by Robyn Bachar
“I see you are without your stray pups today,” Justine commented.
“Yes. Being averse to sunlight is one of the drawbacks to their breed,” I replied. “When was it discovered that Miss Thistlegoode was missing?”
“This morning. Her maid came in to wake her and found the room empty.”
“And they are sure she hasn’t eloped or run off?”
“We were hoping you would be able to determine that for certain.” Justine held her hand out expectantly, waiting for me to give her my gloves.
I nodded. “Very well.” I obliged her, and then turned my attention to the room.
The impressions were much stronger than they had been in Mrs. Harding’s bedroom. The young women were the same age and shared the same girlish energy. When I reached for Miss Thistlegoode’s pillow I found two dolls hidden in the bedding, tucked in next to where she had slept. My breath hitched at the sight, but the touch triggered a vision. Not an all-encompassing one, but rather a faint impression of recent events. Miss Thistlegoode had been sound asleep, and a noise had awakened her. She sat up and rubbed at her eyes, and then smiled at someone standing behind me. I turned to the spot she stared at and flinched at the echo of Mr. Paris.
“Darling,” she exclaimed.
“Oh no,” I murmured.
“What is it?” Justine asked, and I motioned for her to hush.
Mr. Paris sat on the edge of the bed and took Miss Thistlegoode’s hands in his. “We must leave tonight, my love.”
“Tonight? But why so soon?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“Because it isn’t safe. Your parents are beginning to suspect. You must come with me now.”
She nodded—poor dear, how could she resist the lure of such excitement—and allowed him to draw her to her feet. Mr. Paris led her away, and much to my surprise they both disappeared through Miss Thistlegoode’s full-length dressing mirror. Curious, I approached it, hoping for a clue as to where they’d vanished to. The glass rippled at my touch again, and Dr. Bennett gasped.
“You can see that?” I asked, startled.
“See what?” Justine asked.
“The mirror. Mr. Paris took Miss Thistlegoode through it. It moves like the mirror in Mrs. Harding’s room did,” I informed her.
The guardian frowned. “How is it that you can see it and I can’t, Andrew?”
Andrew. Intrigued, I turned to face them, and with my sight sharpened I spotted a detail I had not noticed before, for I had never witnessed them standing side by side. Their auras were connected, woven together with a series of silver cords, just as mine and Michael’s were.
“Possibly because I’m faerie-blooded,” he explained. “Is something wrong, Mrs. Black?”
“Oh! No, nothing.” Now was not the time to inform them of the fact that they were soul mates. Perhaps later, over tea… “Faerie-blooded?”
“Yes. This mirror has been used as a portal to Faerie,” he said.
“So Mr. Paris isn’t a necromancer at all then. He couldn’t be,” Justine said. “But why would a faerie murder magicians?”
“Does your jurisdiction extend into Faerie?” I asked.
“Of course,” she replied.
I squared my shoulders. “Then there is only one way to find out. Can you open the portal, Dr. Bennett?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Wait,” Justine said. “Let me inform the family of our intentions first, in case something happens. Is everyone carrying a timepiece?”
“I am,” Dr. Bennett replied.
“I’m afraid I am not.” I never had need to carry one. “Why is that important?”
“Because without a piece of Earth’s time a visitor to Faerie can fall out of our timeline and become trapped,” Dr. Bennett explained. “It is why Miss Dubois and I always carry one.”
“Miss Thistlegoode was in her nightdress. I’m sure she didn’t have a timepiece.”
Justine grimaced. “Well, we will handle that problem when we find her. I will see if Mr. Thistlegoode has one you can borrow. One moment.”
Miss Dubois left the room, and I changed my mind about waiting until later to inform Dr. Bennett of the new development. “I have an answer for you as to your match,” I announced as soon as we were alone.
“Really?” He blinked, appearing surprised.
“Yes. You and Justine are soul mates.”
For a moment he stood in stunned silence, but then he grinned broadly. “You’re certain of this?”
“Yes. The indicators are quite unique, and I have seen them in other couples before, including myself. I think you two will do marvelously together.” I smiled, and he continued to grin. My heart sank as his expression reminded me of the look on Michael’s face after Lillian was born, but I pushed the memory aside, determined to be happy for them.
