Engraved: Book Five of The St. Croix Chronicles (26 page)

“Oh, we knew you’d be all right,” he replied, as though he meant to reassure me. “We just meant to say that we know it is no easy life, the one you’re living.” I winced a little. “But, miss, do know we’re always here for you.”

I looked up into his kindly features, that line once more formed in my brow. This time made of bittersweet emotions for which I had no real name.

“Washington Barrett Booth,” I said, firm and rather more direct than acceptable from a lady, “I love you dearly. And Mrs. Booth, too.”

He pinkened to the very roots of his hair. “Oh, well,” he managed, a sort of clearing of the throat. “You know we’ve always looked at the little miss as something of our own.” The plate he placed on the silver tray clattered.

“But,” I continued, lacing my hands around my tea cup in a manner that Fanny likely would have deprived me of, “I fear that if I stay here, I will only put you all in terrible danger.”

“Is this to do with your collector business?” he asked, bushy eyebrows lifting.

“Well informed, aren’t you?”

Booth’s smile was gentle, but it revealed nothing.

I tucked my feet up on the chair’s rungs, as I’d done when I was a girl, and hunched over the table’s edge until I could place my cheek upon the cool surface.

It was terribly rude, but Booth did not point this out. I had always been an unusual child, and he had always allowed me such indulgences when alone.

“That, and the burden of a widow’s grief,” I admitted. “I’ve mucked it all up, Booth. My decisions have only served to land all of you in trouble.”

He scoffed, a dismissive, “
Hrmph.
” When I turned my head to fix him with a pointed stare, he translated for me his intent. “We’re all right enough, little miss, never you mind us. Mrs. Fortescue is well taken care of, and Mr. Ashmore ensures we want for nothing. Why, even Leviticus is turning his hand to a trade.”

“Levi is?” I lifted my head, intrigued. Leviticus was the house-boy Booth had taken under his wing, teaching him to steer the gondolas that the well-heeled used to move about above the drift. A great deal could be said of a family whose gondola was well-steered, and Booth was among the best.

I did enjoy the boy’s cheeky humor, but then, I’d long preferred brats to Society adults.

“He is taking a turn at glass-making,” he replied, serious enough that I couldn’t laugh. “He’s apprenticed with a master and is showing remarkable promise.”

“
Levi
is?” I asked again, as though to be sure.

Booth’s eyes crinkled. “Yes, miss.”

“Cor,” I breathed, earning a deepening of my butler’s smile. “I never would have thought it.”

“We are doing quite well,” he assured me.

I sighed, drawing my messy braid over my shoulder. “Which is all the more reason for me to leave you, isn’t it?”

Booth rounded the table, laying out a place at each. One for Ashmore, I assumed, one for Zylphia, who was not so much being treated as a maid as a guest who insisted on helping. Truly, I had one of the most unusual households in London.

Fanny would have her meal in bed, very likely.

My butler chose his words wisely and with slow care, as he always had. “What you do,” he said, inspecting a silver fork with ornate handle, “you must do because you believe it the right choice.”

“Of course,” I replied, frowning. “But what is the right choice?”

He set the fork neatly in line with the rest, nudged it minutely into place, and said simply, “As all things, miss, it must come down to what you can live with, as opposed to what you cannot.”

But that was the crux of all matters, wasn’t it?

What could I live with?

What couldn’t I?

I’d once thought that opium was the thing that I could not live without, and yet here I was, hungry for it and unwilling to make the effort to attain more.

Once upon a time, I might have gone to collect for the coin to acquire more; I knew it was an option, but it was not a safe one. The bit of smoke I’d inhaled the night before had scared me nearly to death.

That and the circus, and I was sure to be cured for life.

Or at least until the memory softened.

I could live without opium.

Could I live without my family?

I stared at the table as Booth retreated to the kitchen to prepare for the rest of the house’s waking, and when the table gave me no answers, I stood from it. It did not take long to pace the whole of the downstairs, and I touched this item or that bit of art without really seeing them.

There were not so many books here. I wondered if Ashmore had salvaged any from the marchioness’s grasp, or if, like all the things that had been my father’s, they were gone forever.

I could live without my family if it ensured that they were safe. I could also live with Fanny, with Booth and Mrs. Booth, but not at the risk of bringing them danger.

And I could not live with the thought that fleeing meant turning my back on Ishmael Communion and the Bakers to whom I owed an oath.

Could I live without Hawke?

