The faces before me changed to the teasing, pointing spectators who used to taunt me. They’d poked me and throw stones until I exploded into the animal rage of whatever beast he had demanded I become.
On all fours, I cowered on the floor of the cage. A thin wail spiraled from my lips. “Let me go. Please. I’ll be a good girl. I promise. I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I won’t argue. I’ll be good. Just let me out.” I knew I was babbling like a half-witted child, but I couldn’t stop myself. Any minute he would appear, and my chance of escape would be gone.
“Delphine, stop it!” someone hollered.
I couldn’t remember who Delphine was, though it seemed I should know. Maybe it was the girl with the hateful eyes who paced in front of me. Chances of her helping me were small, but I begged anyway. “Please. He’ll make the walls close in. I can’t breathe. I don’t want the small cage. Don’t put me in the small cage.”
The memories burst on me, fresh and painful. The grinding sound of the cage walls sliding closer together, pressing in on me until I felt sure I’d be crushed. His cruel laugh. The way he’d capture my tears with his finger and then drink them off his skin.
Vaguely, I heard the hateful girl say something. But my ears felt stuffed with cotton. My stomach heaved, and I choked, but didn’t vomit. I curled on the floor of the cage, shivering, waiting for the crushing to begin. I was going to die. And no one was going to rescue me.
The girl banged on the cage again. I screamed.
But then, I finally found the quiet world that had been my only way of escape all those years. I left my body behind in the cage and floated through the bars, up over the heads of my tormentors. Everything was hushed there. Peaceful. All the bad feelings and the fear were muted, as if I were wrapped in layers and layers of cozy quilts. I always hid this way until the worst was over. Someday, I’d do more than just wait for it to end. Someday, I’d float away forever and never return.
From my vantage point in the air, I saw two people running over to the crowd around the cage. One was a girl, tall, with golden ringlets. The other was a ginger-haired boy wearing round spectacles.
Uh-oh. They both looked angry.
They shoved through the group of people. Golden ringlet girl flew at the hateful girl. She pulled back her fist. Punched the hateful girl in the eye. The flat slap of hand on flesh rang out across the crowd. The hateful girl fell to the ground, screeching, with her hands over her face.
The ginger-haired boy ran around the tangle of ropes and pulleys behind the cage. There was another boy back there who had been making the cage go up and down in the air. Ginger-hair boy grabbed the other boy by his jacket.
“You fucking bastard,” he snarled into the boy’s face. Then he threw the boy against the iron frame holding all the ropes.
The boy slammed against the ropes, grunting.
Ginger-hair boy pushed a button, and the cage lowered to the ground. He ran over to the blond girl. She had pinned the hateful girl to the ground and now was straddling her, yelling in her face.
“Give me the key, Delphine. Give it to me now!”
All the spectators were shouting—some to encourage the fight, others to beg them to quit.
It was all noise, noise, noise. I didn’t like it. They were disturbing my Quiet World.
Then, like an explosion of darkness, he was there. My captor and tormentor. His black cloak swirled around him, and he scorched the air with his fury.
Fresh terror almost pulled me from the Quiet World. I floated higher, until I came to a thick curtain, hanging like a velvet banner over the carnival. I hid behind the curtain, so he would not see me. But I peeked out, looking down on all the small people to see what would happen next.
“Stop this at once.” His voice boomed over the crowd, even though he did not yell.
There was instant silence.
I shrank against the softness of the curtain. Now he would go to the cage. Now he would hurt the girl in the cage as he always did. I would have to be strong, for her sake. But I wouldn’t go to her. I’d stay in the Quiet World where the pain wouldn’t be so bad.
The crowd parted and he strode through. He looked at the cage and then at the hateful girl and the blond girl and the ginger-haired boy. He looked disgusted and sad.
