Page 76 of A Steeping of Blood
Shaw looked to Jin for an explanation, and Jin shrugged. “You never did like guns, so I decided not to either.”
His voice cracked as he said the words, and Arthie knew what he was thinking. His father hadn’t liked guns because he was a man of peace. Instead, he’d come to an island where he’d done worse without one.
“Not that he doesn’t know how to use one,” Matteo added without looking up from his work. “He shot me in the heart.”
“At Arthie’s behest!” Jin protested, pointing at her.
Shaw looked among them. “I would find this raillery amusing if the humor wasn’t so dark.”
“He’s fine,” Arthie said, even as Matteo pouted. “Dark is all we know.”
“Unfortunately,” Jin groused. “On both counts.”
Sora walked over to them. “Bloodworth will be here at seven bells.”
Arthie recognized the name from the letter Jin had shown her.
“He’s… our handler, if you will,” Shaw explained. “He reports directly to the Ram, controls the guards, and the man is in a fouler mood than usual because he seems to have lost a shipment of vampires that were due to arrive today.”
Jin snorted.
Shaw narrowed his gaze. “You three don’t happen to know anything about that, do you?”
Jin tilted his head from one side to the other. “Strictly speaking, a ship of vampires did arrive today. They’re just not in coffins, you see.”
It took Shaw a moment to catch on. “You three.” His eyes flew wide. “You—you commandeered an EJC ship?”
Arthie shrugged as if that was an everyday occurrence.
“Oh, Pa,” Jin said. “I have so much to tell you.”
“Later,” Matteo said, returning to them with a neat roll of paper. “As requested, milady.”
Arthie unfurled it and was transported, for a moment, back to his parlor and the warmth of his house.
“It’s perfect,” she said. The sanatorium was large, but not as elaborate as Arthie originally thought, with rooms and corridors arranged in a modular fashion. She gestured to the chandelier they’d seen when they’d entered the facility. “You even captured its splendor.”
“Only a fraction of my art skills, darling,” Matteo said. “Though I do agree that a chandelier is a peculiar addition to a place such as this.”
“None of our planning will matter if we can’t unlock the door,” Jin said, looking over Arthie’s shoulder. “It’s our only exit. I didn’t see it, but I heard enough to know I can’t pick its lock.”
“Arthie and I saw the mechanism leading—” Matteo began.
Jin’s father shook his head. “Unfortunately, the door is monitored, and only Bloodworth and his trusted staff can operate it. There are master keys, but they’re on Bloodworth himself. Believe me, we’ve tried to get them replicated.”
Arthie pulled out her pocket watch. “Right, we have just under an hour before Bloodworth arrives.”
“I would suggest hiding when he does, but the captain was far too excited at the prospect of having caught Jin to not tell him about a newly captured vampire,” Shaw said. “Bloodworth will want to see.”
“I expect nothing less,” Arthie said. If he had the keys to their one and only exit, Arthie didn’t want to avoid him.
“Why? What do you mean to do?” Sora asked.
“I intend to have us escape in an hour, and Bloodworth is going to help us.”
As Arthie studied Matteo’s sketches, she slowly began to lose focus on his neat lines and the task at hand, for now she knew how to answer that woman in the sari the color of blood who had scrutinized her. She knew how to answer the sea’s whisper when she’d set foot on Ceylan’s shore.
She knew why she’d returned.
