The way up is steep and so narrow that only one carriage can pass at a time. The city falls away behind us. Only the Imperial Refinery’s yellowish-green plumes of smoke are visible above the dense thorn hedge that chokes the Hill.
Finally, we top the Hill and come under the Tower’s great battlements. A contingent of Raven Guards lines the courtyard, watching silently as we disembark and are shown toward the Tower’s Grand Entrance. Their cousins, the tower ravens, perch all along the rooftops, watching them with eyes as eerily empty and yet dangerously alert as the Guards’. The stench of moldering guano almost overpowers me; the walls of the inner buildings are streaked white with it.
My lungs compress, as if filled with dark, damp feathers.
“Can you feel them?” Lucy says. “The nullwards?”
I nod and hurry her inside. Yes. I will soon faint if I don’t stop feeling it. Now that I know I’m a witch, I know why nullwards make me feel so odd.
We join a long line of partygoers being searched by the Guard and security wights for weapons. Although the women aren’t searched as thoroughly as the men, even we don’t escape scrutiny. When one Guard attempts to lift Lucy’s skirts with a stick to see if she’s hidden anything under her voluminous blue layers, she fluffs them at him like an offended ostrich and takes my arm in hers.
“Really! Of all the nerve!” she says loudly enough for everyone to hear.
The Raven Guard steps back, expressionless as always. But his head swings to follow us, the white membrane shuttering his flat eyes in a way that makes me shiver.
Lucy is about to say more, but I drag her along past the cloakroom door. “Enough,” I murmur, even as I see my first clock.
Then I look down the corridor. She’s right. Clocks are everywhere. Cuckoo clocks, grandfather clocks, water clocks, clocks so ornate I’m not sure how they work. They fill the hall with a whirring hum that trembles below the rise and fall of conversation. When they all strike the hour, I wonder if anyone’s eardrums will survive intact.
Lucy makes a little growling noise under her breath, but lets me lead her into a vast room of arched, marble gables and circular chandeliers that blaze like wheels of light. It looks more like an ancient chapel than a ballroom, and it’s filled to bursting with people in Carnival dress. And there are yet more clocks.
My mouth goes dry as the herald announces us, and the room falls momentarily into silence save for the time-ticking hum.
Lucy barely notices. She’s seen people she knows and saunters toward them. I follow, glimpsing the empty throne at the end of the hall, flanked by gilded candelabras fitted with antique black candles.
It is the Companion’s duty to be her lady’s eyes and ears at any public function, the Companion Primer had said. Thus should she hang as gracefully in the background as a spray of flowers, present, beautiful, and yet not calling undue attention to herself.
Lucy maneuvers through the crowd, while I keep a wary eye on everyone who meets her, half afraid the Guard will haul her away for her earlier impudence out in the hall. There are several young suitors, some more graceful about their intentions than others, but none of them are the Heir to Grimgorn. What if he isn’t here?
Apparently all the highest-ranking nobles are missing. After Lucy manages to get rid of the most recent gawker, she says behind her fan, “These are the ones who couldn’t get into the smoking rooms with the other Lords. Wait until Father gets here. Then we’ll see something, I wager.”
“The Heir to Grimgorn, perhaps?”
Lucy snaps her fan shut and taps me hard on the arm with it. “Shhhhh.” A miniature version of that wicked smile plays about her lips. “The rumors are already smoldering. No need to set them fully alight!”
I nod.
“And speak of the devils,” Lucy says, nodding toward one of the many arched doorways. “Here they come.”
The Lords enter in wreaths of drifting cigar smoke and bright frock coats, like a bevy of peacocks shooed before a heavy fog.
The last of them limps along with the help of a wolf-headed cane, and, unoriginally, wears a silver wolf-mask to match it. His clothing is fine, but rather plain for one of the most powerful peers of the Empire—black with a bit of lace trim and silver embroidery here and there.
He halts for a moment before spotting us.
Silver glints between the lace of his cuff and his leather glove. Rumors are true. The hand that grips the cane is not flesh but mythwork.
“Father.” Lucy curtsies.
