The Unnaturalists (22 page)

“But—”

“Run, I said!” the Architect shouted.

Lightning coruscated throughout the chamber. Syrus dove between the legs of dead Architects and under the scarred table as blazing tentacles of light threatened to choke him. He skidded out from under the table and ran, cursing that he was without darts, that Bayne was such a noble fool, that this Charles—whatever he was—would most likely kill everyone.

He skirted the pit in the darkness with only the glimmer of phosphorescent moss and the occasional terrible lashing of light to guide him. He had no idea what he would do. There was no one to help him, no one to whom he could appeal. There was only himself and the stones at his feet. He bent to pick up a few, surprised by tears of rage. This helplessness had preyed upon him in the train car and again in the Refinery. He’d believed that with Bayne’s help, he’d never be powerless again. He’d been wrong.

He knew one thing, though. He couldn’t just leave. He had to help however he could. This monster could not be allowed to unleash the Waste or destroy the Manticore to do it. As he stood, stones clicking in his pocket, he realized that not all of the glow
above him came from moss. Dozens of eyes watched him from various crevices—the little Elementals he’d seen here and there when they’d first entered the old temple.

He whispered words of friendship in the sacred language.
“Wode pengyo. Heping.”
My friends. Peace.

Some of them crept closer. They were listening.

“I beg you, please give us aid,” Syrus said.

The nearest pair of eyes materialized into a cave sprite. He hung upside down by his toes like a bat, his glowing eyes nearly level with Syrus’s.

“And what will you give in return, child of the Guest People?” the sprite asked.

“Whatever you ask, if you will only help us dispose of this treacherous warlock.”

A shout presaged another ball of light blasting down the tunnel.

Another sprite crawled closer to perch near his fellow. “Whatever we ask, eh?”

Then a third voice came, from behind a shattered cornice near Syrus’s leg. “But the Law says we must not harm our kin. We cannot interfere.”

A debate began in a language of clicks and trills that Syrus didn’t know. Syrus listened for several seconds before he interrupted. “Please! We need your aid. You know what happened here. No matter what this warlock may be, if he goes free, death will come to your people many times over, I promise you. He’s planning to unleash the Waste!”

More conferring.

Then, one said, “The Law says that Elemental may not harm Elemental, but it does not say we cannot distract or halt his progess.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

Many more agreed, little heads popping up from everywhere, sprites surrounding Syrus with their lantern-eyes. “We will help if you will one day help us in return.”

Syrus spoke the ritual words of agreement.

“Well-mannered, that one,” the first cave sprite said.

“He’ll go far, I’m sure.”

“Didn’t you see his face? Of course he will!”

Syrus smiled as they bubbled ahead of him down the tunnel. They reminded him strongly of his clan, happily babbling about this and that, but they also made him wonder if Truffler was more articulate than he had ever let on.

The one Syrus had come to identify as the leader crept down the tunnel wall until he was close to Syrus’s ear. “You go in first with your stones and then we will do the rest,” he whispered. “You can spirit the poor Architect away yourself, yes?”

Syrus nodded.

“Well, then. Remember our bargain.”

“Wo shi.”
I will.

Syrus looked around the broken door. Bayne was crouched under a failing shield he’d made against Charles’s incessant magic. More and more etheric energy was leaking through the glowing bubble, causing the Architect to cry out every so often in pain. Charles grinned and pressed harder.

Syrus snuck closer, wishing that he at least had a sling. He could hear Bayne whispering, gasping out the words that would hold his shield until they couldn’t.

Syrus aimed. His first pebble hit. Charles started; the eruptions of deadly flame weakened. Syrus pressed his advantage, and hurled several pebbles in rapid succession.

Charles whirled. “You are as much of a fool as this one, I see!” There was a dark ring around his mouth. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that dart of yours, boy. You will pay for that now.”

Faster than lightning could fly from Charles’s fingertips, the cave sprites whirled around him, like a tornado of bats. Charles shouted at them, things that Syrus couldn’t quite understand. He feared for a moment the sprites wouldn’t be able to withstand whatever dark Elemental walked in the warlock’s skin. Several of them disappeared with shrieks under the whirlwind; Syrus guessed Charles had caught those and destroyed them, despite the Law. But the rest held firm. They pushed and pulled him toward the door and out into the hall, winding around him like thread on a drop spindle.

Syrus rushed to Bayne, who was still chanting feverishly, his arms trembling, eyes closed.

“Bayne,” Syrus said. “Bayne!”

The chanting stopped. Bayne’s eyes opened. His arms fell to his sides, but his hands didn’t cease shaking. His fingers were black, as if scorched by gunpowder.

“We’ve got to go! Can you get us out of here? I don’t know how long the sprites can hold him!”

“I can’t travel through this much rock. Not now. Just . . . get me outside,” Bayne whispered.

Syrus helped him rise, though the full weight of the Architect on his slender frame nearly toppled him. Together, they limped out into the hall, skirting the pit. Syrus listened for the sprites, but all he heard was Charles’s incoherent shouting from somewhere deep
in the pit. Then there was a great rumble, almost like a snort. The entire cavern shook with it.

“Maybe the Beast ate him,” Syrus said. He wished it were so, despite what the sprites had said about the Law of their kind.

“We can only hope,” Bayne said, trying to hobble faster.

