Another nod.
“How did you get involved with demons?” she whispered.
His mouth turned, and she noticed that his breathing was as harsh as hers. He put out a demanding hand. “The letters.”
She gave both to him mutely and watched as he read the second one, her eyes quickening to any subtle changes to his face. When he’d finished, he wordlessly folded it and slipped both into his pocket.
“Are you the boy the letter was referring to?” Leena asked softly. “Lady Hargreaves pointed at you, then thumped her heart three times, as if…as if in apology. Is that why you’re involved with demons? Are you cursed, Mr. St. Silas?”
He didn’t respond, his dark eyes as cold as the mist surrounding the forest. As they began to make their way back through the woods, St. Silas took the lead. She could see nothing of him except the rigid contours of his hard shoulders and the faint glow of the lantern.
It was only a while later, when sleep was as distant as ever for her, that Leena realized—in spite of his steady pace—the hand that held the lantern had shaken slightly all the way back to the inn.
They were nearthe gates of Weavingshaw.
Leena hadn’t yet had her first look at the estate, waiting impatiently as the carriage made its way at a steady pace through the winding roads of the countryside near noon. They all sat within the confines of the vehicle this time, except for Arthur, who drove the team.
Her mind, already so fatigued with several nights of poor sleep, was an echoing chamber of questions.
Whatweredemons? Had they always existed alongside humans, unsuspecting neighbors and friends?She threw a discreet look at the stoic Mrs. Van, as if hoping to find all her answers imprinted on her face.
When had humans begun to believe that such creatures were nothing more than superstition? To be remembered only during the Festival of Demons, except by a small few who still kept up with the old prayers?
Sitting directly across from her was St. Silas, but Leena refrained from looking at him entirely.
Their closeness last night seemed to have deepened the distance between them this morning.
Every look he’d given her on the shore last night lay like a burr against her skin. He’d never responded when she’d asked him if he was cursed, but his silence had been as heavy as if it had carried entire cities. She couldn’t look at him the same way—not after that letter, not after Lady Hargreaves’s striking remorse—so she chose not to look at him at all.
Even though he did not confirm it, Leena was surer than ever that the boy Lady Hargreaves spoke of in her letter was St. Silas. But the rest of the picture remained in utter darkness—most notably Lady Hargreaves’s connection to the now infamous Saint of Silence.
It was St. Silas who broke the silence first, always cutting to the heart of the matter. “While we are staying at Weavingshaw, we will act as guests as we undertake our search for the red diary. I will introduce you and Rami as my wards, whom I am leading into society—”
At this, Rami snorted. “You’re barely older than us.”
St. Silas didn’t acknowledge his remark, which was unsurprising as he rarely acknowledged Rami other than to bark out orders. Begrudgingly, Rami had to take it, for otherwise St. Silas might change his mind and send him back to Golborne to face certain death by the Black Coats. That he had even let Rami accompany them was a small miracle that Leena didn’t want to shatter.
St. Silas continued. “We must be thorough and systematic in our search. I have determined several likely places where the red diary may be hidden. We will start there.”
Leena kept her attention outside the window, watching as gray clouds loomed over them in a menacing fashion, warning them away. “Will Lord Hargreaves be present?”
She felt his gaze burning her averted profile. His tone was mild and impersonal, as if everything that had happened with Lady Hargreaves had been merely a slight deviation on their journey. “I have not acquainted myself with the entire guest list, Miss Al-Sayer, nor am I bothered to do so.”
Leena knew with certainty that he was lying.
—
Until she saw her first glimpse of Weavingshaw, Leena didn’t believe in monsters.
The house was immense, and built like a fortress to withstand violent sieges. More than forty darkened windows watched their insignificant carriage pull up to the front, resembling dilated eyes unblinking in silent judgment. Ivy draped the pale limestone bricks, and wild roses tangled up from the soil. The single turret towered over them, parting the mist. To the left were the burned remnants of a crumbling tower, the walls decaying and blackened. Deathgrips, their still-violet petals a contrast to the dull browns of late autumn, grew like a moat surrounding the house, as if to ward away any wolves that might be growling at the edge of the forest.
Stone statues of Saints decorated the balconies and the expansive limestone steps, though Leena had only ever seen them in cathedrals, never houses. Dense ivy crept across the old Saints’ bodies, as if binding them to this house. Guarding the entrance, his hands out in blessing, a strip of gauze over his mouth, was the Saint of Silence.
A house as ancient as this, with its foundations watered by Avon blood, seemed more like a creature of flesh and blood than a building of stone and mortar.
It also seemed to be whispering to Leena:Nothing this lovely could be cursed.But then, the closer the carriage approached, the more her skin seemed to burn, as if sensing the terrible undercurrent that ran like fire through the house’s veins.
“What do you think of it?” St. Silas asked her, his gaze oddly bright.
