“I certainly will do my best.”
She looked away from him, fingers playing with her fan. “The maid, as I said, had her reasons for attacking me. She … lost someone dear to her, I suspect; a brother, perhaps. I fear it drove her mad. She somehow got it into her head that I knew something of this—which I most certainly did not—and was attempting to beat that information out of me. For the sake of the one she lost.”
Myers, studying the tense line of her neck, the movement of the fan, considered her phrasing. Most certainly did not. “Have you learned something since then?”
Again that look, both disgruntled and impressed. “How do you know these things?”
I have spent a great deal of time watching women lie, usually about their ability to raise ghosts. Though he was nothing on Sidgwick, for such observations. Myers knew his own desire for success sometimes blinded him. “What you’ve learned—is that what troubles you?”
“No. Well, yes—” Miss Kittering sighed. “The question that plagues me is, what do I owe to a crazed Irish maid who tried to strangle me?”
“You mean, do you owe her your assistance.”
She looked away again, then nodded.
Myers wanted to ask for more details, but her obvious reticence told him not to push. Considered in its most general terms, however, the crux of the matter was clear. “Would it do anyone any good for her to know? Either the maid, or this fellow she lost?”
A long silence answered that, until they had nearly reached the bank of the Serpentine. Finally—grudgingly—Miss Kittering said, “It might.”
“Would it cost you much to help?”
Even more grudgingly, she said, “No.”
“Then, from what you have told me, the only reason to refuse is spite toward this maid, for what she did to you. But your wounds healed, and hers, it seems, cannot. Unless someone helps her.”
Staring out over the placid waters of the artificial lake, Miss Kittering spoke again, sounding oddly lost and confused. “I’m not accustomed to feeling this way. There was a time I would have forgotten her without hesitation.”
Quietly, Myers said, “I must confess, I would think less of you if you did.”
She turned to face him, skirts brushing pebbles into rattling motion. “That, too, is unaccustomed. I never thought I would care so much what you think. But I do; I find I cannot bear the thought of you condemning me.” Miss Kittering sighed. “So be it, then. I know what I must do.”
St. Mary Abbots Workhouse, Kensington: July 27, 1884
Following her release from the black punishment cell, Eliza heeded Quinn’s advice and behaved herself, swallowing every bit of rebellion and reluctance. They churned uneasily in her gut—along with a case of the gripes she got from bad food—but she held her peace. To really get the sergeant’s help, she would need proof, and she couldn’t get it from inside here. Eliza doubted she could win free by model behavior, but it was at least worth a try; and in the meanwhile, she would look for other options. She’d made a mistake, trying to run so early, before she knew enough.
So when the matron came to find her a little over a week later, Eliza was not locked away, pressing on her own eyeballs out of desperation; she was up to her elbows in scalding hot water and soap, scrubbing the battered tiles of the workhouse floor. “Another visitor,” the woman said. “You’re a popular one, aren’t you?”
Her tone made it clear what she thought of that, but Eliza showed no offense. She dried her hands, curtsied, and followed the matron, wondering. Hoping. Quinn back again? Has he found proof of the faeries?
Not Quinn. The matron led her to a different room, which proved to be a small parlor, of the sort where ladies from the Workhouse Visiting Society would take their tea, while being told grand lies about the public good such places did. One such silk-clad lady was waiting in the corner, studying a bad landscape painting on the wall, when Eliza entered, with the matron close behind.
Then the lady turned around, and Eliza stopped dead. It was Louisa Kittering.
Who swept past her as if she weren’t there and took the matron’s hands in her own, nonsense courtesies spilling from her mouth—“So grateful to you, just rest yourself in this chair, please, there’s nothing here you need worry yourself about in the slightest”—whereupon the woman nodded, smiling vacantly, and sat herself down as if she’d forgotten her own name.
“Don’t say anything,” the changeling told Eliza. She said it almost in the same breath, but her tone and entire posture changed, the bright silliness falling away like a costume. “And please, for the love of Mab, don’t hit me again. If I scream, we’ll have half the staff on us in an instant, and I can’t charm them all.”
