Noir (5 page)

C.L. slides into the room, woodworm and aloini in a sling round his neck, medical jars clinking. “Two parts woodworm. One part aloini,” I instruct. “But not until after the water’s come to a full boil!”

“Isn’t it going to scald her?”

“Yes, that’s why you’re going to cool it down afterward. Iris, get the ice block!” I turn to her. Iris flies at the icebox, leaving C.L. to man the pot. He nods in my direction and then scoots over, setting the bottles down atop the cupboard, using his foot to dip a wooden spoon into the water and stir it. Bubbles swelter to the top and burst.

“Now,” I say, and he tosses the potions in. Wafts of offensive smoke rise. Iris drops the ice block from its hooks on the woodwork, next to the stove, and wields the leaves up and over C.L.’s head, dropping them in clumps into the pot.

“Stir,” I shout.
“And quickly!”

Cordelia’s pulse is slowing.

Iris and C.L. grab wooden spoons and turn the water over, moving their faces out of the way of the tiny grey heaves of smoke.

Cordelia still hasn’t moved. Despite my efforts, her breath has still not come back. She is less blue than when I first arrived in the kitchen, but she is still blue. “Come on,” I say, pounding her chest. “Come on, Cor. Work with me, Cordelia! Work with me!”

“It’s no use, mum.” C.L.’s shoulders fall. He looks across the room at the clock. “It’s been too much time.”

“Don’t say that!” I snap. Ice water puddles around us. “It’s not over until I say it’s over.” I slam my fists down on her chest again.

“It’s been nearly five minutes now, mum.” C.L. looks at me through glossy eyes.

“It’s not too late,” I say, and I pound again. “Do we have a syringe?”

“I dunno, mum.”

“Go FIND ONE!” I push air into Cordelia’s mouth again. “Come on, little mite. Take a breath . . .”

C.L. returns seconds later holding a brass syringe in his toes.

In school, we practiced suspending the breath of frogs for up to ten minutes with diriethoxy ethane and then successfully bringing them back with a jolt of woodworm and aloini. Here’s hoping things work like that with humans. I swallow, feeling the press of fear drive the last of the oxygen from my lungs.

Please, Lord, let it work like that.

I added the leaves to the concoction because I knew what they did for me. If what’s happened to Cordelia is the result of the most severe episode she’s ever experienced, the potency of a whole plant should hopefully release it. I’ve honestly no idea if any of this will work. But what else am I to do? What I’m doing is not working!

“Fill it up!” I shout. “With the contents of the pot! Then run it under cold water to cool it!” C.L. rushes to fill the syringe, and Iris jumps in, dunking it in a pot of ice water before she passes it to me.

I take the syringe in my hand, trembling, as I contemplate where best to inject it.
The thigh—we used the thigh in the frog.
“Close your eyes!” I shout to C.L. I pull up Cordelia’s skirts and yank down her stocking.

Iris brings her apron to her mouth to stifle her scream as I jab the syringe into the muscle of Cordelia’s thigh. The potion sizzles and it gurgles out the sides of the thin pin. I feel a swell of sick sneak up my windpipe. I close my eyes and pray what I’ve done will be of some assistance.

Cordelia sputters and starts to shake. Her heart picks up speed. I hold her wrist in my hand, counting her pulse, panicking, my own heart galloping in my throat.

“Mum!” C.L. shakes my eyes open.

Cordelia’s limbs twist, then start to gyrate. She heaves in a healthy gulp of air.

“More,” I say. “I need more leaves!”

Iris tosses me the leftover leaves I’d brought up originally. I crumple them in my hand to get them to weep, and then wave the leaves under Cordelia’s nose.

She coughs and sputters and gasps, sucking in a deep breath. Her eyes spring open. “Eyelet?” she says weakly.

Iris squeals and falls to her knees, hugging first Cordelia, then me.

“You’ve done it, mum! You’ve done it!” C.L. claps my back, nearly knocking me over.

I have done it.
I can’t believe it. I draw in a breath.

The biggest most grateful breath ever.

I feel a slight twinge of silver coming on and slip a leaf into my own mouth . . .

Si
x

Urlick

I wake to the sound of footsteps descending the staircase adjacent to the mud-and-stone coffin where I’m being held. Blood pumps in my ears. I take a sharp breath and hold it in, listening. It is not the thunderous slap of the guard boots against rails, but rather a gentle padding of bare feet, cautiously negotiating the treads of the looping staircase as if exploring unfamiliar territory . . . or trying hard not to be heard.

I right myself immediately, preparing for anything, my heart beating like a warrior’s. My mind loops through scenarios of who it could be.

A guard. The warden. Death.

Eyelet.
The thought comes over me. What’s to become of Eyelet?

