He didn’t look up. “You may leave the tray and go, Mrs. Van.”

  “I’ve not brought food, I’m afraid. You ought to keep a tin of biscuits in here somewhere.”

  At her voice, his head jerked up, and she was startled to see dark-gray shadows underneath his eyes. Otherwise, he was as immaculate as ever as he stood to bow to her.

  “Miss Al-Sayer.” He assessed her wordlessly. His gaze lingered on her neck a moment too long.

  “It does not pain me any longer,” Leena offered quietly.

  “I didn’t ask.” And yet his sharp glance returned to her fading bruises once again.

  Leena nodded, averting her gaze momentarily, fixing on the desk’s curved edges. “I only came by to say I am ready to begin our search again. Rami is almost out of his sickbed and no longer needs to be nursed around the clock.”

  “Good. If that is all?”

  She didn’t leave. “I also wanted to thank you for giving me time away from my duties to care for him. That was very generous of you.” She paused, tugging at a button on her dress. “The Black Coats will be looking for my brother, but they cannot touch him if he is to be under your protection.”

  She could feel St. Silas’s gaze burn into her, although she didn’t return it.

  “If you let my brother stay”—her eyes flashed to meet his—“I will work harder to find Lord Avon. I will—”

  He held up a hand, and Leena fell silent. “If I do not have to hear or deal with your brother a moment longer, then he will be permitted to work alongside Arthur as a bruiser.”

  Relief flooded Leena like a tidal wave. “Thank you, sir. He will not disappoint.”

  “Your brother—for all that he is an impetuous fool—is talented with a sword. But mark my words, any sign of rebellion”—he slanted her a look—“the Al-Sayer rebellion—and he will be gone.”

  He did not respond to her further show of gratitude.

  She turned to go, but when she opened the door it was to see Theodore Daye waiting for her. On peeking inside, the young ghost startled visibly, his eyes fixating on something behind her. Leena first thought that he was looking at St. Silas, but she quickly followed his gaze and saw that it was Lord Avon’s portrait that had captured his attention so keenly.

  “Do you know him?” Leena whispered, not wanting to startle the phantom.

  “Know who?” St. Silas responded, not looking up from his work.

  “Do you know Lord Avon?” she repeated gently.

  The ghost’s mouth opened in his thin face and he nodded slowly.

  Leena’s heart jumped.

  “Is there a ghost here, Miss Al-Sayer?” Suddenly St. Silas was beside her, peering urgently into the nothingness.

  “Yes, a boy who claims to know Lord Avon,” she continued to whisper, not taking her eyes off the phantom in case he vanished.

  “Who is this ghost?”

  “His name is Theodore Daye.”

  She felt St. Silas stiffen beside her, a strange energy radiating off him like a building storm.

  “Theodore…Daye?” St. Silas looked disturbed, so far removed from his normally languid manner that Leena threw him a questioning glance. “Describe him, Miss Al-Sayer. The ghost.”

  Leena furrowed her brows. “A boy around fourteen, wearing a servant’s livery. Hair as fair as wheat. The color of his eyes is difficult to say, but I think they were once blue. I’ve seen him only in the past week.”

  St. Silas stared rigidly into the absence where Leena could so clearly see Theodore, now looking back at St. Silas with equal intensity.

  “Can he summon Lord Avon?” Although the question was meant for Leena, it felt as if St. Silas was speaking directly to the phantom.

  Leena had never met a ghost that could call forth another spirit, but she asked anyway.

  Theodore Daye, his mouth a firm line, nodded once more.

  “He can,” Leena gasped, barely believing her own words. “How, Theodore?”

  He pointed toward Lord Avon’s portrait, indicating specifically the red book in the noble’s hand.

  “He’s signaling to that book that Lord Avon’s holding in the portrait.”

  St. Silas inhaled roughly. “The red diary.”

  “What red diary?”

  “It belonged to the First Marquess of Avon. Now a lost family heirloom.”

  “Why haven’t you mentioned this heirloom before?” Leena asked him sharply.

