A Tempest of Tea, page 24
One foot in front of the other, he made it to the doors before an explosion shook the street.
And Spindrift went up in flames.
44
ARTHIE
The tick, tick, tick of Arthie’s pocket watch echoed between her ribs. One second the flames were small and taunting from the shadows, insignificant in the face of her hunger, gasping and tumbling into ashes.
The next, her ears rang with a sound.
Arthie had been so careful, so meticulous. And her careful planning was what had ruined everything. She yanked her knife out of someone’s spine and holstered her pistol. The walls shook and trembled, and as she begged them to hold, to be strong, to keep going, my loves, keep going, they gave up.
They gave up, and after all these years, some part of her did the same.
Splinters flew, glass shattered. The world’s wrath came, a reminder that she was a little girl playing at something too big for her to hold. She had tried though. She had tried so, so hard. And for what? Her life unraveled as she watched, because of a single act of defiance.
Because that was the nature of man. Born to nurture, determined to destroy. Fitting, Arthie thought. At least Jin wasn’t here in this nightmare returned.
All her life she’d spun a slow dance through a burning room, and the inferno had caught up to her at last.
45
JIN
Ashes never really went away. A fire doused was a fire in slumber, waiting for its next feast, its next unsuspecting mark. Jin had thought nothing could compare to how helpless and hopeless he’d felt a decade ago.
Spindrift was the culmination of half his existence.
Blood, sweat, tears. Laughter and anger. Home in every way the estate on Admiral Grove was not. That was the home that had been given to him. This was the one he had made himself, with the family he had chosen for himself.
“One day, you’re going to need to face that fear of yours,” Arthie had said years ago.
Jin had been annoyed. “Why?”
“Because you can’t afford the weakness.”
He hadn’t spoken to her for days after that. Not everything needed conquering. But now he saw that she was right, that this weakness could cost him her life. Bystanders were beginning to gather, toffs pointing fingers from afar, gangs snickering from the shadows. No one offered to help.
Jin kicked open the doors.
Smoke charged at him, a horror without fangs, worse than one awoken from a grave. It gripped him in invisible shackles, held him hostage beneath an invisible pistol. Yellow. Orange. Red. RED. His breath was coming out in tiny rasps. He gripped the doorframe.
“Arthie!” Jin yelled. The banister he had leaned against day after day to watch the dance and flurry of Spindrift groaned and collapsed, taking with it some piece of his heart. The walls were scorched black. Those beautiful dangling orbs had all shattered, swaying like abandoned souls.
He was suddenly overcome with wrath. He had never known such rage as he did now. It lit him up inside. It swallowed his panic and his fear, if only for a moment, and gave him strength. He sidestepped a line of Plodder corpses and fallen teapots and searched behind the counter, but saw no sign of Arthie. Most of the tables had toppled, but no one alive lay beneath any of them. He tucked his nose under his collar and powered onward.
It was easier not to think of what the fire was doing to him—no, it was not easy, it was impossible.
“Arthie!” Jin called again. He couldn’t summon anything more. The Siwang Residence was astronomical. How could he find her in time? No. This was Spindrift, this was home.
Embers floated down onto his clothes, and Jin slapped them off in a fit of panic. Panic. Panic had wound through his muscles and, like a string pulled taut, he could no longer move.
“Arthie,” he said uselessly. He could barely hear himself. Smoke clogged his throat, and he broke into a series of coughs. His eyes were watering, his lungs burned. “Where are you?”
Stop thinking, he told himself. A thud echoed from the direction of the stairs, a shuffle that couldn’t be an act of the fire. The panic eased, allowing him to move. He skirted past more fallen bodies and broken chairs, Arthie’s voice a chant in his head that changed to Flick’s when she’d twitched that lighter.
And there in the gloom, he saw mauve. Jin ran.
Arthie was trapped under the remnants of a bookcase, slowly prying herself free. She looked up at his approach, soot on her skin, determination sharp on her jaw. By the time he reached her, she had shoved the bookcase off and risen to her feet. She said something, her voice bubbling as if underwater.
Spindrift darkened impossibly, and Arthie stumbled, reaching blindly and swaying from the heat. Jin rushed closer and lifted her into his arms. He couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t he breathe? His head throbbed. Sound. Fire. A nightmare of memory.
Something swayed above Jin—wicked knives, that was the second story. He leaped out of the way of the collapsing stair rail but not before it struck his back. Arthie went limp, impossibly heavier in his arms.
He squeezed his eyes closed for a beat and saw Flick, vividly alive and unafraid, a queen in her gown sculpted from a piece of the unblemished sky.
She was sunshine in a bottle, and he was a storm in a boy, drawn to clear skies, reaching for her hand. Just a little farther, she told him. Just a little farther.
And then Jin collapsed.
46
JIN
Jin went from imagining Flick guiding him out of the fire to feeling her hands on his arms, helping him to his feet. You saved me, he almost said, but that would be the delirium speaking. She wasn’t real. The smoke had conjured her.
The cobblestones outside Spindrift were littered with debris from the blast. An audience of Ettenians in vibrant skirts and wool coats had gathered as if this were the latest play at the theater. Horror was muffled by excitement, by fingers jabbing at the smoke curling thicker than the smokestack plumes, the fire brighter than the Ettenian sun.
