Noir (3 page)

“Likely,” C.L. says.

Iris races off to find what I need, returning quickly, passing me a pen while C.L. sets up the inkwell.

“What are you thinking, mum?” C.L. says.

“I’m thinking Urlick’s not the only one who can make something fly.”

Cordelia claps.

I stretch the roll of parchment out over a table at the end of the hallway, dunk the nib in the well, and start to draw. C.L. and Iris stand at my shoulder, hovering. A furious speed overcomes me.

“An armoured
’orse,
mum.” C.L. smiles as he examines my strokes. “You planning on storming the city in a Trojan?”

“Better than that.” I add the finishing touches. “Have you ever heard of Pegasus?” I drop the pen and spin the paper around, stretching the drawing out for them all to see. “Now imagine Pegasus in an armoured suit and a set of mechanical raven wings.”

“Oh, my . . .” C.L.’s jaw falls open.

Iris gasps.

Cordelia jumps up and down.

“We’ll have to hurry, though,” I say, turning back. “As you’ve mentioned, we don’t have much time.” I run my fingers over the drawing on the table again. “But I figure together we’ll be able to finish the armour and wings by late tonight.” I turn to C.L. “And then we can leave late tomorrow morning. I know it’s rather tight, but it’s the best we can do—”

“We?” C.L. swallows.

“Well, I was kind of hoping you’d come with me.” I wring my hands. “I’ll need a wingman, and I hear you’re the best.” I smile at him, remembering Urlick, how much he respected C.L.’s loyalty.

“Very well, then.” C.L.’s eyes grow big. “Consider it done.” He salutes me. “Anything for you, mum.”

“Good.” I take in a breath. “And Iris, you’ll stay here with Cordelia in case, by the grace of God”—I cross my chest—“Urlick comes back on his own?”

She nods.

“If we need you, we’ll call for you. Otherwise, you’ll man the post. You, too, Cordelia.” She grins. “Now”—I rub my hands together—“we should probably get started.” I turn.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” C.L. says.

“What?”

“Once you’re back in Brethren, ’ow are you going to disguise ’oo you are? We ’aven’t any masks left. And they take at least three days to make new ones.”

“Good point.” I sag, defeated. “No use to the masks, anyway. We’ve already been made out.” C.L.’s right. I’ll be arrested the second I set foot in Brethren. “Wanted” posters of me hang everywhere. Even the Northerners will be looking for me by now. I hug my waist. I can’t just waltz in as myself, now, can I? “We’ll have to create some sort of diversion.” I pace. “Elsewise, I’ll be picked up immediately.” I turn to C.L and sigh. “I’m afraid this is not going to be easy.”

“Well, nothing worth doing ever is, mum,” he says, scratching his head with his toes, then looks up with a devilish light in his eyes. “Unless . . .”

“What? What is it?”

“I think I just might know some people who’ll
’elp
,
mum
.
”

“You do?”

C.L.’s eyes light up. He dips a toe into his waistcoat pocket and pulls out a weathered advertisement. A poster board of sorts. He unfolds it and stretches it out over the table, pressing down the seams as he goes, revealing a full-colour illustration of a travelling freak show. The faces of five or more tortured individuals peer up from the page, staring out from behind the bars of the cages of a train. The one to the far left looks suspiciously like . . .

C.L.
“Oh, my God.” I bring a hand to my mouth.

“I know, mum.” His eyes flash. “But they’s
good
people, I know they is . . . If only we was able to commandeer the freak train on its way into Brethren, they’d be more than ’appy to ’elp us free Urlick.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“The freak show’s due to arrive in Brethren in two days’ time. All we ’ave to do is commandeer the train ’ere in these woods”—he points to a remote part of the forest on the map—“then ride the train into the city—”

“You’re suggesting we shanghai the travelling freak show, and then what? Tie up its master?” My voice squeaks.

“I prefer we kill him, but sure, we can do it your way.”

“Have you lost your
mind
?”

“Can you think of a better diversion?”

I let out a breath and roll my eyes. “No, I suppose I can’t.”

Th
ree

Flossie

A cackle in the trees behind me has my head swinging around. The edges of my body blur as I twist. Something swoops past me, howling, and I catch my breath. Chants trickle through the trees.

“Oh,
no
, not again.” I clutch my translucent hand to my chest, feeling the steady beat of my still—
thankfully
—human heart.

