Copperhead (2 page)

“I just don’t understand why I’m getting so much resistance,” said Jane. Jane was on a mission to make each of The Hundred safer by returning their original human faces to them. But she was not making as much headway as she had hoped.

“Because once you have been the most beautiful woman in the room, it’s impossible to give up,” Helen said.

“It’s pathetic to be so focused on appearance,” said Jane sharply. Jane’s face had been scarred for so long due to fey shrapnel from the Great War that she came at this from a different angle, Helen thought. Jane had just wanted to be normal. But everyone else had always been normal. And now they had a chance to be extraordinary.

“It’s not pathetic at all,” Helen said softly. “Just think about the power you hold. You have always been just another face. And now everyone turns to you, asks your opinion. Those men who run your lives—suddenly they will do anything for you, if you favor them with a look. There is a touch of fey glamour at your command, yes, but more, there is just the fact that suddenly everyone thinks you are somebody. You are
worth
something.”

“And that’s enough to set against cold hard facts?” said Jane. “The cold hard fact that if you go outside without your iron mask, a fey could take you over and you’d be gone like that?” She snapped her fingers.

“What cold hard facts?” returned Helen. “How many people were in that ballroom when it happened to me? Only a handful of people saw it actually happen—and look, here I am, right as rain and twice as sparkling. It’s much easier to pretend that the danger isn’t as real as you say it is. Especially when their option is their old face back.” She took a breath before the slightly pointed jab, but she needed Jane to see how much she was in need of Helen’s help. “Besides, you probably wave their old face around in front of them when you try to convince them. Hard to be thrilled by the idea when you’re looking at your nasty old face, stretched and hideous from drying on the wall.”

“Give me some credit,” said Jane.

Helen raised her eyebrows.

“Well. Maybe once,” said Jane. “But I’ve learned since then. And I’ve learned how to reverse the sags and stretch marks during the facelift procedure.”

“But they’ll never be beautiful again,” said Helen.

“No,” Jane admitted. “There is that.”

It was almost time to tell Jane her plan. The first part of her plan. But how would Jane take it? Jane was so self-sufficient, and she was not used to thinking of her younger sister as helpful.

“So tell me which one is Millicent Grimsby,” Jane said. “I can’t tell one masked woman from the next.”

Despite the worry in the air, Helen laughed, and pulled her sister out into the crowd of dark suits and gowns. You still saw women around town in the popular sherbet hues, but tonight they were in darker colors: navy, black. Yet the women had not sacrificed any more than color. Gowns were still bias-cut and clingy. Sheer stockings, still dear due to the factory problems since the Great War, clung sleekly to every calf. Heels were high, adorned with jeweled pins and rounded toes. Hair was curled or waved—earlier in the year it had been longer, but you were seeing bobs more and more, perhaps as a minor rebellion against the tension in the city, the curfews, the iron masks. Helen herself was in deep plum silk charmeuse—she looked washed-out in black—the jacket ornamented with large pearl buttons.

Men were less interesting, sartorially speaking, but tended to be quite conservative still. Suits had become spare and close-fitting at the start of the Great War, and they still looked the same. Women would find ways to rebel against conservative dress, Helen thought, but men seemed fine to continue on indefinitely. Really, the only item of fashion for men that had changed in the last six months was the introduction of those copper lapel pins in the shape of a writhing hydra.

Copperhead.

Helen studied the dresses, the figures, and the hair before saying, “She’s over there, by the fireplace.” She did not know Millicent terribly well—Helen’s marriage seven months ago had been followed a month later by the advent of the fey to the city, and the men of Alistair’s set had grown more and more cautious in letting their women leave their houses. But Helen would recognize those mousy shoulders anywhere, that tilt and droop of the small figure. With her perfect face hidden behind iron, there was no fey glamour to offset her timidly curved form. Millicent always seemed to be making herself smaller.

“So, this Millicent,” said Jane, as Helen pointed her out. “What did you want to tell me about her? You seem bursting with some news. I brought her face as you asked, but you just told me
not
to ‘wave it around in front of her as I try to convince her.’” She eyed her younger sister. “I don’t suppose you’re finally going to let me do
you,
are you?”

