Congress of Secrets

by Stephanie Burgis

  “The more Count Pergen notices him, the more danger he’ll be in,” Caroline said flatly. “And God help him if Pergen decides he poses a real threat.”

  Michael glanced down at her and received his second shock of the morning. Her expression was more open than he had seen it since his arrival in Vienna … and she was terrified.

  “You speak as if you knew him personally,” he said.

  She bit her lip and looked away. “Everyone knows of him.”

  “But you recognized him before he was introduced—and he didn’t recognize you.”

  She shrugged and started to pull away. Michael held her back.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me how you know him. And how he failed to recognize you in return … oh.”

  Realization clicked into place with the force of a closing lock. His hand loosened on her arm.

  “You knew him as a child, after everything went wrong,” Michael said. “Didn’t you? That’s why he doesn’t recognize you now.”

  “You know nothing about it.” Caroline’s breath came quickly, in short pants. “What wereyou doing in the years after they came for us? Where were you?”

  “The truth?” Michael shrugged. “I was traveling around Bohemia, learning how to live. I worked for an actor’s troupe in Pressburg for three years—I started out as the lowliest assistant, but I moved up to take on principal roles for a time.” His lips curved in reminiscence. “I learned how to disguise myself, how to take on a new character, a new face … For a year or two I fell in with Count Cagliostro himself on his Eastern tours, and then I joined another, less famous pseudo-alchemist—a complete fraud, like all the rest of them, but he was a fine teacher, and it was entertaining enough to pretend at magic, so …”

  He stopped, shocked at the change in her face. “What’s wrong? What did I say?”

  “Entertaining? To pretend at magic?” Caroline was spitting her words, now, though her voice never rose above a whisper. “If you knew what I was going through while you were playing at adventures a hundred miles away, never even caring what you left behind—”

  “Tell me, then! Tell me, or stop blaming me for not knowing.” Michael stared at her, his mind working furiously. “You were … you said you didn’t go to an orphanage. When the police burned down the shop and took your father away—”

  She turned her head sharply away, clamping her lips together. Still, he thought he heard a muffled sob escape.

  “Oh God,” he whispered. “They took you, too, didn’t they? That’s how you recognized Pergen.” He stepped back, his head whirling. “But why? Why would they bother to imprison a child?”

  “They didn’t,” she said. Her voice was a bare thread of sound. “Not in the official prisons. Not in the ones that we all knew about.”

  “Caroline,” Michael drew a deep breath. “Karolina … Tell me what happened to you. Why you’re here. I’ll help you.”

  She laughed. It sounded like breaking glass. “Fine words,” she said. “How much trust can I put in them?”

  “You can trust me with all your heart,” he said. “I swear it.”

  He realized, with a shock, that it was the truth.

  For a moment, everything around him seemed to freeze as if caught in a pane of painted glass, all the colors vividly highlighted in the glow of sunlight.

  Caroline’s dark, anguished eyes against her pale skin—her shining black hair clustering in loose curls around the clean, strong lines of her face, her hands clenched with anger or fear …

  Something twisted in Michael’s chest, a mixture of pain and promise.

  “You’re only playing a part,” Caroline whispered. “That’s why you came back here.”

  “You’re right.” Michael’s voice sounded hoarse in his own ears. “I thought, when I first found you again, that it was a great stroke of luck for my plan.” He winced as he admitted it. “I truly was glad to see you alive and well,” he added hastily, “but still …”

  He drew a long, painful breath. “I would have used your friendship and left without ever thinking twice,” he confessed. “I thought that was only the way of life. It’s been the only way I’ve known for a very long time now.” He stepped forward, holding her gaze. “But I won’t this time. I swear it. Please, let me help.”

  Her eyes swept over his face like searching light. She opened her mouth to speak.

