She nodded. Then added, “I was hired on at a laundry.” It wasn’t alie,exactly. She had been hired on at a laundry a few days after arriving in Ballycastle. She’d also been fired almost immediately when her tattoo was spotted. But she saw no need to volunteer that particular tidbit.
“A laundry?” the gentleman repeated.
“Yes.”
“And is The Arcane Bouquet the name of this laundry?”
Luna flashed him another look. The gentleman nodded mildly, indicating her front, and she remembered all in a rush that she was still wearing her green bib apron with the shop logo embroidered across the front. Hastily she pulled her coat shut. Curse this lovely Fool’s Spring weather, tempting her not to button-up properly!
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” the gentleman said, the unmelted half of his face creasing in sympathetic lines. “It’s hard for us, isn’t it? Hard to know whom we can trust or where we might meet a friend. I don’t remember the last time I looked into a sympathetic face.”
Well, that was something she could understand, wasn’t it? Luna glanced up at the man and his terrible disfigurement and . . . and he couldn’t be all that dangerous, right? If he was a real sorcerer, a proper sorcerer, surely he would use magic to disguise disfigurement like that. A vivid image of Fabian Grimm came to mind, Mr. Grimm’s older brother. He’d worn a disguise of garish spellwork the day she met him. This gentleman had far more motivation to utilize that sort of sorcery, and yet here he sat, bare-faced. Maybe he wasn’t arealsorcerer. Maybe he was more like Sorcerer Biddercombe back home, academic and fusty and not all that magically inclined. Or he might be like Luna herself. Born to a sorcerous family, possessing a bit of magical acumen, but no training.
Or he could be here for the express purpose of hunting her down.
Luna’s fingers tensed around the violet’s stems. The little flowers trembled a little, sensing her fear.
“Oh, forgive my rudeness,” the gentleman said and tipped his head chivalrously. “I ought to introduce myself. My name is Mortimer. Lancelot Mortimer. Lately come across the channel.”
Luna nodded. “Pleasure.”
“And do you have a name, sweetheart?”
She hesitated for just a breath. Then: “Smith. Jane.”
“A delight, Miss Smith.” The gentleman leaned forward slightly, extending his hand. And Luna stared at it for a solid five seconds. How rude would it be for her not to accept such a simple gesture of goodwill? How many times had this poor fellow been rejected from even the most basic polite interactions, all due to a deformity he could not possibly help? Auntie Arabella’s voice seemed to ring in the back of her head:“A little kindness goes a long way.”
With a short expulsion of breath, she reached out, accepted his hand, and gave it a quick shake.
Instantly, she regretted it. In that brief moment of contact, something sharp bit the center of her palm, like a pinprick. Did he justmarkher? She withdrew again, afraid to look, afraid to betray her awareness of what he had done. Afraid any move she made or didn’t make would be the wrong one. Fear swirled in her gut.
A sudden loud clatter signaled the approach of the trolley. Luna breathed out a sigh of relief, gazing out beyond the shelter. A small queue of passengers had gathered on the sidewalk outside the shelter, lining up to board. The sight of them made her feel marginally safer. She stood, then shivered. After all, she couldn’t have this man trailing after her. With a quick glance back, she caught his one good eye. “Where are you off to, Mr. Mortimer?” she asked.
“Oh, I have business in Westside,” he answered, folding his hands atop the dome of his skull-headed walking stick. “The next trolley is mine, I believe.”
With a nod and repressed sigh of relief, Luna offered a little smile. “Well, welcome to Ballycastle,” she said. “And good luck.” She stepped out from under the shelter then and joined the back of the short queue. If she could make a flying leap onto the trolley and let it keep speeding on its way without stopping, thatwould be ideal. But it huffed and puffed to a standstill, and the conductor stepped down, looking grumpier than usual.
“Miss Smith?”
Luna sucked a short breath through her nostrils. Carefully schooling her face into blandly pleasant lines, she turned to find Lancelot Mortimer standing by her elbow. He wasn’t a large man—his mismatched eyes were nearly on a level with her own. But up close, that sense of anti-glitter was much stronger, and she had to resist the urge to recoil.
“Did you sense a . . .disturbanceearlier today?” he asked, dropping his voice conspiratorially.
Her stomach knotted. “A disturbance?”
“Yes. In the reality veils.” He tipped his head, his good eye boring into hers. “It was almost as though someone had stepped outside of time and back in again.”
Luna blinked several times. Then, drawing her head up slightly, she said, “I know nothing of magic, Mr. Mortimer. I’m not the one to ask about such things.”
“Indeed?” The corner of his mouth tilted mildly. “Well, then never mind. I only mention it because a working of that scale could only be wrought by a sorcerer of special magnificence. I’m curious to know how such a person manages to get by in a place like Ballycastle, where the anti-sorcery laws are so stringent.” He nodded gently. “No need to worry your head about such matters, Miss Smith! No doubt the wardsmen will come down hard upon whoever it was, and the city will be made safe for all.”
With those words, he tipped his hat and walked away, leaning heavily on his walking stick. Apparently no longer intending to wait for the next trolley after all.
Luna watched him go, unable to tear her gaze away until the conductor roughly barked, “Next!” and she realized it was her turn in line. Hastily she faced forward, fished out her coin purse, and murmured, “One fare, please.”
Her ticket secure, she found an empty bench at the back of the trolley and slid into it. There she sat for some moments, heart racing, breath coming in short. When she twisted to look out through the windows, she spied no sign of Lancelot Mortimer and his melted face anywhere. Part of her wanted to believe she’d invented the entire interlude.
But when she looked down at her palm, there it was. A mark—small, black. About the size of a bug bite. Stinging.
