Dead Magic

by Kara Jorgensen

  Giving his aunt a quick bow, Lord Hale retreated from the catacomb, happy to soon be free of the stink of rot and damp. Cecil lingered at the door. She had never shied away from scandalizing him before. He released a silent sigh. Somehow, he had never expected his aunt to be this way. After his parents and sister died, he had searched for Aunt Claudia, the only family he had left, and instead of finding a second mother, he got this.

  The sound of clinking porcelain followed by the scrape of the obsidian knife against stone was too much to ignore. When he looked at her over his shoulder, his heart pounded in his throat. Lady Rose stood in the center of the circle, the flames of the candles on each point of the star glowing a pale green. She had her head thrown back as her throat worked in indecipherable words. As he stared, he watched her eyes grow dark until all that was left was an undulated darkness as terrifying as her shadowed companion. Her back contorted at an impossible angle before snapping forward. Lady Rose opened her mouth in a silent scream, but instead of sound, the smell of hot cemetery filled the tight room.

  Cecil’s legs trembled as he shook his head, trying to chase away the creature in her body, but when he looked back, the nightmare was real. His body lurched forward and suddenly he was running down the hall and up the steps, not stopping until he was out in the fog. He needed to go somewhere, anywhere he could pretend to be ordinary.

  Chapter Nine

  Impossible Devices

  Immanuel followed Peregrine Nichols through the labyrinth of hallways leading to the bowels of the Natural History Museum. At first he had tried to trace the path they had taken in his mind, but after weaving through row upon row of specimens ranging from tiny beetles to elephant femurs, he was utterly lost. Shelves rose around them, boxing them into a forest of glass and wood so thick the air had stilled and tasted of decomposing paper and formaldehyde. Tucking in his elbows, Immanuel’s eyes ran over the peeling labels affixed to the murky jars sitting at eye level. A cloudy sheep’s eye lolled lazily in its container before meeting Immanuel’s gaze.

  “What did you say you needed my help with?” Immanuel asked, watching Nichol’s disappear beneath one of the lower shelves.

  Unseen glasses clanked together as the impish man’s hand shot out with a flattened butterfly in a shadow box. Nichols waved the glass frame, and Immanuel dove forward to grab it before he let it drop. A thump echoed through the shelf above followed by a muffled curse. Another hand shot out holding a long tube filled with coiled fern fronds.

  “I needed a second set of hands, can’t you tell?” Nichols replied from beneath the shelf. His striped wool legs flailed as he struggled to back out of the tight crevice. In his hand was a crowbar covered in dust with a trail of limp cobwebs hanging from its end. “I must thank Sir William for letting me borrow you. It’s nice to have someone who won’t throw out his back or keel over if he has to lift a crate.”

  “It still might happen,” Immanuel murmured.

  Nichols let out a loud cackle as he tossed the crowbar ahead of him and slid out. He dusted off his shoulders and knees before running his hands through his hair. A plume of motes clouded the air and recoated the shoulders of his jacket. With a Cheshire grin, he plucked the crowbar from the floor and motioned for Immanuel to follow him with a wave of his cudgel.

  “You would be amazed how fast the curators’ assistants disappear the moment you need help. Same with the dock men. You can’t blame them. They think we’re pampered scholars, so making us lift a few boxes is easy revenge. Then again, there are worse ways for them to get their jollies. Be prepared for them to torment you a little at first. It’s happened to all of us. Well, the young ones anyway. They know who they can play with.” His bright bronze eyes ran appraisingly over Immanuel’s form. “And you’re one of them. Don’t worry, so was I. We get on all right now.”

  Immanuel gave him a nervous smile, which he kept plastered to his face as the claustrophobic rows of wooden shelves fell away to reveal a wide hall that opened with a welcome breeze. Men’s voices rose at the end of the hallway, rough and raucous, the voices of men the scholars upstairs would pretend had no place in the running of a museum. The dock was as much of a storehouse as it was a port. Crates the size of men sat stacked on either side of the great doors, which stood open to the tree-lined divider that separated the museum from the street behind it. A hooked crane hovered overhead while four men wrestled a series of ropes around a long, squat box the size of a coffin. The other five sat watching, passing a bottle between them. Upon seeing Immanuel and Peregrine Nichols enter, the bottle disappeared into the stacks.

