by Emma Newman
“Better get my notes together,” Sam said, and walked a few paces away until she left.
He pulled out his phone and almost called for a taxi, but reconsidered. He couldn’t run away from this. He opened his texts and fired a new one to Cathy.
Any chance we could go to the pub soon? I can come to London no trouble. Could do with a friend who thinks most of the stuff they’re supposed to do is bullshit :)
Sam swiped to his presentation notes and the words just swam before him. “Fuck it,” he whispered, and went back to the meeting room.
Mazzi gave him a warm smile when he entered, doing all she could to make him feel at ease. It wasn’t helping, but he could have hugged her for trying. Sam went up to the front, put the paperwork on the lectern, and looked at the assembled. Men and women from all over the world looked back at him expectantly. He thought of the funeral, of Leanne’s mother sobbing in the front row. Had any of the people in front of him accidentally killed any of their employees? Maybe. Probably. He knew several of them ran business empires responsible for the misery of many people, and deaths too. He cleared his throat.
“Hi, everyone. My name is Sam, and I’m the one Amir chose to…I’m the one he chose. I’ve prepared a presentation—well, two, actually, but after watching the others today I know neither is right.” A few smiled, most didn’t. “My team, the one I inherited, wrote one of them. It’s got all the figures in it. All the business stuff, you know. But I’m not really into showing off about that sort of stuff, so I’ll skip that one.”
He scanned the faces of his audience and saw the polite attempts to mask their confusion. Many looked like they were trying to decide if he was taking the piss out of them.
“The second presentation I wrote is mostly me trying to give this potted summary of who I am and…and it basically boils down to me not being a hardcore business kind of bloke.” He watched the glances exchanged, the shuffling in the chairs. “I guess that’s a bit of shocker, seeing as Amir was like, Mr Business Mogul, but I’m…” he shrugged. “I’m just a blacksmith.” He picked up the folder, ready to walk out of the room and leave them to it, but he thought of Leanne, of the way gathering the dirt on the activities of these people led to their separation. To her death. He put the folder back down again.
“I’m making changes, though. I’m rolling out a programme of improvements, making sure that all of the mines, plants, forges, foundries, and whatever the hell else I own now will meet the highest environmental protection standards, regardless of what the local compliance requires. I’d like to see you doing the same.”
Backs straightened, eyebrows raised, both Copper and Alicia looked far from pleased. Mazzi closed her eyes.
“The environment and how we can protect it is something I really am interested in.” He let the silence hang for a moment, feeling the hostility towards him building. He wanted to just leave the room, not press it any further, give in to the social pressure to shut up.
He thought of all of those files in storage that Leanne left to him. Her legacy. How those boxes, dozens and dozens of them, catalogued suffering and destruction caused by the very people staring at him. He wanted to yell at them, but they were all there together, facing him standing in front of them, alone. All in their expensive suits and dripping with power. “I…I…um…I just worry that this endless striving for growth and profits just isn’t sustainable. For you or the environment! We need to think about a bigger picture here.”
“Iron, we are the bigger picture,” Copper called out, making many of them smirk. “The people in this room make the world go round. Did Amir not tell you? Without us—without your predecessor’s predecessor we wouldn’t have had the industrial revolution. We make the world a better place.”
“Do we? Really? But what about the pollution and—”
“We cannot micro-manage every single cog in the machine,” Copper said. “The benefits far outweigh the costs.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Sam said through gritted teeth.
“Lord Iron is very new to our world,” Mazzi said, twisting to face the rest from her front-row seat. “Amir did very little to prepare him. Can we all just give him a little time to—”
“But Mazzi,” Sam cut in. “Amir deliberately didn’t prepare me because he knew another person like him would be toxic. He chose me because I’m not like him.” And not like all of you. “I’m looking at this from the outside and I’m wondering what the hell this is all for. Making money? You all look like you have enough. More than enough.”
“Amir chose a fucking communist,” someone muttered.
