A Study in Ashes (46 page)

She stayed put while Magnus swung his long legs over the edge of the basket, a superstitious dread taking her. She didn’t want to set foot in his castle, as if stepping there meant that she could never leave. But he held out his gloved hand, and, bound as she was, she had no choice but to take it and let him help her over the edge. And yet even his touch made her shudder.

“This way,” he said gallantly, taking her elbow to escort her toward the castle. “Once you’ve earned the privilege, you may feel free to roam the grounds as you please. The views are better from the tower, but there is no substitute for a walk in the fresh air.”

Evelina looked around at the dingy stone and scruffy grass. The most interesting feature was an old well that looked as if it was still in use. “And outside the walls?”

“Not much to see for a good fifty miles, although there is a certain charm about the place in spring.”

“In other words, no need for locks when there is no place to go.”

He gave her a tight smile. “For now you will be escorted. The balloon and stables are off limits and you will find them guarded by spells. But when you learn what I wish, you will have the power to leave. I’ve been patient with you in the past, but now it’s time you understand that when you do as you’re told, we both get what we want.”

I don’t do what I’m told. Not by you
. “I want to go home.”

“And so you shall, when I deem you ready.”

That statement horrified her worse than anything else.
Who will I be by then? A mad thing, like your dancing doll?

He signaled to one of the servants to open the arched,
iron-bound door of the castle. From the way the man dug in his heels, the door was as heavy as it looked. Magnus strode in, grabbing a torch from its holder near the door. Evelina trailed after, agape.

It was a great hall, straight out of
Ivanhoe
, with high beams and a vast oak table dominating the room. Iron chandeliers hung from the ceiling on chains, ancient wax clinging to the black metal. Shields hung against the wall, though a few had toppled to the floor, but the dust was so thick Evelina couldn’t see the faded designs painted there.

“It’s been a while since I entertained,” Magnus said dryly. “It’s intolerably cold down here and impossible to heat. We live upstairs.”

With that, he led her through the hall and up a long, winding staircase that reminded her of the church tower she’d climbed with Nick. Arrow slits pierced the stone walls at every turn, letting in light and a brisk ocean breeze. It was almost colder here than it had been in the balloon, as if the black stone had soaked up the cold for centuries, never letting any of it go.

Evelina was feeling her muscles by the time Magnus stopped at a landing near the top of the tower. Three doors clustered there. “My rooms, your room, our workroom,” he said, indicating each in turn.

Frozen through, Evelina grasped the handle of the door meant to be hers, and tried it. It opened easily, and she looked in. The first thing she saw was a fire. It drew her forward like a magnet and she crouched before it, holding out her frigid hands.

Magnus followed after her. “I hope you like your accommodations.”

Evelina cast a glance around the room. It had a certain medieval splendor, with a velvet-draped canopy over the bed, tapestries along the walls, and a scatter of brass-bound chests. At least it looked clean.

“There are fresh clothes in the chests, as well as everything you will require for your studies. There is the workroom, of course, but I thought you might prefer a few things
here to practice with. Your meals and hot water will be brought to you.”

“Very thoughtful.” Thawed enough to tear herself away from the fire’s warmth, she rose and held out her hands. “Are you going to keep me bound?”

Magnus flicked his fingers and the chain fell away, clanking at the floor near Evelina’s feet. “No need now that we’re here.”

They studied each other in silence for a moment, the air tense between them. He’d won her trust once, but it wouldn’t happen again. And yet they’d shared magic together. That created a familiarity that would never be brushed aside.

“How did you survive the air battle?” she asked.

“I’m very hard to kill.”

He’d died once before, that she knew of. That had left him looking older. Now he looked ill, the aquiline face thinner, his olive complexion pasty. And while certain things were the same—he was still the tall, slender, and elegant figure she remembered—not everything remained. Where there had been a few silver hairs at his temples, his dark hair and goatee were now salted with white. His depthless eyes were still intense, but they were lined and circled where the flesh had sunk against his skull. This time, it had been harder to come back. And there was something wrong—she wanted to use the word
unstable
—about his face. It was as if whatever measures he’d taken hadn’t quite worked. Worst of all, he didn’t smell quite right.

“How do you do it?” she asked, her voice gone hoarse with cold and revulsion. “Death magic?”

“Yes.”

Surprise arrowed through her. He’d always danced around the question of his sorcery before. “That’s blunt.”

“I’ve given up being coy with you. You saw what Serafina was to me.”

Evelina nodded. The mad doll had sucked the life out of her admirers and then fed it to Magnus. It had left the automaton—who was at least in part Anna—hungry, confused, and ultimately homicidal. “She did your hunting for you.”

“I thought to free myself of the burden. After you have lived as long as I have, stalking the unwary becomes a chore.”

Outrage twisted through her, drawing a strangled sound from her throat. How like Magnus, to reduce everything to its amusement value. “Don’t your victims deserve personal attention? Or is that just a bourgeois shopkeeper’s view?”

“Such sharp little claws.” Then he gave a short, mirthless laugh. “But perhaps you’re right. Perhaps the universe in its infinite wisdom is punishing me for my neglect, for in creating Serafina, I made a tactical error. I put too much of myself in her.”

He had split off a piece of his own life force to make Serafina live, but she wasn’t sure that was what he meant. “How so?”

“Now I discover I seem to have sacrificed much of my ability to feed. Not something I anticipated, let me assure you. And in my weakness I can’t breathe life into another such child of my genius. I have restored myself as best I can, but I must solve this conundrum immediately.”

“How?” she asked, but the word had barely left her lips before his eyes told her the answer.

“My dear Evelina, that’s where you shall play a role. You, my little cat, will learn to bring me my prey.”