I could. The thought plucked something painful in my heart, and I covered my bosom with a hand as it ached in a manner I told myself was because of my tender shoulder, but it didn’t help.

I
could
live without him, but I could not live with myself if I knew that he suffered because I was too much a coward to fulfill all that I could.

Do not disappoint me.

I imagined that I would always, in some way, disappoint his expectations. Then again, I owed him nothing to conform.

As I studied my reflection in a mirror placed upon the parlor wall, I saw the knowledge form in my own green stare. Rumpled dark red hair, too pale features, black shadows under the eyes, and I looked for all the world
nothing
like my mother.

And I could live with that, too.

I nodded to myself; my reflection nodded at me, as though to reaffirm the choice made.

If I stayed here, I would bring untold danger to my family.

If I fled London, Ishmael and his Bakers would like as not perish beneath the twisted Ferrymen.

If I turned my back on Hawke, I would never know if he lived or died; I would only know that he suffered.

Zylphia’s child deserved to know its father.

Fanny deserved to live her days in peace.

I was no longer feeling so arrogant that I thought myself the most important being in the lives of those I meddled.

“Well, then,” I said briskly, and turned away from the mirror. “Let us get to work.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

I could not bear to lie to my family again. Nor could I risk Zylphia’s sharp awareness, or Ashmore’s return.

I escaped without word to any of them.

Any, that is, besides Fanny.

For her, I crept into her bedroom, mindful to make no sound. She slept quietly, propped up on pillows to keep her lungs clear. The daylight filtered through the drawn curtains, peppering the air with shimmery motes I drifted through.

The chair beside her bed remained drawn in place, and I perched upon it with care. “Good morning, Fanny,” I whispered.

She slept on, tired and worn, mouth drawn into a small frown.

I had little doubt I’d carved those lines myself with my antics.

I took a small breath. “I know you won’t understand.” Slowly, mindful of her steady breathing, I covered a fragile hand with my own. Her skin was warm, dry and terribly thin. “I will forever regret that I came back only to leave again so soon. I wish I could spend the whole of my life making it all up to you.”

Tears thickened my voice. I refused to give them purchase, just in case Fanny were to wake and wonder at my tear-stained face. I shook my head.

“No one would let me do this, you understand.” I chuckled softly. “Zylla alone would like as not tie me somewhere. But I have no choice.” Slowly, I bent to lay my arms on the side of the bed, to cradle my cheek against her hand. I inhaled deeply, smelled the familiar fragrance of lavender and the perfume she acquired from France.

I adored that Ashmore did not force her to scrimp.

“Ashmore will take good care of all of you,” I promised. “He will never let you down. I know it doesn’t seem like it,” I added, closing my eyes, “but what I do now, I do for your safety. For Zylphia, and her child. Most of this is due to my own meddling anyhow.” A bitter laugh, little more than a hoarse rasp. “I had so arrogantly assumed that nothing I did would ever end in consequence, but I can no longer blame others.”

Fanny breathed out a soft sigh, shifting somewhat as though to settle more comfortably. I raised my head, but her eyes remained closed, her thin lips slack.

A smile touched my mouth. Warmed the resignation fostered in my heart. I was determined, but because I loved her—because I could no longer justify risking those I loved—I was resolved.

I stood, but dared not cup her cheek as I wanted. Instead, soft as I could, I brushed my lips over her brow. “Thank you,” I whispered, “for teaching me what it is to be a woman worthy of herself.”

I fled before I lost all nerve, before I inadvertently woke her. I could never repeat all that I said to her waking face, not when I knew she was ill. I would never form the correct arguments to sway her. All I knew was that if I did not act now, too many lives would be at stake.

A martyr I had never thought to be, and the word did not rest well upon my shoulders, but responsibility—this new thing I felt keenly, similar to guilt but sharper for it—demanded I act.

None saw me as I left. Mrs. Booth bustled merrily in the kitchen, the last I heard of my staff as the door eased closed in my wake.

Before the girders that lifted London’s most prominent locations above the fog, Chelsea had been much farther west than it sat now. At the time, a small district affectionately termed Little Chelsea had cropped up around the much finer Chelsea it mimicked.

When the girders were formed and the districts re-aligned, Little Chelsea remained behind.

I laughed when I came to understand that Fanny had made her new home in this small area, close enough to the Thames to occasionally catch a whiff of the sickly rot, but on a high enough slant that a good breeze might force most of the fog to a thin mist.

Of course, on particularly thick days, the smell rankled and the fog closed in.

