With Fate Conspire

by Marie Brennan

  He felt the anticipation in all three of them. Nobody got in to see the Queen; that was common knowledge. Nobody except the Prince.

  Hodge stood, crumpling Aspell’s letter in one hand. “It ain’t my choice,” he said, hearing the roughness in his own voice. “It’s Lune’s. I’ll talk to ’er.”

  No one said anything, and he couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. For privacy’s sake, he turned and went back into the inner room, which held only his table, his bed, and a few faerie lights for company.

  With the door shut behind him, he laid one hand on the black stone of the wall.

  Reaching out hurt. It meant sinking his mind into the torn fabric of the Onyx Hall, feeling every spike of iron, every gap where the wall had been. It always made him think of the old tortures, thumbscrews and pincers and the rack: no wonder men said whatever their questioners wanted, after being put through such pain. But here he was, putting himself through it, and the only reason he could was because he reminded himself that Lune felt the same thing. Constantly. For years on end.

  If she could survive that, he could share it for a little while.

  Lune?

  Her mind stirred, like a sleeper caught deep in a nightmare. Hodge reached out for her, tried to lend her what strength he had. Lune. I … ’ave to ask you something.

  He phrased it as briefly as he could: Aspell’s offer, the price, their guesses as to his honesty. By the end of it, she was alert; he could feel her consideration. Do you have any hint as to why he wants to see me?

  Hodge never knew if his body actually moved during these conversations, or if the shaking of his head was entirely a mental thing. None. I can try to find out.

  If you succeed, I’ll be much surprised; Aspell was always good at keeping secrets, and I doubt he has lost the skill. Lune paused, and Hodge gritted his teeth—or at least thought the action of gritting them—as a train rumbled along the buried track, from Blackfriars to Mansion House. When they could both spare thought for something else again, she said, I will not see him, of course. But I will speak to him, through you; he must be content with that.

  He wondered if he should tell her the rest of what they knew about Nadrett, the possibility that he might be creating a passage to Faerie. Would she go, if she could? If it meant bowing to Nadrett, not a chance … but what if it didn’t?

  She loved this city. Had loved it for more ages than Hodge could really conceive. Lune had poured so much of herself into preserving the palace, and the court that inhabited it; he wasn’t sure she could abandon it, even if palace and court were gone.

  No point in mentioning it, not until they knew if it was more than a dream born from some opium pipe. She would see it as hope, for her subjects if not for herself, and he didn’t want to take that away from her if it proved false. Hodge merely said, I’ll tell ’im. Thank you, Lune.

  Surfacing was like pulling a knife from his own flesh: both pain, and the relief from it. Hodge sucked in a great gasp of air as he opened his eyes, and then laid his forehead against the cool stone.

  Aspell would not see the Queen. Nobody did.

  Not even the Prince.

  There was no point. Lune sat in a trance, dedicating every shred of her concentration and strength to maintaining the Onyx Hall. The only way he could talk to her was through the palace. All going to visit her would do was tell other people where her defenseless body rested.

  She’d made him Prince—and then left him to it. He hadn’t laid eyes on her in fourteen years.

  Valentin Aspell would have to be content with talking. If he didn’t like it, then he and his deal could go to hell. They would handle the problem of Nadrett themselves.

  Newgate, City of London: May 31, 1884

  “Come out, ye bastards! I know ye’re here!”

  Eliza’s shout echoed from the brick and stone facades of the buildings around her. For once it was audible, not drowned out by a hundred others; she didn’t know what time it was, but midnight had come and gone long since, and the streets around Newgate Prison were deserted. She cackled, remembering the clerks she’d scraped after for pennies during her months here, and shouted again. “Buns! Hot buns, only a farthing apiece!”

  It made her miss Tom Granger, and his newspapers at the corner of Ivy Lane. He probably thought she’d gone to work in the new factory and never bothered to tell him. “Sorry, Tom,” Eliza mumbled, and took a swig from the bottle of gin she carried, letting it burn down her throat and set her eyes to watering. The gin was responsible for the latter, surely. “Should’ve said goodbye. Or never left. They’re here somewhere, I know it.”

