Because she could feel his emotions behind the words, and now it was warmth alone—the chill gone. The fear of what his past could do to her was over, for it had done it, and there was no other way he could hurt her. All that was left was his own fear that she would leave him again, and he would be quite alone in that house, helpless and dependent on Poule and Cook to feed him and dress him and never leave him alone with his crippling despair.
She knew all this and he knew none of it, and she did not know how to convince him that she truly loved him.
But she knew how to provoke.
So she said, cruelly, “You are glad of an excuse to be rid of me, then.”
Poule straightened one of his bones at that moment, and that might have been what caused the cry.
She pressed on: “You are glad of such a convenient excuse to be rid of me. It’s more believable than an invented dying aunt.”
“Wicked Jane!” he said. “And wicked Poule, you are both murdering me together.”
“The splinters better come out sooner than later,” said Poule.
“I know the future, you see,” said Jane, pressing her advantage. “A return to public life, a long affair with each of your pretty ladies, starting with the clever and charming Prime Minister’s wife—”
“So help me, if I had to spend any more time with those silly women, I’d jump from that blasted window this instant,” he said, glaring at her.
She laughed joyfully at his reaction. Then gasped, suddenly dizzy, and he reached out to her, worry sharp on his features.
“Jane, my Jane, you’re bleeding—”
Her fingers touched her temple and came away wet.
“You’re crooked,” Poule said critically. “And you’re still leaking around the temple, because you’re more concerned about provoking this poor man you’re besotted with than your own face. Lie down and let Dorie finish. And you, Edward, stop grinning so foolishly, because this next bit is going to hurt.”
Jane obeyed, though crooked scarcely mattered now. She would always be this Jane and it would always be plain on her face. This Jane who had fought the fey and survived, this Jane who was taking their power for herself.
And the first thing she would do was restore human faces to all those pretty ladies, make them safe against the fey.
For on the wall above, those rows of masks still leered. A hundred faces, and each one a human, somewhere. A race between Jane and the dead Queen’s followers.
It was a mission. It was her purpose.
This Jane was meant to fight.
The red blood splattered the floor like drops of paint. Dorie’s fingers crept around, smoothing the ironskin mask of her face. Jane closed her eyes and let the girl adjust her eyelids, felt the cold iron, hard and comforting against the bone.
Her hand crept to her left just as Edward’s foot found hers. Her fingers touched his elbow, his ankle her ankle, as Poule and Dorie worked above them, deft and sure.
Soon, soon, she would be whole again.
Acknowledgments
Where to begin with this enormous pile of thanks? I feel very fortunate to have received so much help and advice and (constructive) criticism over the years, and I hope to continue to pay that forward.
A big thank-you to my treasured and overworked second readers, K. Bird Lincoln and Caroline M. Yoachim, who have each read nearly everything ever, including novels that will continue to live in a drawer.
Another thanks to the rest of my novel reader/critiquers, including Josh English and Mischa DeNola, who read this particular novel, and Tinatsu Wallace, Meghan Sinoff, Julie McGalliard, Gord Sellar, Ian McHugh, David A. Simons, Nicole Gresham, and Shawn Scarber, who read others. A thanks to K. D. Wentworth, who loved the original novelette, which sparked the idea of turning it into a novel, and thanks to someone who pointed out that the original story was trying to be Jane Eyre. I have no idea who that was. Hey, thanks to Charlotte Brontë while I’m at it. I loved Villette.
I am also grateful for the support of the Clarion West class of 2006 as a whole with its awesome group of students, teachers, and administrators (including Tristan, who graciously let me use his last name for the bolsters), and the local PDX writers crew (including Camille Alexa, at whose Vermont writing retreat I wrote a large chunk of Ironskin [2K every morning before heading out to eat cheese.])
Enormous thanks to my rock star agent, Ginger Clark, for her hard work and keen eye, to everyone at Tor and Curtis Brown for their support, and especially to Melissa Frain for loving this novel in the first place and then giving me a billion brilliant insights on how to make it into what it was meant to be all along.
And of course to my wonderful family, who told me I was going to grow up to be a writer long before I knew it—Mom, Dad, Mike, Amy, Andy, Rick, and Grandmere & Papa, who would have loved to see it happen. My husband, Eric, who kept me focused and talked me off of ledges and read me poetry. And the new baby, who hasn’t really helped my writing at all, but is awfully cute.
All that and I’m still going to miss someone. Sorry. I blame the new baby for eating my brain.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
IRONSKIN
Copyright © 2012 by Christine Marie Connolly
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Connolly, Tina.
Ironskin / Tina Connolly.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN 978-0-7653-3059-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4299-9304-3 (e-book)
I. Title
PS3603.O5473176 2012
813'.6—dc23 2012019874
e-ISBN 9781429993043
First Edition: October 2012
Ironskin Page 26