Free The Clockwork Dagger by Beth Cato Page B

concentrating on Mrs. Stout.
    The older woman’s body rose, her gown haphazard and stiff with blood. At about two feet in height, Mrs. Stout stopped, her body ramrod straight and supine. Octavia cleansed her with a rag enchanted like the medician blanket. She was halfway done dressing Mrs. Stout when a light knock echoed through the door.
    â€œMiss Leander?” asked Mr. Garret.
    â€œGive me a moment.” She hurriedly did most of the buttons and looked between Mrs. Stout and the cot. It would take one small nudge to push Mrs. Stout out of the circle and onto the bed. The ability to float a patient was rare; at the academy, only Miss Percival could channel that much power from the Lady. To float a person beyond the circle—to sense anything beyond those limits—was supposedly impossible. It would certainly be convenient to move Mrs. Stout now, but Octavia wasn’t foolish enough to do it and invite that kind of scrutiny.
    Amusing as it would be to see Mr. Garret’s reaction to such a feat of strength.
    She lowered Mrs. Stout to the blanket and tapped the circle to disengage it. The heat of the Lady’s presence withdrew like fireplace warmth sucked away by an open window in winter.
    Upon confirming Mr. Garret’s identity through the peephole, she let him in. “We need to lift her onto the bed,” Octavia said as he set down the new linens. He immediately positioned himself at Mrs. Stout’s shoulders.
    Together, they grunted and lifted Mrs. Stout to the lower cot. Octavia nodded to Mr. Garret. “Thank you. And thank you for respecting my strength.”
    â€œWe already lifted her together once, Miss Leander.”
    â€œYes, but . . .” She shook her head, almost dazed. I’m so used to fighting over such issues, I don’t know what to make of it when I’m respected.
    Mrs. Stout’s nightgown still gaped open and showed the planes of her chest, her unsupported breasts spread out and flat. Octavia spied another blemish and did a quick swipe with her rag. The mark didn’t move. She leaned forward to examine it more closely.
    â€œIs something the matter?” asked Mr. Garret.
    â€œNo. I thought I missed something, but she has a princess scar, that’s all.”
    â€œA princess scar?”
    â€œThat’s what medicians call it when a person has an injury to the chest, like the missing princess in the stories. In the war, we often saw bayonet wounds or shrapnel.” She held a fist to her own chest, just above the sternum, then looked back at Mrs. Stout. “By the smallness of the scar, this is probably a bullet . . . wound.” Octavia stopped.
    Mrs. Stout’s silvered blond hair, minus the blue streak. Her age. The location and type of the wound. It’s a coincidence. It must be. She glanced back at Mr. Garret. His honeyed skin seemed strangely blanched, the muscles in his face turned to stone.
    Mr. Garret shook his head, his thick queue of hair whipping side to side. “The odds of such a thing . . . ’Tis simply not possible.”
    â€œMrs. Stout? The missing princess?” Octavia stared at her slumbering friend.

C HAPTER 5
    How many women of that age would bear such a particular injury? And Mrs. Stout certainly didn’t have the look of a princess. Well, what Octavia would imagine by reading the stories. Any illustration of young Princess Allendia depicted her as an angelic vision of blond curls and wide blue eyes.
    There was no physical comparison to be made to the current royal family. Not a year after the princess’s kidnapping, the rest of her family was killed in an attack by infernal magi from the Waste. Distant cousins assumed the throne and made Mercia what it was today: a city of curfews and crime, powerful wards surrounding the city and preventing the entrance of any infernals. Queen Evandia and her children stayed sequestered in the palace for their own safety.
    Surely Mrs.