I close my eyes and her image appears before me, her posture serious, her expression stoic. There’s a distant light in her eyes.

“What is it?” I say to her likeness. “What’s the matter?”

Her mouth shrivels into a painful grimace and she throws out her arms, and just as I’m about to swallow her up in my embrace, she vanishes into a thin wisp of corkscrewing black smoke.

No.
I gasp, leaping to my feet, swimming through the illusion in my mind. I try to catch hold of the spiraling tails of Vapours as they rise, but they’re swiped from my grasp. “No!” I shout, shuffling after them. “You cannot have her! She is mine!” The Vapours flip and turn and laugh at me, engulfing her until every trace of her is gone. “No!” I fall to my knees, shaking the vision off. “That can’t happen! It won’t happen! She is coming for me! I will see her again! I will!” I lower my head. “Please, Lord, let me see her again . . .”

The footsteps in the hallway stop, as if my screaming has frightened them. A guard would never hesitate. I press my face through the bars. My heart balloons with hope.

“Eyelet?” I whisper, listening to the rise and fall of the intruder’s ragged breath. “Is that you?”

There is no answer, only a feeble gasping. After a short hesitation, the sound of steps again, picking up pace, skittering softly across the narrow hallway between the landing of the stairs and the door that blocks the short hallway to my cell.

I hold my breath and squint my eyes as something struggles to throw back the heavy wooden door that separates the two rooms. The door creaks slowly open, letting in a vertical sliver of white light that blinds me temporarily—long enough that I cannot make out who is entering—before the door swings shut and the space falls to darkness again.

I suck in a breath and prepare for the worst, pressing my shoulder to the stone wall.
Eyelet would have answered me.

Unsure feet pad toward me. Something jingles in a hand. Whoever it is strides up to my bars and stops, silent and trembling. The jingling object picks up speed.

“Who are you?” I snap, unnerved by the silence, my heart a thrumming ball of nervous fire in my chest. “Why are you here?”

Folds of cloth crinkle as whoever it is bends and drops something flat and metal to the stone floor with a spine-nipping clank. A small, exasperated breath escapes me when I realize it’s food. The hearty waft of greased potatoes drifts up through the bars, causing me to salivate.

“Yer last supper, sir,” a small voice says. It sounds like a boy. “I’m afraid the Jack Ketch ’as requested yer services, first light tomorrow.” The voice falls.

“What day is this?” I push closer to the bars.

“Saturday, sir.”

My heart sinks. “But I thought there were no dippings on Sundays?”

“There aren’t, sir.” The boy hesitates. “But the Jack Ketch ain’t got ’angin’ in mind for yuh—”

“Yes, I know.” I stop him short of the gruesome details. I’d rather be surprised. Tarred and feathered. Drawn and quartered. Whatever it is, I don’t want to know until it’s upon me. It’ll be easier to face it that way.

Besides, I’m still holding out hope that Eyelet will show.

Somehow.

“I’m afraid it’s mostly potatoes, but I did score yuh a chunk o’ sausage.” The boy slides the tray of food toward me through a narrow slip at the base of my pen’s bars. The bottom of the pan chafes slowly over the gritty stone.

“Thank you for that,” I say and bend at the waist, lapping up a mouthful of potatoes like a dog, swallowing them slowly, knowing that if I eat too fast they’ll just come back up. “Who are you, anyway?” I say in between mouthfuls.

“Sebastian.” The boy crosses his legs to sit. “Sebastian Jacobs.”

“You live round these parts?”

“No.” He hesitates. “I’m from Gears.”

“How did you end up here, then?”

“I’m in for thievin’, sir.” The boy sounds ashamed. His chin scratches the collar of his shirt. “I stole kippers from a smoking barrel on the outskirts of town.” He goes on. “But I ’ad to. We was starvin’. Me and me family, we were. Slipped under the fence from Gears and got caught on a wire on me way back.”

“You’re a labourer’s son, then?”

“No, sir. I ain’t got no father.” His voice drops again.

There’s a sadness to it that is all too familiar. It sits heavy in my throat. “So, because of that, they make you serve the food as punishment, is that it?”

“Yes, sir. They says I’m too young to stay in a cell with the others, so they house me in a cage in the kitchen and make me their scullery slave. It’s not so bad, though.” His voice perks up. “I get more freedoms than the rest of the prisoners. I serves the slop twice daily, both breakfast and dinner to all the inmates, and run errands for the guards and the churchman, and the Ruler. That way I gets to sneak about a bit. But if I’s caught sneaking, they beats me, so I needs to be very careful.”

“By churchman, do you mean the Clergy?”

“Yes, sir. He’s in on everything goes on about ’ere. The jug’s sat right next door to the parish. Sometimes they make me clean the manse for him. And do other things.” His voice drops again and I sense his head does, too. Queasiness rises in me.