The creature was between her and the door. Eliza backed away, wishing she had a crucifix. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—”
Louisa Kittering’s face showed exasperation. “That won’t do any good against me, you know—it doesn’t even scare me anymore. Will you hush? I’m here to help you.”
Eliza stopped. No, she really had just said that. “You’re a liar.”
“What I am is the one who can help you get him back.” She held up the lost photo of Owen.
For all her apparent calm, the changeling squeaked in alarm when Eliza snatched the picture from her gloved hand. I thought it gone forever. Her heart thudded hard against her ribs. “Why—why would you do that?”
Composure regained, the changeling lifted her eyebrows as if she were wondering that herself. “Before we say anything more, a few basic rules. We aren’t going to talk about who, and what, I am—”
“The devil we aren’t,” Eliza said violently.
A raised hand stopped her. “I’ll have you know the girl you’re so concerned about chose this. She had to; I couldn’t have done … what I did unless she was willing. She’s off to enjoy the life she wants, without fear her parents will chase her down. Isn’t that a gift?”
“And I’m to be believing you did that out of the goodness of your heart?” Eliza snorted to show what she thought of that. “What do you get out of it?”
The changeling smiled. “The ability to stand here in front of you while you fling words of your God at me, without fear they’ll harm me. The safety of knowing my protection won’t wear off, the way other kinds do. The freedom to stay in London, so long as I keep to this life. She and I both got what we wanted.”
For all the tales she’d heard of changelings, Eliza had never thought of the faerie side. She’d assumed the point was to steal mortals away—and maybe for some of them, it was. When it came to the faerie left in the mortal’s place, though, she hadn’t given it much thought, other than to call it mischief on their parts. This one wants to live as a mortal…?
Not fully mortal—not given what she’d just done to the matron, who was still smiling at the far wall, not heeding a word they said. But partially so, enough to protect.
Eliza wouldn’t believe it until she laid eyes on the real Louisa Kittering. But in the end, one spoiled, rebellious young woman mattered far less to her than Owen. For him, there was no aid she would not accept. And this seemed more promising than trying to arrange for the changeling to be delivered to Sergeant Quinn as proof. That, Eliza thought, can come later. “How do you mean to help me?”
The creature who was now Louisa Kittering looked around the workhouse parlor, her mouth forming a pretty expression of distaste. “First, by getting you out of here. Ash and Thorn, what a dreadful place. I confess I felt none too kindly toward you after you beat me black and blue—but I expect you’ve had three blows by now for every one I took. Wouldn’t you agree? Of course you would, if it means seeing this end. It will take a while longer, I fear; it’s a bit of a tricky thing, convincing these people to let you go, and I can’t be quite as direct as once I would have been. You can wait a few more days, can’t you?”
Eliza only stared, listening to the new Miss Kittering talk about workhouse overseers and justices of the peace—not to mention Mrs. Kittering—
as if they were only tiny challenges, easily overcome. She collected herself with a snap and said, “What then?”
“Then,” Louisa said, “you go back to Islington. I trust you recall the house where the London Fairy Society gathers? There’s another meeting next Friday week; you should be free by then. Speak to the Goodemeade sisters privately, and tell them…” The young woman paused, and chose her next words with care. “Tell them you come in Cyma’s name, and are searching for the boy in that photo. They will help you get him back.”
“Why should they help me?” Eliza ran one hand over her ragged hair, and felt tears unexpectedly burning behind her eyes. “You still haven’t even said why you’re doing it.”
Louisa became very occupied with her gloves, tugging their delicate seams straight along her fingers. “Someone I … that is, someone convinced me it was the right thing to do. Someone whose good opinion I value, and do not want to lose.” Her mouth quirked, as if at an unfamiliar taste.
Eliza was not about to question it. She was not certain about the changeling’s advice, though. “A few months gone, I heard a lady from the Society tell Louisa Kittering that the others there were not ready for … certain truths.” A lady who, she strongly suspected, had subsequently taken the girl’s place.
