The Accidental Afterlife of Thomas Marsden (15 page)

“Why, they would die,” said Deadnettle. It did not seem to bother him, the thought.

“And what if they didn't step through right away, but sort of . . . reached, to see what would happen? Especially if it were a man who had reason to think the realm might let him in.”

“Why would they think that?” Deadnettle asked. And stopped. “They had a child. It likely had a child. On and
on. By now there would be nearly no faery blood left in his veins, but he might think a drop was enough.”

“I figure,” said Thomas, casting his eyes between Deadnettle and Marigold and over the rest of the faeries, “I figure it'd turn his hand dead black, don't you?”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Enemies Become Friends

D
EADNETTLE CLIMBED THE STAIRS, THE
poisonous iron nearing with every step. He could feel it, yes, on each window, each door. Mordecai had made quite certain. Even if the faeries had been willing to burn themselves to touch it, Mordecai would hear the screams long before they escaped.

No matter now. Lying made Deadnettle weak, but what he was sure was truth gave him strength. Up and up again to Mordecai's study.

He knocked. A crash came, a curse.

“Enter.”

Ink spilled from the edge of Mordecai's desk, dripping livid blue to the rug. The fallen inkwell rocked back and
forth over the wood, rhythmic, mesmerizing. Deadnettle looked away.

“Oh, it's you,” said Mordecai, raising his blackened hand in a mockery of greeting. “I did not expect you. Are you not enjoying your rest? One would think you would be glad of it, though I must warn you, it will not last much longer. The plans I've made!”

“Indeed?” asked Deadnettle, clenching his pointed teeth to keep his face impassive.

“It will be miraculous.” Mordecai stood, nearing Deadnettle but, as ever, not touching him. “The queen alone will keep me in riches beyond my wildest imaginings if we bring back the husband she so famously mourns. There won't be a soul in all of Britain who'll deny the power of our great Spiritualist works. Those who've lost loved ones will flock by the hundreds, the thousands, for my services. And the coins they bring shall be just as great in number.”

“Miraculous,” agreed Deadnettle mildly. “Tell me, Mordecai, how did you injure yourself?”

“An accident.” Mordecai's words were clipped, chilled as the iron that barred the windows even here. “I do not see what that has to do with anything.”

“Whereas I think it must be very important.”

“Insolence!” The blackened hand rose and fell again
without striking. “Get back to your cellar, faery, and stay there.”

“No. You see, I know your secret.” Had not been the one to discover it, but knew it now, and that was enough. “Our land scorned you, didn't it, Mordecai? Humans are not permitted entrance, and that's what you are.” Deadnettle spat, his spittle mixing with the ink on the floor. “Human.”

Fury rose on Mordecai's face, a great, wild bird taking flight from a perch. “I am
not
. I am one of you! I deserved to return!”

“And yet . . .” Deadnettle pointed to Mordecai's hand.

It shook.

“Had you continued through, it would have killed you.”

“It should have let me through,” Mordecai hissed. “I am of faery blood just as you are. I did not know it—oh no, not at first, but I always knew I was special. Magical. I could feel it in my bones. And then, one day, I happened upon a story, a wonderful, fantastical story. I had traced my lineage, you see, and I know the names of my ancestors back through seven generations. And in this story, I found the name of a faery, a name one of my ancestors shared, and the name of the human she loved. And then, then, Deadnettle, I knew who I was, or could be.” The sorcerer shut his mouth and looked around wildly, but it was too late. His anger and bitterness had
poured out. He had said too much. Deadnettle smiled.

“But it did not work. You opened the gateway, but nothing more.”

“It should have worked!” the sorcerer screamed. Deadnettle's head rang with the sound. Pictures in their frames rattled on the walls. “And when it didn't, I vowed revenge. And I got it, did I not? Oh, yes.” The shouts transformed to laughter, wild laughter. “Far and wide I had to travel, but I learned what I needed to. The piles of ancient books I read, the number of wise magicians I sought . . .”

“To learn to summon us.”

“There are spells. Enchantments. It was simpler than you might think.”

“Tell me how.”