  “What can we do you for, Perry?” a man with pepper muttonchops said as he hopped off the box and met them out of range from the crane’s swing. The man’s shoulders sloped under years of heavy lifting and the muscles of his arms bulged beneath his rolled shirt-sleeves. His face had been sculpted with pleasing features surrounded by strong cheekbones and a fine chin. Quietly imposing was the best description Immanuel could manage.

  “John, as you probably guessed, I need the gala goods. I’ve been sent to fetch all of the crates for the botany department and any left for zoology.”

  “So you want the whole lot then?” he replied, hooking a thumb toward the wall of boxes.

  “If that’s what’s left, then I’m more behind than I thought.”

  “I can get them for you. You got the paperwork?”

  “You care about paperwork now?” Peregrine patted his trouser pockets before fishing into his jacket. After a moment, he handed over a crinkled wad of telegraphs and letters.

  John’s ochre eyes narrowed as they scanned the names. With a wave of his hand for them to follow, he led them into the mess of crates. “Sir William does. Can’t blame him with the break-ins.”

  “Break-ins?” The word escaped Immanuel’s mouth before he could stop it. He fidgeted, adjusting the glass containers in his arms, which quavered with fatigue.

  The dockhand looked at Immanuel as if for the first time. He cocked a grey brow, his eyes darting up his form like Peregrine had done. “And who are you?”

  “John, this is Immanuel Winter, Mr. Master’s replacement. Mr. Winter, this is John Daniels, our master dockhand.”

  “A pleasure,” Immanuel said softly, jostling the specimens into the crook of his arm. As they shook hands, gnarls and rough callouses scratched against Immanuel’s palm.

  John pursed his lips, looking from Immanuel to Peregrine and the letters in his hands. He tapped them before saying, “We aren’t supposed to let it get out. About the break-ins, that is. Sir William wouldn’t want any reporters getting a hold of it before the big night.”

  “You know I won’t tell,” Peregrine replied with a vulpine smile. When John gave him an incredulous look, he added, “Well, he won’t tell.”

  “That I might believe. None of your boxes were tampered with, but I came in last week and found a few cracked open and hay strewn about. It didn’t look like they had taken anything. The bug men said everything was there that was supposed to be.”

  “What would they want with a box of insects?”

  “I don’t think it was bugs they were after. You would think a thief would take anything. They left a lot of valuable goods: butterflies, an Egyptian statue that should have gone to the British Museum, a handful of rare orchids. The odd thing is I don’t know how they got in. Didn’t break anything. Sir William thinks it’s an inside job, so we need to check everyone’s credentials before we can give them their packages.”

  Glancing over his shoulder for any sign of Sir William or the other senior curators, John leaned close and added, “Then, last night, one of the night guards caught someone down here. He heard them banging around and found a man climbing on the stacks. Tried to run after him, but he disappeared. The guard said he was strange too, didn’t move like a man should. He was shambling around, like his limbs didn’t work right.”

  Immanuel swallowed hard, the hair on his neck standing on end and the pendant around his neck bur
ning cold against his chest. When he raised his gaze, he found John and Peregrine looking at him with matching conspiratorial grins.

  “Was the ghost story part of the initiation you mentioned, Mr. Nichols?”

  John chuckled as he led them to a stack of boxes ranging from a hat box to a hip-high crate. “Just a coincidence. Couldn’t of made it up if I tried. The guards tell tall-tales. He was probably just an opium fiend or a drunk looking for a warm place to sleep. They’ve set up a night watchman here now, so your packages should be safe from night crawlers.”

  The dock man checked the papers one more time, his eyes running across the tacked packing slips and the less visible marks of names and addresses whitewashed across the rough wood. After a few moments and a lot of circling, he handed Peregrine the crinkled pages along with a small box. He reached to give the other to Immanuel but thought better of it upon seeing the fragile jars cradled against his chest.

