Shadow Conspiracy (21 page)

In the morning, I woke up and rolled over. The mattress beside me was empty, and Nathan’s clothes were gone. I sat up, holding my head. It throbbed only a little, but it hurt with more than a hangover. So much for promises.

The door opened and Nathan came in, fully dressed, with two mugs of tea. Behind him, the mirror showed his back. “Get up, lazy!” he said. “I want to see more city.”

I smiled so hard, my face was like to split in half. “There’s a performance tonight. We should be there.”

“I’m quitting,” he said. “What’s Joseph going to do to me? In a few weeks, I’ll be dead anyway.” He set the mugs down and jumped on the mattress. “I want all the fun I couldn’t have before. Starting with this.” He kissed me, and the tea he’d brought went stone cold before we managed to leave the bed again.

While I was dressing, I said, “Your brother told me about Borneo and everything else. How much do you remember of your life...before?”

Nathan was looking out the window at the noonday sun as if he had never really seen it before. “I remember everything Joseph did, everything he learned,” he said. “I suppose that’s for the best. I wouldn’t know how to speak or read or even walk otherwise. But it’s like remembering a dream. Every time I eat or drink or touch you, it’s like I’m doing it for the first time.” He grabbed me in a rough embrace and lifted me off the floor. “I’m so
alive
when I’m with you, Dodd. I know I’m going to die, but that’s all right, as long as you’re here.”

When I got my breath back, I said, “There’s another option.”

“What do you mean?”

“The machine. It could still save you.”

Nathan shook his head. “Joseph won’t give any part of the soul back. There’s nothing left for me.”

I laid his hand on my chest. My heart beat beneath his palm. “I’ll give you half of mine.”

A moment passed, and Nathan looked at me for a long time. His fingers closed over mine. “No, Dodd. You’d age faster, and if you ever left me, you’d die. We’d be chained forever.”

My stomach dropped. “Don’t you want to be with me?”

“More than anything,” he laughed. “That was never a question.”

“Then why—?”

“Because
I won’t have a choice.
Do you see? It’s the difference between
wanting
to be with you and
having
to be with you. The mirror’s broken, Dodd. The spot is ended.”

I opened my mouth to reply, then cut myself off. I didn’t want to understand, but I did. “So what do you want to do?” The lump in my throat made it difficult to speak.

Still smiling, Nathan stepped forward and kissed me. Behind us, his ghostly reflection in the wash stand mirror copied the gesture. “Do you know no one’s ever asked me that question before? I told you—I want to spend the rest of my time with you. In this city. Because I
want
to. I’ll die here because it’s where
I
want to die.”

With that, Nathan reached out to run a warm hand through my hair. I shivered, trying to soak up Nathan’s gentle touch and store it away before—

My talent opened up, and choices echoed in front of me. But this time, I didn’t bother to look. I savagely snatched Nathan’s wrist in an iron grip, and all other universes vanished before I even saw them.

“Horseshit!” I snapped. “You don’t know what the hell you’re saying.” Nathan’s blue eyes widened and he tried to back up, but I refused to let go of his wrist. “That business about being chained is an excuse. The world is enormous. We might find another scientist with a better machine, or a circle of druids with a better spell. Hell,
I
might figure out what to do, given time. You’re just afraid of all those choices you haven’t been able to make, so you’re choosing not to choose.”

I released Nathan’s wrist. The expression on his face was at the same time apprehensive and accepting of my words. He stared at me for a long time as stale air crept round the room.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” Nathan said at last, his voice all but inaudible. “The mirror is broken. I never know what’s going to happen next.”

A bark of laughter at the irony of his statement escaped me. We were more alike than Nathan knew. “You can be trapped in that or freed by it,” I said. “Come on. Let’s find Kalakos and get you half a soul.”

Nathan stayed silent for the entire ride back to the Emporium, and I didn’t ask what he was thinking. When we arrived, William Myrtle rushed up to us, his large muscles unmistakable, though he wasn’t wearing his strongman costume. He was looking more lively, his eyes more energetic. “The mingers are at the Black Tent!” he said. “Mr. Kalakos is—there’s been a murder.”

Cold fear slid down my spine. Without a word, Nathan and I rode hard to the Black Tent. My spiders sat outside where I had left them, their winding keys run down and motionless. We abandoned the horses, and inside the tent we found two constables and a tall, gaunt police detective in tweed. Kalakos stood calmly near the forge, his silver flask in hand. Behind him, every Leyden jar had been smashed, and I knew the source of William Myrtle’s energy. Clearly, shattering the jars reunited souls. Had I known, I would have broken Nathan’s jar myself.

On the ground lay Joseph Storm, clothes torn, his eyes wide and glassy. A dozen enormous wounds slashed his flesh. Scarlet blood soaked everything. It was dripping down the worktables, it had spattered the canvas, it had splashed the automata. In her cage, the cat was drenched with it, and bits of meat clung to her iron claws. She hissed at me. The smell of a slaughterhouse lay thick on the air.

“There you are, Dodd,” Kalakos said cheerfully. A bloody scratch marred his face. “This is Detective Flint. I’ve already told him who I really am.”

“What did you do?” I gasped.

“He’s gone off his nut,” one of the constables muttered.

“I realized you were right about blackmailers, and decided to end it the only way possible. That cat never changes. Once you open the cage, it all ends.” He drank deeply from his flask. “I loved George Byron, and lost him. I loved the baron’s son, and killed him. Devotion and destruction, inextricably intertwined.”

Devotion and destruction.
I stared in utter shock. My thoughts fled all the way back to the moment that terrible and wonderful knock had come at his railcar door. Devotion or destruction. Those unnerving choices, the two I had been unable to sort out, had stood open and unresolved all this time, and I hadn’t noticed because I couldn’t bear to look closely. Devotion or destruction. Which one would come to pass?