“I’m not a communist. I’m not a hippie, either, before you go there. I just don’t think we’re doing the best we could. Leaving aside the environmental responsibilities we have, there are others that none of you have mentioned once. What about protecting people?”
“From what?” Alicia asked.
“The Fae.”
He scanned the faces, ranging from confused to a mocking amusement and a lot of disbelief. He looked at Copper. “You must know about this. Copper’s used as much as iron is.”
“Fae? I don’t know this word.”
“Es ‘hada’ en español,” said Lord Titanium, and Copper frowned.
“Is this a joke?” Alicia asked.
Sam looked at Mazzi, waiting for her to back him up. She’d spoken to him about the Sorcerers and the Fae. She folded her arms and shook her head. “Not now,” she mouthed.
“I’m done here,” Sam said. “Actually, no, I’m not. I think we need to do better. We need to improve pollution control, working conditions, and dealing with environmental damage.”
Lord Copper yawned and checked his watch. Scanning the rest of the faces, Sam could see the room was closed to what he was saying. He wanted to grab Copper by his very expensive lapels and shake some responsibility into him, but instead Sam picked up the folder. “Someone has got to think about more than bloody profits,” he said, and left the silent room.
7
When Will heard Sophia’s light babble coming through the schoolroom door down the hall he headed towards it, each happy syllable driving away the weight of the meeting with Sir Iris from his shoulders. Coming straight to the mundane nursery wing the moment he returned home had proven to be a good decision.
The sight of a carriage already parked outside of his house when his own drew up that morning had made him frown. It was hired from the stables in the west of Londinium, used primarily by visitors from Aquae Sulis who reached the stables via a Way to cover the majority of the journey with a carriage to reach their final Londinium destination in style. Will had feared that his mother had come to take Sophia home.
Relieved to hear from Morgan that it was in fact Cathy’s family visiting, he’d avoided the library where the reunion was taking place and headed straight for the green baize door leading into the nursery wing. The sound of his little sister’s happy chatter as soon as he’d stepped through into Mundanus was just what he needed to feel better.
“Sophia!” he called, and was answered by the sound of running feet and the schoolroom door being opened. She peered into the hallway and beamed at him.
“Will-yum!” The hug, tight and all-consuming, followed swiftly. “I’m building a bridge! Triangles are best. Come and see!” Her golden ringlets bounced as she did. The scars left by the thorn attack had yet to fade and her neck, arms, and hands were covered in tiny red lines. They never seemed to bother her, though. “Is Uncle Vincent here?”
“Yes, he’s helping me, come and see.”
Will allowed himself to be pulled into the schoolroom. Cathy and Vincent had decorated the plain white walls with dozens of posters showing animals, places around the world, planets, and an alphabet made of cartoon people. It was the antithesis of the room he’d been taught in, which had had whitewashed walls and nothing but a fleur-de-lis frieze that ran around the room. The governess he’d had as a child, a sour-faced woman who seemed to despise children, would
have swept through this schoolroom like a hateful tornado, ripping all the distractions off the walls.
His uncle was sitting at the large table in the centre of the room, making small balls of Plasticine. Dozens of drinking straws had been cut into quarter lengths and were piled next to him. At the other edge of the table was a rudimentary bridge made of the straws and Plasticine, along with the remains of some failed attempts.
They’d never made the formal decision to have Uncle Vincent tutor her instead of a governess; it had just happened organically. Vincent didn’t seem to care that spending so much time with her in Mundanus was ageing him. Between him and Cathy, Sophia was surely getting a bizarre education, but she seemed to be thriving and that was what mattered.
“This is engining,” Sophia said proudly, barely pausing when Vincent corrected her gently. “I’m very good at it.”
“Engineering?” Will asked. “Why engineering?”
Sophia answered before Vincent had a chance to draw a breath.
