Page 50 of Reap & Sow

Eda was already rummaging in her trouser pocket, searching for the crumpled kerchief Lawrie had left in there.

Kit jerked in alarm when she reached for him. “What are you doing?”

“Cleaning the wound.”

Molten eyes flickered between hers. Were he still a cat, Eda fancied his ears would be pinned to his head. “Why?”

She frowned. “To stop it from getting worse. I’ve no clean water, but we can wipe off any silver that might still be burning you.” Impatient, she cupped his shin.

Kit hissed and yanked it back.

“Don’t be such an infant! Just stay still.” Eda dabbed around the bloody fringes of the wound. Her cheeks flushed, for his leg was hard and warm beneath her hand. Don’t look at him.

Despite the tension practically vibrating through his skin, Kit submitted to her ministrations. “I can do it,” he bit out.

“I know. But you got hurt in my defense. Please let me.”

Silence descended. Kit slowly seemed to relax beneath her fingers. When she dared to glance up, he was looking wistfully at the view.

“It’s beautiful like this.”

The sun had dipped farther, burning a bloody red. The city skyline was a study in contrasts: dark spires against a pink-and-orange sky. Dotted throughout the dark silhouette of Blackbridge’s architecture, little streetlamps and hearthfires came alive. Stars against a midnight sea.

The wistfulness in his tone took her aback. Beautiful. Eda had never thought it such. Down in the filth of the streets and the damp of the canals, Blackbridge always felt like a great warren of mortal vulgarity, and she just another rat scurrying through. But up here…

“I suppose it is.” Surprised to find she meant it.

Glorious as the sunset was, it was Kit that arrested her attention. He still assumed his mortal form, though it wasn’t clear why—there was no one around to see. She studied the spill of ruddy light upon his face and wondered what he was thinking. If he missed his world. If he resented having to stay in this one, comely skylines or no. Mr. Night would.

In Kit, she saw no such rancor.

Eda swallowed. She searched for a clean section of the kerchief not yet soaked in blood. “That little girl…” The image of the fiend’s jaws closing over the child’s skull flashed like a pan fire behind her eyes.

“Those are fiends for you.”

“But it bowed to me. Why would it do that?”

“This bishop can’t be blamed for controlling them if they openly defer to someone else. I suspect they’re under orders to act subservient in your presence. How fortunate for you that the Commander of the Blades herself saw it in action.”

Eda bit her cheek. Dabbed at the worst of his leg. “Everything I touch is ruined,” she whispered. Here she was, trying to make things right—a wound to soothe, brothers to save—and yet it felt inevitable that she would go on to cause some new hurt. Like a dog chasing its tail, trying to catch up to her mistakes and fix them before she made another.

“To err is human,” Kit murmured suddenly.

She looked up. “Poetry?”

“Mm. You mortals have a way with words.”

A creeping guilt settled in her belly. Kit’s help had cost Eda dearly, but it was help nonetheless. Without him, she would have no Mantle of Concealment. No safe haven to lay her head at night. No one to defend her against fiends or Blades, nor assistance getting inside their stronghold. She dared not consider her brothers’ chances without him. But more than all that, he had been fair to her—unforeseen trips into the Embel notwithstanding. He did not have to be.

She considered his wound with a grimace. He was putting himself at great risk for the sake of their agreement. Would her dishonesty regarding Mr. Night place him in even worse danger? Her secrecy had been vital in securing Kit’s aid, and she’d been too wary of his reaction to come clean after the fact. But now with these fiends skulking about, the truth seemed inevitable as the rising sun. Mr. Night had promised Fane a boon in return for killing Kit—the bishop would do it, given the chance.

Eda steeled herself. Hopefully, throwing me off this building counts as “grievous bodily harm.” “I haven’t been entirely honest with you about my past. About how I got here.”

“Shocking. Do elaborate.”

“The Blades did find a Gateway in our shop, and they did arrest my brothers. Bishop Florian was the one to do it. But…I never told you why we had that Gateway in the first place.”

“I never asked.”