Page 67 of Blackwicket
He stood at the sink, gruffly grabbing a cloth and soaking it in water to tend to my face. Small bits of glass fell from my clothes, and I considered every part of my body with care,looking for pain. My arms ached from shoving the table, my temples were tender, and my chin, which Inspector Harrow was examining, stung viciously.
“You need a stitch,” he muttered.
“I’m not leaving this house.”
“Well, then, do you have a sewing kit?” he asked, with a significant amount of sarcasm. We both became aware he’d made a joke. He didn’t seem happy about it.
“I can try to use magic,” I said. My mother had treated our minor injuries this way. Cuts, sprains, and contusions were all magically nursed, despite the difficulty of bending the material of the human body. Magic was stubborn and unpredictable when it met with human biology, and even before magic use had been restricted, hospitals had banned the inclusion in medicine. Blackwickets, as far back as anyone could remember, had despised hospitals. Our mother especially was worried someone would recognize what her children were and take us. We were lucky we’d never needed one.
I tried to stand, but the Inspector placed a hand on my shoulder, guiding me to sit again.
“I’ll do it,” he said, returning to the sink to rinse the cloth and wash his hands in the scalding water.
“You know how?”
“You pick up some things working with the Authority.”
Kneeling before me, he pressed his fingers to my cheek in a silent request for me to tilt my head. I lowered my eyelids to peer at him as his fingers brushed from my cheek to the wound, blood still trickling down my neck. Suddenly, there was quiet in him, something very near serenity, and the world turned soft and pillowy before a pinch jolted me back.
“And you can soothe as well.”
“Stay still.”
I followed his instructions, pondering his gentleness.
“How long until the Drudge are done?” He asked when he was finished, handing me the washrag to press on the magically cauterized wound as he stood.
He meant with their work of feeding from Mr. Farvem.
“They’re done now, is my guess,” I replied softly, dabbing my chin to distract from the memory of the old man’s throat. “What are we going to do about…”
“I’ll handle it. Wash. Rest.”
As he turned to leave, I noticed a tear in the shoulder of his jacket, to the right of his shoulder blade, blood staining the gray fabric in a broad patch. I didn’t call after him. Instead, I remained in the quiet bathroom, grappling with the knowledge that Inspector Harrow had tended to my wound first, even when his injuries were far greater than my own.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I bathed, finding that while my body was exhausted, my magic was anything but. It had been used. I wouldn’t be able to produce another surge of considerable power anytime soon, but the bright, cool energy stretched inside me, liberated.
I refrained from lingering, worried about what the Inspector was doing and eager to know how he was handling Mr. Farvem’s remains. For a moment, I let myself mourn a world that diligently chose to move toward its bleakest future. Patrick hadn’t been so different from his grandfather after all, and there must be others with the same ideology. With this grim thought in mind, I gathered myself from the embrace of the hot water and prepared to face the fallout downstairs.
The kitchen door hung crooked on its hinges, and I walked just close enough to ensure the body was gone, although the terrible mess was not. Through the front foyer window, I spotted the remnants of the car, still smoldering, billowing its noxious black smoke in the winter sky. The bomb had detonated by the gate, reducing the left portion to a pile of charred bricks, with the once sturdy iron gatepost lying across the road.
There were people milling around—half a dozen. Inspector Harrow was easy to spot among them, the tallest of a small group who were gesticulating wildly, calling to others on their way up the road, some dressed in evening finery, tourists andtownspeople both crossing the border of the Blackwicket property. A few yards from the wreckage, a figure lay on the ground, someone’s long coat draped over it in a makeshift shroud. I expected the scene would eventually make sense.
Something plucked at my senses, a presence reaching for my magic, like tiny hands searching for sweets. I averted my attention to the source, a figure lurking at the top of the stairs. A Drudge clung to the banister with primate-like fingers, observing me, its face long and doughy as soft wax.
“Would you have eaten me?” I asked.
In response, it released the railing and slunk away, unhurried.
Of course, it would have. Drudge didn’t mourn, nor form attachments. They existed to look for ways to return to the state they deserved to be in, free of the horrors handed to them. They preferred me in my living condition because it offered a consistent source of magic, no matter how weak. But if I were to die, they wouldn’t waste me. I couldn’t fault them for it.
Needing to make use of myself, I shed the squeamishness and returned to the kitchen to clean the foul muck of jam, blood, and glass. The blood was plentiful, and the room smelled of iron and sweet syrup, inducing me to gag. I saved myself the ghastly trouble of touching the offal of Mr. Farvem’s brutal end and called on my magic. Long ago, Isolde Blackwicket had used hers to soak up the blood and bile from a young boy who I’d loved dearly.
Instead of burying the thought of him, I held Thomas’ memory close as I cleaned, wondering if he would have grown to be like his brother, become a man who manipulated and intimidated all to maintain power for the Brom. A man who’d do anything for the empire his father built on the backs of townspeople cut off from their livelihoods. These thoughts troubled me more than gathering the blood into a puddle andcoaxing it in an unnatural direction, up the iron legs of the kitchen basin, and into the drain, where the house drank it hungrily down. I did the rest by hand until I heard the front door creak.
Inspector Harrow returned haggard, with the weary look of a man who’d survived many ordeals and was no longer surprised by them.