  She paused, casting around, and finally pointed toward Warwick Lane. “Over there. That’s where I saw him. Should’ve jumped him then—but I’m a bloody coward, I am, and then I lost them. Missed my chance. But they’re here, I’m sure of it. Ye’re here!” That last was a shout again. She put her mouth to the gin bottle, found it empty, threw it at the entrance to Warwick Lane. It came up short, but shattered satisfyingly against the cobblestones.

  Why Newgate? She snorted. Might as well ask, why Whitechapel, where she’d first seen the dog? Why London at all. None of the stories said anything about that, faeries in the city, but they were here—and once you accepted that, Newgate was no stranger than anywhere else. Maybe the faeries were drawn by the money, all the wealth of the City’s bankers. The traitor had told enchanting stories, about a beautiful and tragic Queen with a string of mortal consorts, but no doubt they had all been lies. Like everything else he said.

  Eliza’s feet brought her stumbling to the corner of Warwick Lane, where she began to run her hands over the walls, as if she would find something. A hidden door, maybe, that would lead her through into a realm of sunlight where nobody ever got old. But she didn’t get far in her search before a voice stopped her. “You there! What do you think you’re doing?”

  She rested her head briefly against the bricks, then rolled it sideways until her shoulders followed, flattening themselves against the wall. That held her up while she focused her eyes on the source of the voice.

  A bobby, of course, in his dark coat and hard, round-topped hat. His left hand held a lantern, adding to the dim gaslight in the street; his right gripped a truncheon. Eliza put her hands up in innocence. “Don’t mind me,” she said, offering him a grin. “Only looking for something I lost.”

  He frowned and scraped his shoe along the ground, hitting fragments of her gin bottle. “I ought to run you in for public drunkenness.”

  “No need, no need.” Eliza straightened up, to prove she didn’t need the wall, and only swayed a little this time. “I’m, uh—I’m on my way home.”

  “Is that so?” He came closer, lifting the lantern toward her face. “Where’s home? What’s your name?”

  “Eliza,” she said, then cursed herself for telling the truth. And for speaking in her natural voice, she realized belatedly; now he knew she was Irish. Have to give an Irish name. “Eliza … Darragh.” It was the first thing that came into her head, and a stupid answer. Grief rose up in her throat, bringing nausea with it. Owen. We should have been wed by now.

  “And where’s your home, Eliza Darragh?” he repeated, showing no sympathy for her distress.

  This time, at least, she managed to think before she spoke. “St. Giles.”

  His lip curled. The rookeries of St. Giles were even worse than Whitechapel, full of the poorest Irish crammed in ten to a room. But it lay in the right direction from here, if he sent her along—which he did. “Get back where you belong, then. And quietly, mind. I’ll be putting your name on the books, and if you’re caught disorderly again, we’ll see if a night in gaol doesn’t settle you down.”

  “Ye lot couldn’t catch a fish if someone gave ye one with a hook through its lip,” Eliza mumbled, moving to obey.

  “What was that?”

  She laughed at him—then stopped, because it wasn’t really funny; they’d failed to catch the one who took Owen, too. Shuffling off down Newgate,
she said to the night air, “Nothing. Nothing at all. Don’t mind me; I’m just a poor Irishwoman. Nobody cares about us.”

  Cromwell Road, South Kensington: May 31, 1884

  She woke the next morning in confusion, with no idea of where she was. Damp cold had settled into her bones, making every bit of her body ache, but under her cheek was clean dirt, and she smelled flowers nearby. Head swimming, Eliza lifted her head and looked about.

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I’m in the garden. The back face of the Kitterings’ Cromwell Road house rose nearby, full of respectability in the morning light; she was lying on the ground behind a bush, with little idea of how she’d gotten there.