Not one of them had come to his aid. He wanted to yell at them all.
“Jin.”
He blinked down at Flick. She was real. She pulled him away from the fire and into safety, dragging him from the bones of his home. He was still holding Arthie in his arms. Barely.
Flick hailed them a carriage. She helped him carry Arthie inside. Gave Jin water to wet his parched throat. Sat beside him as the driver spurred the horses in the direction of Ivylock Street. Arthie needed care, and as outlandish as it sounded, the Athereum was the safest place for them right now.
“Jin,” Flick said again, concern heavy in her voice. “Say something.”
“You came back for us,” he rasped at last. He could barely move his arms. His legs felt just as weak. The rumbling of the carriage made him want to hurl his insides. He wanted to retch, scream, sob.
“Of course I did,” Flick said softly.
The carriage trundled onward, the sounds of the city slipping through the seams. Newsboys shouting, horses whinnying, people going about as if this was any ordinary day. And it was, for them. Buildings rushed past the carriage window, each of them intact and untouched, bricks as perfect as Spindrift’s had been this morning.
Flick took her handkerchief and wet it, using it to wipe the soot from his skin. His eyes burned. He wanted to pull away from her touch. It was too caring, too tender.
It ripped away the last of his resolve.
And Jin couldn’t hold them in anymore. The tears fell, and he did nothing to stop them. He could do nothing to stop them. He had bottled them up since the proprietor had given them the news.
“Oh, Jin,” Flick whispered. She pulled him against her and adjusted herself so that his face rested in the crook of her shoulder, enveloping him in wildflowers and sunlight, everything the remains of Spindrift was not. His tears fell onto her skin and dampened her dress, but she held him firmly.
“It’s gone,” he managed to say.
“I know,” Flick said, eyebrows pitched earnestly. “And I’m sorry. I know how much it meant to you. It was a horrible, horrible thing to do. A dirty move on the Ram’s part. But your crew is alive. You and Arthie survived, and in this war against the Ram, you’re already winning.”
He angled his head to look at Arthie stretched out across the double seats across from them, frail and unconscious. Flick was right.
She swiped at her own face, and then breathed a little laugh because he noticed. “When I—I didn’t see either of you at first, I was worried I had left my old life behind only to lose my new one, too.”
Her new life. Was that what she thought of them? Of him?
“Killing us is no easy task,” Jin said. “We’re annoying like that.”
Flick laughed again, louder this time, drowning out a sob.
He sat back and dragged a thumb up her cheek, wiping away the stray tear, freezing her in place. Jin remembered the last time they’d been in a carriage together, when she’d tumbled into his lap. That felt like forever ago.
She must have been thinking the same, for she tilted her head at him. “And this job had its victories—we have the ledger. The truth. You learned something about your parents.”
He had so much to tell them … which made him realize something else. He had spent so many years fixated on the past, worried and afraid of what might befall him again, that life had up and happened without him.
Arthie twitched but didn’t awaken. It was as she’d said, time and time again. He was always so worried about taking risks and potentially losing Spindrift that he rarely took time to fully enjoy and appreciate it.
“Don’t overthink,” Flick whispered.
Jin clenched his jaw. She leaned closer and brushed ash from his hair. His breath caught. Flick froze too, realizing how little space there was between them.
Classic Flick.
If he tilted his head forward a fraction, he could brush his nose against hers. If he tilted his head to the right or left, he could kiss her soft, unblemished cheek. If he dipped even closer, he could kiss her lips.
“Jin, I—” She stopped, eyes dropping to his mouth. Her hands had been all over him moments ago, funny how it was her gaze that made him shiver now.
He leaned closer, running his tongue over his lips, pleased he didn’t taste like soot. Her fingers curled into his thighs, as if she was bracing herself. If only she knew what that was doing to him. Wicked knives, it was doing things to him. And neither of them noticed that the carriage had stopped until the door was flung open.
Flick made a little squeak. Jin wrenched away, adjusting his trousers as discreetly as he could.
The dubious face of the driver peered between them, the Athereum behind him. “Uh, we’re ’ere.”
47
ARTHIE
When Arthie opened her eyes, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d closed them. She sat up and everything rushed back. Spindrift. Her home, her joy, her life—gone.
There was an armchair by her bed and an unlit hearth beside it. She knew this place. She recognized the illustrated ceiling and those ornate walls: the Athereum.
She slumped back into the pillows and ran her hands down her ribs, making sure everything was in place. She’d felt every crash and shatter of Spindrift as if it were her own body. As if she had been tethered to it by a thread, and the Ram had come and snipped it clean, leaving her bereft.
The emptiness was as loud as the hunger gnawing at her insides. She almost laughed. She almost gave in to the mayhem thrashing beneath the surface. She was tired of powering forward. She was tired of outsmarting the next hurdle.
Her pistol was on the bedside table. She holstered it, tucking a piece of herself back in place, and forced herself out of the bed. She needed to check on Jin and her crew. But she was an animal pacing in a cage. Something was rippling through her, begging to be unleashed.
