Page 75 of The Devil in Oxford
TheRadix.If the killer was after theRadix, then it was only logical he’d want the last person known to have held it. Stupid. Stupid girl. I bit the inside of my cheek.
I’d been incautious, had not even dreamt that he would be in any real danger or else I’d have never let him out of my sight. Better yet, I’d have sent him back to Cornwall, where I knew he’d be safe.
Safe.
Four letters that meant everything in this moment.
I squeezed my eyes shut, blotting out the unhelpful sentiment. Ruan would never forgive me if I allowed Annabelle’s wound to go putrid. I peeled away the bandage tenderly. The girl mumbled something as I removed the soiled cloth from her soft warm skin.
“It’s all right, darling. It’ll only sting for a moment.” I laid a clean piece of linen soaked in the antiseptic mixture on her skin, mindful of the stitches, and dabbed away at the clear fluid that had oozed from the sutures.
“I dreamt of the man,” she whimpered as I finished cleaning the incision and began to apply the sweet-smelling ointment to her damaged flesh.
“What sort of a man?” I asked absently, wiping the excess liniment on my skirt and placing a clean bandage over the stitches.
“I saw him again…” She groaned, pushing herself up by her elbows to ease my passing the bandage back around her.
My ears pricked. “Whodid you see, Annabelle? Was it the man that attacked you?”
“Ye—” She sucked in a pained breath as I helped her back onto the pillows. “I saw him again in my dreams. With eyes. Eyes cold and black like ice.”
“Was that the man who took Leona?” I grabbed the pitcher on the nearby table and poured water into a tin cup before handing it to her. She drank greedily, a dribble running down her chin to settle in the shallow hollow of her throat. “Yes. There were two… two of them.”
I took the cup from her trembling fingers and set it on thenightstand, grabbing a clean cloth to dab at the dampness at her throat. Her hand shot up, latching onto my wrist with unnatural strength. “He took Leona. He was here. I saw him.”
“Whotook her, Annabelle? Was Leona still alive?” I needed every drop of information she had. The wind rattled the glass in the windows, sending a draft into the airy damp attic room.
“I don’t know.” She winced with a subtle bob of her head. “He stabbed her with a syringe. I tried to stop him and he…”
I pulled a soft, quilted blanket from the nearby table and spread it over her as a bulwark against the winter winds battering the windows.
How very strange. Annabelle had beenstabbed—with a knife—but Leona had been stuck with a syringe and thentaken. “A syringe? Like a doctor would use? Had you ever seen this man before? Was there anything unusual about him?”
But the girl had already fallen back asleep. Probably for the best, as the pain must have been unbearable. I would simply have to wait until she was stronger to probe more. I stroked her brow gently, wishing I possessed an ounce of the healing power Ruan did, before tucking the blankets around her slight form.
If the attacker had drugged Leona, it gave me hope that she might still be alive.
Cold black eyes.
My nostrils flared. I closed the door quietly behind me and started down the back stair to the ground floor when I heard a knock at the kitchen door. Quickening my step, I arrived as Mrs. Penrose opened it. A cold wind blew in, lifting the cloth on the table. Hari stood on the other side, fist raised ready to rap upon it a second time—his expression as bleak as I’d ever seen it.
“What is it? What’s happened?”
He stepped over the threshold with a frown and reached into his pocket, pulling out a familiar silver half hunter.Ruan’s watch.I closed the distance between us, taking the dented pocket watchinto my hand—turning it over, running my thumb over the simple engraved letters,R. KIVELL.
My eyes pricked.
It was the same watch Mr. Owen had given him when he sent him to Oxford as a young man.
“Where did you…”
“On the street outside the hotel. A boy found it and had brought it to the front desk as I was leaving. I asked to see it and recognized the name. I’ve been searching for you all over town. They said you had gone to the museum. I followed after.”
I stared at him, fingers closing around the cold metal. “What do you mean he found it? Where’s Ruan?”
Hari’s worried eyes met mine. “Sit, Ruby. Please.”
“I do not need to sit,” I bit out. “And do not treat me like I’m some wilting flower in need of tending. If you have something to tell me, tell me.”
