The Hidden Goddess (44 page)

“But they let her have a press conference first?” Emily heard Armatrout mutter, but no one seemed to pay any attention to him. The reporters were agape at the rifles, at the Institute security men who were already pressing forward, hands raised. Miss Jesczenka’s terror was filling the room like a palpable thing.

“Run, Sophos!” Miss Jesczenka said, her voice extravagantly pleading. “Take your true love and run!”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Emily heard Stanton mutter as he wrapped his arms around her. Flames flared up around them, flames that burned with extreme brightness but gave off no heat. In a moment they were gone, and in another moment they were tumbling heavily together onto the floor of the Sophos’ office in the Institute.

Inside the Institute, the air was still as a tomb. Emily sat up slowly, pressing a hand to her head. She felt slightly dizzy, as if she’d been drinking vodka again, but the feeling passed quickly.

The office was a shambles, Emily noticed first. Pieces of colored glass from the huge stained-glass window behind the desk littered the floor, showing glimpses of the blue sky beyond; curtains drooped from their rods, and everything was covered with a thin film of crumbled plaster dust. Emily looked down at Stanton, lying on the floor. His face was pale, skeletal, and bruised. She put an arm around his shoulders, helping him sit up.

He grinned wanly, his green eyes flat as marbles. “I can’t imagine how I did that. The Institute hasn’t an ounce of power left.”

“That wasn’t the power of the Institute.” Emily smiled, stroking his cheek. “That was true love conquering all.”

“Have you been reading my textbooks?” His eyes fluttered closed for a long moment before opening again and focusing slowly on her. She brushed a speck of plaster dust from his face.

“I was doing all right. The Sini Mira didn’t mean me any harm. Miss Jesczenka was just making the story better for the reporters. Please tell me you didn’t hurt yourself with that silly trick.”

“There is nothing else I can do, Emily,” he murmured. “I’ve lost the Institute.”

“Don’t say that.” She looked around the office, the despair in his voice making her imagine the roof crumbling to pieces on top of them. “Not here.”

“There’s not much more damage that can be done,” Stanton said, seeing the direction of her gaze. He was silent for a long time, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft. “I was so worried about you. Are you really all right?”

“I have nine lives, just like a cat,” Emily said.

“And you’re just as careless with them.” Stanton was silent for a long time before he spoke again. “I know you saw the book.”

She didn’t want to ask him about the hideous red book. Right now he was broken and tired, and all she wanted to do was soothe him and stroke the hair back from his broad hot forehead. But he did not want to be spared this, she knew. And sparing him this would be just like his mother … gliding over unpleasant things, encouraging his emptiness. Making him as empty as the Senator. She wouldn’t do that to him.

“You killed people,” Emily said softly. “You killed people when you were at the Erebus Academy, and you took their blood.”

“Yes.” There was no apology, at least.

“Were they good people?”

“I don’t know,” Stanton said. “We were never encouraged to ask.”

“How could you?” Emily said, her voice thin with pain. “How could you have done it?”

“I did it because they meant nothing to me. They were only objects to be used to achieve power.”

“But you’re not like that now,” she said. “I know you’re not.”

“I try not to be,” Stanton said. “I try very hard.”

He sank his head against her breast, breathing softly. She stroked his head.

“When I thought you’d left me, part of me was glad,” Stanton murmured, after her long silence made him realize she didn’t intend to speak. “I was glad you’d come to your senses.”

“Hush,” she said.

“I told you I wasn’t someone you should fall in love with. I told you I’d done terrible things. I’m sorry I didn’t let you go back to Lost Pine, where you could be happy.”

“I didn’t want to go back to Lost Pine,” Emily said. “And I’m happy with you.”

“Don’t lie,” he said. “That’s my job.”

“I’m not lying,” she said.

“How could you love me?” The question was desperate.

Emily searched for the right answer, but finally just shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said.

Stanton was silent for a long time.

