TO LATE TO BEG, SISTER

CHAPTER 10: THE GUEST AT THE GATE

The next morning, at Saint Jude's Orphanage, the sun came out for the first time in days.

Julian stood on a small ladder, fixing the tin roof dented by Garrick's men last week. Below, two tattooed men handed him tools awkwardly, like students afraid of their teacher. One of them, a giant with a scarred eyebrow, held a hammer the way someone holds a sleeping baby. Aira stood in the yard with two cups of tea, waiting.

"You've been up there two hours," she said when Julian came down. "Sit. Drink. And don't argue."

Julian sat. He drank. The tea was too sweet, the way Margaret always made it, and he didn't complain. ‘Nine weeks,’ he thought, without being asked—the number came on its own now, like a second breath. He drank the too-sweet tea all the same. Some kindnesses you accept for the giver's sake.

Aira studied his face for a long moment. "You look... lighter," she said at last.

"Not lighter," Julian said. "Just not carrying everything alone anymore."

From her jacket pocket, Aira took out a folded piece of paper and handed it to him. A crayon drawing: a blue sea, a small boat, a tall figure holding the hand of a smaller one. "Tommy drew it," she said. "He heard you talking about the sea. He said when you get better, he wants to go with you."

Julian looked at the drawing for a long time. The blue was not one crayon but three, layered, as if Tommy had wanted the sea to be as real as possible. When he looked up, his eyes shone in a way Aira had never seen. Aira pretended not to notice. She failed.

Then Garrick appeared at the gate, out of breath.

"Mr. Julian," he said, lowering his voice. "A private jet landed at Heathrow an hour ago. The passenger is a famous doctor—people call him the Divine Doctor. He's been asking everywhere about 'the man from the Docks.' And..." Garrick swallowed. "A police car just stopped at the gate. The woman inspector from the other night. She's alone."

Julian stood. He looked at the gate, then at Aira, and smiled thinly. "Put the tea away, Aira. We have a guest."

Siska came in without knocking. She carried her authority the way she carried handcuffs: ready to use. But the small yard did not react like an interrogation room. Children swept, two tattooed men carried rice sacks, and a pale young man stood by the ladder with a cup of tea still steaming. Nobody flinched. In her experience, people always flinched when the police arrived. These people did not even look up.

"Julian," she said. "You know why I came."

"Because of the fake hand that's in pain," Julian said. "Sit, Siska. The tea's still hot."

"I didn't come for tea." She took two steps forward. "Undo whatever you planted in Tristan's body. Now. Or I will—"

"You will what?" Julian didn't raise his voice. "Arrest me? On what charge? The boy is in pain because of his own body, and I was across the city when it happened." He sipped his tea. "I didn't plant a curse, Siska. I left a consequence. The difference is, he earned it himself."

Siska opened her mouth—and for the first time that morning, found no charge that fit. She had built a career on finding the right words to corner people. Now she searched the whole penal code and came up empty. She saw the children who were not afraid of Julian. She saw Aira standing near him without being asked, like someone who had long practiced standing there.

"Three days," Julian said at last, calmly. "Let him feel three days. After the ten years I felt, that's not revenge. That's a discount."

And that was when the gate sounded.

An old man stepped out of a black car Siska had never seen on any vehicle list. His suit was simple, but the way people on the street turned to look—like the way people look at a king in disguise.

He walked past Siska without seeing her. And in front of Julian, the doctor whose name was put on great hospitals, he stopped, straightened his jacket, and bowed deeply.

"Master," he said. "Forgive this late disciple."

Siska heard something crack in her chest. Not loud. Quiet. Like ice just beginning to melt.

Julian nodded slightly. "You didn't need to come this far."

"There is something I must say in person." The Divine Doctor glanced once at Siska, and this time his eyes stayed on her a moment. "You must be the inspector. My master speaks of you sometimes. Never with hatred. I always found that the sad part." He returned to Julian. "My other disciple—Dr. Karen—asked about the same patient. I have already answered her: I will not undo what Master set. If the Vance family wants the boy's meridians restored, they must ask him themselves. To Master."

Siska stood very still. She had come to bring a criminal home. She was going home carrying a question that did not fit in any file.

As she turned toward the gate, Julian called, "Siska."

She stopped.

"The envelope," Julian said, softly, like someone handing back a kept thing. "You still have it, right? You may open it now."

Siska didn't answer. She walked to her car, and this time she turned the wipers on—because for the first time in her life, she could not see the road clearly.

That night in Mayfair, Tristan, still shivering, heard everything from Siska, who had come home empty-handed. He lay in the dark, listening to the house: Victoria's heels down the corridor, a door closing, the low murmur of Karen's voice on the phone with someone she would not name. A house full of powerful people, and not one of them could help him. He waited until the murmurs stopped. 

Then, with his left hand that still worked, he typed a message to the number Arthur's men had given him, ‘I know where the man from the Docks sleeps.’

The reply came a minute later: [Not yet. I want to see his face first.]

Tristan set the phone on his chest and stared at the ceiling. Pain climbed his arm like a slow animal. He would make them hate Julian more. He would make them blind. It was the only thing he had ever been good at.

At the orphanage, the lights went out one by one. Only one stayed on: the kitchen light, where Julian folded Tommy's crayon drawing and kept it in the same pocket as his own brown envelope.