It was Christien.
Amazing, she thought to herself. Exactly the same and yet so different. He was shrinking back, eyes wide, staring at the blood on his hands. The blade clattered to the floor at his feet.
He looked at her now, an expression of horror on his face.
“What is happening to me?” he wailed, and she could see him shaking in the dim gaslight. Her eyes flicked to the blade, to the puddles on the floor that were slowly beginning to crackle and frost. She looked back up at him again.
“You’re ill, Christien,” she said, carefully pulling first one then the other knee underneath her. “The locket—”
“Yes, the locket,” he moaned. “The locket makes me ill. It makes me lose myself . . .”
There was a stab of pain from her ankle, and she could see her breath as she gasped. A sound overhead now, and she glanced up as a droplet of condensation froze in a perfect icicle, hanging like the sword of Damocles over their heads. Slowly, ever so slowly, she reached for the blade.
“But we can help you. It’s not your fault . . .”
“What’s not?” He reached for her but she shrank back now. He blinked in bewilderment, and she could see tears brimming behind his lashes. “What’s not my fault? Ivy, please?”
It was very cold behind her, and she turned to see the black staircase growing white.
Suddenly there was a boom as the door above them shattered open. She ducked her head as a thousand frozen pieces rained down on them from above.
Illuminated by the locket’s flashing lights, the Mad Lord stood at the top of the stair.
“Renaud Jacobe St. John de Lacey,” he began, his voice hollow and echoing down like an automaton. “Iudicium best in anima tua.”
“Bastien?”
“Est iudicium in anima tua,” he repeated as he began down the stair, the locket throbbing like a heartbeat. “There is judgment on your soul.”
“Bastien, please?” Christien moaned, pulling the gas mask from his brow. He threw it to the ground as if it had grown too tight.
Sebastien continued down the stair. In the flashes of Ghostlight, she could see the bones through his skin, his face empty like a skull, hands searing as they touched the cold metal of the railing.
Christien moaned again, pulled the glove from his hand next, and Ivy gasped at the sight. The finger that held the little brass ring was withered and black, tendons and bones visible beneath the rotting flesh. It was beginning to crackle with ice.
“Ego te ligo. Ei te ligant. Tu ligaris es.”
Christien was shaking now, and it broke her heart into a thousand shattered pieces. Like the door. Like the dog.
“Renaud Jacobe St. John de Lacey, tu remittitur es et corona servita est. You are forgiven and the Crown has been served.”
Christien’s eyes snapped open, and he froze in place as the locket began to rise from his brother’s chest.
“May God have mercy on your soul.”
Christien stared at the locket, and she let her eyes fix on it as well. Not only was it hovering in the air, suspended at the end of its chain, she was certain it was slowing. It had been spinning madly up to this point but now it was slowing, its rotations almost ticking like the hands of a clock. Like a countdown. Like a breath.
The Mad Lord merely closed the paper-thin layer of skin that covered his eyes, and all sound ceased.
Faces white and long dead, mostly women, a few men, surrounded them. They were rising up from the floor, they were floating down from the doorway, they were peeling from the walls. Ivy could see them all now, real as her own flesh. One woman in particular had no face at all and now she was at Sebastien’s side, gesturing with her hand, and in her hand was her heart.
Finally, for a brief fleeting moment, she could see with the eyes of a cat.
She did not feel revulsion. She did not feel wonder. She felt very little at all, and she wondered if in fact she was also to be counted among the dead but simply wasn’t aware of it yet.
It was Ghostlight. Somehow, the strange, beautiful artifact possessed a power she had never imagined. In fact, it was as if she had stepped out of time, as everything around her now seemed to slow. The fire did not burn in the boilers. The belts and the pistons and the wheels slowed without so much as a squeak. The gears in the machine-works ground to a halt. All sound had ceased, all thought, all sensation, all life, all death, for even the dead were silent now, empty eyes drawn to the pendant about de Lacey’s neck. Everything was focused on that one thing, a simple clockwork creation of undiscovered elements, glass, and angels.
