A Study In Ashes Part 8

That brought a sad, weary smile to his face. Not as good as his old grin, but it was better than nothing.

"Don't ever change," he said. "But do be careful."

She nearly laughed at that-they were mutually exclusive ideas-but nothing in her brother's voice invited banter. Tobias had changed in the last few years. He was like a fire burning low in the grate, more ash than flame.

"I'll be careful," she promised-though she might already have broken that vow by inviting Mr. Holmes into their troubles. "I swear that I'll do the best that I can, circ.u.mstances permitting."

"I almost believe you." Tobias put his arm around her, pulling her close.

Poppy hugged him back fiercely, grateful for his unquestioning affection. He never scolded her for saying outrageous things, and never told her how to walk or dress or what she should or shouldn't read. Tobias wasn't a perfect man, but he was the best kind of big brother.

"I had better go downstairs and keep an eye on things," Tobias said, releasing her. "Stay here with Imogen and lock the door when I go."

Poppy nodded, feeling suddenly guilty. She had wanted to escape the party, but not because something had gone wrong. Be careful what you wish for.

After Tobias left, the silence in the room was a palpable thing. Poppy drew near the bed, her dress whispering into the candlelight. Imogen's face was utterly serene, dark gold lashes fanning her cheeks. Her hair was plaited into two long, pale braids that trailed to her waist. She truly looked asleep, the smocked bodice of her nightdress rising and falling with her gentle breaths.

The somber atmosphere brought the evening crashing in on Poppy. Wetness coursed down her cheeks, but she paid no attention even when it dripped off her chin. The party had been a mistake, and the Scarlet King had made it all so much worse-but that wasn't why she cried. Poppy wept because Imogen had loved parties, and now she didn't even know there was one going on a few floors below.

Poppy took her sister's hand, the soft cool fingers utterly relaxed. For a moment, she studied the contrast between them-Imogen's pale skin against her own. Poppy's hands were brown, scratched by the cook's cat and raggedy where she'd chewed her nails. For some reason, that made her want to cry even harder.

Where are you, Im? There had to be magic involved, or else her sister would have faded away. But how long could a spell like this last? Another month? Years? Forever? And what would happen when it ended?

Poppy had read plenty of fairy stories and tales of dark enchantment and knew anything was possible. Holmes was right. They needed expert advice. Imogen needed it. Poppy drew in a long, shuddering breath. If she could stand up to a steam baron, she wouldn't shy away from what needed to be done.

Come what may, Poppy was going to get help for her sister.

Unknown IMOGEN WOKE-OR AT LEAST THAT'S WHAT IT SEEMED LIKE. It was hard to tell as there was no sequence of night and day to mark the pa.s.sage of time-just an eternal dull twilight. Had she truly been asleep? Or had her mind just wandered for the blink of an eye?

Disorientation clutched at her as she flailed for some reference-where she was, or when, or how she'd got there. She caught her breath and held it, listening for a footfall or a cough to indicate another living creature. But there was nothing. There never was.

She was still in the study where she'd awakened the first time-though she couldn't begin to say how long ago that had been. She was lying on the sofa, her cheek resting on a cushion she'd propped up against the arm. She'd have odd creases where the wrinkles in the cloth pressed into her face. Or that's what she a.s.sumed. The place had no mirrors.

Imogen let her gaze roam around the room, her stomach queasy with anxiety. Instinctively, she drew her knees up, making a protective ball. The air was gray, not quite twilight but dark enough she would have liked to light a lamp-but there were none of those, either.

As a result, the place seemed short of color, the pink and green carpet dingy, the spines of the books on the shelf a murky reddish-brown. It didn't matter that it was too dim to read the books. Even when the room had been bright, the pages had never quite settled down to a readable state, as if the type was playing a game of hide-and-seek upon the page.

Imogen paused, her mind drifting. The room had been bright once. That was right, wasn't it? She remembered the drapes once had been a bright lemon yellow. Or was that green? Just like the type, the room never quite settled down to a predictable form.

It's darker now, and smaller. There was one more bookshelf along the wall, but now it's missing without even a blank spot to show it was there. All at once she was light-headed, as if thinking about the changes was giving her a headache. Since she'd been there, ideas had become will-o'-the-wisps, shining bright and then vanishing before she could quite reel them in. But she wanted to remember-it felt terribly important that she pay attention.