  “Where do you want the rest delivered?”

  Immanuel watched as Nichols pursed his lips and squinted in thought. A grin crept across his features as he met John’s gaze. There was a devilish glint in his eyes that Immanuel didn’t like.

  “Put half in mine and the rest in Mr. Winter’s office.”

  ***

  When Immanuel returned from lunch ready to label and describe plant specimens, he was surprised to find his already cluttered office filled to the brim with rough wooden crates. From the look on Peregrine Nichols’ face, he shouldn’t have been. The boxes sat on the floor several high or across his desk with one massive, man-sized crate sitting directly behind his door that took up so much room he could barely slip inside. He couldn’t imagine how the impressively stout dock men had been able to shimmy out, let alone with their trolley. With a sigh, Immanuel pressed his weight into the huge crate. It barely budged until he charged into it with his shoulder, and even then, it only inched forward with a scraping whine. He wished he could leave it and just shimmy inside, but he could imagine the look on Sir William Henry Flower’s face if he tried the door and found a box barring his entrance. No matter how he played the scenario, it never ended well.

  Testing his door, he opened it only to lock eyes with Peregrine Nichols across the hall. Nichols flashed a toothy grin before disappearing into his office, which appeared to be without a trolley-load of crates. Half the lot, my foot, Immanuel thought, choking down his anger until it oozed out at an acceptable level of frustration. Don’t take it personally. They do this to everyone, he reminded himself. This wasn’t Oxford and it wouldn’t last the entirety of his career. He was the new junior curator, and the others would have a little fun at his expense to break him in. It was to be expected.

  Quietly shutting his door, he spied a crowbar lying across his desk. Hefting it, he turned it over in his hands, unsure how to use it or what to use it on. The hip-high box seemed the easiest option, so he carefully aligned the metal teeth and wiggled the bar. With a sickening crack, the lid lifted to reveal dozens of nails hammered into the lid.

  As he pressed and twisted, his shoulder blades stretched the fabric of his jacket, threatening to pop the seams. He cursed Adam for convincing him to wear something so tailored to work. Working at the museum should have been all books and dust, and instead beads of sweat were running down his back and dampening his collar. Since when did scholarship require physical prowess?

  Immanuel jumped back as the lid toppled off to reveal a bed of straw. Pushing it aside, his hand brushed the waxy surface of a leaf. Inside were half a dozen pots filled with seemingly identical plants. Immanuel leaned into the crate, his heels lifting off the floor as he reached. He blindly placed the first one on top of the pile of crates, but when he went to place the second, the pot teetered. It hung precariously on the edge, but as Immanuel scrambled to grab it, it fell. Immanuel flinched as it shattered, sending bits of clay and dirt out in every direction. At his feet, the plant lay in a bedraggled heap, and apart from being without a pot or dirt to sit in, it looked all right. Picking it up by the stalk, he gingerly placed it on the windowsill. Maybe he could simply repot it and no one would notice. He hoped Peregrine might have a spare. He didn’t look like the type to run to Sir William over a simple mistake.

  After carefully removing the remaining plants, Immanuel stared down at the dirt strewn across his office. The soles of his shoes were coated in it and left a crumbling trail as he searched his desk and cabinets for a dust pail and broom. As he stooped beside his desk and rifled through the bottom drawer, a glint of metal under his shelf caught his eye. At first, he couldn’t see it in the deadened portion of his vision, but when Immanuel lowered his face to the boards, he could make out a shiny ball halfway under the cabinet of curiosities. Immanuel reached under, ignoring the shock of cobwebs drifting across his hand. Along with a shard from the clay pot came an engraved brass ball. Flat metal rings encircled the ball, and surrounding them were tiny letters he could barely make out. Sitting back, Immanuel turned the ball over in his hands. It was surprisingly heavy yet fit perfectly in his palm. He ran his thumbs over the lattice of metal and chipped the dirt from the symbols. There was something beautiful about it. It was so utilitarian, so mechanical, but the intricacy of it was nearly anatomical. He stared down at the wider band running around its equator. There had to be some mechanical element to it. Running his fingers along the edge, he felt a slight lump. When he pushed it, a soft click resounded from within the device.