The hateful girl crawled to her knees. “Presul Wolff—”
“Shut up.” He turned from her to the rest of the crowd. “You should all be ashamed. Every single one of you who didn’t try to stop this will answer to Master Fenrey directly. You acted like a pack of scavenging dogs. Get out. All of you. I can’t even stand to look at you, much less share a stage with any of you.”
They slunk away, not looking at each other.
Then he turned to the hateful girl. She was standing now, but the girl with the golden ringlets and the ginger-haired boy stood watchfully behind her, as if making sure she couldn’t run away.
For a moment, I thought he might strangle the hateful girl. He looked that angry. But he didn’t. He just held out his hand. “Key. Now.”
Her hands trembled, but she fished out a key from the pocket of her skirt and gave it to him.
He glared at her. “Fenrey’s study, immediately. And your confession to him had better match up with my report or I’ll see you expelled from the program.”
Her face became very pale. She nodded, and soon was gone, too.
He spoke to the blond girl, “Thank you, Miss Wright.” He nodded to ginger-haired boy. “And you, Mr. Carrew. I can’t promise you won’t be in trouble for fighting, but I’ll do what I can to minimize the consequences.” He motioned to the blond girl’s hand. “You’ll want to have the healer look at that. It’s going to hurt like the devil in a few hours.”
She smiled ruefully. “Hurts like the devil now. We’re just sorry we didn’t get here sooner.” She looked at her boots. “We were up in the balcony and didn’t realize what was happening right away.”
He shook his head. “No, you did well. I’m sorry for being late—I was away from the theater in a meeting that went over.” He glanced at the cage and back at them. “But now, you both need to leave, too.”
“Absolutely not.” Ginger-haired boy took a protective step toward the cage.
“We’ll take care of her. I know how.” Blond girl stood close to ginger-haired boy.
“No.” He spoke firmly. “It needs to be me.”
I floated further back along the curtain.
Blond girl took another step forward, shaking her head urgently. “You don’t understand. She’s…not there right now. She gets like this sometimes after a nightmare. Her body is there, but her mind is…I don’t know where she goes, but she’s not there.”
He gave her a very gentle look. I didn’t understand that. He was never gentle. Only cruel.
“I’ll help her.”
“You can’t help her. You’ll make it worse.” Blond girl studied the girl in the cage intently. I felt magic coming out from her. It flowed around the girl in the cage, and then circled upward like smoke, toward me.
Her magic found me. I edged away from it. No magic allowed in my Quiet World. But it poked at me, and seemed to wash over me. I tried to push it back. Go away. I don’t like you. I don’t want to talk to you. Leave me alone.
It retreated. Blond girl turned back to him. “Right now, she looks at you, and all she sees is the monster that held her captive. He was a presul, too. She’s terrified of you because of who she thinks you are at the moment.”
“That’s all the more reason that I need to do this, alone.”
“You’ll hurt her.” Ginger-haired boy sounded almost angry.
He looked sad again. “I won’t. I have an idea that may help. The two of you should wait in the hall. If I need you, I’ll call you in.”
Ginger-haired boy started to argue, but blond girl hushed him. She stared into his eyes a moment. Her magic touched him. “Are you certain you want to do that?”
He gave her a small nod.
She looked at ginger-haired boy. “He’s right. We need to wait outside.” She walked away from the cage to where she’d flung a knapsack. She rummaged through it and pulled out a small glass container. She brought it to him. “Smelling salts. It should help bring her back to herself. You need to reconnect her to the physical world around her. Touch, smell, sound.”
Ginger-haired boy frowned. “I didn’t know you were helping her so much.”
“I don’t think she even realizes it. But someone has to. When Dame Fairchild brought her back to the theater, she asked me to be her roommate because she knew my magic would help me take care of her.” She gave him a stern glare. “I love her. Be careful with her.”
He nodded, looking serious. No, no, no! I wanted to yell. Don’t trust him. Only there was no yelling in the Quiet World.
The blond girl and ginger-haired boy walked away. But then the girl turned back. “Claire,” she said.
I jumped—I knew that name.
