Sisters' Fate

Page 60

The woman presses the vial back into my hands. “Thank you.”
I can hear the rasp of her lungs, too. “Keep it for yourself, in case you have need of it next.”
“Cate!” Finn shoves me, hard, and I fall backward into Mei, almost toppling us into the crowd. He crouches low and I’m confused, my stomach spinning from the healing, my head pounding, until he draws the pistol from his boot and fires. A guard shouts and drops his rifle, clutching his left shoulder. The guard next to him, swinging a truncheon to clear their way, freezes as a blond man snatches up the rifle and points it at him. Another man pulls the truncheon from the soldier’s hands.
“We’ve got to go. It’s not safe anymore.” Mei tosses a few more bottles at the crowd and then hands her entire satchel to a skinny woman nearby.
Alice has obviously come to the same conclusion, because as I rise, I notice a strand of black hair falling over my shoulder. My cloak goes blue. I leave my satchel behind.
This time, there’s no need to push. The crowd parts to make way for us.
• • •
“That was too close,” Finn says, pacing Alice’s foyer. “He wasn’t going to fire into the air. He was going to shoot you!”
I’m sitting on the bottom step of the staircase. “I’m glad you shot him first, then.”
Finn looks a bit frazzled—his shirt untucked at the back, coppery hair standing up even more than usual, lip swollen, and the knuckles of one hand bruised. “I’ve never shot an actual person before. An actual living human being.”
“He’ll be all right unless you hit an artery.” Mei doesn’t sound terribly concerned. “Then he might lose the arm.”
“I was aiming for his chest,” Finn admits.
“Do you think we’ve made any difference?” My voice is small as I tuck my arms around my knees. “The way they looked at us—they were scared of me.”
Finn sits next to me, lacing his fingers through mine. “You were magnificent.”
“I was scared silly,” I admit, uncurling myself.
“But you did it anyway. That’s what bravery is.” His thumb strokes the back of mine, and my breath catches. I bring his knuckles to my mouth and press a kiss to the middle one. At my touch, the bruises disappear, and the look he gives me—
It’s the way he used to look at me. Before.
“I don’t mean to interrupt the celebration, lovebirds, but I’ve got news,” Merriweather says, striding into the front hall.
Finn doesn’t let go of my hand. “What now?”
“I thought it strange there weren’t more guards at the hospital, fending off the mob, so I called on a source of mine. A footman for the Brothers. After the hanging, he heard Covington order most of the guards pulled from their patrols and sent to the river district.” The line of Merriweather’s broad shoulders is stiff; his usual elegant slouch is gone.
“Perhaps they’re worried about a riot, once more people find out about the cure,” Finn suggests.
I stare at the flickering light of the blue glass lamp. Something about this doesn’t make sense. “But it sounds like Covington gave the order before they saw our leaflets.”
“Turns out they’re setting up barricades all along Prince, Munroe, and Fifty-Seventh. Cordoning off the whole district.” Merriweather sketches three sides of a rectangle in the air. The river itself would make up the fourth.
Rilla pops out of the parlor. “Do you think they’re setting up a quarantine?” She hands me a cup of steaming tea.
“It’s a little late for that now. The fever’s all over the city,” Mei mumbles between the hairpins in her teeth. She’s twisting her hair up in a chignon in front of the silver mirror.
“Another of my sources, enterprising soul that he is, saw a caravan of army wagons pass the barricades and followed one. Knew I’d pay him for good information with good coin,” Merriweather says. “They stopped at a warehouse down by the port.”
“What were they carrying?” Finn asks.
Merriweather paces the hall, his boots echoing against the wooden floors. “Turpentine and kerosene, supposedly. Do you think they’re hiding the rest of the cure in the barrels?”
“No, if they were going to take it out of the hospital, they’d want it somewhere close at hand, near the city center.” Mei skewers pins through her black hair.
Rilla frowns, smoothing her yellow dress. “Dozens of people are dying every day. Shouldn’t the Brothers concern themselves with how to stop the fever? They haven’t even told people to take basic precautions.”
“I have. Stay inside if you can; cover your face and wash your hands if you can’t.”
“Boil your clothes,” I add, remembering how Mei boiled our dresses each night when we got home from the hospital. “Or burn them. During the influenza outbreak when I was little, my mother went out to nurse and came home and burnt her dress in the kitchen fireplace.”
Finn’s hand flexes, squeezing mine painfully. “Do you remember the Bowers? No, you would have been too young, probably—but their whole family came down with the flu. All the servants, too. They all died. Later, the Brothers sent guards in with barrels of kerosene and burnt the farmhouse to the ground. Said it was cursed with the contagion.”
“Do you suppose the Brothers intend to burn the dead? That could account for all the wagons,” Mei suggests.
Finn’s forehead rumples. “They wouldn’t need to set up a quarantine for that, or keep it a secret.”
“Good Lord.” I drop my teacup, and it shatters, shards flying across the wooden floor. The tea soaks my skirt and scalds my knees. I stare into Finn’s brown eyes, horrified. “What if it’s not the dead they’re after? What if the Brothers are going to burn the river district with the sick people in it?”
Chapter 19
“THE BROTHERS?” MEI ASKS. “OR INEZ?”
No one suggests that I’m wrong, or that she would be incapable of such cruelty.
Finn shoots to his feet, ignoring the crunch of broken china. “No one will suspect she’s behind it. If Covington’s ordered the guards to burn the river district, everyone will blame the Brothers. Between this and hoarding the cure, it could start a civil war.”
Merriweather stuffs his hands in the pockets of his olive peacoat. “But the Brothers will only claim Covington’s gone mad—that he came back wrong—and toss him out of office. She’ll lose control of the city.”
Rilla kneels to clean up the shards of china. “What kind of person tries to set a fire and barricade people inside?”
“The same kind who’d let dozens of innocent girls hang because it interfered with her plans.” I’m pacing around the hall, heedless of my wet skirts.
Mei slides on her black cloak. “We have to stop this.”
Merriweather runs a hand over his square jaw, thoughtful. “Can we enlist the guard?”
“We’re witches, and progressives, and fugitives!” Rilla gives him an exasperated look. “We can’t go strolling up to the master of the guard and expect him to believe Covington’s being compelled. Besides, even if they knew what was happening, are you sure the guards would try to stop it? You should hear the way they talk about river rats.”