“Thank you, Mrs. Black.”
“I’ll leave it to you to inform her at a more appropriate time.”
He continued grinning until Justine returned, at which point he managed to control himself again. She handed me a silver pocket watch, and I attached the chain to a buttonhole in my dress and slipped the watch into my pocket.
“Is this dangerous?” I asked, morbidly curious.
Justine disarticulated her parasol, arming herself with her shining sword and shield. “Possibly. Stay behind me, and stay together.”
Dr. Bennett and I nodded in silent agreement. My heart pounded as I was beset by the knowledge that this was a terrible idea—the goddess may have once been a warrior and a mother, but I wasn’t both. I would be helpless if we were attacked.
Withdrawing a small knife from within his jacket, Dr. Bennett sliced a cut into his palm and placed it against the glass of the mirror. He chanted a quick spell—witches are fond of rhyming couplets—and the glass bloomed into a dazzling display of light. Miss Dubois stepped through it without hesitation. Dr. Bennett followed, and gods help me, so did I.
The heat hit me first, a stifling wave like walking into an enormous oven. I almost expected my skirts to catch fire, but instead I began to perspire in a very unattractive manner.
“Where are we?” I asked. Our surroundings were completely foreign. Waves of heat gave everything a shimmer, as though the world were sizzling. An orange glow lit the walls around us, which were made from a strange, dark, porous rock, and my nose wrinkled at a pungent scent like a just-struck match.
“It reminds me a bit of a volcano I studied while traveling in Iceland,” Dr. Bennett said. “Even smells of it as well.”
Justine sighed. “Probably fire faeries then, or magma ones. That does not bode well for us. What I wouldn’t give for a nice, even-tempered earth faerie clan. Can you see anything? A trail, perhaps?”
My vision turned but shut down as I was overwhelmed with light. With a hiss of pain I covered my eyes before I was blinded. “The magic is too strong here. I can’t see anything except light, like staring into the sun. I may be able to feel my way around if you can keep me from tripping and falling.”
“We’ll do our best. Go on,” Justine ordered.
Eyes firmly shut, I extended my right hand and stretched my senses. It wasn’t an aspect of my magic that I often used, because as a seer I was obviously partial to sight. I said a silent prayer to the Lady, asking for her aid in finding this lost child. Miss Thistlegoode likely would have argued that she was a grown woman, and perhaps she was, but at the moment her mother was frantic to find her little girl, and I suspected that the Lady would appreciate that.
I pictured Miss Thistlegoode’s fresh, youthful face and the dolls between her bedsheets, hidden but not forgotten. Something tugged me forward, a bit like Lillian leading me to the scene of her latest mischievous disaster.
I followed the sensation, pulled ever onward, occasionally tapped lightly or redirected by Justine. Once she grabbed my arm and tugged me down, whispering for us all to be quiet. Crouching on the foreign ground, I trembled at the steady sound of approaching footsteps. My heart pounded and my lun
gs strained until the footsteps retreated. The guardian helped me to my feet—even with my eyes closed I recognized her steady energy, like a rock of strength and patience—and I continued on.
Justine gasped, and the sudden burst of shock washed over me like an icy wave. I opened my eyes to see what was the matter, and I gasped as well. We stood in a hallway lined with metal doors. The door to our right was open, and a naked woman lay atop a stone slab within the room past it. It wasn’t Miss Thistlegoode, but they appeared similar in age. The woman’s eyes were clouded with death as she stared at the door, her arms and legs akimbo, her skin white from the absence of blood and the pallor of death.
“Lord and Lady,” Dr. Bennett whispered, and I echoed the sentiment. Justine hushed him and placed a hand on his arm to discourage him from checking on the woman. She was obviously deceased, and there was nothing we could do for her.
My hand shook as I held it out again, but I couldn’t close my eyes. The distraction, and my fear, made the process slower, and we crept forward by agonizing inches. So many doors…most were closed. “Locked,” Justine announced in a strained whisper. We passed two more open doors, one with another naked corpse, the other with an ominously empty slab.