He looked confused. “What?”
Blond girl gave him a steady look. “He called her Claire.”
Then she took the boy’s arm and they went away. I was alone—with him. He stared at the girl in the cage, and I waited for him to become the cruel being I knew he really was. But he just took a deep breath and removed his cloak. Then he took off his frock coat and unwrapped his cravat. He set them aside, loosened the top few buttons of his shirt, and rolled up his sleeves.
I trembled against the curtain.
He crouched in front of the cage, and his magic pressed all around me. I cringed, waiting for the pain to begin. He touched the bars of the cage so softly. “Dear god,” he whispered.
Then he straightened and took the key the hateful girl had given him. “It’s time to wake up, Sleeping Beauty.”
And he unlocked my cage.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I thought he would drag the girl out of the cage. It’s what he usually did. And then…he would do other things. Remembering those things made me float away higher into the odd curtains hanging over the carnival.
But he didn’t do any of those things this time. Instead, he did something he had never done before.
He climbed into the cage and sat next to the girl. She looked up at him with unseeing eyes, but didn’t move.
He watched her for a moment, his face so sad and tender. I didn’t understand how that could be. Had I made a mistake? He was not kind, and yet he was kind to the girl in the cage.
I wouldn’t think about it anymore. The Quiet World was not for thinking.
He unstoppered the small bottle the blond girl had given him. He held it to her nose.
A wave of peppermint and lemongrass crashed over me. It was like a rope pulling me back toward the girl in the cage. I didn’t want to go.
She flinched, moaned.
He carefully picked up her hand. I tensed. But he didn’t hurt her. He uncurled her fingers and made her touch the walls of the cage. I felt the cool metal, even though I was so far away.
“You are here. See? This is real. Come back. Come back to me, cariad.”
His voice didn’t sound like it always had. Something was wrong. I drifted in a little closer, too curious to stay back.
He waved the bottle in front of the girl’s face again. The strong scent overpowered me, dragging me toward the girl. At the metal wall of the cage, I slammed to a stop. I wouldn’t go in. He couldn’t make me.
He grabbed the fabric of her skirt and bunched it into her hand. “Feel this? It’s your apprentice uniform. You’re safe at the Alchemy Empire Theater. Come on, Minx, honey, please.”
That voice. It was beautiful. I liked it. Maybe I had made a mistake after all. This was not the man I thought. It was all so confusing. If only he didn’t have such powerful magic.
Peppermint and lemongrass surrounded me, insistent and unrelenting.
I breathed in.
And with a jolt, I was snapped back into myself.
I shrieked and clawed against the wall of the cage. The monster sat next to me, not speaking.
But when I looked at him, it was not him.
His name drifted back to me…
Dietrich.
I recognized his face. But then it wavered, like a liquid mask. And beneath the mask, he was still there.
He pointed to the door. “It’s open. You’re free to go. Leave.”
It had to be a trick. I didn’t move. If I did, he would punish me with that terrible, powerful magic.
He pressed himself into the corner as far away from me as possible. “I’m the monster, not you,” he said. “Monsters belong in cages. People don’t. I’m staying in here. So you should leave.”
His voice was calm, steady. His words made sense. If he were staying in the cage, I certainly did not want to be there too. I glanced at the open door. Then back at him.
The mask wavered again. Only this time I couldn’t tell if the mask was Dietrich or if the mask was him.
My hands gripping the metal mesh of the cage, I pulled myself to my feet. He did not get up.
“That’s right. Good. Now walk out the door.”
I took a step. He didn’t stop me, but his magic was strong around me. I needed to get away.
“See, you’re doing it. On your own.”
I judged the short distance to freedom. If I was really quick…
I raced out of the cage and slammed the door behind me. My heart hammered in my chest. I expected him to come flying at me to force the door open.
But he didn’t get up.
“Lock me in.”
Was he crazy?
“If I’m the monster, you should lock my cage so I don’t hurt you or others.”
