A Study in Ashes (62 page)

Imogen started to reach for it, but then pulled her hand back. “I hate her for making me do this.”

“Just remember that she’s already dead. You’re putting a ghost to rest.”

Imogen studied Evelina’s expression, trying to decide if she meant what she said. “It’s getting harder every time I try to end it.”

“That’s exactly what she wants. Go on.” Evelina jogged the knife in the air. “Don’t hesitate.”

Imogen took it, clutching the ivory handle like a lifeline. The bomb had been easier, because it was less intimate—and that meant Evelina was absolutely right. “I’ll do it for myself, and I’ll do it with my own hands, but I’m going to hate it.”

“That’s allowed. You’re still you.”

Imogen hesitated, knowing she was done but not wanting to leave her friend just yet. “If I put Bird’s eye back in, will he be able to see?”

Evelina held out her hand, and a small box covered with colorful print shimmered into existence. She handed it to Imogen.

“How did you do that?” Imogen squeaked, reading the label. It was a kit for resin-based glue.

Evelina smiled, and for the first time she looked like her old self. “It’s my dream. I can bloody well do what I like.”

Southwest Coast, October 11, 1889
SIABARTHA CASTLE
5:05 p.m. Friday

FOR ALL HIS
talk about lessons, Magnus kept to himself much of the time, shutting Evelina into the workroom from early morning until late afternoon to read the ancient books that lined the shelves. Some of the tomes she recognized from his study at the Magnetorium Theatre, which answered the question of where that library had gone when he’d left Whitechapel.

The room was bright and spacious, perhaps once a lady’s solar, and was set up with worktables, magical implements, and alchemical supplies that reminded her more than a little of the laboratory at Camelin, if it had been antique and built for sorcerers. Sadly, none of the paraphernalia appeared to hold the key to her escape—and after days of confinement, and days without the dampening effect of her bracelets, Evelina was restless. She searched high and low for salt of sorrows or any other poison she might drop into Magnus’s wine, but there was nothing that would not immediately
taste foul. If she’d been there of her own free will—not locked into the classroom and rather less in danger of turning into a soul-sucking fiend—she would have been an eager student. As it was, she spent a lot of time pondering how to get away.

Nevertheless, the afternoon found her curled into a chair with a book and a modest glass of sherry, which had become her one vice in the godforsaken place. She barely looked up when Magnus entered, but she sensed him pause and note which book she was perusing. “The separation of the soul from the body?” he commented. “That is rather an advanced topic, don’t you think?”

This was their routine. He would always interrupt her studies at the end of the day and question her on what she’d read. “I thought this would be acceptable reading since I had finished the work you set for me.” Evelina marked the page with her finger.

“Ah, indeed.” He sat in the other chair. “It is a fascinating topic. There is a theory that wandering souls are the source of those shadowy figures you dislike so much.”

“The Others?”

“They are sometimes called that.”

She frowned. “You said they were the opposite counterpart of devas.”

“And they are. But who is to say where they originate? I have met those who claim the Others wander the earth looking for a vacant body to leap into. I’ve never observed it myself, but it is not my area of study.”

“Was the Other I saw in my room the other night real, or an illusion?”

“You doubt your own eyes?”

“You’re a mesmerist. You can make me see whatever you like. And you’re enough of a showman that you made your living making folks pay for those lies.”

Magnus clapped his hands together, rubbing them in a mockery of glee. “Ha! Such a compliment you pay me. But let me assure you that this place is guarded by those you call Others.”

It was an answer, but not. Evelina shuddered a little, retreating
to her original topic. “I have a friend who has fallen into a deep sleep and will not wake. Imogen Roth.”

Magnus’s eyebrows rose. “Ah, yes, Serafina’s twin. I thought Miss Roth had escaped the
Wyvern
.”

Fresh hatred seeped through Evelina. The sorcerer bore much of the blame for Imogen’s plight. “She did, but collapsed when it fell from the sky.”

“Interesting” was all he said.

Evelina’s temper bubbled. “Is she in danger?”

“Undoubtedly, but I would think squatting spirits to be the least hazard in the netherworld. Her sister’s spirit was the very devil, as you well know.”