“When I’m a princess, I’m going to be an engineer too. I need to learn how to build bridges for all my people, so they can cross rivers without getting wet. Look! This is how you make a pyramid.”
She let go of his hand and started sticking straws together with the balls of Plasticine.
“One of Cathy’s ideas?” he asked his uncle, who nodded.
“Sophia asked her how she could learn how to build bridges and Cathy hit upon all this. Haven’t a clue how she came up with idea, but—”
“Look, Will-yum!” Sophia held up a pyramid shape she’d made. “The square goes on the bottom, and then you make more and join them up. I’m going to build a bridge between this table and the window and then my dolls can drive across it.”
“They have a carriage now?”
Sophia’s bottom lip pouted at Will. “No, Will-yum. A car! A big one that goes very fast. Like Cathy used to drive.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Cathy used to drive a car. She drove from Manchester to Londinium in twenty-five seconds and didn’t knock anyone over!”
Will looked at Vincent, who shrugged good-naturedly. “Cathy likes to make up stories as much as Sophia.”
“But it’s true!” Sophia protested. “I’ll go get it.”
She ran out of the room towards her bedroom. Will looked at his uncle, still dutifully pulling chunks off the hard sticks of Plasticine and working them into balls. “Do you mind all this?”
“The engineering or the stories?”
“I mean the unorthodox education.”
Vincent shrugged. “It’s probably more useful than Latin. Cathy doesn’t limit her, that’s all. And Sophia’s sleeping better again.”
“You don’t have to stay.” Will immediately regretted saying it when he saw the flash of worry in his uncle’s eyes. “I don’t mean that you should go. Not for a moment. But you must have your own business to attend to, your own commitments? Sophia is—”
“I’d like to stay.” Vincent put the stick of Plasticine down and looked right at him. “I want to stay in Mundanus with her. Her nursemaid is nice enough, and Cathy comes when she can, but she’s got so many responsibilities. That little girl deserves some proper attention.” He gave a smile. “Besides, I find the company of a small child to be far superior to that of most of Society.”
Will sat at the table. “But if you stay here, how will you meet anyone else? Don’t you want to start a family?” Will knew his uncle’s wife and sons had died in some sort of accident over a hundred years before. No one had ever told Will the details. It was one of those topics that one never brought up. Perhaps that’s why Uncle Vincent spent more time in Mundanus than most—what was the point of living on in the Nether, protected from the ravages of ageing, when the people one loved the most were long dead? But surely he’d grieved enough?
“I had one, Will,” he said with such sadness. “Couldn’t risk going through that pain again.”
“Look! It’s an Audi TeePee!” Sophia cheered from the door, thrusting a large model car towards Will. “My dolly princesses ride in it and go very fast.” She paused, looking at Uncle Vincent. Silently, she put the car on the table, moved to his side, and wrapped her arms around him. “Don’t have a sad, Uncle Vincent. You can play with my dolly car too.”
Will watched his uncle scoop Sophia up and envelop her in a bear hug, squeezing his eyes shut and kissing her hair. Vincent loved her so deeply, more than her own father did. The thought made him uncomfortable.
The sound of the baize door opening made Will stand. Morgan appeared at the door. “The Duchess is now free, your Grace.”
“Thank you, Morgan. I need to go now, Sophia.”
“Awww.” Her bottom lip stuck out again.
“I’ll come back soon, I promise.”
He smiled at his uncle as he hugged Sophia goodbye and then left them to bridge-building. Morgan was waiting for him on the Nether side of the baize door. “Something else, Morgan?”
“It seems that the Duchess’s younger sister may be a guest for an extended stay. I thought you should know. The Duchess seems rather upset about it.”
Will frowned. “Thank you, Morgan. Is she still in the library?”
“Yes, your Grace, and Miss Rhoeas-Papaver has been shown to her room. Mrs Rhoeas-Papaver has returned to Aquae Sulis.”