Imogen sat up carefully, clutching her thoughts so hard she ground her teeth. After a shaky moment, she rose to her feet, smoothing down her skirts and combing her hair back with her fingers. All her hairpins had been lost along the way, so she'd plaited her hair into one long braid down her back. Her clothes had suffered, too. At some point she must have opted for comfort, because her bustle, half her petticoats, and corset were gone. Her dress didn't fit right without the undergarments, but there was no one there to witness her fashion faux pas.

Experimentally, she paced the distance from wall to wall. Last time she checked it had been twenty-one strides. She was sure of it. Now there were merely seventeen. And what happens once there are only ten? Or five? Or none? Or do I simply never sleep again, so nothing can shrink when I'm not looking? Or maybe she would just forget that she'd ever existed, and wink out like a sparkler on a cake. Imogen made a terrified noise, filling the austere silence with even that tiny whimper. The place suddenly seemed deathly cold. Why is this happening?

She couldn't quite remember how she'd got there, or where she'd been before. Someplace else with other people-that much was obvious-but she had the feeling her memories were fading along with the room. There were s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation, the images of parties and school but not much more. Why is this happening? She wanted to know while she still remembered to care.

Imogen pushed aside the drapes to discover there was nothing but a blank wall behind them. An image flickered through her mind of a window there, looking out onto ...

She couldn't remember. At least, she couldn't remember an exact picture of what had been on the other side of the window gla.s.s-but she did remember a feeling. Blind, abject panic that pounded like a fist from her gut through the back of her throat. She'd screamed until her voice had shattered, and then she'd cried hoa.r.s.ely, moaning like a bereft child.

The notion seemed ridiculous, but her body remembered her horror, as if the vibrations were still rippling through her flesh. Why can't I see now what I saw then? Where did the window go? And why hadn't she remembered that before now? New foreboding crept over her, kicking her heart into a higher gear. You remember because this time you made yourself remember. But there's something in this room trying to make you forget.

Something, maybe, but she was more certain it was a someone. And the reason she was certain was because the notion made her stomach turn to ice. Her body knew the truth. Someone had brought her here to this shrinking room. And the only person who would do that was a bitter enemy.

It all seemed madness, but the chill in her gut said it was true. And unless she wanted to fade and vanish, she had to leave. And no doubt this is an obvious conclusion you've drawn before. This time she'd have to get past deciding there was a problem and start doing something about it before she slid back to the beginning all over again. So find a door and leave, ninny!

"Would I even remember if there was a way out?" she asked aloud, her voice thick with lack of use. "But surely I've looked for one already."

Imogen paced, rubbing her arms more to keep herself alert than because of any cold. And now I'm talking to myself. Holy hat ribbons, I'm getting as barmy as Aunt Tabitha. "But so what if I've looked for a door? I don't remember doing it. That's almost as good as hope."

She returned to the wall behind the curtains, running her fingers over every inch, but finding only ordinary paint and plaster. And then she began a careful circuit of the room, testing every crack and cranny for hidden switches or evidence of concealed doors. When the walls revealed nothing, she began on the floor, peeling back the carpet and tugging on every board to make sure the fit was tight.

This at least didn't seem silly. She had a vague recollection that her father had a concealed compartment beneath his study floor, full of nasty secrets. There'd been a family row about it not long ago. That made her smile-not about the fight, but the fact that getting active seemed to be doing her memory good.

She hauled the sofa aside, pushed back the tables, and stomped her feet, listening for the sound of a hollow. Nothing. Frustrated, Imogen sat down, biting her thumbnail. What had she been hoping to find, anyhow? A tunnel to China?

And why was she sitting there again, with the room a mess around her? Imogen pondered a moment, recollection of what she had been doing bobbing just out of reach as her stomach grew cold. She was losing. What? What am I losing?

Time stilled for a moment as she groped toward her thoughts as if they were the string of an errant kite. A door! I was looking for a door. She'd checked the walls and the floor, so she looked up at the ceiling, but it was blank as paper. Where else is there to look?

