The Unnaturalists (6 page)

He pressed something round and flat into Syrus’s palm.

“Here is our token. If you have dire need of us, clasp it and whisper this spell:
Et in Arcadia ego
.”

“Et in—”
Syrus began.

The Architect clapped a hand that smelled of lizard skin over Syrus’s mouth. “Not now, boy! Dire need! Dire!”

Syrus nodded and the Architect dropped his hand. “Dire need. Yessir.”

“Good. Now off you go. I’ll keep watch until you’re safely across the river.”

“Thank you, sir,” Syrus said.

But the Architect had already turned his back and was peering beyond the carriage wheels to make sure no one was creeping closer to them. He signaled that Syrus should make haste.

Syrus scuffled out from under the carriage, shivering in the chilly night air. Truffler leaped on his back and climbed astride his head as he waded into the river.

“
Nainai
will never believe this,” he muttered, as the icy water clutched at his waist.

Then again, he thought, she just might.

C
HAPTER
5

I
dislike when other people work in my laboratory, particularly when that other person happens to be Charles Waddingly. The Wad’s at the other bench now, puttering about, watching me like a hawk. Somehow, he’s convinced Father I need help cataloguing Pedant Simian’s latest collection, which the good Pedant brought to me because he knows I’m better than anyone at identifying the lesser sylphids. Since the incident with the Sphinx, I’m more than happy to occupy myself with this task, though I’d much prefer to be doing it alone.

I don’t need Charles to tell me how to do my work, but I’m quite certain that’s not what he’s here for anyway. He’s watching me to make sure I don’t go poking around, looking for the strongbox he and Father brought back to the Museum. It’s the only thing that could possibly lure me away from the lab, but Charles knows me less well than he thinks. I’m waiting for Father to relax, for the furor about the Sphinx to die down. I have time.

I try to ignore Charles by burying my nose in a catalog called the Ceylon Codex. The pictures are oddly drawn, brushstrokes rather than the usual illumination. There’s one that fascinates me—it looks like a bearded, horned Dragon. I try to decipher the
characters next to it, odd shapes that no one can read. One of them reminds me of the characters inscribed on the bottom of my toad. The toad I no longer have.

I clench the book a little tighter and then remind myself I’ll get it back. Even if I have to sneak off to Tinkerville and rifle through every one of those rusting trains to get it.

I trace the edge of the Dragon’s scales with a fingertip. If only I could see an Unnatural like this in the wild. If I could have one wish, I’d be off in an airship tomorrow, mounting my own expedition. There are still so many Unnaturals we don’t yet understand. Yet the life of a Pedant is not mine to choose.

Unless I somehow take it.

For a moment, my fingers are still on the page. I no longer see the sylphid sprawled next to me, its tiny arms obscenely limp, but a feverishly green jungle filled with living Unnaturals. Perhaps I witness Wyverns in their mating dance, or see a Giant wading over distant hills. Perhaps I see this long-bodied, golden-horned Beast. Greenmen and dryads peer at me from their trees. The air is thick with sylphids floating around me like clouds of butterflies. . . .

Charles shouts. A golden fog buzzes in front of my face. I can barely focus before a sharp pain at the tip of my nose sets my eyes watering. Before I can swat it, something darts away, twittering madly.

“What did you do?” the Wad screeches. When he gets excited, his voice sounds more like a girl’s than mine does. I strip off my gloves, holding the end of my nose in my bare hand, dashing the tears out of my eyes with my other hand.

A flock of sylphids flits around madly. They try to escape
through the skylight, tossing curses down at us that manifest as tiny darts.

It’s then I understand why Charles is so upset. He’s closest, and he’s hopping around, waving his arms around his head, literally on pins and needles.

I cover my mouth with my hand so he won’t see my grin.

“Don’t just stand there gawking! Get your father and a containment unit!” Charles yells, as he crawls under the bench for cover.

“But, Mr. Waddingly,” I say, mostly to prolong his obvious consternation, “could we not simply use that ladder and one of those butterfly nets to catch them? Perhaps then we could subdue them just enough for observation. . . .”

“What? And have them blind us with curses? You sound like a bloody Architect,” he says, almost spitting the name. “We don’t need to study them! Just get your father—he’ll know what to do! And see you don’t let them out the door, either!”

I don’t like being ordered about by the likes of the Wad, but he has a point. If the sylphids get out on their own, they could truly wreak havoc. Not on the order of the Sphinx, of course, but still. They’re small and obviously adept at cursing things. As a group, it’s possible they could do a good bit of damage.

Of course they may just find a way to escape and have done, like the kobold at Miss Marmalade’s. Or the Grue. The Museum lost him not long after I came here, and such a creature is very, very bad to lose. No one knew exactly how it had all happened, but of course the Architects of Athena were blamed. Anything that goes wrong is always blamed on the Architects.

Or Athena herself, though saints know she’s been dead for five hundred years. She was a Princess, the only female Pedant. She was
also a witch. Unfortunately for her, her father the Emperor happened to dislike witches quite a bit. He took to heart the saints’ old maxim,
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live
. He had her hauled out to the Creeping Waste and executed. Practically every household with a daughter has the painting called
The Chastening of Athena
hanging somewhere. It shows Athena dissolving into salt, looking back mournfully at our great city of New London. It’s a warning to us all.