Though the sights were disturbing, the sounds were even more so. Low feminine moans emanated from some of the locked rooms, and I couldn’t decipher if they were from pleasure or pain. Perhaps both… I closed my eyes and concentrated on my task. The warm ache of lust saturated the energy of the area, mixed with the nauseous certainty of slow death.
Dear gods, what were they doing here? There were dozens of rooms. Surely not all these women had been taken from London? They would have been missed. Was Mr. Paris snatching victims from all over England? He couldn’t manage such a thing on his own. His entire clan must be involved. But why?
Is one child truly so much to ask for?
Faeries were sterile, unable to breed with each other since the creation of their own world. My knees buckled and my legs collapsed beneath me. Lord and Lady…
I blinked my eyes open to see Dr. Bennett kneeling beside me, watching me with concern. “We were right. They’re trying to steal the girls’ fertility for themselves,” I whispered. His eyes widened behind his spectacles—he must have been as horrified as I was by the idea.
Another chorus of moans sounded from a nearby door, and it pulled at me. I pointed at it. “There, she’s there.”
Justine marched over to the door and tried the latch, but it was locked. She stared at it, her pretty face set with steely determination. She set her shield against the door and shoved it open with a screech of protesting metal.
Miss Thistlegoode was indeed inside on her own stone stab, her eyes bleary and unfocused as though she had imbibed far too many glasses of wine. She was naked, and I covered her with my shawl to preserve some sense of modesty. Her arms and legs dangled over the sides of the slab, and there were deep cuts at her wrists and ankles. Blood dripped into wide-mouthed white marble pitchers, and I shuddered at the terrible sight.
“She’s alive, but just barely,” Dr. Bennett said. “She has lost a great deal of blood. One moment.” A green glow emanated from his hands as he pressed them to her wounds, and they healed one by one.
“Mama?” Miss Thistlegoode murmured.
My chest tightened, and I stroked her hair comfortingly. “It’s all right now. We’re here to take you home.”
“You carry her, Andrew. I will lead us out,” Justine announced.
Miss Thistlegoode groaned as Dr. Bennett picked her up, and he cradled her as he would a child being carried to bed. She was a slender, coltish thing, all limbs and arms. I prayed that she would be all right, but judging by her pallor, I doubted she would survive the night.
We hurried back down the hallway, and I despaired at all those closed doors. How many women were trapped here? I understood that we did not have the time or the manpower to rescue them all, but leaving them behind made my heart ache. Justine led us unerringly through twisting, sloping tunnels, and I wondered how I had ever brought us there in the first place. The route had seemed more straightforward with my eyes closed.
“Quick, in here.” Justine pressed us into an alcove, hefted her shield and held it up as though protecting us with it. Magic covered us, a dark, soothing wave of serenity that enveloped us in a cool shadow. A group of faeries hurried past us, and my eyes widened at the sight of them. Their skin was the same gray as the walls around us, and they had burning red eyes that glowed in the dim light, and hair made of flickering flames. I had never seen a faerie before, only pictures in the books in my family’s library. Though I supposed that wasn’t true if Mr. Paris was one as well, and he had been disguised as a human. I expected faeries would be beautiful, winged beings, but their true visages were frightening, like demons.
When the faeries passed we hurried on our way again, fear quickening our pace. We rounded a corner and Justine stopped, raising her sword. A group of faeries stood at the far end of the hall as though waiting for us. One of them stepped forward, and her flaming form shimmered and transformed to that of a gorgeous woman draped in flowing, white, gossamer fabric. Like an ancient marble statue of a goddess, she was stunningly beautiful and barely clothed.
“We do not often have uninvited guests.” Her voice struck a chord with me, and I realized with a shudder that this was the woman from my vision.
“I am a guardian. I do not need an invitation,” Justine replied.
“A guardian. How quaint.”
“Stand aside. We are returning this girl to her family,” Justine ordered.
The Greek goddess did not appear amused. “I cannot let you do that.”
