Saira had another dream. Or rather, it was the same dream at the garden wall with vibrant blooms in reds and yellows covering every inch of stone. The air around her felt warm, like a caress. She felt protected. Loved.
Then she saw the gate, and like a candle in a swift breeze, whatever goodwill she'd felt towards this place snuffed out.
She rattled the bars, not caring how much smaller the garden had shrunk beyond the wall. All she wanted was to be on the other side of the gate, where she could touch and feel everything denied to her. With a cry, she twisted herself around and slammed her back against the lock, but it still wouldn't budge. The bench invited her to forget her frustration, to sit and rest and admire the beauty before her. But at her back, the gate loomed like an unfinished portrait, an expectation that there was still so much more to explore. She could live with the wall and the vines and the beautiful flowers, but the gate… could she live with the gate, knowing that it might never let her in?
Saira woke suddenly, unsure of what had roused her from her sleep. As the disheveled room came back into focus, so did her anger. At her father. At herself, and this wrecked room, the symbol for everything she had tried and failed to avoid.
Thankfully, the sun had barely moved past the base of her bedroom window. She needed to find Miss Emma and get out of this house before her father returned. She was not capable of facing him again. Not after the way she'd left him in the streets of London, and certainly not now. Saira did not want to admit to her father that she was more like Gautami Russell than a simple reflection in the mirror. George Russell had already hit rock bottom. If she explained the inherited Gift from her mother, and that she had used it for money, how much deeper would he spiral, then?
Scrambling off the bed, her foot brushed against the letter from India that had fallen and mixed with a mess of shredded mattress on the floor. Which was true? Had her father forgotten about the contract, or had he chosen not to acknowledge the past?
If Saira dared to think like George Russell, she could imagine that he'd found the letter useless currency. It wouldn't have held any value in exchange for alcohol or a game of cards. Instead, he'd tried to exchange his debts for her future, sentencing her to a lifetime of serving some thankless man who could discard her when he was bored, or drunk, or in debt himself.
A new sob escaped her, realizing that she was her father's daughter after all, having placed all her bets on an unstable house of cards. With one swift breeze, it had all crashed down around her.
At least a life in India would be familiar and secure. If there was deceit or cheating or lying, she, along with all the other women in the zenana, would remain blissfully ignorant. In that world, Saira would know her limitations and her duties. Giving her life to a stranger would mean giving up the one thing that allowed her to fully See the people around her. It would be like walking blindly up to that garden wall in her dream, admiring the pretty flowers and never knowing the gate to something extraordinary existed beyond it.
With shaky hands, she picked up the letter and smoothed out the Urdu script from her future in-laws. She'd been too shocked by its arrival to fully comprehend it. Now, she considered every word, reading from the top all the way to the end, discovering the clause about Rameswari and Bavagna. Her aunties would be welcomed into her husband's home and have a place of honor in memory of her mother, who had secured the contract so long ago.
On paper, it sounded like the best possible plan. If she left within the next month, she would still have time to fulfill the terms.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to See anything from the letter that would give her the assurance that meeting the terms of this contract was the right decision. In her mind, she Saw a different garden in muted greys, where the walls held her on the inside, where she was with her aunties, and they were safe.
Had she been too selfish, using her Gift to imagine a different life? Was she destined for this future, all along?
When she opened her eyes, her heart answered with an ache so fierce that it felt like someone had cut her open.
She folded the letter and tucked it into her bag, failing to quell the swirling tsunami of feelings inside her. It was impossible to sort through them now, the yearning, the longing, the sudden urge to rush back to that place on the hill where things had been simple in Five's arms, where, for a brief moment in time, the rest of the world had ceased to exist.
Pressing her hands to her lips, Saira prayed for a different image, hoping the memory of their kisses might be enough. When that didn't work, she sifted through her skirt pockets and drew out the coin, pressing the symbol of their contract to keep each other's secrets between her palms. Surely, it would Show her something new.
She closed her eyes and tried to See…
The wall… The bench… The warm, comforting feeling of Five's arms around her…
Saira opened her eyes and shoved the coin back into her skirts. It was the same, every time. Her Gift was only telling her what she already knew. Staying in England would gladden her heart, but guaranteed nothing else.
Perhaps her Gift was silent about Five because he was never meant for her. If that was true, why could she hardly breathe, thinking about never seeing him again?
Sometimes the experience would have to be enough. Saira had heard herself say that in countless Sittings where a hapless lady had entwined herself with a man that would only hurt her in the end, or a man who had no means of providing for the lady's future. But the pragmatic words did nothing to silence the ache. With Five, the past few weeks had felt like the beginning of something deep and meaningful, not a fleeting encounter or a mistake.
