Page 45

I drag myself the rest of the way to the door and seize the latch, wrenching it upward. The swollen winter wood sticks in the frame. I throw my weight backwards, hauling at the handle until the door finally gives an inch.

Then a black-gloved hand comes down against the timber above my head and slams it shut again, and his shadow falls over me.

“Don’t you dare.” I press my forehead against the wood. “If you kill me, Gideon will have the entire parish after you. And nobody else knows how much willow bark Mrs Higgins takes, or which bandages have already been boiled, so you would be doing Beswick a considerable disservice by murdering its apothecary.”

“I assure you, Ophelia Harrow, your ability to boil linen is not what is preventing me from killing you.” Heat presses through the back of my cloak as he lowers his head, the smooth bone of his beak grazing the loose hair beside my ear. “But you chose to open the book. Whatever you found there, you wanted to know.”

I did. That’s rather the problem. I open my mouth, though I hardly know which question to drag out first. What are you? What was the blue? Why Alice? Why isn’t Billy⁠—

“Doctor!” Ned’s voice tears up through the open hatch. “Me father’s choking! Are you coming back down or not?”

Iscairn turns his head towards the sound, then looks back at me. “Duty calls. I suggest you collect your things. We will continue this discussion later.”

He releases the door and crosses back to the hatch, gathering the ledger from the floorboards and shoving it into his satchel before dropping it through the opening by its strap. Then one hand goes to the brim of his hat and, with considerably less difficulty than before, he folds himself through after it.

I stare at the empty space, my pulse still hammering in my throat while I breathe in the scent of earth and rain.

For several seconds, I do absolutely nothing.

Then I pry one shaking hand away from the door, retrieve my basket, and make myself walk towards the hatch.

Bloody hell.

12

DOCTOR ISCAIRN

Most mortals, upon discovering that the physician standing beside them is a creature of the unknown, might have the good sense to faint. Those of a stronger constitution might at least think to run. Ophelia Harrow, however, pressed a cup of steeped willow bark into my hands and spent the remainder of our visit tending to the patient with such extraordinary diligence that she barely looked in my direction.

It was a spectacular performance, truly.

Unfortunately for her, one sick villager can only occupy our attention for so long. Within the hour, we are back in the apothecary, where there is no longer a patient to fuss over, and she has run out of convenient reasons to avoid looking at me.

I could leave her to whatever conclusions she has drawn. It would certainly be easier, and between the teeth and the ledger, she has managed to make me quite dreadful without any assistance. Yet I am rather troubled by the thought of her continuing to believe it, and even more troubled by how much I should like to put her mind at ease.

So I throw the bolt. The click sends her stumbling backwards until she hits the edge of the counter. Her hand searches the space behind her, closing around a pestle, which she raises between us with a white-knuckled grip.

“Unlock the door,” she demands.

“No. Nobody is coming in while we have this conversation, and you are not going to flee into the street halfway through it and have people interrupting before I have reached the heart of the matter.”

“I am not going to flee.”

I glance towards the little stool, hook the toe of my boot around one leg, and drag it out across the floorboards. “Sit down before you fall.”

“I’m perfectly comfortable.” The pestle rises a few inches. “But you are about to be very uncomfortable if you don’t start talking. I want to know what you are. Right now. What is it? Demon? Murderer? Demon murderer?”

I straighten, a smile tugging at my lips beneath the mask.

“There are names for what I am,” I say, “though most were given to us by people who understood very little and feared much more. Reaper. Wraith. Devourer. Death-spirit. The Welsh had a rather lovely one I have never been able to pronounce correctly. But if by demon you mean something sent up from Hell to drag souls down into it, then no. Your brother would certainly call me one, but nothing has ever sent me anywhere. I believe ‘Harvester’ would be a more appropriate term.”

She scoffs. “Harvester. So yes, demon murderer, then. You’re what? Going around preying on the sick?”

“You would not be entirely wrong in believing that I take from the sick, although I am closer to a surgeon than a butcher. You see, a soul is bound too tightly to a healthy body for me to take it, and it is only when the body begins to fail that the bond weakens enough for me to intervene. By that point, death has generally made its decision. I merely collect what it is already letting go.”

There are exceptions, of course, though she is watching me as though she expects one of them to involve dragging her across the counter, so I see little benefit in mentioning them.

“Souls are real?” she says, her expression shifting from anger to something approaching disbelief. “Actual souls? Is that what the blue stuff is?”