Page 99 of A Treacherous Trade

“Amelia?” My voice shook, as I couldn’t exactly tell if she were friend or foe. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know. Wait…” I heard some rustling about, and suddenly there was light.

Sort of.

The orange glow of a match illuminated the corner behind me. Amelia was slumped with her back against a bare brick wall, her knees pulled up to her chest like a child’s as she held the feeble flame close to her face.

Our eyes met and held.

She looked so afraid. So young for someone who’d lived such a long and difficult life.

“What happened?” she asked, her tongue sounding every bit as heavy as mine. “I was on the stairs… then I was dizzy. I fell.”

“Beatrice put something in the tea,” I said. Because honestly, it was the sum of information I had.

“Not Bea,” she whispered. “That’s impossible.”

I hadn’t the energy to argue the point. “Are you hurt? Can you move?” I asked.

She nodded. “A little bruised, but everything seems to be working. Are you?”

“I’m wobbly, but well. Someone else is here. I can’t wake her up.” I turned back to the woman, but it went dark again.

“Bugger, match burned my finger.” I could hear Amelia scuffle closer, careful not to waste a finite supply of light. Clever.

When she reached me, she rose to her knees and clutched me into a tight hug, one I returned with vigor. “I’m sorry you’re here,” she said. “But thank God.”

I knew what she meant,exactly.

“Matches,” I said, aching to see again. “I can’t believe the luck.”

I could hear her fumble around with them. “Grayson slips them into my pockets sometimes, just to tease me. To bother me for a light. If we get out of this, I’ll never nag at him about his smoking again.Never. He can puff away in every room of the house. I care not.”

She struck the match on a matchbook and held it between us. But for disheveled hair and a wrinkled dress, she looked no worse for wear.

We both bent over the body still slumbering on the ground, curled on her side. I moved a swath of dark hair away.

“Indira!” Amelia said. “Shit. Oh merciless Christ. Is she dead?”

“No,” I said, shaking her again. “She’s breathing, but I can’t wake her. Indira?” I called, a little louder this time.

Amelia held the match higher, looking over my shoulder to the table. “Maybe there’s something here that could—”

Her words died as if they’d been strangled before escaping her throat. I turned from Indira at the sound, and caught the ghastly look of horror on her face before the match went out.

She didn’t strike another.

“Amelia?”

“Jesus,” she rasped. “My God. Myfuckinghell.” A sob, bleak and unbelieving, echoed through the darkness.

“Amelia, what is it?” I asked.

“The devil’s been in this room,” she keened, her husky voice lower than I’d ever heard it. “We’re going to die here.”

I reached out and encountered her elbow, gripping it to bring myself closer. “Amelia, light a match.”

“I don’t want to see,” she whispered.