  He met her accusing stare with stoic eyes. “It’s being mentioned now.”

  She turned away from St. Silas in anger, focusing once more on the young ghost. “Can you confirm that you can bring Lord Avon to us if we have the red diary?”

  He nodded slowly.

  Leena didn’t know if she could trust him; she’d never trusted a ghost before. But she remembered the way that Theo had warded off the other ghosts that haunted her, protecting her while she slept. That he had the power to do so was unique. That he wanted to help Leena was even more novel. She decided that she had no choice but to trust him.

  “Do you know where the diary is now, Theodore?” Leena asked eagerly, but she already suspected the answer.

  He gestured toward a stray piece of paper on the Saint’s desk. Leena understood, hurriedly followed him to the desk, and began scrawling all the letters of the alphabet. With his tongue pointing out of his mouth in concentration, the ghost carefully pointed at the letters.

  B—R—A—M

  She turned to St. Silas. “He’s spelled your given name.”

  The Saint said nothing.

  W—A—V—N—G—S—H—A—W

  Then, as if this act of revelation had fatigued him, the ghost nodded once more at her before flickering in and out, finally disappearing entirely. She hoped with all her might that this was not the last time she would see him.

  The air felt like it had been extinguished from the room. Even the light from the burning fireplace seemed dim now, the magnitude of what she’d learned dulling it. It was a confirmation of what Leena already knew—it all led back to Weavingshaw.

  She turned to St. Silas, eager to see his reaction.

  “He spelled out Weavingshaw,” she said. But if she expected the Saint to share in her excitement, she was disappointed. He’d already sat back down behind his desk, his attention not on his work but rather staring blankly at the fire, brows drawn together, the shadows beneath his eyes even more vivid.

  He looked suddenly bloodless—bled out—and Leena knew with certainty that the mention of Theodore Daye had opened an old wound.

  Slowly, and a little hesitantly, Leena walked around his desk. “How do you know Theodore Daye?”

  He didn’t answer, but his eyes jolted away from the fire to meet hers. With effort, his expression turned deliberately remote once more.

  Because she could not force a response from him, Leena began to think aloud, trying to sort through her thoughts. She’d spent long hours theorizing about why St. Silas was chasing Lord Avon. Was it for an unsettled debt? Hidden treasure? A way to make amends to the dead? A way to take retribution on the dead? None of it seemed plausible. “Were you a servant at Weavingshaw as a child?”

  His brows rose faintly, a familiar sardonic lilt to his voice. “Interesting hypothesis, madam.”

  “Is that a yes or a no, Mr. St. Silas?”

  His gaze fell back to the ledgers encircling the study in another stretch of silence, then to his own timepiece hanging from his waistcoat.

  “Will you call me Bram?” he asked instead, his voice uneven, once again bordering on the edge of something. “I’ve rarely heard my own name said back to me. Not since—”

  Theodore Daye.

  She tried not to rear back in astonishment. There was an intensity of emotion to St. Silas that she had never witnessed before, and there was now no doubt in her mind that the young Theodore Daye was the catalyst for this, dragging behind him a past she had no insight into.

  Bram.

  The name sounded in her head, and she tested the contours of it, wondering if it would turn into poison if she swallowed it. It felt as foreign to her tongue as some of the Algaraan words she’d practiced from her vocabulary books, the consonants at war with each other.

  There was no peace to be had from that name, only invasion.

  “I am safe here, sir, on the other side,” Leena finally replied, quietly, eyes not quite meeting his own.

  “And what side is that?” His voice was strained.

  “Where you are a formidable and uncompromising employer. And I a…” Leena’s gaze did not waver from its focus on the point of his collar. She was not yet ready to acknowledge to herself that here sat before her a man blindly searching for a tourniquet with which to stem his bleeding, much as they did in wartime before they had to amputate.

  “…ghost-seer,” he finished. Leena’s eyes shot to his, but before she could comment, he pointed toward the door, effectively dismissing her entirely from his presence. “I have private business to attend to tomorrow. Then the day after I will be taking a short trip outside of Golborne. The shop will be closed until I return. Your duties can resume then.”

