A Study In Ashes Part 38

PENNER TOY AND GAMES.

10:15 p.m. Tuesday.

"WAIT!" POPPY TORE AFTER ALICE, WHO WAS RUNNING DOWN the street into the flames. "Alice, wait!"

How do I get her to stop? Alice's beautiful red hair had escaped its pins and was streaming about her shoulders, her hat lost somewhere a block behind. Fortunately, her stays and bustle were more securely attached, slowing her down enough so that Poppy could catch up to her.

Poppy grabbed Alice's arm, feeling the slim bones beneath. "It's not safe!"

That was stating the obvious. Threadneedle Street was in the area where the dirigibles had finally finished dropping their explosives only an hour or so ago, and parts of it were on fire. It had been next to impossible to even draw close to the area by hackney-they'd had to go on foot forever, Alice periodically breaking into a stumbling run.

Poppy was certain they should turn around. There was plenty of light from the fires, but it was dark out and the streetlights had all been smashed. And besides, Poppy was terrified. On top of everything else-the bombs, the kidnapping, and everything else that had gone on today-this street was right where Imogen had been kidnapped. Nothing good happened here, especially not now.

It was one thing to see the bombs from a distance, and quite another to see the destruction up close. Fires bloomed everywhere, sometimes so close that Poppy could feel the heat. Buildings stood gaping like skulls with their teeth smashed in and some were simply rubble. Soldiers and police were beginning to move in, but it was clear the attack had taken everyone utterly by surprise.

And that didn't begin to cover the human cost. A lot of people had worked on those streets, and a lot of them never would again. Poppy gripped Alice as hard as she could as they moved forward. She needed to feel someone solid and whole next to her. She tried not to look at the dead man sprawled across their path, but steered her sister-in-law around him. I can't help him now. All I can do is get Alice to Bucky's before she goes crazy.

And then Poppy's foot brushed against something. She glanced down to see blood and cloth and knew it wasn't attached to where it should have been. Oh, Lord. She took quick, shallow breaths, doing her best not to vomit, and ended up choking on the smoke instead.

The building across the street was on fire, so they were forced to hug the opposite side and hurry by as fast as they could. At least it distracted Poppy from the blood on the ground.

"Where is it?" Alice asked. "The factory should be here, shouldn't it?"

Poppy looked around, trying to orient herself. She'd been there twice before, but nothing looked the same. "It was on this side," she said, waving her right hand.

Alice grabbed her wrist and hurried on. "Is that it?" she cried pointing.

Poppy saw the red and green sign dangling by one end. "Yes!"

Alice let her go and began running again, leaving Poppy behind once more. She caught up as Alice began pounding on the door, ignoring the knocker altogether. Bucky opened it to stare at them in alarm. "Ladies! Come in at once. What on earth are you doing out at a time like this?"

"Ah, Mr. Penner," Poppy said dryly, "your manners intact despite the complete collapse of civilization."

"And Miss Roth, always in the thick of things." His brown eyes brimmed with questions.

"Where's Tobias?" Alice demanded.

"How did you know-" Bucky began, casting Poppy a hard look.

"Is he here?" Alice cut him off.

"Yes, I am." Tobias came out of the back, Lord Bancroft a step behind him, and suddenly the tiny front room of the factory-already packed with toys on every surface-was too crowded. But at least her father was holding a lantern. The steady light made everything better.

Now Poppy could see that Bucky had recently converted his front offices to a miniature fairground complete with striped tents and dancing clockwork horses. Then Poppy noticed that the window must have shattered, because the miniature circus was covered with broken gla.s.s and flakes of gray soot. Her throat closed with a sudden stab of pain for the little circus animals. This wasn't their fight.

Tobias came forward, holding out his hands. He looked awful, like he'd had a terrible fever. "Alice, Poppy, what are you doing here?"

Alice opened her mouth, looked at Poppy, then back at her husband. Her eyes were wild with panic. "Father said he did all this!"

Lord Bancroft frowned, but for once it was sympathetic. "I'm afraid it's true. He destroyed this district as an act of retaliation against Spicer Industries. It seems the Green Queen was responsible for the damage to the Palace of Westminster."

Poppy's stomach roiled with anger and disbelief, and suddenly she was too hot. She leaned against the wall to stop her head from spinning.

Alice made a sound like someone had punched her in the stomach. "Papa took Jeremy!"

Tobias drew in a quick breath, his already pale face draining to white. "What?"

But Alice was crying too hard to answer. Tobias held her, murmuring shushing noises that only seemed to make things worse. Poppy's father shot her a look of inquiry.

"Mr. Keating came to the house in Cavendish Square," Poppy answered, her voice ragged. She could feel the tears crawling up her throat, but they were met by a hot anger that kept them at bay. "He took Jeremy and Mrs. Polwarren as insurance."

"Against what?" Bucky asked, sounding bewildered.

"To keep Tobias and Alice loyal because Tobias knows too much about his army. I think Keating's afraid because someone shot him."

"Who?" demanded Lord Bancroft. "How badly is he hurt?"

Not badly enough, Poppy thought. "It's just his shoulder."