When they finally cleared the temple mouth, Bayne removed his arm from Syrus’s shoulders and draped himself inelegantly over a boulder.

Syrus waited for only a moment, looking back toward the dark entrance. He shifted from foot to foot before he finally opened his mouth.

Bayne held up his hand. “Take my sleeve.”

Syrus grasped his magic-stained lace cuff.

And then everything—heart, breath, blood, thought—was ripped apart.

C
HAPTER
17

T
wo days after tea at The Menagerie a package arrives. I tear it open with unladylike zeal, praying to Mother Curie (though I know he wouldn’t like it) that it’s a gift, a letter,
something
from Hal.

I hide my face from Aunt Minta when I discover two books, two very unmagical books, sent from the Chatelaine of Virulen Manor to “aid in schooling the Mistress’s new Companion.” Aunt Minta picks up both
The Handbook of Excellent Service
and
A Primer for Ladies’ Companions Throughout the Realm and Beyond,
hugging them to her bosom as if they were the most precious of articles.

Then she drops them and embraces me until I’m gasping.

“I know I’ve said it so many times, my dear, but I’m so proud of you!” she whispers into my ear. I think my face must be turning blue from suffocation.

The carriage comes not long after the books. Aunt Minta is as tearful and fluttery over my departure as if I’m about to be wed. Father went to the Museum before daybreak, trying to beat the Carnival traffic, he’d said. With all the fluttering about, I’ve not once had a chance to speak to him about the Museum, and I admit after his forbidding air regarding Hal that I was afraid to try. I have
a very disheartening feeling that Father wouldn’t tell me the truth about him anyway.

“Oh, my darling, have a wonderful time,” Aunt Minta keeps saying. “Write to us as soon as you can!”

I nod, sure if I open my mouth, I’ll vomit. I stare over Aunt Minta’s shoulder at the painting of Athena as my aunt squeezes all my remaining breath out of me in a last embrace. Looking at the princess this time, I see something different. Athena’s hand gleams faintly, as mine does when I do magic. I wonder how she learned and what she learned and why she allowed herself to be executed. Why did she not use her power to free herself? Perhaps there was more to it than anyone knows. I’m beginning to believe that of pretty much everything.

Aunt Minta finally releases me and shoos me toward the
myth
work carriage outside. I climb in, pretending I don’t see all the neighbors peering out from behind their curtains or even watching from their covered porches. Our servants stand along the walkway, the maids dabbing their eyes with their aprons and the gardener removing his cap as I pass. I feel chagrined. I’m quite certain I’ve never paid this much attention to them.

The driving wight takes my carpet bag and helps me into the cavernous carriage. I sit straight against the red damask seats, clutching the reticule (in which Piskel snores among the magic books) and listening as my trunk is fastened behind. The carriage doesn’t sink as the driving wight climbs back into the box; wights are evidently weightless. Soon the unicorns march down the cobbled avenue.

For a blinding flash of a moment, I consider leaping out of the carriage and running away. But to where?

I sink back into the cushions. Surely I am the only girl to face these kinds of problems. And then I think of Athena and realize that I am not.

The carriage pulls into the Virulen’s Uptown villa just in time to avoid the first of many evening Carnival parades. A jostling, brightly-festooned crowd follows Saint Galileo from his chapel past all the Great Families’ houses to Uptown Square where the saints are housed during Carnival Week. Floats depicting the planets and stars are followed by acrobats in gold and silver trailing banners like streaking comets.

I don’t have more than a moment to watch, though, because a bevy of servants whisk me away from the carriage and up into the house. They pull me through the foyer and up the stairs before I can do much more than wonder how vast Virulen Manor must be, if this echoing cavern is really just the family’s in-town residence. The maids direct me to a chamber where they very efficiently begin stripping my clothes from me against my protests. Soon, I’m stuffed naked and shivering into a bronze tub, scrubbed until I think my skin will fall off, and then oiled until my eyes sting with the scent of orange blossom.

When they get me into chemise and corset and the hair iron is hot, the door bursts open. Mistress Lucy is in an emerald eversilk dressing gown, her hair up in curling papers, her face devoid of cosmetics. It’s a bit startling, but her curving smile snaps me out of gaping at her dishabille.

The maids make me face forward again. Lucy dismisses them with a wave of her hand.

“Tonight’s the night, my little witch,” she says, putting her hands on my shoulders. She grins at me in the mirror.

I nod, because I don’t know what else to say.

“Master Grimgorn will be there, and you must ensure his favor.” She squeezes my shoulders. Her cold hands feel a bit like claws.

My mind and heart race each other. I’m not even fully laced into my corset and my breath is so short I feel like I might faint.
The Guide
mentioned a charm for increasing affection, but many of the ingredients were impossible to procure, especially with Aunt Minta watching me like a hawk wherever we went. I’ll just have to make substitutions and hope for the best. This notion does not please me at all.

There’s a large vase of hothouse roses on the dressing table. I pull one free and sift through the petals until I find a perfectly undamaged one.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“What you just asked me to do.” I force a smile at her in the mirror.

I hold up the petal in my palm. “Kiss this,” I say, “and this will act as a seal on the charm to win his affections.”

The warm velvet of her lips presses my palm. A tiny spark shivers up my wrist. She looks at me quizzically.