Engraved: Book Five of The St. Croix Chronicles (17 page)

Whatever had been done to this bloke, it hadn’t been kind.

I approached cautiously, easily able to pick out the stains of unhealthy remains left smeared when it shimmered in that color reminiscent of a sickly kidney. Avoiding each now did not undo whatever I’d tread upon before, but I felt better for it.

I crouched beside the body, prepared to examine it closely, when the first sign of my efforts rolled over me—I felt as if I’d been knocked in the chest, kicked heartily by a pugilist with nothing to lose. My breath felt drawn from me, scooped out from my lungs, and its loss left me gasping.

Calling upon the Trumps took great energy. The ink carved into my skin was meant to balance that, but it was not a strong enough formula for this. There were precepts at work I only vaguely comprehended, and this was why Ashmore insisted I learn in order. Each Trump mastered increased my endurance.

I reached too far.

Spots of black popped into existence, marring the ambient light etched by Eon’s revelations, and I dragged in a breath that burned all the way down.

Fisting my hands against the damp stone, I leaned over the body and forced myself to look at it—look as though my consciousness weren’t straining at the edges.

Fatigue poured into me. A poor exchange for the energy the Trump claimed.

I gritted my teeth.

Beyond its sickening colors, a glint of a different hue winked under my laboring scrutiny. My arms shook under my own weight, and were I not so close, I might have mistook the color for a lingering shade of common blue.

It was anything but. Vibrant, startling.

Familiar.

My ears popped, as though I labored under a great pressure, and the world around me juddered. Sweat rolled off my face to drip to the cadaver that no longer cared.

I sucked in a rattling breath and croaked, “Ish!”

Whether the fog swallowed the sound or no, I couldn’t remain upright long enough to know. My limbs folded, the last of my energies drained from what felt like the soles of my feet, and I collapsed upon that twisted body without a second care.

The repercussion of my jaunt into weightier precepts than I could handle proved greater than I expected.

Chapter Fourteen

“Of all the brainless maneuvers in your vast and incredibly storied history of them, this must be the crowning glory.”

The voice, dear as it was, cracked open the black emptiness I slept in. Its irritable aggression gave no concession for the fatigue that smothered my head in muzzy cotton, and I winced before I opened my eyes. “Quiet,” I managed, a rusted rasp.

“So she deigns to rejoin the waking world,” snapped the strained tones of my tutor.

A wince turned to a flinch, and I opened my eyes to find him not so much looming over me as pacing the creaking flooring beside a bed that was not mine.

The whole of my body throbbed in aching lethargy.

Ashmore halted, planting both hands upon his narrow hips. His hair, returned to its usual copper stain, blazed like a corona in my watery sight.

I couldn’t see his expression as well, but I had no doubt it was fierce.

“I know what I did wrong,” I croaked, groaning as I struggled to sit upright.

“You will be the death of me,” Ashmore said tightly, but his hands were gentle as he caught me by the shoulders and gave me the balance I needed to rise. The mattress, patchy and thin, did not dip when he sat on the edge at my side. “What possessed you to go so far?”

“How did you know?” I blotted at my eyes with the back of my hands, frowning when I realized that I wore only shirtsleeves and trousers. Where had my coat gone?

Were the notes I’d purloined from the collectors’ station discovered?

“You test me,” he said, and sighed. “You great bloody fool. What did I tell you about skipping steps?”

Too much to repeat, given my weariness.

I leaned against his shoulder, my lashes feeling too heavy to keep open. I wanted nothing more than to drift away on a tide of sleep. “A fortnight,” I managed, yawning around it. “Wake me then.”

A sharp sting on my cheek jarred my senses loose, and I yelped, eyes slamming wide. “What was that for?”

“Wake up.” The patrician shape of Ashmore’s features had always been proud, but as I cupped the cheek he’d slapped, I recognized the careworn set of his mouth, and the creases carved of worry. His eyes flashed catlike fury, anger pinched his lips. “Sleep won’t save you from your comeuppance.”

He hadn’t hurt me; a restraint I expected from him, for he was no bully save in the lesson room. Yet the fact he resorted to a quick pat made clear I’d frightened him with my latest tomfoolery.

And tomfoolery it certainly was.

Well worth it, though.

I grumbled, forcing my spine to straighten. The stretch worked its way from shoulders to toes, and I yawned again before I could halt it. “I’m tired.”

“You’re drained to the bone,” countered Ashmore, “and rightfully so.”

“I know, I know,” I repeated. I knuckled at my eyes, wiping the last vestiges of blurry sleep from them, then scooted to the edge of the pallet before I gave in and cuddled against his shoulder for another round of sleep.

