Iron Cast(22)

Saint buried his head in his hands. “I didn’t know what else to do,” he murmured.

“I believe you,” Corinne said. “But I’ll always stand by Ada. You know that.”

He didn’t reply. Corinne sat beside him for a few more minutes, thinking more about the night with the cookies, how those three children never once suspected what the ensuing years would bring. Finally she shook herself free from the memories. She patted Saint on the back and left without saying anything more.

In Johnny’s office, Ada dropped the money on his desk. She refused the seat he offered her. Johnny counted the cash and began dividing it bill by bill. The only sound in the room was the shuffle of paper. The smell of cloves and pine that had been so comforting the night before was suffocating now. Finally Ada couldn’t stand the silence.

“What did Saint tell you happened?” she asked.

“He told me everything,” Johnny replied, still counting.

“Then when will he be gone?”

Johnny stopped counting. He folded his hands and looked at her.

“He’s not going anywhere, Ada. He’s one of us. You know that.”

She shook her head. “He sold me out to save his skin. He’s not one of us, not anymore.”

Two weeks ago, Ada had run a simple—if slightly illegal—errand for Johnny. With Corinne home for Christmas break, Saint went as the lookout. Ada knew he wasn’t quite comfortable on the street, but he had played the role before without incident. No one could expect to live at the Cast Iron without paying their dues, even Saint—whose father had served in the same regiment as Johnny.

When things went awry, she’d kept her mouth shut at the police station. It never once occurred to her to flip on Saint, or to doubt that Johnny would bail them out before they were sent to Haversham. It also never occurred to her that Saint would fold under their bluff, that he would betray her for the chance to walk free.

Johnny closed his eyes briefly. He always had such a calmness about him. Ada could never figure out where that kind of serenity came from.

“I can’t turn him out,” he said.

Ada stared at him, incredulous. “Johnny, loyalty is the only thing that’s ever mattered to you.”

“I’ve got bigger concerns than that right now. If Prohibition passes next week, the Cast Iron’s days are numbered.” His tone had a grim edge to it.

“Do you really think it will pass?” Ada asked.

The movement to ban the sale of alcohol had been quietly fuming for as long as she could remember. Alcohol was a huge part of the Cast Iron’s income, especially now that they could host hemopath shows only every couple of weeks. If alcohol was banned too, then the club would be sunk for good.

Johnny shrugged. He pulled out his pocketknife and slit open an envelope on his desk. Whatever was inside must have been unimportant, because he tossed it away. He rammed the tip of the knife into the wood and looked at her.

“Saint isn’t going anywhere. I’m not asking you to forgive him, or to even speak to him. But he’s staying.” Johnny glanced down at the bills stacked on his desk. With a single finger, he straightened an errant note until the pile was perfectly even. “I’ve got debts to pay. Same as anyone else.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He sat erect in his chair, and the expression that had crept across his face vanished, replaced by his usual genial smile.

“I’ll have your cut for you in a couple of hours.”

He turned his attention back to the money, and Ada realized she had been dismissed. She left and shut the door quietly behind her. The anger was still there, a tiny, persistent flame, but Ada was too tired to fan it right now. Corinne would make sure Saint kept his distance, but there wasn’t much else to be done. Whatever his reasons, Johnny had made his decision.

Saint had broken the number one rule of the Cast Iron: trust. But Ada knew better than to break the second, which was to never cross Johnny Dervish.

That evening, Ada took advantage of the empty common room to tend to her violin. The instrument had been a gift from Johnny a couple of months after she’d first found her way to the Cast Iron. A sympathetic doctor had whispered Johnny Dervish’s name to Ada’s parents, who were wretched with worry when their daughter suddenly fell ill, racked with pain from the inside out. Hemopath manifestation was a gruesome process, usually lasting at least a week, and Ada’s blood had turned when she was relatively young—only ten. She had blocked out most of that horrific time and remembered only how sweet the iron-free relief of the Cast Iron was. Johnny had offered to let her stay there as long as she needed, and her parents had relented, because they didn’t know what else to do. Young hemopaths needed years to adjust to the city’s plethora of iron sources, and the ones who couldn’t find or make an iron-free refuge either fled to the countryside, committed themselves at Haversham, or turned to more grisly, permanent means of escape.

Ada had always intended to move back home, once she could cope with the ever-present ache of the outside world, but somehow it had never happened. The closest she’d ever come was when Corinne had first moved in—Ada had decided she would rather live in an iron box than deal with the petulant, demanding, blue-blooded twit Johnny was making her share a room with. Sometimes she thought about how different her life would have been if she had followed through with the decision, but in four years she had never once wished she had.