With Fate Conspire (46 page)

His pulse quickened.
Maybe it ain’t just humbug.
Hodge believed there was
something
going on, deep within Nadrett’s lair—but surely if it were a passage to Faerie, they would know by now. People were fleeing, the palace emptying at a steady rate; if they could flee beyond this world, rumor would have spread like wildfire. Could be Nadrett just didn’t have it finished, but something about that didn’t fit together in Hodge’s mind.

He would ask the Academy blokes, but first, he had someone better. A former minion of Nadrett’s, who had no reason to love him now. And he’d been meaning to deal with the blighter anyway.

“Bring Dead Rick to me,” he said.

*   *   *

I wonder if ’e realizes I’m the one as knocked ’im down in Blackfriars.

Dead Rick had vaguely hoped Abd ar-Rashid’s comment about turning him over to Hodge had been something to mollify the girl. But that would require his luck turning good, and aside from getting his memories back, he hadn’t seen much sign of that happening. Yvoir was doing his best to sort out what exactly Chrennois’s cameras had done, but so far he had nothing useful to say, and they were running out of time.

At least the Prince’s court wasn’t much to speak of. Dead Rick had nothing to go by save Cyma’s occasional nostalgic recollections, but he had an imagination; what he’d imagined for the court had been a lot grander than this. There was little ceremony, and even he could recognize the spindly furniture as old-fashioned. The Prince himself dressed like a working man, even down here, in trousers and shirt probably bought ready-made, if not secondhand. It gave Dead Rick the thin consolation that his punishment might be something as ordinary as a beating. Hodge didn’t look like the sort to get
creative
.

To be honest, he looked too tired for it. Maybe the darkness that night in Blackfriars had just hidden the sick exhaustion in the man’s face, but Dead Rick would have bet anything other than his memories that the Prince had weakened more since then, as the rails raced to join up in Cannon Street. All those earthquakes, at best half suppressed.
The Queen’s got it worse,
he thought, remembering what Irrith had said. He wondered if the rest of what she’d said was true, that Hodge heard the Queen screaming.

The Prince sat with his face in his hands, scrubbing wearily at his eyes; then he drew in a breath and straightened. It was just three of them in the room, Hodge and Dead Rick and one of the Prince’s knights, Sir Cerenel. Dead Rick wasn’t even chained. Without warning, Hodge said, “Passages to Faerie. What do you know about ’em?”

Dead Rick blinked in surprise. He’d expected the Prince to read him a lecture about that mortal boy, not question him. Stupid of him; of course Hodge would want to know about Nadrett. “Scarce more than I did when I saw Irrith in the Market. Got the notion from Aspell; ’e comes to me—in secret; I didn’t know it was ’im—saying Nadrett’s trying to find a way to make one. I been looking for months, though, and the only thing I found was this business with the photos.”

“I know about those. But what’s ’e
using
them for?”

The question had been plaguing Dead Rick since that moment in the sewers. He wasn’t any closer to an answer now than before. “Blowed if I know. I can’t even invent nothing. It don’t make sense.”

Hodge pinched the bridge of his nose. “But you know Nadrett. Better than any of us do. Even if you don’t know ’ow the thing works, you can guess about
’im
.”

Dead Rick would have preferred never to think about the bastard again, except to tear his throat out. He couldn’t get there without doing this first, though. “’E loves power; that’s what I know. Loves being the biggest rat in the sewer, with everybody afraid of ’im or owing ’im debts. If this place weren’t falling apart, ’e’d probably stay right where ’e is, fighting Hardface and all the rest until there ain’t nobody to challenge ’im no more. I’ll lay a clipped penny to a loaf of bread, ’e wants to make sure ’e don’t lose that when this all falls down. And that means making sure ’e’s got something everybody wants.”

“Something everybody wants,” Hodge muttered, “and people to sell it to. Did you know ’e’s vanished from the Market?”

“What?”

“Some of ’is lieutenants, too. We’re thinking they’ve shoved off to Faerie already. But I keep wondering: Why would ’e go, and leave everybody else behind? What use is it being a king in Faerie, if you’ve got nobody to rule over? Does ’e think ’e’s going to conquer ’imself a kingdom there, using cameras?”

Dead Rick frowned. “Could be ’e’s making ready for people to follow—”

“Then why ain’t ’e saying nothing? Getting everybody outside the door, ready to leap through?” Hodge got up from his chair and paced, not like a man with too much energy, but like one who simply couldn’t bear to remain still. “Something ’ere don’t make sense.”

Sourly, Dead Rick said, “I ain’t the one to tell you. My ’ead’s more ’ole than memory, you know.”

Hodge stopped, muttered to himself, turned back to face him. “Why did ’e take your memories, anyway?”

