The Black Rose (8 page)

Not so far away, across the misty streets in which drunkards stumbled, gangs loitered, and the homeless huddled, the Osborne household was dark except for one room. Although the curtains facing the street below were pulled shut, hints of orange light sifted outwards, beckoning attention to the plotting within.

Frost gripped the furnishings. Nimue reclined on her throne of ice, her twelve companions standing in a semicircle before her. Moments earlier, they might have formed a tableau of Albion society, a cross section of the class strata from newly inherited earl to forgettable workhouse resident. Now, however, like their mistress's, their parochial garb had faded into the swishing of twelve hooded black cloaks. Behind Nimue's seat stood the mirror, the dark-skinned girl still frozen in its depths.

“All the components are ready, then?”

“All of them, madam. They have been sourced from different firms so as to not arouse suspicion, and all have had the appropriate alchemical adjustments.”

“Excellent. Then we shall begin assembling them this very night. Bring them to the cellar beneath this house. It links to a subterranean canal which emerges onto the river. We will then make our move tomorrow night.”

The twelve figures nodded in unison.

“And what is our plan once we reach the forest?” one inquired, but Nimue held a finger to her mouth. She turned her head towards the door and flicked her palm. The lock clicked and the wooden frame sprang open, a middle-aged woman in servant clothes tumbling onto the carpet. She pulled herself up, eyes wide with fright, scanning the ice, the mirror, and the collection of dark figures before her.

Her mouth opened in a scream but, after another flick of Nimue's palm, nothing emerged but a frost-clouded breath. The door slammed behind her, and the lock clicked. The maid was hoisted off the floor by her throat and flung across the room, dropped hard before the mistress's throne.

“Listening in, were we?” Nimue whispered, her jaw set in a cold smirk. “Now that wasn't very polite, was it? I don't expect a provincial type like yourself to understand the magnitude of what we are attempting, but even so, whispers might find their way to the wrong ears…”

The maid's gaze was fixed on Nimue, but she became aware of something shifting behind her. The shadows thrown by the lamplight were congealing, rising off the floor and twisting upwards. Nimue's smirk broke into a tinkling laugh as the shadow reared and leapt. The maid's scream was never heard.

Jack, Bál, and Ruth returned to work the following morning unenthusiastic but energized. Jack still found the duration, fatigue, and hot conditions of the factory work nearly unbearable, but at least he knew their group would've progressed closer to their goal by the time he returned to The Kestrel's Quill. Now that he knew of his employer's association with Lady Osborne, the metal poles he and the other men were shaping intrigued him. Could these have some part in the Cult's plan, whatever it was? He saw an opportunity to delve a little deeper when he found himself on a workstation next to the uncommonly amicable boy he had exchanged a few words with on the first day. The boy evidently recognized him too because he smiled—highly unusual in the factory environment.

“How'd your pay stretch the other day, then?” the boy asked in the thick Cockney accent Jack had become used to over the last week.

“Not very far at all.” Jack laughed. “But I managed to get drunk off it last night.” He didn't try too hard to keep the boasting edge out of his voice.

“Well, that's something at least. I saved up for a Sunday roast—definitely worth it.” The boy grinned. “I'm Dannie, by the way.”

“Jack.” They shook hands. “You don't have any idea what we're making, do you?”

“None at all.” Dannie shook his head, glancing at the contraption before him in bewilderment. “Apparently this Goodwin fellow's a nasty piece of work though. Forbids any trade union membership among his employees, owns a big stake in the workhouses, and has his fingers in some very rotten pies from what I've heard…”

Ruth, meanwhile, had thought through her plan on the way to work. She needed an excuse to get into the upstairs drawing room, where Lady Osborne met all her associates and likely kept her documents. She found her alibi when Matron Flint fervently allocated to her the dusting on the first floor. Ruth made sure to do a particularly thorough job around the doorway of the drawing room until, as soon as no one was around, she twisted the handle and slipped inside.

Even by the standards she had become used to in this house, the room was ridiculously decorated. Seemingly every surface rippled with some kind of design in motion: an erratic diamond-patterned carpet, fleur-de-lis-encrusted wallpaper, floral cushions and upholstery, lamps carved and smelted in the shape of forest beasts, and an absurdly decorous mahogany table on the opposite wall. A dank portrait of a stout old man hung on the wall behind the desk. The panels of dusty light falling from the windows lent the contemporary room the impression of being already very outdated.

Ruth made sure no one was about and then shuffled quickly over to the desk. A few papers were scattered over its surface. She riffled through them—bills, invoices, a couple of letters—nothing substantial in the way of evidence. She tried one of the hefty drawers, but it was stuck. She tried again, gripping the handle through her apron, but nothing. She glanced around for something to pick the lock with and stopped dead.