All at once, Mordecai seemed to recover himself. He backed away from Deadnettle, shaking his head, a crazed smile stretching his lips. “I don't imagine I shall,” he said. “Your mistake is believing that any of this changes the matter of your enslavement. You will still die here, Deadnettle, and the faery realm is home to no one. I will be glad to see you perish after I have gotten as much use from you as I can.”

“Foul, evil—”

“That may be. Leave me now.”

Deadnettle hurried out and down the stairs. Away from
the iron. Away so he could think. Had he told Mordecai that the faeries could not do that which Thomas had promised him they could, Deadnettle had no doubt the sorcerer would kill them where they stood.

But it would not be long before he discovered it. Thomas had gained them time and respite, but that would soon be over.

For the thousandth time—more, many more—he wished he could speak to Wintercress. Wintercress, who had kept secrets, even from him, to protect them.

How much had she known? Something, clearly, to have left the book for Thomas. How much had she simply guessed?

He was going out, he told the others. If Thomas and Marigold returned, they were to remain and wait for him. Deadnettle could get farther from the iron in the park now than he could at the Society. Only the odd lamppost to steer clear of, not bars and locks all around. They dutifully removed the bricks for him, and as he climbed the stairs of the elegant, ruined, empty house, he heard them scrape back into place.

The church bells struck as if physical blows upon his skin, through his long, dark cloak. Every scrap of iron he passed seemed to bend, to point directly at him, ready to skewer him through and through. Only when he reached the park
did Deadnettle feel as if he could properly breathe again.

He looked up, concentrated. The leaves stayed still on their branches. Deadnettle tried to remember when he had last achieved a wisp of faery magic.

The note to Thomas. No, the breeze. And that had exhausted Deadnettle beyond reason.

“'Scuse me, sir?”

Deadnettle startled. A man stood on the path not far away. He was watching Deadnettle, but no fear or horror showed on his face. To be safe, Deadnettle drew the hood of his cloak tighter. “Yes?”

“D'you happen to know the time? Only I've lost my watch, you see, and my lady wife will not be best pleased if I'm late for supper.”

“Oh.” Deadnettle did not wear a watch, but pretended to look at one as he squinted into the distance, farther than a man could ever see. The great clock tower at Westminster stood tall over the river. “About five minutes before seven,” he answered.

“Cheerio.”

It did not occur to Deadnettle until the man was out of sight that a mere week before, he would simply have ignored him.

He'd meant to go to the hazel tree, to touch it if nothing else. The act gave him comfort, precious comfort. Instead,
Deadnettle walked slowly through the park, alive with the full flush of spring. Humans played and chattered and pushed their infants in those odd wheeled carts, smiling and laughing all the while.

They were not wholly foul, evil—

That part of the story was true. The part about the ring could well be, also, but Wintercress had left no clues as to how to find it. For that, Deadnettle had Mordecai to thank.

•   •   •

“A séance, Deadnettle? Truly?”

He nodded to Marigold. “How many times have you or I been summoned to the cage so that someone may learn where their dead relative hid the gold brooch or priceless hair ornament or, yes, a ring? Mordecai has made his fortune off such pettiness. These are our gifts, Marigold; I see no reason we should not use them. But we shall need a human.”

“Why?”

“Because according to the tale, a human was the last to have it. Thus, our best chance at knowing where it lies now.”

Thomas opened his mouth and closed it again. A rare smile reopened the wound on Deadnettle's lip that stubbornly refused to heal; he felt the dark blood drip down. How easily the boy forgot.

“Lucy or Silas'd do it,” said Thomas. “Charley, too. Wait. No. I know who's we should ask.”

“Oh?” Deadnettle waited, but Thomas simply grinned, innocent and mischievous. He was yet so young. “Back in a tick.”

It was longer than that, but when Thomas returned, the smile remained fixed firmly on the face so like Thistle's. It seemed to Deadnettle, however, that in the short time since he had set eyes on Thomas, his features had changed. Older, now, with a shrewdness and cunning Thistle had never possessed.

“Let's go,” Thomas said.