Will thanked Morgan and headed for the library, hoping he’d planned the right approach. He had to make this marriage work and bring her onside, wish magic or not. There was no way to know what solution Sir Iris was planning to combat the effect of Poppy’s magic, nor how long it would take, and he couldn’t risk another misstep.
He knocked on the door to Cathy’s library, heard the sound of a drawer being shut, and then Cathy called him in.
“Oh! Will, you’re back!” she said, standing up so fast that she almost knocked her chair over. A fountain pen rested on her desk, uncapped, and she seemed on edge.
Will shut the door behind him. “I didn’t want to disturb your mother’s visit.”
Cathy sagged. She looked so tired. “She wants me to get Elizabeth matched and—oh, I don’t want to talk about it. It’s such bollocks and I just…” She shrugged. “I’m sorry I was horrible to you last night.”
He took a step towards her. This was a good sign. “Thank you.”
“I’m not sorry about what I said in the Court,” she added, and he sighed.
“We need to talk.”
“I’m not going to apologise for what I said to that pillock.”
“Cathy.” He went to her and took her hands, uncurling them from fists until she held his. He had to keep calm and cool her passion enough to make her see sense. “I want to have a conversation with you, not a fight. What happened last night in the Court can’t be undone. I want to talk about how we move forwards.”
Cathy’s eyes narrowed. “You’re managing me.”
Will laughed. “Of course I am. It feels like every time we talk we end up arguing.”
She looked away, a slight blush on her cheeks. “I know.”
“I need to talk to you about what happened with Sir Iris.”
She bit her lip and looked back at him, fearful. “Was it awful?”
“Thoroughly.”
“Was it because of what I said in the Court?”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes. “Shit.”
“Come and sit down.”
They sat in the two chairs he’d originally bought for her library (the sofa was her own addition). He recalled her radiant smile when he first showed it to her, weak from the knife attack. He needed a way to keep both her and his Patroon happy. Was that even possible?
“I would like to say some things, Cathy, and I would like you to listen. Right to the end.”
She nodded, pale. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
“Sir Iris was furious. Somehow he heard about what happened at the Court.”
“Hang on,” Cathy said. “He heard what really happe
ned, or some misogynistic interpretation of it?”
Will silently counted to three. “I haven’t finished yet. He thinks I’m a weak husband and a poor duke for letting you speak in the Court. No matter what I said, no matter how clear I was that I supported you, he was adamant that what…we’ve done is unacceptable.”
Cathy took in a breath but mercifully stopped herself from launching into a predictable tirade against the Patroon.
“He made it clear that if I allow you to continue to speak in a political capacity, he’ll strip me of the Dukedom and send us to the Frankish Empire. We do not want this to happen, trust me. The Parisian Court would be the end of us and most certainly the end of your—our—dreams of change in Society.”
Cathy’s fists were balled up again, but she stayed quiet.
“I need you to understand the position I’m in, Cathy. I need you to understand that the man who is furious with you—and with me—can take all of this away in a moment and put another Iris in my place. He already thinks I’m too young to be Duke. He treated me like a naughty child. It was humiliating, and I never want to feel that way again. I don’t want to silence you, but I cannot—I will not—let that man take everything away from us. And if we don’t think carefully about what we do next, that’s what he’s going to do.”
Will watched Cathy’s face carefully, seeing the anger, the frustration, and the fear play across her features. He reached across the gap between them, took her hand, and kissed it, pressing his lips against her skin twice, three times. “I love you. I want to keep you safe, you and Sophia. I want to make you happy, and I fear I cannot do any of those things as long as my Dukedom is under threat.” He looked into her eyes. “Help me, Cathy. I need you to think this through with me, without rage, without attacking this ‘patriarchy.’ I need you to work with me.”
She drew in a breath, and he heard it catch in her throat. She was shivering. He cupped his hands around hers, holding it tight, hoping that she could rein in her emotions enough, despite that damned magic working against them. “Is there anything more?” she asked, and he shook his head.