With Fate Conspire (21 page)

“Are you all right, ma’am?”

For an instant, she thought it was Frederic Myers, come to save her from the beast. But no, it was some stranger, a different bearded gentleman from the one she knew; he stood a polite distance away with one hand outstretched in concern. Cyma opened her mouth to answer him, but nothing came out. Frowning, he stepped closer. “Shall I fetch you a doctor?”

“No! No, I—I—”

People were exiting the carriages, and those on the platform taking their places. It all happened in a rush—down at the third-class end some of the men were even shoving each other aside—as if there were no time to lose. The gentleman cast a brief glance over his shoulder, then clearly abandoned his intention to get on the train. “Come, have a seat on this bench, and I will fetch you a drink.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Cyma said, in something like better spirits, though she allowed him to guide her to the bench. “I’m afraid I just came over faint.” She clamped her jaw shut on anything else she might have said when another gust of steam burst from the train. With a ponderous clanking, its wheels began to turn once more, and the carriages rolled with increasing speed into the waiting tunnel.

The noise precluded conversation; the gentleman waited until it was gone, then said, “It is a common affliction, I fear. The Metropolitan Railway Company insists the air here is very healthful, especially for asthmatics, but I cannot imagine it is so. I take it you have not ridden the Underground before?”

Would you ride something that was trying to destroy you?
But that was untrue;
trying
implied will. The terrifying thing about the trains was that they were
not
beasts. A creature out of legend could be fought, bargained with, controlled; this was mindless. A machine, doing that for which its maker had built it, without thought or desire. The true problem was people: the men of the railway companies, who had designed such a thing, and the millions that thronged London, making the thing itself necessary—none of them with any notion as to the damage wrought by their iron demon. And she had come here to face it of her own free will. For reasons she could not, at this instant, recall.

She hadn’t answered the gentleman. “I have not,” Cyma said. “In truth, I have a—a phobia of such things, which I thought to conquer by coming here.”

“Alone? I cannot think that wise. If you will permit me, I would be more than happy to accompany you to your destination. You may grip my hand if you become frightened, and if at any point you feel you cannot continue, I will guide you out at the next station.”

A wash of gratitude swept over her. Her glamour was of a woman more than old enough to be married, and therefore to venture out without a companion, but it had indeed been foolish to come here alone. She had enough bread to spare a piece for some other faerie—if she could have found one willing to set foot in this place.

It wasn’t long before the next train came. This time Cyma was prepared, and she had her companion to steady her; he guided her into a first-class carriage, and they found a pair of leather-upholstered seats next to one another. Cyma couldn’t help but exclaim in relief when she saw there were gaslights hanging from the polished wooden ceiling, bright enough that a man might read by them. “Yes, they are a necessity,” the gentleman said. He’d introduced himself as Mr. Harding, and she’d given her name as Mrs. Campbell. “No one would travel underground if they were forced to do so in darkness.”

Even in the Onyx Hall, where goblins and other creatures of shadow made their home, that was often true. Cyma held her breath again as the train lurched into motion.

Natural light vanished almost immediately, as they passed from the glass-paneled roof arching over the station into a proper tunnel. The air was indeed foul, though now and again the train ran through an open cutting, houses rising high to either side, to ventilate the track. Cyma found the noise and motion deeply unpleasant, but so long as she did not dwell upon the terrible mass of iron that was dragging her along at such speed, her fear faded; she did not need Mr. Harding’s hand very much after all.

She wished, though, that he would not persist in extolling the virtues of the underground railway. The movement of cargo into and across the city did not interest her in the slightest, and every time he spoke approvingly of slums razed by the construction, she could not help but think of the Onyx Hall. What would Mr. Harding say, if he knew about that?

It doesn’t matter,
she told herself, staring fixedly at an advertisement for bicycles posted on the far side of the carriage.
Soon enough, you won’t have to worry about any of this any longer.
And that was why she’d come: to face the thing she feared, and to know its power over her would not last.