Alice pushed away from her husband, her face twisted with pain as she looked into his eyes. "The Blue King's men shot Father. But that's not the only reason he's taking action. Her Majesty's Laboratories burned down. You were gone and Evelina Cooper is missing." She stopped speaking and swallowed hard. "He thinks you helped her escape."

By then, Tobias had gone very still. "Me? He took Jeremy because of my actions?"

Alice took a painful-sounding breath, wrapping her arms around her ribs. "Yes, he's taken Jeremy and his nurse because he believes you have betrayed him and you will again."

"d.a.m.n him!" Tobias was swelling with anger, his pale face flushing a hectic, mottled red. "Where is Jeremy now?"

"I don't know, Tobias," Alice cried. "What are you going to do?"

SPEECHLESS, TOBIAS STARED at his wife, her soot-smudged features drawn into a mask of grief. She looked up at him, her blue eyes bright in the lantern's glow. "How do we get our son back?" she asked, her voice sunk to barely more than a whisper.

She'd been one of those papa's girls right until Keating had sold her into a loveless marriage. The shock of this second betrayal had to be even more profound. She only needed one thing from her husband now-rea.s.surance that he would stand by her and make things right. Yet it was the one thing he couldn't give her-at least, not for long.

Tobias felt a strange numbness in his chest, the residue of grief. He'd exhausted all emotion in the last few days, and what was left was a primitive roughness. She'd come to him. After all he'd done-after all he'd done to her, in those early days of their marriage-she trusted him with the one thing that mattered most to a mother. It was a sacred trust he didn't deserve, and it went without saying that he would tear London apart stone by stone to get to his son.

Something shambled to life inside that was stronger than hatred or even outrage at his own doom. It had the feral will of a curse. "I will get him back for you. Whatever it takes."

"How?" She was looking into him-not at him-and speaking directly to the naked, raw will he'd somehow found.

He glanced around the room, seeing the faces of the others. Poppy was slumped against the wall, Bucky's hand on her shoulder, her face stricken. She shouldn't be seeing any of this. He turned to his father. "I'm going to have this conversation in the back."

Bancroft nodded, for once not arguing.

Tobias led Alice to a small room that had a threadbare sofa, table, and a litter of dirty cups. The smell of fresh wood and turpentine vied with the strong scent of cheap black tea. Alice sank onto the sofa, heedless of the sawdust coating every inch of it. "What do we do?" she asked.

"We fight."

She'd stopped crying, but her face was still smudged with tears. "How?"

"Keating is on the defensive. That means he's worried, and that can only happen if he's vulnerable. We may not see a weakness in his forces, but he knows it's there."

Alice's eyes narrowed. "What are you doing in London? What happened in Dartmoor?"

Tobias sat next to her, careful to sit on her right so that he could take her hand with his left. The hand that had touched the poison had become weak and painful inside its glove. "Evelina is free and the laboratories were a vile abomination. I wasn't behind it, but I'm not unhappy that they were destroyed."

"But Father is." Alice's eyes flashed. "Until he feels safe ..."

"Alice," Tobias began, knowing he was at the edge of a precipice. "Your father isn't going to be safe. The Blue Boys simply pulled the trigger first, but after today there will be others who want to settle accounts. I came back to London because I believe your father and the rest of the steam barons must be stopped."

"Then he's right about you," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "You're not loyal."

"No, I'm not."

"He's my father," she said softly, tears glittering in her lashes.

"He ..." Tobias faltered, and then recovered himself. "You see what he's done. You came here through those fires. What kind of a man takes his own grandson? And what sort of a world is he making for Jeremy?"

"Yes, I know," she cried, her fingers convulsing in his. "I'm not a fool. He's my father and he has stolen my boy. I don't know how to act or what to think. I just want Jeremy. He's only a baby!"

Blood and thunder. Tobias pulled her into his arms, the numbness inside him cracking open again to let fresh anger rise up, raw and terrible. "You know your father better than anyone. He has properties all over London, but we will find them and search them one by one until we get our son."

"But he has properties all over the Empire," Alice protested.

"He won't be far from the war. Keating needs Jeremy close by to keep us in line."

Alice pushed him away, giving him another searching gaze. "You've turned rebel."

"Maybe." Tobias's thoughts went sideways. In the past, he'd tried to be a better man for Evelina. He'd used her as a touchstone and measure, and he'd liked who he'd been at her side. But now opinion and measurement didn't matter-everything was simple because Alice and Jeremy needed him. "I'm going to do what needs to be done. If that means calling myself a rebel, so be it."

"You went to work for my father to protect your family," she said softly. "What if the rebels lose?"

"You are my family, and I have to believe doing the right thing will be its own protection. I've tried to play by your father's rules and he still took our son. It's time I changed the game. We'll get our son back. You're going to help me do it. And we'll win in the end because you and I are going to make a plan that won't let the Gold King stop us."

She gave a slow nod, and he could see her shifting her view of the world as he watched. They remained just so, their hands linked, long enough for him to kiss her gently on the lips. He felt the relief of confession, or maybe it was that he no longer had to pretend to her or anyone else where his sympathies lay. He hadn't given her the full truth, but it was more than they'd shared before.