This, fortunately, was not such a day, and it made catching a carriage, nicer than the hackneys prowling the East End, a simple matter. The coin I’d lifted from Ashmore’s bedroom would be missed at some point, but in my defense—in my conscience’s defense—it was for a good cause, and not the opium I might have been tempted to buy with it.

I like as not caught the driver’s eye with my attire, for it was uncommon enough for the urchin I resembled to be female and have enough coin for a lift. I was forced to show the coin first before he let me up.

Although I considered it a risk, I took the journey unarmed. I’d like as not be divested of any weapons I carried the instant I crossed the Menagerie threshold anyway. It seemed terribly unkind to borrow one of Booth’s plethora of weapons—each earned in service to Her Majesty—only to lose it.

Of course, I’d give almost anything for the Springfield he’d once loaned Zylphia.

A long-gun like that wouldn’t allow me to hire a carriage, that was for certain.

The driver took me all the way to Limehouse without much comment, though once we entered the East End, he didn’t mind so much sparing a creative grasp of uncivilities for the often problematic traffic.

A girl though I obviously was, he took me for a tart, most like, or a doxy’s brat, and didn’t bother with apologies.

I didn’t mind. I found a foul-mouth most interesting. I gave him all my pilfered coin.

For the first time, he slanted me a wide-eyed look of gratitude. “You sure?”

“Quite,” I told him, and waved him off. The horse nickered as the lash flicked overhead, and pleased with his spoils, the driver took off before I changed my mind.

Not that I would.

I’d tried speaking to the Veil before, albeit mostly under duress. Offhand, I did not willingly choose to banter with the aggravating spokesman.

This would be the first. And, most decidedly, the last.

The gates were closed by day, which did not surprise me. Only for goods moving in and out did they open. They were not manned, either, which spoke a great deal about the Menagerie’s sense of autonomy. Surely, no one would be so foolish as to break in.

I approached the ornate iron gates, remembering a time when I’d bound a man to them in lieu of delivery. I’d run out of time, and needed to get home before my staff woke and discovered my absence.

I couldn’t help a dry little huff, almost a laugh, as I curled my bare, chilled fingers around a single bar. The twisted iron was colder than my skin.

That quarry had been the catalyst for Hawke’s first lie. He’d claimed that I’d failed to turn the cove in. He refused to pay me.

He’d hoped to drive me away when matters beyond my sight had begun to stir dangerous currents. He’d known, and he’d kept it from me. That had been a terrible betrayal.

Oh, I’d always thought him capable of a lie, but I was naïve. I’d assumed that we wouldn’t lie to each other, for there was nothing to gain for it. The Menagerie posted bounties, I collected them that interested me, delivered them to Hawke, who paid.

To think that I’d gone so long without knowing what it was he did to keep me from the Veil’s notice.

All for naught.

The gray day, easing to the afternoon after a long jaunt from Little Chelsea, curled around me like a thin shroud, gossamer fine and less acrid than it might be deeper in.

It was a simple matter to scale the gate. Wrought-iron gates were ornate affairs, especially when guarding pleasure gardens and estates. The very nature of their shape made them easy to clamber over. I didn’t break a sweat as my booted feet, clad in the same boots I’d worn in the circus the night before, found purchase upon whorls and wrought leaves.

Mrs. Booth, bless her dirt-despising heart, had scrubbed the leather boots and left them to dry before the kitchen stove. They were stiff, but serviceable, and I thought them better suited for my needs.

I didn’t even need to muster an
allez
,
hop!
to do it.

The gravel beneath me crunched as I landed softly. Adjusting my skewed cap, I rubbed at my shoulder as it throbbed a bit, but that, too, didn’t hurt nearly so badly as I’d worried.

A dislocated shoulder joint sometimes led to fractures. Although fortunate enough to escape this fate, I’d known them what weren’t—and many were the result of loggerheads gone awry, not all aerial antics. I didn’t know if it was Hawke’s skill or luck that saved me from such a fate this time, but I’d not look down my nose at it.

The grounds were quiet—much less activity than I expected, even by day. Though the night was reserved for them what worked it, there were always matters to tend to when the sun was high. Maintenance, primarily, cleaning, manicuring the lawn lest it get too muddy or too overgrown.

I’d seen Hawke more than once taking part in such necessary responsibilities. He’d never been one to let others do all the work.

My heart thudded against my breast, nerves turning the steady beat into an irregular patter. My palms were damp from the gate, or perhaps clammy with sweat.

