A Study in Darkness (48 page)

Imogen leaned into his hand, needing the solid strength of him. “Something is going on. I’m sure my father is plotting again. Alice is miserable. Keating won’t look her in the eye right now. I think he knows she wants to go home.” And all that unhappiness—the downright bitterness—was like a contact poison. She felt sick to her stomach at the thought of getting out of bed, and even worse when she wondered what other calamity her father, or Jasper Keating, or even her
mother’s relentless matchmaking was going to bring down on her head. Without Bucky or Evelina to turn to, nothing felt safe.

“To top everything off,” she added, “Tobias won’t even leave for his honeymoon with Alice.”

Bucky made an irritated sound. “Tobias is an ass. And as a good friend of his, I mean that constructively.”

Imogen couldn’t stop a smile, but she couldn’t stop the next words, either. “I don’t think I can wait. The Scarlet King is paying me court and … and those dreams. They’ve changed.”

Bucky frowned. “How?”

“The Whitechapel murders. I dream about them the night they happen. I’m terrified to go to sleep, because the next morning a woman might be dead.” She bit her lip, afraid he would turn away, or change the subject like Tobias. She fought back tears. Worse than anything else would be pity.

Instead, Bucky pulled her closer, holding both her hands in his. She could see him thinking her words over, dark brows furrowed. “I’m the last person to understand such things, but to me it sounds like magic at work.” He looked up. “Whatever else happens, you need to be protected. Maybe you need to leave London for a while.”

She had her answer ready for that. “I want to get married now. I want to elope.”

Bucky drew in his breath, his fingers suddenly stiff with tension. She didn’t care anymore about what happened to her, but an elopement would cause him no end of problems, especially if he crossed a steam baron. Both the toy factory and his father’s gun factories needed Jasper Keating’s goodwill to stay in business.

“Say no if you can’t,” she whispered. “You’ve got the most to lose. I don’t know what will happen to this place if we go away for a while.”

He kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll make it work. It might take some time, but I’ll figure it out. I’m going to make you happy.”

* * *

IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON
, and Evelina sat on the steps of the Magnetorium. She was in a state of exhilarated exhaustion, still buzzing with the energy left over from that morning’s magic lesson. It had been a grueling one, another session with the wand, and Magnus had told her to rest on the morrow. His advice had just made her impatient. She didn’t have many chances left to learn. Magnus was a conniving schemer, essentially evil, and everything she’d been raised to loathe, but he was a good teacher and she was hungry to learn more. If it wasn’t for the threat Magnus posed toward Nick, she might have invented an excuse to stay longer.

But her deadline was just about up again. She was already composing her next letter to the Gold King in her mind.
Dear Mr. Keating, I found a handsome pirate who will sneak me behind enemy lines, so please be patient while I determine whether your enemy’s maker is an evil sorcerer who, by the way, is also my mentor in the ways of forbidden magic
. Best to avoid sending that note until she absolutely had to. She hoped she’d hear from Nick again soon.

She bit her nail, watching a rat scamper eagerly across the alley, skinny tail whipping behind it. She didn’t want to know what it found so exciting. Then a moment later, the rat went bolting the other way, barely sliding through the claws of a one-eared tabby.
Even rats have their worries
.

“What are you watching?”

Evelina bounded to her feet, startled by the voice behind her. “Serafina.”

She’d replaced part of the automaton’s metal voice box with a piece of a violin’s soundboard that she’d found at the market. It hadn’t been an easy job, because there had been a metal housing in the doll’s chest that she couldn’t unlock, but persistence and long tweezers had eventually won out. Her voice still sounded odd, but it was less tinny than before, as if the wood had given it some warmth. Serafina touched her throat. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Evelina replied. She was still mulling over what Serafina actually was—an independent being? Or just a piece of Magnus’s magic? He had never really answered
her question about what made the prima ballerina different from the other automatons. “What are you doing up and about? Who put in your pin?”

“I wished to speak to you,” Serafina said. “Shall we walk?”

She saw that the automaton had dressed herself from the costume rack, including dainty boots and a long cape. It was a bit warm for the cape, but she doubted the doll could tell. And hadn’t Magnus mentioned on more than one occasion that he had forbidden his puppets to leave the theater? But then she remembered the doll staring out the window with—what?—longing? And if Evelina was with her, she would not be unescorted. Surely there could be no harm in that?

“All right,” Evelina said. “I’d put your hood up, though.”

“Why?” Serafina asked.

Because you’re not human and you’ll scare everyone half to death
. “You’re the star of the show. You’re supposed to be mysterious. It wouldn’t do to have folk see you walking around like everyone else.”

Serafina nodded. “If that’s what people expect of me.”

For some reason, her unresisting acceptance bothered Evelina, but then the doll was only doing what she’d asked. Evelina prodded at her misgivings, but couldn’t fathom why she was uneasy.
Nothing is simple
.

They walked for a long time, Evelina content to wait and watch what the doll would do. Serafina examined the crowd and the goods in the shop windows with a keen curiosity that was more than a little charming. Passersby never looked past the hooded cloak.

“We spoke about what I remembered before I woke up in the room upstairs,” Serafina said. “I do remember something.”

“What?”

“I remember walking with Dr. Magnus at night, admiring beautiful houses. I remember waiting for him while he went inside and wondering if he had forgotten me. And I remember horses.” She pointed to a cart hauling a load of barrels. “They were very large up close.”

“What else?”

“I did not dance then. I don’t think that mattered to me at the time. The dancing came after I woke up in the room. I think the ability to remember things was part of what I gained there, because I began to wonder about so much.”

Evelina was fascinated. They walked slowly now, heads bent together like two friends gossiping. “What do you wonder about?”

