by Emma Newman
“I’m making your life difficult, aren’t I?” She said it with sadness. “I always knew I would. Didn’t I say, back before we were married, that we’d be a poor match?”
He gripped her hand tighter. “No, Cathy. That’s not the way to see this.”
“What other way is there? You want me to be someone I’m not. You want me to play the game, don’t you? That’s what you mean when you say you want me to work with you. You want me to stop being such a pain in the arse. But what you’re really saying is that you want me to stop being who I am.”
“No.” He shifted to the edge of his chair until their knees were mere inches apart. “No, Cathy. I don’t want you to stop being clever and passionate. I want you to use that cleverness to direct your passion in a way that won’t harm us.”
“But that’s impossible!” She pulled her hand away from his. “Don’t you see, Will? The Patroon wants to put a stop to what we’re doing because it’s a threat! We want to change things, and the fucking Patroons want everything to stay the same. Forever!”
She was spiralling away from him and back into her rage. “Darling,” he said, keeping his voice calm and low, “Cathy, I agree with you! That’s what they want and that’s what they’ll get if you continue to speak out in the Court. Do you understand? We need to change tack.”
“Change tack?” Her eyes welled with tears. “You’re backing out of this, aren’t you? You want power more than you want change.”
“No, Cathy, I want power so we can make these changes! Can’t you see? What we have here is so fragile. I’m too young. I don’t have allies I can truly trust, I don’t have friendships spanning centuries or people indebted to me or favours to call in when things are difficult. I’m too easy for him to replace! This has nothing to do with whether I support you or not; it has everything to do with how we stay safe now and how we build a place in Society so we are protected.”
“What do you want me to do? Put all my plans on hold for a few hundred years until you feel safe again?”
“I want—”
“You want me to smile and curtsy and be nice to those…those monsters who make their wives into dolls and rape them every night?”
“Good God, why in the worlds would you say such a thing? Most husbands are true gentlemen. I just want you to understand that Society is not going to change under your sledgehammer, Cathy. The Patroon will cut us down and—”
“But what about Lord Iris? He wanted you to be Duke! The Patroon is just trying to frighten you!”
“Lord Iris wanted an Iris on the throne. I was simply the best placed. And he can get a child from us whether I am Duke or not.” He saw that flicker of fear again. “I would rather be Duke whilst dealing with whatever Iris wants from us. I would rather have some control over our lives than none at all. The only way to make any changes and the only way for us to achieve any sort of freedom is to get to the top of the ladder and stay there.”
“You want to be Patroon?”
Will shook his head. “Even I know I’m too young for that. But one day, perhaps. Right now, I’m just trying to stay on the highest rung I can. I know you want everything to change, but it can’t happen as fast as you want. I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to hear that, but even in Mundanus life for women didn’t change overnight, did it?”
Shaking her head, eyes down now, Cathy was looking inwards.
“I’m not saying you have to stop everything,” he said. “There are women you want to help and you should help them. All I’m asking is that you don’t do it in the Court. I think this needs guerrilla warfare rather than a battering ram.”
“But there’s a huge gulf between helping women secretly and making our Society fair. I want us to reach the point where women aren’t in need of any help. How can that happen if nothing changes publicly?”
“Just give me time,” Will said, catching hold of her hand again. “Please. Give me time to work out how to secure our position. I’m trying hard to be what you want me to be, Cathy. Can you try hard for me too?”
She chewed her lip, a single tear running down her cheek that she swiped away angrily. “Did he say we couldn’t have a Ladies’ Court?”
“Not explicitly, no, but—”
“If I can have the Ladies’ Court, I’ll stay quiet in the main one. Even though it’s exactly what they want.”
It wasn’t ideal—what havoc would she wreak with a room full of wives who’d be interrogated by their husbands as soon as they got home?—but he could see how much it was taking from her to concede the main court. He’d delay the first Ladies’ Court as long as he could, at the very least until Sir Iris provided a solution to the Poppy magic. Will kissed her hand again. “Thank you.”
Will went to the fireplace and pulled the bell cord to ring for tea. Cathy was silent and introspective; the skin between her brows pinched tight, her hands balled up once more. What forces worked through her by Poppy’s design? How much did that wish control her actions? She was rebellious even before it was made. Was he deluding himself into thinking Sir Iris could present a solution that didn’t change who she fundamentally was? He went back to Cathy, leaning down to cup her face in her hands and kiss her deeply.
“I love you,” he whispered, the skin of her face hot beneath his hands.
“I love you too,” she whispered back. “But it’s hard, Will. It feels like I’m being pulled in different directions. I have to change Society and I hate giving in to Sir Iris’s threat but I hate making you upset too. And I know you’re trying. And I know you could just ‘fix’ me with some bloody Charm, and I’m so glad you’d never do that. I know you’re trying to make the best of a bad situation, but I’m scared I won’t make any difference. I’m scared I won’t be able to change anything because I love you.”
Will kissed her again, as if he could somehow kiss away the guilt he felt for using the Lust Charm on Cathy. No. It was the right decision. If they hadn’t consummated the marriage, it would be even worse for them now.