“True enough, of some,” Louisa admitted. “But not of others. You needn’t fear saying anything to the sisters; they know more than you could imagine.”
Even if the changeling was wrong—even if the Miss Goodemeades were not so eager to help as Louisa assumed—Eliza would find a way to convince them. “You haven’t said where Owen is.”
Again, Louisa would not meet her gaze. This time, though, she seemed less uncomfortable for herself than for Eliza. “You understand that he’s been among the fae for a long time. And I’m afraid the ones who had him first were … not kind at all.”
Anger and grief alike rose in her throat. “What did they do to him?”
“I don’t know. But he’s being cared for, now—by an Irish lady, in fact; her name is Feidelm—and if there’s a way to mend him, the Goodemeades will find it.”
If. Eliza squeezed her eyes shut, unwilling to let a tear slip free. But what had she expected? For Owen to emerge after seven years lost, smiling as he always had? All this time, the promise she’d repeated to herself over and over again had been, I will get you back. Now it seemed that would not be the end. Clenching her fist until it hurt, Eliza added another promise to it. I’ll find a way to make you well.
And then make the ones who hurt you pay for it.
She opened her eyes to find Louisa giving the seated matron a considering look. “She’ll be coming to before long. When she does, I will go.”
A month ago, the sight of the new Miss Kittering had filled Eliza with fury; now the changeling felt more like the rope that was offering to draw her up from the abyss. Desperate, Eliza stuffed the photo inside her ragged dress, then closed the distance between them and grasped the young woman by her silk-covered shoulders. “Swear to me that all of this has been true. You’ll free me from this place.”
“I will,” Louisa said, her body stiff with surprise.
“If you do not, then my oath to God, I’ll win myself free, and then I’ll hunt you down.”
She meant it, and she saw that the changeling believed her. “I’ll do everything I can. You have my word.”
It would have to be enough.
The City of London: July 30, 1884
The hour was not quite midday, and London’s beating heart was full of life. Men thronged the narrow, old-fashioned streets of the City, the business men nearly as uniform as soldiers in their suits and top hats, the street-sellers and beggars and musicians a less orderly lot. They carried with them a welter of scents, from food to horseshit to the macassar oil on the gentlemen’s hair. Somehow, Dead Rick was supposed to pick his way through that knot to find the few thin strands that might tell him where Nadrett had been—and quickly, before his master noticed he was gone.
Dead Rick’s faceless ally had, as promised, slipped a piece of bread to him. The skriker had found it in his waistcoat pocket earlier today—a trick that unnerved him even more than Irrith’s beetle had, because he didn’t know how it had gotten there. But that was the signal for him to go into the City, so he swallowed it and went. Hoping, with a devoutness few Londoners showed for their divine Master nowadays, that the voice was upholding his other promise, to distract Nadrett from Dead Rick’s absence.
Just don’t ask ’ow ’e’s doing it.
Aldersgate, Crutched Friars, Threadneedle Street, and Ketton Street. Four places for Dead Rick to search. He knew where Aldersgate was—or rather, where it had been, before the gate itself was torn down—and Threadneedle was important enough of a street to be familiar, but for the other two, he would need help. The voice had tried to tell him where to look, but directions meant little when most of Dead Rick’s memories of the City were gone.
He went to Threadneedle Street first. There had once been a well here, the voice said, that gave access to the Onyx Hall, but it was long gone, replaced by pumps. Weakened by the loss of the wall, the palace below had fractured, taking the Queen’s old lesser presence chamber with it. But some piece might remain, cut off from the rest.
Dead Rick circled the area in human form, wondering where the entrance had been, and how anyone would pass through it without the well. He sniffed the air, and got a nose full of smells, but nothing that hinted at Nadrett, Chrennois, or their photographic experiments. ’E should be up ’ere, not me. ’E knows right where they used to be. I ain’t going to find nothing, searching like this.
