Ink, Iron, and Glass (Ink, Iron, and Glass #1)(49)

Elsa’s lungs kept heaving like bellows, her body refusing to acknowledge the danger was past. Leo had killed the assassin. It seemed surreal, even with the gruesome proof lying at her feet.

“Well,” she said, trying to compose herself. Her frantic heart rate refused to calm, and her hands shook. Afraid she might drop the already-abused book, she set it down carefully on the nearest table. “I suppose if they’re sending agents to kill us, that means we must be looking in the right direction.”

She glanced over at Leo, expecting a witty reply, but his chin was tucked and his shadowed expression unreadable. When he finally spoke, he did not sound amused. “That was close.”

She didn’t want to think about just how close. When the Oracle said she’d lose something precious, she hadn’t considered that it might mean her life. The Oracle’s words seemed to settle over her like a death shroud. Elsa shook herself, trying to dislodge the sensation. “What happened with the gaslights? Casa?”

The house didn’t answer, but Leo said, “Never mind that. Are you hurt?” He stepped toward her, hands out as if he wanted to look her over for injuries.

She waved him off. “I’m fine. Really.”

To keep herself from dwelling on what had almost happened, Elsa knelt down beside the body. She meant to search it for clues, but she hesitated, not wanting to touch it. Don’t be silly, it’s just organic matter, there’s nothing to be afraid of. When she laid her shaky hands upon it, the body was still warm, but limp in a way that was not at all like the limpness of a sleeping child. Elsa cringed, but she made herself rifle through the assassin’s pockets anyway. There was nothing to find. She peeled off his mask. His neatly trimmed beard spoke of someone who took care with his appearance, but there was nothing particularly distinctive about his facial structure—he could have been Italian or French or Austrian.

Elsa sat back on her heels and sighed. “Of course he doesn’t have a calling card or anything else to hint at who hired him. Because that would be too easy.”

Leo didn’t answer, and when she looked up, he was staring at her with a stricken expression.

She said, “It’s over, Leo. I’m alive, he’s dead, so let’s just … leave it at that.” Her hands still shaky, Elsa brushed loose strands of hair out of her face—his stare was making her self-conscious of how disheveled she’d gotten in those few seconds of fighting for her life. She had to fight down the note of hysteria that tried to edge its way into her voice. “Would you like to help me figure out what to do, or would you like to stand there like a statue?”

Leo snorted and shook his head, keeping his thoughts to himself, but at least he started to move. He went over to the nearest of the eight walls and pulled on a section of bookcase. The bookcase creaked as it swung inward, heavy on its hinges, and revealed a triangular closet behind. The space had plenty of dust and cobwebs, but was otherwise empty.

“This will have to do for now,” Leo said, and he proceeded to grab the assassin beneath the arms. Then he looked up at her expectantly.

“What?” said Elsa.

“Give me a hand, grab the ankles,” he said as if it were obvious.

“Sorry, I’m a bit lacking in experience when it comes to moving corpses,” she grumbled, but she bent down to help.

Lifting the corpse made her feel flushed and queasy. Once Leo had the body positioned inside the closet, Elsa let go with no small sense of relief.

She watched him swing the bookcase back in place. “We can’t keep the body in there forever. It’ll start to smell.”

“I know, but this is better than leaving it out in the open. If one of the kids sees it, Gia will skin me alive.” His tone had returned to his usual level of nonchalance.

“What do you do with your dead?” she asked, desperate to keep him talking—anything to distract herself from the reality of what had almost happened.

Leo gave her a strange look. “I’m afraid I don’t have much experience with clandestine body disposals.”

“No, I mean in general. Earth has been around for a long time, and there are so many of you. It seems like you’d be up to your necks in skeletons by now.”

He scratched his head. “Well, we bury them mostly. Some cultures burn them. We certainly don’t leave them lying in the streets, if that’s what you’re envisioning. Why, what do the Veldanese do with them?”

“We haven’t had much death so far … Veldana’s too new for it,” Elsa said. Yes, this was good, this was something to focus on besides the nauseous panic coiling in her gut. “We don’t have any old people yet. A baby died once—stopped breathing in his sleep—and we sent him into the Edgemist. But that’s hardly an option here. So the furnace, then?”

“We can’t burn this, it’s evidence! We…” His face flushed, and he finished lamely, “Might … need it.”

“Need it for what, precisely?” There was something he was skirting around, trying to keep from her, but Elsa was finding it hard to focus. The cut along her arm throbbed, the pain distracting her.

Leo said, “Oh, you know. Identification purposes.”

“I don’t know who he is. You don’t know who he is. It’s not as if we can send a wireless to Firenze for help. ‘Sorry to disturb you—stop. Dead assassin in library—stop. Please advise—stop.’ You think Signora Pisano would still let me stay here—let you and Porzia and Faraz keep helping me—if she knew I’d brought this into her home?”