Rise of the Arcane Fire (The Secret Order) (7 page)

Will blinked, his dark lashes sweeping over his glittering eyes. He swallowed; then his lips parted.

I leaned toward him, hoping he would close the distance between us. His lips touched mine. It was a ghost of a caress against my tender skin, but I felt it in my soul.

“Farewell, then.” He gently pulled my fingers from his coat, then took a step toward the ramp. His eyes burned with longing as he watched me. I didn’t know if he hoped I would follow, but I couldn’t. “Good luck, Meg.”

He was leaving. He was leaving me.

With a final wave of his hand, he turned and disappeared down the ramp.

No.

I followed for one step, two, then balked. Bringing my hand to my mouth, I gasped as I turned and retreated back toward the aviary. He’d come back. Any second, he’d realize this was foolish and come rushing up the ramp.

Holding my breath, I glanced back to the ramp, drawn once again toward it. I had to force my feet to be still as I gripped my skirts so tightly that my knuckles ached. I prayed fervently in my mind. I swore to the good Lord above that I would give up on all wickedness if he would just make Will return. A cold drop of rain landed on my cheek, and a hot tear washed it away.

Please. Please come back.

My shoulders and arms shook as I shifted from foot to foot, craning my neck at the ramp. It fell away beneath a vault-like arch. Torches glowed from somewhere below, and the flickering light up the tunnel seemed ghostly. Any moment I would see his face rising from the ground as he ran back to me. He couldn’t leave.

I love him.

A crushing agony pressed down on me, and I thought I would die of it. He wasn’t coming back.

He was gone. I clasped my hands together as I sat in shock on a cold stone bench beneath the silent bower. The beady eyes of the mechanical birds stared at me, corroded and still. A light rain began to fall.

I pressed my lips to my knuckles.

My shoulders shook. How was I supposed to do this alone? I needed him. He was the one person I could depend on. The tears streamed down my face, hot and stinging. Will had always been there for me. In the darkest of times, even when he’d wanted nothing to do with me, he’d always returned. I trusted him.

Now I had to face everything on my own. Somehow I had to find the courage and intelligence to prove myself. He’d left. He’d left me so he could become a laborer instead of something more. Why didn’t he see in himself what I could see in him?

He had all the potential in the world. I didn’t understand why he didn’t wish to use it.

I clenched my jaw. It ached, and I bit down harder. The cold rain beat against my neck. I couldn’t stay here like this. While it seemed certain my heart had been torn and would never again feel whole, the rain would not soothe such an ache.

Nothing would, and so there was nothing for it.

I rose to my feet. I had to move forward. The first step was to find my way home.

I followed Will’s path across the courtyard, still silently hoping he’d realize his mistake. I kept picturing him running back to me, apologizing for his lack of faith in himself and us, and sweeping me around the courtyard as he kissed me.

My steps faltered. Lamplight shimmered on the rain-slicked stones. The entrance to the ramp jutted out from the thick monastery wall. It made the archway adorning the barrel-vaulted tunnel seem like the entrance to an ancient catacomb.

If I left this place, there would be no chance for Will to come back to me. It really would be over. My wet hair clung to my face, and I had to wipe it away from my eyes. The courtyard was dark, cold, and empty. I had no choice. The torchlight beckoned as I descended the ramp to the underground passage.

A great tunnel lit by torches stretched out to either side, rising and then turning beyond a bend in each direction. The tunnel was easily as large as one of the streets just beyond the monastery’s walls, yet completely beneath the ground. On the far side of the wide tunnel was another archway and a similar ramp leading farther down into the darkness.

No light flickered within it. A heaviness settled over me as I turned away.

Oliver’s fine coach waited for me. The only person remaining in the long tunnel was Oliver’s coachman. He jumped to attention, then immediately offered me a blanket.

“Are you well, miss?” he asked, opening the door and giving me a hand up. The young man seemed genuinely concerned, but I couldn’t bring myself to even look him in the eye as I settled into the dark corner of the carriage.

“I will be.” I had to believe it was true.

“I’ll get you home. A hot cup of tea will set you right.” He closed the door. It creaked like the lid of a coffin as it shut, and I was surrounded by darkness.

