Page 138 of Control's Undoing

Colum glanced around the room, his brows furrowed.

“Leave that,” Annie said, when he tugged the mask away from his mouth.

He shrugged off her hand and she allowed him to, despite the fact he was weak.She could see he wanted to say something.

His voice was raspy when he spoke.“I saw Josephine.”He winced as he swallowed, clearly in pain.

Eric’s arm visibly tightened around his shoulders and for the first time since Colum went down, Annie saw the fleet admiral’s composure crack.

“You were poisoned,” Annie said.“You were probably hallucinating.”

Colum shook his head, looking over his shoulder at Eric.“I saw her.We spoke.”

Eric didn’t contradict him, didn’t even seem to disagree.Instead, he simply nodded.

Colum started to cough, a dry, painful cough, and Annie tugged the mask back in place.“Breathe.”

He remained propped against Eric’s chest, his brother holding him tightly, refusing to let him go.

Regina returned, holding the page in a sealed bag.The corner of it was gone, the ragged edge black.

“What happened?”Eric demanded.

“The paper was coated in chloroethyl and a few other chemical compounds.It reacted to the sulfur in the cleaning putty, creating a chlorinated gas.”

“Mustard gas,” Annie said, feeling sick all over again.

“Or similar,” Regina agreed.

“Deliberate?”Eric asked.

Regina hesitated.“Chloroethyl is used in lacquer, resin…if this was a painting, I’d say no.”

“But it wasn’t,” Annie said.“It was deliberately soaked in it, knowing that we’d use a vulcanized rubber cleaning putty.”

“Are you sure?”Xavier asked, gripping Colum’s hand.

“All it would take is a Google search to see that the first step in cleaning damaged paper and old books is that kind of putty,” Annie replied.

“It was deliberate,” Eric said.“This is an attack by the Spaniard.”

“Even if we’d dipped the page in liquid sulfur, it wouldn’t have created enough gas to harm anyone more than a foot or two away.”Regina looked unflappable.

“No harm?”Xavier’s lips were twisted in a sneer.“He stopped breathing.”

“And he was holding it up to his face.And most likely… Colum, do you suffer from asthma?”Regina asked.

“I did as a child,” he said, voice muffled.

Regina held out a hand.“He had a more acutely adverse reaction than normal.”

“So this wasn’t an assassination attempt, not really.It was an attempt to harm but not kill.Just like all the fucking attempts on Nikolett’s life.”Eric’s jaw flexed.“Which means the Spaniard has been after her for a year and only showed his hand in Crimea.”

Annie tried to bring herself to care about the details—did Dodge hire the Spaniard, or did the Spaniard buy the manuscript from Dodge?Who was the intended victim?Who did the Spaniard think would be the one to try cleaning the page?Why was he trying to hurt but not kill Nikolett?

Those questions needed answers, but Annie wasn’t going to be the one to do it.All that mattered to her was Colum.

The four of them remained on the floor until Colum was finally breathing easier, able to sit up and support his own weight.

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