had to consciously uncurl her stiff fingers to let it go. In the span of less than a month, two Black Coats had lain dead at her feet. But this time, she’d had a direct hand init.
She brought a fist to her forehead to block out her panic.
“Leena, are you all right?” Rami tried to make his way to her, butcollapsed. She turned to the sound of her brother falling, eyes swimming, landscape blurring. She wanted to ask if he was well, but the words lodged in her throat painfully.
Leena staggered toward her brother just as St. Silas pocketed Rami’s pistol before hoisting her brother up with a hand below his shoulder, guiding him along the path back toward the carriage.
Leena picked up Rami’s sword and walked closely behind them, the moonlight now starker than ever.
She could finally admit that a part of her was not sure that she or Rami would have survived the night, and they certainly wouldn’t have done so without the Saint. It was a bitter truth to carry—far heavier than the sword in her hand.
They returned to the carriage. Arthur, who drove St. Silas’s team, was discreet, and he wasted no time in helping St. Silas lift Rami into the carriage. He didn’t remark on Rami’s battered appearance nor the blood that soaked Leena’s sleeves. Within minutes of settling him in, Rami had fallen into the deep sleep that follows a shock, his breathing coming fast and short in his chest.
“We must bury the body,” Leena whispered, turning to view the clearing. It hurt to speak.
She felt St. Silas still.
When she turned to look at him in question, his eyes were made darker by the filtered moonlight. “Leave it. The Black Coats will find him in the morning.”
Leena remembered how the Black Coat’s flesh had felt as her knife serrated it, like cutting through silk.