The boy’s stomach growls. Loudly.

“Do they ever feed you?”

“Sometimes,” the boy admits slowly.

“When’s the last time you’ve eaten?” I swallow another mouthful of potatoes.

“’Bout four days back.”

“Here.” I shove the tray back in his direction with my nose. “Take this.”

“But, sir—”

“Go on. Eat it. It’ll just be wasted on me at this point.”

The boy hesitates. “Yer sure?”

“Positive.”

“Thank yuh, sir!” The boy snaps the pan to his mouth and lays into the potatoes. “Thank yuh so much!”

“You’re welcome.” I lean back from the bars, thinking. “You must overhear things, in your cage in the kitchen, is that right?”

“From time to time, yeah, sir. Why?”

“Is there a chance I could get you to listen for me?”

“Yuh expectin’ some news?” The boy’s voice lilts up.

“No, not particularly. But if there were news for me, I’d want to know what’s said. In great detail. Can you do that for me? Listen intently and deliver me the message?”

“Certainly, sir. Listenin’s me specialty. It’s just that, I don’t know what good it’s gonna do at this point.” He gulps down the potatoes in his mouth and changes the subject. “’Ere.” He slurps up some tea and then pushes the cup between the bars at me, sloshing. “Yuh ’ave the rest.”

“No, it’s all right.”

“I insist.” He tips the cup toward me again, and tea sloshes on my knee. “Yuh’ll be needin’ somethin’ to wash down those taters.”

I feel a grin growing on his face through the darkness.

“So we’re square, then?” he asks as I lean forward, groping with my lips between the bars, until at last I’ve found the rim of the cup he holds.

“We are,” I say as he tips it up, shakily. I swallow fast and hard, until I’ve drained the cup, choking some. He left me a lot more than I expected. “Thanks,” I say, pulling back and flicking the excess liquid from my upper lip with a shake of my head.

“This, too.” The boy pushes a nub of bread up against my teeth.

I open my mouth and accept it, chewing slowly, letting the savory spices of the dark pumpernickel bread wallow on my tongue before I swallow.

The boy returns to enjoying the potatoes, then suddenly freezes. “Yuh won’t tell nobody ’bout this, will yuh, sir? Me stealin’ this food, I mean?”

“Who have I to tell?”

“Right.”

I sense a smile. “Now hurry up and eat before someone catches you,” I say.

The boy gulps down another mouthful of potatoes and scrapes the plate with his fork, grating hard around the edges of the circular pan, collecting every last drop. “I best be going now,” he says as he jerks to a stand. “Before they starts to miss me.” He picks up the empty cup and pan; they clank together in the darkness like lock and key. “It was very nice meeting you, Master—”

“Urlick. Urlick Babbit.”

“I’d shake yer ’and, but—”

“I know.”

The boy falls silent. “Until later, then . . . I mean—” He swallows it back.

“Don’t worry about it.”

He turns and starts away, feet slapping hard against the grimy stone floor as he rushes at the door, then slowly he turns back. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry this is ’appening to yuh,” he says into the darkness.

“So am I,” I say.

He pries open the heavy wooden blockade door and slinks between, and I slump back against the wall of my cell, listening to the door fall shut. Pieces of me break away, wishing it were
I
escaping this wretched hole.

Oh, Eyelet, where are you?

Se
ven

Eyelet

Be careful
,
Iris signs, passing me a pack of supplies. I wave away the trolling brume that lingers between us. It’s cold and dark outside, still freshly morning—as fresh a morning as we ever get. Dew clings to the sparse tufts of grass at our feet and moistens my hairline.

“We will,” I say, patting the overstuffed duffel. Tins of kippers and beans slap together inside, along with the familiar clunk of gadgetry—weapons, of course. No one should ever enter the forest without them. I’ve learned that lesson well. I peek inside, seeing, among other things: a candlesnuffer alias mace ejector, a whip adapted with a morning-star end, and a miniature fire poker hiding a launchable serrated
shuriken
—like an arrowhead, only much more lethal. A pass with it could sever someone’s head.

C.L. has his own pack, filled with God only knows what, from Urlick’s private treasure trove in the basement.

Iris surprises me by leaning in close for a hug, during which she drops fresh-baked biscuits into my side jacket pocket. Like that’s going to help.

I reach in, checking the pocket for the supply of leaves I wrapped in a hankie and stuffed in there earlier—leaves from the miracle plant in the terrarium room, the ones responsible for reviving Cordelia, and me, the last time.

I dig a little deeper, searching for the syringe. The one I filled with the last bits of Cordelia’s medicine, just in case I fall into an episode and raw leaves don’t work. Finding them both there, I’m satisfied and pull Iris closer. “Don’t worry,” I whisper in her ear. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

She drops back and hands me an Insectatron along with another instrument I don’t recognize. It’s long and thin, like a reed, but there’s something in the middle, tucked inside it.

