Page 98 of A Treacherous Trade

To become as mad as Aunt Nola was one of my greatest fears. Yet, in that moment, I was almost convinced to start giving her spirit guides more credence from now on.

If I survived this.

I’d been expecting betrayal, but from all the wrong people. From the bold and brilliant criminals in my sphere, craven creatures of the night that they were. From the desperate, desolate, or depraved. The greedy and the guilty.

But not Beatrice Chamberlain.

Not her.

Even now, I rejected the memory of her features twisted with malice, swimming over me as I fought for consciousness.

Lanced with an emotion I could only identify as hurt, I fought a prick of tears amongst my existential panic. I wiped at my eyes furiously, not allowing them to fall.

Right now, I needed to figure out thewhereand thehow. I could consider the why later, after I escaped.

If I didn’t escape… well, that was a grief avoided.

I couldn’t begin to consider fatalistic outcomes just yet. Lest they become a reality.

That macabre thought galvanized me, and my first course of action was a scouting expedition. I needed more information, and if I couldn’t see anything, then I was forced to rely on my other senses.

It is difficult to express the sense of dread one feels when using one’s bare fingers to blindly explore one’s vicinity. On my hands and knees, I made slow progress in a random direction. Keeping one hand on the ground, I reached out with the other in a wide arc. First at floor level, and then higher. Finding nothing, I’d put that hand down ahead of me and repeat on the other side.

An eternity passed before my hand encountered something: smooth lumber resting against the ground. I followed the shape with my hand, patting my way up what was obviously a furniture leg.

A desk? A table? Wait… a bench.Abovethe bench was a table.

I used it to haul myself to my feet. Splaying my hands on the surface, I took a moment to stabilize myself, to check that my legs, apparently now made of pudding, would hold the rest of me.

They seemed at least willing to try, though I didn’t feel safe letting the table go just yet. Instead, I walked the length of the long bench, running my hands over oddly thick paper strewn about its surface. My little finger encountered a cold metal object, and I carefully found that it was a tray of some kind.

My fingers found cold liquid inside, and I gasped, snatching it back as if it’d burned. I waited for something to happen, for my skin to start melting off or some other such nightmare.

It didn’t.

Bending down, I inhaled close to the liquid, testing the scent. Perhaps a little vinegar or something…

I was parched, and an instinct pressed me to drink, but I quelled it immediately. I trusted nothing here. I resumed my careful journey and would have tripped had I not still been steadying myself on the table.

A body.

I knew it the moment my shoe touched it. The give of flesh was unmistakable, even in the dark.

I dropped to my knees, my hands finding a corseted waist and then a shoulder. I felt down to the limp wrist and ripped off the gloves.

Warm. Still warm, thank God. She had a pulse, too. Strong and steady.

A primal relief drenched me with such ferocity that it was immediately followed by shame. Because it didn’t stem from the woman’s life, but from my own elation at not being alone to die in the dark.

We had each other to cling to.

“Wake up,” I begged, testing her breath with the back of my hand and then shaking her shoulders. Gently at first, and then with more desperation. “Please. Please be all right.”

“Fiona?”

My name croaked from behind me startled me so much, I clasped both hands over my mouth to keep from shrieking.

“Fiona, is that you?”