Weavingshaw

Outside the cathedral, Leena’s brother confronts her. He is furious that she lied about her job and is now employed by the infamous St. Silas. When St. Silas appears, Rami draws his sword, and St. Silas pulls a pistol. Leena steps between them, explaining that she made a deal with St. Silas in exchange for the medicine that saved both their lives. She convinces Rami to leave by warning him that she will be punished for his interference. After Rami departs, St. Silas threatens to kill him if he ever meddles in their contract again.

In a sudden act of defiance, Leena snatches St. Silas’s pistol and holds it to his abdomen. He challenges her to shoot, confident she lacks the will. She questions him about Lord Avon, and he admits he knew Avon ran the Wake but demands a secret in exchange for more information. Leena refuses to trade her last secret, which is that ghosts can possess her body when she sleeps. St. Silas does, however, reveal that Avon took something from him that altered his life. Leena lowers the weapon, and St. Silas takes it back, showing her where to aim if she ever truly intends to kill. On the carriage ride home, he watches her with a new, intense focus, as if her actions have fundamentally changed his perception of her.

The next day, St. Silas doesn’t punish Leena for threatening him, instead acting as if nothing happened. He cancels the morning’s confessions, explaining that riots have broken out in the Ridgeways factory district. He shows her a newspaper reporting that the war in Algaraa has ended with rebel forces, led by Commander Yosif, capturing the capital. The riots Golborne are inspired by this revolution.

Later, St. Silas takes Leena to Lord Avon’s former townhouse to search for his ghost, but the house is empty of spirits. During the carriage ride back, Leena presses St. Silas for more information because she’s convinced that Avon’s ghost must be tied to Weavingshaw. St. Silas confirms that Avon created the Wake to ensure his hold on the estate, which was drowning in debt. He then reveals that he has already secured them invitations to an upcoming hunting party at Weavingshaw, which is now owned by a tradesman named Mr. Martin. The conversation ends when St. Silas abruptly complains that Leena’s lavender perfume is a distraction.

The narrative shifts perspective to Lord Hargreaves, a high-ranking aristocrat, who convenes a meeting of the Wake at Weavingshaw. In attendance are Lord Kilworth, an indebted nobleman, and John Martin, the tradesman who now owns the estate. They discuss the recent revolution in Algaraa and their fear that the Morish commoners will be inspired to overthrow their own ruling class. Hargreaves, who is of mixed Morish and Algaraan heritage, reflects on founding the Wake years ago with his childhood friend, the late Lord Avon (referred to as Percy), to restore their dying bloodlines to their former wealth and glory. This goal was driven primarily by Percy’s financial ruin and Hargreaves’s yearning to command respect after a lifetime of being bullied mercilessly for his mixed heritage.

They are joined by Lord Calligan Fray, a demon nobleman. Hargreaves unveils his plan to prevent a revolution by finding a legendary artifact called the Limitless Vessel, which can summon a demon army into the human world. Lord Calligan claims the vessel is lost, but Hargreaves insists that St. Silas knows its location. He instructs the members of the Wake to find a weakness they can use to blackmail St. Silas into helping them. Hargreaves privately recalls that Lord Avon’s red diary contained the secret to finding the vessel, and that he has spent 10 years searching for it, believing it hidden somewhere in Weavingshaw. He believes only St. Silas has the power to find what the dead have hidden.

Leena has a nightmare about Mrs. Van, who appears demonic. She wakes to hear St. Silas and Mrs. Van arguing outside her door. The strange encounter deepens Leena’s unease, and she requests a lock for her room, which St. Silas grants. The next day, Rami fails to appear for their scheduled meeting. Panicked that something has happened to him, Leena goes to St. Silas for help. Though initially dismissive, he is moved by her resolve to confront the Black Coats gang alone and gives her the location of their leader, Mr. Orley. St. Silas then insists on accompanying her to protect his “interests.”

At Orley’s headquarters, a den for the drug Tar, St. Silas grows suspicious of a timepiece Leena carries, which is engraved with the name “Fray.” They meet Orley, a man with inhuman features similar to Mrs. Van’s. Leena sees the ghost of a servant boy beside him. Orley confirms Rami is being punished for winning a fight he was meant to lose due to a deal between a businessman and the Black Coats. To learn Rami’s location, St. Silas offers a personal confession as payment. He recounts how a confessor’s mother once slit his throat, leaving a visible scar. Orley seems to feed on the pain of the memory but is disappointed by St. Silas’s lack of shame. He provides Rami’s location but demands another secret to reveal who ordered the punishment. St. Silas declines, saying he will find out independently, and they leave.