The sound of Morgan outside pulled him away from her lips, leaving her face tilted up, flushed, eyes closed and lips still poised for his. At the knock on the door she blinked and jumped and they both smiled at each other. In that moment he felt hope again.
He returned to his chair as Cathy called Morgan in. The butler arranged the tea and buttered crumpets that Cathy liked for elevenses and left them after a small bow.
Will put two crumpets on one of the plates and handed it to Cathy. “When is the next visit from Dame Iris likely to be?”
The crumpet that was halfway to Cathy’s mouth was put back on the plate, untouched. “I have no idea. I’m hoping…never. She hasn’t been back since I stood up to her.”
Will raised an eyebrow. “What exactly did you say to her the last time she was here?” He remembered the day of the Dame’s last visit clearly. He’d been up most of the night, as had Cathy—she’d been handling the fallout from her radical actions at the asylum and he’d been saving Margritte from his brother.
Cathy stared down at the crumpets, watching the melted butter soak into them. “I made it clear that I wasn’t going to take any of her abuse anymore.”
Will waited. “And…?”
“And I smashed a bottle she brought with her. Some potion or other. Something evil.”
Will suddenly lost his appetite. “And…?”
Cathy looked at him. “And I told her that if she ever tried to coerce, Charm, or curse me ever again, I’d tell Sir Iris what she did to his first wife. Eleanor.” She took in the shock on his face and swallowed. “One of the ladies I rescued from the asylum.”
Will slammed his teacup down. “The former Dame Iris is alive and you didn’t tell me?!”
Cathy winced. “Eleanor asked me not to. Really, Will, she asked me to keep her a secret until she works out what she wants to do now she’s free. The current Dame Iris cursed her and tricked Sir Iris into thinking she was mad, and it’s all a big fucking mess and—”
Wil
l held up a hand. “All right, all right. I understand.” He sat back, taking it all in. “Where is Eleanor Iris now?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“I promised her. I wasn’t supposed to tell you about her at all. We’ve managed to keep a lid on the asylum stuff so far. I thought it was for the best. The staff were paid off and are being protected, like all the people at risk from the asylum. We’re still working out what to do with them all in the long term.”
“Could you contact her? Please, Cathy, I need to speak to her. She could help us.”
Cathy nodded. “Okay. I’ll ask her.”
Will watched her pour the tea, realising how much he’d underestimated his wife. She was blackmailing Dame Iris? He smiled. She was inspirational.
• • •
As he left the newspaper offices, Max wrote the name and address of the source in his notebook and headed back towards Cambridge House, stopping to sit on benches every couple of streets to rest his leg. He chose a route that took in some of the main centres of Fae-touched activity, passing the Holburne Museum to go back into town via Great Pulteney Street. He bought a latte at Jacob’s Coffee House on Stall Street and sat by a window on the second floor to watch over the crowds walking between the coffee house and the Pump Rooms, heading towards the Abbey. Most were tourists, all behaving as they always had. He didn’t see anything unusual and yet couldn’t stop himself scanning the street for any sign of one of the parasites.
The city had never been so at risk. After the Chapter was destroyed, at least Ekstrand had had the monitoring room, which enabled him to see where the parasites came in and out of the Nether. Now they were blind, and it was just a matter of time before the parasites noticed.
A song burst out of one of the pockets of his coat, draped over the chair next to him. He waited until it stopped, noting the irritation of the innocents at the other tables of the coffee house. None of the old tools of his job would have made a noise like that, but Rupert had replaced all of them with his more modern designs. It might be some sort of alarm. But he couldn’t work out which one was making the noise without pulling out the Opener, Sniffer, and more in front of innocents.
The song started again and a man at a nearby table said, “I think that’s your phone going, mate.”
“Oh, the mobile phone,” Max replied. “Thank you. Will it stop eventually?”
“Don’t you want to answer it?”
Max nodded and began to rummage through the coat. He thought it would ring, like a telephone, not play a song that sounded like a wireless. Halfway through the third burst of song, accompanied by tuts and stern glares from the other patrons, he finally found it.
He stared at the screen. There was a green phone in a circle and a red phone, with dotted lines in between. The telephone number of the caller was displayed above it.
“Press on the green one and swipe across,” the man said, miming the action. “It’s one of those smartphones. My daughter bought me one for Christmas. Takes some getting used to.”
Max followed his instruction and the song stopped. “Thank you,” he said to the man, and pressed the phone against his ear as he’d seen the Londinium Arbiters do in Trafalgar Square.
“Max? It’s Kay. From the office.”
“Yes. I remember you.”
“There’s something dodgy going on in Victoria Park. You need to go and check it out.”
Max frowned. “I thought you were buying supplies.”
“We did. We made tea, Rupert told me about my job and about the Fae-touched, and then the alarm went off from one of the Sniffers in the park.”
Rupert hadn’t wasted any time, and she sounded rather calm for someone who’d just been introduced to an alternate reality. Max could tell the gargoyle was still in the bathroom, so the briefing hadn’t got that far. And Sniffers in the park? Rupert hadn’t told him anything about that. “Where in the park?”