  Leena saw St. Silas from the landing early the next day.

  He was exiting his study, followed closely by another man. A tradesman, Leena guessed from the man’s clothes, well made but functional. It was at odds with St. Silas’s manner of dress, always darkly elegant, the superior quality of fabric molding precisely to the broad contours of his shoulders, the waistcoat tapering to his narrow hips. For one unchecked moment, Leena allowed her eyes to follow the hard lines of his body, now pausing for a moment on the large hand that had lingered protectively on her lower back in Orley’s office.

  She pulled her attention back to her surroundings, acutely aware that she was falling into such foolish thoughts more and more lately.

  Leena loitered on the top step, hidden within the shadows. The conversation she had had with St. Silas the previous day was still heavy on her mind, and she’d been hoping to avoid him that morning to allow things between them to settle back into their usual habit.

  The tradesman stopped at the threshold, swiping a hand through his thinning hair. “I trust in your discretion, sir, and I have no doubt you will guard my secret well.”

  St. Silas only took confessions in his study from a select few. Leena was rarely privy to those conversations, but sometimes he made her watch unobserved, searching for any phantoms that may have haunted those valuable customers.

  St. Silas’s bow was polite.

  Leena had seen this before; cruelty always followed his civility. “I am the very soul of discretion, Mr. Marlow.”

  Mr. Marlow released a long sigh. “You do intend to send one of your men today to clean up the mess? I cannot have the other servants stumbling upon the scene. It would cause a scandal, not to mention the magistrate might become involved.”

  “My deepest sympathy,” St. Silas murmured. She almost wanted to shout at the tradesman to look closer into St. Silas’s expression; his eyes were hard, without a sliver of pity. “Have no fear. I shall attend to the matter myself.”

  While the tradesman found comfort in St. Silas’s words, Leena knew this for exactly what it was—a threat. Her feet were rooted firmly to the ground as the tradesman walked the expanse of the hallway, before exiting through the back door to the courtyard. St. Silas stayed standing by his study, all hints of a polite smile vanishing from his mouth, retribution in his harsh stare.

  Suddenly, St. Silas looked up at her in the stairwell, her hand firmly gripping the banister. He did not look surprised by her presence. Any evidence of what had occurred between them last night was gone from his face.

  “Any ghosts following Marlow?” was all he asked her.

  Leena shook her head. “What do you have planned for him?”

  “How do you know I have any plans for him?”

  “You are hard to read,” she said quietly, “but your eyes do not always contain themselves.”

  His brows shot up. There was a tension about him, passing and subtle, the muscles of his jaw taut, before his countenance turned cool. She could tell that what she’d said had momentarily disconcerted him. The Saint of Silence was the one to devour secrets; it was clear that he derived no joy from the fact that she also watched him.

  “Madam,” he said, bowing once to her before continuing down the hallway, following Marlow like a beast trailing blood.

  * * *

  —

  She was awoken in the middle of the night by a hurried knock on her chamber door.

  Leena was out of bed instantly, not bothering even to greet Theo Daye as he stood at the edge of the salt circle, before rushing to unlock the latch and swing the door open. Mrs. Van stood on the threshold, also in her nightclothes, looking less stern with her hair braided to the side rather than in her habitual tight bun.

  “Is it Rami?” Leena asked, her heart straining in her chest.

  “No, he sleeps soundly. It is the master. He has sent word that he will need our urgent presence in the kitchen.”

  “At this hour?” Leena’s eyes swerved to the heavy grandfather clock in the hallway, but she could not see the hand within the dim light of Mrs. Van’s lantern. “It must be near midnight.”

  “Only just after.” Mrs. Van nodded at her nightgown. “Make haste with your attire, Miss Al-Sayer. The master does not like to be kept waiting.”

  While the rest of the house was frigid, the kitchen was warm, a healthy fire spitting from the grate. Leena rubbed the sleep from her eyes, but the bone-deep fatigue still clung to her, giving the night a disorienting edge. The housekeeper had given her a moment to change, and Leena had shrugged into one of her favorite faded cotton dresses, wrapping an apron over the front.