  “There you are!” The Prince de Ligne’s voice called out behind them. “Lovely parkland, is it not?” He waved his cane gaily as he entered the square garden behind them. “Nothing stirs the heart quite like a garden, does it? I could walk out here for hours and never grow tired.”

  “Never,” Michael repeated.

  Caroline’s face closed itself before him, like shutters slamming shut. The light within, as quickly as it had been revealed, was locked away again.

  Any man experienced in gambling could tell when his timing had run out.

  Peter pulled himself up to a sitting position against the rough stone wall of his cell. He was still shivering, even after hours of sleep; he felt as if he might never grow warm again.

  Think, he told himself. Focus. It was … who knew what time it was, in this tiny, windowless room? He could barely see his own hands or the chamber pot that sat in the far corner. The time could be anywhere between dawn and sundown, for all that he could tell.

  Last night, the guards had carried him down a long set of stairs, through three sets of heavy, locked doors, to a row of underground rooms. Escape would have been laughable, even if he hadn’t been limp and shaking with sick exhaustion.

  But even if he couldn’t escape, he could still think and plan. And with a night’s sleep behind him—albeit a night of restless nightmares, interrupted over and over again by his own shivers—Peter was no longer prepared to lie back and wait passively for last night’s torture to be repeated.

  As it would be, he had no doubt, unless … unless …

  Peter knotted his shivering fingers around each other, fighting the cold, the discomfort, the shadows in the darkness … the terror.

  He had written dialogue, scenes, even entire plays off the cuff for the company on occasion. He had talked thirteen independent, egocentric, rebellious individuals into joining his acting troupe and taking his direction. He had found a way to bring them all to Vienna, despite every obstacle of finance and practicality.

  He could come up with a plan to save himself now.

  Hours passed. Peter paced the small square room in the darkness, his shoes making no sound against the thick stone floor. He heard nothing from upstairs, nor from the other rooms nearby. Were they empty? Or full of waiting, frightened prisoners like himself?

  There was no use wondering about that. It was a waste of his time. He had to focus.

  It all came down to Michael, that first day. Michael, who was, it seemed, an enemy of the state—one of those dangerous, wild radicals Peter had heard of when he was a child. Astonishing that he would have dared come back to Vienna to be recognized after all the famous purges and imprisonments of twenty years ago.

  Unless …

  Peter stopped pacing. His teeth chattered together, but he ignored them.

  What his torturer had said, when Peter thought back carefully … did it necessarily imply that Grünemann had recognized Michael himself? Or had it been the mere fact of Michael’s illicit entry into the city that had judged him suspect and dangerous in their eyes? His illicit entry … in combination, of course, with Peter’s own mad, reckless impulse to help that girl, the pamphleteer.

  Grünemann had only seen Michael from a distance and through a crowd of people. All he would have been able to pick out would have been the basics of hair color, dress, and posture—and a wig and a bit of theatrical training could have accounted for all of those external features. So … if they didn’t know yet exactly who Michael was … if they hadn’t actually managed to bring him in—because, perhaps, they hadn’t been able to recognize him in whatever new disguise he wore …


  It was a perilously thin thread of hope to hang his life upon. But it was the only one that Peter could find.

  Two days earlier, he would never have imagined himself capable of it … but two days earlier, he had been a different man. Now, all he could feel, when he looked for guilt, was the sickening, stomach-churning fear of further pain. No hero, Peter Riesenbeck, when he came off the stage.

  Self-knowledge was a bitter pill, but it did not—could not—negate hard truth: he could not endure last night’s torture again.

  The door finally cracked open, hours later, long after Peter had finally subsided, shivering, into a corner, wrapping his arms around each other to conserve heat. At the first sound of a key turning in the lock, he leaped to his feet.

  The quick movement made his head spin. His legs gave way. He caught himself on the stone wall and pushed himself forward, regardless. It might be his only chance.

  Two men stepped inside, big, broad-shouldered, and uniformed. The first man held a platter with a bowl of food and a clay pitcher, revealed by the glow of the torch in the other man’s hand.

