“No, don’t lose it,” the Devil instructs. “Rage. Almost there.”
I fall into my destruction like falling into the sea. Instead of Mr. Pratterman, I picture myself. I toss myself off that cliff and down to the dark rocks below, dash my head and let the ocean diffuse my blood into the never-ending churn. The pain of Pratterman’s power mixes in my mind with limbs breaking, lungs burning, the panicked animal of my body come to understand its end.
Mr. Pratterman opens a channel to take back what he forced through me like a sieve. I land into the peace of acceptance. As the torment leaves my mind, flows out of my aching chest, and disappears into him, it’s like I truly have drowned. Nothing left but to float within the chaos. Nothing left at all.
“Perfect.”
I open my eyes. There’s no peaceful end into the deep for me. Only the next task.
The stiletto dagger in the Devil’s hand glows the same moonlight hue as his eyes. I slump back against the chair, breathing like I’ve run a marathon. I’m more worn out from that than the entire day of gallivanting up and down Halifax’s hills.
Mr. Pratterman is speaking. It takes me a moment to gather myself enough and focus.
“I can’t promise what will happen after you kill her. I’ve never given a contract something this concentrated.” He places it carefully in a dark leather sheath and slides it across the desk to me. “It’s merely a conduit for what we’ve created together, though. An instrument to focus your resolve.”
He shows me how to use the blade, practicing with one he fashionsfrom a point of wax off the wall instead of the real thing. It’s not a slashing movement like I’m used to but instead a thrust and twist, a small point of entry that creates a large area of damage internally. Insidious.
He demonstrates on me, showing every angle that a stiletto works best. From above into the breast, from below the rib cage, from beneath the armpit. Warm wax melts against my skin beneath my work shirt each time, intimate.
“Anywhere that you land a stab will do the trick. It’s my power, not yours.”
He pauses his teaching, both of us standing in the middle of the room. Sweat falls off my nose. A bead at his temple trembles. It surprises me that he sweats. This can only be a sliver of the heat of his infernal kingdom. In our moment of stillness with the wax replica only an inch above my collarbone, I notice the powdered surface of his skin. Cosmetics? To appear more human to me? Are we not past that? Or is it to appearlesshuman?
“Eleanor,” he murmurs. Why do we keep coming so close together? “It’s important that you don’t fail at this.”
I grasp his hands with mine and mime the movements of the knife, pressing its tip to my skin until the end of the wax snaps from the tension. Is that agulphe takes?
“Do I appear to take this lightly?”
“At times, I wonder. Mark these words. You’ll have one attempt. That’s all I grant. If you fail”—his eyes fix on the contact of wax to my skin—“you’ll be mine to claim. Without you to guide her, what do you think Liney will become?”
I step back, releasing his hand. The wax drops between us, breaking apart. As does whatever brewing emotion was coming to a head.
“Whatexactlydoes that mean?” My voice is venom, sharp as the stiletto. He mentioned something similar earlier, but everything before the transfer of dark strength has blurred.
“Grief is a beautiful tool. It shapes people. Grief for a sister you learn has murdered your parents and attempted to do the same to your bosom companion? I can only imagine what forces your sister may turn to. And who may be there to answer.”
Liney, go to the Devil? “My sister isn’t capable of that,” I say, pride in my voice.
He shrugs, placing the real knife in my hands. Is it heavier now, or are my muscles weaker? “When she prays, do you think it’s only God who listens?”
I leave the dark dream. Those words haunt me more than the lingering aches across my body. It takes twice as long as normal to wash out the pomade. Leaning over the small bowl burns at the knots of tension in my back. My arms are numb by the time I’m done scrubbing through my hair. I wash my body, exhaustion nearly consuming me. By the time I slip between the thin sheets of the bed, blue light already edges the buildings like an aura.
I dream of the Devil, blood dripping from candles’ edges, a knife that screams. I don’t know how long I sleep. Not enough. Every muscle rebels against me to stay rooted in my cocoon. Other guests are already downstairs for breakfast, based on the smells and sounds below, and I have a long day of travel ahead. I could stay another day, rest. But I’ve left Liney for too long.
I don’t bother with pomade today. I need only a little breakfast, and then I can head out. I slick my hair back into a low ponytail and cover it with the fisherman’s hat. The same clothes as yesterday, slightly wrinkled from wear.
It’s much busier than last night in the dining room.
“Church let out, we’ve got Sunday roast on,” the innkeeper explains as he sidles up beside me to examine the room. Other patrons stand around the edges of the room waiting for their turn at a table, yet he chose to aid me. A few dimes do make a difference. “Sir, I can ask thatgroup of gentlemen to make room? They’ve been here a while; it’d be no trouble.”
He points across the room at a loud table of men, near a dozen, sitting near a window. They remind me of a Rembrandt painting I saw a print of in my father’s study, dark-clothed and conspiratorially hunched.
I recognize one of them. I’ve thought of him every day since he appeared on my doorstep asking after my victim. Mr. Croxton’s smaller than I remember. Memory creates monsters out of mice.
I’ve visited his territory. The glassblower’s, the harbor society. Yet I never considered he might appearhere.
Beside him, turned away from me, is my nightmare.
