Strange and Ever After (13 page)

Clarence flung his hands up, his knees kicking high with each step. And he screamed, “It’s not time, Eleanor! Not yet! Wake up! WAKE UP!”

The jackal jumped at me. Fangs snapped in front of my face. I stumbled backward, and somehow golden streaks reared up along the sides of my vision.

“No!” I planted my feet. Wind and frozen mist thundered over me and through me. But I would not move until I could speak to Clarence. “The boat—I can get in the boat!”

The jackal jumped again. I held my ground even as the world turned black before my eyes and howls shattered my ears.

But then Clarence’s figure vanished in a swirl of black and gray—and the jackal’s heavy feet slammed against my chest. The jackal’s glowing eyes surged into my face. . . .

I fell backward, and in a rush of light and silence, I plummeted through the curtain.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Hands gripped my shoulders—shaking. Jarring me
awake. My eyelids burst open, and I stared dazedly into burning yellow eyes.

Oliver gaped at me, his breathing rough. Then fury scored into his face. He flung me back as if scalded. “You returned,” he hissed.

I didn’t answer. The Hell Hounds’ growls echoed in my ears, and my pulse still skittered. I squinted at the porthole. An orange glow filtered through. Dawn.

“You went
back
,” Oliver repeated, “after I told you not to.”

“Not on purpose,” I croaked. “I cast a dream ward.”

“Liar.” His face sank into a sneer.

“I
swear
, Ollie.”

Doubt flickered on his face, and I pushed on. “All I know is that I cast a dream ward, fell asleep, and awoke on the dock.” I rose roughly onto my elbows. “And . . . Clarence Wilcox was there. I saw him.”

Oliver’s sneer finally vanished, replaced with weary resignation. He strode to the porthole, and the sunrise disappeared. He became a silhouette of blazing orange. “Let them go, El. Let Clarence go. Let your mother go. And for God’s sake, let Elijah go,”

“Because you have let Elijah go?”

“Master your grief,” he continued dully, “and then
let them go
.”

Though the room spun, I stumbled to him. “Are you such a master of
your
grief?” I jabbed my hand into his waistcoat and yanked out the flask. He jolted toward me but made no move to reclaim it.

He simply barked a stony laugh. “My loss is a part of me, El. I cope with it as best I can. But you?” His gaze roamed over my face. “You fight to keep what you cannot have back.” His hands rose, and almost languidly, he pried each of my fingers from the flask. “Crossing realms will not return your family to you.”

“And I did not cross on purpose.” I relaxed my grasp, and the flask fell into his palms. “Marcus’s spell must be drawing me over the curtain still.” Even as the words fell from my tongue, I sensed they were not true. Marcus was not the one pulling me over the curtain. Somehow, these trips were linked to the jackal.

But I kept that to myself, for at that moment Oliver said,
“Revenge will not bring back your family either, Eleanor.”

“Revenge?” I repeated, incredulous. “Marcus must be purged from this earth, and it has nothing to do with revenge. Even you said he no longer belongs here—that his time has already come.”

“Huh.” Oliver unscrewed the flask top, twisting back to the porthole. “I did say that, didn’t I? And it was only two days ago. How funny.” He gulped back liquor, and his cheeks briefly brightened with drink. His yellow eyes too.

“What is funny?”

“How much has changed in two days.” He returned the flask to his pocket.

And I gritted my teeth. He had come here to wake me . . . and to scold me. Yet now he was a wall of defiance. “And
what
precisely has changed?”

No response at first. Then with his focus still on the shining sea outside, he said, “I saw what Elijah truly was. I saw the black soul inside him and what sort of necromancer he had become.”

I reared back. “That was not Elijah in Marseille.”

“Close enough,” Oliver muttered to himself. “It is what he would have become.” Then louder, “I am not on this team, Eleanor. I will
never
be on this team any more than I will ever be human. Remember that.”