  The top half fell back to reveal the inner workings of an astrolabe, or at least what looked like one. Immanuel had seen them in the science halls at Oxford, but the only one he had seen up close belonged to his uncle. As a child, he would snatch the gleaming disk from his uncle’s mantle and spend hours spinning its dials, pretending to read the stars. The one sitting in his hand didn’t quite look the same. While it still had the carved rete and plate, the readings were different. Instead of numbers, there were symbols etched into the rim, and lining the edge of the rete were minute beads carved from brightly colored stones. With the edge of his nail, Immanuel pushed the crystal miniature planet around its orbit. As it reached the midline, another click echoed through the metal. For a moment, nothing happened, but then his eyes caught the slow rotation of the inner most planet. The metal buzzed and tapped against his hand, and the series of disks that had formed the face of the plate eased into a raised orb. The center rose, bringing the matching orbits of the stone planets to soar around it. When Immanuel held the device closer to his good eye, he noticed that the celestial bodies rotated in time with his movements. Holding it still, he watched the green planet travel in time with footsteps outside his door, stopping and turning in the opposite direction the person outside descended the stairs.

  Holding the device to his ear, Immanuel could make out the faint, rhythmic ticks of gears working in harmony. He watched the colored stones dance, spinning on every axis before veering in a new direction as he turned his arm. It seemed impossible that it could have the ability to do such complex things in such a small form. Beneath his fingers, the machine pulsed with life.

  But what was it? Immanuel’s gaze flickered back to the door where he knew Peregrine Nichols and the other curators lurked. If someone knocked, should he toss it into the nearest drawer and pretend to be picking up shards or should he show it to them and risk having it taken away? He sighed. It wasn’t his to keep. It was probably an antique tool that had rolled off some scientist’s desk only to fall into the box of plants. Gently shutting the lid, he shoved it into his pocket and returned to the crate filled with straw. Immanuel tugged it forward, checking each side for a name or address, but the letters had distorted and faded during its journey. Holding his hand over the brass contraption jutting from his pocket, Immanuel slowly opened the door. From the threshold, he could make out Peregrine Nichols moving in his office through the door’s wavering glass.

  Drawing in a steadying breath, Immanuel knocked on Peregrine’s door. When it opened, Immanuel’s eyes widened at the sheer nu
mber of plants littering the tight space. Peregrine’s quick gaze passed over Immanuel’s features as he waited expectantly in the doorway.

  “Do you need something, Winter? You can’t possibly be done yet.”

  “No, but may I come in for a moment?”

  Peregrine stepped out of the way, waving him in with a tin watering can. Immanuel stooped under the boughs of plants hanging from the ceiling and vines that seemed to grow over every surface. They crawled up the walls and bookcases, leaving tiny purple flowers in their wake. He traced their path, but no matter what direction he went, he couldn’t discern where each vine began. Every available surface was crowded with plants. Alien orchids, geometric succulents, and fairytale bushes covered with black berries lined the windowsill and shelves. A handful of small crates sat on the corner of the desk with a ledger propped beside it. Even without the massive crates, the walls seemed to close in on Immanuel as plants brushed his hair and tickled his neck.

  “What do you need, Mr. Winter? I’m very busy right now.”

  “Well, I—,” Immanuel paused, his hand pressing against the ticking orb in his pocket, “I broke a pot. Do you have a spare?”

  With a nod, Peregrine reached into the cabinet beneath his bookcase and handed Immanuel an oversized porcelain flowerpot. “Adequate?”

  “Yes, thank you.” The botanist took a step toward his desk when Immanuel added, “I found something odd in the crate.”

  Peregrine arched a brown brow. “Oh? If it’s an insect, get Bowker to take it.”

  “No, no, it was this.” Immanuel pulled out the strange compass and held it out in his palm. “I found it when I dropped the plant. It must have ended up in the pot somehow because it rolled out with the dirt when it broke. I tried to figure out where it came from, but I couldn’t find a name. I thought you might know since you have the papers it came with.”