A Study in Ashes (82 page)

The prince lifted his hat, sketching a polite bow to the woman, whose body seemed to be as much metal as it was flesh. “Then, madam,” he said as easily as if she had announced that tea was in the drawing room, “I expect we shall have the honor of accepting your invitation.”

London, October 16, 1889
OVER LONDON
5:05 p.m. Wednesday

TOBIAS CLAMBERED ABOARD THE SMALL, FLEET DIRIGIBLE
that had brought his father and Bucky to the caterpillar. Alice and Poppy were just settling into their seats. Tobias sat beside Alice, grasping her cold hand in his good one. He’d barely been able to stop touching her since Yelland had hauled the two women onto the caterpillar. In that one heart-stopping moment he’d grasped how close he’d come to losing them in the madness sweeping the city.

“What the blazes were you doing in the middle of the fight?” Lord Bancroft exploded, his gaze riveted on Poppy.

“We were looking for Jeremy,” she said stoutly. “Circumstances changed along the way. There were snakes.”

The door slammed shut and the craft lifted. It had set down in the relatively safe zone near the
Athena
, but there was no wisdom in lingering.

“When I get you home …” Bancroft growled.

“You can’t keep me from helping.” Poppy gave her father a mutinous look. “I’m getting the knack for defying danger.”

Alice flinched. It might have been a stifled laugh, or it might have been chagrin. Tobias had heard most of their tale from Alice, who looked utterly exhausted. He didn’t feel much better, but fondness for his sister made him smile. “It doesn’t matter. We’re getting them out of the battle.”

His father muttered something under his breath, but the sound of the propellers drowned out his words. Bucky looked back from the pilot’s seat. “That’s the thing. We weren’t expecting to find the ladies.”

“What do you mean?” Tobias asked.

Lord Bancroft answered. “We commandeered the aircraft. The Gold King’s forces have split and Keating’s gone north. We came to give the news to the prince but he’s gone after Blue.”

“Have you found my father?” Alice asked, her voice tight.

“We think we know where he’s gone,” Bancroft replied. “And I would very much like to confirm our information.”

Tobias could hear the eagerness in his father’s voice. Gift wrapping Jasper Keating for the new heir to the throne was one of those rare moves that would make a duke out of a viscount.

“He’s put my baby in danger,” Alice said, the pain in her words wrenching Tobias’s guts. “Please don’t hold back because of me.”

The dirigible turned, and Tobias caught a glimpse of the wreckage below. His breath nearly stopped. Fire and smoke billowed up from Covent Garden. Blue-white flame bloomed from an aether cannon, ripping through a line of the Gold King’s machines. The resulting explosion blew a hole in the Royal Opera House. Then several city blocks northwest of there were flattened, mere crumbs of stone left behind. Two of the rolling spheres from the Blue King’s army sat abandoned in the midst of the scene, giving testament as to what had levelled the landscape.

He didn’t quite believe what he saw. These were the streets he’d haunted all his life—the places he’d drank and loved and played. Gone. Destroyed. Lost. It was as if all those memories had been ripped from him and trampled. A wave of hatred turned him cold.

Bands of men ran through the ruined streets—mostly rebels and Yellowbacks—sometimes fighting, but more often trying to catch up with the rest of their forces. Bodies and pieces of machinery remained behind, like silt from a receding flood.

“I don’t see many Blues here,” Tobias said. He could hear Poppy crying softly as she looked out the opposite window, and he thought he might lose his mind. He couldn’t stand the thought of her distress.

“There was a split in their ranks,” his father replied. “Their command fell apart after the Blue King ran. After that it was easy to push them back east.”

“Rumor says there was a turncoat among them,” Bucky added. “Blue’s own man of business corrupted the troops.”

Tobias didn’t answer, distracted again by the spectacle out the porthole. It was going to take years, if not decades, to repair the damage from this single day. The dirigible passed over a thick mass of fighting, rebels pushing Yellowbacks north. “Isn’t Keating down there in the midst of all that?”