Demon
. Jie’s voice whispered through my brain—the way she had looked at Oliver. The way he had vanished afterward.

“Once I find the Old Man,” he went on, “then I am done with this. Jacques Girard told me what must be done, and once
this command”—he clutched at his stomach, his teeth clenching—“is complete, then I can go home. You may set me free, and I can return to my peaceful existence in the spirit realm. Finally.”

“But what of Marcus? He must be stopped.”

“I do not
care
about Marcus.”

“He stole Elijah’s body.” I grabbed Oliver’s shoulder, tried to turn him toward me. “I thought that mattered to you.”

“No.” The word shot out. Then, faster than I could react, Oliver closed me in against the wall. “Elijah,” he whispered, “got exactly what he deserved, El. Can you not see that? There is
nothing
to avenge.”

“You loved him. You
told
me you loved him.”

“And he betrayed me.” Oliver moved back, and he glared at me through half-closed lids. “First loves are blind. And second loves . . .” He snorted, shifting back to the porthole once more. “Second loves are even more so.”

“So you will leave me?” I grabbed at his arm.

“Yes,” he said simply.

“H-how? I have to set you free—within two months. That was the deal.” My fingers fisted around the fabric of his sleeve. “If I do not set you free, then you cannot leave me.”

“Is that what you think?” The edge of his lip twitched up. “Oh, naive Eleanor. You only ever see what you want to see, don’t you? Take me, for example.” His face angled toward me. “You only see a demon bound to his master—and you’re right. I may
not
be a man . . . but it does not mean I lack for feelings.

“I have wants too,” he went on, “and the more I’m trapped in this human body, the more I find myself
wanting
like a man wants. Feeling like a man feels. As if the demon pieces of my soul are rubbing off and washing away.” He dipped in closer, his voice dropping to a mere whisper. “So be careful, El. Be careful how you treat me, for one day you may find you’ve pushed me too far.”

You might wake up and find me gone
.

His threat pulsed through my skull. Actual words—just like the jackal’s.

I gasped, releasing his sleeve. “How did you do that? Put your thought inside my mind?”

“There is much I can do that you do not know about.” Oliver flourished his hands and sauntered back two steps—though a stiffness marked the movement, as if he too might have been surprised.

“But . . . you
cannot
leave me,” I insisted. “You
need
me—to command your magic.”

“Then I suppose you will have to push me too far, El, and see what happens.
Or
”—his eyes narrowed—“if you bear me any affection at all, then simply be kind. And
please
, do not go into the spirit realm. You risk us both each time you do.” Then, with a graceful twirl, he moved toward the door. “What is the line, El? From
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
? Something about a spaniel . . .”

“‘I am your spaniel,’” I said hollowly, watching him cross the cabin. “‘And the more you beat me, I will fawn on you.’”

He snapped his fingers. “That’s the one. Except . . .” He pulled the door lightly open and glanced back at me with a pained smile. “I am not a spaniel, and the more you beat me, I will
run
.”

I stared at the sunrise for what felt like hours. Oliver’s words had cut deep, and though I did not see how he could leave me—
I
was the master; he was bound to
me
—I was scared to test his threat. If he could speak straight into my mind, what else could he do?

As selfish as I knew it was, Oliver was the only thing I had left from my former life. The only thing that still tied me to Elijah. I
needed
that bond, for in just a two short weeks, my magical link to this demon had become as familiar to me as my pulse.

I did not want to push him so far away that he was gone forever. At least not until this was over. Not until Marcus was gone and the world was right again.

Eventually I withdrew the ivory fist from my pocket and held it to the porthole. It almost looked as if its shape had shifted—as if the fingers were beginning to unfurl. My brow wrinkled, and I examined it more closely . . . until I forgot what I was doing.

Whatever strange artifact this was, at least while I looked at
it
I did not have to think about Oliver. Or Mama. Or Daniel’s mechanical hand, now lying beneath my pillow. Or Jie’s broken gaze. Or anything at all. Somehow, simply staring at the fist made my heart settle and my brain ease. I lost track of time and thoughts, and I smiled.