I whispered, “Oh my God.”

“Which will
you
choose, Dodd?” Kalakos looked pointedly at his bloody machine. “Which universe will you create and which will you destroy?”

“Sir,” Detective Flint said to him, “you’ll have to come with me now.”

“Afraid not,” Kalakos said. “I’ve one more life to destroy.” His breathing became laboured. He dropped to his knees, clutching at his throat. By the time I reached his side, he was dead. A smell of almonds hung in the air.

“Cyanide in the flask,” Flint pronounced. “Damn it.”

I fell into a haze. The detective asked questions, but they were perfunctory. The bodies were taken away. Hands and arms guided me out of the Black Tent. I came to my senses in my wagon, sitting on my bed with Nathan beside me. My face felt hot, and I knew I’d been crying.

“They hired some women from town to clean up,” Nathan was saying.

“Did they cancel the show tonight?” I asked.

“No. Myrtle volunteered to be ringmaster until something more permanent can be decided. News of the murder gave us a sold-out house.”

“Mr. Kalakos would be happy about that, I think.” I rubbed my hands over my face. “How are you handling it?”

“Perfectly well. It comes with not having a soul, I think. And now I’ll never have one.” He gave a harsh laugh. “If Kalakos hadn’t taken my soul, I’d be dead, do you realize that? Joseph’s half would have fled when he died, jerking mine out with it and killing me with the shock. By making me a soul-less automaton, he bought me a few weeks’ life.”

Kalakos’s last words to me played over and over in my head, gnawing at me like a worm. “Nathan, who told you that you’d die if your brother did? Do you actually
remember
the witch doctors saying so?”

“No,” Nathan said. “Joseph told me. After we were separated and we stopped sharing memories.”

“Except before he attacked me in your wagon, he said the
magicians
told you both. He lied to me.” A bit of hope flickered like a small star. “I think he lied to you, too. I think Joseph lied about a number of things.”

“And why would he do that?”

“He needed to keep you close, keep your soul in a living jar until he could get at it. But he was afraid you might kill him first. He himself killed easily, and he couldn’t see that his twin brother wasn’t like that. He couldn’t see that you’re the same but backward. So Joseph told you that if he died, you died. But it was a lie. Nearly everything he said was a lie. Come on!”

I pulled him from my wagon and all but ran for the Black Tent. The Emporium was in an uproar. Performers rushed about, chattering and shouting with newfound enthusiasm, despite the ringmaster’s death. The shattered Leyden jars had repaired their souls. The calliope hooted, and sausage sizzled in the food tent. People plucked at my sleeve, offering sympathy or demanding information. I shook them off more rudely than I intended and kept going, towing Nathan behind me.

The hired women had done a good job with the Black Tent, but the canvas was still stained red-brown in places. The machinery and automata were all clean, except for the cat, who wouldn’t let anyone touch her. I avoided treading on the spot where Kalakos had died and headed straight for the table with Nathan at my side. The dials on the apparatus seemed to stare at me.

“Tell me,” I whispered.

And for once, my talent opened at my command.

“What do you see?” Nathan whispered.

“Two possibilities.” I shut my eyes. “When I was strapping you to the table, Kalakos reached inside the machine for a moment. There are two explanations. Either he made a minor repair,
or he disabled the machine.
If he made a repair, the machine stole your soul and you’re going to die. If he disabled the machine, the soul transfer didn’t work and you’re going to live.”

“Which possibility will come true?” His voice was hoarse.

“I don’t know.” I opened my eyes and looked at him, his face pale beneath autumn hair. “They’re both equally possible. Kalakos cared about me and wanted me to be happy, but he was equally frightened of Joseph. In order to find out what Kalakos did, we have to open the case and look. Once we do, the two possibilities will collapse into a single path. You have half a chance of living once we open that case.”

Nathan swallowed. “Oh, God.”

I suddenly couldn’t stand still. I dashed outside, snatched up the broken spider, and brought it back in. A bit of rummaging through the workbenches turned up a spare leg. “Remember when we were talking to Ferrous?” I said.

Nathan was still standing by the table. “You quoted John Locke.”

I unbolted the bent leg and slipped the new one into place. “So are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking,” he said. “I’m thinking that I love you.”

My hand jerked spasmodically and I almost dropped the spider. I recovered myself and finished installing the leg. “I...”

“Can you say it, Dodd?” Nathan asked. His back was to me. “I think the final outcome is based on what you say next.”

My mouth was dry, my hands were sweaty. Devotion or destruction. I still hadn’t chosen. “I love you, Nathan,” I said. “In this and every universe.”

Nathan grinned over his shoulder at me, and my heart raced. Then he picked up a heavy hammer from the forge and smashed the machine. He hit it again and again, until it was nothing but a pile of wreckage. Nathan tossed the hammer aside.

“If the possibilities are never resolved,” he panted, “what happens then?”

I wound up the spider and set it on the table, pretending nonchalance but unable to keep the enormous grin from creeping across my own face. “It means we’ll have to have faith that a man as good and fine as you has a soul, and to hell with any machine.”

Nathan strode toward me, and I opened my arms, aching for his touch. But he halted a scant foot away. He raised his hand, pressing the palm to an imaginary pane of glass. Without thinking, I matched the movement. Nathan raised his other hand. Mystified, I did the same. Then a sudden light sparkled in his eyes and he yanked me into his arms, bringing my space into his.

“Ha!” he growled in my ear. “Broke it!”

Beside us, the little spider skittered to the edge of the table, paused, and turned right.