“What’s this?”

“Blow dart,” C.L. says, slipping past. He’s balancing Clementine’s armour on his shoulders, her face gear over his head.

“Just a plain old blow dart?” I raise a skeptical brow.

“Of course not.” He dumps the face gear. “It’s good for one hundred and seventy paces. Has a spring-loaded arm in the back end.”

“You people and your odd figures.” I tip it over, examining it. “Why can’t you ever round up? What’s wrong with two hundred? How on earth will I ever determine precisely one hundred and seventy paces in the heat of battle?”

“Look on the side of it,” C.L. says.

I flip it over. There’s a gauge—a bubble of glass with a dot of mercury inside it and a scale of numbers etched into the glass.

“The mercury rises until it fills the glass, the perfect distance—a quick look at it will tell you if you’re in range,” C.L. says.

“Well”—I look up—“doesn’t Urlick just think of everything.”

“Wasn’t Urlick,” C.L. chirps. “Iris made that.”

“You?” I spin around to face her. She grins.

“The apple corer, too,” C.L. says, suiting Clementine up in her armour.

“Well”—I pull Iris in for another quick hug—“it’s always good to know we have a couple of assassins in the house.” She smiles. “We’d better be off,” I say to C.L., reaching out to my pile of armour. I slip the chest plate over my head and fasten the buckles on the sides. Pulling my chain-mail trousers up under my skirts, I go for my helmet before my gloves, then I check the skies.

“I’m worried about Pan,” I say to Iris. “I haven’t seen her since I got here.” I squint, holding my hand to my eyes. “When you do, will you send her ahead to check on Urlick? And let her know we’ll meet her in the city?”

Iris nods and helps me with my gloves, which I’m thankful for; chain-mail gloves are not the easiest to manoeuvre. I check the skies one more time and take my mount, swinging an awkwardly heavy leg over Clementine, landing with a clatter over her heavily armoured back. “Perhaps we’ll see her along the way.”

“Perhaps,” C.L. adds.

“Now remember”—I look down to Iris, who’s now helping C.L. with his gear—“give Cordelia a full tablespoon of that soup every four hours for two days. She should be fully recovered by then. If not, continue with the regimen. And keep us posted via Insectatron.” She nods her head. “If it happens again, you know what to do, right? You saw what I did.” Iris nods her head. “And kiss her for me, will you? Every day while I’m gone—”

“We have to go, mum,” C.L. says as Iris helps hoist him up into the saddle behind me.

“I know.”

I take up the reins, looking down into Iris’s worried face. There’s been no time to test-drive the wings, not with Cordelia’s sudden illness. But if we don’t go now, we’ll never make it to the city’s edge by end of day. The last thing we want is to be passing through the criminal woods in the thick of night. “You take good care of our little one, will you?” I stare into her eyes.

Iris nods, her eyes wet, her fingers trembling inside tightly clasped hands.

“Very well, then.” I take a breath. “Let’s be on our way, shall we?” I turn to C.L. and then dig my heels into Clementine’s sides, sending her into a brisk trot. “Here goes nothing,” I shout back to Iris, who’s waving us off from the lawn. “Okay, girl,” I lean and whisper in Clementine’s ear. “Time to go fetch!”

I take up the mock fishing pole with wire and launch the carrot out over Clementine’s head. Her eyes light up at the sight of it, and she bursts into a gallop when I throw out the reins. “That’s it, girl, go get it!” I shout, nudging her on with my spurs. The wings drag at first and then, thankfully, start flapping. C.L. bobs along behind me as we pick up speed.

“We’re not gonna make it!” he shouts.

We leave the clearing and head for the trees, and even I’m worried.

“We have to!” I shout back.

I flip the rod to the left, steering Clementine out over the ridge.

“Embers? Are yuh crazy?” C.L.’s voice squeaks.

I hold my breath as I lean forward, charging her onward, encouraging her to leap over the edge of the ravine. She hesitates, nearly dumping us both as she slams to a staggered stop before at last her hooves leave the earth. For a moment we hang suspended in midair, my heart suspended midthroat. Then, at last, the wings catch some wind and we pitch slowly upward, out of the clutches of Embers’s dark and vile-smelling smoke.

“They work!” C.L. jumps up behind me. “They really work!”

“Of course they do!” I say, puffing with pride. “Thank goodness,” I murmur under my breath. I whirl Clementine into a tight turn and head off over the forest.

Here we come, Urlick. We’ll be there before you know it.

And you’ll be a free man.

I can’t wait to see him and run my finger through his crazy hair.

And kiss that ghostly face of his.

Please, Lord, keep him safe.