“Near the children’s play area. It’s showing up as Peonia—is that right, Rupert?” There was a muffled “yeah” in the background. “It’s just gone off, so if you go now…”
Max was already shrugging his coat on. “Proceeding to the scene now.”
“Cool. Keep us—holy shit!”
A flash of the office interior burst into Max’s mind, Rupert and Kay sitting cross-legged on the floor with half-eaten burgers on paper and cardboard cartons of chips beside them, both looking up from a laptop screen. Kay was staring, slack-jawed, right at him—or rather the gargoyle.
“Sorry I scared you,” it said in its gravelly voice. “I gotta go and help.”
“Yeah…” Rupert said to Kay with a mouth full of half-chewed burger. “That was the next thing I was going to tell you about.”
Max blinked away the image, returning his attention to the coffee shop. A glance at the mobile helpfully showed a red phone symbol labelled end call.
He limped down the stairs as the gargoyle opened one of the windows, climbed out, and scaled the wall to the roof. Max knew it was heading to the main Peonia residence in the town, hoping to spot something if the Fae-touched stayed in Mundanus and went home into the Nether through the house gates. It was going to take longer, having to keep high and out of sight of the mundanes, but Max knew the gargoyle would take the best route.
The sky had brightened further and the clouds had broken enough to give stretches of blue sky. It was still cold, but innocents would be walking in the park, and there would be children, too. Max walked as quickly as the ache and the walking stick allowed, heading for the park he knew well. The bracers Ekstrand had made kept the gargoyle silent as it made its way towards the top of Lansdown Road by the inconvenient and circuitous route that kept it out of sight.
Victoria Park was huge and sprawled over more than fifty acres of land, but Max knew the paths well enough to get to the children’s play area without consulting one of the maps posted on boards around the perimeter. He passed families bundled up against the cold wind and tourists walking with maps in their hands. He kept his collar turned up and folded down the flaps that ran around the edge of the new hat, not caring if it looked amusing or not.
He listened to snippets of conversation as he passed couples and people speaking into mobile phones, but nothing was relevant. Then he heard the singing. It drifted on the breeze, light and female. A nursery rhyme, repeated twice, then again. He stopped, not wanting the sound of his cane to interfere, then headed towards it as quick as he could. It was coming from the northern side of the play area. He cut through a cluster of trees, emerging near a row of benches overlooking the adventure playground.
“Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle…”
A woman sat on one of the benches, staring straight ahead, singing quietly. A large pram was parked next to the end of the bench.
“That’s the way the money goes…”
The woman was young, wearing a black woolly coat and a bobble hat. Max moved closer.
“Pop goes the weasel.”
Her back was straight and her right hand rested on the handle of the pram, pushing it up and down just enough to rock it gently. As he rounded the bench enough to see her face he expected her to turn at the sound of his approach. But she stared out, looking away from the pram, oblivious to him.
“Half a pound of tuppenny rice…”
Max hooked his cane over his forearm and reached into his pocket to rummage for the Sniffer.
“Half a pound of treacle…”
He pulled it out and pressed the button to start it off.
“That’s the way the money goes…”
As the Sniffer sucked in the air barely feet away from the woman, he closed in and stood in front of her. Her eyes focused too slowly on the buttons of his coat. She looked up, not flinching at the sight of his expressionless, ugly face.
“Pop goes the weasel.”
“Is that your child?” Max pointed at the pram.
“Half a pound
of tuppenny rice…”
He was too late. He moved around and peered beneath the lace-edged canopy. Shaded from the sunshine and tucked neatly beneath a yellow blanket was a lump of mud, crudely formed into the shape of the stolen baby.
The Sniffer detected Peonia magic, as Kay had said.
The mobile phone sang in his pocket again. Moving away from the woman, who was still singing, he looked at the screen. The same number as before was calling him. It took two attempts for him to swipe the button, and it finally stopped singing. He lifted it to his ear, turning his back on the victim.
“Where are you? Have you found anything?” It was Kay again.
“At the park. I’ve found a victim. She needs to be taken in and…” He stopped. There was no Chapter to take her to. “I need to speak to Rupert.”
“’Sup?”
“Sir, there’s a woman who’s been Charmed and her baby has been stolen. She’s singing a nursery rhyme repeatedly and is detached and unemotional. She seems oblivious to the fact her baby has gone.”
“There’s a chance it’ll be broken if the baby is brought back to her. If not, we’ll make the Peonia lift it before we take them to the Patroon. I’ll send Kay to keep an eye on her whilst you get the baby back. How many Peonias are there in this city?”
“Only one family, sir. But you can’t send Kay. Her soul’s intact; she’d be at risk.”
“Whoever took the baby isn’t going back there in a hurry.”
“But where will we take the woman afterwards? She can’t just—”
“Max, get the baby back, for fuck’s sake, let me worry about the rest.”
The call ended. Max wasn’t certain if the Sorcerer appreciated all the clean-up involved in a breach of this kind; his former Chapter Master would have handled it all. Getting the baby back was first priority, though. If it was taken into Exilium before he could retrieve it, they might never get it back. But whoever stole it would have to take it into the Nether first, as there were no places in Bath that led straight to the Fae prison. Ekstrand had made certain of that a long time ago.