And I want to keep it that way.

I stare into the cloud cover, spotting the beginnings of coiling grey mist, and suck in a quick breath. With the speed of a lash I spin around, stuffing the pendant down the top of my corset between my breasts, and rise into the sky above the ravine, arms spread out to my sides, head thrown back, in an attempt to look ominous.

The chants grow louder, the voices shrill. Swooping, swarthy bodies close in.

I open my eyes to find myself completely surrounded—by hundreds of blinking, glaring, white-eyed Infirmed.

I gasp, feeling the pull of air inside what’s left of my rib cage. It crackles under the weight of my breath. “What?” I say, realizing they’ve gone silent.

They’ve fallen to their knees in front of me.

“You’ve come,” one of the ghouls breathes, her eyes stretched open—the shimmering light inside them quavering as she homes in on my chest.

“Look!” another says and falls to his knees. “It is her!” His torn mouth falls open.

The other ghoul’s head twists around.

He points a decayed and shaky finger in my direction, and they bow their heads.

I track his gaze to the bleating light hidden in the bodice of my outfit.

“It’s her! It’s really her!” another cries on a winded breath. “The messiah!”

“Messiah?” My system short-circuits, rendering me blind for a second, and then slowly my sight returns. But the picture before my eyes isn’t any different. What on earth is going on here? I stare down at the crowd of kneeling, worshiping Infirmed before me. I tremble.

“The holy one,” another says, and they break out into chants. Only the chanting this time is more like a prayerful moan.

My eyes widen. I drop my gaze to the pulsing light of the pendant, tucked down inside my corset, nestled low between my breasts. The whole front of my attire is aglow in its eerie, angelic light. They must think . . .

They do think.

“She’s come to save us all!” they chant. “To restore us to our former states!”

To what? My chin snaps up, bathed in the vial’s ghoulish, green glow. I swallow, staring out at their gape-mouthed faces, their fangs glinting in the flickering beams of twilight. And then a mad thought comes over me.

A wicked, wicked, mad, mad thought.

“Yes,” I say slowly on a breath that straightens my back. “I am she. And I have come to save you all!”

They rise to their feet in a collective cheer.

“But first!” I raise my hands to quiet them. “You must do something for me.”

“Anything! Anything, Messiah!”

“You must protect me!” I shout, narrowing my eyes. “You must promise me, from this day forward, I will come to no harm!”

“Never, Messiah! Never!”

“At the hands of yourselves, or anyone else!”

They cross their hearts and lower their heads. “You have our solemn promise!”

“You solemnly swear to protect me from all that is evil in these woods!”

“Yes, Madame Priestess.” They nod their heads.

“And to serve me, and only me, whatever my request.”

“Yes, Madame Priestess.
We solemnly swear!
Whatever you want!”

My heart races with my newfound power. “Be warned.” I clench my teeth and jut my chin toward the crowd, delighting in how they cower backward. I stare hard at them and lower my voice. “He who crosses me will never be restored, but will instead face the wrath of Embers!” I point to the belching quagmire at my back.

“We won’t,” they gasp. “We’ll worship only you!”

They bow their heads in prayer again.

“Very well, then,” I smirk, smoothing my skirts, surging with the power of my new appointment and confident in the fact that I’ll be rightfully restored and long gone before they discover I’ve lied and taken advantage of them to save my own soul. I lift my palms to the heavens, look out adoringly at my new disciples, and smile. “The sooner we get to what I need, the sooner you’ll get what you want.”

“What is it that you want, Madame Priestess?”

The white rays of their eyes fall on me.

Flashes of the fight I had with Eyelet in the forest suddenly come back to me like bits of broken film. The answer to the question of why I’m here. The journals. The vial. The argument she had with me. Her hands, pushing me into the Infirmed.

The father I lost.

The admirer she stole.

The life she took from me . . .

I lift my chin high and address the crowd. “I need your help to destroy an enemy, and bring back into the fold another who has gone astray.”

Fo
ur

Urlick

A spider picks its way across my face and I flick my head with such madness I nearly snap my own neck. I swallow hard, tip my chin back, and close my eyes, working to slow my heartbeat, taking measured breaths and letting them ease back out again. If I’m to survive this misery, I need to keep my wits about me. No more of this imagining terrifying illusions in the dark. All this darkness is playing havoc with my mind—being immersed in it, twenty-four hours solid, day after day.

