“What does it mean?”
“I think something like sorcerer.”
“Bollocks.” The word snapped as the corset settled into place. It wasn’t the most comfortable I’d ever been, but I’d worn ball gowns with tighter fittings. This would suffice for now.
Zylphia shook her head, yet when I glanced at her, it was pity I saw. “As you say.”
I ignored the challenge inherent in the capitulation and asked, “So he was whipped for helping me?”
Her lush mouth twisted. “It seems a common trend.”
My hands jerked. Clenching my teeth, I wrenched the laces on my corset with more savagery than required. My mood was rapidly turning all the more foul.
Nothing a bit of medicine wouldn’t cure.
“I refuse to be held accountable for your servitude,” I snapped.
“As has been made abundantly clear,” she replied evenly. She bent to pick up my boots, brisk in every way. “Are you done?”
Oh, this hurt. Far more than it should have. Faced with such truth, utterly unprepared for the slap of it, I shoved all I could into a fire of nameless fury. “Is that why I am exiled?” I demanded. “Because the Veil sees me a threat?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” she told me, an unwitting echo of Hawke’s common refrain.
To hear it spill from her full lips was a knife I hadn’t expected.
She handed me my boots, one by one, and stood by as I thrust my feet into them. “The Veil believes you’ve brought bad luck to the Menagerie.”
“Bad luck?” I snorted a most unladylike sound, and for the first time, Zylphia’s mouth softened. Almost a smile, really. I hardened myself against it; lathered my anger into a shield so hot, it consumed my efforts. “Does this have to do with Lily’s assault?”
“Among other things. You’re reminded, by the Veil itself, to call off the collection.”
I bit my tongue before I acknowledged that bit of bollocks for what it was. Knowing what I knew—that any attempt to locate the Ripper now would be taken from Zylphia’s flesh, that I had intended to remove this threat and did not—made everything so much worse. I cleared my throat. “I daresay your illustrious ringmaster is eager to see the back of me.”
“He is.” Such easy acknowledgement.
“Then you may have him to your heart’s content,” I said, a ragged declaration. Stamping my feet shifted my boots into a more comfortable place, and I shrugged into my worn coat when she passed it. I avoided looking at her, and she said nothing. “Help me with my hair, then.”
To my surprise, Zylphia did. If my terse order annoyed her, if she felt inclined to leave me, she did not show it. Instead, her fingers were gentle as she braided my hair, then fished pins from a ream of them tucked into the hem of her skirt.
Soon enough, my distinctively dark red hair, frizzy beyond measure without the care I and my maids had always taken, was wrapped tightly and hidden beneath a street boy’s cap she handed over at the end.
It felt...nice. Familiar. To have her fussing over me was a luxury I did not realize I’d missed until a shaft of grief pierced my heart, ruined the smooth ease of anger with something tragic and painful.
How much I had lost, and for what?
I strode across the chamber, knelt to pick up the discarded knives. As I slid them into the custom sheathes, my hands shook. Such toys, the ghost of Hawke breathed into my ear. As if their dangerous promise was nothing to him.
Of course. I wasn’t dangerous, was I? I was something made less. A kicked dog, collared by her own foolish trust. I had accomplished nothing in too long.
He had known it. He’d mocked me for it so many times.
Enough. I would find a way. There was no more choice.
“Cherry?”
I hesitated at the open door, looking back to find Zylphia standing, her arms full of the soiled sheets. I could not stall my blush; my skin seemed determined to reveal my feelings, no matter what stern demeanor I attempted.
“If you come back,” she said softly, her blue eyes luminous in her dark skin, “your debt will be paid in flesh.”
“The Veil agreed I’d be kept out of the auction rings.”
She shook her head. “You have failed in every task the Karakash Veil set before you, brought midnight sweets to harm and gotten too often in the ringmaster’s way. You’ve failed, Cherry.”
Failed. The word screamed where her lips only shaped emphasis. It drilled through my head, raked venomous claws within my aching throat and bloomed like a bloody stain in my chest.
“If you come back, it’ll be your corpse bearing the burden,” she continued, but I heard it as if from far away.
It hurt to breathe.
Failed. I had failed from the very beginning, hadn’t I? Failed to capture the Ripper when first we assumed it was him carving up girls from the gardens, failed to capture the sweet tooth, failed Zylphia when she’d borne the whip for my interference.
Failed Betsy, who had left my service for it.
Failed Cornelius, whose cold mausoleum had never seen my visit.
Failed, failed, failed.
“Never you mind,” I said hoarsely, looking back into the dreary gray light coloring the sky.
“Cherry—”
“I won’t return again.” Squaring my shoulders, ignoring the wobbly uncertainty of my knees and the ill-used muscles I’d never imagined would ache so, I strode from the chamber that had—for the briefest of moments—been a haven.
It took me only a moment to adjust to the brighter daylight streaming through gray and rain-heavy clouds. If I blinked longer than strictly required, there was no one else to note it.
Hawke had not the strength of character to evict me himself. Claimed his night of flesh and then left me to another to dismiss. Zylphia’s harsh appraisal of my misdeeds only bound my wounds in acid truth; insult to an injury I would not acknowledge.
I could not let it hurt.
Chapter Seventeen
Maddie Ruth was exactly where I’d hoped, hunched over her table in her strange underground work chamber with the fans whirring merrily in the background.
There was less chaos by light of day. I suspected the others had long since retired to bed. It should not have surprised me that the restless child did not follow suit.
God help us both, I saw in her a familiarity that I dared not encourage.
I cleared my throat as I clung to the ladder that lead back from the Menagerie ground. “Maddie Ruth?”
She spun on her narrow stool, a smile already stretching her lips. “Good morning! Or afternoon, really. I’m glad—”
Whatever she was glad for faded as she took a good look at my approach. I touched the ground easily, though with a little more ginger reserve than I usually displayed, and I was sure there were bruises under my eyes from my lack of real sleep.
If my face displayed any of my inner turmoil, I simply did not know.
“You look wrung hard.” A rather definite observation. “Are you all right?”
“Quite.”
My even tone brooked no prying, but Maddie Ruth was not the sort to take such cues, I was learning. She slid off her stool, stripping off the wide gloves protecting her hands from the tools I spied arrayed on her table.
“Give me your hand.”
I had not the inspiration to argue. I offered her my left, palm bared. She studied the rope wound I’d all but forgotten. “You’re healing fast.”
Faster than I’d realized, to be sure. The skin had already pinkened, a ream of shiny flesh rather than the crusted seal I’d expected. “So it seems.”