No Proper Lady

by Isabel Cooper

  The door was the way it had always been, light wood with brass fixtures. Nothing had changed. No flashes of strange light came from underneath it. Joan looked around quickly, making sure that no servants were watching, and then pressed her eye to the keyhole.

  Darkness.

  It was silent inside too, but the room would’ve been designed for that. Simon wouldn’t want anyone to hear him chanting, even when things were going well.

  The sense of magic was even stronger here. If Joan hadn’t known better, she’d have thought the sensor was burning through her skin.

  Simon would’ve told her if he’d been planning something big. Wouldn’t he?

  If you interrupted magic at the wrong time, things could get really bad. If you didn’t interrupt it when you needed to, they could be even worse.

  You don’t have a lot of time. Shit or get off the pot.

  Fine.

  The knob wouldn’t turn, of course. It was locked. Joan took one more look up and down the hall and then grabbed a pin out of her hair and knelt in front of the door.

  She wished she’d had time to get her lock picks, but a kid could pick an indoor lock in this age. Even with a hairpin, it took Joan only about five minutes before she felt the tumblers turn and the bolt release.

  The knife slid easily from her sleeve as she rose, and she clasped her hand around the hilt, welcoming its solid presence in her palm. Joan opened the door a crack and stepped back instantly. Flattening herself against the wall, she held her breath for a second.

  Nothing came out. She let her breath go, edged forward a little, and peered inside.

  In the light from the hallway, she saw a bare room with circles traced on the floor. Simon knelt on the floor within them, motionless.

  She smelled incense: cinnamon, sandalwood, and opium.

  Oh, Powers.

  In seconds, she was in the room, lighting one of the candles on the floor and reflexively pushing the door shut behind her. Even before she saw the runes in the circles, Joan knew what he’d done or tried to do. She’d seen it before.

  You never, never tried astral travel without getting someone to watch you. It had become a chore for kids in her time: sit by the priest while he goes off exploring, and then go and fetch someone else if he doesn’t come back after however long it’s supposed to be. A common task, if a scary one. Joan had done it a million times.

  Now she wished she’d paid attention to what happened once the watching child actually fetched another priest.

  “Simon,” she said in a sharp but not loud voice.

  Nothing.

  “Simon.” She raised her voice this time. “Wake the hell up.”

  Still nothing.

  She grabbed Simon under his arms—he was still breathing, she noticed with a rush of relief, but he didn’t react at all—and dragged him outside the circle. His head hung slack, wobbling with every movement. Joan pretended she didn’t see that.

  Fear was a cold lump in her chest. She couldn’t think about it, or it would grow and paralyze her.

  Laying Simon on his back, she tilted his chin upward. His eyes were open, but they’d rolled back into his head. “Hey!” Her voice was as loud as it could be without shouting. “Come on!”

  Still he lay silent and motionless.

  Joan slapped him. The first time was light. When that didn’t get anything, she drew back her arm and really let him have it, sending her palm into the side of his face with a meaty thwack.

  He didn’t move. In the silence that followed, she heard Eleanor’s indrawn breath.

  “I—” Joan started, prepared for anger or tears or just what the hell are you doing?

  But Eleanor ignored her, rushed past her, and knelt by Simon. “Oh, God. What’s happened?”

  “Astral travel,” Joan said, and went on with no thought for tact or current phrasing, just following the cold sense of urgency that had taken her over. “You’ve got to stay calm, okay? If you freak out now, everything’s going to go right to hell.”

  “The servants said—” Eleanor began, and then shook her head. “No. Wait. Astral travel? Projection, you mean?”

  “Yes.” Joan abruptly remembered the little leather book she’d seen Eleanor reading. “Do you know anything about it?”

  All the color was gone from Eleanor’s face. She closed her eyes for a moment and then nodded. “Yes. I need…a pitcher of salt water. And a knife. And…and a bandage.”

  It took five minutes to collect everything. Joan was worried that the servants would object, but one look at her face and they had gotten out of her way. She ran back up the stairs, pitcher and bandage in one hand and skirts in the other, and into the room, where Eleanor now stood, hands open at her sides.