It seemed so welcoming, that loss of awareness.

A gentle, if heavy-handed, tap came from the door.

Ashmore answered before I could. “Enter.”

I bent to search beneath the wooden bed frame for my missing boots. The pads of my feet were tender, but all of me felt tender. At least whoever had removed my outerwear had kept my stockings in place.

The floorboards creaked in an alarming manner as Ishmael pushed his way inside. A large man as him could never go unheard when indoors. Not unless the flooring were made of marble or built a sight better than most houses below the drift.

I looked up as I patted the floor beneath the bed. “Hello, Ish.”

His features, already not the sort given to kindness, settled into thunderous lines. “Girl.”

Another wince. “I know,” I said again, and brightened when my fingers hooked old leather. “Have you met, then?” I added. Too cheerfully, perhaps, for both men glanced at each other, and then at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, much more seriously. “I had good cause. I didn’t intend to worry anyone.”

“Your man tells me you weren’t hurt,” Ishmael rumbled. I took no personal offense to “your man,” for he meant it in exactly the opposite way Maddie Ruth meant it.

Ish was also my man, in the manner of loyalties given rather than romantic inclinations.

I tugged my boots on with effort, as my limbs seemed sluggish still. “I am only exhausted,” I assured him.

Ashmore said nothing, for that was the point. We couldn’t very well claim that I’d used alchemical arts and tapped the whole of my energies. I loved Ishmael dearly, he was truly a friend, but that meant I had more reason to keep him ignorant.

Alchemy as a scientific tool was one thing, but the exoteric truth of it was a whole other kettle of particularly bitey fish. I knew some—such as Lady Rutledge above the drift—who studied the former.

All those who studied the latter
changed
.

Case in point, myself.

I gave the giant of a man a wan smile as he grunted.

“Shall I assume you’ve gotten introductions settled?” I asked lightly.

“Quite.” Ashmore rose, and I realized that the room didn’t seem small just because Ishmael was in it. The ceiling was close enough that even Ashmore needed to bend his head lest he brain himself. “Are you hungry?”

“A bit.” When he slanted me a severe frown, I added hastily, “I could certainly eat something.”

“Then I shall prepare a meal when we return.”

“Have we moved?”

Ashmore plucked my coat from a nail hammered into a beam and passed it to me. He did not help me dress, but there was no need. “Maddie Ruth passed your message.”

“Is she safe?” I asked, though without much worry. If she were not, I trusted Ashmore to say so right away.

He did not disappoint me. “That she is.”

“Good.” I sighed, thrusting my arms into the sleeves. It was stiff with mud clinging to the hem, but it would do. I dug into the outer pocket, relieved when parchment crumpled beneath my searching fingers. “How long did I sleep?”

“Thirteen hours,” Ishmael told me, and plucked from the pocket of his overalls a scuffed pocket watch. His blunt fingers looked comically large against the tiny device as he opened the case. “And thirty-two minutes.”

Cringing, I peeked at Ashmore through my lashes and whispered, “I am very sorry I worried you.”

His lips thinned. “We will talk of that later.”

I had no doubt. “Yes, of course. In the meantime, I believe I know what is making the Ferrymen go...”

“Barkers?” Ishmael offered, but with none of the humor it might have otherwise allowed.

“Right,” I said.

Ashmore watched me carefully, no doubt to ensure that I did not stray too far into exoteric matters. There was no true way around it, but Ishmael trusted me—or at least I believed he did.

When I offered insight, he took it. As did I when he offered the same.

“I believe the Veil has found a method by which it can train a killing body,” I said quickly. A single exhale. That I believed it to be alchemical in nature was something I would tell Ashmore later. Then again, given Hawke’s not unknown talents, it could be sorcerous. “The method used is currently not yet known to me, but it appears to alter one’s physical nature.”

Ashmore’s features tensed.

Near the door, Ishmael clasped his hands and studied them for a moment before nodding once. “Can it be stopped?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“How is it done?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
Yet
.

It was Ashmore who asked the question I dreaded, and the quiet quality of the asking said he knew it. “Is Hawke involved?”

I thought of the searing blue source I’d seen within the twisted aether of the Ferryman’s corpse and nodded wordlessly.

Ishmael’s curse rumbled like a thundercloud. Saying nothing else, he left the small room. The harsh thud of his stride as he navigated stairs spoke of purpose.

Knowing what I did of Ishmael’s responsibilities, I suspected his intent.

“Bollocks,” I muttered—earning a winged soaring of Ashmore’s bright red eyebrows—and darted after my friend. “Ish, wait!”

