The mechanisms of the gaslamps clicked with a slow swell of orange light as Mr. Moran stepped in and closed the door.
I was out of bed in an instant. I was still mostly clothed, having slept in my underthings and a robe which I had found in the room, but I felt immediately exposed under his open, critical scrutiny. I felt at once measured and judged.
“What do you want?” I demanded.
“You asked Madge what Entwined can kill with the touch of a hand,” he stated, unruffled by my intensity. “Why? What do you mean by that?”
I resisted the urge to wrap my robe tighter, holding his gaze. Did he truly not know? Had Supford not disclosed that detail of his investigation?
If so, I might have erred in voicing the question to Madge. But I had voiced it, and here I was closed in with a powerful Guild mage of unknown but undoubtedly significant power. I did not have much more to lose.
Might as well prod the bear.
“My friend was murdered. There was a mark over his heart, in the shape of a hand.” I advanced a step towards him, showing him—and myself—that I was not afraid. “Supford suspected a powerful Silver had done it, but I have never heard of their Leeching being used to such an extent. Are you a Silver, Mr. Moran? It would surprise me, the Guild sullying my sister’s fine blood with your common kind, even if you had such an ability.”
I looked him up and down, appraising him as he had me. He remained in place, just inside the closed door. There was calculation in his face rather than offense, and a thread of suspicion.
I again felt the knowledge in his gaze, a sense that he knew far more about me, about my past, present, and future, than he had any right to.
“I am not,” he replied. “I am Starlit, as your sister Pretoria is.”
That took me aback, derailing my line of inquiry. StarlightEntwined were as uncommon as Eventides like me. Now their pairing made more sense. It also increased my concern, as it meant that if Pretoria came to rescue me, there was someone here who could see through her magic.
Someone who could, very likely, stop her.
“How have I not met you before?” I asked compulsively. “Your accent is not Harren, but certainly Arrentian. Where have you been hiding?”
He held my gaze for one last moment, then said, “Your sister awaits you in the River Room,” and left without another word.
In the ensuing quiet, I forced three slow breaths into my lungs, then tied my hair in a cursory knot atop my head and opened the door.
Mr. Moran was long gone, but a soldier watched me from across the hall. For the blink of an eye, I could almost have mistaken him for Lewis in his green and grey and stiff collar, but of course, this was not him.
“Take me to my sister,” I said.
Madge was situated at an easel as I entered. My attempt at rudeness by wearing the robe was mitigated by the fact that she too had not dressed. But rather than look like a cat freshly shaken out of a bag, as I did, she looked disarming and gentled, with a silk and lace night gown barely covered by a heavily embroidered robe and her hair braided over one shoulder.
The soldier closed the door, but his footsteps did not depart.
I caught the flash of my own reflection in a mirror as I crossed the room. Madge was painting a self-portrait with its aid, poised with her brush in a pool of morning light. There were few details to the portrait yet, all broad strokes and suggestions of shapes, but it was already striking.
“Still indulging in bad habits, I see,” I commented. There was a tray of coffee, toast, cheeses, and meats nearby, and I poured myself a cup of the dark liquid. “What tedious emotion are you killing today? Maternal affection? Common decency? Or is it a memory?”
“Nightmares,” she said mildly.
I paused over my cup. Steam tickled my nose, thick with the scent of coffee. “Nightmares of what?”
She turned her steady gaze to me, and the piercing blue of her eyes looked more soulless than usual. But her threads, oh, her threads. Golden and lovely, they twined her throat and down her shoulders, spilled up over her jaw and crept out from her hair, across her temples. Her pale eyelashes were full of light, unlined and unaltered by cosmetics, and just barely pinked by lack of sleep.
“I no longer remember,” she said, adding a shadow to her portrait. “It is already gone.”
There was a stretch of quiet, interrupted only by the passage of her brush. I cleared my throat. “Your husband came to visit me. He questioned me on the manner of Mr. Stoke’s death. I suspect he knows who may have done it. Do you?”
“Mr. Moran and I keep our work separate, as much as we may,” she replied, focused on her portrait. “It is more congenial to the marital state.”
“A marital state which the Guild hopes to produce more Starlight Entwined.”
“Yes. Mother’s bloodline produced Pretoria. With Moran, I stand a good chance of doing so as well.”