Feelings weren't strong enough to save her or her aunties.
The only price she would pay for her safety in India was to do as she was told. Wasn't that what she'd been doing for so long for her father? It would be easier too, because everyone would play at face value, even when their faces hid the truth. This decision would guarantee that protection she so desperately needed. Protection which her Gift refused to give her.
Saira put the rest of the letters and the rolled portrait of her mother inside her bag. Then she folded the brightly colored shawl that had come in the crate and took that too. This gift would travel back to its origin, and she would thank the people who had sent it to her. She would be grateful for their hospitality and their honor. And if she had to lie to herself to get through it, that's what she would do.
Starting now, she would pretend everything that had happened was meant to be. These people had drawn this letter up with her best interests in mind. Her mother had paved this path for her to return to India out of love.
And she would steadfastly ignore the things that stood in her way, like the tears that fell, hot and fast, the weight in her chest, the burning behind her eyes, and her heart shattering into a thousand pieces.
. . ..
.
.
"I demand my money back!"
George Russell was in a state of fits. A fit of fits. Fit throwing after the duel that Five had thrown on purpose. The fountain of overwrought babble, barely registering as actual words, had started the minute they got back to Avonburgh House to sort out the terms of Garfield's win. As Garfield's eyes grew larger with each tally of the sacks from Russell's so-called 'lucky windfall', Russell doubled his tirade, throwing in his title for good measure. Maybe the Honorable George Russell, former associate to the British Resident of the Nizam, thought that if he tantrumed loud enough, people would bend to his will. After the morning they'd all had, the fact was that no one in the room cared to listen.
Five lay on the threadbare couch, thinking about how many things he didn't care about right now.
Anything that George Russell said.
How much blood was on the floor, and now the furniture.
How many times Garfield had heaved on the bumpy ride from Combe Down whenever one of Five's stitches popped.
The surgeon had been shit. He'd sutured - loosely - both in terms of the sagging threads and the haphazard spacing. Five had sewn straighter stitches at the age of ten (when Two had thrown his knife at the wrong target, on purpose). At the bottom of the hill, after too many popped threads, they'd stopped the horses to pick up a discarded plank from the side of the road to bind Five's leg. He'd had to rest it on top of Garfield's lap to keep his knee straight for the rest of the ride.
At least the surgeon was an accomplished coachman, having wrestled the reins from Russell after the sputtering, swaying drunk had narrowly missed two trees and spurned the horses straight towards the river, instead of heading for the bridge. Supposedly, the man had a background in animal husbandry, specializing in sheep, and was the closest thing to a doctor that Russell could manage on short notice.
Five looked down at the bits of grass and dirt clinging to his poorly sutured gash and felt sorry for the sheep.
After Garfield half dragged, half carried him into the parlor, Five hardly recognized the bare walls and bent curtain rods, or the collection of sparse, overturned furniture. The ribs of the couch dug into his back where the stuffing had been rifled through. Avonburg House looked like it had been overrun by murderous, thieving pirates.
Five added his own personal touch by bleeding all over the upholstery.
Sucking in a painful hiss, he hovered over the mess of dirty, broken threads looped in and out of his thigh. He kept his sword nearby, because he didn't dare trust anyone else in the room. It had made carrying him into the house awkward, but he much preferred awkward to dead any day of the week.
He had no means of sanitization, no means of proper surgical tools or bandages or beautiful faces with kind words to distract him from the searing pain. Fortunately, Five had dressed for the occasion. He pulled out the small knife that perpetually lived in his boot and slipped the tip beneath each remaining stitch. Popping the threads was easy going until he realized he'd jumped the gun a bit.
"Anyone have a needle and thread?"
The doctor, who had been enjoying a brandy on the other side of the room, leapt into action. "Oh my word, what are you doing?"
"Saving myself," Five gritted through his teeth. "Sewing needle. Thread. Cotton." He glanced down at the dirt mixing with the blood. "Three bottles of your highest quality alcohol."
At the mention of liquor, Russell stopped his garbled diatribe to scoff at Five's demand. "I'm all out!" he proclaimed, slamming his flask against the wall.
Five looked at George Russell sternly, as if he could rise off the couch with a bloody leg and press his knife against Russell's throat himself. Which, damn it all to hell, the man deserved. He leaned towards his sword, but Garfield jumped up to intervene.
"I'll check the cellar!" he yelped, and rushed out of the room.