I quickly follow suit.
A single steel blue eye rakes me from behind the wolf-mask. The edge of a thick scar snakes above his left temple between the mask and his wig and the left eyehole is completely dark. “And this is the one you hired for your Companion?” he says. His voice is gritty, as though the inside of his throat is also scarred.
“Yes, Father.”
“Isn’t she a bit young?”
I try not to bristle. I shouldn’t expect him to treat me like anything more than a servant; that’s what I am to him, after all.
Lucy looks over at me and pulls me as close to her side as her feathered skirts will allow.
“She’s a good deal more talented and intelligent than most older women I’ve met, Father.”
He stares at me again. “As long as the forms are met,” he says finally.
Whatever other scorn he wants to heap upon my head is interrupted by a blast of the herald’s trumpet.
“Her Most Scientific Majesty the Empress Johanna and the Imperial Heir Olivia! Scientia et Imperatrix Vincit!”
Everyone stops what they’re doing. If they’re seated, they stand. If they’re already standing, they drop their masks and put their right hands over their hearts.
It’s difficult to see much from a curtsy, but my first impression is of a tiny woman swallowed by her black gown, carrying a gnarled staff on which a large white raven sits. Its red eyes sweep the room and lock with mine for a moment. I shiver and bow my head even lower.
When the Empress sits, she signals that we may relax, candlelight winking off her beringed fingers. Her high collar keeps her head stiffly upright; I’m reminded of forbidden pictures of the ancient queen of Old London. Her face is peculiarly mannish; I can’t help noticing her uncannily close resemblance to her ancestor, First Emperor John Vaunt.
Next to her throne stands a fair-haired girl perhaps the age of the Tinker thief—Olivia the Imperial Heir. She’s an anemic flicker compared to her royal mother’s smothering darkness.
And when the candles dance just right . . . I try not to stare too hard, but it looks as if something binds the princess’s lips and hands. Dark threads that only I can see. Someone doesn’t want her to speak. I can see how I might unravel the end of the thread and free whatever’s being held on her tongue. The urge to unbind her is so powerful, I lift my hand before I realize what I’m doing.
Then I see a Guard pass outside the door. And the red eyes of the ghost raven. Right here, right now, it’s far too dangerous.
Something about the spell wards people away from her. No suitors come to court her; no courtiers flatter her. She stands quite alone in the hall of clocks and Carnivalgoers as if she belongs to another world and has been momentarily frozen here for display. Like an Elemental in the Museum. I feel a terribly sympathy for her. Is she a witch, too? And who has bespelled her?
Musicians tentatively begin the first waltz. Lord Virulen murmurs to Lucy and nods to me before replacing his mask and stumping off to where a crowd of other nobles stand. I’ve not yet seen Master Grimgorn. I must have missed him in the crowd.
As soon as her father leaves, young lordlets rush to find space on Lucy’s dance card. Underneath it all, the clocks hum, inevitably ticking toward the symphony of sound that will deafen us at the top of the hour.
“Vespa!” Lucy says, snapping my gaze to her face. She’s looking at me with a mixture of annoyance and impatience; clearly, she’s tried to get my attention before now.
“The y
oung baron would like to dance with me.” A powdered boy simpers behind Lucy’s shoulder. “Hold my things, will you?”
“Yes, my lady.” I take her fan and reticule.
She takes her companion’s arm delicately, though he’s a head shorter than she is, and lets him lead her to the dance floor.
I take a seat with the other servants and Companions. None of them speak to me. Lucy whirls from one partner to another, while I search for some sign of Grimgorn, and the Empress and her spell-stitched heir look on.
Then I spot him—a man dressed in inconspicuous black, which makes him stand out to me like a dark sun. Hal. He’s wearing a wig and carries a horned mask listlessly in one hand. He doesn’t see me. I’m not sure what he’s doing here. Why would the Empress invite a lowly Pedant to her ball? Has he somehow magicked his way into the ball? I wonder.