Please, please, please. A sob tore out of her, draining the last of her will, forcing her down to her knees on the rug in the room’s center.
In this game between her and the Ram, she had lost.
Lost her home, lost her life, and worst of all, lost the control she had so carefully cultivated.
A whisper of a sound pulled her out of her thoughts. Something white drew her attention—a white orchid that symbolized missing someone. That hadn’t been there before. A figure drew near, silhouetted against the curtains. She recognized the shape of him, his scent that heightened her senses.
“Laith.”
That couldn’t be right—he couldn’t be alive. He couldn’t be roaming free in the Athereum of all places.
“Arthie.” He spoke her name on a twisted exhale, stepping into the lamplight. She shivered in anticipation and gritted her teeth against it.
It was him.
“You’re … you’re alive.”
She should have apologized, but the words refused to form on her tongue. She could barely form coherent thoughts.
A shaky laugh broke out of her instead. “You’re here to kill me, aren’t you? After what I did to you.”
His gaze swept down her body, and he took a step closer. “If only that were true. I loathed you, Arthie. I hated you for the span of a heartache before I realized how much I craved you. And I know you yearn for me the same.”
Arthie did, she realized. She’d looked for him at every turn—when learning the truth about the Ram’s ledger, when the flames tore through Spindrift.
“And I understand why you did it,” he said. “I wasn’t as forthcoming as I should have been. I apologize.”
He spoke the words too quickly. He forgave her too quickly. If only Arthie could think clearly. There was a piece she was missing, and she only needed to rearrange the puzzle that was him for it all to click into place.
“I heard about Spindrift.”
“It’s gone,” she said, and her voice broke.
“I know,” he replied softly, too calm for her chaos. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“The others—”
“Safe,” he said. “Your crew is at Imperial Square. Jin, Flick, and Matteo are here. I learned about the ledger, too. It is safe to say I don’t work for the Ram any longer.”
She glanced at his breast pocket. Sure enough, his robes didn’t bear the badge of the Horned Guard.
“Why don’t you let go?” she asked suddenly. The words burst out of her. “Why live for the dead when you have a life of your own?”
Laith paused, taken aback. “The past cannot be forgotten.”
No, it could not. Only death would take her past from her. “But can it be forgiven?”
“My heart seeks a peace I may never know,” Laith said. “Until I find it, I do not know how to live any other way.”
“Lex talionis,” she murmured. She knew what peace he spoke of, even if she’d never considered it as more than a wound in her chest, a hole she could never fill. “How long can vengeance last?”
“An eternity. Until they suffer the same fate, until justice is struck.”
Her thoughts bled into one another. She needed to stuff all her broken edges back into a tailored suit and return to what she was. Nothing made sense but her hunger.
His clothes rustled in the silence, and then she felt the ghost of his fingers at her jaw, lifting her chin. He lifted his hand slowly, waiting for her to pull away. When the light from between the curtains dipped his fingers in gold, it held her in place. When it danced across the smooth curve of his cheek, she stared. He traced a swoop of her hair, curling it behind her ear, his gaze following the movement like a beast tracking its prey.
He pressed closer, and impossibly, her head tilted without her consent. “If there is anyone who can endure an eternity, it is you.”
When she felt the feather of his breath along her skin, she felt dangerously like giving in. His finger swiped her lip, and that hunger amplified. It wanted to ravage and destroy. It wanted, and she couldn’t stop it.
“I know what you are, Arthie,” he whispered. His voice held the barest of tremors. “I’ve known since the day I met you.”
She pulled away from him, freezing as she searched the planes of his face. How? How could he know?
Tell me, do you remember what it’s like to live?
He grazed his fingers down the side of her arm, depriving her of her ability to think. “Let me help you.”
She inhaled, devouring the scent of his blood, the fervor in his veins. It assaulted her. Drove her mad. She wanted to unleash her rage upon him. She wanted to crack open his rib cage and crawl inside of him.
He loosened the sash of his robes and let them fall to the rug with a soft hush. He undid the trio of buttons on the top of his linen shirt and bared the unmarred skin of his throat. His eyes were as dark as her heart, a sea at dusk.
“Let me bleed for you.”
* * *
When that healer in Ceylan had told Arthie’s mother that only a miracle could save her daughter, he had taken Arthie in his arms as if she weighed no more than a sack of rice and set her down in the back of his hut, with its coconut palm leaf–thatched roof and snaking wisps of incense smoke. He moved with impossible speed. One moment he was there, considering her. The next, he was striking himself like a viper. When she gasped, he pressed his wrist to her mouth.
She didn’t know what made her drink.
A fire started in her limbs, sweeping through her veins in invisible torrents, consuming her, draining her, filling her with hunger even though she had just eaten.
“What’s happening to me?” she had asked, voice rising.
“You must live for those who will not,” he said.
And then the darkness swallowed her up, only for an instant, an eternity, a minute or many, and when she opened her eyes, the healer was gone. Or maybe she had left his hut. She moved too quickly, every sound rang too loudly. Around her, people were screaming and running. Ettenian soldiers were coming, they said. Angry waves swallowed bobbing boats. A storm was coming, too.