The locket was holding its breath and everything in the world held with it.
And with a click that sounded like the roaring of a waterfall, it opened.
A SMALL CROWD was gathering on the quay. Dock workers, shipsmen, and drunks, all claiming to have heard pistol shots and coming to see. A bobbie had been sent for, along with a surgeon, and Mary Jane sat, stroking Rupert’s forehead with her fingers as he bled all over the planks. She seemed numb to the world, a fragment of a woman pushed too far, but she refused help when the few men offered, preferring to sit and wait for the surgeons herself.
His breathing was raspy, and she knew what that meant. She had seen her share of dead and dying. There was little a surgeon could do.
“It were right brave,” she said softly. “Pushin’ ’im outta the way like that. I never seen no-one do nothin’ like that before.”
“My boys,” he said. “I’d die for them.”
“Still, it were right brave, all the same.”
Suddenly, the crowd around her gasped, and she looked up.
The enginehouse of St. Katharine’s docks was shining.
ONCE, WHEN SHE was little, she and her tad had driven out to the ring of great stones on Salisbury plain. It wasn’t a solstice, it wasn’t a festival, it was simply a night, and they lay on their backs in the middle of the stones to watch the stars. Being a city girl, she had never seen a sky so big, so black, and yet so amazingly bright at the same time, and star after star shot across the night like fireworks.
Her tad had told her they were angels.
Inside the locket—so small and delicate—spun a universe of stars. Shooting stars, twinkling stars, and collapsing stars; clouds of rainbow colours in hues she had never before seen. It was hypnotic, drawing all light into itself, and she could not help but look. The spirits were equally drawn, abandoning their fleshly forms for heavenly ones, lifting into the air, and circling the Mad Lord and the entire universe cupped in the palms of his hands.
And, just like that night on the Salisbury plain, she could have sworn she saw angels.
They came from within the Ghostlight, as if it had no glass, no metal, only the unlimited expanse of sky. They were creatures of light, bending and folding like colours from a kaleidoscope, and they swooped out from the rings like the shooting stars of Salisbury plain. She watched, amazed, as they swept around the engine-house, each one reaching for and catching one of the dead in its arms, and she heard music like the rushing of great waters and a choir of a thousand voices lifted in song.
She could have sworn they were singing in Welsh.
She glanced at Sebastien. He was smiling like the sun but his eyes were space. It was as if they were windows open to the vast expanse of night sky, and she could see stars and coloured clouds and suns spinning within him. She realized that at this moment, he was not a creature of this earth.
Perhaps he never was.
Behind him, the stairway, once black iron, now gleamed gold, and her eyes swept the engine-room, marvelling as gear after gear changed colour as well. They were turning into the colours of the locket—gold, brass, silver, copper, and bronze—and they had resumed their working, trading their hiss and hum for an increasing roar. The room was radiating with an iridescence that was at once beautiful and terrifying, and the throb of otherworldly power pulsed like a drum.
Angels and spirits swept back in a rush, spinning in on the locket tha
t swelled with their company. The light throbbed larger and larger, like a heartbeat, and she found it difficult to keep watch, wondered if her eyes would burn out of their very sockets with the intensity. There was a great heaving of breath and a final burst of light and then silence.
A woman appeared before them all.
“CAN YOU SEE, jolie Marie?” croaked Rupert.
“Aye,” she said. “It’s flash.”
“Flash?”
She looked down at him. “Beautiful.”
“Let me see.”
She pulled him to sitting, wrapped her arms around him for support. The blood rushed up with the motion, threatening to spill out of his mouth, but he choked it back, waited for the pain to subside. He turned his face to the lights at the end of the pier, and immediately, the pain was forgotten.
“Good Lord,” he breathed.
“It’s like stars,” she said. “Stars and snowflakes, or the fireworks after a special speech. Right pretty, it is.”
“She is so very beautiful . . .”
“Right pretty.”
