Storm of Shadows (Lumineers 1)

CHAPTER 24: CLARABEL'S SURPRISE

Tabby gazed into the mirror in Steiner's guest bedroom. It was like coming out of a dream. She traced the lacy curves of her half mask, trailing her shaky fingers along its spirals. The candlelight threw monstrous shadows across the room, across her face. Tremors raced through her body, hot and cold all at once.

She was splattered with blood from head to toe. She reeked of death. The scent clung to her like flies to a dead horse. She'd seen plenty of them keeled over in the streets before the watchmen could get someone to haul the bodies away. It wasn't something she could escape, death. Perhaps not ever.

What had she become? The very thing she abhorred? The very thing she sought to destroy?

Behind her, the door opened. Steiner's movements were cautious. "I disposed of the body and the carriage," he said at length, watching her. She turned to him then, but said nothing. Perhaps if she blinked enough, she would wake up at home, in Elias's loft, safe and warm, with the sounds of metalwork pinging away below.

Steiner stepped into the room and shut the door behind him, still studying her. He didn't look like a Spect at the moment. In fact, he looked like she remembered, before she'd learned what he really was. "Who was Clora?" he asked. She flinched. "Someone you loved?" His voice was soft, hesitant.

"Someone I loved...?" she whispered, repeating it back to him like a question. "Yes."

"Not now, but someday, I would like to hear about her." He covered the remaining distance between them, stopping short of her. Candlelight danced over him, lending an otherworldly appearance to his handsome features. "I can take care of our other marks. You've done enough."

"I..." Her body trembled harder, betraying her. She lifted her hands, stained with blood, and saw how they shook. He noticed too. Surprise caught in her chest as he took them in his, so warm and steady, and squeezed. She should have flinched at the contact. Instead, she gazed at him, seeing but unseeing. "What do you need?" he asked, dropping them at last. "Tell me."

She swallowed. "I...don't know."

"How about a hot bath? And some tea? Something to help you sleep?"

"I never sleep." The words came out strangled.

"I can't say that I do either."

"Do you...do you ever dream of it?"

"You mean the things I've done? The training? The box? Everyone I've ever killed?" He cocked his head to the side, calculating. She nodded. "Every night," he said, exhaling. "The first night you came here, when you told me what Spects are subjected to, I nearly lost my composure...from remembering. What you said—"

"The Spectrum breaks us so no one else can."

He closed his eyes before looking back at her. "Yes. No matter what comes of this, I don't think we will ever be all right. I wasn't just referring to you that night at the ball. Perhaps there isn't enough light in Candela to save either of us. We aren't simply clockwork contraptions with loose cogs that can be wound and adjusted." He grunted. "Now that's an analogy you can surely appreciate."

A dark laugh escaped her lips. But he was right. She shuddered. "We...we're doing the right thing, aren't we? Destroying the Spectrum?"

"I'd like to think so."

"I feel more of a monster than ever before."

"I know..." His movements were slow, the way one might approach a frightened cat. He brushed her cheek with his thumb, grazing the bottom of her mask, sliding over it's outline. Her skin tingled at the contact. A frown pulled at his lips. She held still as he reached around and pulled at the tie. The mask fell away, like an identity, shed and discarded. "I'd like to think that when this is all over, we might find some way to make up for what we've done," he said. "Looking towards the horizon reminds me that I'm fighting for something worthwhile, and not just for myself, but for others. It is for others that I do what I do."