  “Is there a knife?” Eleanor asked faintly, as Joan set the water down in front of her.

  “Yeah.” Joan slid hers back out of her sleeve, turned it around, and offered Eleanor the hilt.

  Eleanor gulped. “I was thinking it might be better if you did it. I’ve never…I might faint or flinch or something.”

  “All right. Where?”

  Eleanor bit her lip, closed her eyes, and held out one hand, palm upward, over the water.

  It was a quick cut. Joan was at least good at that. Eleanor didn’t scream or draw back. She just held herself very still for a second. Then she turned her hand over, so that the blood fell into the water and began to spread, drops of red becoming crimson flowers. She started chanting in a language Joan didn’t recognize. Whatever the invocation was, it took only about a minute.

  “That’s all,” she said then, her voice high and wavering. “Salt to break the spell and blood to be an anchor. We just throw it over him—but please—can you—”

  Maybe it was her hand. Maybe it was just the idea of drenching her brother. It didn’t matter. Joan grabbed the pitcher in both hands, turned in one smooth movement, and threw its contents over Simon.

  If he needs an anchor, she thought, better give him more than one.

  She dropped the pitcher, hearing the crash as it broke and not giving a damn, and knelt by Simon again, her hands on his shoulders. “Rise and shine, Grenville,” she said. The words came out thick. Her throat hurt for some reason. “Now.”

  Simon’s shoulders jerked under her hands. His head snapped back, and Joan put her hands out instinctively, stopping him just before he cracked his skull on the stone floor. “Joan,” he said hazily.

  “Yeah, me, you idiot!” she snarled at him. “You—”

  “My God,” he said, oblivious to her anger. “Joan, how did you live there?”

  Chapter 31

  Ellie stared at him, though she was obviously trying not to. Every time Simon met her eyes, she went red and looked away for a moment, but then her gaze would jump back to him, and her hands would twist in her skirt. Simon couldn’t blame her. If he looked half as bad as he felt, he would draw anyone’s attention.

  And Simon rejoiced in every bit of it: his boneless limbs, his aching head, and the tight dryness in his throat. He hurt, but he felt, and he felt with his own body. For a few moments after he woke up, he’d simply flexed his hands, staring at them, and then looked down his body at his legs and arms. Everything was whole. Everything was there.

  Eleanor could stare as much as she liked. She could, if the impulse took her, have stood on her head or shrieked at the top of her lungs, and Simon still would have been glad because she would have been present to do it. This was his world. He could have wept with joy.

  But she was looking upset, and so he smiled. It wasn’t hard, despite his weariness. “I’ll be all right, Ellie. I’m just a little worn out at the moment.”

  “That’s very good to know. I’d hoped—” She broke off quickly.

  One of her hands was bandaged, Simon saw now. There were shards of blue china scattered around the floor. “You did it,” he said, staring back at her now. “Didn’t you?”

  Eleanor looked down at her hand. “I cast the spell. Joan threw the water.” />
  “Thank you.” He tried to put everything he felt into the words: relief, joy, gratitude. Love. “You saved my life, Ellie.”

  Her head came up, and for a moment, her eyes glowed with both happiness and pride. “I could hardly do anything else,” she said softly. “After all, you did the same for me.”

  In that moment, he understood some of the constraint that had been between them, understood it even as it vanished. There was never a debt, he might have said, but she’d felt one even if he hadn’t. Now they were on even ground. Eleanor would stand a little straighter from now on, he knew, and meet the world more squarely.

  If this misadventure had done only that much, Simon would have been glad of it.

  Getting up went all right. With a substantial effort of will, Simon even managed to do it without taking Joan’s hand. “All right,” he began, and took a step toward the door.

  It was as if the entire world moved, and not the way he was going. He stumbled forward, clutching at the wall. “Simon!” Eleanor gasped behind him.