“The prettiest flower . . . In a wildflower meadow . . .”
For the last thing he saw was the face of Jane Penteny of Eccelston, smiling down on him.
IT WAS JANE Penteny of Eccelston.
Ivy recognized her immediately from the photochromes. She was a vision of light, her blonde hair free and radiant, her smile warm, eyes dancing. As she stood beside her eldest son, the resemblance was uncanny. She turned her face to Ivy now, reached up into the air, and a shape began to form in the palm of her hand. It seemed to be a woman with a young child, and Ivy felt her throat tighten as Jane blew across the shapes, separating them. Ivy knew that, no matter what happened down here in this damp dungeon of a room, her mother would be fine and whole once again.
Jane opened her mouth wide next, inhaled a deep breath, and the child, Tobias, disappeared into her with the rest of the universe.
Now, Jane turned to Christien. He looked like a little boy, standing so still in the centre of the room. In fact, he looked as though he himself might shatter at any moment, and she reached out her hand again, this time to caress his cheek, trace the tears that were spilling from his lashes. Reached her other hand up to cup his face and slowly, the way a potter works wet clay, she began to pull another face from his, the face of her husband, Renaud.
It was painful to watch but Ivy could not tear her eyes away as slowly, deliberately, she split her son in two, one of flesh and the other of spirit. Ivy could see the difference in their features but when the woman leaned into the ghostly face for a kiss, the image grew distorted. Winds picked up, whipping hair and clothing and the debris from the shattered door, and it was accompanied by the now familiar roar of banshees. She could see Renaud’s face begin to dissolve, first the skin and hair, shewing the muscles, and then the bones beneath, until he was but a skeleton clasped in his wife’s deadly embrace and even that too dissolved like a cube of sugar in hot tea. Christien staggered backwards, knees buckling, as his mother turned away from him toward her eldest son.
When she looked back on it, Ivy was firmly convinced that time indeed had changed, for, as Jane reached for Sebastien, the machine-works ran faster than ever and Christien sank slowly to his knees. As he did so, the engine’s whipping belt caught the tip of the ringed finger and it was enough to pull him off his feet and into the machine.
Slowly, heavily, as if she were made of lead, Ivy lunged forward, catching the young physician under the arms, preventing him from being pulled in entirely. She swung her good leg under her, bracing against the machine, as the flywheel ground his left hand in a mash of flesh, blood, and bone.
“Sebastien!”
Her voice could barely be heard over the roaring of the machine and the wailing of the spirits, and she threw a look over her shoulder. Lady Jane Penteny was still reaching out toward him and his attention was riveted on her alone. The flywheel was groaning now as it strained against Christien’s forearm, the bones acting like a wedge, and she could hear them splinter like eggshells. His eyes were wide, and at first she thought him in shock, but he had added his own feet beside hers, bracing against the constant pull of the steam engine.
“Get the knife,” he said. “Cut it off.”
“Sebastien!” she screamed, but he was reaching for his mother, and in a flash of light, Ivy saw, not the face of a beautiful woman, but rather a skull, and she knew that both sons would die tonight if she didn’t stop it somehow. The wheel lurched again, drawing Christien even closer, and the bones crunched up to the elbow joint. He gagged with the pain.
“Cut it off, Ivy! Please!”
She kicked off with her good foot, swung with one arm, but the blade was several yards away. She would have to release him to get it, but she knew that he could not hold out against the unstoppable force of the machine. If it pulled him to the shoulder, there would be nothing to prevent the crushing of his head and neck. He was already too close, the thundering wheel no more than inches from his face, and the pistons that worked beneath the wheel still strained, snatching at his shirt and buttons and towncoat.
She turned her head and filled her lungs one last time.
“Laury!”
In spite of the whipping, roaring winds, the wailing banshees, and the locket’s hypnotic lights, the Mad Lord inclined his head, a dog hearing a faraway sound.
“Damn it, Laury!” she bellowed, her Welsh accent strong and true. “Get yor arse over here now!”