“Not yet,” said Helen, and she lit up inside, for now was the moment. “Because I need every ounce of fey charisma I can get. I have a plan, a great grand plan.” A breath. “I’m going to help you.”

Jane looked dubious. “Even with the bit of fey in your face, you wouldn’t be able to do the facelifts right away. I barely have the ability to wield the fey power to do it, and that’s after months of practice.”

“No no no,” said Helen. “I’m going to help you talk The Hundred into it.”

Jane looked nonplussed. “Thank you for your offer, but I don’t see how your presence will help. I’m the one with the experience with the facelifts and the history with the fey. Surely if I tell them the facts, they’ll understand that it has to be done.”

Helen raised her eyebrows at Jane. “Really?” she said. “How long have you been working at this task? Half a year?”

“Off and on,” said Jane. “But I’ve been studying to do the facelifts, too. It hasn’t been all talking to the women.”

“And you’ve managed to convince how many of The Hundred?”

“Well. Six,” said Jane.

Helen squeezed her sister’s arm. “So don’t be a goose, silly. This is exactly where I come in. Look, I might not be perfectly tactful always—”

Jane raised her eyebrows at this.

“—but your idea of tact is to force out the words ‘in my opinion’ as you tell someone exactly what you think of them.”

“So what’s part two of this grand plan?” Jane said dryly to this tactless comment.

“I’ve already talked to Millicent,” Helen said, and the words she had told herself to keep in tumbled all out. Her face lit up, glowing with the joy of the surprise of it, with the good she was going to accomplish for Millicent, for Jane. “She’s all ready for you. She wants you to replace her face. Tonight.”

Jane turned a shocked face on Helen and shoved her younger sister into the nearest alcove to whisper furiously at her. “Tonight? It’s not a haircut, Helen. It’s a serious operation. It’s not something I can just do, just like that.”

“You can,” insisted Helen, heart rat-a-tat. “But you have to do it secretly, upstairs, while everyone is downstairs. It’s her only chance.” Jane couldn’t say that she was wrong, that she was foolish. This was
new
Helen, determined to make things come out right. “You have all your supplies, don’t you?” Helen pointed at the carpetbag that Jane carried everywhere.

“I suppose,” said Jane. “But—”

“But nothing; you’re just nervous, now that I’ve done it so quickly and gotten everything ready to go.” The words tumbled headlong from her lips. The mad rush, the intrigue, the heady thrill of brink-of-success: it all made her feel so alive.

“True, but I have justification for nerves,” said Jane. “It’s a dangerous operation at the best of times. To do it with no warning, on a tight timeframe, no room for error?” She shook her head. “You just don’t understand.”

Helen felt the familiar pressure against her skull in response to people telling her she was wrong, that she didn’t understand, that she
couldn’t do something
. The pounding in her head thudded as her will rose up, flattening everything before her like the sound of a bell spreading across town. “No,
you
don’t,” she said, and it was with tremendous effort that she kept her voice low, whispering the words right into Jane’s ear. “Mr. Grimsby won’t let her go anywhere. Won’t let her leave the house. Says it’s unsafe—though with the iron mask it’s perfectly safe—well, at least as safe as it is for anybody. She’s a
prisoner,
Jane. And she wants this done—but he won’t let her. Says he doesn’t trust you. Something about
dwarvven
connections and rabid women’s lib ideals.”

That lit a spark in Jane’s green eyes, as Helen had known it would. It was simple truth, but Helen knew how to deploy incendiary truth.

“Well,” said Jane. “Well.” She rocked back on her heels. “I will talk to her. Tell her about the procedure. My goal is to help them all, obviously. But tonight, with no warning? Perhaps she will be sensible and let us pick a day next week—do it with more preparation.”

Millicent wouldn’t, Helen was sure. Poor Millicent Grimsby had begged and begged for an outing, and finally Grimsby had brought her, iron-masked and heavily guarded, to a Copperhead meeting of the men at Helen and Alistair’s house. Safely ensconced in Helen’s bedroom, Millicent had poured her heart out and Helen’s own heart had burst in response.

It was up to Helen to save her, and it had to be tonight. Jane would just have to understand.

