So. If not Aidan, then perhaps Aoife. A quiet death, gentle, something to send her off in her sleep. But why would I pay another to do that? And how? There are the jewels, a voice in my head says, the things she bought you with Fitzpatrick money; the earrings, the bracelets. Hasn’t Maura taught me enough about the plants in the gardens? Aren’t there enough blooms of nightshade and foxglove, wolfsbane and even daffodils to suit my purposes? Brew a tisane, sprinkle some across her food. Who’d know?
Who’d know but me?
Me.
I would know and though she’s never been easy, Aoife deserves better than that, something more honest.
Just like I deserve something better than a marriage not of my choosing.
As I moved through the crowd of killers and customers I sensed myself under scrutiny. It was a slow thing, the realisation, and I couldn’t tell when it had begun, only that it was suddenly there though I’d been aware of it for a time. I stopped beside the fountain at the centre of the crossroads market and looked around casually. Too many faces, too many hooded heads, too many bodies moving too quickly. And then the sensation was gone as if the watcher had departed. I left there soon after witnessing a woman raise a spirit. She did not do so for any purpose beyond showing a potential client she could. That someone’s death might be so casual and coolly done. Another woman poured water into silver pans filled with gravedust, to make a hulking figure coalesce slowly from that poor material; another murderous monster. Unlike other cities, Breakwater doesn’t burn its witches, not when Bethany Lawrence can make money from their talents.
Dawn is approaching and I should return to the townhouse, but I can’t quite bear to just yet. I’m drawn by nostalgia to the docks, by the thought of visiting the old offices once again. Where Óisín would teach me.
Though it’s a long time since I was here, the map of the streets is tattooed on my heart and mind. Some days Óisín would drop me on a corner and I would have to find my way back to the offices or the townhouse. It didn’t take me long to learn the shortcuts. I pass by the house where once a woman set up a brothel staffed entirely by her own daughters. The front stairs are polished to a high shine; the Queen of Thieves is reputed to have set up residence here – the two muscled men either side of the door seem to support that. The façade is a floral mosaic, a parquetry of coloured gems turned into red roses, green vines. Some still whisper it was created by magic. The front door is ebony, carved with mermaids and sirens – it makes me wonder how no O’Malley ever owned this house – and the brass knocker looked like a piece of rope twisted into a circle. I don’t go close enough to peer in the windows, I stay resolutely on the opposite side of the street.
Then I pass beneath the Weeping Gate, the sound of my boots loud on the boards in the early morning, until I’m at the end of a pier where no vessel is moored. Behind me is the old building that once housed Óisín’s offices, O’Malley Maritime. Rundown now, the windows boarded up, shards of broken glass littering the sills, the door firmly closed; Aidan has his own bureau a few streets over. Neither of the remaining O’Malley ships is in port and who knows when they’ll return or if. Will their bellies be filled with cargo or will they have given it all up to pirates? Do they already sleep on the bottom of the ocean, hulls splintered, mariners drowned, their eyes eaten by fish, their bones become thrones for crabs?
The toes of my boots hang over the edge of the dock, the morning breeze kicks at my skirts and tips the hood half-off my head. I pull it back all the way and lift my face to the sun, which is burning away the last of the dawn clouds. The water smells awful, not like the sea off Hob’s Head, which is clean and salty. This is contaminated by humanity, a greasy sheen lies across the brownish, brackish liquid.
I could throw myself in. End it all. But what O’Malley can’t swim? What O’Malley wouldn’t fight the drowning? And after all the effort Aoife went to to teach me and my subsequent fear of the sea? How hard would it be to throw myself in just to give my life up when I’d fought so hard to save it from the waters? I could tie weights to my ankles? But where to find them? And why give up my existence just to avoid Aidan? That voice in my head, the one from the assassins market, pipes up again: Marry him now, murder him in a month, a year, inherit everything. But I think that’s my grandmother’s voice, or at least the part of my blood I got from her.
They cannot make me say the words. They cannot make me agree. I square my shoulders; I can just say no. I’m stubborn, Aoife’s rued it all these years. They cannot force me.
I sigh, feel a weight go from me, even if it’s only temporary, even if it’s a false relief; that I’ll have to deal with it all again later and it’ll be worse, then, for Aoife and Aidan will both be at me.
I close my eyes... then the silver ship’s bell necklace gives the slightest ting, and that’s when something cold and wet grabs at both my ankles and pulls me into the brine.
My lids fly open and I watch as the world tilts and turns, and nothing’s on the right angle. The back of my skull grazes the edge of the dock, stunning me, but I remember to gulp air before I go under into the cold, cold
