Lucky - by Erin Latimer

The Lucky Lady

Neither of us ate much, we were both too nervous. I mostly pushed my food around with my fork, and Kiran ate a couple of mouthfuls of the thick stew and then proceeded to pace back and forth, going over the steps of the plan again.

“I’ve memorized it all now.” I broke off a hunk of bread and shoved it in my mouth, talking around it. “It’s not exactly complicated.” I leaned forward. “So, you’re going to be spotted intentionally just before you escape. You think that’s a good idea? Won’t he hunt you down?”

Kiran folded his arms over his chest. “It’s necessary so that you can get out of the building while Rook is pursuing me. And yes, he’ll hunt me. I’m not worried.” He glanced at his nails, feigning modesty. “I can vanish like smoke if need be.”

A million questions were still burning in me, one of them being about his sister. I was curious to know how she’d died. Had Rook killed her? But that was probably far too personal a question to ask him. Instead I settled on, “How did he know you were Lightfoot?”

“I told you, Rook has magic.” Kiran shrugged. “You’ve heard the saying ‘question not the ways of a magician?’”

“No.”

            He smirked. “Oh, that’s right. I shouldn’t have expected you to know it.”

            I glared at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

            “Just that you don’t have as much education as I do.” His tone was light and mocking, and he leaned one shoulder against the bookshelf, giving me a wide, white grin. “You’re not to blame for that.”

            I was about to launch myself off the side of the bed at him, when I realized he’d completely distracted me from asking him further questions, or even answering the first one. I pushed my irritation down and stared at him evenly. “What did your sister have?”

            Kiran’s grin faded. “Scarlet fever,” he said reluctantly.

            For a moment I only stared at him, wishing I could ask what I really wanted to ask. Kiran seemed to guess what I was thinking, because he sighed and said, “She died the next month. Hit by a horse and cart in the middle of the market square.”

            My eyes widened. The market square in New England forbade carriages and motor cars, it was too jam-packed with stalls and vendors to leave room for anything else. “How…”

            Kiran’s face was blank. The only indication of his anger was the icy glitter in his blue eyes. “Nobody knows who the owner of the cart was. I searched for weeks. By all accounts…at least, those that were on the scene, said the cart and its owner seemed to just vanish.”

            My mouth was hanging open now, and I stuttered, “Do you think…he…”

            “Rook,” Kiran finished for me, nodding. “I think he has a sick sense of humor and delights in toying with people’s fates.”

            I curled my fingers around the fabric of the bed spread, feeling a pulse of anger in my breast, a taste of the pure rage that must be burning in Kiran. My voice was barely a whisper now. “If you had told me that story, all of it when you first met me…I would have helped you without question.”

            Kiran’s gaze shifted to my face, and there was a slight, sad smile on his lips. “I know that now.”

            The hackney cab (and it’s idiot driver) took us over great distances, it seemed all the way to the other end of London. Before we left, Kiran paid the man at the bar for our rooms and signed us out.