A Study in Ashes (4 page)

Juniper gave a small, cold smile as they left the New Hall. “I see that I am familiar to you, Miss Cooper. No doubt your association with Mr. Keating has acquainted you with many players surrounding the Steam Council.”

“Only in a modest way.” If he believed that she knew him through Keating, it was far safer than the truth.

He led her along the path with a casual air, as if they were just out for a stroll. In the afternoon sun, his face seemed pale to the point of translucence, blue veins visible beneath the fine skin of his temples. “And so here we are. Academia makes strange bedfellows.”

She couldn’t argue with that. “How did you come to be here?”

“Ambition,” he said, without the least embarrassment. “I have been working on a binomial theorem. Perhaps I shall publish a treatise. A university chair gives me credibility in a way that a steam baron’s patronage could not.”

It still seemed a strange leap from managing a steam baron’s business affairs, especially since the Blue King held sway over the poorest parts of the city. “It seems you are a man of hidden talents.”

“We share that quality in common, though your abilities are far more controversial than mine. Oh yes,” he said, smiling at her fresh surprise, “I know what those bracelets you wear mean. Most students just think they’re prisoners here. You are chained in fact, bound to do Keating’s bidding whenever he finally chooses to crook his finger.”

Evelina was speechless for a long moment. “How do you know about that?”

Juniper narrowed his eyes. “Think about it. The public version is that you are a ward of sorts to Mr. Keating. No mention of magic is made in the official records. Still, you must know by now that you are watched, and not just by Keating’s pet thugs.”

“What do you mean?” She tried to pull away, but he grasped her more tightly, keeping her arm linked through his.

“Word of your talents has got out, Miss Cooper. There are those on the Steam Council who know where you are.” He stopped walking. They were almost to the gates of the Ladies’ College, but still far enough away that no one else was close enough to hear his words. “Both you and Bickerton should have been blown to pieces. How did you do it, Miss Cooper? I’ve always wanted to know how sorcery works.”

Evelina shielded her eyes from the sun, studying his sharp features. He might have been handsome but for an unpleasant glitter in his eyes. “Are you really here for your theorem, or did the Blue King send you?”

His smile made her pulse skip, and not in a good way. “I have my eye on many interests, Miss Cooper. The steam
barons are titans, and they will go to war with one another before long.”

“I think that is common knowledge.”

“Perhaps.” He finally released her arm. “In any event, creatures like you and I will be looking to our own survival once it happens.”

She almost smiled. “Are we not doing so now?”

“A valid point, Miss Cooper. You are as astute as you are troublesome.” A flock of birds flashed across the sun, their wings casting a fluttering shadow. Juniper looked up, seeming almost uneasy. “Nevertheless, I would be very careful to watch my back if I were you.”

“I always do.” Evelina turned away. Juniper was trying to lay the groundwork for something, with his dark observations and half confidences, and she wasn’t having any of it. She began walking again, returning the conversation to safer territory. “But my chief concern at the moment is my education. I have to say the entire college experience has been a severe disappointment.”

His bright gaze darted toward her. “How so?”

“I’ve been to one finishing school already. I did not come here to learn flower arranging and domestic economy.”

Juniper laughed softly to himself. “Then allow me to do you a favor, Miss Cooper, in the name of equitable education. Tutors can be arranged, as can a modest amount of scientific equipment. As a member of the faculty, I will gladly provide you with anything that is not poisonous or combustible. For the time being, that should satisfy your needs and those of the administration both.” He pulled out a silver case and extracted a calling card. “Make a list of what you need and send it to me. I will do what I can to ease the burden of good behavior.”

She took the card from him, still wary. “And why would you do me this favor?”

“Because someday I may need one from you. I am still at the start of my career and building my capital. Do not look for complications where they do not exist.” He gave a slight bow. “And here we are at your gate. Good day, Miss Cooper.”

“Good day, Mr. Juniper.”

“Ah.” He gave a slight grin—a real one this time—gesturing toward the card. “I do not use that name here. Arnold Juniper has nothing to do with my career as a professor of mathematics.”

Evelina inclined her head. “I stand corrected, sir. It seems a nom de guerre is de rigueur these days.”

“As is schoolroom French.”

“Touché.”

And with a last tip of his tall hat, Mr. Juniper left her there, his tall, slim frame elegant in the mellow sunshine.

At last Evelina turned to enter the gates to the Ladies’ College of London. Reluctance seized her, but there was no option but to obey. She shivered as the lock clanged behind her with a sound like the snap of iron jaws.
Here I am, and here I shall stay
. At least, until she discovered a way out. Evelina walked slowly across the quadrangle of the college, disgusted with everything.
Surely I can do better than this
.

Only then did she pause to read Juniper’s card:
Professor James Moriarty
. She slipped it into her reticule without another thought. The name meant nothing to her, except that he looked more like a James than an Arnold.

London, September 18, 1889
HILLIARD HOUSE
6:35 p.m. Wednesday

TOBIAS ROTH SAT AT HIS SISTER’S BEDSIDE. IMOGEN SLEPT AS
she always did, still and pale as a marble effigy.
Good God, Im, what happened to you?

It wasn’t a new question, and he had no new answers. Though the space was quiet and dim, there was tension in the air of the sickroom. Tobias likened it to a hunter with a drawn bow—muscles quivering, breath held, gaze sharp on the target. But when would the string release, and where was that arrow going to land?