A girl was sitting on one of the sofas opposite her, so embalmed in beauty products that Ruth had initially taken her to be part of the ludicrously patterned furniture. But what was more unsettling was that the girl didn't seem to have registered Ruth's arrival at all. She was staring into the middle distance, porcelain face entirely blank of expression. In fact, she could have been a statue—her hands were folded in her lap in a formal fashion, and she didn't even appear to be breathing.

Ruth allowed herself to exhale and released the edge of the desk, which she had instinctively gripped. She shook her head, slowly walking around the desk and the obstacle course of furniture to stand in front of the girl, who still didn't react. Ruth stooped and waved inches in front of her face. Nothing.

“Are you alright?” she said loudly, touching the side of the girl's head.

Ruth immediately cried out and pulled away. The girl was evaporating before her eyes, skin and cloth vanishing. Within seconds there was nothing to suggest the girl had ever been there.

There was a crackling sound behind her.

Heart pounding, Ruth spun around and staggered back, almost collapsing over a footstool. The grubby painting had disappeared. In its place, a full-length mirror hung, its surface perfectly smooth and unscratched. Frost clouded the insides, but through the mist Ruth could clearly see the figure of the porcelain girl hanging above the ground, expressionless face staring directly at her.

Alex screamed as the flames scorched his flesh, incinerating layers of skin. He almost passed out, and, in his struggle to remain conscious, he felt suddenly adrift. He could see everything that had happened since his arrival.

Despite the Emperor's apparently magnanimous gesture to release him from prison, not much had really changed. He was no longer chained, but he had been confined to the Cathedral and allocated a room somewhere high in one of the towers. It was excessively simple: circular, the floor space the size of an elevator shaft, with only a small bed and an alchemically barred window. Constructed entirely of stone, it was freezing, but at least he could now use alchemy. Most of his energies were spent keeping a fire burning.

He had considered trying to escape, but his ventures to the building's outer doors confirmed that black cloaked Cultists guarded every entrance. His only view beyond the Cathedral was his small window, and that was hardly comforting: a sprawl of lights from clustered houses and mighty skyscrapers; beyond that, churning ocean, sporadically illuminated by crunching lightning.

By day, his overwhelming emotions were of boredom and depression, but by night he found himself on the edge of a sea of fear. He knew of the unspeakable acts that went on in Nexus, directed at those captured in invasions or dissenters from the autocratic government and religion. He was woken from uneasy sleep by screams rising out of the darkness, wailing and begging for relief, for the torment to end by any way possible.

The Emperor had visited him several days after their talk in the throne room. Alex initially had reacted with incredulity, then with angered stubbornness, at his suggestion. “You want to teach me Dark alchemy? Are you crazy?”

The Emperor had merely smirked and led the way from Alex's tower to the throne room.

“I'm never using Dark alchemy,” Alex had said firmly as he took up the allocated position on one side of the crossing. The Emperor had faced him, his robes rippling slightly in the gale rattling the stained glass windows.

“We shall see about that.” And he had raised his arms. The hundreds of candles beside the throne had leapt up and combined into a single indigo-black pillar, sweeping across the chamber and striking like a gargantuan cobra. Alex's conjured diamond of protective light had shattered like brittle glass under the inferno's intensity.

He rolled onto his back, panting heavily. The dark fire was still there, now more like a shark, circling overhead. Gasping with pain, he tried to reach for the alchemical power again.

“Do not try to heal yourself,” the Emperor bellowed. “Don't get rid of the pain. Channel it… I said no.”

Light had begun to shimmer around Alex's arm and course down the burn on his thigh. With a noise like a whip crack, the sharklike flame dived and speared his bicep. Alex howled again, and his attempt at alchemy faded.

“Now get up.”

Groaning, he hoisted himself onto his good arm and tried to stand. It took a couple of tries, but he managed, staggering up to lopsidedly face his captor.

“Well, go on.”

Alex glanced around, assessing what elements he had to work with. He caught sight of the window above the Emperor and raised his good arm, palm like a knife. The window shattered, and the wind entered properly. Alex focused and willed it downwards, compressing it, hammering it upon his adversary like a boulder.

“You think I am a fool? You think I can't see
Light?”

A dome of crackling Dark energy had formed over the Emperor's head, and now it inverted, encasing the wind within a sphere.

The Emperor clicked, and the sphere was tossed over towards Alex. The impact was like being smashed with concrete, accompanied by an electric charge that set his nerve endings alight. He fell to his knees, retching.

“I won't use it,” he said quietly after a long time breathing.

“We will continue this exercise until you do.”

“Well, you might as well kill me now, because I'm not going to.”

“Really?” The Emperor had adopted his insidious rhetorical tone again. “You obviously know enough about Dark alchemy to understand it is formed from internal emotions rather than external elements. I'm sure we can coax it out of you.”