The doctor approached, offering a glass of strong smelling amber. "I apologize for the state of your leg. You look like you need this."
Five downed the mix of bitter and sweet and set down the glass on the floor. And then his tongue started going numb.
What. The. Hell.
"Mister Quintus, if I may…"
"You may not," Five said, lifting the tip of his sword at the good-for-shit doctor. "What was in that drink?"
The doctor backed off. "I believe this man is no longer under the threat of death, so if my services are no longer needed, I'll take my leave."
Five lowered the tip of his sword to the floor, as the doctor disappeared and the front door slammed shut. He never wanted to see that man ever again.
The butler appeared in the doorway, a look of alarm plastered to his face, probably having followed the blood-smeared trail from the foyer into the parlor. He held a single suitcase in one hand and had a travel cloak draped over his other arm. After a quick assessment of the room, he cleared his throat to get Russell's attention.
"I am dismissing myself from this post," he said, white as a sheet. "There is nothing honorable remaining at Avonburgh House."
The butler made a quick bow and turned on his dignified heel. Five hoped he would find an admirable post after this shitshow.
Russell swayed, flailing his arms about, looking entirely out of control of his faculties. "You can't leave!" he sputtered at the butler's retreat. "Who is to take care of me?"
As if on cue, Garfield re-entered with an armful of bottles. He lined up the brandy, Irish whisky and cognac on the floor next to the couch like soldiers on parade. Five grabbed the lightest color of the three, uncapped it, and upended it over his leg.
Many words flew through his lips as the alcohol burned through his wound, most of them completely improper for genteel company. Good thing there were no proper gentlemen around to hear him.
Garfield backed towards Russell, who remained wide-eyed and pissed-off… pissed, anyway. Already taking his new position seriously, (or maybe to avoid looking directly at the blood) Garfield pried the flask out of Russell's fist before the man could take another swig.
"You've had enough," Garfield said, settling a shocked-into-silence Russell into the remains of an armchair. "I haven't had near enough." Garfield downed the remaining contents of the flask and threw it on the floor. Then he returned his attention to the coins laid out on the writing desk. "Faith! There's a Monkey here already," he said, gesturing to the four tallied stacks. Pointing a finger at the other three sacks, his mind seemed to gallop through some mental math as he considered the size and weight of each. "You should have given this money to me straight up, old man. I could have invested in Lloyd's maritime endeavors last week and gotten your dibs back in tune within a fortnight."
Five's mind had turned fuzzy, but he hadn't missed the comment. "Isn't insurance another form of gambling?"
It was a good thing Five was halfway across the room, because Garfield's tone was as condescending as it was intolerable. "It's not like playing the 'change', Five. Not if you've got a team of bang-up-to-the-mark underwriters. This deal of ours might end up being just the thing I need to become well-inlaid." Garfield's confidence brought out his arrogance, and no amount of funding was going to fix that.
"As long as you fulfill all the terms," Five gritted out, barely managing words.
A set of footfalls grew louder on the stairs, and then the maid came into the room, carrying a large sewing basket. "Did someone call for a… oh dear!" She brought the basket to Five and hastily retreated somewhere beyond the parlor. When he opened it, all manner of needles stared back at him. And threads of many bright colors, like Saira.
Five chose a thread of dull white that looked like natural wool - and the sharpest needle he could find.
After a few tries, he'd successfully threaded the needle and with a pair of small, sharp scissors, cut the remaining sutures. The dirty threads ended up mixed in the puddle of blood and liquor on the floor. Five uncorked the next bottle with his teeth and poured it over the thread and needle. He doused his leg again, hissing as it burned the open gash.
Five cursed and swore as he knotted the thread and stabbed the needle into his leg. Then he swore and cursed as he pulled the thread through the torn skin. He had to stop a few times to wash the blood away so he could see what he was doing. Thankfully,the third stitch wasn't half as painful as the first two. But when he rubbed his fingers against the needle for the next stab, Five realized his thumb had gone numb. "Dammit!"
His hand froze mid-stitch as a voice drifted from the foyer.
"Miss Emma, have you seen my sewing basket?"
Saira appeared in the doorway to the parlor, her hand stilled from stuffing a bundle of papers into a messenger bag. She looked like a heady fever-dream, or an angel, almost floating above the floor.
She wasn't supposed to be here. And dammit, he wasn't supposed to be here, either.
Saira's eyes landed on him, finally seeing him. The sword at his side. The blood. If Five thought his day had hit rock bottom, the look on her face told him it was about to get much, much worse. His brain short-circuited, and he knew whatever the doctor put in his drink was taking hold because her voice, a lethal combination of ice and shattered glass, was the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard.