“I’ve always grabbed for the things that I wanted,” he said at last, his voice low and sleepy. “The Erebus Academy, the Institute … but nothing is ever what you want it to be. The harder you grab for it, the more deeply it cuts. And it mocks you for being foolish enough to reach for it at all. You come to fear touching anything at all, because you know that if you do, it will become terrible.”

Emily said nothing.

“I didn’t want to touch you. There is no cruelty in you. There’s no deceit. I’ve never known anyone like you. How could I bring myself to ruin that? Why do you think I kept telling you to go marry the lumberman? He’d never have to lie to you. He’d never ask you to accept so much ugliness. You deserve someone like him.”

“Hush,” Emily said again.

“I wanted to believe that somehow you would be invulnerable to all this. That you’d be armored by that wondrous common sense of yours. But it was a foolish thing to believe. It will ruin you just as it’s ruined me.”

“You’re not going to ruin me,” Emily said. “Keep your chin
up, Dreadnought Stanton. It’s always darkest before the dawn, right?”

“Now I
know
you’ve been reading my textbooks.” He smiled, closing his eyes and holding tight to the arms she held him with. Within a few minutes, he was asleep, breathing deeply.

“Oh, my poor love,” she said, pressing her lips to the top of his head. “My poor, martyred love.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Dawn and Darkness

The next morning she woke before he did, stirring from dreams of frenzied reporters and rifles. His warm body was stretched out beside her. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed was that the dawn was very bright. She raised a hand to her eyes, wondering if the stained-glass window had given up entirely and the sun was beaming down on them through the empty frame. But then she realized that it wasn’t the summer sun glowing so brightly. It was Stanton, sleeping peacefully as a cherub.

He glowed as if lit from within. She sat up abruptly, staring down at him with astonishment. The clothes that had hung off him limply the night before now fit with perfect detail. He looked as if he had just gotten back from a month at a celestial spa drinking tonics made of starlight. Emily looked around the office. The wreckage of the night had vanished completely. The stained-glass window was whole and unbroken, colors streaming through it like individual elements of an extravagant promise. Every bit of plaster was in its accustomed place, gilt glittered madly, and it even seemed that a phantom cleaning crew of renewed power had taken a duster to the shelves and a broom to the carpet.

Beside her, Stanton sat up with the swiftness of a man waking from a nightmare. He looked around, blinked three times, and then looked at Emily.

“Am I dead?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t think heaven is this garish.”

Grinning, he took her face in his hands and kissed her—a bright celebratory kiss. After having been apart so long, Emily found herself moving in ways that ensured celebration would quickly give way to something far more intimate. Before it could, however, the office door flew open with a bang.

“Mr. Stanton!” Rose burst in, waving a sheaf of newspapers. Breathing hard, Emily hastily climbed off Stanton’s lap, glaring at Rose. “Miss Emily, thank goodness you’re safe! Mr. Stanton rescued you from the clutches of those evildoers! I knew he could do it! Hooray for Mr. Stanton!”

“Yes,” Emily muttered, pulling up the neck of her dress. “Hooray for Mr. Stanton.”

“Good morning, Rose.” Stanton had stood, and was brushing dust from his coat, even though there was no dust to be brushed. Rose, staring at him, dropped the bundle of papers she was carrying. Then she reddened and hastened to pick them up.

“Oh, me and my butterfingers! We can’t have a mess, not when everything looks so … so wonderful now!” Rose looked up, eyes beaming around the office. “It’s even more beautiful in here than it ever was!”

Stanton reached down to help Emily to her feet, his thumb stroking her palm suggestively. The touch sent a shiver up her arm.

“Rose, run along and fetch us some coffee and a big breakfast. I’m famished. Are those the morning papers?”

Mute, Rose offered the papers to him with trembling hands, then hurried out. He took them to his desk and spread them out. Emily looked at them over his shoulder, bringing up her good hand to twine her fingers in his hair. How had she never noticed how soft it was?