“No,” said Alice. “He would stay one step ahead.”

“There’s what’s left of Russell Square,” said Tobias. “We’re near the Violet Queen’s house.”

“That’s where our informant says Keating’s gone. It makes sense. He publicly allied himself with her,” Bancroft said, “and she’s just the right distance out of the fray.”

They touched down on the rooftop of the Grand Caliphate Hotel, a comfortable stroll from the British Museum. The hotel had evidently been abandoned as the battle moved north, but its large, flat roof—one of the first redesigned for the convenience of guests arriving by air—was still accessible. Bucky stayed behind in charge of Poppy and the ship. The others availed themselves of the steam-powered lift to the streets.

Yellowbacks, with their long black coats and outlandish weapons, patrolled the surrounding area looking for anyone remotely resembling a rebel.

Tobias wished Alice would have remained with Poppy, but she had the best chance of talking sense into Keating if they got him in irons. So he offered her his arm and they strode quickly toward the Violet Queen’s extravagant home, with Bancroft on Alice’s other side. All three of them looked dirty and rumpled, but for once no one was likely to report it in the gossip pages.

They’d nearly reached the corner of the lawn when he saw
a scatter of Steamers parked along the road—a fair collection even for a wealthy neighborhood. Then with some surprise he spotted Michael Edgerton slouching against one of the lamp standards, smoking a cigarette as coolly as if there was no war tearing apart the city.

Tobias’s stomach tightened as his old friend turned around, offering a smile. “I wouldn’t go any closer,” Edgerton said pleasantly. If anyone overheard without quite paying attention, it would have sounded like a cheerful greeting. “My men are already in place. Keating is in there.”

Bancroft sucked in air, and Tobias knew what it meant. They’d had Keating’s location correct, but others had arrived there first. As he looked around, he saw the dark-clad figures, all but hidden in the shadows.

“By the by,” Edgerton said amiably, “good work out there today, Roth. I knew you had it in you.”

“But …” Alice began, but Tobias put a hand over hers. He could feel distress radiating from her like body heat, but he knew Edgerton. They could count on his help.

“Keating has our boy,” he said. “We need him to tell us where he’s being held.”

“We intend to take him alive,” Edgerton said confidently. “These men won’t make mistakes.”

He’d no sooner said it than the crack of gunfire sounded from the house, then an explosion. The front corner of the house blew outward, a cloud of smoke and dust billowing out with volcanic force. Tobias pushed Alice behind him, his one thought to get her behind cover. The rebels charged the front lawn. Guns leaped from beneath tailcoats. Then the Yellowbacks opened fire.

Alice screamed in shock as one of the rebels flew backward, chest imploding as one of the fearsome rifles blasted through him. Blood and bone splattered the street. Tobias thrust Alice inside the nearest Steamer, wanting steel around her. “Lie down!”

He fumbled for his own weapon, using his left hand. His father scrambled to his side. “Where did Edgerton go?”

Tobias scanned the scene. There was no sign of his friend. “Damned if I know.”

Then just as quickly Edgerton was back. “They think Keating’s gone, headed south. He got out when the wall blew.”

“Damnation!” Tobias cursed. So much for Edgerton’s men not making mistakes.

“Go after him!” his father ordered. “I’ll stay here. If they’re wrong, I’ve got it covered.”

Tobias scrambled for the Steamer as more rebels bore down on the house. The engine of the vehicle was already hot, so Tobias released the brake, jumped the curb, and sped the puffing vehicle through the park across the street, barely managing the job with just one hand.

The jolting brought Alice out of her crouch in the backseat. “Where are we going?”

“Your father’s fled south.”

She swore under her breath—something Tobias had rarely heard her do. “He’s been ambushed. I know him. He’s going to hide in earnest. It’s going to be next to impossible to get him into the open again.”

“Not if we can catch him first. Where would he go?”

