Ink, Iron, and Glass (Ink, Iron, and Glass #1)(58)

The flame guttered when she quickened her pace, and the pocket of the dressing gown, weighed down with the gun, bumped against her leg with each step. She moved down the hall, pressing her ear against each closed door and listening for the source. A minute passed with nothing save the sound of her own breathing, and Elsa was beginning to feel quite foolish. There was no danger, no need for her to be up wandering the empty halls in the dead of night.

Just as she turned to go back to her own rooms, someone screamed—a bloodcurdling wail that Elsa could only imagine must be the product of having one’s innards torn out or some equally gruesome fate. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she quickly passed the candlestick to her left hand, freeing her right one so she could reach for the gun if she needed it. The scream was fading even as she found the right room and jerked the doorknob open.

Elsa burst through the doorway to find, of all things, Leo asleep in his bed. He was thrashing in his sleep, the sheets tangled about his legs, his hair damp with sweat. The fear and vigilance drained from Elsa, leaving behind a giddy relief. She’d expected blood and death and assassins, where there were only nightmares.

Leo was shirtless, his clothing below the waist—or lack thereof?—concealed by the bedcovers. For a moment Elsa stared at the sight of his smooth, golden skin seeming to glow in the candlelight, the ridges of his muscles accentuated by the play of light and shadow. She shook her head, feeling foolish, and set the candle on the table beside the bed.

“Leo?” she said softly, and then a little bolder, “Leo!” but her voice didn’t rouse him.

“Aris…,” he moaned in his sleep. “Lemme go, we have to go back.…”

Elsa perched on the bed beside him, reached forward, hesitated, then grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “It’s only a dream, Leo. Wake up.”

He jerked at her touch, and his eyelids peeled open. “Elsa?” he said blearily, as if unsure whether he was awake or still dreaming. “What’s happened?”

“You were crying out in your sleep.”

He looked at her again, and his eyes went wide as saucers, as if the fact of her presence had finally sunk in. “What are you…” He tugged at the blankets, but it was a poor show of modesty—since Elsa was sitting on the bed, the blankets pinned beneath her, he would have had to dump her on the floor to cover himself thoroughly.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said, exasperated. “It isn’t as if I’ve never seen a boy without his shirt before.”

If she’d thought it wasn’t possible for him to look more shocked and horrified, he now proved her wrong. “It isn’t?”

“You’re as prudish as an Englishman.” She crossed her arms. “I promise not to take advantage of you in your current immodest state.”

Even by candlelight, she could see him flush. He sat up and scooted away from her, hands still knotted in the sheets. “No—I’m not—Y-you shouldn’t be here…,” he stuttered. “What would people think?”

“Let me worry about my own virtue,” she said. “Now, are you going to tell me?”

He rubbed his face with one hand, as if trying to scrub away the memory. “As you said: only a dream.”

Elsa abandoned any remaining mockery in her tone in favor of seriousness. “Do you always have nightmares that set you to screaming?”

“Not for a while now,” he answered quietly. “It’s just this business with … Never mind. It’s not important, I’m fine. Are you okay? I’m so sorry about my father and the assassin and—”

“Stop,” Elsa interrupted. “You have nothing to apologize for. You are in no way responsible for Garibaldi’s actions.”

Leo’s jaw clenched, but he said nothing.

Elsa decided to try another cautious foray into the subject of nightmares. “You said a name in your sleep. Who’s Aris?”

He didn’t respond for so long she thought he was ignoring her, but eventually he arrived at some sort of decision and said, “He was my older brother. Or is? I don’t know.”

Outside, the clouds parted from the low-hung moon, and pale silvery light spilled into the room through a pair of glass doors—balcony doors, Elsa realized when she looked up. The moonlight softened the shadows of his face and turned his olive skin wan as a ghost.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she said softly.

He looked away toward the windows, avoiding her eyes. “I used to think, What’s the use? Talking never brought back the dead. But now they’re alive after all—my father and Aris and maybe even Pasca—and the man I knew as Father never really existed in the first place.” His throat worked, as if the words threatened to choke him.

How awful, Elsa realized, to be abandoned by one’s own family. They’d fled from Venezia and left him behind like an obsolete machine.

“I’m not sure this isn’t worse.” His voice fell almost to a whisper as he stared, unseeing, past her. “Before, when I thought they were dead, it wasn’t their fault they were gone. But to be discarded like this…”

He was like a fine piece of clockwork that had been carelessly dropped too many times, the delicate gears jarred apart so they spun and spun but never connected. Broken. She brushed a strand of his brass-blond hair out of his eyes. He gave a very slight twitch at the feel of her fingertips on his face, but did not pull away. Oh, how she itched to open his chest and set the gears straight again. The thought surprised her; she’d often felt the urge to fix objects, but this sudden desire to fix a person … where did it come from?