And like that, her hunger woke, a flare of yellow eyes in the dark privacy of her soul. Eagerness and disgust hit her with a hurricane’s force. She remembered the taste of the guard’s life sliding inside her. She flinched as if Magnus had slapped her. “Dear God.”

“It is a small service, given the immense amount that I’ve shared with you. That I
will
share with you in our time together.”

“No!” She pushed him away with both hands and kicked the chain at her feet into the fire. “You may think you have me, but I will fight you for every inch.”

Magnus staggered back a step, the angry flare of his eyes giving the lie to his amused smile. “You need not stay forever. Just long enough to allow me to make a new little helper of my own.”

“And what would be left of me by then?” Evelina snarled.

“Your true face,” he said. “As long as I’ve known you, my dear, you’ve been an event waiting to occur.”

And with that, he left her, locking the door with a sound like doom.

Cornwall, October 5, 1889
KILLINCAIRN
1:17 p.m. Saturday

NEXT TIME NICK CHOSE A SECRET HIDEOUT, IT WAS GOING TO
have more amenities, like a convenient train station—preferably one with a decent alehouse nearby. Unfortunately, locations where one could hide the hangar for a steamspinner tended to be off the beaten path. Far, far off, where not even the customs boats watched for smugglers.

The railway stop closest to the tiny fishing village of Killincairn was at Falmouth, and from there it was horseback all the way south along the coast. Nick had missed horses, but this was a long ride in the pelting autumn rain, and in Cornwall that meant bucketing torrents. Nick’s coat was soaked right through. He’d stopped to buy some extra shirts with the money the Schoolmaster had loaned him, but he was fairly sure his bags were sodden, too.

He went back to his daydream about the alehouse, because fantasy was more bearable. His perfect tavern would have that good brown stout he’d had at the place a few miles back, and decent bread and cheese—the sharp, crumbly white stuff that went with hot pickled relish. And there would be an inn, with a warm bed and a real wood fire. Oh, yes, a good night’s sleep felt just the thing. Not that he was complaining. At least he was free, even if his backside did hurt because he hadn’t ridden for a year.

Evelina would be in that bed
.

But he couldn’t afford to think of her right then, or he would think of nothing else. She was the key to his happiness, but it was as if that key was hidden inside a Chinese puzzle box. He could hold it, but he couldn’t get to it without solving the riddle of how to free her from the complex prison Keating had created for everyone she cared about. And if everyone Evelina loved wasn’t free, she wouldn’t be, either. Loving that way was her curse and blessing, and therefore Nick’s.

Of course, puzzle boxes could be solved two ways—with a clever mind, or with a hammer. Nick was starting to vote for the latter.

Nick pulled the horse up and looked toward the horizon. He was fairly sure he was near the road to Killincairn, but he couldn’t see the path. Rain pattered off his hat brim, obscuring the view he might have had if it wasn’t all buried in a thick gray mist.

Where the blazes am I?
He sat pondering a moment, the rain chattering around him. He felt like the last living man in the Empire. He’d seen no other travelers for miles. No birds peeped, but he could hear the ocean in its constant, restless churn. The air was fresh and salty and Nick sucked it in, feeling every lungful expel another particle of Manufactory Three’s soot. The mare shifted restlessly beneath him, and he absently patted its neck.
I should have stayed in the last town and waited out the storm
. But he wasn’t able to do the sensible thing. Not when his ship and crew were so close—or at least he hoped they were. The closer he’d got to Killincairn, the greater the magnetic pull to reach it. It strained on him now, as if his breastbone might crack if he didn’t keep moving.

Niccolo?
He felt the touch of Athena’s mind, warm and familiar. Her metal cube was in his saddlebag, no doubt as wet as everything else. She’d been quiet for the last several miles, as if the rain had depressed her, too.
Why have we stopped?

“I’m looking for the path.”

Do you have a map?

Nick felt the twinge of her impatience, but answered reasonably. “It’s too wet for a map.”

Is there someone you can ask for directions?

Now he was getting irritated. “I’m not lost. I just don’t know where I am. There’s a difference.”

There was a beat of disgusted silence.
Odysseus said the same thing, and look how long it took him to get home
.

Nick tried to think of a smart rejoinder, but he was just too damp and cold. But as he sat hunched on his mount, beneath the smells of horse and sea he caught something else—a sharp odor almost like mint.
Aether
. And the only way aether was detectable at sea level was if something brought it there—like the propulsion system of a steamspinner.

Nick straightened in the saddle, his spirits revived by an urgent excitement. The horse pricked its ears and whuffled a question. “I need to follow that scent,” Nick answered. “There’s oats in it for you if you find the road.”

He wasn’t sure it had understood. He had the power to speak to birds, but other animals were hit and miss on an individual basis. Nevertheless, the horse started forward at a determined walk. Nick loosed the reins and let it go. It couldn’t do worse than he would in this fog.

At least someone has a sense of direction
.

“You’re the magical navigation device, not me.”

I fly winds, not mud trails. And I would use a map
.

“If you were human, you’d require three porters, two maids, and a Spaniel in a diamond collar just to visit the dressmakers.”

I’ve had thousands of years to develop a sense of occasion
.

They found the turnoff a quarter mile farther on. The path snaked over hill and dale, winding toward a cliff overlooking the sea. The hangar sat on the cliff’s edge, the doors ready to open and launch the ship to fly free over the waves. The last time Nick had seen the steamspinner, it had only been half built and paid for with gold he’d stolen—along with Athena—from Jasper Keating. He was assuming a lot, he told himself sternly, thinking he’d found his ship and his crew. There were other pirates who might have found his hideout and made it their own. A year was a long time in his world. But Nick
couldn’t hang on to his caution and felt the bloom of hope anyhow.