  She wasn’t sure what they were waiting for, but she rushed to help Mrs. Van light the tallow candles, filling the kitchen with a steady, pulsing glow. Just as Leena lit the last wick, she heard heavy footsteps in the hallway.

  She let go of the box of matches and nervously reached for her copper coins, jumping when the door slammed open.

  The first thing Leena’s exhausted mind noticed was the blood. So much of it. All over St. Silas, staining his white-collared shirt and his waistcoat a deep red. For one stunned moment, she could not move, her gaping eyes unable to comprehend what she was seeing.

  St. Silas tore through the kitchen, his movements fluid and unimpeded, and she released a deep breath when she realized that he was not the one who was injured.

  “Quickly.” His command was swift. “Where can I put him?”

  Leena’s eyes fell to the bundle he carried in his arms. She staggered closer, her thoughts passing through her mind like bullets slowed by water.

  The bundle stirred. A whimper escaped, then a small childish sob.

  “On the table.” Mrs. Van hurried to strip the cloth off the aged wood.

  Carefully, St. Silas eased the weight onto the table.

  It was a boy, not much older than seven, wrapped in St. Silas’s coat.

  Leena could not tear her gaze away from the boy’s pale skin, mottled with bruises shaped like handprints—over his brow, on his neck, trailing beneath his clothes. His shoulder was fixed at an awkward angle, the bone jutting from the socket. Small whimpers racked his body.

  Leena was sure that she must’ve walked into a nightmare.

  A flicker of movement by St. Silas’s shoulder caught Leena’s horrified gaze.

  A ghost stood over the boy.

  It was clear that the phantom had returned not to comfort the living, but to rage at them. It took her turbulent mind a second to recognize him as the tradesman from that morning, Mr. Marlow.

  Mr. Marlow’s ghost flared with fury. Even in the dim light, Leena could see the phantom’s clothes hung off him in a bloodied mess.

  St. Silas’s dagger was lodged in his chest.

  All at once, the tradesman’s words came back to her: You do intend to send one of your men today to clean up the mess?

  She had thought the worst of St. Silas’s reaction that morning. But that same burning anger St. Silas had shown then now thrummed through Leena’s own veins, and she could not stop the accusation pouring from her mouth. “You did this to him!”

  The entirety of Leena’s livid focus was on the ghost, and she did not notice St. Silas and Mrs. Van momentarily halt, turning to stare at her.

  “No, madam.” St. Silas looked at her with an expression he had never worn before, but his tone was cold when he replied, jerking her attention away from the phantom that hovered over him. “While I cannot usually fault your reasoning, I’m afraid you are wrong on this account.”

  Leena blinked, unsure what he was speaking of, her gaze returning to Mr. Marlow’s phantom, who watched the child with dark hatred.

  She jolted into action once Mrs. Van called her name sharply.

  She aided Mrs. Van in removing the coat from the boy, revealing stretches of skin marked only with pain. Leena’s one small comfort at the awful scene before them was that there existed no better healer and apothecary than Mrs. Van with her endless supply of strange herbs, rare medicinals, and thick books lining the kitchen cabinets. If there was ever a chance for amends, the child would find it here—ironically, in the Saint of Silence’s own residence.

  Leena’s hands shook as she unbuttoned the child’s shirt collar, wincing whenever she caused the boy to shriek. Hot tears formed at the back of her own eyes and she could not speak past the lump in her throat.

  “Who is he?” Mrs. Van asked, and Leena had never heard such strong emotion waver her voice before.

  “A servant-boy.” St. Silas’s voice remained steady. His back was bent as he held a strip of gauze to the boy’s forehead, stemming the bleeding from a deep gash across his scalp. The firelight cast St. Silas’s face in shadow, and Leena could not read his expression, but his shoulders were coiled as if he was ready to fight again. “He had accidentally broken one of his master’s vases while polishing it. Clearly, his master was not the forgiving sort.”