Corroded

now?” she asked flatly.

“Ephe!”

The thin shoulders beneath her plain shift lifted at Delilah’s admonishment, but I don’t believe it was callousness that shaped it. Ephe’s words echoed Zylphia’s, and told me everything I needed to know.

Lily would never be the same again.

Delilah gestured with her book, her smile apologetic and more than a little wretched.

It was not until I crossed the parlor, my feet as soundless as I could force my steps, that I realized I held my breath.

Lily was a bit of a saucy thing, with a figure men paid dearly for and a wicked light in her eye. Her skin was roses and cream in summer, her eyes a beautiful shade of green warmed by a truly genuine good-nature.

Of all the sweets, there were them I liked more than others, and Lily was among those I favored most.

The woman I found wrapped in soft furs and warm bedclothes was a shadow of that vivacious girl I recalled. It was as if the assailant had taken more from her than her looks—as if he’d carved away parts of her essence until she was little more than a shrunken creature all but lost beneath the swaddling.

All this without seeing her face.

Who wants her now?

My fingers clamped over my hat, bending the cap near in half. With effort—clammy perspiration gathering in my palms—I dragged my gaze up, over the mottled skin of her throat, and looked her fully in the face.

The world dropped out from beneath my feet.

I had known—of course, I understood—what damage I would see. I knew what a knife was capable of; I had seen many a scar. Nothing, none of that, could prepare me for the visceral revulsion that gripped me upon seeing the truth of it.

The blade that had done this was no ordinary tool, so fine as to cause the flesh to well-nigh melt beneath its honed edge. The skin had parted first from the trauma, then widened further when the muscle beneath had failed to hold.

The bastard had begun just above her temple, carved a bloody swath down her cheek, over her chin, slicing a corner of her mouth in the process. The wound had swollen over the night, angry and red, leaving a chasm in her flesh so deep that it would never heal proper again. Scarred she would have been regardless, this much deliberate mutilation only ensured that she would be all the more unsightly for it.

One corner of her eye leaked as she slept, her face white where the skin had not turned angry and raw.

I flinched, turning my gaze to Delilah, struggling to maintain an expression of sympathy—as if it was not revulsion that forced me to look away. “What was she wearing when she was taken?”

The sweet pursed her mouth. “I can’t recall her assignation.”

“Royal whore,” Ephe offered, blank-faced over the pejorative. “Papal purples, mostly.”

“And her hair?” I asked, already dreading the reply. With a stone in my stomach, I knew what she would say.

“Red.”

It was all too coincidental. The signs slotted together neatly, like the pieces of a puzzle I’d been too bloody focused on to see the greater picture.

The attacker had known exactly what he was about. Deliberately marring Lily’s face in such a way as to exploit the muscle beneath—this spoke of anatomical know-how the likes only a doctor or, as I well know, the well-read might comprehend.

The very knowledge of this tore the rest of my fragile hope from me.

This had not been the Ripper at all. This was my rival’s doing. Working for the erstwhile Professor Woolsey, he’d carved the living organs from otherwise healthy sweets, professing a certain amount of savoir-faire for the act.

The first time I’d met her, Lily had worn a wig of false red hair, so that I was forced to ask why she went by the moniker of Black Lily. She’d laughed and showed me the raven’s wing tresses beneath, and explained it a name that had been offered by a satisfied john. Her reputation had grown, carried on a beauty that had not been exaggerated. From red hair to black, she changed her appearance as often as she wanted. Just as I did.

Her choosing.

Her scarring.

My doing. My fault. More blood for my sake.

The murderer had not only taken my challenge upon the collector’s wall, but issued his own.

I see you.

He may as well have carved the words in Lily’s milk-white skin; the closest to maiming me without touching me at all.

I may as well have taken the blade to her myself.

He’d beat me. Again. And who suffered for it?

What monstrous things I had visited upon those who sheltered me.

I sank to my knees beside the girl, one shaking hand reaching out. For what, I wish I knew. I didn’t dare touch the clotted wound, yet I desperately wanted to try—to heal this awful injury, soothe the hurt.

I withdrew my hand so quickly, fingers digging into the pinkened flesh of my palm, that the breeze of it stirred her matted black curls.

I could not tear my eyes away from the raw laceration. This beautiful English rose, with her bow lips and pink cheeks, now brought low by my own machinations.

“Why is her wound without dressing?” My voice was hoarse.

“It’s to be changed frequently,” Delilah answered softly, her tone filled with the sorrow I was not sure myself how to express. I wanted to scream my fury, promise my retribution, but what would that solve?

For Lily, nothing at all.

“‘Tis to be aired, then?” I asked, as if this were the most reasonable response.

“Aye.”

I nodded. Cautiously, I reached for the edge of the blankets, tucked them more firmly about her shoulders. “Have you opium for the pain?”

“Aye, she’s taking it direct.”

I glanced behind me, my throat aching with the lump within.

Delilah shrugged helplessly. “There’s only so much can be done.”

I wasn’t so certain of that. “What of the Veil?”

The sweet called Ephe stretched her legs out, back settled comfortably against the armchair she leaned again. Her tone was not kind. “The Veil’s got other sweets. No use wasting magic on the likes of her.”

“Ephe,” Delilah protested.

“It’s true,” the girl replied with a sniff. “Saves it for more important folk.”

The look Ephe shot me was not a friendly one, and my shoulders went rigid.

Before I could take the girl to task, to enlighten her small mind as to the ignorance of what she called magic—before I could shift all this ache inside my heart to something I could sink my teeth into—a cold hand gripped mine.

Startled, I turned back on my knees to look down into Black Lily’s clouded green stare.

Black Irish, she should have been called. There had always been witchcraft in those eyes of hers. Not anything truly magic; just the allure of a sweet dove and a fetching smile.

Now, she was barely aware, eyes fraught with pain and nightmares I’d have given anything to ease. I cupped her hand in mine, leaning over her to smile as reassuringly as I could muster. “‘Tis all right,” I soothed, gentle as I knew how. “You’re safe, Lily. You’re home.”

For a lass gone on opium, she gripped me tight enough to hurt. “Please,” she whimpered. “Please!”

Was she talking to me? With such terror, I could not imagine so. Biting back a broken sound, I raised the back of Lily’s hand to my cheek and made all the nonsensical comforting sounds I remembered Fanny doing for me on the bad nights.

Her gaze searched the air between us, but I don’t think she could see me. She pulled at my hand, struggled upright. Sweat turned her skin sallow, and the cut beside her mouth gaped awfully as she gasped for air to