The Hidden Goddess (18 page)

“Damnable thing,” he growled, giving the hat a kick. He looked into her face. His eyes sparkled brilliant green, but it was worry in them now, worry and dismay. He drew a deep breath then shook his head.

“I don’t think I can do this, Emily,” he said suddenly.

Emily’s brow knit. Her heart gave an unpleasant thud.

“What, the wedding?”

“No! I mean all of this.” He looked around. “The Institute.”

“You mustn’t doubt yourself,” she said, weakly repeating what she’d heard a million times from Miss Jesczenka.

“There’s a difference between doubting oneself, and telling oneself the truth,” Stanton murmured curtly. “Let’s
run away. Elope. Live in Europe and read books and drink good coffee. We can even live in
California
, for all I care.”

“The Institute needs you.”

“I don’t want anyone to need me,” Stanton muttered sullenly. “Except you.”

She took him into her arms again, the fingers of her good hand toying with the hair on the back of his head. They held each other, cheek to cheek, for a long time.

This was everything he’d ever worked for, everything he’d ever wanted. She didn’t want to be the one that spoiled it for him. She certainly didn’t want him to look back on his short life and feel remorse for what could have been, if it hadn’t been for her. She determined to redouble her efforts. She’d remember names, she’d squeeze into nineteen-inch corsets, she’d suffer through tea parties … She’d swim with the current.

“Tonight,” she whispered. “We only have to get through tonight.”

At that moment, the velvet curtain was jerked aside. Before them stood Rex Fortissimus, disapproval etched across his features. Emily and Stanton startled away from each other like guilty children caught fooling around in the haystack.

“Mr. Stanton,” he said, “you are required.” He nodded toward Emily coolly, his recognition of her dismissive in the extreme. “Miss Edwards.”

“Mr. Fortissimus,” she nodded back, with coolness that matched his. She was alarmed at how quickly her resolve to help Stanton achieve the heights of credomantic success melted away in the face of the man’s sneering contempt. “It has been suggested that I congratulate you on the wonderful job you’ve done. While I am sure that some small and unenlightened minds might dismiss the decorations as vulgar and extreme, I will say that you have clearly done an excellent job spending the Institute’s money—”

Stanton quickly caught Emily’s hand and tucked her arm through his. He steered her out of the alcove, past Fortissimus’ outraged glare, and back to the thronging masses before she could say another word.

“And you’re giving
me
lectures?” he whispered in her ear
as they dove back into the teeming crowd. She felt, rather than saw, his smile become brilliantly broad. “Come along, my dear,” he boomed, in a voice that seemed to be an echo of Professor Mirabilis’. “Let’s mingle.”

They mingled. The evening wore on, and Emily’s silk-slippered feet began to ache, and her ankle (which Miss Jesczenka had directed the masseuse to pay special attention to) began to throb again. She became more aggressive in her efforts to corral the bustling waiters and relieve them of their delicate flutes of champagne, and her efforts paid off. After downing a half dozen glittering glasses, she found that the salmagundi of names was growing pleasantly ridiculous. She collected them like one might save oddly shaped buttons. Her current favorite was Ambassador Haemeneckxs. Emily had to struggle not to shorthand him in her mind as Ol’ Ham ’n Eggs—his air of patrician distance made her feel quite sure that he wouldn’t be amused if she called him that to his face. There was also a Sir Eustace Blackbottom-Hound, a Mr. Radley “Call me Bob” Gildermeester, a Mr. Stone Mason, a Dr. Wiley Camelback and—most astonishingly—a gentleman with shining black-lacquered hair named Mr. Propinquity Flounder Spintop. Upon being introduced to that elderly gentleman, Emily cast a skeptical glance up at Stanton, biting back the words “you’re kidding” just in time.

“Mr. Spintop is in oil,” Stanton added soberly. But his eyes glittered, daring her to make the subsequent joke that he knew she was itching to make. A small grin played at the corner of his mouth.

Their shared amusement came to an abrupt end, however, with the arrival of the Blotgates. There was nothing funny about the name, and there was nothing funny about the couple. In fact, Emily thought that after meeting them, it was entirely possible she might never find anything amusing ever again.

Emily saw the pair of them before Stanton did; indeed, her gaze was drawn to the man and woman inexorably, as it might be to a horrible accident. They had an air of destruction about them. The man was compactly built, muscular, with close-cropped
gray hair. A thick, keloided scar ran down the side of his face, across his throat, and down into his collar; it looked as if someone had tried to take his head off diagonally.