Nothing would be right again.

THE NEXT WEEK PASSED BY
in a drudging misery. Even with Mrs. Brindle doing her best to cheer me with fresh biscuits and cream, I found I had little appetite for either her treats or her conversation. The only thing I did seem to have an appetite for was creating a new lock and hidden bells that would ring loudly should anyone come into the shop.

Once both the front and the back were secure, I hid in Simon’s workshop, spending hours upon hours on the spring in the frog’s leg. No matter what I tried, I still couldn’t get it to compress correctly. For some reason the tiny room tucked away behind the secret door gave me a sense of comfort. My world became very small, and so I felt I could manage it.

I didn’t wish to go out and face my life. I don’t know how long I concealed myself there. Mrs. Brindle knew about the workshop and kindly would leave me food on my counting desk just beyond the toy-laden shelves that masked the door, but she never dared intrude upon me.

I tried one more time to set the tension in the spring, then wound the frog. One leg kicked out, followed by the other a second later. As a consequence the poor thing looked like it had just suffered a sudden and painful death.

It lay on the table, twitching.

Lovely.

The door to the workshop creaked open behind me. I stiffened and whipped around, grasping the pistol as I did so.

“Leave it where it is.” The voice was as feminine as it was gentle.

Lucinda.

She stood against the open shelves on the door and straightened one of the hand puppets that had fallen askew. The young widow looked a bit resigned, as if she had once been used to dragging her late husband out of the depths of the workshop as well.

I leapt from my seat and rushed toward my friend’s open arms. As beautiful as sunlight on a clear spring morning, Lucinda radiated warmth and compassion from her red-gold hair to her dainty toes. She held me tight as I fought tears of relief. I hadn’t let myself feel anything for days. Being with Lucinda brought all the pain rushing back, but at least I didn’t feel so terribly alone.

She offered me her handkerchief. “Oliver told me what happened.”

I took the lacy little bit of silk gladly and dried my eyes. Lucinda led me out of the workshop and fixed the door so that it once again became a seamless part of the row of shelves filled with toys in the shop. Then she led me into the parlor. Mrs. Brindle set out tea. It shocked me that so much time had passed. I hadn’t eaten yet that day.

Lucinda and I sat together, and she immediately fixed a plate.

“I can’t believe he’s gone,” I said, knowing it was a silly thing to utter aloud. But then, I could hardly express how it felt to have my heart cut out with a hot knife.

“He’s not gone.” Lucinda took a sip of tea. “He’s in Scotland.” She handed me the plate as if nothing were the matter, and I immediately felt my chagrin as I took a bite from a cucumber sandwich.

It was a gentle reprimand, as such things go, but I heard the message all the same.

Quit your fuss. At least he’s not dead and buried.

It wasn’t as if I had forgotten that Lucinda’s husband had been murdered. I lived in Simon’s shop and studied his writings every single day.

Granted, it had been a bit of a shock to discover it had been her own father, Lord Strompton, who had committed the murders, in an insane attempt to prevent anyone from discovering or unlocking Rathford’s time machine. At least that’s what I believed motivated him. It all seemed so insane to me.

But truthfully, if having your father murder your husband was the threshold for allowable personal misery, I wouldn’t ever be able to express my own sorrow.

My stomach twisted, and I put down the sandwich. If anything ever did happen to Will, I would beg for someone to gut me with a hot knife. It would be far less painful. Still, nothing could change the fact that I had been wholly abandoned and it felt miserable.

“If Will ever really loved me, he wouldn’t have left,” I muttered into my tea.

“Margaret Anne Whitlock, you stop this at once,” Lucinda demanded. She snapped a serviette with a sharp
crack
, then laid it daintily over the frothy green skirt of her afternoon dress. “Will is trying to make something of himself. I, for one, support him. As should you, if you care for him at all.”

I gaped at her in shock. “I thought you would side with me in this matter.”

“I do.” She placed a hand on my knee. “Which is why I’m here. You have the chance to do something great, something I have only ever dreamed of. I’ll not have you throw that away for a broken heart. You’re made of far greater mettle than that.”

