Fortune Favors the Cruel - Kel Carpenter Page 0,17

for a brief moment before a snort overtook her. Quinn looked away, amusement still twitching at her lips. Someone thinks highly of himself, she thought. “It’s actually seventeen,” she corrected him. “Not a dozen.”

His expression didn’t alter. “Either way, I cannot have you representing me looking like that.”

Quinn wondered if she would meet his wife. If narcissism ran in the family.

The coach turned a corner and came to a wavering halt alongside the road. Quinn moved to stand. “Wait,” Lazarus commanded.

“Aren’t we here?”

He shot her a dark look. “When you are in a carriage, you wait until the driver has descended to open the door.”

“I don’t need anyone to open my doors for me,” she said brazenly. “If you’re too delicate, I can surely take care of it for you.”

Not even a muscle moved in his face. He didn’t reply. Quinn sat back with a huff and waited. The door opened not long afterwards, and Lazarus gestured for her to get out. She did so with pleasure—anything to get away from his condescending presence.

Quinn stood on the cobbled sidewalk and stared up and down the alley they had parked in. There was a sign above them, swinging back and forth on squeaky iron hinges. The sign read “Oculi Flere.” Across the way, a street beggar hobbled onto a nearby doorstep and collapsed, grunting and groaning. An empty bottle of spirits rolled away from him.

Lazarus strode towards the door to the shop and pushed it open, holding it for her. Instead, Quinn pointed to the sign. “What does that say?” she asked.

He looked up. “It says Oculi Flere,” he replied. “Let’s go.”

“What does it mean?”

He sighed. “It means ‘The Weeping Eye,’” Lazarus said. “Now, come. We have a schedule to keep.”

“We do?” Quinn asked as she entered the small, narrow shop, but Lazarus didn’t reply.

The interior was just as rundown as the outside. The wooden floorboards creaked under their feet, several spots rotted through and sagging inward. The shelves surrounding the front room were dusty and the baubles and bottles that lined them all appeared as though they held some strange substances—like animal livers and eyeballs. As Quinn wandered farther inside, the bottles appeared newer, lighter.

She stretched out her hand to touch one of them when Lazarus stepped up and grabbed her wrist. “Do not touch anything,” he commanded, quickly releasing her as if her skin had burned him. She wished it had.

Quinn rubbed her wrist as she took in the rest of the room. A crusty older woman with a hunched back and protruding lower jaw hobbled in from a doorway leading deeper into the shop.

“Ma’ lord, so good ta see ye’ again. ‘Ave ye’ come fer a solution today?” she asked politely, her voice hoarse from age.

Lazarus nodded. “I was wondering if you had any sanitatem in your shop, Driselda.”

The woman’s eyes turned to Quinn and then trailed down. “We do, ma’ lord. Fer bran’ removals.”

Quinn didn’t move or flinch as the old woman examined her from across the room. She crossed the creaking floorboards to stop before Quinn and lift her sleeves. “I suspect ye ‘ave more?” she inquired, releasing her.

“Yes,” Quinn said through gritted teeth, readjusting the sleeves of her shirt.

Driselda nodded thoughtfully before turning to Lazarus. “T’will not be cheap,” she stated.

“I didn’t think it would be,” he replied coolly.

The old woman nodded again. “Follow me.”

Lazarus eyed her for a moment, watching for Quinn’s response. She didn’t spare a glance in his direction as she followed the apothecarian into a back room. It was tiny. The back wall was made up entirely of shelves, each filled with a strange assortment of bottles that mostly appeared to be collecting dust. In the center of the small space was a water bin used for animals, with a short stool beside it.

The wooden door swung shut and a boney hand prodded her in between her shoulder blades towards the tub. “Strip an’ get in, girl.”

Quinn tugged off her dusty brown shirt, streaked with grime and dirt. The leather pants took a bit more finagling in the small space as they clung to her bare skin. With some awkward bending and enough persistence, they came free. Stripping away her undergarments Quinn climbed into the makeshift tub and settled with her knees together and her chin propped over them. Her arms wrapped tightly around her legs while she waited for Driselda to begin.

“Ta get rid’er bran’s, we usually just smear tha area of skin wit’ sanitatem, but—” the old woman glanced