My mind drifts to Eyelet—the only vision that keeps me going. She stands before me wearing a devious, crackling smile. Those creamy caramel eyes of hers burn with such depth, a whole world is revealed behind their glass. A secret world I’ve only begun to explore. Oh, Lord, I hope I have the chance to continue.

I allow myself to smile, remembering the taste of her kiss—a long, slow drink of peppermint tea swirled with honey.

I wonder where she is. What’s become of her?

Does she know what’s become of me?

The thought presses in that I might never see her again, and every muscle in my body tenses. I shake it off.
No!
I must not allow such thoughts. I turn away from her image and shudder in the cold.

The damp darkness of the hole has burrowed straight into the marrow of my bones. Without blanket or pillow, I cannot escape its clutches. And the stone walls and floor provide little comfort. Near as I can figure, it’s been about two days since the guard stuffed me in this hellhole and left. Maybe three, I don’t know.

Days and nights pass the same in this darkness.

I’ve had no food or water. They’ve left me a wooden pail in the corner for defecating, though that seems futile, considering I’m chained. I’m growing more and more shaky as the hours tick on. I wince, licking my parched and peeling lips, feeling dizziness pour over me. I need water. I need it now.

I can’t go on without it.

Pinching my eyes shut, I clench my teeth as another wave of hunger pains passes through me. At least the growl in my stomach reminds me I’m still alive. The ongoing deprivation of food has caused my mind to drift in and out of reality. I’ve begun to hallucinate—horrible images, of me strung up on the pegs, vat of wax bubbling beneath my feet. The pictures play out so real in my head I feel the heat, hear the caw of the raven, and the bubble bursts.

I push the image away and I see Eyelet again, this time in a field of bluebells racing toward me. An impossibility, I know, as we’ve never seen a field of bluebells in our lifetimes except for in a book, but I see it clear as a Vapourless day—and then it’s gone. Replaced by an image of her hanging next to me, rope around her snapped neck, creaking as she swings.

“Stop it!”
I scream and crack my head against the wall.

My rage echoes in the tiny room, bouncing off the stone until at last the room falls hushed again, save for the sound of something trickling overhead.

I wrench up my chin and perk my ears. Is this just another hallucination?

I swallow, using the sound as a baseline of truth in my ears, when I hear the noise again.
Water.
It’s seeping in from above, drizzling down the wall. But which wall?

I fling myself forward, up onto my knees, turning my head back and forth. I’m too weak to stand, not that I could—at my height I have to hunch. So instead, I roll onto my backside and use my heels, digging them in against the jagged stone floor, and propel myself backward toward the wall I think the sound is coming from.

I know when I’ve reached it as I clunk my head. My hair feels wet at the nape. The trickle of water grows louder, and I realize I’m there. I’ve found it. Water rolls down the wall at my back, puddling around me on the floor.

I sit up, trembling. The shock of the water’s polar presence chills my skin. I try to lean forward and arch like an animal to drink from the puddle, but it’s no use, I can’t get low enough to reach it. Pressing my cheek to the stone wall, I attempt to lap it up as it trickles down, but the water hugs the curves of the wall too tightly, I cannot draw it into my mouth.

“Please!”
I whisper.
“For the love of God, please . . .”

I jut my neck out farther—then realize it might not be safe to drink the water at all.

If the stones are made of lime, which I strongly suspect they are, it’ll only hasten my dehydration—dry the flesh to my bones. But if I don’t try to drink it . . .
then
. . . I’m destined to die anyway. So, what choice do I have?

I think of Eyelet on her way, risking her life, to rescue me. I can’t let her risk her life to save a corpse.

Leaning in, I smell the rock, feeling its chalky texture against my cheek. It has to be limestone, what else would it be? This whole area is coated in it. Unless . . .

Slag stone.
The remnants left over when they excavate limestone from the quarry. They’d never use precious limestone to build the foundation of a prison.

I press my nose to the seam and draw in its fragrance. It reeks of worms and earth and salty sand.
Sand!
I hunker closer. Not limestone! Sand!

Rolling my tongue, I reach out, meeting the slow trickle of water running in the seam. Its cool elixir sparkles like liquid gold as it funnels down my throat, quenching my thirst, filling the parched cracks in my lips, and soothing swollen sores. “Thank God!” I lick the stones again. “Thank God for this!”