  “Please!” Peter said. He hurried forward, propping himself against the wall at every step. His teeth were chattering as he spoke, but he pressed on. “Tell your master, I have a message—”

  The second man backhanded him with casual ease. Peter tipped over like a falling tree, his head slamming against the stone ground, his legs sprawling awkwardly before him. The men moved around him, taking the chamber pot, setting down the food.

  Peter rolled over, gritting his teeth. He pushed himself back up.

  The back of his head burned with a cold fire. He wondered, distantly, if it was bleeding.

  He didn’t care.

  “Tell your master,” he gasped. “I have a vital message.”

  The first man let out a snort of a laugh. The other didn’t bother to respond.

  They walked through the door. Peter flung himself across the cold floor.

  “I can find him!” Peter said. “Tell your master. Please!” As they turned to close the door, he threw every ounce of passionate sincerity into his words: “I can find the man he’s looking for!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Charles was waiting in Caroline’s drawing room when she returned to her apartment.

  Resignation sank through her as she stepped into the doorway and saw him propped on the sofa with high, unhealthy spots of color in his cheeks. Only the greatest determination could have driven him today, to raise him out of his bed so soon after being drained of energy and spirit.

  She turned to Michael, who stood close behind her in the corridor. The Prince de Ligne had dropped them off on his way to the next round of engagements, luncheons, and drawing-room rendezvous. They hadn’t spoken on the trip up the long, curving stairs, but she could feel his anticipation thickening the air as he waited for the moment when it would be safe to speak privately again.

  “Have you planned a busy afternoon?” she asked now, with careful nonchalance. “If you wish to drive out to the Prater, you may take my chaise, of course. I shall be occupied with my own engagements.”

  “Caroline,” he began.

  “Prince Kalishnikoff.” She stepped aside, so that he could see into the occupied room.

  His eyebrows rose. “Mr… . Weston, is it not? Are you ill?”

  Charles’s eyes blazed in his drawn face. “Not too ill to serve Lady Wyndham.” He paused, with a distinct sneer, before adding the words, “Your Highness.”

  Michael’s breath hissed in through his teeth.

  Caroline drew a deep breath and closed her eyes for a brief, illicit moment of respite from the simmering atmosphere around her.

  If she could order the world, just now, both of the men in her drawing room would simply disappear. There would be no questions from Michael that she should not—could not—answer; no demands from Charles that she couldn’t bring herself to fulfill. She fought the impulse to flee to her bedroom and lock herself in for the rest of the afternoon.

  But she was an adult, and there were hours yet to go before she could escape from the world’s view.

  “Your Highness,” she said smoothly to Michael. “Perhaps I’ll see you again tonight.” She kept a discreet eye on Charles and saw his flush deepen as she added to Michael, “Will you join me at the tableaux at the Hofburg Palace?”

  Safely surrounded by people, she meant, and he knew it, from the expression on his face.

  Michael nodded, his own voice hardening. “Your orders are exquisitely phrased, Lady Wyndham … as always. I won’t importune you any further.”

  He bowed and left the drawing room, his posture stiff. Listening to his quick steps retreating, Caroline felt a sudden, unexpected pang of … what?

  Had she actually wanted him to persuade her into telling him the truth?

  Nonsense. She forced the unwelcome emotions away and turned back to Charles with a smile.

  “How are you feeling? Poor boy, you must be very weak. Shall I call for refreshments?”

  “No. Thank you. Lady Wyndham—”

  “My dear Charles.” She sat down on the seat across from him, hoping that he would take the hint of the still-open door. “Say what you like, but you look quite shattered. You really ought to return to bed for the rest of the day—your duties can surely wait for another time.”

  “They could, perhaps. But I—excuse me a moment.”

  He stood and crossed the room, breathing heavily, his face paling with every step. Caroline watched as he closed the door solidly.