Helen showed Jane how to slip around to the back stairs and wind her way to the garret. After a suitable interval, she caught Millicent’s eye and gave her the nod. The small woman in the iron mask did not nod, did not move. But Helen knew she knew.

It was quite dark outside now. The room pressed together, quieting and erupting by turns as people found seats or decided to stand. The room was packed, for which Helen was immensely grateful. She found a spot that seemed perfect for sneaking away.

Men—leaders—came into the room in a clump. They had been off somewhere with Grimsby. Her husband, Alistair, was among the gang of men. They spilled into the room like a pack of hunting dogs, jostling each other as they moved to the front. Before Grimsby stirred them into a passion over Copperhead, they had spent all their time drinking and gaming. When they moved, when they tumbled and rolled, she saw the puppy dog in them still. Helen was glad she did not have her mask on, obscuring her vision. The electricity was at half the brightness it had been for that dance in the spring. It was dim yellow, unlike the familiar blue light of her childhood. Before the Great War.

The men straightened as they drew closer to the front and the strange sheet-covered lump in the middle of the room. They no longer reminded her of anything tame, but something fiercer, colder, and they stood straight around each other as if they were one pack surveying their quarry. Everything drew still as their presence filled the room, all eyes turned to the front. Helen searched around, checking for her escape route, and in doing so caught a tiny flicker of movement by the window—a lithe man in closely fitted black leaned on the windowsill as if he had always been standing there. But what then would have drawn her attention?

Boarham and Morse—Grimsby’s two particular right-hand men—moved to flank the machine. Morse was stoop-shouldered and pinch-faced, the meanest of them all. Boarham was heavy, lumpy, toadying. “We will begin,” said Boarham, “by updating you on the preparations that have been made as we remain under siege by the fey. Later in the evening will be the event you are most anxious for: Grimsby will reveal his new weapon that—we hope—will eventually annihilate the fey for good.”

Breath caught at the word, at the hope.
Annihilate
.

“We move ever closer to our goal,” Boarham said. “
One People. One Race
.” All around her, fingers flicked out to touch their hydra lapel pins in solidarity. “But first a moment to remember James Morrow, who since our last meeting was a casualty of the fey blight, when the blue carpeting his front garden turned out not to be powerless bits of many different fey, but one whole fey, lurking in wait with a concealed fey bomb.…”

Now.

It was not Helen’s style to move quietly. She moved by chatter and misdirection. But for this moment she needed to slink, and she did, moving like a bit of sunlight falling noiselessly through canopy leaves.

Her blood pounded as she climbed the garret stairs, slipped through the door.

The garret was irregular and pocked with gables. A cluster of candelabra lit the area with the most headroom; the rest of the garret fell away into dark piles of unwanted things as it sloped to the black wooden floor. It smelled of mildewing wood; of the sour poison of mothballs; of beeswax. Millicent lay in the center of the light, a small dark figure on a daybed draped with a white sheet. Jane worked efficiently around her, setting out her tools on a heavy scarred chest. No matter what nerves Jane had professed, as always, her sister seemed as cold as ice.

It was going to be done. Her plan would work. Helen wanted to clap her hands and burst into speech, tell the two women a million things, but she restrained herself, moving noiselessly over to the white daybed, still like falling sun.

Helen remembered the day Mr. Rochart had worked on her—the small white room, the deep sleep as he etched around the skin of her face to replace it. She had had such peculiar dreams. Strange to think that her sister had learned to carry out the same fey-powered operation.

Millicent had been staring out the slanted skylight at the fog that obscured the stars, but now she turned her face to see Helen, and pressed her hand. “It will be all right,” she said softly. “I have told your sister everything. She will help.”

“Excellent,” said Helen, wondering what “everything” was.

Jane turned from her preparations. “You did a good thing by setting this up,” she told Helen.

Helen warmed at the praise. She felt almost holy in that moment, filled with
doing things right
.

“We’re going to get her out of here tonight. And then deal with you-know-who.” Jane and Millicent exchanged a significant glance.

“Good,” said Helen. “Wait, what?”

“Millicent has to get away from this house for good,” said Jane. “As soon as I make her safe from the fey.”