“Dreadnought Stanton’s Fiancée Refutes Scandalous Allegations,” read the first headline. It was accompanied by an above-the-fold engraving of her, posed in a modest and demure posture she couldn’t remember having assumed. “Dreadnought Stanton Rescues Fiancée from Foreign Attack at Fifth Avenue Hotel,” read another. “Dreadnought Stanton Defies All Odds to Rescue His Love from Clutches of Bloodthirsty Slavs.”

They all carried some variation on this theme; the headlines were all on the front pages, and they all carried pictures of engravings of Emily in idealized detail. Stanton’s eyes quickly scanned each of them, but it was a paper at the bottom of the pile—a sober, serious paper with only a few very small illustrations—that he lingered over. It was
The New York Times
.

“Rex Fortissimus Implicated in Embezzling Scandal, Ignoble Plot to Discredit Dreadnought Stanton Revealed,” its headline read. It was smaller than the others, but seemed to command respect. Stanton read the article, then stared at the author’s name.

“Horace Armatrout.” He looked up at Emily. “Horace Armatrout!”

“He’s a very nice man,” Emily said.

Stanton grinned at her. “You really are full of surprises,” he said, and the praise made her glow in a way it never had before. But he had no time to offer more, no matter how dearly Emily suddenly desired it, for there was a sound at the door. A pair of magisters peered inside, looking around the office, their faces astonished. Stanton waved them in.

“Professor McAllister. Professor Dyer. It seems the worst has passed.”

“Indeed, Mr. Stanton,” the one named McAllister said, shaking his head as he took a seat. He looked at Stanton, respectfully inclined his head. “Sophos Stanton.”

Stanton inclined a head back at him, the reciprocation just one shade more remote.

“Fortissimus is already here, hat in hand, to negotiate a settlement of hostilities.” McAllister’s voice bore a great deal of satisfaction. “I made him wait in one of the classrooms. He’s fuming, but he’s not going anywhere. He knows when he’s licked.”

“Delightful.” Stanton smiled wolfishly. “Let him wait a little while longer. I’ll talk to him after I’ve had my coffee.”

At that precise moment, Rose bustled in, bearing a huge silver platter loaded with steaming coffee and frosted pastries of all sorts. He grabbed for a thick hunk of something moist and sugary, downing it in three swift bites before grabbing
another. Emily took up the pot of coffee and poured him a cup, then a cup for herself. Then, remembering, she looked at the magisters. They lowered their eyes and lifted their hands in respectful negatives.

Stanton, however, did not look up at her as he opened the sugar dish and spooned half of its contents into his cup. The small space that remained he filled with thick cream. He fixed McAllister and Dyer with a firm green gaze.

“Make it known that I’ll be happy to speak with anyone who defected from the Institute during the recent hostilities. I will hear everyone out, of course. But I will not promise that they’ll be reinstated at anything like their former positions.”

McAllister and Dyer nodded obediently, hurrying from the office to see that the wishes of the Sophos were executed swiftly and completely. When they were gone, Stanton leaned back in his chair, coffee in hand, grinning up at her. She smiled back, raising her coffee cup from its saucer in an ironic salute.

“Now, this is more like it,” he said, bringing his cup to his lips.

“Mr. Stanton.” The quiet moment was scattered to the winds as Rose hurried back in, a note between her fingers. “This just came for you.”

Stanton put his coffee on the desk and picked up a sharp silver opener. He slid it along the top of the envelope, unfolded its contents.

“It’s from the bloodthirsty Slavs,” he said. “They want a meeting so they can return Miss Jesczenka.” He looked up at Emily. “Should we invite them in for coffee?”

“They prefer tea,” Emily said. She found Stanton’s eyes, held them. “You understand they didn’t really try to kill me, don’t you? They were helping me.”

Stanton looked at her, his eyes scrutinizing, but he said nothing. Instead he turned to Rose.