“She’ll be happy to hear that.”
On the third floor, Remy turns right at the hallway, taking us toward the front of the inn. My room is the door at the very end. Remy pauses outside of it.
“I know you don’t want to take credit for killing the witch, but you’ve truly done us a favor we can never repay. I only wish I could have killed her myself.”
Up until this point, I’ve only heard anecdotal stories about Delphine. She was awful, truly, but Remy is the first person I’ve spoken to who directly lost someone because of her.
It makes it even more real. It makes me feel a little less guilty for what I did.
Remy unlocks my door and steps in, flicking on a table lamp.
The room is suddenly awash in soft, warm light.
“I lost someone too,” I find myself saying, my tongue still loose from the alcohol. “Not in the same way. I used to hope they would return for me.”
At the door, Remy turns back to me. The movement sends the pearl earrings swinging just beneath the curl of their dark hair. “Do you still hope?”
I set Toto down. He makes a turn around the room, sniffing at the floorboards and the furniture.
“Sometimes,” I admit. “Sometimes it’s all I have.”
Remy nods. “Then I hope you find what you’re looking for someday.”
“I appreciate that.”
Remy steps into the hallway and shuts the door behind them and I am finally alone.
Remy gave me a room with an attached bathroom and I spend the better part of the next half hour scrubbing at my skin with a cloth and a sink full of hot water. I keep finding speckles of blood. It feels like I will never be clean.
As I scrub dried blood from my fingernails, I see her in my mind, the Witch of the East, her wildness, her relentlessness.
I think I know who sent you, she had said.
The way she jumped to conclusions and made assumptions about me makes my blood boil. I didn’t deserve it. Because no onesentme. It was a tornado. An accident. I was a victim of it just as much as she was. Well… maybe she was slightly more of a victim, considering my house fell on her.
I glance up at my reflection in the mirror and spot another flake of dried blood just below my hairline. I scrub at it. Scrub some more until my skin turns red.
I think I’m safe here, but how do I really know?
I find a brush and an apothecary bottle in the cabinet. The bottle is made of emerald-green glass and has a label on the front with two twisted flowers. Uncorking it, I inhale and catch the scent of roses and jasmine and something musky.
I take my hair out of the braids and brush it, then tame some of the flyaways with the oil.
My reflection looks less unhinged now. A little more human. Less like a dream.Or a nightmare.
A knock sounds on my door. “It’s me, Kansas.”
My belly spins.
Toto growls.
I come out into the room and snap my fingers at him. “It’s just Rook.”
I try not to think too much about the swell of excitement, the fluttering of invisible wings as I pull the door open.
Rook has cleaned up too.
The wounds on his face have been scrubbed of blood and dirt. There are a few stitches in the cut on his forehead. Bruises remain, but I swear they already look like they’re fading.