He wore the full dress uniform of an Army officer, stiff with gold braid and resplendent with medals and decorations. The woman on his arm was stunning—certainly in her fifties, but with a kind of luscious ripeness that would make any younger woman seem half formed by comparison.

When Stanton saw the direction Emily was looking, he pulled up short, his body tensing. It was as if he longed to turn abruptly and move the other direction, or go invisible again, but there was no time. The collision was imminent and unavoidable.

“Stanton,” the man called, inclining his head. His voice was low and cracking, like someone who’d just recently left off screaming. “I wondered when we’d get around to seeing you.”

“General Blotgate,” Stanton said, his eyes traveling quickly from the man to the woman. “Mrs. Blotgate.”

“Dreadnought! How long has it been?” the woman purred, extending a slim gloved hand. The way she said Stanton’s given name was a miracle. Coming from her magnificently formed lips, it sounded noble and melodious and absolutely correct. Emily could never get Stanton’s name to sound like that, and at the moment, the failure seemed egregious indeed.

Stanton nodded stiffly over Mrs. Blotgate’s glove, the sketchiest demonstration of respect he could offer without actually letting her hand hang in the air.

“Ten years,” he said. There was an odd paradox in his voice; the implication that it had not been long enough, yet he still cared enough to count. Stanton looked down at Emily, and in the instant their eyes met, she saw warning there. “Allow me to present my fiancée, Miss Emily Edwards.”

“Oh yes. The cattle baron’s daughter.” Mrs. Blotgate turned heavy-lidded eyes onto Emily’s face, let them roam over her Roman curls and extravagant white satin dress. Mrs. Blotgate herself was dressed in a simple, elegant gown of light blue silk, and looked as chic as an edged weapon. Emily felt suddenly sparkly and fussy and squat.

“Emily, this is General Oppenheimer Blotgate, and his wife, Alcmene.” Stanton paused. “General Blotgate is the director of the Maelstrom Academy at Camp Erebus, which I briefly attended.”

“Briefly?” General Blotgate snorted, his scar flaring red from temple to windpipe. “Three years in a young man’s life can hardly be called brief. And you certainly left your mark, being the only burned cadet we ever had. They still tell stories in the beast barracks about those stunts you used to pull.” He paused, looking at Emily. “Has your fiancé here ever shown you what he can do with Black Exunge?”

“Chrysohaeme and Black Exunge are two states of the same substance,” Stanton murmured to Emily. “Just as I was able to work with the chrysohaeme in Charleston, I can handle Black Exunge. Its transformative properties do not affect me.” To Emily’s gape of astonishment he added, “It’s not an ability I find worthy of note.”

“Your fiancé was the terror of the mess hall chicken coop.” Blotgate grinned wolfishly. “He’d steal some Black Exunge from one of the student laboratories, Aberrate a biddy, and when it was nice and big, he’d roast it alive. Just took a finger snap, you know. The biddies didn’t much like it, but he always did have an appetite.” He looked at Stanton for a moment. “Ah, old times. I can see why you want to distance yourself from them now. You’ve got a good thing here. It would be a pity to ruin it.”

Stanton smiled humorlessly, his green eyes glinting hard. “I’m surprised to see you here, General. I wasn’t aware you’d been invited.”

“Shall I produce the pasteboard?” the General said, fumbling pointedly in his pocket. “I know it’s here somewhere … quite an overwrought thing, all those damned scrolls and gold leafing and such—”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Stanton said.

“How very
white
of you, Dreadnought.” Mrs. Blotgate managed to make the words sound fluty and sneering all at once. “One could always count on you to do the right thing. Usually at the wrong moment, of course.”

Emily’s eyes traveled between Mrs. Blotgate’s face and
Stanton’s. To her dismay, she saw something pass between them—something she didn’t understand and didn’t want to. Mrs. Blotgate noticed Emily’s confusion and savored it, her jaw relaxing like a python preparing to swallow a struggling creature whole.

“I see you are bewildered, Miss Edwards,” she said. “You see, I knew Dreadnought when he was a real Warlock. Before he sacrificed his true potential to become”—she waved a dismissive hand—“a priest.”

“Better a priest than a murderer.” Stanton said the words with malicious cheer. His voice was so hard it gleamed.