Imogen rose and began taking the books off the shelves. There weren't that many, but she hauled books until her arms began to ache. Almost at once, she realized that they filled up as quickly as she emptied them. Frustrated, she began flinging volumes, shoving them away to land like broken birds on the floor, white pages fluttering as they fell. And then she simply burrowed, thrusting her head between the shelves and sweeping with her arms.

That did the trick. The shelf seemed to grow and widen until it was a platform broad enough for Imogen to kneel and then push through a chasm in the wall behind. Ragged plaster sc.r.a.ped at her arms and ankles, but the hole was wide enough to crawl through. Imogen stumbled to her feet, blinking. Had she crawled out of the room, or into something else?

"Out, I think," she murmured, allowing her eyes to adjust to an even greater darkness. The sharp breeze on her face told her that she was out of doors. So I escaped through the side of the house where I was trapped? Something about that didn't seem quite right.

She walked a few steps, feet crunching on fallen pine needles. When she turned around, she could still see the hole-there was a brighter light beyond-but there was very little impression of anything but vague shadows around it. "What a peculiar place."

Hesitant, she took a few more steps away from the hole, liking the sensation of freedom. Despite her lapses in memory, she was fairly sure she hadn't escaped this far before. Then again, liberty brought risk.

Tension cramped her neck muscles, making it hard even to turn her head. She seemed to be in the middle of a clearing. About twenty yards away was the edge of a woods. The tree trunks were s.p.a.ced far apart and covered with moss, some just jagged stumps as if lightning had blasted them away. Age hung in the air like a scent, as if this place had seen the birth of the universe.

It was too dark to see the treetops, but something blocked the stars. The only light shone down on the clearing from a shrouded moon. Nothing stirred but a chill, sterile wind. And yet I don't hear the wind in the leaves. Maybe it's winter here?

The detail struck her as odd since she wasn't longing for a coat, but larger problems loomed, starting with what to do next. There were no cabs driving by, no helpful signs with an arrow pointing toward home. But surely there was a path to somewhere, and unless she wished to remain stuck in the study, she would have to take a chance.

Really, you're a town girl, a debutante who knows how to match bonnets to dresses and not much else. You'll lose yourself in the trees and perish.

"Oh, do be quiet," Imogen told herself. Sometimes she really was no help. She took another couple of steps toward the edge of the woods and searched for some sign of a track.

But the farther she got from the room where she'd been, the less she felt that she was alone. She didn't like to fall back on the cliche about feeling eyes follow her every move-and yet there was a sense of tingling pressure that said something slid through the darkness ahead.

"Don't be ridiculous," she said harshly, forcing herself forward until she was right at the edge of the clearing. The air felt odd, as if the pressure changed right on that line between open s.p.a.ce and the murky forest. The gra.s.s beneath the trees was long and pristine. She didn't see any paths, any sign of footprints. Maybe no deer lived in those woods to make trails. Maybe there was something around the other side of the house. Not, of course, that she could see the corner of the house in the dark. It just looked like an ocean of blackness behind her. And if it's a house, who lives there?

Fear crowded around her like a fog, a malevolent intelligence plucking at her braid, her clothes, the skin of her face with a touch that was not fingers-not exactly. And yet, horribly, that tactile quality was real. Imogen shuddered, frozen in place. Part of her revulsion was because the feeling was so familiar. She'd had dreams that made her feel this way-she remembered those all too well. The frozen, suffocating horror of being stuck, unable to move while her breath was stolen away. And the ones about wandering away from her body, unable to find her way back. And then there had been the dreams about the Whitechapel murders.

That thought turned her insides to a block of ice. And the reason I dreamed all that was because Anna was there. Her dead twin had somehow shared her dreams while she slept, turning them into nights of unspeakable horror.

Anna, whose soul had been preserved by Dr. Magnus and installed in the murderous automaton named Serafina. And who then tried to kill me. Except that Imogen had blown her to pieces aboard the Wyvern. And even if Serafina had survived that, nothing could have been left of the doll by the time that ship had burned and crashed. But if the body was destroyed, what about the soul? Did killing one automatically do away with the other?