“About myself. About people made of flesh. I know that I think here,” she pointed to her head. “I am told that is also where you think.”

“Yes.” Evelina found the doll’s expressionless face disconcerting. And yet there was something in the way she spoke—an unusual quickness, or maybe it was in the motion of her hands—that spoke of agitation.

“You have cables that move your frame, just as I do.”

“More or less,” Evelina agreed.

Serafina stopped in her tracks, head tilting. “But when you love, or you are afraid, or you are angry, where do you do that?”

A strange feeling of alarm seized Evelina, although again she wasn’t sure why—outside of the fact that she was no longer sure if Serafina was dead or alive.
And that is quite disturbing enough, thank you
. “I don’t know. We like to say it’s in our hearts, but that’s not really true. There’s not a particular organ that gives us our emotions.”

“Then where are mine?” Serafina touched her stomach. “I feel”—she seemed to search for a word—“
good
when I perform. I feel bad when Dr. Magnus is unhappy. But I feel very, very good when people from the audience see me. That is when I feel the best.”

Evelina remembered their earlier conversation. “You are at peace.”

“Until Dr. Magnus takes it from me.”

“He takes it?”

“And I have to give it to him, or he becomes angry. And I can only take it when he tells me to, otherwise he becomes
very
angry. He made me. He can unmake me.”

Evelina floundered, utterly lost. “I’m not sure what you mean.” She was suddenly grateful that none of the clocks she’d repaired had ever discussed how they felt about their chimes.

“Look at the flowers, Miss Cooper.” Serafina paused, turning her steps toward a window box filled with red geraniums, the fat globes nodding in the sun. “How lovely those are.”

Evelina was fascinated by the fact that a piece of machinery saw beauty. “Do those give you peace?” she asked.

The doll turned her head sharply. “Do you mock me? That is not pleasant.”

Was that anger? Despite the flatness of Serafina’s voice, there was a note in it that was almost shrill. “No,” Evelina replied softly. “I’m just trying to understand.”

Serafina reached up and took one of the geranium blooms in her hand. Evelina caught her breath, wondering if she was going to crush it or pull the plant up by the roots. But that was clearly a ridiculous notion, for the doll touched it gently, setting the red globe to nodding. “Flowers look different in the sun.”

Evelina let the air out of her lungs slowly. “They do.” She thought of the hours she’d spent sitting in the garden at Hilliard House with Imogen, and a surge of nostalgia made her eyes prickle. Suddenly, the crowded street full of strangers and this strange doll was too much. “It’s time to go back to the theater.”

“I do not wish to.”

“Why not?”

“There is more to see out here.”

“We can walk again another day,” Evelina promised.

“No, I want to be out here today.” It was almost a child’s words.

Evelina bit her lip. “Dr. Magnus is expecting us.”

Now Serafina crushed the flower, sending a flutter of petals to the pavement. Wordlessly, she turned, her lovely face utterly blank. “Then we must go.”

Evelina stood staring at the red scatter at Serafina’s feet, not sure how to react. If the doll was a child, she would have
called that a tantrum, or at least a rebellion. Serafina had mentioned Magnus growing angry with her. Did Magnus take her peace—whatever that meant—because he was a disciplinarian? Did he need to be, to keep control of her? She recalled his vague warnings about Serafina’s moods the very first afternoon she had come to the theater. Evelina looked around nervously. They had gone a long way down Bishopsgate and the Magnetorium suddenly felt very far away.

And then she spotted a familiar figure across the street. It was so unexpected, she jumped in alarm, her first instinct to hide until she realized there was no reason that anyone would recognize her in her rumpled traveling clothes and in a neighborhood where the Evelina Cooper of old did not belong.

As her thoughts settled, she recognized Bucky Penner, with someone at his side. With a leap of joy, she saw it was Imogen. They were arm in arm, Imogen’s face turned up to his.
They look so happy
.

“You are distracted,” said Serafina. “Why?”

“If you want to understand peace, look at that couple there.” Evelina pointed toward them. “You see how she leans toward him, as if he is her support, and he has his hand on hers as if he will never let go. That is what two people in love look like.”

Serafina stared, her fingers flying to her face. “She is beautiful.”

“Yes.”

Evelina watched curiously as Serafina tracked the couple, her entire body engaged in the act of observation. “Who is she?”

Something in Evelina balked. She couldn’t place what, but she chose to listen to the inner warning. “I don’t know. Just a woman.”

“I feel that I should know her.” Serafina’s hands dropped from her cheeks as Bucky and Imogen became lost in the crowd. “Why does she lean on him so?”

Evelina thought about that, trying to put it in terms an automaton would understand. “Because he makes her feel as if she is entirely perfect, and there is no component she
lacks. He makes her feel that she fulfills every function that he will ever desire.”

“Ah, that is peace. I want to feel that, too.”

So peace means love to her? Happiness?
“We all do,” said Evelina. “Trust me on that.”

LATE SEPTEMBER BROUGHT WITH IT MORNINGS CRISP AND
sweet as apples, the heavy dew sparkling as it clung to railing and iron grills like ephemeral jewels. The golden light, angled lower in the sky than it had been only weeks ago, seemed as thick as honey as it gilded even the weariest of the Whitechapel buildings.

Evelina arrived early at the theater after a restless night. Somewhere in the jumbled images of her dreams, Magnus had handed her the train case with her clock-making tools and told her the Blue King’s army was inside. She’d opened it only to discover the case was actually Pandora’s box, and she had just unleashed evil on the world. Another time, she might have dismissed the dream as silly, but today it weighed on her mood. She put it down to the fact that she still hadn’t heard from Nick.