Page 61 of Blackwicket
Stepping into the hall, I closed myself off from my father for what I’d decided would be forever. I’d made it to the glass elevator, the lobby, and to the rotating entryway, when I slipped my hand into my pocket and discovered the photo missing. My anger was renewed. Darren had picked my pocket, had stolen from me, a thing that didn’t and would never belong to him.
I’d stopped, blocking the door, and a woman tapped me on the shoulder, hoping to get around. Her expression when I acknowledged her suggested I wasn’t hiding my temper. She apologized and retreated to the lobby. I stood fuming, hating that I was forced to decide between eating my words and seeing Darren again or abandoning the photograph.
All the way back to room 15, I steeped in resentment, working myself into another firestorm. The door was partially open, cracked several inches. I didn’t bother knocking, only shoved it in, prepared to spit venom.
The room smelled of iron and decay, vivid red mottling on the white curtains drawing my eye first, crimson droplets on the windowpane so fresh they still traveled in a drunken slink towards the latch, as though racing to escape the carnage that had been visited upon the room in the few minutes I’d been gone. The spatter continued across the bed and onto the floor where Darren lay on his back in a halo of blood, fed by the streams still flowing from the gaping slash of flesh in his throat.
Anger evaporating, I screamed for help, hurrying to my father’s prone body, falling to my knees and pressing a hand to his throat to staunch the pulsing flow of blood. The pressure of my palm only forced more from his veins. The cut was too deep, too wide.
Darren was still alive. Two tears slipped from his eyes, mirror images of each other as he looked at me.
“Help!” The word escaped long and wretched. Doors began opening, voices raising in the hall, fast approaching.
Darren laid a hand on my shoulder as he gathered the strength to touch my face, his fingers finally grazing my cheek. Blood bubbled from his lips as the corners curled into a frail smile.
His hand fell to my collarbone, his body, which had been convulsing from the effort to draw in breath, stilled, and thewhite, gossamer threads of his magic rose from the wound as his body released it, no use for it any longer.
My vision grew grey, head woolly and light, as I grasped his hand in mine for what would never be long enough, even as strangers pulled at my arms, dragging me from my father’s body and the horrible sight of my careless wish come true.
I sat in the hallway covered in my father’s blood. Bodies moved around me, passing feet, rushing one way and another as time marched ever forward, leaving me floating in a strange, lonely world, trying to understand what had happened. A woman spoke to me, her soft hands brushing the hair from my brow, rubbing the gore from my fingers with a damp cloth, but I couldn’t hear anything beyond the pounding of my heart in my ears. Every beat brought to mind the torrent of life that had slipped through my fingers.
I was lost in all the moments of my childhood I’d long forgotten or ignored. The rosy days when Darren had shown, unannounced, with flowers for my mother and more sweets than Fiona and I could ever hope to eat. He’d come inside the house back then, when Isolde Blackwicket was in control of her mind. Sometimes he’d lingered for weeks, and in those sunny stretches, my life resembled one that was normal and easy. He’d disappeared for the longest stretch when Isolde had started deteriorating, staying locked in her room for days, leaving Fiona and me alone to fend for ourselves more and more, barely registering our presence when we were right in front of her.
I love the sea. She’d said the last night she was alive, sitting at her favorite window in the parlor.It sounds like home.I want to go home.
“Eleanora.” My name reached me from a world away. Afirm touch lifted my chin. My vision focused, hazy colors bleeding together to form solid shapes, at last registering the eyes looking into mine, searching for a sign I was still there.
Inspector Harrow.
Though there was no concern etched on his brow, there was something softer about him, less feral and strained. Harrow was not a vision of comfort, but he’d become a familiar presence, and of all the people who’d ever threatened me, so far, he’d been the one who hadn’t followed through.
I sniffed, moved from the touch, not with disgust or petty disdain, but because he’d returned me to my body, where heartache dug its sharp edges. He couldn’t be my guide in this storm.
He redirected his attention to a young man who’d approached to ask about transport for the body. Harrow answered, but I wasn’t listening anymore. As a high-ranking member of the Authority, of course, he’d been called to the scene. I expected the next steps would be interrogation. My father and I had fought, loudly, and I’d been the last to see him alive. I was covered in his blood. I was the most obvious suspect, and with my prior history, it seemed likely this would be the thing that got me out of Nightglass and straight into an Authority prison where I’d be annulled.
“Get up.” Inspector Harrow’s voice was sturdy, giving me something to hold on to. “I’m taking you home.”
Surprised, I searched his face for signs of a trick, manipulation, or cruelty. There was only his steady attention, stoic and unflappable.
“You’re not taking me into custody?”
“Should I?”
I sat there, staring at him, blood drying on my coat, my hands, my cheek where my father’s fingers had touched.
“No,” I replied, my sincere plea of innocence.
“Then let’s go.” He didn’t reach for me, didn’t offer his hand to help me stand, perhaps knowing I wouldn’t,couldn’t, take it. As I stood, he divested himself of his suit jacket.
“Take off your coat,” he said. “Leave it here, I can’t walk you down the halls looking like the goddess of death.”
I numbly attempted to unfasten the buttons, fingers fumbling, Harrow made a motion, and the woman who’d consoled me earlier appeared. It was Cora. She looked tired, but much improved from her ordeal, the gauntness of her face reduced, her green eyes keen.
“You…” I began, but she shushed me gently as she helped me with the buttons.
“It’s alright, Ms. Blackwicket,” she said, her way of telling me she was well. She took the coat from me, and it looked like the grisly skin of a beast. “You’re in safe hands. But, look, don’t tell Thea you saw me here. She doesn’t know yet.”
“That you’re Authority?” I said flatly.