Imogen remembered Nick and Tobias rescuing her. Images were coming back in a flood-the battle, the fire, Tobias trying to make her put on a parachute. And then-everything had gone black. All that she remembered was the horrific sensation of being torn apart. I thought I had killed her.

Blood began pounding in her ears, loud beneath those soundless trees. Silent, still, ancient-the place looked cursed. And whatever waited in the forest wasn't anything with a heartbeat. It was far more sinister.

Somehow her sister's shade had dragged her here, and it was waiting for her in the forest.

Before she even knew she was doing it, Imogen backed away-retreating toward the break in the plaster wall between the shrinking study and the trees. Her steps turned to a jog and then she broke into a stumbling lope. She was sure she hadn't walked far from the hole, but now the distance grew, leaving her running and running while the lurking darkness closed in.

Imogen bashed into the wall before she saw it, making herself reel. And then she remembered to crouch down, diving through the hole in a scramble of elbows and knees. She fell onto the carpet of the study amid the litter of books, rolling to an ungainly stop when she hit the divan.

Shaking, Imogen drew her knees under her and gripped the back of the sofa, pulling herself to her feet. Her long skirts tangled around her ankles until, furious, she kicked out at the froth of petticoats and ruffles-now grimy from the outdoors. Her foot connected with one of the books, sending it spinning into the wall with a thump. She bent and grabbed another book, throwing it as hard as she could. It connected with a china vase and sent it crashing to the floor.

"Ugh!" she snarled, the full force of circ.u.mstances closing in. She was trapped. Utterly trapped. Anger, dark and thick, began to bubble up-and it wasn't just a red-tinged fury at the present. There was old rage, too. She was resentful at her father, for treating her like an investment to be sold at a premium. Angry at her mother, for letting it happen. Furious that Tobias had bartered his own freedom to Jasper Keating. Hating that she'd lacked the tools to protect herself.

And more than anything, loathing the terror that Anna represented. Anna, who seemed to be indestructible. Stronger. The survivor. She should be dead. I was the one who lived.

She picked up another vase and smashed it into the wall. The crash filled her with an unholy satisfaction. She picked up another book-despising the shifting letters on the page-and tore out a fistful of leaves.

She'd never allowed herself this kind of a tantrum before. Destruction, delicious and wanton, soothed the raw heat in her brain. Then she flung the disemboweled book aside and stomped to the drapes, shoving them aside once more. This time-perhaps her perception had been cleared because she was so enraged-the window was there.

Imogen choked on a cry, smacking at the curtains when they tried to fall back and obscure her view. Logic said she'd see the forest. Instead, she saw the inside of a house. Her house. Those were the stairs descending from the bedrooms to the second-floor landing-but to see it at this angle made no sense. There was no room where she stood, much less a window-and everything she saw was far too large.

As she slowly realized why the perspective was so wrong, a memory of screaming returned-screaming and pounding on the gla.s.s. She'd had this same experience the first time she'd looked out the window.

To see what she saw, she would have to be inside the longcase clock that the sorcerer Dr. Magnus built. It had sat on the landing of Hilliard House, facing the stairs, ever since her family had moved in.

Shock melted her insides to a puddle and she leaned against the cool gla.s.s to hold herself up. Is this where I begin shrieking again? Reflexively, she sucked in her breath, but a stab of fury made her cough it out again. Fear doesn't work. Fear doesn't help you fight back. Anger does.

Rage cleared her head, sharpening her senses and blowing the last fog from her wits. Blood pounded in her ears, deafening her-until it dawned on her that it wasn't her pulse at all. Now that she knew where she was, she realized that thudding heartbeat was the clock's steady tick.

But why in d.a.m.nation am I in a sorcerer's clock?

She sensed, rather than saw, the change around her. Slowly, she turned to face the room, her face going slack with astonishment. Now, instead of shrinking, the room was simply fading. She could see the pattern of the carpet through the sofa, the bookcase through the wing chair. The study had been an illusion, and no doubt the woods outside had been some sort of construct, too. She'd been tricked.

Because what she saw now was Dr. Magnus's clockwork, the wheels and gears moving in carefully regulated increments. The moment her mind grasped that, the furnishings disappeared altogether. Now that I see what's real, I can act. She wasn't going to be fooled by a comfortable sofa or a scary dark woods one second longer.