On the way to find Rami, Leena mentions seeing the message “No Burials for Lambs” on a parchment in Orley’s office that St. Silas insists was blank (157). They arrive at an abandoned cottage and find Rami beaten and tied to a chair. As St. Silas frees him, Rami’s three Black Coat captors return. One grabs Leena from behind. She stabs him with her dagger, but he does not release her, so St. Silas then shoots and kills him. In the ensuing standoff, St. Silas wounds another Black Coat, Mackenzie, forcing the third, Burr, to surrender. Burr reveals that Mr. Martin hired them to punish Rami. St. Silas makes them return Rami’s stolen sword before letting them flee.

As they prepare to leave, Leena insists on burying the body of the man St. Silas killed. She physically jumps from the carriage without permission, and when he challenges her, she threatens to stop helping him find Lord Avon. Visibly agitated, St. Silas relents. The silence while digging the grave is unbearable, so he orders Leena to speak, and she recites passages from her botany book. After the burial, Leena sees the man’s ghost. The young, starving Algaraan boy reminds her of Rami. Distraught, she accuses St. Silas of not understanding the lack of choices available to her people. In response, he confesses he was forced to kill a 14-year-old boy and bury his first body when he was only 12.

A week later, Leena is plagued by insomnia and guilt over forcing St. Silas to relive the traumatic memory of burying his first body. The ghost of the servant boy from Orley’s office begins following her and protecting her from other spirits at night. She learns his name is Theodore Daye. Leena’s suspicions about Mrs. Van deepen further when the housekeeper implies she’s much older than she looks, saying she served St. Silas’s father and his father before him. Leena then argues with the recovering Rami, who remains defiant about his choice to win the rigged fight.

Leena goes to St. Silas to resume her duties and successfully bargains for him to employ Rami as a guard. During their conversation, Theodore’s ghost appears and indicates he knows Lord Avon. The mention of Theodore’s name disturbs St. Silas. Theodore confirms he can summon Lord Avon’s ghost, but only if they find Lord Avon’s lost red diary, which he reveals is hidden at Weavingshaw. Shaken, St. Silas asks Leena to call him by his first name, Bram. She refuses, determined to maintain a professional distance. He dismisses her, announcing he will be traveling for a few days.

Leena observes St. Silas with a client, a tradesman named Mr. Marlow, who asks St. Silas to “clean up the mess” at his house (192). Leena senses St. Silas’s cold fury and knows he plans retribution. That night, Mrs. Van wakes Leena and summons her to the kitchen. St. Silas arrives covered in blood, carrying a 7-year-old boy who has been severely beaten. As they begin treating the child, Leena sees the ghost of Mr. Marlow hovering nearby with St. Silas’s dagger in his chest.

Speaking to the ghost, Leena shouts, “You did this to him!” (195). However, St. Silas believes she is accusing him of attacking the child. He explains that the boy is a servant whom Marlow brutalized for breaking a vase. As Leena and Mrs. Van tend to the boy’s dislocated shoulder and other injuries, St. Silas calms the child by telling him a folktale. After the boy is treated and sedated, Marlow’s furious ghost disappears. Leena realizes that St. Silas misunderstood her accusation and thought she believed him capable of harming a child.

Unable to sleep, Leena finds St. Silas smoking in the courtyard. The atmosphere is charged as he makes provocative comments in an attempt to restore the distance between them. Leena persists, explaining she was yelling at Mr. Marlow’s ghost, not him. St. Silas presses her on why clarifying her perception of him was so urgent and demands to know her opinion of him. Instead of a direct answer, she lists her observations: He shows mercy to vulnerable confessors, his servants are devoted to him, and he is deeply affected by the confessions he collects.

To defuse the mounting tension, Leena playfully remarks that the only truth she knows for certain is that he takes two sugars in his coffee, an indulgence in “sweetness” that seems at odds with his harsh persona. He replies that he would “love to give in to sweetness” (209), a comment she understands is about her. As he escorts her from the courtyard, she reflects that the night felt like the “completion of a circle” because she was able to help heal a child (210), unlike when she was barred from helping Rami during his amputation. St. Silas acknowledges she did well, then observes that she is looking at him without any of her former loathing.