I tucked my head in chagrin and sipped my tea. My heart warmed at her faith in me in spite of my ill mood. It was only then that I fully became aware of her dress.

A rare blue-tinted green, or perhaps it was a green-tinted blue, the shade nearly matched her eyes, and complemented her honey-colored hair. “You’re not in mourning for your father.”

She scowled. “I refuse to mourn Simon’s murderer.”

Well, that would hardly go over well, considering the only people who knew of Lucinda’s father’s murderous tendencies were me, Oliver, Lucinda, and Will. The rest of society would be in a dither over her blatant affront to the dearly departed earl. “I can’t blame you, but isn’t your mother livid?”

Lucinda rolled her eyes. “She’s half in the grave with it, but I don’t care. I just wish there were some way I could avoid her barbed insults at every single tea.”

“There’s room here if you’d like to return,” I offered. It would be grand to live with my friend, and I wouldn’t feel so alone. I only felt a modicum of guilt at my selfish intentions, if I felt any at all.

Lucinda gave me one of her warmest smiles. “I’d love to, but I really should go. Oh, that reminds me.” She produced a neatly addressed envelope.

“What’s this?” I took it and broke the wax seal. Lucinda didn’t answer. Instead she allowed me to read the elegant and very precise script.

It was an announcement for an Amusementist wake for the late Earl of Strompton.

I met her gaze as she arched a brow at me. “Your father’s funeral?” I asked.

Lucinda looked far too serious. “More like a summons to battle. Be warned.”

I glanced back down at the neat handwriting. “It can’t possibly be worse than battling a sea monster.”

“Trust me, it will be.” Lucinda sipped her tea, then placed the cup back on the tray.

She stood and pulled me to standing as well.

“Chin up.” She held me out by both shoulders and gave me a regal nod. “You’re going to be fine.”

I certainly wished for that to be true. While her visit had done much to lift my spirits, it couldn’t take away the aching sadness completely. I feared nothing ever would. Lucinda kissed me on the cheek, then breezed into the kitchen, where she spoke with Mrs. Brindle.

I knew they were talking about me, and I didn’t want to hear it, so I retreated back into the workshop to straighten it up. One of the open journals caught my attention. It held a list of names, members of the Order. I had a habit of ignoring most of Simon’s random scribblings in margins, as he’d had a tendency to draw whimsical things, I suppose to amuse himself.

This time they drew me in—at least one image did. It was a spiral, like the ram’s horn, exactly like the mark on the bomb. Beside it a name had been hastily blacked out.

That was unusual. The rest of the page looked like a list of personal marks, with symbols followed by names, yet this was the only name that had been struck from the record. Holding the page up to the light, I tried to see what had been written before it had been blacked out, but it had been too thoroughly erased.

Deciding to leave it for a moment when I could delve into it deeper, I retreated from the workshop, closing the shelf that hid the secret door. A tin soldier fell over.

I picked him up and turned him over in my hand.

He was handsomely painted, a Highland fighter with a red kilt. I wondered if Will felt half as terrible as I did.

Lucinda approached my left. She plucked the little soldier from my hand and put him back on the shelf. “I’ll see you soon.” She tucked her gloved knuckle under my chin and tipped it up. “Until then.”

I waved her out the door.

I had a new mystery to ponder.

I HONESTLY COULDN’T FATHOM HOW
quickly time could pass, until I felt I needed more of it and it simply wasn’t there. While the constant ache of Will’s absence filled me every day, I had too much to do to allow myself to steep in such thoughts. Instead I invested myself in my studies with greater vigor, hoping that the knowledge Simon Pricket had left in his journals was enough to keep me from making a fool of myself at the Academy.

The summons to appear at the monastery arrived one morning in a plain envelope sealed with bloodred wax. That evening, as I stood in an alley behind the mews, I felt as if someone had released a bucketful of mice down the back of my deep red afternoon dress. I tugged on the tight sleeves of my fitted black jacket. The dressmaker had accused me of having a frightful sense of fashion, but I had insisted that the dress be practical. The last thing I needed was yards of fabric hanging over my hands and wrists. The skirts were bad enough.