“I don’t think he wants to. He punishes himself.”
I understood that. But for my atonement I’d rather do something, work toward killing the Da Vias instead of getting drunk and raging at the night.
“Training me was a sort of penance,” Alessio said, “but he refused to train me all the way. Perhaps he looks at me and sees a path to redemption. Or maybe he was just a lonely man who found a lonely boy and figured they could find safety from the ghosts together.”
I smiled. “You could be a poet, with words like that.”
He returned my smile, and I felt it deep in my stomach. “Kalla Lea, I could be a lot of things, if I so chose. But I choose to be a clipper.”
I climbed to my feet. “We’ll start with poisons.”
He smiled even more brightly and leaned forward. “Anything you can teach me, Clipper Girl.”
“As much as I can until we leave.”
His eyes darkened, but he climbed to his feet and nodded. “Until we leave.”
Behind him, a flash of white light appeared in the alley beside my safe house. The light moved, then vanished behind a building before reappearing.
I walked to the edge of the roof for a better look. I tightened my arms around myself, my fists clenching. The ghost was so close this time.
“Sometimes the streets are full of them,” Alessio said quietly as we watched the specter drift away, looking for a live body it could take as its own. “Even I don’t venture out on nights like that.”
I remembered the horrible screams on the dead plain, the black emptiness of the ghost’s open mouth as she reached for me, the iciness of her fingers as they slipped through my flesh, trying to claim my body as her own. I remembered hiding in the boat on my first night here, the ghost waiting for me.
I released a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding.
We watched the ghost together. Alessio began to hum a song under his breath. I glanced at him, but he didn’t seem to notice. I forced myself away from the edge.
I thought I had conquered my fear of the ghosts, but when I opened my fists, my nails had dug grooves into my palms and I hadn’t even felt it. Not even on my burned hand, which ached from the pressure.
nineteen
THE NEXT MORNING I OPENED THE DOOR TO THE MAIL office, and the sound and smell of pigeons assaulted my senses. The front of the shop was small, no more than ten feet wide and fifteen feet deep. At the back was a wooden desk, kept clean but scratched by long years of use. Behind the desk were cages and cages of pigeons. White pigeons, blue, green, all of them cooing and bobbing and making a racket. Small feathers drifted out of their cages and floated to the floor. I covered my nose.
I shook the handbell on the desk. A portly man with glasses and a balding crown stepped out from a side door. He pushed his glasses farther up his nose and broke into a grin.
“Hello, milady. What can I do for you today?”
“I’m expecting a letter.” Or at least Faraday had said he would send me a letter. I didn’t have an address here in Yvain, so I had been checking the post office every few days.
“Of course, of course.” He pulled out a ledger book and dipped his quill into an inkwell before he flipped to a blank page in the middle of the book. He scratched something into the ledger. “Name?”
I blinked rapidly. I couldn’t imagine Faraday using my full name to send a letter, on the off chance it was intercepted.
“Miss?” the clerk asked, glancing over his glasses.
“Oleander,” I said. Maybe it would be enough, since it wasn’t common.
He lifted his eyebrow but said nothing. Postmen took an oath. Any letters remanded to them were kept secret, as were destinations and origins. “I do indeed have a letter for an Oleander. Delivered yesterday.”
My stomach fluttered.
“Do you need it read to you?” he asked.
“No.”
He turned and paged through envelopes and letters in a bin behind him. He grunted and pulled one free, setting it on the desk. “Will you be sending a reply?”
I shook my head.
“Two gold,” the postman said. I widened my eyes, and he lifted his eyebrow again. “Is something the matter?”
“Two gold is a lot. Why is it so expensive?”
He shrugged. “Postmaster owes a debt. I don’t set the prices, miss.”
Two gold would make a significant dent in my remaining funds. Most of the gold I’d brought with me from our stashes I’d left in Dorian’s saddle packs. I had the Saldana stamped coins, but I couldn’t use them. For one thing, they were holy coins, not meant for spending. And I couldn’t take the chance of anyone seeing them. Since Lefevre had found the coin I’d left on that murdered boy, I’d hidden the coins in my hideaway for safekeeping.
But Faraday might have information regarding the hunt for me. I couldn’t risk not hearing from him. No. I had to bite my lip and accept the cost.
“If you can’t pay now, you can open a tab,” the clerk said. “Pay your debt later.”