damp on her cheek. Then the way he had simply been gone, as if he had vanished into thin air. What had Silas done to him?
“I killed him, miss,” the demon said softly. “He would have done the same to you, and you wouldn’t have been his first victim. I smelled it on him—so much death. No wonder the fiends were willing to follow him.”
She made a strangled sound. “You can read my thoughts?”
“Not precisely.”
“Then how . . . ?”
“I’ve spent hundreds of years observing humankind during my service to the Thorn family. I don’t wish to insult you, but you are not complicated beings.”
She shuddered, staring at her hands, at the too-perfect cup of tea, wondering what else he could tell about her simply by looking.
“Are you feeling unwell? Perhaps you should get more rest.”
She shook her head, not meeting his eyes. “I’ve rested enough.”
“In that case, I have news that may ease your mind.” He lifted a newspaper from the nightstand and passed it to her. She took it warily, glancing at his gloves, but she couldn’t see any evidence of his claws. “The attempt on your life has already reached the morning papers.”
Elisabeth almost did a double take. The headline on the front page read SUSPECT . . . OR HERO? and was accompanied by a sketch of Nathaniel and herself standing on top of the coach as fiends closed in around them. Nathaniel’s lightning slashed through the crosshatched sky, and the artist had taken the liberty of replacing her iron bar with a sword. Her eyes flicked back to the headline. “This is about me?”
Silas inclined his head.
Incredulous, she began skimming the article. The young woman, identified by an anonymous source as one Miss Elisabeth Scrivener, demonstrated uncommon courage and vigor in holding off her demonic attackers, going so far as to save the life of a helpless bystander. . . . She is believed to have arrived in Brassbridge as a suspect in the acts of sabotage on the Great Libraries, though we must question the Magisterium’s wisdom in naming her a suspect when this vicious attempt on her life suggests the precise opposite. It is clear that the true culprit hoped to silence her using any means possible. . . .
Elisabeth’s cheeks flamed as the article went on to speak glowingly of reports from our trusted sources that she had single-handedly defeated a rampaging Malefict before it imperiled the lives of innocents in the quaint village of Summershall. Then, annoyingly, it devoted a subsequent column to Magister Nathaniel Thorn, Austermeer’s Most Eligible Bachelor—When Will He Select a Bride?
Something nagged at her, and she went back to the beginning to reread the first several sentences. “Wait a moment,” she realized aloud. “This says acts of sabotage.”
Silas reached toward her. She tensed, but he only flicked to the second page. Scanning through the article’s continuation, her breath stopped.
“There was an attack on the Great Library of Knockfeld?” Her lips moved as she raced through the cramped text. “ ‘Another Class Eight Malefict . . . three wardens dead, including the Director . . . first labeled a tragic accident, now believed to be connected to the incident in Summershall.’ This happened two weeks before the Book of Eyes!” She looked up at Silas. “Why would any of this ease my mind?”
“Last night has altered your circumstances considerably. Your hearing has been called off in the midst of the public outcry incited by the press. Once you are well enough for a carriage ride, Master Thorn has been instructed to bring you directly to the Chancellor.”
She sat in disbelief, inhaling the paper’s scent of cheap ink and newsprint. Her head felt empty, ringing with Silas’s words. “Why does the Chancellor want to see me?” she asked.
“I was not told.” Something like pity shaded the demon’s alabaster features. “Perhaps you might consider getting dressed. I can assist you, if you wish. I have taken the liberty of altering today’s selection.”
Elisabeth frowned. Her best dress hung from a hook on the wardrobe, lengthened with fashionable panels of silk. Now, it looked like it would fit. Silas had done that himself? She touched her neatly brushed hair, recalling her earlier observation that someone had bathed her and changed her clothes. When realization struck, she recoiled. “Did you undress me?”
“Yes. I have decades of experience—” Reading her horror, he raised a placating hand. “I apologize. I have no interest in human bodies. Not in any carnal sense. I forget, at times .