“Cherry,” called Ashmore, and then repeated, “Bollocks,” on a frustrated growl.

As I stumbled out of the narrow stair, I squinted at the shady gray light filling what looked to be some sort of taphouse—closed by day, likely, and run by a Baker sympathizer. Ish paused by the door, fished a large wool cap from the pocket of his stained overalls and fit it upon his head with care.

A quick study assured me that we were alone, so I wasted no effort on subtlety. “What do you plan to do?” I demanded.

Ishmael’s broad shoulders dipped as he turned to face me. “End Hawke.”

Ashmore caught my arm as I stepped forward, fists at my side. “You can’t,” I said tightly.

Ishmael’s expression was not unsympathetic, but it was hard. As it must be. “There’s no help for it, girl. Whatever he’s doing, it’s costing me Bakers.”

“I know,” I said, already weary of the words. “Ish, believe me, I know, but I don’t believe Hawke a willing accomplice.”

Pity tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Doesn’t matter. If he’s involved, it’s easier to cut off that supply than take the head.” The phrasing told me he’d already understood the Veil to be the lead in the war he waged. “Too many lives are already lost.”

“But what if we could stop it?” I asked. Pleaded, really, and Ashmore’s fingers tensed around my arm. I tugged at it.

My tutor did not let go. “We have no evidential proof that we can,” he said quietly.

The Baker nodded once. “A war’s on, girl, and we’re losing. You cannot ask me to bear any more than this.” Such strain in his simple words, such gravity. The severity he’d come to demonstrate shaped itself around that simple truth, and I sagged against Ashmore’s hold.

“But...” But what? What could I say?

Objectively speaking, Ishmael was right. If Hawke truly was the foundation of this nightmare, then ending him might just end it all. When the symptom could not be cured, remove the source.

Only Ishmael had not been there when I’d seen Hawke, collared and penned like a beast. He could not wear my skin, feel the warmth of Hawke’s kiss and the pain delivered in blood.

I did. I
had
.

Was it foolishness that kept me hoping?

Wasn’t it always?

I closed my eyes, chin falling to my chest, and counted slowly to ten.

Beside me, Ashmore transferred his hold to a one-armed embrace around my shoulders. “How soon before you can muster an assault?”

Ishmael was silent for a breath. Then, “Soon.”

A simple answer to a not so simple question. It told me that the Bakers had been preparing for months.

War
, he’d called it. And how.

I raised my head. “I can fix him,” I said.

Ishmael’s black eyes betrayed nothing but the determination that was as much hallmark of his own bearing as the responsibility he bore for the Bakers he led.

To his eternal credit, Ashmore did not argue with me. “Are you sure?”

“Well,” I amended, “I think we can. If you’d help.”

Ashmore searched my gaze. I hoped I projected confidence; I like as not implored instead. When he inclined his head in acquiescence, relief nearly stole the strength from my knees.

I stepped out of his hold and clasped my hands as a child at prayers might. “Please, Ish. I promise I can save Hawke and end whatever it is they’re doing to the Ferrymen. I only need time.”

Ishmael’s full lip protruded as he studied me, as closely as Ashmore and with years of knowing between us to make it all the sharper.

I scrambled for all the weight I could muster out of little more than wishful thinking. “If I can release Hawke from his bondage to the Veil, he could prove a useful ally. Certainly he knows of means to assault the Veil.”

“Can you speak for him?” Ishmael asked.

I almost laughed at the obviousness of the answer. “No,” I managed, straight-faced. “But I don’t believe he’s a man to let debts fall by the wayside. If I free him, he will owe.”

It was a large gamble I made, a terrible risk. I felt no more qualified to predict the ringmaster’s actions than I did to speak for Ish. Each was his own man, and not beholden to me.

At least Ishmael Communion called me outright a friend.

After a full minute of solemn silence, he pushed his large hands into his pockets and rumbled, “Four days. It’s all I can give.”

I might have hugged him, but the set to his massive build suggested it would not be welcome. The burdens he carried were heavy, even for a mountain as he was. I nodded. “I’ll have results.”

“Aye, girl.”

Saying nothing else, he turned and left the empty taphouse. The door clunked into place, wood scraped against the frame.

In the silence that lingered, Ashmore’s footsteps clicked. “Let us go over what passes for a plan in that earnest mind of yours and fetch a meal, shall we?”

I blamed the weariness dogging me for the burn of tears I blinked hastily back. “I don’t have a plan,” I confessed, my voice very small.

Ashmore’s mouth, a soft line, tugged upward at both corners. He touched my cheek. “Well I know it, minx. Come along. You’ve a lot to tell me.”