her bones ached. “There’s a mirror in his room,” she said. “I must—”
Beatrice laid a hand on her shoulder. “Dr. Godfrey and I have already seen to it.” She added, more gently, “You told us what you had been doing last night, when we found you here on the floor. You don’t remember that?”
Elisabeth didn’t, and she preferred not to imagine the state in which they’d discovered her, but she was grateful they had taken her seriously. She looked down, gritting her teeth against her body’s protests. “May I see Nathaniel?” she asked.
“If you’d like, though he won’t wake for hours yet. When he does, he may not be quite himself. He’s been given laudanum for the pain.”
She helped Elisabeth into a dressing gown and walked her down the hall. Elisabeth wasn’t sure she could have managed the journey on her own. While she tottered along like an old woman, Beatrice told her how lucky she was not to have broken anything. “Most people would have, after taking such hard blows.” And then she looked askance at Demonslayer, still clutched in Elisabeth’s hand.
When they reached Nathaniel’s doorway, she could only stare. Nathaniel looked marooned in the broad expanse of his four-poster bed, with its carved pillars and dark brocade hangings. His face was turned to the side, and the angle of the sunlight cut across his sharp cheekbone, making a sculpture of his features. Beneath the open collar of his nightshirt, bandages wrapped his chest.
Somehow, it didn’t feel right to see him this way. His breathing was so shallow that his chest barely rose and fell. His face was still: his brow smooth, his mouth slack. Blue shadows tinted the skin beneath his eyes. It seemed as though he would break if she touched him, as though he had transformed into a substance other than flesh and blood, as fragile as porcelain.
Beatrice assisted her into the armchair pulled up near him and turned to go. She paused at the doorway, her bedside manner parting slightly, like a curtain, to reveal a hint of wariness underneath. “Is it true Magister Thorn has no human servants?” she asked. “Only a demon?”
“Yes, but there’s no need to be afraid. Silas—that’s his name—he isn’t here any longer. Even if he were, he wouldn’t—” Elisabeth fought for words, gripped by an overpowering need to explain, to make Beatrice understand. It felt unacceptable that no one else knew who Silas was and what he had done. She finished with difficulty, “He sacrificed himself to save Nathaniel’s life.”
Beatrice frowned, gave a slight nod, and left, unmoved by the revelation. She thinks he acted under Nathaniel’s orders. And as simply as that, Elisabeth realized no one would ever appreciate Silas’s final act. It was not a story that anyone would believe. He had vanished from the world like mist, leaving nothing behind except rumors: the dreadful creature that had served House Thorn.
The injustice of it overwhelmed her, stung her eyes like needles. For a long time she sat in silence, her head bowed, blinking back tears.
Fabric rustled. Beside her, Nathaniel had stirred. She held her breath as his eyelashes fluttered, even though his movements appeared less a conscious effort to wake than a reaction to a dream. Impulsively, she reached over to brush a lock of hair from his forehead. The strands slid through her fingers, softer than silk. She had so little to give him, but at least she could let him know that he wasn’t alone.
Nathaniel’s eyes cracked open, bright and unfocused.
“Silas?” he whispered.
Elisabeth’s heart crumpled. She finished tucking his hair behind his ear, and then she took his hand. She watched him slip, reassured, back to sleep.
The loss of his demonic mark told her that he’d gained back the two decades of life he had bargained to Silas. Yet it was impossible to be glad for him. She knew that given the choice, he would trade the years away again in a heartbeat to have Silas back.
Hours passed. Beatrice came and went, bringing a cold lunch scavenged from the kitchen. Afterward, Dr. Godfrey changed Nathaniel’s bandages. Elisabeth sat gripping the chair’s armrests as the stained cloth peeled away to reveal four jagged lines carved diagonally across Nathaniel’s chest. They stretched from the bottom of his ribs on one side to his collarbone on the other, clamped together with sutures. She forced herself not to look away, remembering the sweep of Ashcroft’s claws, the blank look on Nathaniel’s face as he stumbled backward. She could tell