“Can I help Imogen?”

“Perhaps.” He waved a lazy hand at a slim black book. “What was your opinion of that little volume?”

Magnus refilled her glass and poured some wine for himself. Evelina wanted to scream with impatience, but knew she would make more headway by playing along. This sociable moment, too, was part of their daily routine. It jarred because it was false, and because it was not. She was his prisoner, already his victim, but the communion between them held a grain of truth. He had taught her things no one else could.

The afternoon light caught his face, and she could see that where he had been pale before, he was now corpselike.
For someone who obviously has so little time, he’s being extremely patient with me
. That made her more, rather than less, nervous.

“The Latin was a slog,” she admitted.

He tutted and sipped his wine. “Perish the intellectual laziness of the young.”

Evelina couldn’t help a smile. “You haven’t had a good intellectual debate since Erasmus, I suppose.”

He crooked an eyebrow. “Mind your manners, kitten.”

“I read the book. It is a primer for little sorcerers.”

“It lays out the rules of their system of magic. Even if you have no ambitions in that direction, it is best to understand how it works.”

“It was very well organized,” she conceded, deciding it
was the only compliment she could stomach. “Clear, concise, well indexed. The section on how to harness death in all its permutations, with subheadings on what to kill and how to kill, it would have done Mrs. Beeton’s cookbooks proud.”

There was even a separate appendix on the course of potions necessary to awaken the power to drink life from the living—which sounded like a nasty, smelly brew indeed.
And I expect he’ll want me to ingest that if I’m to be his next Serafina
. She was definitely sticking to food and drink she recognized.

“Then tomorrow,” he said, “I recommend the next volume. It sets the record straight on the correct use of resurrection spells. Something of a lost art these days, and so important. Correct procedure is the difference between healing and the shambling dead.”

Magnus was wearing gloves, but last night she’d caught a glimpse of his blackening nails.
Is there a bit of shambling in your future, Doctor?
She cleared her throat to force down her rising gorge. “Let me guess. The amount of life force available is a key factor in a successful resurrection.”

The look he gave her might have frozen the sherry in her glass. “Indeed. Perhaps we should break for a rest before dinner. We can resume the practical side of your instruction after that.” And he took out the heavy key that would lock her in her bedroom, which was the signal for her to put away her books.

But Evelina wasn’t done. “What about my friend? I dreamed of her last night.”

“That’s not unusual. Often wandering spirits have a way of pestering us. My advice to you would be to put her out of your mind. She has no value to your future.”

“She’s my friend!”

“Friend.” Magnus said the word as if he had forgotten its meaning. “Let me put it this way: nine times out of ten these ghosts have their own reason for never returning home. There is something in them, some darkness or some failure of willpower they cannot face, much less conquer. In the
end, it’s easier to give up on fighting for their lives. All the sorcery in the world can’t change that, kitten. Now rest.”

But the last thing Evelina intended was a nap. If Magnus had dangled the promise of Imogen’s cure, it might have made a difference, but his indifference was just one more reason to get free of him. What good was power if you couldn’t help the ones you love?

Magnus had given her a seemingly inescapable chamber, but she wasn’t done searching it yet. She emptied two of the brass-bound trunks and heaved them on top of a third, making a precarious stair so that she could investigate the ceiling. The construction was primitive, just a heavy lattice of beams overlaid with the floor above. Since they were at the top of the tower and she rarely heard anyone walking above, she assumed it was an attic.

The clock in the workroom struck the half hour, and she was always summoned to dinner precisely at seven—the one meal she and Magnus ate together. Since her free time was so limited, she’d had to work her way around the room a bit each day. At first, she found nothing—not even cobwebs. But as she teetered on the stack of trunks beside her bed, she noticed a scattering of dust on the top of the red brocade canopy. She would have thought nothing of it except that the room had been scrupulously cleaned. And then she noticed a thin strip of daylight above. With the handle of the fireplace poker, she gave the underside of the attic floorboards an experimental poke. One shifted slightly, enough to tell her that the end closest to the wall wasn’t tightly nailed down. Pushing it loose would be easy, and from there she could begin to pry up its neighbors. Her insides squeezed with excitement.
It’s not much, but it’s something!