There was no telling when the wait would end. Imogen had been like this for nearly a year, sunk deep into this artificial sleep. She was lovely to look at, her long, straight hair the gold of a summer wine, or sun on ripe wheat. And yet that beauty was like a photograph, factually accurate but capturing little of the woman who was his sister. It didn’t show the flash of Im’s eyes as she teased him, or the flight of her fingers as she played the pianoforte. The real woman had been stolen away. Surely magic was involved—otherwise, she would be dead. But why wouldn’t she wake? And if she did, what would happen?

Tobias rose, apprehension driving him from his chair. He wasn’t even sure what the hunter and his arrow meant in his analogy—bad luck, retribution, fate—but he knew it didn’t bode well. He crossed the room to look out over the back
garden of Hilliard House. The light was fading, and he was restless with worry that the damned bolt would end his sister’s life. He had tried to protect her, to rescue her, and he’d failed. There were fairy tales about maidens struck down by poisoned apples and wicked fairies, but he suspected it was something even darker that had wounded Imogen.

And yet suspicion was useless. The concrete facts in the case could be counted on one hand. Imogen had tried to elope. The sorcerer Dr. Magnus had plucked her from the street and taken her to his black, dragon-prowed airship, the
Wyvern
. Two other ships had pursued Magnus through the skies over London: a pirate vessel named the
Red Jack
, and Keating’s ship, the
Helios
. Tobias had led a rescue party from the latter and had got Imogen back. The mission should have been a success.

But it was at that point in the narrative that everything gave way to conjecture, leaving any real evidence far behind—and there was no way to know if what he saw and heard had been true. No one else was there that night except Imogen, and she couldn’t help him now.

Tobias’s memory of that night was never far, like a hidden stream that flooded the space between conscious thoughts, biding its time until it could drown him in nightmares. It didn’t take much to hurl him back to that hell:

Last November aboard the airship
Helios

FLAME CURLED THROUGH
the blackness, unfolding into the night sky like the petals of a fat crimson peony
.

The explosion was beautiful, Tobias thought wildly, in the way that a tiger is beautiful right before it makes an hors d’oeuvre of one’s head. His gut twisted, but ordinary fear seemed a paltry response to the occasion. The charge had detonated just off their bow, close enough to feel the heat and the slap of air pressure. There were at least two airships intent on blowing the
Helios
to bits—and he didn’t fancy a fiery plunge to the spangled gaslights of London far below
.

Another roar shook the deck, deafening passengers and crew. Imogen stumbled into him, her footing lost. Tobias grabbed his sister, as much to support himself as her. He thought he heard the crack of wood, and it couldn’t have been more terrifying had it been his own bones. The entire ship was shuddering, propellers useless against the blast
.

“That’s a bit close!” he barked at the captain, but the man was bawling orders to the gunners and paid him no mind. Tobias had played his part in the fight already, and had gone from mission commander to irrelevant annoyance in the time it had taken to rescue his sister from the enemy and return to the ship
.

“Come on.” He dragged Imogen closer to the cabins, looking for shelter. But then another strike hit, knocking them both off their feet. Tobias hit the deck, the force of impact shooting up his arm and into his shoulder. Imogen collapsed in a heap beside him. Ignoring the pain, Tobias put his arm around his sister’s shoulder, drawing her to a sitting position. They sat huddled in the shelter of a locker, drawing their feet in to stay out of the path of running airmen
.

It felt as if they were Hansel and Gretel, hiding from the monsters. The comparison wasn’t as far off as he’d have liked. “What did Magnus want with you?” he shouted over the cries of the crew
.

Like him, Imogen was tall, fair, and gray-eyed, but she’d gone from slender to frail in these last difficult months. She shook her head. “I don’t think he cared about me. I was bait. He counted on a rescue.”

Tobias understood. Besides him, someone else had come to save the day—the infamous pirate vessel, the
Red Jack.
Captain Niccolo—Nick—had personally delivered Imogen from danger, a noble gesture that might cost him all. He’d put the miraculous navigational device aboard the
Red Jack
within reach of his foes, and now both Magnus and the captain of the
Helios
were intent on taking the pirate ship prize
.

“Tobias!” Imogen gripped his arm, surprisingly strong in her panic
.

Tobias tightened his protective hold. “What is it?”

She pointed upward. A net of ropes attached the balloon to the wooden gondola beneath. In the heat of battle, the ropes looked as flimsy as a spiderweb—and they were on fire. Imogen’s eyes flared with horror
.

Tobias pushed down the panic that crawled up his throat, forcing logic around his thoughts. It was like stuffing an octopus into a teacup. His breath was already coming a little too fast. “The fire is not as bad as it looks.”

“Oh?” Imogen’s voice steamed with sarcasm
.

“Look, there are already men up there putting it out.” Or at least they were trying—little ants with little buckets in the vast tangle of rigging. “Warships like this one use aether distillate, which has better lift and is much less explosive than hydrogen. The ship is far safer than you would think.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said grimly, “but at the rate this is going, we don’t have much time to talk. You need to know what I learned aboard Magnus’s ship before we shower down in gory droplets over Buckingham Palace.”

Tobias opened his mouth to reply, but then grabbed her as the
Helios
fired on the
Wyvern,
the recoil jolting the deck. Grit and soot crunched between his teeth and his ears sang with the noise of explosion. More airmen stampeded past, their uniforms tarnished with ash and sweat. He saw them hauling out the huge, copper-sided water guns, pointing hoses at the burning rigging, but the wind of the ship’s movement was fanning the flames
.

The
Wyvern
was turning, gun ports swinging into view. The black ship was hard to see against the starry sweep of the sky, but the red eyes and smoldering jaws of the dragon-shaped figurehead leered like a demon in the dark
.