“Maybe they ran into more trouble,” Hadrian said. “Keep an eye out.” He turned.
Gwen stopped him. “Where’s Royce?”
Hadrian looked back. “He’s … ah…”
“Is he okay?”
“Was when I left. He’s … um…” Hadrian couldn’t manage to think of a way to say it that didn’t sound terrible. He had that problem with Royce a lot. Normally it didn’t matter so much. Royce never cared what anyone thought of him-but Gwen was different.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I was just-You’re covered in blood, and alone. I was just worried; that’s all.”
“Sorry,” he offered. “I’m going to look around. Maybe they ran into others.”
Hadrian went back down the steps. The ladies stopped shouting. Nothing moved on the street. Most of the thoroughfares branching off Wayward and all of the alleys were just dirt paths that sliced between narrow shacks. Only the porch lanterns of Medford House and the windows of The Hideous Head provided any light. Far away, a dog cried. Hadrian could think of few night sounds as lonely as a dog’s distant howl.
He walked down the street, listening, watching. Where’d they go?
At the start of Wayward he passed the well, pausing to peer into alleys. Manure filled most of them, like the one he’d cut through to get there. Horses made a huge mess of roads, and in the finer quarters, street sweepers were paid to haul the droppings away. In the Lower Quarter, the road apples looked to be shoveled aside. Hadrian imagined the place reeked in the heat of summer. The odd lumps and piled shapes lost in shadow made it hard to tell anything, and if it hadn’t been for a fortuitous sliver of moonlight catching the hem of her dress, Hadrian would have never found Rose.
In a narrow alley between a pawnshop and a decrepit shack, it took only two steps into the manure-packed crevice to be sure. The girl lay on her side, her skirt high on one hip exposing a pale thigh. No movement. Her eyes were closed. She might have been sleeping except for the bloody slice across her throat. No blood. The pile of manure drank it up.
Hadrian stood staring. In the shaft of moonlight he could see his breath puffing. The night was growing colder by the second. His jaw clenched tight, his hands made and unmade fists. He wanted to put a sword in his hands, to swing, swing hard, but there was no one to swing at. There was just a beautiful girl-a girl who once spilled soup on him, who he’d once danced with-lying in an alley, dumped like garbage.
He looked around for the sergeant but Rose was alone.
Light, Hadrian thought.
Carrying Rose in his arms, she hardly weighed anything. He cradled her as best he could, taking extra effort to keep her head up. He didn’t want it to drop back, not with the slice across her throat. Gwen’s girls had cleared a table, but he was reluctant to lay her down. Her body was still warm, still soft. He placed her gently on the dining table that had been dressed with linen as a dozen sobbing women circled him. Hands to faces, some on their knees with their heads bobbing over their laps.
Gwen stood at the head of the table, eyes moist, wet lines on her cheeks. She just stared, her hand braced on the table. She placed a quivering palm on Rose’s forehead and caressed her as if soothing a troubled child, then bent and kissed her brow.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and more tears ran unchecked down her cheeks. “Clean her up.”
Gwen led Hadrian away. She took him into the drawing room, a smaller, homey space with a glowing fire in a stone hearth. Soft chairs and delicate furniture huddled inside the hug of dark wood and the smile of bright floral wallpaper.
“I don’t understand,” Hadrian said. “They were safe. They were only a few blocks away from here.”
“Etta,” she called to one of the girls. “Bring Hadrian a basin and a cloth. He needs to clean up.”
“And even if they found them, why would they have killed her like that? The others didn’t seem to want to kill her. They just wanted to take her back to the castle.”
“You know who killed her?”
“The sheriff pa-” He stopped. She was right. He didn’t know who had killed her. Sure, there were a lot of sheriff patrols, but not that many. And what happened to the sergeant? And why would they have killed her and just left the body in an alley?
Etta entered the drawing room with a pretty blue and white porcelain basin of water and a towel over her shoulder. She was rushing. Rose’s death had everyone on edge. There was a sense of urgency. A drive to do things fast even though there was nothing really to be done. Etta sat him down on a stool, kneeled, and began to wash his face and hands.
Hadrian hardly noticed her. His mind was elsewhere-running up and down Wayward Street and the alleys branching off it trying to make sense of things. Had I missed them by taking the shortcut? If I hadn’t gone that way, could I have stopped it?
At the gate he remembered the sergeant had said that Exeter was trying to kill her, but the sheriff they had run into ordered his deputy to take her to Lord Exeter, not kill her.
I’m taking her home, the sergeant had said to the castle guards, but it didn’t sound like he even knew about Medford House, and he didn’t like Hadrian helping. Why? Maybe he wasn’t taking her home. Maybe he was just looking for a dark enough alley.
Gwen took the towel from Etta. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll take over.”
Etta nodded. As she left, Gwen motioned for her to close the door.
“You don’t need to clean me,” Hadrian said, taking the towel from Gwen, who sat across from him.
“Yes, I do. I need your hands clean.”
Gwen peered up at him with an expression he couldn’t read-fear, perhaps, or nervousness but also a sense of eager anticipation. Looking at that once-beautiful face made him wish he had stayed with Royce, if only to watch.
“I want to ask a favor, a very personal favor,” she said in a serious tone. She wet her bruised lips and wiped the hair from her face. “I need you to give me your hand. I want to read your palm.”
“What? Like a fortune-teller?”
“Yes, exactly.”
They did that sort of thing in Calis. There were palmists’ stands all over the cities, along with crystal gazers and bone seers. Hadrian never gave it much thought. He figured they just spoke in generalities that could apply to anyone, but some people he knew swore by it. “Oh, right. You’re Calian.”
She nodded.
“An odd time for fortune-telling, don’t you think? We-”
“Please.” Gwen, who had always been calm and comforting, looked desperate. Seeing her battered face broke his heart.
He extended his hand.
Gwen caught his fingers. She looked scared. He could feel the quiver of her hand on his. She turned his hand over, spread his fingers, and stared down at his open palm.
He waited. Her face cycled through a gamut of emotions: fear, curiosity, astonishment, joy, then back to troubled. New tears welled in her eyes. She let his hand go, covered her face, and began to sob.
“What is it?” He reached out for her, and to his surprise, she threw her good arm around his neck and hugged tight.
After a few minutes Gwen relaxed and let him go.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded, wiping her eyes. He waited for a long moment, allowing plenty of time, but she remained silent.
“Anything you want to tell me?”
For one awful, selfish instant he imagined her saying something like, Hadrian, I’ve wanted to confess this to you ever since we first met, but it isn’t Royce I’m in love with … And what would he say? He knew what he’d like to say. He was just as smitten with her as Royce was, but he also knew that betraying Royce wouldn’t just be wrong or cruel-it would be fatal.
Gwen shook her head, and in that one small movement of swaying black hair, Hadrian felt both dejected and relieved. Whatever bothered her probably had nothing to do with him or-