Then a noise made her stop and listen, and crane her head toward the door.
Footfalls
. Magnus was early. A rush of hot panic flooded Evelina and she scrambled down, replacing the poker and dismantling her makeshift ladder. She had the first and smallest trunk back in place by the time the key was in the lock. The second was larger, requiring her to bump it onto the floor and drag it against the wall just as the door rattled open. Evelina jumped away from it at the last
second, breathing hard and with the contents of two trunks strewn across her bed.

“Tidying?” Magnus inquired, eying the chaos. “Quite a noisy occupation.”

“I am moving my things around,” Evelina said, trying to hide the fact that she was still puffing. “Trunks are hardly the same thing as a proper chest of drawers.”

Magnus looked nonplussed. “Perhaps we can find you something more to your liking. In the meanwhile, perhaps you could join me for a practical demonstration before we sit down to eat. Bring your wrap.”

He led her up the stairs to the level above—it was indeed used for no more than storage—and then up a final flight of steps. A door in the tower opened onto a parapet that stretched across the entire castle, interrupted only by the tops of the other, smaller towers. A battlement provided some shelter from the constant wind, but the air was still bitter as the sun dipped toward the horizon. Evelina pulled her shawl close, teeth clenched so they would not chatter.

Magnus walked toward a piece of ornate wrought-iron scrollwork that was mounted on the west side of the battlement, rusted bolts piercing the stone. It stretched between two of the merlons, forming an ornate grill. “One of the themes of magic is illusion. We are all guilty of it, some of us even gifted, but the truly powerful are those who have the gift—or curse—of seeing through such spells.”

He pulled an object from the pocket of his dark tailcoat and held it out. It was a plain, flat stone, entirely unremarkable except that there was a hole at its center. Evelina nodded, suddenly more willing to endure the cold. “My grandmother gave me one very like that, except that someone has painted it.”

“I recall the piece. Painting the stones is quite common among the folk practitioners. If one finds a good seeing stone, it becomes an object worthy of celebration.” He placed the stone into a holder at the center of the grill, so that the hole was at the exact middle of the ironwork. “The way these work is to catch the light at the precise moment of dusk or dawn. For an hour, or two, or twelve after that—
much depends on the stone and the user—that eye will have the gift of true sight.”

“It is that simple to use?” Evelina exclaimed.

“There is nothing simple about the truth, my dear. But yes, the mechanics are no more complex than that.” He swept his arm toward the grill, an echo of his theatrical past. “Step forward and look, if you dare.”

Evelina approached the grill, which was made for Magnus and too tall for her comfort. The first thing she saw was the blaze of the fading sun on the water, shocks of pink and orange mirrored on the sea and sky. Then she stood on her toes, stretching up to peer through the stone with her left eye. The magic struck her like a firm tap that echoed from head to toe. The view of the sea itself didn’t change, and she watched as the silver-blue edges of the water faded to a deep indigo. She backed away with a final shiver. “I’m more than ready to go inside.”

“Very good then,” Magnus said, collecting the stone and leading her down to the workroom, where their dinner would be spread out.

She looked around curiously, half expecting to see that the dinner was rotten or the books nothing but old leaves, as from the pages of a fairy tale. But everything inside the castle looked the same, even Magnus. He looked haggard, but had not sprouted horns or a second head.

They sat down to eat. The cold had pricked Evelina’s appetite and she gratefully selected a warm roll and broke it apart. “So what precisely was the point of that exercise?” she asked.

Magnus toyed with his spoon. Dinner was a fish stew, as it seemed to be every other dinner, and they were both growing a little weary of it. But he also looked apprehensive. “What do you think is the truth?”

That I want to go home. That I’m afraid of you and myself
. “Should it be that subjective?”

Magnus didn’t answer, so she bit into the bread and chewed. But the moment she began to eat, she realized the demonstration had affected her nerves badly. Magnus never did anything without a point, so why all this talk of truth?
Was there something hideous that should be revealed? She couldn’t keep herself from glancing into the corners, looking for the Others. She’d caught glimpses of them often enough, usually in the corridors or creeping around the bailey, but they rarely approached the rooms she lived and worked in.