Морган Райс - A Song for Orphans

She wanted to reassure Gertrude that it would be all right; tell her that in a minute, Siobhan would stop this. She wanted to tell her that as bad as it felt now, it would all be fine. She couldn’t, though. If she said it, there was too much of a risk that Siobhan would know that she wasn’t treating this as real, and force her to go through with it. There was too much of a risk that Siobhan would throw her soul into the hellish depths of the fountain.

She had to be strong. She had to keep going.

Kate kept the pillow in place while Gertrude thrashed and clawed at her. She kept it in place even when her struggles started to weaken. When she went still, Kate looked around, half expecting Siobhan to appear from nowhere to congratulate her, revive Gertrude Illiard, and declare this done.

Instead, there was only silence.

Kate pulled the pillow away from the young woman’s face, and astonishingly, she still looked peaceful, despite the violence of the seconds before that moment. There was no life there in that expression, none of the animation that there had been while Kate had been following her around the city.

She could feel that there were no thoughts there to sense, but even so, she put her fingers to the pulse at Gertrude Illiard’s throat. There was nothing. The young woman was gone, and Kate…

“I killed her,” Kate said. She stuffed the pillow back into place beneath the merchant’s daughter, beneath her victim , and stumbled back from the bed as if she’d been shoved. Her feet caught the boots that Gertrude had kicked off, and Kate fell, scrambling back to her feet in a hurry. “I killed her.”

She hadn’t believed that it would happen, not really. She hated herself in that moment. She’d killed before, but never like this. Never someone so helpless, so innocent.

“Miss, is everything all right?” the servant’s voice called from the other side of the door.

Kate wanted to stand there, to let the ground swallow her up, to let people find her and kill her for what she’d done. She deserved it, and more than that. The full horror of what she’d just done started to dawn on her. She’d stood over an innocent woman and smothered her to death, with nothing quick or clean or gentle about it.

She deserved death for that. She should just stand there and let the merchant’s guards give her it. She didn’t, though. Woodenly, stumbling, Kate made her way back to the balcony. Around her, she could sense the guards springing into life as they started to understand that something was wrong.

A few more seconds, and there would be no way to escape. The guards would be hunting for intruders, and then Kate would have to fight to get clear. She would have to kill again, too, because if anyone recognized her later, she wouldn’t be able to go back to the forge, or to Lord Cranston’s company.

That thought was enough to drive her forward, sending her into a leap from the balcony that ended in a roll across the hard ground. Kate was up and running then, sprinting for the outer wall even as she pushed the dogs away from her with a burst of fear. She planted her feet on the wall, running up it and then leaping to catch the top. Kate hauled herself over, the way she might have pulled herself into a tree back in the forest. She leapt again, landing lightly on the other side and quickly losing herself in the crowds of the city’s streets.

As she did it, Kate couldn’t work out who she hated more, Siobhan or herself. Maybe she didn’t need to choose. Maybe, after what she’d just done, there was enough hatred to be found for both of them. Kate knew one thing – she was going to find Siobhan, and she was going to get answers.

Sophia was running around the halls of a great house, and there was joy there, not flames. She and Kate were laughing, her sister’s smaller hands reaching up for the bronze figurine of a horse, the edge of a tablecloth.

“Be careful, girls,” Anora called from behind them, the nanny following along in their wake. “You mustn’t disturb your father.”

But I want Daddy, Kate sent over to Sophia. I want to play soldiers.

We could find Mother, Sophia sent back. She could tell us a story.

Sophia loved listening to old stories told in that beautiful, peaceful-sounding voice: Bren and the Giant, The Seven Sisters of the Island; it seemed that their mother knew more stories than there were stars in the sky, telling them about all the old creatures of magic that were now so rare they barely touched the world.

They laughed again and ran on, a conversation only they could hear whispering between them. They ran and hid, playing hide and seek while men and women brought in barrels and boxes and chests and sacks. They didn’t talk about the possibility of a siege, but Sophia knew anyway. She and Kate always knew.

In spite of Anora’s words, she found Kate heading toward her father’s study. Sophia followed, and now she could hear her father arguing with a man who looked too much like Sebastian for it to be a coincidence. She frowned, wondering who Sebastian was, and why it should matter.

“I told you, Henry, I have no interest in your throne, whatever your spies say.”

“But you still side with the rebels.”

“Agreeing that there should be some kind of assembly is not the same thing as fighting against you.”

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