  Then Joan was at his side with one of her arms around his back, holding him steady. Highly mortifying. She didn’t laugh, though, and she didn’t immediately start cosseting him. She just held Simon still while he gasped for breath and pushed wet hair out of his face.

  “He’s all right,” she said matter-of-factly. “This happens. Wasn’t just astral travel, though, was it?”

  He shook his head, panting. “Guardian beast. Spirit. Something. Had to get away—blasted it. It threw me—”

  Exhausted and giddy, he might have gone on, letting Eleanor know everything he’d tried to keep from her, if Joan hadn’t interrupted. “Yeah, that’d do it. At least you can stand. I’ve seen men be carried out feet first after this kind of thing.”

  “So he’ll be all right, then?” Eleanor asked.

  “Should be,” said Joan. “It might take a couple days. Can you go tell the servants that he’s sick or something? I’ll get him out of here.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course.”

  As Eleanor departed, Joan took a quick look around the room and then sighed. “You can tell me how to clean up later, I guess. Hold on to me.”

  “Don’t you want to know—” Simon began, but Joan shook her head.

  “I want to know later,” she said. “And I will. For now, we’re moving.”

  They’d closed the door and gotten a few steps past it when Mathers and one of the footmen hurried up to them. Whatever Ellie had told them, it had certainly sounded serious. “I’m all right,” Simon said again through the swaying dizziness.

  Mathers replaced Joan with cautious efficiency. “Very good, sir. James, send for the doctor.”

  Simon considered objecting, but there was really no reason to. It would only make him look strange. His doctor would examine him, find nothing, and conclude that it was some sort of chill or fever—or, if the opium showed up, would tactfully caution him against it. The man was discreet.

  Besides, right now, he just wanted to lie down. The joy at being back in his own world was fading slowly, but it was fading, and he was becoming conscious of, among other things, the clammy wetness of his clothes. So he let James send for the doctor, he let Mathers dry him off and put him to bed, and he sank gratefully onto his pillows.

  Home.

  The doctor asked why his hair was damp. Simon told him something close to the truth, that Joan had woken him with a pitcher of cold water when other methods failed. “Hmm,” the doctor said, and went on with his examination.

  “Exhaustion,” he pronounced at the end, “and strain. Keep to your rooms for the next few days. Eat bland food and avoid strong drink.”

  “I’ll do my best,” said Simon.

  The world was now fading. He didn’t want to let it. It was too dear to him just now, even when he couldn’t move his head much: the familiar furnishings of his room, the noises from the street outside, the smell of wood smoke from the fireplace. The sheets were crisp and cool against his skin.

  Joan slipped in, closed the door quietly behind her, and walked over to Simon’s bed. There she stopped and stared down at him, arms folded over her chest.

  “Projection? On your own?” Her voice was low, but it had the parade ground and the barracks in it. “Great idea. Fucking terrific idea. You people have a real highly developed survival instinct, you know that? Forget what happens a hundred years from now—how the hell did we survive this long?”

  “Well,” said Simon, smiling up at her. It was good to see her face, even when it was angry. “We don’t usually encounter legions of the damned here.”

  Joan glared at him for a few moments, but then she sighed, unfolded her arms, and sat down on the edge of his bed. “That’s the problem with living in this world, I guess. You’re not prepared for the worst. I wish you’d told me, though. I would’ve stuck around.”

  “Believe me, I wish I had told you,” he said. “But you were doing your part. If you’d stayed, I wouldn’t have thought it was safe.”

  “Scrying on Reynell, huh?”

  “On his house.” The memories came flooding back, and Simon swallowed. “The book’s there, I think. And…I don’t know what else. It’s a dark place. Whatever he’s done—whatever he’s doing”—he could only pray it was the latter, knowing that neither of them would be in a position to stop it for a while yet—“it leaves traces behind.”

  “I’d have expected that,” Joan said evenly. “And then there was a guardian that could see the astral, and it threw you to my time?”

  “I think so.” He described it in as much detail as he could so that Joan could recognize it, yes, but also just to get it all out. As he talked, he saw recognition on her face.

  “Sounds like it,” she said, and turned her head away from him, looking out the window.