They weren’t going to let us go. They couldn’t, for we would reveal the truth of their crimes. The knowledge settled in my stomach like a stone, and as Justine and the faerie woman traded threats I plotted our next move. We needed a doorway. The doorway that brought us here had required blood—Dr. Bennett’s blood, with its hint of faerie heritage. Perhaps mortal blood would get us home, and I had a strong connection to someone in our world. My soul mate, Michael.
I turned to Dr. Bennett, reached into the pocket of his jacket where I had seen him stow the knife, and liberated the weapon from him. I slashed a cut across my palm and pressed it against the stone wall. Drawing on my magic, I poured everything I had into picturing Michael and the many layers of silver strands that bound our souls together. It had started with one, a single link that connected us, and that link had multiplied as our love had grown. Every endearment, every tender moment, our marriage, our children…
Power burned a bright tunnel through the stone and pulled me in, tumbling me head over foot until I landed in a heap in the middle of Thomas’s library, my companions arriving a heartbeat behind me. I looked up to see two very surprised chroniclers staring down at us.
“Hello, darling,” I greeted Michael, and then promptly fainted.
Chapter Nine
“…assure you…perfectly fine…just overwhelmed. I have never heard of anyone who wasn’t faerie-blooded being able to open a portal. It was really very impressive.” Dr. Bennett praised me as I swam toward consciousness. I dragged my heavy eyelids open and stared up at the ceiling. There was a large crack in the plaster. I would have to inform Thomas about it. It likely needed repair.
“Emily?”
I turned my head in the direction of Michael’s voice and spotted him standing a few feet away, being physically restrained by Simon. Gathering my strength, I forced myself to sit up. There was a rush of strange lightheadedness, and my limbs tingled with a prickly pins-and-needles sensation. No permanent damage done. Even the cut in my palm had healed.
“Is Miss Thistlegoode all right?” I asked when I spotted Dr. Bennett. She was absent from the room, as well as Justine.
“No, I’m afraid she did not make it. She was barely hanging on when we found her,” he replied. “Miss Dubois is seeing to the matter now. How do you feel?”
; I blinked. How did I feel? “Odd.”
“Here, let’s get you settled into a chair before your husband takes a swing at Mr. St. Jerome.”
“I would rather like to see that,” I muttered. Dr. Bennett chuckled as he helped me to my feet, and with his aid I managed to stumble to one of the chairs near the writing desk. “Is there tea? Tea would be lovely right now.”
“I believe your sister is fetching some. She seemed a bit flustered.” Dr. Bennett began fussing with his spectacles, appearing quite flustered himself.
Poor Jo. I’d brought our motley band into her husband’s library. There would be hell to pay for this later. For now, I watched Michael and Simon arguing as quietly as they could manage.
“Oh for pity’s sake, just let him go, Simon. He hasn’t bitten me like a rabid dog before, and I’m certain he isn’t going to start now,” I said, exasperated.
“You can’t be sure of that,” Simon argued. “I, for one, can smell your blood from here.”
Despite the macabre statement, I rolled my eyes. “Bully for you. If he misbehaves I shall sock him in the nose and you can rescue me, for I’m sure you’re not about to leave the room.”
Simon studied me with his cool, pale gaze, and then he made a great show of letting Michael go and motioning him onward. There was an unmistakable air of challenge in his expression, as though he expected he would be proved correct any moment now. For both our sakes, I hoped Michael proved him wrong.
Michael hurried toward me and knelt at my feet, taking my hand in his. His skin was cold, reminding me that I had left my gloves in Miss Thistlegoode’s bedroom. His concern for my well-being and fear that I had been in danger threatened to overwhelm me again, and I gasped.
“Quietly, darling. You’re thinking much too loudly,” I warned.
He smiled sheepishly; he would have blushed, had he had the blood to do it. “My apologies. I was worried for you. You made quite an entrance.”
“How did you manage it?” Dr. Bennett asked. “You didn’t even speak a spell.”
“Oh…well, I assumed that blood was needed from watching you, which was why I borrowed your knife. I have it here, by the way, along with Mr. Thistlegoode’s pocket watch.” I produced said knife from my pocket and handed it to Dr. Bennett. Michael tensed, and I assumed he could smell the remnants of blood on the blade. However was he supposed to survive in a house with small children who were forever skinning their knees or scraping their palms?