It’s all I can do not to cry out his name. I bite my lip as he slips out into the hall. What is he up to? The Primer echoes in my head: A Companion may, under severe compulsion, leave her post. But only if it will cause no harm to her mistress or lasting social repercussions for the family.
“Saint Darwin and all his apes,” I mutter to myself. If I don’t go after Hal now, I don’t know when I might see him again.
As a new quadrille starts, I slide off my chair and weave through the crowd to one of the many arched doors. I look back. Lucy laughs and spins on the dance floor. I don’t want her to see me leaving, so I hold my breath and glide as quickly through the door as I can.
Raven Guards flank the entrances. One stares at me with that empty, clicking gaze. He and his fellows wear the Empress’s red and white livery over their armor, but they still smell like rusty guano.
“I must find the water closet, please.”
“That way,” the bird-headed guard says, pointing his pike down the hall. No matter how often I hear them speak, I can’t get used to the human voice emitted by that clacking bird-beak.
The dark magic that made him is palpable. I hope he can’t feel my magic, even though I’m not using it just yet. What will happen when I speak the love charm? I suppress a shiver.
I hurry down the corridor, my heeled shoes clattering on the marble, dulled only by the sounds of yet more clocks. They’re everywhere here, as well—clocks with ornate, gilded frames, with skeletal faces, or bodies like rearing horses. Portraits and tapestries nestle between them as if incidental to the décor.
Floating everlights beckon me down the corridor toward an ornate arch. The edge of a dark coat whispers round the corner. I want to shout at Hal to wait, but I know that would be foolhardy for us both.
I look back down the hall toward the Guard. The arches and columns block all but the tip of his beak and pike. If I keep to this side of the hall and move quietly, he won’t hear me. I slip off my clacking heels and creep past the door to the water closet. I just pray no one comes at me. I’ll have to throw a shoe at them before I can get my hands free. And even if I can get my hands free, I’m not sure what I could do. The Novice’s Guide didn’t say much about defensive magic, unfortunately.
The marble freezes my toes before I finally slip into the alcove. The heavy mahogany door is open, and I stop to read the words carved over the lintel. CHAMBER OF CURIOSITIES. Around the winged clock face of the Ineffable Watchmaker are carved these words: “Glory to Him, who endureth forever, and in whose hands are the keys of unlimited Pardon and unending Punishment.”
Unending punishment. That doesn’t sound nice at all. The image of the Creeping Waste sifts into my mind, but I banish it firmly. A Chamber of Curiosities. How can I help but be curious?
Besides, Hal disappeared in here just a moment ago. I must talk to him privately, no matter the cost.
I listen at the crack of the door for just a moment, shifting my shoes into one hand. I slide in and try to shut the door without letting it latch completely. I pride myself on being quieter than a mouse.
Then I turn. And nearly scream.
Shoes clatter to the floor as I cringe from the giant white beast looming above me. It’s nearly three times my height and with paws easily large enough to crush my head with one blow. Huge, yellowed teeth protrude from its black gums. I brace for the killing blow. Then I notice the dust on its muzzle, the cobwebs strung from head to shoulders. A plate reads Ursus maritimus in the Old Scientific tongue.
Light flares above my head, threatening me with brilliant pain. Instinctively, I raise my palms against it and hold it in abeyance. And then I see how to dissolve it. So, I do. Perhaps I’m better at this than I thought.
“Vespa?” Hal whispers, stalking toward me out of the shadows.
“Who else?” I ask. I can’t look into his eyes as they scan me from head to toe, so I look aside at the room instead. The light reveals things I’ve never imagined. Nearest me is a globe of a world I’ve never seen, maps of countries—Africa? China?—I’ve never heard of before. I scan city names until a familiar one jars me. London. On the river . . . Thames?
And then I understand. This is a chamber of wonders from Old London, the place we’re never to speak of in polite company, the place we all came from but know so little about. There’s a handbill for a lecture given by Charles Darwin at the Royal Academy of Sciences. A portrait shows him with a white beard in a plain dark suit. Not at all like the paintings I’ve seen of him in green robes and halo, surrounded by mythical apes. The sacrilege astounds me.