“You don’t belong with these crepe-paper prestidigitators, Dreadnought,” Mrs. Blotgate said, looking around at the garish spectacle that surrounded them. “It’s like the third act of a vaudeville show. It’s revolting.”

“Those who kill to obtain power are revolting,” Stanton said. Emily had never seen him so tense. His body seemed ready to spring at the woman.

“Everyone must get power from somewhere,” Mrs. Blotgate returned, obviously relishing the challenge. “Sangrimancers are at least honest about how we take it. We seize it from the weak and use it in support of the strong. Those who die in our service die nobly, sacrificed for greater goals they could never themselves achieve.” She paused, piercing him with gunmetal-gray eyes that seemed to be all pupil. “But you
credomancers
 … you sneak your power. You steal it from people’s minds and their hearts. You manipulate them and make them believe whatever provides you with the most tangible benefit. We may violate them physically, but you violate them spiritually. Which is better, Dreadnought? Which is more pure?”

Stanton said nothing, just stared at her, his eyes igneous with hate. She stared back, smiling, like a snake warmed by the sun of his despising.

General Blotgate let out a strained bark of a laugh.

“Old Home Week.” He gave his wife a look of mild exasperation but made no effort to break her gaze, locked with Stanton’s. “These two were always like bulldogs in a crate.”

“Oh, quite the opposite, Oppenheimer,” Mrs. Blotgate said. “Dreadnought and I were great friends at the Academy. It is amusing to remember how desperately attached he was to me, but I’m sure that was just the madness of youth.” She paused, her lips curling with pleasure. “Don’t you agree, Dreadnought?” She paused again, exhaling malice. “Tell me, do you still have the scar?”

“Enough,” Stanton growled. “You’ve done what you came to do.”

And then the intensity that surrounded Mrs. Blotgate abruptly faded. Like a cat that had tired of playing with a struggling mouse, she lowered her head to murmur to the General, “Yes, perhaps we should be moving along. We’ll want to find good places for the Investment ceremony before they’re all taken.”

“Interested to see how it all works,” the General concurred. “I’m quite looking forward to the fireworks.”

“Oh, and a word of warning.” Mrs. Blotgate leaned in close to Emily, her breath hot and strangely spiced. “Lay off the champagne, my dear. Your cheeks are getting quite red.”

Then, with a bright little laugh, she allowed her husband to lead her away into the swirling crowd. Stanton stood, watching them go, his face pale with fury.

“Scar?” Emily hissed.

“A six-inch gash above my third rib,” Stanton said. “She tried to kill me. It’s how sangrimancers amuse themselves.”

“Who invited
sangrimancers
?”

“Obviously someone who wanted to make sure that my past is never forgotten.”

Emily bit her lip. She furiously desired to ask him what Mrs. Blotgate had meant by
desperately attached
. And how exactly that tied in with a six-inch scar and an amusing murder attempt. Now wasn’t the time, but she couldn’t help herself.

“She was … a friend?” Emily spoke the word with all the distaste usually reserved for words describing rotten things.

“I had no friends at the Academy,” Stanton bit back. Then, pulling his gaze away from the retreating Blotgates, he looked down at her. He put a warm hand over hers, pressed it
reassuringly. “Never mind. Asinine insinuations. A petty attempt at a squink.”

“Then there was nothing between you?” Emily said.

“I just told you,” Stanton said. “She tried to kill me.”

“Yes, and what if she tries it again?”

“You think she could hide a knife under that dress?”

“You know what I mean. What if they use magic to disrupt the Investment?”

“No hostile magic can be worked in the Great Trine Room, especially not tonight,” Stanton said. “The wardings are very thorough, and there is no chance that the two of them could do the slightest thing with all the magisters assembled. There’s nothing to worry about.”

There was a warmth to his smile, a calmness to his voice, that filled Emily with a great feeling of peace. She let out a long breath and pressed closer to him.

At that moment, there was a blast of trumpets and the people around them lifted their heads, looking toward the Great Trine Room. Stanton straightened and took a deep breath.

“Nothing at all,” she heard him say very softly, almost to himself.

They made their way to the Great Trine Room, through throngs of guests who parted to watch them pass. Emily walked next to Stanton, her chin held high, not looking at the people who surrounded them, at the students who offered deep bows of respect, at the scions of society who lifted their glasses and laughed as if it were all a great show.