But eventually I heard voices in the hall. Jie’s soft voice. It
called me back to the present—I wanted to speak to her. I
missed
her.

So I returned the fist to my pocket and hurried into the hall. Jie was just walking into the pilothouse, and by the time I reached the glass room, she was at the wheel. She leaned on the spokes, her head in her hands. Though she stiffened slightly at my approach, she did not look my way.

“Have you slept?” I asked gently, moving to her side.

“No.” Her fingers curled around one of the spokes. “I . . . don’t want to.”

“You’re safe here.”

She turned her face toward me. In the bright morning sun, her eyes looked like endless pools of amber. “Am I?” She lifted her left arm, and a lump bulged beneath her sleeve. “I’m completely dependent on this.” She rolled back her sleeve to reveal a metal canister not much larger than a thimble. At one end was a round bit of rubber.

“What is that?”

“It’s called a cup.” Jie tapped the rubber. “This makes a suction—or I think that’s what Daniel said. It pulls out a few droplets of blood every second.”

“So Daniel made it?”

Jie nodded. “Based on what Miss Wilcox described.”

“Does it work?”

“Yeah.” She wet her lips, staring at it with blank eyes. “For now. But when I sleep? When I dream?”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Is it worse to go to sleep and drown in the terror?” She swung her head forward, her gaze so distant, I thought she saw another world entirely. “Or is it worse to wake up and find it’s real?”

I swallowed, unsure what to say. At last I simply asked. “Were you . . .
aware
when you were with him?”

“Sometimes I would return to my mind, frozen in place and seeing him. Sometimes we would be walking. Sometimes he would be speaking to me . . . or dressing m—” She broke off and shuddered. “I-I never knew if those moments were intentional. If he let me be in my brain and see from my eyes so I would know how helpless I was. Or maybe he just lost control of his magic from time to time. At least I was only with him for one day.” She inhaled deeply. “At least you came for me.”

“Of
course
we came for you.”

“Right,” she said absently. Then she sighed through her nose and gave an empty smile. “Daniel speaking to a Wilcox. It’s hard to believe, yeah?”

I blinked at the sudden change in subject.

“And Miss Wilcox isn’t the only strange thing I found on here,” Jie went on. “Your, uh . . .
demon
is here too.” There was a tightness—a bitterness even—in her voice.

And guilt grated against my insides. So much had happened in such a short time—Jie had returned to a world upheaved.

“Joseph explained Oliver to me,” she added. “He says the demon helped us.”

“He has.” I lowered my hands.

“Then I guess it’s all right if he’s here.” Yet nothing in her voice said she felt all right. Especially when she murmured again, “Yeah, it’ll be all right.”

We descended into silence. The only sound was the engine, the occasional whip of wind against the gondola, and the opening and closing of doors. Soon enough, Allison bustled into the pilothouse, her chin up. “It is time for more bloodletting,” she declared with all the authority of a doctor. “Roll up your sleeve, Miss Chen.”

My eyebrows lifted. And with a deftness I never would have expected, Allison released the suction on Jie’s vacuum, slipped a clean bandage over the wound, and quickly bound it up. “Other arm,” she said, and Jie extended her right arm. Allison patted the soft skin below her elbow and then extended a sharp lancet.

Jie inhaled. Allison slashed. Blood blossomed. Then Allison set a second suctioning cup against the wound, squeezed the rubber tip to draw out the air . . . and released.

The cup stayed sucked firmly against Jie’s arm.

“If only we had leeches,” Allison murmured, shooting Jie an apologetic look. “Then we could just pop one of those on you, and I would not have to cut you every hour before the old incisions scab over. But if we cannot find leeches in Egypt, then a scarificator will do. It won’t hurt as much, at least.” Her gaze slid to me, lips puffing out. “Thank
goodness
I was here to help Miss Chen, no?”