Hal glares at me. The circulating everlight in the room makes the powder on his hair and face glitter. He looks like an angry sugarplum, but I’m too hurt to laugh.
“Vespa, why in Athena’s name are you following me? Do you realize how much trouble you could get us both into if we’re discovered?”
I feel small and stupid, but I won’t let him see that. I lift my chin. “I needed to speak to you.”
“Well, what do you want?” He turns away and I follow him past skeletons and revolvers, lockets and tea cozies, past a case with a book inside it with Holy Bible embossed on its cover in gold letters. Why it’s not properly named the Holy Scientific Bible as all of ours are, I don’t know. This place gives me the chills.
“You promised you would come to me. Where have you been?” I know I sound like a peevish child, and it makes me even more cross and agitated than I already am.
The edges of his mouth fall into a frown as he inspects one of the cases nearest us. “There have been many matters that begged my attention. Not the least of which is staying alive to protect you.”
“What do you mean?”
I can’t see him perfectly in this light, but his hands are burned and there’s a scrape on his cheek that didn’t come from a valet wight with an unwieldy razor. “What happened?” I reach for him without thinking. I touch his face for only a moment, before he turns his cheek and leans away from me. My fingers slide down into his collar.
“You shouldn’t do that,” he says. His voice is flat and dangerous, a tone I’ve never heard from him before.
Before he can protest, I step into him and drag his head down to mine. “Can I do this?” I whisper, brushing my lips against his. I am startled at my own audacity, but I long to enter that golden country we knew before. Magic sparks along my skin.
“No!” he cries. He seizes my shoulders and sets me aside, hard, against a wall. A giant painting looms over me, a portly, sashed queen frowning at me as the frame cuts into my lower back. Then, the painting and the wall on which it hangs vanish. I fall backward.
“Hal!” I clutch at him, my feet sliding over the edge.
His fingers catch in the folds of my skirt, just as my feet find solid ground. I look behind me. The wall has dissolved and I’m in some kind of lift. Elegant mirrors reflect Hal slowly releasing me. There’s a gear box with controls; steam hisses and machinery clinks outside the compartment.
Hal steps inside with me.
“What is this?” I ask.
He looks at the controls, touching the polished levers. He ignores what went on jus
t before and I don’t know what to say, how to tell him all the words bubbling up inside my chest. The scent of burned bone nearly gags me.
“It smells of the Refinery in here,” he says. “I wonder . . .”
He works the levers. The wall slides closed again and we are falling, humming down toward the saints only know what.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding answers, I hope.” He stands with his back to me.
I put my hand on his arm. I must make him look at me. I must make him see me.
“Hal, what is happening between us? I thought . . .”
He looks down at me and I realize just how much taller he is than me.
“Is it because of the gown?” I ask. “I know I look different, but I’m still me. . . .”
His eyes are so cold, so distant. I remember thinking I had never seen blue eyes so warm when first we met, and now I can only think how cold they are. He will freeze me to the floor if I look at him much longer.
Behind the glacial chill lurks a shadow, a whisper, something he’s not saying. He turns, though, before I can apprehend the unspoken.
“I . . .” He swallows, staring at the wall. “I made a mistake I should not have made. I must do my duty and only train you as a colleague, not. . .” He pauses, weighing words. “It is unfair to you to treat you otherwise.”
All my dreams—all the secret wishes I can’t even admit to myself—go up in smoke. Perhaps that’s why the smell of burning is almost choking. It’s my heart smoldering in my chest like burning paper. “Did I misapprehend your intentions?” I don’t know how he hears me above the whistling gears.
Hal turns, his face so tight it could shatter, his eyes cavernous with those unspoken things. “I can’t be with you in that way. Don’t you see that I can’t?”
I close my eyes before he can say more and I feel him turn away. I can’t tell if the punch to my gut is from the desolation that sweeps me or the lift settling and stopping. Something rises up in me—a stubbornness. I will not let him have the satisfaction of seeing my pain. I square my shoulders and lift the mask to my face, hoping it’ll shade the tears glimmering in my eyes.
The Unnaturalists Page 16