"If you would," he drawled. Keasley continued stitching, and I counted the tugs, my gaze on the clock. The chocolate wasn't sitting as well as I would have liked. I hadn't been stitched since my ex-best friend had hidden in my school locker pretending to be a werefox. The day had ended with us both being expelled.
Ivy hesitated, then scooped up the wet towels and took them into the kitchen. The water ran, and another cry followed by a muffled thump came from my shower. "Will you stop doing that!" came an annoyed shout, and I couldn't help my smirk. All too soon Ivy was back peering over Keasley's shoulder.
"That stitch doesn't look tight," she said.
I shifted uncomfortably as Keasley's wrinkled brow furrowed. I liked him, and Ivy was being a bloody nuisance. "Ivy," he murmured, "why don't you do a perimeter check?"
"Jenks is outside. We're fine."
Keasley's jaw clenched, the folds of skin on his jaw bunching. He slowly pulled the green thread tight, his eyes on his work. "He might need help," he said.
Ivy straightened with her arms crossed and black hazing her eyes. "I doubt that."
Matalina's wings blurred to nothing as Ivy bent close, blocking Keasley's light.
"Go away," Keasley said softly, not moving. "You're hovering."
Ivy pulled back, her mouth opening in what looked like shock. Her wide eyes went to mine, and I smiled in an apologetic agreement. Stiffening, she spun round. Her boots clacked on the wood floor in the hallway and into the sanctuary. I winced as the loud boom of the front door reverberated through the church.
"Sorry," I said, feeling someone ought to apologize.
Keasley stretched his back painfully. "She's worried about you and doesn't know how to show it without biting you. Either that or she doesn't like being out of control."
"She's not the only one," I said. "I'm starting to feel like a failure."
"Failure?" he breathed. "How do you stir that?"
"Look at me," I said sharply. "I'm a wreck. I've lost so much blood I can't stand up. I haven't done anything by myself since I left the I.S. except get caught by Trent and made into rat chow." I didn't feel much like a runner anymore. Dad would be disappointed, I thought. I should have stayed where I was, safe, secure, and bored out of my mind.
"You're alive," Keasley said. "That's no easy trick while under an I.S. death threat." He adjusted the lamp until it shone right in my face. I closed my eyes, starting as he dabbed a cold pad at my swollen eyelid. Matalina took over stitching my neck, her tiny tugs almost unnoticed. She ignored us with the practiced restraint of a professional mother.
"I'd be dead twice over if it wasn't for Nick," I said, looking toward the unseen shower.
Keasley aimed the lamp at my ear. I jerked as he dabbed at it with a soft square of damp cotton. It came away black with old blood. "You would have escaped Kalamack eventually," he said. "Instead, you took a chance and got Nick out as well. I don't see the failure in that."
I squinted at him with my unswollen eye. "How do you know about the rat fight?"
"Jenks told me on the way over."
Satisfied, I winced as Keasley dabbed a foul-smelling liquid on my torn ear. It throbbed dully under the three pain amulets. "I can't do anything more about this," he said. "Sorry."
I had all but forgotten about my ear. Matalina flitted up to eye level, her gaze shifting from Keasley to me. "All done," she said in her china-doll voice. "If you can finish up all right, I would like to, um..." Her eyes were charmingly eager. An angel with glad tidings. "I want to tell Jenks about your offer to sublet the garden."
Keasley nodded. "You go right ahead," he said. "There's not much left but her wrist."
"Thanks, Matalina," I offered. "I didn't feel a thing."
"You're welcome." The tiny pixy woman darted to the window, then returned. "Thank you," she whispered before vanishing through the window and into the dark garden.
The living room was empty but for Keasley and me. It was so quiet, I could hear the lids popping on the pots of water in the kitchen. Keasley took the scissors and cut the soaked cotton off my wrist. It fell away, and my stomach roiled. My wrist was still there, but nothing was in the right place. No wonder Jenks's pixy dust couldn't stop it from bleeding. Chunks of white flesh were lumped into mounds, and little craters were filled with blood. If my wrist looked like that, what had my neck looked like? Closing my eyes, I concentrated on breathing. I was going to pass out. I knew it.
"You've made a strong ally there," he said softly.
"Matalina?" I held my breath, trying not to hyperventilate. "I can't imagine why," I said as I exhaled. "I've continually put her husband and family at risk."
"Mmmm." He put Ivy's pan of water on his knees and gently lowered my wrist into it. I hissed at the bite of the water, then relaxed as the pain amulets dulled it. He prodded my wrist and I yelped, trying to jerk away. "You want some advice?" he asked.
"No."
"Good. Listen anyway. Looks to me like you've become the leader here. Accept it. Know it comes with a price. People will be doing things for you. Don't be selfish. Let them."
"I owe Nick and Jenks my life," I said, hating it. "What's so great about that?"
"No, you don't. Because of you, Nick no longer has to kill rats to stay alive, and Jenks's life expectancy has nearly doubled."
I pulled away, and this time he let me go. "How do you figure that?" I said suspiciously.
The resonate tang of the pan hitting the coffee table was sharp as Keasley set it aside. He tucked a pink towel under my wrist, and I forced myself to look at it. The tissue looked more normal. A slow welling of blood rose to hide the damage, spilling over my wet skin to flow messily onto the towel.
"You made Jenks a partner," he said as he ripped open a gauze pad and dabbed at me. "He has more at risk than a job, he has a garden. Tonight you made it his for as long as he wants. I've never heard of leasing property to a pixy, but I would wager it will hold up in a human or Inderland court if another clan challenged it. You guaranteed that all his children have a place to survive until adulthood, not just the few firstborn. I think that's worth an afternoon of hide-and-seek in a room full of lunkers to him."
I watched him thread a needle and forced my eyes to the ceiling. The tugs and pinches started up with a slow rhythm. Everyone knew pixies and fairies vied with each other for a good bit of earth, but I had no idea the reasons went so deep. I thought about what Jenks had said about risking death by a bee sting for a pair of measly flower boxes. Now he had a garden. No wonder Matalina had been so matter-of-fact about the fairy attack.
Keasley fell into a pattern of two stitches, one dab. The thing wouldn't stop bleeding. I refused to watch, my eyes roving over the gray living room until they fell upon the empty end table where Ivy's magazines had once sat. I swallowed hard, feeling nauseous. "Keasley, you've lived here awhile, right?" I questioned. "When did Ivy move in?"
He looked up from his stitching, his dark, wrinkled face blank. "The same day you did. You quit the same day, didn't you?"
I caught myself before I could nod my agreement. "I can see why Jenks is risking his life to help me, but..." I looked at the hallway. "What is Ivy getting out of this?" I whispered.
Keasley looked at my neck in disgust. "Isn't it obvious? You let her feed off you, and she won't let the I.S. kill you."
My mouth opened in outrage. "I already told you Ivy didn't do this!" I exclaimed, my heart pounding in the effort to raise my voice. "It was a demon!"
He didn't look as surprised as I would have expected. He stared at me, waiting for more. "I left the church to get a recipe for a spell," I said softly. "The I.S. sent a demon after me. It made itself into a vampire to kill me. Nick bound it in a circle or it would have." I slumped, exhausted. My pulse hammered. I was too weak to even be angry.