But for a moment, Imogen yearned for those soft cushions-for now everything was unfamiliar. She tilted her head back, her gaze going up and up. Bra.s.s gears the size of waterwheels arched up into shadowy darkness, their polished teeth looking sharp and pitiless as they clicked past. She started as something spun to her left, sending a shiny arm flying to a new position. Another thing clunked and she whirled around, half expecting a gyrating mechanism to smack her in the head. Her breath was coming fast, her pulse-hers, not the clock's-was speeding with alarm. There were springs and cogs and wheels everywhere, all ceaselessly moving, and all looking like they could crush flesh and bone without missing a beat.

She understood none of it-Evelina and Tobias had been the ones crazy for taking things apart. Yet now this was her landscape. She would just have to learn how to navigate it. There would be no sitting out this quadrille.

Anna was somewhere in there, too. Imogen could feel her presence, just as she had throughout a dozen years of nightmares. And her twin had chosen this particular battleground for a reason. She tried to kill me once. I did my best to kill her. There was only one way this confrontation would end.

Imogen's mouth went dry, her eyes p.r.i.c.kling with hot tears. She wrapped her arms around her middle, as if holding herself in one piece. This was the nightmare of nightmares.

She needed to find her twin and destroy her, once and for all.

London, September 24, 1889.

LADIES' COLLEGE OF LONDON.

2:45 p.m. Tuesday.

IT HAD BEEN FIVE FRETFUL DAYS SINCE EVELINA HAD DISCOVERED she was penned within the college walls. She'd received no word from either Keating or Sir William. The only thing that had changed was that she had received a delivery of equipment from Moriarty.

Evelina sat in her rooms, elbows on her worktable and a scatter of projects on every side. Sunlight touched the silver bracelets she wore, the b.u.t.tons down the bodice of her fashionable day dress, and the implements spread out before her. There was a heavy bra.s.s microscope, a gas burner, a leather case of slides, and enough half-a.s.sembled pieces of clockwork to give a horologist fits. The clockwork had been her own project, but the rest was from the professor. He had sent the very best.

After indulging her talents in secret for so many years, it was a luxury to have a private works.p.a.ce and the time to sate her curiosity. But that was the problem, wasn't it? She had all that leisure because the rest of her life had been taken away-including Nick and Imogen. And being confined had given Evelina too much time to grieve for their loss. She was starting to feel frayed, like pieces of her were unraveling and falling away. She either slept too much or not at all, pacing her rooms until her feet ached.

Some primitive reflex warned her she was in danger of collapsing altogether. She needed a problem outside of herself to keep her moving forward. So escape was at the top of her list, and Moriarty seemed the best tool she'd found-not a comforting thought. But while she made up her mind about him, she forced herself to concentrate on the unsolvable problem of her friend's illness. Though different, her grief for Imogen was every bit as acute as the wrenching loss of Nick.

She'd sat by Imogen's bedside that November night when the Helios had returned victorious, but Evelina had enough magic to know the young woman on the bed was just a sh.e.l.l. Imogen's soul had been ripped away. Could Evelina do anything to put it back?

She asked herself that question plenty of times, but a letter had come from Baker Street yesterday-delivered by one of her uncle Sherlock's pet urchins who'd clearly climbed over the college wall-with news that Poppy Roth had approached the detective with a view to hiring him on the case. But, Holmes went on, magic wasn't his forte. He had promised to turn the problem over to Madam Thala.s.sa, but apparently she was proving hard to find. Since Evelina knew both magic and the Roth family, did she have relevant data to add? Strange but true, Holmes was very nearly asking her opinion.

Her first thought was that he did well to treat Poppy Roth seriously. The girl was a force of nature. Her second was that she was on dangerous ground. It was her magic, and that of the devas at her command, that was keeping Imogen's body alive in hopes that she would recover on her own. Evelina had set the spells in motion the night she'd spent at Imogen's side-it was the best she could do when she had so little time. She'd tried to work from afar since, but navigating the realm of spirit was not her talent. Not even the university's impressive archives-which had special dispensation to maintain a collection on magic and the spirit realm-had been able to help.