The figure of Jane Penteny raised both arms now, pleading with him, but his star-eyed gaze was fixed on Ivy. He took a step toward them when the woman wailed and laid her hands around the locket, and the entire room thundered with sound. The locket had him fast, drawing him with a force that seemed to suck all light into it as well. She could see him fight against it like a horse bracing against the rein and she wondered if there was hope for any of them tonight. Finally, he reached back and snapped the chain, leaving it to hover for a moment before it too flew into the central pulsing light that was the woman.
The floor, walls, and machine all throbbed like a great heartbeat as Sebastien scrambled toward her.
“Get the knife!” Ivy yelled. “Bring it here, Bastien! Bring it here!”
He did not. When he reached her side, he did, however, turn his palms upward, setting the frost circling within.
She closed her eyes. It was hopeless. He was set on talking to ghosts, while his brother was slowly becoming one.
The room throbbed again, and again, and steam began to hiss as suddenly, the temperature in the room dropped like a stone. She opened her eyes, could see the breath in front of her face. He was studying the machine, the belts and the massive flywheel, the pistons and the drums, and before she could say anything, he leaned forward and laid both hands on the belt. Frost began to travel up and down its length.
The machine-works shuddered as the newly silver collector cracked, spilling steam out into the air. This steam froze immediately, sending hailstones pelting in all directions, pinging off the engines like tiny arrows. The entire room was vibrating now, as if shaking itself apart, and the great gears, golden now from the locket’s alchemy, rolled just a little bit more, crushing the widest part of the elbow like paper. Christien grew still in her arms.
“It’s all right, Ivy,” he whispered. “Let me go.”
“No,” she growled, and she braced her injured foot now, using the pain to keep her sharp. “I’ll not let go, fy ddyn da. And neither will you.”
The belt was squealing with tension, and she watched Sebastien’s lips moving with phrases in Latin. Such an odd sight, she thought to herself. Truly, life was terrible strange.
And finally, when she thought she couldn’t hold out any longer, the frozen belt snapped, sending the Mad Lord reeling backwards with the force of it. Pieces of it flew off to be caught up in the second engine, and the screeching of metal on metal redoubled. The first machine finally came to a grinding halt, however, and she r
eleased her grip to throw herself upon the blade and drag it back across the floor.
“Christien, what do I do?”
His eyes were closed, and so she shook him.
“Christien? I have the knife. Tell me what to do.”
Slowly and with great difficulty, he opened his lids. Tiny blood vessels had burst in the whites of his eyes and his lips were blue. Still, she thought he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
“Here.” He gestured weakly with his right hand. “Cut down at an angle . . . through the muscle and tendons . . .”
His breathing was shallow so words were difficult. He gestured again. “Here. Don’t stop until it’s done.”
She swallowed, glanced around the room. The Mad Lord was pushing himself to his knees, a red welt across his cheek from the snapping of the belt. There was no woman in the middle of the room but Ghostlight, spinning like a tiny sun, drawing light into herself and causing the entire room to shudder and warp. The second engine was running wildly out of balance and water was spraying in through cracks in the stone.
With a deep breath, she wrapped her fingers around the black-hilted blade and began to saw. The blade was sharp but the blood was more than she had reckoned for, and she found her hands growing slippery as she cut through the flesh of his upper arm, just at the point where it joined at the elbow. The flesh was simple compared to the hacking of cartilage and she found it required everything in her to continue as the blade snagged in the rounded mounds of the joint.
Finally, the arm came free, and he fell back with a splash onto the floor.
As she tugged at the laces in the back of her corset, she glanced around the engine-works room. Water was spraying in from cracks in the walls, and there was already a good two inches spread evenly across the floor. The walls themselves were shifting, bending inward toward the locket that was slowly sinking to the water, causing ripples to pulse out, causing great rumbles as it beat like a heart. It was as if she were in a carnival house of mirrors—nothing seemed real anymore.
Cold Stone and Ivy Page 45