“Stay with me, Louisa. Stay here.”
No, I thought, closing my eyes into restless bliss. It’s time.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Are you lost, child?”
I had read about jungles but quite obviously had never seen one with my eyes. The humidity came first, like a damp caress, and then the sound of water playing over stones. Fronds arced above my head, explosively bright flowers lining the ground in such abundance I could never have counted them all.
The voice. I knew that voice. I turned toward it, away from the glory of the jungle’s palms and blossoms, and found the source of the voice and the water. There was a waterfall, an entire wall of waterfalls, and a woman walking toward me. She was the most beautiful person I had ever seen, tall and strong, with well-muscled arms and thick legs. Her skin was dark purple, so dark it was almost black. Her hair, pink and long, was coiled and pinned into a heart shape on her head, the plaits dotted with jewels. Most incredible of all were her eyes, the predominant pair wide and pink, though she had eight eyes in total, with smaller ones curving up along her cheekbones.
“Are you lost?” she asked me again. Her voice was like music, melodic and soft, a voice I had heard before when it came from my bones.
I moved toward her as if reeled in on a line. I wanted to be near her. Be her.
“My feet are on the path,” I told her. “At least . . . I thought so. Where is this?”
“You will only be staying for a little while,” she said with a warm smile. She towered over me as she approached, dressed in a simple pale dress, the color of summer peaches. “But do not worry, dear one, you will see me again.”
“I don’t want to go,” I said. Vaguely, I knew that wherever I was supposed to be was not a happy place. Was this the Dusk Lands? If so, it did not seem so bad after all. Staying there, in that paradise, sounded much, much better. “Can I not stay here with you?”
She laughed, scrunching up her many eyes playfully. “Oh, no, for this is nowhere, an in-between place, and no home for a young girl such as you.” Her ears perked up and she tilted her head to the side, sighing. “Ah. Well. It is almost time for you to go, but you must remember one thing when you awake. . . .”
“The other place is ugly. I don’t want to go.”
Again she giggled at me and shook her head. “You will make it more beautiful; that is your path. And remember this, dear one: do not forget me. See this,” and here she pressed one finger to the swollen bite on my hand. “See this and remember.”
“I . . . will try,” I said. “How do you know it is time for me to go?”
Her image began to waver as if it were only a mirage. I took in one last smile from her as she looked sadly toward the waterfall. “Because I sense his power again, and if they have done what I think they have, that means you have gained a gift and a burden. Remember, dear one, remember . . .”
“By God, it worked! You absolute genius, it worked!”
Breath flooded into me hard enough to make me choke. I sat up, coughing uncontrollably, spitting up so much pink foam that the men around me recoiled in unison. I was alive—had I died? Where had I gone? I looked around, realizing whatever I had just seen was already fading from memory. No matter how much I tried, I could not think of even a single detail.
I was lying in the grass still, gazing up at a dozen faces lit by the moon. Mr. Morningside was there to my left, hugging Chijioke with bruising enthusiasm. All of the familiar faces were there: Mrs. Haylam, Poppy, Lee, Finch, and the dark-skinned stranger. Only the shepherd and Sparrow were missing. And Father. Where was Father?
Putting a hand to my chest, I coughed one last time and studied my fingers. They came away from my apron stained with blood and pink froth. Someone had draped a jacket over me for modesty.
“I was dead,” I said weakly. “How . . .”
My eyes drifted to Mrs. Haylam, but she simply shook her head.
“Chijioke ferried your soul back into your body before it could escape,” Mr. Morningside told me with a gentle smile. His hair was even wilder now, and flecked with blood. “Although it took, well . . . How do you feel?”
“Strange,” I murmured. Very strange. I was me, certainly, but I felt different, stronger, as if just flexing my hand or moving my head was an invigorating exercise. The urge to transform everything in the near vicinity was there, too, and a sense that I was seeing more clearly, with new precision. And there was a pit in my stomach, one made of anger and regret, and deep, dark memories. The grass seemed to bend toward me, as if responding to my hovered palm.