Marigold skipped after him, full of energy since the weight of her secret had been lifted. Deadnettle followed them both, wondering how Thomas could be both the faery king and such a foolish child in the same moment. He was enjoying his little mystery, smiling as he took Marigold by the hand and whirled her around a corner.

When they had been walking a full half hour, Deadnettle stopped to rest against a wall, the red brick digging into his back. He wished he could suggest that they hail a hansom, but they were bound about with iron and pulled by horses who did their best to bolt whenever they sensed one of Deadnettle's kind.

“Are you all right?” Marigold asked.

“Yes.” The answer was painful, but there was nothing anymore that was not. Hope itself was painful now, the feeling renewed, strong, acute. It nearly balanced the iron sting, the blows of the bells. Nearly. Tangled with the large hope that Thomas was sure of what he was doing was the smaller one that they would not have to walk much farther to achieve it.

In fact, it was a whole half hour again, Deadnettle lagging behind Thomas and Marigold as they chattered. She was telling him more about the faery realm she'd never seen, everything she had ever heard. How easily they had become friends, but that was not such a surprise, perhaps. To her, he was a copy of Thistle, and to him, well, it didn't sound as if the boy had grown up with many his own age. There was Charley, who had helped dig the hole in the wall, but Deadnettle knew of no others.

The faeries had always had that, at least. Too much closeness, arguably, but they had always been together. Among their own. Thomas, neither one thing nor another, had nobody in any world about whom he could say the same.

Why did you make me do it, Wintercress? We could have dealt with the changeling another way. What did you know?

His question rose and swooped silently with the birds overhead, iridescent black, but no answer came. It never did.

Thomas turned yet another corner, into a short,
shadowed lane. He stopped at a doorway and stood beside a small sign. Marigold clapped. Deadnettle read it.
Oh, you clever boy,
he thought for the second time in as many days. A risk, yes, but one that now felt worth taking. The cut on his lip split again, and vengeance dripped from his long, pointed teeth.

•   •   •

Mordecai had no maids, no servants of any kind, nor any wife to help him. Often, Deadnettle had heard his visitors express surprise when Mordecai hung up their coats and hats himself, his good hand reaching for the hooks on the walls. A gray-haired woman, thin as a rail, showed them in and led them up creaking, rickety stairs, her worn shoes rubbing threadbare carpet. She seated them in the cramped space at the top on mismatched chairs, her eyes passing over Deadnettle's cloaked figure as if he were not the strangest thing she'd seen even this very day.

“He will be with you shortly,” she said, and disappeared down a corridor.

Deadnettle felt as if he had walked longer than an hour, so far was this place from the splendor of the Society. Voices came from the other side of the thin wall behind his head; with some effort, he chose not to listen. It did not matter whether the man was not a fraud, which of course he was. Deadnettle, Marigold, and Thomas could take care of that.

A short while later, a weeping lady fled through the room and down the stairs, her eyes so blurred with tears that she didn't see the shrouded man and two children she passed. Water poured from a jug and was gulped from a glass. The door handle turned once more.

“A good afternoon to you. Please enter.” A young man, no more than five-and-twenty, stood over them. “Do I know you, young man? You look familiar.”

That voice. Yes, it was the right man. Thomas stood, tugging Marigold with him. Deadnettle felt the man's eyes rove over his cloak and heard the faint tremor in the next words. “How can I be of service? Do you wish to contact a dear, departed one?”

“We need to find something,” said Thomas. “And in payment, we will give you something you want, and more silver coins than you can count, besides.”

“Oh?” Curiosity radiated. “I hardly know what to ask first: What it is you seek, or what it is you think I desire.”

From the shadow of his hood, Deadnettle gazed about the room. Thick curtains covered the one window. Small lamps burned on tables. Some sort of device that could be operated by a foot pedal was half-hidden beneath a table. A crystal ball glowed like a faery eye on a tarnished stand. Rooms such as this littered London; none were like Mordecai's. Here there was no cage. There were secrets,
yes, and lies, too, but not one as dreadful, as cruel as the sorcerer's.