Of course, in my typical stubborn fashion, I rather see it as a challenge.

“Miss Nyx!” Charles shouts from under the bench. I realize I’ve been daydreaming again.

I make certain the sylphids are still occupied with the skylights, and then I slip out the door.

I hurry down the corridor to the emergency closet, remembering just as I pull it open and find no containment unit that the old unit was sent out for repairs. The only unit we have left right now is in storage below the old observatory.

I run past a series of dour paintings, the founding Pedants of the Museum and the University of New London. The last one is of Athena, but I’ve never seen her face in this portrait, because it’s draped all in black.

I want to pull it down and look on her face, to see the one whose footsteps I’m following when she’s calm and serene.

Mind, I’m not interested in her because of the magic. No, I follow her because I’m determined to change history. We have an Empress now. Why can we not have a female Pedant? I’ve heard there was also an Empress in Old London. Surely there were female Pedants there, as well.

It’s hard to know. History begins with Saint Tesla and the
experiment that brought us here to found New London. That’s the only history for which there are more than whispers and rumors. The rest of history before the New Creation is as shrouded as Athena’s portrait. We find rumors of it in antiquary shops, in the codices we use to identify Unnaturals and the Holy Scientific Bible, but Old London simply isn’t spoken of in polite conversation. One mustn’t dwell on the past. Or so Aunt Minta says.

I’ll take the old lift on the way back, but the stairs are faster right now. I hurry down them into the darkness; my boots echo on the worn marble.

Two floors down and the storage corridor greets me with its moldering damp and flickering everlights.

Right as I come alongside another stair barred by an iron gate, all the lights go out. I stand still, holding my breath. If the lights are out, that means that everything’s out—the paralytic fields, containment units, water closets. I can’t help but think about the other day when someone pushed me through the field and nearly let the Sphinx loose. Who did it? And why?

The Architects cross my mind again, and I’m not sure what to do. We’re trained upstairs to lock ourselves in safety closets until help arrives. But it’s pitch dark and there are no safety closets. No one knows I’m down here. Leave it to the Museum designers to assume no one would be in storage during an emergency.

And then I hear it—a deep inhalation, a vast purr. Something is breathing down here. Gooseflesh raises on my exposed skin as I think of the Grue again. Pedant Mervold managed to collect it on his expedition in a Southern stinkswamp. It was a dark and mysterious creature—couldn’t bear being exposed to light. Supposedly, it ate people’s hearts and lived inside their skins, stashing the bits
of their organs in little caches here and there. Father wasn’t sure it belonged on display, but Mervold was so proud of capturing it and it truly was fascinating. It was on exhibit for a little while, trapped in a field like the other Greater Unnaturals. And then one day, it vanished without a trace. The entire Museum was scoured for bodies or bits of bodies, but the search turned up nothing.

Rumor has it that it’s still hiding in some dark corner. And no one knows how long a Grue can go without eating.

Another deep breath. Can it hear me? Is it stalking me even now in the dark?

Something floats past my fingertips—the ghost of scales, the tickle of phantom claws.

I can’t help it.

I scream.

I scream so loud I think it scares the lights back on.

They flare again along the corridor, brighter than they were before. The Museum above me hums and whirs to life; the pipes along the ceiling clank with steam forced from the
myth
furnaces deep below.

I still think I can hear breathing under the murmur and hiss, but Father would say it’s just my foolish fancy, and that I should be careful of my fancies getting the better of me.

I shrug and move on past crates and leaning, canvas-covered paintings, past the dark mouths of rooms filled with dusty specimens. Things shimmer in the gloom—glass eyes and scaled wings. I look carefully to see if anything has gotten loose in the power drain, but storage is empty of any living thing except me.

The closet is unlocked, thanks be to the saints, because I forgot my keys in all the kerfuffle. I drag the unit out of the closet,
and its wheels squeak behind me all the way to the lift. I’d swear the breathing noises hitch as if I’ve disturbed something deep in a dream, but again, I am nothing if not fanciful.

I slam the lift door closed as quickly as possible, just in case the Grue is on my heels.

Upstairs is a madhouse. Scholars and Pedants are dashing everywhere, casting disdainful glances at me as I struggle to get the ancient unit over a crack in the tiles. I’m considering leaving it so that I can go find Father more quickly (though the thought of the Wad impaled by sylphid curses is pleasant), when Pedant Lumin enters the Museum through the University archway and comes to my aid.

“Let me help you, Miss Nyx,” he says in that low, steady voice.

He mistakes my frown for annoyance at him, but I’m thinking of how I once again look just as I did the other day—wild hair, stained apron, ungloved. I look down and see my left boot is also unlaced and my face flames. Why do I care this much about appearances?

I hear the smile in his voice as he says, “Unless you’d rather keep dragging that heavy thing along behind you. Where are you taking it?”

“Upstairs.”

He raises a brow. Again, I feel as though I’m looking at him through a cloud. He’s not handsome, but certainly not unhandsome, either. And I definitely don’t feel as though someone’s dumped a chamber pot over my head when he’s looking at me.

I stammer a bit before I can think what to say. Finally, the words push through my teeth. “I have to find my father; there’s been a slight accident upstairs in Cataloguing. Charles requested that I bring Father along with the unit.”

Pedant Lumin’s lips quirk, before he says, “Would you like me to take the unit upstairs for you?”