  The aftertaste of gin in her mouth, and the unsteadiness of the world as she pushed herself upright made her remember drinking—which make her remember Newgate—and the policeman. She’d staggered far enough toward St. Giles to satisfy him if he’d followed her, then turned south, feet carrying her onward while her mind tore again and again at the problem of Owen and the faeries. She hadn’t even meant to come back here, not consciously; yesterday she’d taken the evening off, and left with all her money in the pocket sewn to the inside of her skirt, thinking it might be best just to quit. What was there for her in South Kensington, except a family of rich swells with a rebellious daughter?

  But habit brought her here, where she’d climbed the wall into the garden, before being defeated by the locks and shutters on the house. Eliza vaguely recalled sitting with her back against the bricks, meaning only to rest a moment while she considered what to do. And that was the last of it.

  Sounds from the mews told her the coachman and grooms were up and doing; well, of course they were, it must be at least nine o’clock. Eliza should long since have been inside the house, and hard at the day’s work. The very thought of walking through those doors made her ill—and then she remembered what her heart had known, what she’d forgotten last night, with the gin fogging her brain. She’d brought her money, but left behind the photo of Owen.

  For that, she would go back inside. And then leave, and do … something.

  Eliza climbed to her feet and spent a moment ineffectively brushing the dirt and leaves from her dress. Then she went out through the now-opened gate, and around to the western side of the house and the basement door.

  Sarah clearly expected some kind of delivery when she opened the door; her eyes widened at the sight of Eliza, who mumbled an apology and pushed past the scullery maid without attempting an explanation. Cook was more difficult to avoid; she sniffed ostentatiously at the reek of gin and said, “You’ll be lucky to avoid a sacking.”

  “I don’t care if I’m sacked,” Eliza said, splashing a little water from the tap over her face. “I’m done. I’ve only come to get my things.”

  Cook’s exhalation was just shy of being a snort. “Lucky to do that, too. Mrs. Fowler isn’t above confiscating a thing or two, in ‘compensation’ for you quitting.”

  “I’ll hit her if she tries.” Maybe it was the gin—or just the boiling frustration of all the time she’d wasted here. Anger built with every step Eliza took up the servants’ staircase, all the more bitter for having no suitable target. She wanted to hit something, and the worst part was, one of the people she wanted to hit was herself.

  She heard the voices before she made it past the ground floor. In the Kitterings’ household, where respectability was more precious than gold, someone was shouting.

  And it sounded like Mrs. Kittering.

  Eliza didn’t care. She didn’t want to know. But the stairs took her right past the concealed servants’ door into the drawing room; it was impossible not to hear.

  “—not tolerate it any longer. Do you hear me, Louisa? I will not have it! If you persist in this manner—”

  Louisa’s response was too quiet to make out. Every shred of common sense told Eliza to continue up the stairs, to get away from this family and all their troubles, but she found herself instead pressing her eye to the peephole in the door.

  It gave an imperfect view of the long drawing room, but good enough to see Mrs. Kittering’s face and her daughter’s back. The missus was clothed with her customary rigidity, but Louisa seemed to be wearing a dressing gown still, with a bright green scarf thrown over her shoulders. Whatever she said to her mother, it made Mrs. Kittering go even more rigid with fury. “I will not have such language in my house. Count your days of freedom, girl; I will have you gone from London this Sunday week. There is a sanatorium … in…”

  Her voice trailed off into sudden listlessness, as if she had forgotten what she was saying. Then Eliza’s breath did the same, as she saw Louisa’s left hand float up to grip her mother’s jaw.

  No sound issued from the room. But Mrs. Kittering nodded three times, as if the hand on her chin were moving her without visible effort. When the third movement ended, Louisa murmured, “Now, let’s have no more of this,” and let her go.

  Whereupon Mrs. Kittering turned and left the room, without another word.

  Eliza still wasn’t breathing. She tried to draw air, but fear stopped the motion, as if the creature in the drawing room might hear her. Her fingers ached, pressed hard against the plain-painted surface of the door.

  Not until the quiet figure moved did her own paralysis break. And then it broke to flight, for the creature masquerading as Louisa Kittering turned toward the servants’ door.