"What have you done?"
..
.
.
.
.
Saira rushed to Five's side and plucked the thread from where it had slipped through his fingers. He was in a horrid state, gritted teeth, torn trousers, and blood seeping from a long gash in his leg. She deftly threaded a curved upholstery needle from her sewing basket and peered at his handiwork.
Five nodded his agreement, then clenched his jaw as she stabbed into his skin, pulling the next stitch taut. Tears threatened to cloud her vision as she tore at Five's shirt, stripping loose a piece of fabric. She patted at the blood pooling in the chasm between the torn skin.
"What on earth happened?" she cried to Garfield, who wordlessly stared at her. "Is he sick as well?" Then she spotted the glass at the foot of the couch. Saira picked it up, sniffed, and then yanked it away from her nose at once. "Who dosed him with Laudanum? And his leg!" she exclaimed in dismay.
"Quintus ordered me to do it," Garfield said with a whine in his voice. "The leg. The drink was the doctor's doing."
"If you will not help me stitch him back together, leave the room!" she demanded, channeling Rameswari's authority into her voice. And then her stomach turned over as she saw her father in the armchair by the window, eyes closed, body limp.
Oh, no. She had no words for that man. Not now, not for the foreseeable future. "Take him with you!"
Garfield silently stuffed the sacks of coins into his jacket and hoisted her father to his feet. Her ears traced the sounds of staggering down the dark corridor beyond. Like echoes of her past, the hinges of her father's study creaked, and the lock clicked into place.
She turned quickly back to Five and forced herself to continue stitching through her confusion.
Why was Five here with her father and Garfield, and why, on her mother's grave, was he bleeding so much?
"How did you end up like this?"
"Trying to save your future," Five said weakly, eyes almost rolling back in his head.
"I never asked you to save my future," she told him.
"I know," he murmured. "I'm sorry. You looked like you needed help. I helped." He gestured weakly to his leg.
"What did they do to you?" she whispered. Strangely, places down the wound already had holes in the skin near the cut, as if it had been stitched over and then reopened. Snipping the thread from her final knot, she patted the skin dry and reexamined her work. Five's stitches, until he'd dropped the needle, were clean and precise. His work would have made Mrs. Lanchester proud. After seeing him take down the Stage Bandit, Saira imagined that he'd have experience stitching himself back together after a fight.
What exactly had he been fighting for?
How on earth had he lost?
"My father is capable of many things," she said, her voice shaking. "I expected him to come after me, but this? How did he even know…"
"He knows nothing about us," Five said.
Saira shook her head. "And now he will send those men after me and have them drag me to who-knows-where! They'll send my aunties across the sea without me!"
"He won't," Five said with certainty.
Saira's fist balled up around the needle, turning her knuckles white. "No, he won't. I'll make sure of it."
Five's eyes widened. "Saira," he said weakly.
"No, Five. I can't let you ruin yourself for me."
He grabbed her hand and squeezed, his eyes pleading. "When we were on the hill…" he began, but trailed off, eyes glazing over. She couldn't tell if he was in pain, or if he was fighting through the effects of the drink.
He didn't have to continue. She'd thought about that night. Every night afterwards. And sometimes during the day. Oh, who was she kidding? She had never stopped thinking about what they had shared, how they had connected on a level stronger than anything she'd ever felt before, Gift, or otherwise.
She pushed up on her knees beside the couch, brushing the hair out of his face the way he had done with her beside the fire. Sweat beaded at his hairline, and she used a clean part of the torn shirt to dab it away.
"Garfield… the estate… the terms…" he muttered.
"You won't have to worry about any of that soon," she said, tears in her eyes. "He won't ruin you too… oh, but he already has. Your leg!"
"Will heal," he said through closed eyes. He gripped her hand, but it was not as strong a grip as it was moments before. "The estate is saved. Garfield will make sure… Russell found money…"
"Oh, Five!" she cried, because Five must not have realized whose money it had been. She'd seen the sacks that Garfield had stuffed into his coat before taking her father away. She knew exactly where those coins had come from… her bookcase, her writing desk, the mattress, the space under the floorboards in her room…
"The money he found was my freedom. But now that anyone knows it exists, it can never be mine. Not with all the debt hanging over this house. You may have saved the estate, but there's nothing left to support my aunties or me."
Saira picked up the twine and wrapped it back in place. There were no words for this. If circumstances were different, if George Russell could act like an actual father, capable of reasonable thought, she would plead a different case. She wouldn't care about finances or a roof over her head. She wouldn't have to worry over the comfort of her aunties and what would become of them when she left home.