Scowling, he looked around for a private corner, and found none. In the end he slid under a cab that stood at the corner by the Royal Exchange, and changed in the shadow while the driver and passenger argued. But even in dog form, his nose turned up nothing. Did that mean there was nothing to find—or just that his quarries had left no trace of their passage?
On four paws, he trotted down Cheapside until he reached St. Martins le Grand, then went north more slowly, examining the ground once it became Aldersgate Street. The entrance here had been a tree, long ago, but everything around him was stone and brick, without so much as a shrub or a potted plant to soften the harshness. Dead Rick had to dodge aside when a man tried to kick him out of the way, but went back once the bastard was gone, to make certain he didn’t miss so much as an inch. In fact, so absorbed was he in searching, he made it as far as Barbican before realizing he’d gone beyond the reach of the Onyx Hall.
Back in man form, he retraced his steps to the City and began to ask directions. He ignored the gentlemen; they would look askance at his rough attire and bare feet, and probably only know the principal streets anyway. On Cheapside a seller of newspapers scratched through his whiskers and shook his head. “Crutched Friars, sure—over by the Tower. Go down King William Street, then Lombard, which’ll turn into Fenchurch; then right on Mark Lane, and left at the church—that’s St. Olave ’Art Street—and pretty soon the street will be Crutched Friars. But Ketton? I’ve been selling papers ’ere since I were nine years old, and I ain’t never ’eard of Ketton.”
“The cove told me it were a big street,” Dead Rick said, hoping he could remember the first set of directions. “North of Cheapside, going from west to east.”
The newspaper seller shrugged. “Gresham Street, then, or London Wall. All the rest is little poky lanes, unless you goes more north.”
North would be outside the wall. It had to be one of those two. Even in the City, where streets mostly stayed the same as centuries before, sometimes things changed; what the fae still called the Fish Street entrance now gave onto Queen Victoria Street.
Dead Rick searched Gresham Street and London Wall both, from one end to the other, and the curved length of Crutched Friars, until it became Jewry Street around Aldgate. Every yard of roadway was paved and curbed, lined with buildings and trampled by people, without the faintest hint of any scent he reco
gnized.
It had been a good notion—until it fell apart.
His steps dragged as he turned back toward the Goblin Market. They dragged even more as he went down the rest of Mark Lane, on his way to Billingsgate and the door there; hoardings blocked one side of the roadway, and a piece of paper glued to them promised in bold letters that it wouldn’t be long at all before the new Mark Lane Underground station opened for business. “Bugger you all,” he snarled under his breath, then hunched his shoulders and hurried by. The visible work here was already done, the roadway dug up and tunneled and covered once more, but the navvies were probably right beneath his feet, toiling away at destroying his home.
He wasn’t even certain how safe it was to use the Billingsgate door. It had clung to existence after the rails were laid from Mark Lane to Eastcheap—no, he thought, the Queen ’eld onto it. But if her grip slipped, any faerie in the middle of passing through might go along with the door.
His choice was that or crawling through the sewers, or else going into some other part of the Hall, and hoping nobody noticed him on his way back to the Market. Sighing, Dead Rick went into the pub that now covered the door, and put up a charm to hide himself briefly as he passed the owner on his way to the cellar stairs. Not that he needed it; the man’s wits had been half-scrambled by all the charms used to make him forget the temporary invasion after the earthquake in May.
Down in the cellar, with one hand outstretched to open the door, he stopped.
The entrance was enchanted, just like the rest of the Hall. Enchantment was a faerie thing, and faerie things involved faerie elements. That was very nearly as far as Dead Rick’s knowledge of science went, but he knew two things more. First, that one of those elements was aether.
And second, that the Academy had invented devices for detecting it.
He’d seen one in the Goblin Market, after someone brought in a load of things supposedly from the faerie courts of India and China. Jade figurines, strange weapons, things like that. A Greek trader named Arkheton had been interested in buying them, but only if they were genuine, and so he’d tested them with one of those devices. An aetheric versorium, that was the term.