A shiver went up her spine. “I haven’t caught sight of any spirits yet,” she said cautiously. “But you must give me time.”
He seemed unsatisfied by her answer. His eyes hungrily jolted across the scenery even as a muscle ticced in his jaw.
“Do you hate this place?” Leena asked. After witnessing hisbarely suppressed reaction, she had the distinct feeling that there could only be one of two answers here, both polar opposites.
Absolute hate or a devouring love.
“Hatred leaves a clean cut.”
Mrs. Van shifted her gaze to St. Silas. Her bony fingers twisted in her lap.
An incomplete answer, but then, this Saint never gave as much as he took.
Leena met Rami’s eyes. He, too, looked uneasy, his hand reaching to cover his missing arm. Leena had felt the change since riding onto Avon land—a feeling of desolation, as if the dead had awakened and were stirring to life.
The carriage slowed to a stop on the curved drive, and the main entrance loomed over them.
No one stood outside to greet them.
Not the host, the butler, or even a maid. Leena had witnessed guests being welcomed at Lord Hargreaves’s estate back when she had worked for his mother. It had been a spectacle, with all the servants and the hosting family standing on the front steps no matter the weather. On the top floor, Leena caught sight of a curtain being drawn quickly, as if someone had desired to watch them while remaining unseen.
The message was clear: They were intruders. It made sense. St.Silas had very likely blackmailed his way here.
This lack of reception was not insulting to Leena and Rami, who would have preferred entering through the servants’ quarters alongside Mrs. Van and Arthur anyway, but cold fury darkened St. Silas’s eyes. No longer was he discomposed. Slowly, deadly, like the turn of a snake, he stepped out of the carriage.
“I will let them have their enjoyment,” he said with a peculiar twist of a smile, “but it will be short-lived.”
Leena and Rami descended after him in silence.
St. Silas pounded on the door, and it swung open withinmoments to reveal the stoic face of the head footman, who bowed and asked if the gentleman would like to be shown to the master.
Leena felt like a trespasser entering the arched hallways of Weavingshaw. The floors were sculpted from deep-veined marble, and a large Avon crest—of wolf and Deathgrip combatant, separated by a quartered circle—was carved into one of the walls, indented so deeply that it would have been impossible to remove without toppling the pillars of the house. Leena, who had already seen it in a drawing, halted for a moment to stare.
Here, etched in stone, the wolf looked far more menacing and the flower far more poisonous. As if the empty roundel that lay between them might suddenly shatter and the two meet in earnest.
She felt a sudden longing to reach over and trace the words written at the bottom:I complete what is mine.
“Come, Miss Al-Sayer.” St. Silas’s command startled her from her brief reverie. She turned to find that he had not stopped, cutting through the hall without sparing even a single glance at the dizzying architecture of the house.
As Leena followed, she could see her breath in the frigid air. Once, long ago, during a time when money was never thought of, great roaring fires must’ve been lit in every room. Now the cold saturated the foundations of this place. Mr. Martin must hold his coins in a tight fist.
They were shown into a study far greater than any Leena had ever seen. In here, a fire did blaze within the grate, oil paintings and finely woven tapestries adorned the walls, and dark wooden cabinets held delicately embossed leather books.
Leena stopped near the hearth in hopes of catching some warmth. Rami still stood by the entrance, staring restlessly at the bay window. St. Silas didn’t bother pausing for an invitation; he threw his long frame into the chair in front of the opulent desk and sat with what felt like coiled energy. None of the three spoke, each waiting for the inevitable arrival of their host.
It was not long before Mr. Martin made his entrance, closing the door behind him.
Born into poverty, yet wealthier than a king, a bulldog in a suit—this was how Leena would have summarized their host as she observed him covertly.
His appearance didn’t fit the grandeur of this house. Leena could understand the angelic figure of the late Percival Avon possessing such a place, but Mr. Martin inspired no such awe. He was a short man with cauliflower ears, his face round enough to lose any delineation of a jaw and his hair all but gone. He still had the face of a boxer, though his clothes were of the latest cut.
Both Rami and Leena gave a stiff acknowledgment of his arrival, her curtsey only just perceptible.
This was the man who had ordered Rami’s beating and his near death. Leena hated Mr. Martin on sight.
Mr. Martin ignored both Rami and Leena, but gave a stiff bow to St. Silas.
St. Silas did not return the bow.