Her decision would keep them with her, and well taken care of. In India, at least she could rely on the honor of men.
But this, oh, this would wound her for the rest of her life. She would have to leave Five and all the possibilities he had shown her behind. And she would give up her Gift, because in the one thing that had mattered most, it had led her astray. Every step forward had been erased like footprints on the shore of a rising tide, and if she stayed in place, she would surely drown.
With the needles wiped and everything packed back into the sewing kit, it was time to do the sure thing. The safe thing.
Part of her felt like she was betraying the risk her mother had taken by coming to England, that she was wasting the opportunities that her mother's actions had opened up for her. But her mother wasn't here anymore. It was up to Saira to choose for herself.
"I'm sorry, Five," she said, and the tears fell, not the sobby tears from before in her wrecked room where her dreams had shattered. No, this was a silent, raw ache for a dream that she had never dreamt, one that had died before it was ever conceived, running down her cheeks, dripping from her chin onto his rumpled shirt.
Five's hand squeezed hers again. He had heard her, but he was no longer responding, eyes glassy and unfocused.
"I have to go," she said, feeling the break inside her.
"Where?" It was barely a whisper on his lips.
"Back to India," she said, and she saw his face transform. Panic? Fear? "It's for my aunties." She heard her own voice break. "And me. My father has taken everything. There's nothing left for me."
His lips moved. "No," they seemed to say, even as no sound came out. "Stay."
Her heart caught in her throat then, even as she shook her head, because as much as it had gone unspoken, it was all she ever wanted.
There was no guarantee here. There was nothing that promised that within the next ten months, her father wouldn't try again, wouldn't push her into something else undesirable, that he'd force her aunties onto a boat.
It had only been a few days, and look what happened to Five.
Imagine what else would happen if she stayed…
Suddenly, Five surged up and pulled her to him, pressing his mouth to hers, the unmistakable zing between them, the connection that she'd felt when she first brushed past him in the coffeehouse - igniting all the feelings she had tried to ignore, the feeling that somehow, they belonged together.
She allowed herself to get lost in the sensations, until Five's arms became limp and his lips stopped pressing, and he fell back. She settled him gently back against the couch, making sure his chest continued to rise and fall, and then pulled away reluctantly, looking at his face, which had contorted into something like pain.
His eyes opened again, and when he silently implored her, she shook her head, tears falling onto his torn shirt. "Kisses aren't contracts. But I have one in my hand. Good people will honor it. They will take care of what's left of my family. This is the only choice I have left."
He tried to work his mouth around the medicine, but it had already taken hold. She heard the sounds of low voices and shuffling from the other room. She did not want to be there when Garfield and her father came back into the room.
"Goodbye, Five," she sobbed, pressing her mouth to his one last time.
Saira grabbed her sewing basket, the bag with the papers, and ran through the empty foyer.
She didn't think she would find anyone in the drive, but she was wrong.
"Mr. Tinley!" she exclaimed, not even trying to hide her tear-stained face.
"Miss Russell," he said curtly, completely respectable and unreactive to her disheveled state. He mounted one of the barn horses, tacked and ready for a morning ride, with a suitcase strapped against the saddlebags. It looked as if Mr. Tinley was not planning to return.
"I must take my leave."
"I, as well," she said.
"The horse… I'll have it returned," Mr. Tinley said, but Saira shook her head.
"Consider it your final compensation," Saira said, as if she had the authority to dispense with the estate's assets. Her father had claimed her funds, so it was only fair to pass on the good fortune to dear Mr. Tinley, who certainly would see none of it himself.
He looked at her keenly. Then he nodded once. "Good day, Miss, and good luck to you."
Saira choked back a sob. "Good day, Mr. Tinley."
She got into the carriage. Emma rushed out with a bag of her own and got in beside her.
"Are you sure you want to do this, Miss Russell? Leave him in that state, with those men?"
"No, Miss Emma. I am certain that I do not wish to do this at all. But it's the only thing I can do."
She had come here for the money, and she was leaving with a broken heart. Which wasn't fair. Hearts weren't supposed to break over men who hadn't pledged themselves.
The reins felt slick in her hands. Once again, her father had ruined everything she had… his reach immeasurable. This is what would happen if she stayed. Everything she had would bleed out or get crushed under her father's will.
As she steered the coach to Bath, Saira didn't look back at Avonburgh House, shrinking behind her like a bad memory. It hadn't felt like home to her in a long, long time.