“The bastard cut her, cherie.” Now I heard the burn of fury, strengthening her resolve. “Bound her so she could not fight, cut her across the face, forehead to throat, then dropped her like she was less than nothing.”
That was terrible, certainly.
“She lives?” I asked.
“She lives, but she’ll not ever be a sweet again.” Her voice hardened. “We’ll find work for her here long as the Veil allows, but she’s ruined, Cherry. No man will ever take her like that, save maybe the Ferrymen.”
I flinched. Not a position worth gloating about, that one. “Did you find any clue? Anything as to the nature of the assailant’s identity?”
“If it wasn’t the sweet tooth,” she said fiercely, “then someone else is making a point of it to hurt us, take us like the tooth before. We’re no common doxies and we aren’t for the likes of him!”
A point. My rival had already been inside the gardens once, as evidenced by the cameo he’d left. His calling card was violence, terror and blood.
But he wasn’t the only. Jack the Ripper had made it his business to go after women who peddled their flesh for coin. “Are you sure it’s him and not the Chapel’s Jack?”
“We aren’t to ask.”
My head cocked. “Your pardon?”
Zylphia blew out an angry breath. “The lion prince has made his declaration,” she spat. “All measures against the sweet tooth and the Ripper are to stop. No collections, no investigations. Whatever has riled this man, whichever man, he wants a stop to it.”
“The hell he does,” I all but snarled. Ikenna Osoba was rapidly turning into a thorn in my side.
I would be all too happy to become the shard of glass in his regal paw.
Zylphia surprised me. “You have to leave it alone,” she whispered.
I blinked for a moment, caught off guard. “What?” Then, as the meaning sunk in, I took a step back. “You can’t be serious!”
She threw up her hands. “A whip has spoken! What are we to do? We risk punishment if you don’t leave it alone.”
My lip curled. I turned away. “Where is Hawke?”
“Cherry, don’t—”
“Where is he?”
There was silence. A held breath.
Very slowly, I turned back. My fingers spasmed hard enough that they cramped, but I took the pain and tucked it aside. Settled it against the warm glow of my rage and bound it tightly to my heart. Guilt that I could not free Zylphia from Osoba’s threats, anger that the whip would dare, grief for all the burdens I carried, hunger for a vengeance that would be mine—I set them aside before they consumed me. There would be time for that soon.
With near superhuman effort, I pulled an icy veneer of calm over it all.
“Where,” I asked softly, “is Hawke?” If Osoba would not see reason, then I would force his hand.
If neither would listen, then I had no choice: I would risk Zylphia’s punishment to put an end to everything.
The recognition of this, my determination to ignore her promised suffering, broke something within me. It was as if my feeling—my ability to process emotion and empathy—had been pushed too far.
The world went quiet around me.
Zylphia let out her held breath on a low groan. “Last I was with him was in his quarters,” she finally said, and the crack that revelation put in my heart no longer hurt. I could not let it; dared not break free of the ice that had encased me. If she had provided the man comfort as sweets were taught to do, it could not touch me.
“I see,” I replied, desperately calm. “Thank you.”
“Wait, there’s something you should—”
I gave her my back. “It does not matter,” I said, finality in every syllable.
Leaving her to shadow, I stepped out from under the pavilion. The lantern light glided over me, picked out the shabby little creature I was as I wove among the gilded roses the Veil so carefully cultivated, but I did not care. I did not attempt to hide my progress as I walked to the main estate.
I knew where Hawke’s quarters were. Come what may, I could not be forced to stop. I would not leave the hunt for the sweet tooth or our shared quarry.
Jack the Ripper was all that would lead me to my vengeance.
I expected to be waylaid. I expected a multitude of faces, demands to halt, servants to watch my every move, but fortune seemed finally on my side. Though I saw the occasional servant walking from one task to the next, it seemed as if all who could stop me had turned their attentions outward, in the grounds and to the events planned.
Only once I reached Hawke’s quarters did I stop.
I knocked upon the door, the very picture of polite inquiry.
There was no answer.
Undeterred, I tested the knob and found it unlocked. Nothing in my chest tilted when it opened. Nothing, no anxiety or hesitation, daunted me. I was impervious to all that assailed me; stony with resolve, driven beyond feeling by a bitter purpose.
I had flailed about in this venomous net for far too long.
Heedless of my own temerity, I walked into Hawke’s quarters and opened my mouth to speak.
What I saw froze me in place. The words died.
My breath broke on a gasp.
Chapter Fourteen
The room was in shambles. The bed was crookedly placed, the wooden headboard I remembered cracked and splintered. A heavy trunk that I remembered at the foot of the bed now lay on its side across the room, shattered at one end as if thrown with great force.
There were swatches of material here and there, torn to shreds, and the beautiful black silk coverlet embroidered in masculine shades of red and gold and green now lay pooled in a torn heap, ruined beyond saving.
There was no sign of Hawke, and none of the perpetrator of such chaos.
A part of me yearned to be worried, to bristle with anger and dismay—the analytical part of my mind I now obeyed assured me that it would not be misguided to feel such things—but I could not summon it from the tomb I had sealed it all behind. I did not want to try.
It was safer, here, hiding within my resolve.
If I attempted anything else, allowed myself to think of the fear and anger in Zylphia’s face, the pain she must have suffered beneath the first lash of the whip, the weight of the guilt I carried might crush me.
Instead, wordlessly, I stood in the middle of that abandoned room, surrounded by tattered furnishings, and once more fished for my little bit of opium.
It came to my hand easily. The wax paper sealing it from dirt and lint peeled back, and I bit a chunk bigger than my usual corner. The bitter taste did not wake me. The burn did not comfort me.
I ate it because I must, and felt no pleasure from it.
This understanding fell victim to my apathy. I did not fear.
Slowly, the ragged edges of my mind smoothed. Enough that the frozen rime encapsulating my lungs eased; I felt as if I could breathe again.
I worked to convince myself that I was a thing of flesh and blood, that it was within my rights to feel something besides desperate resolution.
Yet I stared at the remains of Hawke’s bed, and still I felt nothing.
No logic could break through my despair. It folded around me, swallowed me whole. As I had those days after Lord Compton’s death, I ate my opium and welcomed the addling it would bring—blissful ignorance, stripping away all sense of urgency until I could simply stand in one place and listen to the music of my breath as it eased in and out of my lungs.
This, I could carry. This much, I would claim.
I was tired. For the first time, I found myself contemplating what peace a tomb truly could bring.