Mr. Pratterman laughed. Higher than I’d have imagined. Light. “Only if hibiscus bleeds. It’s plain tea, I promise. Don’t be afraid. I’m here to help.”
Do not be afraid.The refrain of angels. Did he hide countless eyes and feathers within his suit? Or had they been plucked in his descent?
“I want to save my sister. She’s betrothed to a horrid man,” I say in a rush. “He was meant to wed me. This isn’t an act of jealousy, sir. I swear. Only protection.”
This was usually the part when I’d get cut off. Told to stop acting paranoid. But Mr. Pratterman sipped his tea and nodded to my own cup. I rose it shakily and sipped. It was nearly scalding. When the tart-sweet tea settled in my stomach, my pulse slowed and my tongue loosened.
“No one will listen to me. I fear if I try again, my father will commit me to an asylum. There was a pamphlet—Mount Hope. Girls don’t come back once committed. I have evidence, I promise—”
Mr. Pratterman waved a hand at this. “I believe you, Eleanor.”
Four words I hadn’t been told in years. I took another sip of tea, but I noticed when I set it down that the liquid remained less than a centimeter beneath the cup’s edge.
“Why are your parents allowing this?” he asked. His tone held only polite curiosity.
“My mother doesn’t think it any worse than her own lot.” How much of my mother’s actions had been knowingly cruel, and how much had been formed by my father? “Thomas is crafty. Nothing he does in isolation could be enough to annul the engagement.”
A single muscle pulled on one side of Mr. Pratterman’s lips. “Men such as Mr. Seymour are too cunning for their own good, aren’t they?”
I’d never told him Thomas’s last name. Why wouldn’t the Devil know a sinner, though? I recovered with another sip of tea.
“I came to you because there’s no way out. Especially for Li—my sister.” Despite all I’d said already, it wasn’t right to give him my sister’s name. “The wedding is tomorrow, sir.”
Mr. Pratterman sat back in his chair. He rubbed his thumb across the pads of his other fingers, each with a pointed black talon at the end. My eyes stung with the softness of his voice.
“You’ve been remarkably strong in this, Eleanor.” He smiled, and his glowing eyes twinkled. “Such a frightful lot. Trapped by your mother, sold off by your father, and promised a life of misery by this rake. Now to have it thrust on the only person in the world you have a duty to protect? Yet here you sit.”
I swallowed hard. I’d craved understanding for so long. It left an ashy taste in the back of my throat. I looked away from his piercing gaze, down to his teacup. Darkness swirled within.
Mr. Pratterman took a long sip of his tea. A new expression crossed his face when he set the cup down again: hunger. But for what?
“What do you think I can do for you,” he asked, “to help with these monsters?”
“I must escape with my sister. Tonight. No one can know. The families are well connected.”
I should’ve spoken with an attorney’s precision, but desperation doesn’t breed wits.
Mr. Pratterman leaned back until the front two legs of his chair lifted off the black rock. “How would you escape with what I’d grant you?” His tone betrayed a continued curiosity.
“I…” What power did he have? What could I ask for? Despite the heat that dampened my skin with sweat, I froze at the possibilities.
Mr. Pratterman leaned forward. His smile was kind. Concerned. A trap.
“There’s a limit to what I can give you,” he explained. “At least as you are now. And it will require violence, Eleanor. Are you capable of that?”
Two paths. One where I declined and watched my sister decay under Thomas’s foot while I became an unbelieved spinster or worse. Another where I betray my parents, rescue Liney, and lead us into a new life.
The choice hung between us. His power was required, but so was my resolve. Could I hurt, even kill, the ones who raised me? Who christened me with their family name? My mother’s words in that hallway haunted me then.They hurt us all, darling.She was ready to sacrifice me on the altar of men in the name of our family.
I could become a monster for Liney. Do what needed to be done. Hurt them back, for once.
“I am.”
We devised the plan together. He offered many deadly options, but I chose the kindest, if it could be called so. A gas leak in the middle of the night. Painless, he promised. He ensured no evidence would be found that I played a role. Empty streets at the moment of our escape. My end of the deal was simple—collect Liney at the right time, find his boat to escape to his island, and keep his lighthouse.
“You’ll tend the light for me,” he instructed, “and tend its darkness too.”
The island was close enough that we could reach it before sunrise, but not so close as to be suspicious in the weeks following our escape.
