Page 44 of Because I Killed Him
“Because ownership of the object cannot be forcibly transferred,” Edmund says. “Doing so would require me to violate a formal agreement between Mr. Carroway and me.”
Charlotte snorts. “I didn’t ask you to take it from him. I said I want my own.”
“Tough luck, Deering,” Dickie pipes up from the table. “The gift bag’s empty. Ed only had two. Gave one to me and one to Jack. So, sniff around someplace else.”
“I don’t want anything else.”
I glance between Jack’s and Dickie’s hands, both still gloved, and my curiosity grows. Whatever gift Edmund has given them is exceptionally valuable, and that’s the strange part. Blues don’t hand us anything unless there’s a string attached or a spotlight waiting.
Edmund rolls his sleeve down over the sting, watching Charlotte coolly. “Perhaps you should take some time to consider your request, Miss Deering. As a gentleman, I shall even offer you a piece of advice.”
Charlotte lifts her chin. “Go on.”
“Do not get your arm cut off by trying to reach too high.”
Her jaw hardens, but her cheeks are flushed now, two flags of rage.
Edmund smooths his hair with a quick swipe of his fingers, then reaches for his greatcoat. He shrugs into it and adjusts each cuff before fastening the gold buttons to cover the wreckage of his shirt, still damp and streaked with blood.
“Do you intend to retrieve Miss Bradford now?” I ask him.
“No. The legal maximum capacity of my salon is five. Therefore, to accommodate Miss Bradford, I am taking my leave.”
“Then who shall retrieve her?”
“The Pinkie.” Edmund gives me a tight, close-lipped smile. “I extended Miss Bradford an invitation nearly twenty minutes ago.”
I remember. Edmund sent a Pinkie somewhere before the shot duel began. But that doesn’t make sense. Why would he offer help to a low-citizen girl being hunted? Most Blues wouldn’t hesitate to pick the daisies from our graves. If he’s breaking ranks, he’s risking something.
“If that is true,” I say, “and you invited her before I made the request, then I am owed another.”
Edmund laughs dryly. “You are owed nothing. The timing is irrelevant. What matters is that your request has been fulfilled.”
“Why did you fulfill it? What do you get out of helping Miss Bradford?”
“I get what I always want,” he says, fastening the last button on his coat. “Another friend.”
Edmund moves to the table, where the scorpions are still trapped beneath whiskey glasses. The one that stung him is dead. Due to the way they’ve been engineered, deathstalkers only get one shot before they die, a single gift of poison in exchange for their lives.
He knocks the glass aside and picks up the corpse, lifting it to his mouth, biting off the stinger, and chewing it flat with slow, grinding focus before tossing the rest onto the table. It’s tradition: survive a deathstalker, eat the stinger.
Edmund is still chewing when he retrieves his burnt-out cigar, clips it, lights it, and takes a pull as he turns toward the door.
I call after him. “You still have not told me what’s causing the odor on my dress.”
He swallows the stinger, glances back, and points the cigar at me. “Irasbis Gas. It is a chemical aerosol designed to disrupt brain neurotransmitters and induce hyper-aggression.”
He can’t mean our brains. If he did, I’d already be dead.
“Which type of brain?”
Edmund slides the cigar between his teeth and walks out.
“Canine.”
I stand by the armor-covered window, my shoulders rising and falling with each breath. The salon around me is a blur of indistinct faces and hushed voices, but every so often, the skeleton clock on the wall keeps me tethered to the passage of time. Thirty minutes have passed since the Pinkie left to pick up Jane. Far too long. Either the train’s armor is preventing her fromcrossing carriages, she refused Edmund’s invitation, or she’s dead.
Dead like I almost was.
