“I swear it looked way worse five minutes ago,” Ilsa muttered.
“You’re alright.” It was equal parts relief and irritation.
“I’m fine, and I’m sure I won’t get shot no more once I’m back in the Otherworld where I belong, so don’t concern yourself.”
Eliot shot her a glare and turned to Cassia. “What happened?”
Cassia’s face resembled the one Gedeon had earned. “Ilsa called me a spy, and I shot her.”
“That’s the short version,” Ilsa swiftly added.
“I know you don’t like me all that much, Eliot—”
“I beg your pardon?”
“—but you could do me the courtesy of taking the worst of your accusations up with me personally.”
“Cassia, it weren’t him who—”
“It’s hard enough feeling like I belong here without fearing some belligerent dolt like you is undermining everything I do. You know, I don’t have to—”
“I like you,” said Eliot.
Cassia blinked. “Sorry?”
“Less, having been called a belligerent dolt, but” – he rolled his eyes, like it pained him to repeat it – “I like you. I’m aware I don’t show it, but… come on, Cassia. We grew up together. And I never called you a spy. It would be ridiculous to think so. You’re better for the Zoo than any of us, not to mention more intelligent – with the exception of Fyfe, perhaps. You” – he swallowed his chagrin a second time – “of course you belong here.”
Cassia probably didn’t blush like regular mortals. She just stared at him with an unnerving vacancy. Fyfe, meanwhile, had turned beet-red at Eliot’s throwaway compliment. But despite the meaningful glance Eliot cast her as his speech ended, Ilsa did nothing but glare.
Eliot cleared his throat. “Tell me everything I missed.”
Ilsa couldn’t repeat her awful discovery, and Fyfe didn’t look like he would ever be able to say the words aloud. But Cassia looked Eliot square in the eye, the way Ilsa had never seen her do. “Let’s you and I talk,” she said, almost pleasantly. “I’ll tell you everything.”
Eliot stiffened at the proposition, but followed Cassia from the room, leaving Ilsa with Fliss and Fyfe, who stood fixed to a point right by Ilsa’s shoulder, and was uncharacteristically quiet. His expression was solemn.
“I’m sorry ’bout Alitz, Fyfe,” she said.
“Oh.” He brushed it off with an unconvincing hand gesture. “I need a better astrology tutor anyway.” Ilsa eyed him quizzically. Fyfe managed a smile. He took one of her curls between his fingers and tugged it playfully. “If she was any good at reading the stars, she ought to have seen Ilsa Ravenswood coming.”
* * *
Ilsa didn’t want to sleep, but as soon as the curtains were drawn, sleep took her. The cocktail of healing potions and pain tonics dragged her under, and when she finally struggled free of the fog and blinked awake, the world outside was dark.
She dragged herself into a sitting position and tested her shoulder. The pain ran deep – a dull ache echoing through layers of tissue and radiating to her chest and arm – but it was manageable. Being shot in the Otherworld couldn’t possibly be this easy, she thought as she struggled into a robe. She found a fierce bruise on her right hip from her fall, and an intimidating collection of cuts and scrapes – including those from her altercation with the drawing room mirror – but for two assassination attempts, Ilsa had to admit, she wasn’t doing half bad.
The clock in Gedeon’s sitting room said it was a little after nine thirty – still early – but an impenetrable quiet blanketed the Zoo. Ilsa wondered at being left so alone. Where was Eliot? Had Fyfe or Cassia come to check on her? Had Aelius returned from the Heart and heard what had happened? Her feet carried her down the hall to Hester’s rooms; the one place she could be sure of finding someone to quell the strange unease the quiet brought her.
But the door to Hester’s sitting room gaped wide, the bedchamber visible beyond, and neither her cousin nor Fliss was anywhere to be seen.
Something’s wrong, said a voice inside her.
She hurried for the stairs, the only sound the soft pad of her slippers on the hardwood floors. Had they been attacked again? Had all her friends been rounded up and slaughtered by vengeful Oracles?
She didn’t know where to search for them. The thud of her own racing heartbeat rose in her ears as she swung around a corner – and walked right into Cadell Fowler.
32
The captain looked, at first glance, like he had come in from the rain. His sleeves and the front of his shirt glistened with moisture. It wasn’t until he caught Ilsa puzzling over his appearance and self-consciously shook out a sleeve that the stains revealed themselves.
Blood.
It spattered to the floor in several fat droplets and trickled from his coattails onto the marble floor behind him.
Ilsa backed away. Her brain still lagged from sleep and medicine, and the confusion put her on edge. Cadell Fowler had saved her life and restored her to her family. He had listened to her concerns and offered advice like a friend. He’d helped her crash a party, just for fun. But he was a mercenary – an assassin – and he was covered in blood. Perhaps he wasn’t an ally tonight.
Sensing her alarm, the captain raised his hands.
“Whose blood?” Ilsa challenged.
“Several people’s. Aelius Hoverly among them,” he said, and Ilsa’s stomach lurched. The captain nodded in the direction of Aelius’s chambers. “That way.”
She started running, but didn’t get far before Fowler called her name. When she looked back, he was glancing around.
“The washroom?” he said.
“I—” Why was this killer in her house, covered in Aelius’s blood, asking where he could clean it off? “By the stairs.”
As she reached Aelius’s rooms, her pulse was thrumming so fast it was making her dizzy. It was a repeat of the scene from that morning; the entire Zoo crowded around, tense and silent with fear. The door was closed. Oren leaned against the