She was silent for a few seconds as she climbed awkwardly into the front seat. “How many men does he have with him?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe none.”

“He might go to Hilliard House,” she said, her voice shaking. “He could take hostages there.”

Tobias bumped the vehicle back onto proper road and dialed up the steam. The vehicle shot forward. When he spoke, his voice was tense but reasonable. “I don’t think so. He’ll try to run to his own men first. This was a nasty surprise, but it’s hardly an endgame. Gold still has a good chance of winning this war.”

“Then he’ll go underground,” Alice said with a sudden lift of her head. “Some of his properties have a way out beneath the streets.”

Tobias blinked in surprise. “Really?”

“Only he knew about it. I don’t think he even told his streetkeepers. The only reason I know is because I used to follow him sometimes.”

Tobias looked at her in surprise. She had a way of making him do that. “Do you think he took Jeremy down there?”

“Not for long—they’re nothing but tunnels,” Alice replied. “They’re a way to move around, not to stay. But he could make it back to his army unseen.”

“Are you sure?” asked Tobias. “We’ve already looked at all his properties. He’s not there, and the rebels have spies on all of them. There aren’t many places he could go, even inside his own territory.”

“But there was Uncle Harriman’s old warehouse. Almost no one knows it’s even there.”

“Where’s that?” Tobias asked.

“A little way off Bond Street,” Alice said, and then quirked a smile utterly lacking in mirth. “You may not have been there, but surely you remember it. There was a gold-smithing workshop beneath it for a while.”

THEY LEFT THE
Steamer on Bond Street—although it was hard to believe it was the same street he knew. Every one of the businesses was closed and many of the windows were boarded over. A Yellowback with a rifle turned to look as they walked away from the vehicle. Tobias held his breath, but nothing happened. He took Alice’s hand. “Where do we go now?”

She led him down a narrow side alley that led to a number of storage buildings. He’d walked past that section of Bond Street a thousand times, with the bakery and the draper’s shop, but he’d never realized any of this was behind the tidy storefronts.

Alice approached a run-down wood structure with a rusted automaton parked outside the door. They went first to a side door, but when she rattled the handle, it was secure. “How are you at picking locks?” she asked.

He couldn’t hold back a smile. “You’ve been too much in Poppy’s company.”

She looked up at him, her face set and determined. “I wish I had her bold spirit to see me through this.”

Her mouth set, she marched around to the front where the
automaton stood motionless. If there was any doubt that it was defunct, the amount of bird dung on its head said the boilers had been inactive for a long time. Alice shot it a contemptuous look as she approached to examine the wide double doors.

“I think you’re blessed with more than enough spirit,” Tobias said, and then his breath caught as a wave of pain ran through him. He tried to hide it, but he wasn’t quick enough.

“Tobias?” Alice asked softly. “What’s wrong?”

“A bilious attack. Nothing more.”

“This is more than a stomachache. You’re ill. You’ve been ill since you went to Dartmoor.”

Dread filled him. He didn’t want to tell Alice what was wrong. She had too much to shoulder already. “Let’s worry about Jeremy first.”

Alice tilted her head up to him, the light turning her hair to molten fire. Fine wisps of it curled around her ears, drawing the eye to the fine arch of her cheekbones. He was transfixed by the light dusting of freckles he found there. She was as exquisite as a fine porcelain vase, every line in perfect proportion.

Her brow furrowed. “I’m worried about you, too.”

“Alice,” he said, sounding plaintive in his own ears. “Please. This isn’t the time.”

“It never is with you.” She pressed her lips together, then thrust out her hand. “Give me your gun.”

Chagrined, he surrendered it. Then she took careful aim at the lock of the warehouse door, and fired. The padlock jumped and then fell in pieces to the ground.

“My father was finally right about something,” Tobias said after a pause.

“What?” she asked, freeing the last scraps of metal from the hasp.

“I should never underestimate you.”