  Eliza nearly tripped on the hem of her skirt, trying to take the stairs three at a time. She’d gone up another two flights before she realized the idiocy of her choice—should have gone down!—but by then she was nearly at the top of the house, with the changeling—Holy Mary, Mother of God, it really is a changeling—somewhere below. She wrenched the door handle around and stumbled through, expecting to see the servants’ garret.

  She was one floor short. She’d exited into Louisa Kittering’s bedroom.

  Her heart pounded, rattling her entire body, the sound pulsing in her ears. Despite the exertion of flinging herself up the stairs, she felt nothing but cold—shaking cold, that made her hands tremble like leaves. But what had been fear was turning instead to rage.

  That beast. That bloody monster. It stole Louisa—like he stole Owen—

  All this time, it’s been toying with me—

  She never heard the footsteps on the other stair. Or perhaps there were none to hear: another faerie trick. The bedroom door opened, and the creature wearing Louisa’s face stepped through.

  “Where is he? Damn you, what have you done with Owen?”

  The changeling opened its mouth to speak, but never got the chance. Eliza’s fist smashed into its cheek, stopping whatever charm it might have cast. The creature staggered into the wall; then Eliza’s hands seized that green scarf and some of the dressing gown, hauling the creature up and throwing it farther into the room. She kicked the door shut with one heel and advanced on the fallen changeling, still screaming. “Bloody faerie, you’ve stolen the girl, I know you have—coming into this house, pretending to be her—you’ll tell me where she is, damn your eyes, and Owen, too, if I have to roast you over the kitchen fire—”

  By now the creature was shrieking, throwing its arms up to protect its face, leaving its ribs vulnerable. Eliza kicked once, caught her shoe in her skirts, and fell to her knees. “Tell me where they are! Tell me! By all that’s holy—”

  Someone caught her arm. Twisting, Eliza found that Mary Banning was trying to drag her off the changeling. It was no difficulty at all to shove her back, sending the maid onto her rump in an undignified sprawl, but the changeling crawled away while Eliza was so occupied. She flung herself after it, sending them both flat to the floor. It curled in on itself while Eliza bit and scratched; she pulled hair; she got the flailing arms pinned back, grinding Louisa’s stolen face into the floor.

  Then an arm wrapped around her throat, tight enough to cut off the blood, and by that hold she was dragged back. Eliza clawed at the arm, reached back to try and catch eyes or ears, threw
her elbow back into her captor’s groin; Ned Sayers cursed, and his grip wavered. Then a fist slammed into her head, and Eliza went limp.

  Sayers wrestled her to the floor, holding her down with one knee in her back. Feet appeared in the doorway, maids and footmen and everyone else crowding into the room; distantly she heard Mrs. Fowler demanding to be let through. Eliza no longer fought. There was no point.

  She’d lost.

  She’d failed Owen.

  God had given her a chance to save him, and she’d thrown it away, in a moment of blind, drunken fury.

  Sobbing into the carpet, Eliza waited for the constables to come.

  The Galenic Academy, Onyx Hall: June 1, 1884

  Dead Rick skulked along, belly close to the ground, only half-believing he was actually making this journey. Nadrett had sent him above again; it amused the master to use a skriker, a death omen, as a courier for the dynamite he sold to dissidents above. If Dead Rick were smart, he would have stayed up there, using that safe time to replace the bread he’d lost in the collapse.

  He directed his paws instead toward the Galenic Academy.

  He wouldn’t have risked it, except that Cyma had vanished, and with her his one reliable connection to this place. Dead Rick hadn’t seen the faerie woman since before the earthquake. In her absence, his only way to get information from the scholars was to defy Nadrett’s orders and go to them himself.

  He smelled the Academy before he got anywhere near it. A welter of chemicals and strange substances, hot metal and steam, burning in his nose. Odd sounds echoed through the corridors: buzzing and humming, clicking and clanging, like some kind of mad factory lay ahead. And voices, too, arguing in a variety of languages, most of them incomprehensible to him.