Before I could say another word, Finch sprang to his feet. He stumbled away from us, his mouth covered with one hand as he pointed an accusing finger first at Chijioke and then at Mr. Morningside. “What have you been doing, Henry? This boy . . . he can ferry souls to other bodies? This is not your power to command! Those souls are meant to move on, to embrace death. . . .”
Mr. Morningside and Chijioke shared a look, one I could not fully read but one that did not seem optimistic, and then in a blink both men rose and gave chase. But Finch was gone, fleeing, lifting into the air and out of their reach before they could get to him.
They returned slowly, Chijioke eyeing Mr. Morningside with his lip between his teeth. “We should not let him escape with that knowledge. . . .”
“It is what it is,” Mr. Morningside said grimly. “The truth was bound to out eventually.”
I hardly knew what they meant, and could not muster the energy to untangle the knot.
“Where is Father?” I asked softly, casting around for where he might be. “Did you save him in time?”
“That’s . . . the tricky bit,” Chijioke said. He was having trouble meeting my eye. “It was the only way to bring you back, Louisa.”
Mr. Morningside took my hand before the panic really gripped me. My eyes flew to his and my mouth dropped open. No. No. They couldn’t have done it. How could they have done it?
“Where is Mary?” he asked gently.
And I knew. At once I knew. “Oh God,” I whispered, closing my eyes tightly. “She’s in the fortress. In the First City. He imprisoned her there after she returned from the Dusk Lands. It’s like I can feel parts of him in me . . . his thoughts, or memories, bits and pieces of it.” Tears bubbled up, spilling in hot torrents down my face. I squeezed his hand, willing it not to be true, willing my father’s blighted soul out of my body. “I need . . . I need to think. I must be alone.”
“That’s not a good idea right now,” Chijioke said, intervening when I tried to stand. My balance almost gave out, but then I found my feet. “You shouldn’t be alone until the shock wears off.”
“And who is responsible for that shock?” I shot back, furious. Softly, Lee cleared his throat and I half sobbed, half sighed. “Of course. Of course you would let him make the decision.”
“Louisa, it only seemed fair,” Mr. Morningside told me, placing a careful hand on my back. I shrugged away. “You must not be cross with him. This is a good thing, yes? The book is preserved, Mary is found, and the soul of your people has a new start. A second chance.”
I nodded, knowing all of that was true and right, knowing also that Lee deserved to decide my fate as I had decided his. And yet . . . And yet . . . It hurt. Maybe it would hurt less upon reflection, but I doubted it.
“I’m sorry.”
The stranger had spoken, his voice rough but not unfriendly. I turned gradually to face him, taking in his huge purple eyes and markings. More than that, I saw the still healing wound on his cheek, a slim red line, a line that might be left by a bullet grazing a cheek. But I understood him—how? Of course. I sighed. With my father’s soul had come his knowledge and his power.
The language sprang to my lips as easily as English. “I know you,” I said wearily. “You were Bennu the Runner’s companion; you guarded him from Egypt to the First City. You’re an Abediew, a moon jackal called Khent. But how did you survive this long?”
“I slept w
hen the kingdom slept, when Father slept,” he said, scratching at the back of his neck sheepishly. “I woke not long ago to find the fortress frozen in time, everything as it was, and yet Father was gone. Tracking him took many months, many, many months, and when I at last found him it was too late. I was . . . too late to warn you.”
“That’s why you only attacked Mary in the woods,” I murmured. “Because it was him.” My hand slid into my apron pocket, closing over the bent spoon. “And you tried to return my spoon. With . . . an apology. Of a kind.”
He ducked his head, eyes as furtive and gentle as a chided dog’s. “I do not yet speak your language well, but I will learn.”
“You should rest, lass; your body and soul need to mend,” Chijioke said. There was a bird cradled in his hand, not dead but weakened. Was that where my soul had been while they found a way to entwine it with Father’s? I felt ill, and yes, as he said, exhausted. I longed for bed but dreaded utterly what my dreams had in store.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Drawing up more contracts?”