The difficulty was that if a true medium-even one as reputable as Madam T-went crashing through Evelina's existing spells, things could go horribly wrong. And yet she couldn't take those spells away because Imogen would die. She had to explain all of this to her uncle, but it was hard when she had to smuggle letters out of the college with all the cloak-and-dagger drama of an international spy. It would be a d.a.m.n sight easier if she could just fix things herself.

Her jaw set, Evelina concentrated on the surface of the worktable, the grain of it flowing through an archipelago of chemical stains and the odd crumb from her breakfast. She would make one more try before she admitted that for all her vaunted talent, she couldn't help her best friend in the world. She let her consciousness drift, her vision going soft as she pa.s.sed into a blank, rudderless state.

The odds of finding Imogen's spirit were negligible. Without knowing where in all the possible realms of heaven and earth she had gone, all Evelina had to draw on was the long friendship that bound them together. That made for a slender thread, but it was far better than nothing. Imogen?

There was no response, and Evelina pushed harder, broadcasting her call through the aether that connected all the realms together as blood binds the body's organs. She could feel the tug of the bracelets holding her back. They didn't stop her magic-their primary purpose was to confine her physically-but the silver they were made from made it clumsy, as if she were trying to repair clockwork while wearing ill-fitting gloves.

Her eyes began to drift closed, her gaze still fixed upon the table. The pattern of the wood grain melted into metaphor, outward sight changing to a landscape of the mind. She reached out again, and the sensation was like swimming in thick, warm water, every stroke a satisfying effort that sped her along. She could feel the ripples stirred by her power, and summoned more energy, digging deep into her reserves. She was still recovering from confining the blast that had destroyed the laboratory. Calling on it again so soon would drain her, but no matter. If it helped her friend, she would spare nothing to send those waves to the very ends of that ocean and beyond.

But wanting too much was her mistake. She'd gathered some of her power under the tutelage of the sorcerer Dr. Magnus, and that dark energy was treacherous stuff-all the more so because she'd locked it away so long, afraid of what it stirred in her. But unthinking, she reached for it, ready to put everything on the line.

It bubbled up, sweet and thick as death. Evelina flinched from the contact, her bracelets making her awkward. All it took was for her mastery to slip for one hairbreadth of time and, like a serpent, it turned on her.

Evelina gasped, the sweet ache of the power splitting her in two, as if an ax had riven her breastbone. But what that sharp blade released was delicious, silken fingers delivering equal parts pleasure and pain along every nerve of body and mind. She froze, her body locked in that inhalation of surprise at the same instant her perception flew outward in a sudden burst. In that moment she encompa.s.sed so much, too much, but she indeed sensed Imogen, a quivering mote in a vast, unformed Somewhere.

Imogen! Joy rang through Evelina, her vulnerable state making every emotion thunderously acute. She lunged for Imogen, the flicker of Evelina's conscious energy darting out. She needed to touch Imogen, to grab her and pull her home.

But Evelina didn't really know how, and she had lost full control of that wild, serpent strength. The lunge made her lose her inner balance, a sudden slip and fall, her mind frantically twisting to keep the power steady but fumbling it all the same. Imogen's location spun out of mind.

Evelina's head hit the table with a crack. It snapped her back to herself, the wood-grain pattern suddenly stark before her. "Ow!" She pressed a hand to her forehead, her stomach lurching dangerously.

And then the scattered power crashed through the room, animating the sc.r.a.ps of unfinished clockwork strewn across the table. Gears whirred, levers pumped and clicked and chirruped-nothing quite working because nothing was entirely finished. Most of the machines didn't even have springs to wind them yet, but they still flailed in a mockery of life, half-formed creatures born before their time. Only the clock on the mantel chimed a coherent protest, its careful calibration knocked askew by the marauding energy.

d.a.m.n and blast. Evelina covered her ears at the racket, sickened by the pulse of uncontrolled power, and then had to jump up to close the valve of the gas burner when it tried to set itself alight. There was a pain behind her eyes that threatened a nosebleed, but trying to dampen the energy would only make it worse. The only way to avoid that was to wait out the maelstrom and hope no one else heard it.