  “There.” He walked back to her, with a tentative smile. “I believe we can speak safely now.”

  “You think of everything.” She bit back a sigh. It was weakness, truly, to have hoped for anything else. But seeing Pergen again, face-to-face, that morning—hearing his voice, seeing the shadows in his eyes …

  “Tell me,” Caroline said abruptly, surprising herself. “What are the effects on a man of doing alchemy?”

  “Effects?” Charles blinked at her from behind his spectacles as he sank down on the sofa. “Well, there are rumors, certainly, of lengthened life, extended vigor—are you referring to the old story of the philosopher’s stone? I hardly—”

  “I don’t mean the quest for eternal life—at least, I don’t think I do.” Caroline twined her fingers around each other, holding onto a semblance of calm. “I mean …” She took a breath. “I knew a man, years ago, who taught me what I know of alchemy. What I showed you last night. He was taught himself, at first, by another. A creature …”

  She moistened her lips, remembering. Do not show fear. Not in front of Charles. Not in front of anyone. She made her voice as cool as if she were discussing the latest fashions. “It looked like a man,” she said. “And it spoke with—nearly—a man’s voice. But it moved within a column of dark, twisting shadow.”

  “An elemental, then?” Charles frowned. “It doesn’t quite match the descriptions I’ve read, but—”

  “I don’t know!” Caroline heard the vehemence in her own voice and steadied herself. “That is, I used to think it must be something of the sort. But of late, I’ve begun to wonder … You see, I’ve met that man again—my earlier teacher.” She tasted bitterness with the words.

  “Really!” He straightened, his eyes widening. “But this is marvelous. If he is willing to aid us—”

  “I think not.” Caroline restrained a hysterical laugh. “No, there’s no use hoping for anything of the sort. But my point is … when I saw him again, he had changed.”

  “How so?” Charles subsided back onto the couch.

  “He … leaked darkness. There is no other way of saying it. There was something unearthly, even, in the touch of his skin. And it made me wonder whether his own early teacher could have been a man himself, once. A man who had changed.”

  “Transmuted himself,” Charles breathed. “I’ve heard such tales but always dismissed them. If such a thing were possible …”

  “It could hardly
be desired,” Caroline said sharply. “The monstrous nature of his teacher—”

  Charles spoke over her, for the first time since she had hired him. “This would have been at the end of the last century? Or just before?”

  “I—yes. In the last decade of the past century.”

  “There were two or three alchemists who disappeared, then. Everyone assumed they’d all died, or else gone into hiding, but never …” Charles shook his head wonderingly. “This man of shadows—did he move as a man? Was he constrained by matter? Or—”

  “He appeared or disappeared as he would,” Caroline said reluctantly. “He did not seem to require doors.”

  “Astounding.” Charles’s gaze turned inward. “If you only knew how it had come about …”

  Caroline took a steadying breath. “So you have no explanation for it?”

  “I hadn’t even known it to be possible until now. But I suppose …” He leaned forward, gesturing to illustrate his points. “In any act of alchemy—whether mystical or mineralogical—we attempt to pull aside the veil that separates our material world from the world of the aetherial. To reach through it—whether by mystical means, as you did last night, or by formulas and powders. To catch a glimpse of the other side—to feel its power coursing through you—”

  Caroline gazed at her secretary’s enraptured face and felt a shiver of cold misgiving. To catch a glimpse of the other side …

  But what if something from the other side looks back at you?

  A chill crept through her chest as she remembered.

  That feeling—no, that knowledge, inescapable and precise—of something Other flexing itself inside her—looking out through her own eyes, absorbing her own most intimate sensations—

  Something that had slipped through the gap that her words had opened in the veil. Was it by an unexpected, unusual mischance, just this once? Or—was it by exchange? Perhaps it was only by summoning just such a monstrous possession that any man or woman could make use of the unearthly powers that Pergen had harnessed, and that Caroline had experienced last night.