The train carried them through Kensington, through Westminster, into the Embankment that now chained the great Thames. That, at least, was one improvement she could applaud; the construction of sewers to prevent human waste from flowing into the river was beneficial even to fae. But as they departed Temple Station, she found her hands tightening upon her parasol once more.

Was the shudder that went down her spine her imagination at work? Or did it strike at the exact moment when the carriage passed the buried River Fleet, crossing the line of the old City wall and entering the precincts of the Onyx Hall?

Cyma found herself peering out the window as if she would be able to see the faerie palace in the shadows. An absurd thought; the picks and shovels of mortals would never breach the enchantments, even crumbling as they were. But the rails that now carried her were the ones breaking those selfsame enchantments: them, and the iron pipes for gas, and the loss of the wall itself. But the railway most of all.

Mr. Harding led her out again at Mansion House Station, having explained the situation to a conductor and paid the difference on his own ticket for Charing Cross. They emerged into the heart of the City, a stone’s throw from the Bank of England, as if all the intervening miles of London had vanished. “Will you be all right?” Mr. Harding asked her.

“Oh, yes,” Cyma said, smiling at him with so much cheer he must think her deranged. “Thank you so much for accompanying me. I don’t want to keep you from your business any longer—”

When he was safely on his way back to Charing Cross, Cyma let out a tremendous exhalation of relief and sagged against the blackened wall of the station, not caring if she made her dress filthy.
I did it. Faced the demon—rode it—and here I am, alive still.

Perhaps tomorrow she would do it again, and laugh at the thing she had so recently feared.

Made bold by that thought, she stepped toward the road, hand outstretched to wave down a hansom cab. The sun was setting; it was time to go claim her freedom.

Cromwell Road, South Kensington: May 8, 1884

Eliza counted the days like a clock counting down to midnight: twelve days until the next meeting of the London Fairy Society. Ten days. Seven. Four. Three days until she would leave the Kitterings behind forever, and go seek Owen’s salvation elsewhere. She would give her notice the day before the meeting, and shake the nonexistent dust of Cromwell Road from her shoes.

The morning she was to give notice, Eliza went upstairs, as usual, to clean the cinders from the various grates.

Miss Kittering was already awake.

The drapes were thrown wide, and the young woman had what looked like all her garments out of the wardrobe and draped across every piece of available furniture: the unmade bed, the chair, even the writing desk. It might have suggested she was about to run away for good, except that when Eliza entered, she was smiling delightedly into the mirror, holding her least favorite walking dress against her body. More than anything, she seemed like a young girl who had gotten into her mother’s jewels, and was trying them all on with abandon.

Some of her delight faded when she saw Eliza in the mirror. Clutching the dress with a faint air of guilt, Miss Kittering peered across the room as if trying to study her face, then said, “Oh. It’s you. What do you want?”

“Ah…” Eliza was startled enough that she almost answered in her natural voice. Even now, she couldn’t risk others hearing it. When she was certain of her accent, she said, “I’m here to clean the grate, and lay a fire, and open the drapes, miss. Is—is there something you need?”

“Oh, no, I’m quite well—you can go about your work.” Miss Kittering waved her hand vaguely in Eliza’s direction, then hesitated, as if she were not sure of the answer she’d just given.

Was she drunk? Eliza supposed she might have sneaked some of the brandy from the library. Miss Kittering was
humming
as she sorted through the dresses. She never hummed.

Unsure of what to think, Eliza knelt and began her work on the grate, casting glances over her shoulder when she thought Miss Kittering wouldn’t notice. The third time, Eliza spotted something shoved underneath the bed—something that looked a great deal like a rope made from knotted sheets.

So not the brandy from the library, then. Gin, perhaps, from some gambling hell, that she’d sneaked off to in the middle of the night?

“What
are
you doing?”

Eliza jerked, thinking Miss Kittering had noticed her staring under the bed. But no; the young woman was looking in perplexity at the grate, where Eliza had begun the task of rubbing in black lead. “I’m polishing the grate, miss,” she said, even more baffled.