I wasn’t sure exactly how to achieve the Veil’s attentions—at least in a manner that wouldn’t immediately see me executed—but I thought a good start would be to enter the Veil’s manor at the back of the vast grounds.

After all, that was where the servants always dragged me.

By day, the pleasure gardens were dreary, less a dream and more barren without the fairy light distilled by the Chinese lanterns strung overhead. They weren’t ugly, not when the paper strung along the paths was so prettily painted, but in the lackluster light of day, they required a certain spark.

I wondered if I’d ever see them lit again.

A shudder wrenched at my spine. I closed my hands into fists, as though stiffening my arms might keep my body upright, and forged across the lawn.

I did not make it as far as I’d hoped.

Three Ferrymen wandered across the grass, conversing rather genially despite the damp. Each were clad in the sort of attire one might expect from the coves running the street, all patched fustian and thick wool shirts rather than a working man’s overalls or dockman’s coat. Leather banded one at the arm, while another had strips of filthy cloth wrapped around knuckles—torn, most like, from a scrap.

They strode as brothers in arms, laughing raucously at some jest or another.

I dared not risk recognition.

I plucked at my cap between two fingers, tugging it low over my brow as I circled widely. A detour would take me farther westerly than I wanted, but I was in no immediate hurry. Aside from the obvious, of course. If I reached the farthest outliers of the grounds, I could pick my way all the way around without standing out like a stranger.

A great deal of my planning had always relied on fortune over exacting details. This had not always worked in my favor, but it did allow me a certain amount of unpredictability.

Unfortunately, this new Menagerie with its unfamiliar routine proved less than amicable to my goals.

As I passed the sweets’ abode—quiet, for sake of the slumbering residents—I began to relax. After another few minutes, when no hue and cry rose behind me, I breathed out a sigh of relief.

I rounded one of the various buildings that dotted the farthest rim of the Menagerie, hands tucked into my pockets to conserve a bit of warmth. For that reason, I wasn’t prepared for the sudden appearance of stacked obstacles in my path.

I jerked roughly to a halt, sidestepped when my balance wobbled, and only clipped a corner of the wooden crates filling the space behind the storage facility. My injured shoulder sent sparks of pain through my senses, clapping black spots over my vision, but I gritted my teeth and clutched it tightly; squeezing the flesh sufficed in lieu of hissed curses.

Damn Hawke all over again for that parting gift.

When my sight stopped wobbling in time with the thud of my heartbeat in the injury, I took a deep breath and let it all out as though I were expelling the pain. It helped.

The grounds I crept through were silent, made all the more eerie for the shadows congealed behind the homes and buildings dotting the vast lawn. In the lee of a storage facility, where the air was colder and the damp clinging, I wondered what the crates stored.

Why here and not inside, where it was less likely to damage the contents?

That was a riddle solved easily enough. I simply had to look inside.

I bent my good shoulder to one of the crates stacked at my height, shoved until the upper half of the tower wobbled and shifted. The contents revealed beneath glinted in the murky light.

Glass.

I plucked a phial from the interior, raising both eyebrows when the contents proved empty. Another still bore traces of cloudy residue.

Perhaps these were stored out here because they were waiting for cleaning, or for disposal.

Was this the cast-off remains of the serum the Veil gave the Ferrymen?

I remembered all too clearly the primal fear raised by the monstrous men who had chased me from the Menagerie, and I did not like the way it chilled my blood.

I plucked three empty phials at random, studied them carefully. There wasn’t enough residue to ooze, but I did note that two seemed darker than the last. Perhaps these were trials gone awry, or failures.

The Veil
had
been after me for months to fetch the serum my father had used upon me. Was this part of the Veil’s attempt to make its own?

I tucked the phials back into the crate, mind furiously churning. Would Ashmore unlock the secrets of that flask Hawke had given? I had little doubt he would, for this was his expertise.

Would he do so in time to help Ishmael?

I had faith.

And with that faith, I needed to complete my own mission.

I left the crates where they were, rounded the far corner of the storage facility. I couldn’t say for certain what it was that caused me to jerk backwards, but my body slipped into a fluid backbend before my brain catalogued exactly why.

The harsh crack of a whip snapping through the air over my face jerked me away from thoughts of what-if and solidly into present matters.

Caught unawares as I was, I lacked the follow-through to end again on my feet.

My hands clapped into the dirt, my posterior following suit, and I stared open-mouthed at Ikenna Osoba, and the whip snaking between his long fingers.