He had a point.
He looked more like Dietrich now. The mask had become transparent, like it was made of the thinnest glass.
But it still made good sense to be careful.
I hooked the padlock around the door frame. Then I clicked it shut.
“Good,” he said, still sitting in the corner of the cage. He slid the key through the narrow space between the cage door and wall. It clanged to the floor. “Now we can talk. You’re safe, see?”
I snatched up the key and put it in my pocket. The mask was almost totally gone now. Slowly, I remembered where I was. There was no carnival. I was backstage, in a theater.
The cage wasn’t a cage. It was a lift.
And the person in the lift was—“Dietrich.”
He got to his feet. I stumbled back a few steps. His hands wrapped around the bars of the door. “No. Don’t call me that name. I’m not that person, not to you.”
“But—”
“When you look at me, somewhere deep in your mind, you see a monster. You see a cruel creature that hurt you. I want you to say that name.”
This couldn’t be right. My mind still felt fuzzy, but I knew that Dietrich wasn’t the monster. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be afraid—”
“No!” He bit out the word. “You don’t apologize. Not to me. Call me by my name. What’s my name…Claire?”
A cold shiver slid down my spine. That was what he called me. The mask crept over his features again.
I spoke to the mask. “Your name is Jensen Cornelius. You call yourself Professor.”
He closed his eyes briefly, his hands turning white on the metal bars. “Yes. Now, talk to me. Tell me about how we met.” His voice sounded cool, impersonal, like he was speaking to a stranger.
It felt like reciting lines in a play. I struggled to stay within myself and not float away again. “I was eleven, the end of my first year as an apprentice. All the first-years were taken to see a traveling menagerie outside Aldwych. We heard there was a carnival. We begged our chaperone to take us. He did, but it turned out to be a freak show called Professor Cornelius’ Carnival of Curiosities. There were animals and people on display. All were deformed in some way. A goat with five legs. A human only three feet tall. A boy who could fold his arms in half the wrong direction. A woman so fat
, she had to be moved around on a wheeled platform pulled by two elephants.”
“What was it like?”
“Horrible. We were all frightened. The crowd was rough and cruel. Some of them took sharp sticks and poked at the animals in the cages until they bled, just to make them snarl and growl and charge the sides of the cage. The fat lady had to undress in front of everyone to prove she wasn’t wearing padding. People hollered terrible things at the dwarf. And it was clear to see that the boy with the loose joints was in much pain.”
“What did your chaperone do?”
“He collected all of us and led us away. But Professor Cornelius came up to us.”
“You mean me.”
“What?”
“I came up to you.”
“Oh. Yes.” A hard knot formed in my heart. “Yes, you came up to us.” My words were stronger now.
“And what did I do?”
“You acted friendly and cheerful and tried to talk us into returning to the carnival. But our chaperone said we had to leave now.”
“What about you, Claire? Did I speak to you?”
I couldn’t look at him directly. “No. But you had magic, the same kind as the presuls at the theater. I thought that meant you were good and kind, like them. I smiled at you and waved as we went by.”
A rush of pity crossed his face. “And I noticed you, didn’t I? I sensed your magic and immediately knew what you were and how incredibly valuable you could be to my pathetic and sick show.”
I couldn’t reconcile the self-loathing in his voice with the watery mask on his face. I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“How did I take you, Claire?”
I couldn’t answer right away. This is where the tale became more difficult to tell. “It was a few weeks later. You sent a man to abduct me in the night. Most of the adults were busy with the final production of the season, and they didn’t realize I was missing until the next morning.”
He gave me a puzzled look. “You seem very calm about all this. Aren’t you angry at me?”
A little pod of resentment, like a seed, broke open in me. It frightened me. Getting angry had only made things worse. Only the Quiet World had offered me any kind of protection. “It’s not ladylike to be angry.”
Chains of Silver: a YA Theater Steampunk Novel (Alchemy Empire Book 1) Page 22