“Do you do that every day?”

The clever course of action would have been to answer her questions, and hopefully draw out her reasons for asking them. But Eliza was so unsettled by the oddity of the entire encounter that she said what actually came into her head. “Why in the name of the Blessed Virgin do you
care
?”

Miss Kittering flinched back. Then she went very still, eyes wide; then she laughed, and in that sound was an unmistakable note of nervous relief. “Oh, I—I suppose I don’t. Carry on.”

It was inexplicable—or so Eliza thought, until an explanation came into her head. An explanation so outlandish, it should have been utterly impossible; and so it would have been, to any young woman not convinced her love had been stolen away by the faeries.

She watched Miss Kittering move about the room, playing with the strands of her golden hair, and saw the way the girl peered at things; and Eliza knew that
none
of it, from the curiosity to the way she walked, was anything Miss Kittering would ever have done.

Hand gripping the brush so tight it hurt, Eliza thought,
That is not Miss Kittering.

She had been stolen away—and replaced by a changeling.

The Goblin Market, Onyx Hall: May 9, 1884

Fae did not dream. It was one of many things for which they envied mortals: the ability to experience strange fantasies as they slept, whether born of fears or their dearest wishes come true. Fae could imagine; under certain conditions they could hallucinate; on rare occasions, they could receive visions, whether of the past, the future, or something happening in a distant land. But when they slept, their minds filled with nothing more than a black absence of thought.

So when the world began to tremble around Dead Rick as he lay in his secret refuge, he knew at once that it was real.

Real, but unimportant. The days when the Onyx Hall did
not
shake periodically were long enough ago that he couldn’t remember them. Even away from the Fleet entrance, these tremors were reasonably common. Some claimed they were caused by the trains, but Dead Rick doubted it; the trains ran many times each day, through Blackfriars Station to Mansion House and back, and the quakes were not that frequent.

Frequent enough, though, that he’d learned to ignore them. Dead Rick, jarred from his sleep, growled and lowered his head to his paws once more, waiting for the disturbance to end.

It didn’t.

A whine rose in his throat as the trembling went on. No, not trembling; this wasn’t the usual effect. The trains, or whatever caused the quakes, made everything rattle, as if something heavy were being dragged across a wooden floor. This—

Suddenly afraid, he rose to his feet. Then left them again, staggering and collapsing to the stone, as the palace
twisted
.

For one horrific moment, he had an impression of the Onyx Hall as a beast: an enormous creature, writhing in pain, trying to throw off its tormentor and failing. Nadrett sometimes flogged the people who angered him, making the rest of his followers watch. This was like being inside the faerie chained to the post, feeling the body around him flinch and cringe, recoiling at each fresh blow, trying and failing to avoid the next.

Only a moment; then the impression faded. But Dead Rick, tasting blood where he’d bitten his tongue, knew that nothing had improved. He’d just lost that moment of sympathy, the connection between his mind and whatever spirit might personify the palace.

What in Mab’s name is going on?

His three faerie lights were whirling in agitation—no, only two; the third had somehow escaped. Or been snuffed out? Dead Rick changed to man form, rushing it as much as he could, swallowing a yelp as his body protested the speed. Then he yanked aside the cloth covering the entrance and squirmed through the broken rock to the passage beyond.

He almost didn’t make it; the stones had shifted, narrowing the gap. The collar of his waistcoat caught on something and tore. Terror at the thought of being crushed by a further collapse propelled him forward, until he tumbled into the corridor. For once Dead Rick didn’t care if anyone saw him come from a supposedly closed passage; he was just grateful for the free air. When he looked up, though, he found himself alone.

Another shift, back to dog form; he’d needed his hands to climb, but now four feet would be more stable than two. The tremors hadn’t stopped: occasionally there would be a brief pause, an instant of calm, as if the Hall were fighting against whatever was hurting it, but always another wrench followed, all the worse for that fleeting respite.