"I'm so glad you're home," she said.

Unknown IMOGEN STARTED AWAKE, UTTERLY DISORIENTED. THE ROOM was dark and oddly familiar, but she couldn't place where she was. Was she back in the salon?

Don't panic, said Mouse.

"Fine. Then tell me where I am." At least she remembered who she was and where she'd been before falling asleep with her head cushioned against Mouse's etched steel fur. She'd retreated to the top of the clock with Mouse so they could make plans. Nestled in among the ticking, turning wheels, they'd started considering their next moves-but she'd been exhausted. "Did I fall asleep?"

You are asleep.

"Then why am I talking to you?" She sat up, realizing Mouse wasn't anywhere in sight. "Where are you?"

Right where you left me. You're dreaming.

"Dreaming?" If she was dreaming, then she really was asleep. "Is it safe to sleep?"

I'll wake you if I need to. But maybe right now you should have a look around.

Groggy, Imogen put a hand to her forehead. Fatigue had almost come as a surprise. Though Imogen had been sickly all her life, here she was climbing and running as if she'd never had so much as a sniffle. However, sending the ciphered message had been grueling, almost as if she'd been asked to do algebra and climb a mountain at the same time. "Why do I feel so awful?"

Let's see. You had your soul ripped from your body, you're trapped in a sorcerer's alternate reality, and you're being hunted to the death by the malevolent shade of your dead twin. Not to mention using previously untapped parapsychological strengths to send coded messages into reality. A bit of a lie-down was in order.

Imogen bristled at the sarcastic tone, then realized the rush of temper had cleared her head. "Why do I need to look around?"

You're about to learn a new trick-one that not every spirit can manage, but I'll tell you what to do.

"All right," Imogen said uneasily.

Dreams are what happen when your spirit wanders into another place-it might be a real place, or one that you've created for just that moment. But you're already a wandering spirit. The only way you can dream while you're in this place is through someone else.

"How?"

Everyone is connected to those close to them. That is how Evelina found you, and how you knew there was a seance. Those who know how to look for it can see the weave of connections on the spirit plane. All you need to do is find the thread you want and follow the spiderweb into someone's dream.

That sounded like a fine theory, but she still couldn't visualize how it worked. "And yet I'm already in a different place, so how did I get here?"

Sometimes a living soul wants to see someone so badly they call that person right across the spirit plane. Find out whose dream you're in.

"Someone dragged me here?"

Not a kind way of putting it, but essentially correct.

She shuddered, remembering the horrible nightmares she'd shared with Anna for so many years. The only thing that had kept her sister out of her dreams was laudanum. The invasion had felt like such a monstrous violation-sleep was one of the few places a person could be truly private. The last thing Imogen wanted to do was haunt someone else.

A feather of uneasiness brushing through her, she rose. She'd been asleep on an old worn sofa. A dirty teacup sat on the floor beside it, along with a notebook and pen. Imogen looked around, realizing she was in the back room of Bucky's toy factory.

Bucky? Knowing it was him made everything different. With a rush of antic.i.p.ation, she slipped through the door. The great, cavernous workshop loomed, machines and workbenches lost in a wilderness of shadows. There were shelves of toys in various states of a.s.sembly-mostly wood and clockwork, but some with soft bodies and luxurious fur. She saw a small army of ducklings with their wings outstretched, bills opened as if to quack. The next row down, ranks of tiny leopards were drying their spots. But there weren't as many toys as she remembered seeing the other time she had visited, and she felt a pang of disappointment.

In the darkness beyond, near the bay doors that opened to the outside, something enormous loomed. She couldn't quite make it out, but she wondered if whatever it was had consumed all of Bucky's time. Of course, this is only a dream and what I see might not be real. I mustn't forget that.

And then she began wandering through the dark warehouse. It had the shifty feel of a dream, as if the furniture and rooms weren't quite right. Even stranger, it was pitch black, but she could see perfectly well. But then a sudden bloom of candlelight drew her like a moth.

Bucky was slumped over a table with his head cradled on his arms. Imogen stopped, her hands clasped against her middle. It felt like it had been years since she'd seen him, and she drank in the sight of his sleeping face as if it were the only cool water in the desert. I love him so much.

It wasn't just that he was an educated, pleasant, well-off or good-looking young man. He was all those things, but he was also the one who'd put her happiness before everything else. Plus, he'd known her from the time she'd been a skinny girl in braids. If he knew her that well and still liked her-that said much.

However, she'd had no idea until that moment that he snored. "I suppose no one is perfect," she muttered, drawing near. The candle had burned low, giving off the smell of hot wax. The glow flickered across the worn wood of the table and spilled over his broad, capable hands. Bucky was in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, his coat tossed carelessly over the back of his chair. Imogen reached out, her fingertips almost, but not quite, brushing the waves of his hair. It was a true brown, the highlights just hinting at auburn. She could just see one sleeping eye and the straight blade of his nose. She wondered if she could get away with kissing him before he woke up. After all, what was the fun of a dream without a dash of fantasy?

"Did you call me into your dreams?" she whispered. Was it just chance? Or did the fact that she'd been longing for him-and for his help-influence what had happened?