For once in a long while, I found Mr. Morningside’s office door wide open. I waited just outside, watching him bending over his desk while he wrote languidly across a fresh parchment. He smiled but did not look up from his work.
“Not this time, dear Louisa. This is a bit of important correspondence, a letter I was hoping you might deliver to an acquaintance in London.”
We had not spoken outright about my leaving, but the knowledge of it was in the air. Everybody seemed to know I would go even before I said a word about it. Perhaps Poppy had glimpsed me packing my meager belongings and sorting through Father’s possessions, and that was indication enough that the rumors should start. I didn’t mind.
“Here.” Mr. Morningside finished the letter swiftly. It was not very long, and he closed it with one of his flourishing signatures, then dashed it with drying powder and folded it. “I would say this isn’t urgent, but please give it your full attention when you get to the city. Something has not sat right with me for quite some time.”
The folded note was still warm from his hand when I took it and tucked it into the folds of my skirts. “Who is it for?”
Mr. Morningside leaned casually against the edge of his desk and coaxed one of his birds onto his hand. It was a dainty finch, and it climbed onto his fingers with a soft cheep. I don’t know if it was nostalgia or anxiety, but I felt suddenly sad and a little afraid. Was this the last time I would stand in this strange office and smell the scent of his books, tea, and the dusty pleasant perfume of so many fluttering wings?
“I’d like for you to visit the shop where I purchased Bennu’s journal. I want more information about who brought it in initially.”
Nodding, I felt another wave of fear. Leaving had felt like a way to extricate myself from all the confusing mysteries of the house, but it seemed the mysteries would never end. This would be one last favor, I told myself, and then I would be done. “I thought about that, too. How did the journal leave the First City? Someone must have taken it, perhaps a thief or . . .”
“Yes.” Mr. Morningside looked distracted, his eyes fixed over my shoulder. “Let us hope it was a thief. My alternate theories are far less harmless.”
I turned to find that Chijioke and Poppy had been summoned. The little girl with the marked face had her hands deep in her pockets and swung side to side, grinning up at me. Chijioke, by contrast, could not even for an instant meet my eye.
“Well. The time has come, Louisa, to discuss the dissolution of their work contracts,” Mr. Morningside said, striding briskly into the foyer and standing between us.
At once, Poppy’s face fell and she hid her eyes behind spread fingers. “You’re . . . You’re going to make us leave? But why?”
“Did we do something wrong?” Chijioke quickly added.
“Wrong? No, not at all. You have both been exemplary employees,” he said.
“Then why must we go?” Poppy whined, but she sounded on the verge of tears. “Who else would take me in?”
I cleared my throat with some difficulty and knelt, but she did not come nearer. “Why, I would take you in. I have some money available to me now, Poppy, and I wanted all of you to come with me. You don’t have to stay in this wretched place anymore; you don’t have to kill people or do Mrs. Haylam’s bidding. And you, Chijioke, would you not like a house of your own?”
He chuckled and crossed his thick arms across his chest. “Wait, lass, is this your idea of a gift?”
“It isn’t wretched here!” Poppy scampered back and flung her arms around Chijioke’s leg, hugging it. “This is my home. It’s where I belong!”
“That’s not true,” I said, but I could already tell this was a battle I was going to lose. “Just because it’s the only thing you know doesn’t mean it’s the best place in the whole world for you.”
“We like it here, Louisa. I like it here.” Chijioke shook his head, giving me a pitying smile. He put his hand reassuringly on Poppy’s little shoulder. “I’ve no desire to live in a city. I wouldn’t be able to breathe there.”
I stood and went quiet, saying nothing until Mr. Morningside ushered Poppy toward the steps leading up and out of the cellar. “There is no need to fuss, Poppy. I am not sending you away, only allowing Louisa here to collect on her end of our bargain.”
Chijioke took the girl’s hand and pulled her toward the stairs, giving me a glance over his shoulder. “I’m sorry, lass. No offense, but you might’ve asked. I would have gladly told you I’ve no desire to leave.”