  The sky outside was a hazy blue. It couldn’t compare to the brilliant hues in the country, away from the smoke of London, but it was bright and peaceful. Somewhere, it wasn’t. Somewhere, there were piles of bones and patches of moving darkness.

  “Those automobiles,” Simon said. “People were trying to escape. They knew something was coming, didn’t they?”

  “They did,” said Joan.

  For a minute, she was silent. Then, without turning from the window, she sang in a low voice:

  “And in the streets, the children screamed.

  The mothers cried, and the prophets dreamed.”

  She sat in the afternoon sunlight, utterly respectable in blue serge, her hair still mostly neat after everything. There was no hint of anything wild or untamed about her, let alone otherworldly, but her voice made Simon shiver.

  “Have you been there?”

  “Maybe. There are a couple places that fit the description.”

  “Then every city is like that?”

  Joan turned. Her smile was a knife slash. “No. Some of them are black glass and poisoned air. The bombs fell there at the end, and they don’t even leave bones. Nobody goes there.”

  “God,” he said. Even with his eyes open, nightmarish images flashed in front of him.

  “You really didn’t get it, huh?”

  “I thought I did,” he said quietly.

  “Yeah.” Joan sighed and her face softened a little. “Bad enough when you’re used to it. It must be hell to see if you’re not. I’m sorry, Simon.”

  Simon shook his head, though the motion made him wince. “Hardly your fault, was it? Projection on my own—fucking terrific idea.”

  For once, he seemed to shock her. Joan drew back for a second and then laughed, bright and golden. “I deserve that. Shouldn’t underestimate you. But damn, I thought you’d burst into flames or something if you swore like that.”

  “Me? Not at all.” It was a pity that they hadn’t met in his own world—at the theatre or one of the salons or any of the other places he’d gone back when a bit of scandal or an aching head had been the worst consequence the world held for him. “One tries to speak nicely in polite society, though.
And around ladies, in general.”

  “That kind of lets me out, doesn’t it?”

  “Hardly,” Simon said, with more strength than he’d planned to.

  Joan laughed again, startled for a second time. For all that there’d been no self-pity in her question, it had been sincere. “You’re really sweet sometimes,” she said and added quickly, “It’ll probably get you in trouble.”

  “As opposed to the placid and uneventful life I’ve been leading?”

  “Well, you don’t need more excitement, do you?” Absently, Joan reached out and brushed a lock of hair away from his forehead. It was a gentler motion than Simon would have expected from her, calming and very pleasant. She didn’t move her hand away afterward, and he was glad.

  “How did you get in, anyhow?” he asked. “I swear I’ve got the only key to that room. Did you—ah. You picked the lock, didn’t you?”

  “If you can call it that.”

  He had to laugh at the disgust in her voice. “I’m just as glad it’s not up to your standards, considering everything. Not all of us have your talents.”

  Joan smiled, conceding the point. “It’s just training,” she said. “Well, a lot of training.”

  There might have been wistfulness in her voice. Simon couldn’t tell, not really, but he remembered how she’d taken to dancing and riding. Now she couldn’t do either without playing a part.

  “If you want to,” he said, “you can use the room I was in. To practice, I mean. I’ll have a key made for you.”

  She stopped for a second and blinked. Not a woman to squeal or gush, Joan, but he could see surprise on her face and then delight. “Really?” she asked, and hastily cleared her throat. “I mean, I won’t be disturbing anything?”

  “Not a thing,” Simon said. “In fact, once I get my strength back, you’ll have a sparring partner if you’d like one. I could use a few lessons, I think.”

  “Hey—” she said, totally abandoning the patterns of speech she’d mastered. “Hey—thanks. Really.”

  Simon let his eyes drift closed and thanked God when there was only unmoving darkness in front of him. Joan’s body was a vague warmth by his side. He wanted to move toward it, but even dazed and weak, he remembered some of the proprieties. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said, hearing himself slur the words a little as weariness advanced on him. “Dreadfully scandalous, you know. People will talk.”