And then they were gone. I had the letter in my hand still but it felt like nothing, like I held nothing at all, and that that emptiness was my reward in all of this.
“Lee?” I heard myself say softly.
“Mrs. Haylam knows of no way to untether him from the Black Elbion. Leaving its circle of power would kill him, Louisa.” Mr. Morningside took a few strides toward the stairs, and waited to speak again until the door up above us latched. He looked at me sidelong and sighed. “You know, I almost wish they had agreed to leave with you. I do so fear what the shepherd might do next.”
Fighting the numb feeling in my body, I squinted and watched him pace. “What do you mean?”
“Finch . . . What he saw . . . They were never to know that Chijioke has the ability to transfer souls from vessel to vessel. I’m meant to be banishing the souls here to death permanently. Instead, I may have . . . tweaked the rules. Slightly.” He ruffled his dark hair and puffed out his lips. “I would be more nervous, but for having you on my side.”
“Your side?” I laughed, mirthless. “I will deliver this letter for you, but then I want nothing to do with you.”
His face went still and unreadable, like one of his flickering masks from the pavilion. “You might now have the luxury of money, Louisa, but you do not have the luxury of anonymity. The shepherd will hear the story from Finch. He will know just as I do that you have Father’s soul inside you. Pretend you can run all you like, girl, but ancient wheels have a way of turning, and old, ugly wounds have a way of opening up again.”
I shook my head. No, no . . . he was wrong. I could go to London and live a normal life. I could free Mary and then find a way to be myself again.
“I suppose time will tell which of us is right,” I told him softly.
He walked by me and took hold of his door, closing it after him as he began to leave me standing alone in the foyer. “Time will tell indeed, Louisa, but I do not think we will have all that long to wait.”
At least in one respect he was correct; time really did move swiftly as my departure from Coldthistle approached. As ready as I was to leave, I felt ambushed by it. This time, there was none of the hope that I would be leaving with my odd friends in tow, which made the leaving all the more difficult. On that fateful day, a carriage waited outside for me, and with it, the promise of a new life. I had more possessions now than I had when I arrived, inheriting Father’s bags and leather case, and t
he cage with his pink-and-purple spider.
Poppy had wanted me to leave it behind, eager for another pet. Bartholomew panted at my side, leaning against my legs as I waited for Mr. Morningside to emerge from his green door. My heart felt heavy, the urge to cry pressing constantly at the back of my eyes and throat. Why did it feel so hard to leave? I alternately hated and tolerated this place, but now . . . now . . .
“You will take care of that spider, won’t you, Louisa? It looks very rare,” Poppy said, crouching down to look into the cage. The spider lifted one leg as if in greeting.
Whenever I looked at the thing or someone mentioned it, my head hurt, as if there was some memory trapped in there, punching its way out. I would remember eventually, I thought, for Father’s influence came and went. It would take time, I decided, to sort through his knowledge and memories, to find a balance between the anger that had defined him and the struggles that had defined me.
“You must give her a name!” Poppy said excitedly, jumping up.
“Hm,” I replied, tapping my lower lip. “How about Mab?”
“Like the queen,” she breathed. “I like it!”
Then she was flinging herself at me, hugging me hard around the waist until I returned it. And I did in earnest, finding I would miss her bouncing around on my bed, waking me from ugly dreams. I scruffed Bartholomew’s ears and he whined, as if offended I was trading in one guardian hound for another.
“This won’t be the last time we meet,” I told the dog, patting his head. “Something makes me sure of that.”
“Well, I will guarantee it.” Mr. Morningside had arrived, sparkling as always in a pristine ice-gray suit and silver cravat. He sidled up to me and bowed, which was his habit now, and extremely irritating. He must have noticed the sour expression on my face. “You’re more than a maid now, Louisa; you’re a young woman with a fortune in her pocket and the soul of an ancient god. You will soon have a great house in London. You will experience the Season. This time next year you’ll have marriage proposals coming out of your ears. So please, for the love of all that is dark and disastrous, learn to enjoy a man bowing to you.”