With Dead Rick’s mind buried in the other matter, it took him a moment to understand Hodge’s. “What?”

“I ’eard what ’e did to you. What was the point? What was ’e going to use ’em for?”

“Nothing,” Dead Rick said, frowning. Irrith had told him to trust Hodge; he made himself answer more fully. “That is—they was just for keeping me in line, is all. Whenever I disobeyed ’im, ’e broke one. ’E wouldn’t do that, right, if ’e was going to use ’em for something else?”

“Probably not. But do you think you knowed something, and ’e wanted to steal it, or—”

The Prince stopped again, and they both stared at each other. “Or destroy it,” Dead Rick said, with lips and tongue that had gone quite numb.

He’d never prodded too hard at that ragged, bleeding edge within his spirit, the place where everything had been torn away. It hurt too much, and Nadrett seemed to know when he was thinking about it; his master had kept him close in those early days, and broken more than a few memories to teach his dog his place. But now—

“What’s the first thing you remember?” Hodge asked.

The boy,
Dead Rick thought, but it wasn’t true. That was just the farthest back he ever really let himself think about. Before that …

His breath came faster, his heart pounded harder, his knuckles ached from the tightness of his fists, but he made himself think back. Before the girl’s screams, before the boy’s trusting cooperation, even before Nadrett’s orders.

The earliest thing was pain.

Being thrown down onto a stone floor, puking-sick with pain that didn’t come from his body, and only white light when he blinked. “Somebody ’ad been flashing a light in my eyes,” Dead Rick said, hearing his voice flatten out with tension. “And somebody—Nadrett, I think—’e said, is that the lot, and whoever ’e asked must ’ave nodded or such, because ’e said, good. And then they dragged me out of the room, and somebody else chained me up, a chain around my neck like I was a dog even though I was a man, and then—” He stopped, unable to go further, and shook his head. There was nothing worth telling, no hint of whether he’d once known something useful. Something Nadrett would shred his mind to get.

Cerenel stepped forward, and Dead Rick nearly jerked into violence; he’d forgotten the elf-knight was there. Cerenel’s hand floated just above the butt of his pistol, though he didn’t draw. Dead Rick realized his own body had drawn wire-tight; to anyone watching from the outside, it must look like he was on the verge of something dangerous. Like hurting the Prince. Drawing in a slow breath, trying to convince himself it was calming, Dead Rick unclenched his hands. His knuckles creaked at the release.

Hodge was chewing on one fingernail, half-turned away as if trying to give Dead Rick some privacy. “Yvoir’s got to put you back together. If you knows something we can use, I want to know it, too.”

Swallowing down the memory of sickness, Dead Rick shook his head. “If I ever did, it’s gone now. That would’ve been the first bit Nadrett smashed.”

“We won’t know until you do, will we?” Hodge’s breath caught, his scent giving off a wash of unexpected pain, and he slumped abruptly down into a different chair. When he’d let the air out again, he said, “I’ll tell Yvoir to ’urry it up.”

After a brief wait, Dead Rick figured out that had been a dismissal. Startled into lack of caution, he said, “That’s it? Ain’t you going to—” His common sense caught up, and he snapped his mouth shut.

But Hodge understood him anyway. “Ain’t I going to punish you, for that business with the boy? Blood and Bone, Dead Rick—you just stood there and told me as ’ow Nadrett tortured you into being ’is dog. I suppose I could make you pay for what
’e
did—but ain’t I got worse problems?”

Dumbfounded, all Dead Rick could think to say was, “The girl—”

“The girl’s got ’er own problems,” Hodge said with exhausted finality. “’Ere’s an idea—you two take care of yourselves, and save me the trouble.”

Whitechapel, London: August 16, 1884

The light showing through the canvas over the broken window was dim, no more than a single candle’s worth. But it was enough to tell Eliza that someone was at home, and so she raised her hand to the weathered panels and knocked.

This time she heard footsteps: slow, dragging ones, the steps of a woman exhausted past the will to raise her feet. They might have belonged to an old woman, but when the door opened, Eliza saw it was Maggie Darragh. The narrow court in which they lived was dark as pitch, and with the candle behind Maggie her face was entirely in shadow, but she was too tall for Mrs. Darragh, and her shoulders slumped with weariness, not defeat. “What do you want?” she said dully.

Eliza drew a careful breath. She’d been given a mirror to look in, before leaving the Onyx Hall; she knew the face she currently wore was not her own. Seeing Maggie fail to recognize her, though, both reassured and unnerved her.

It made her task more difficult, too, which was regrettable, but necessary. She still hadn’t decided what to do about Sergeant Quinn, and after her suspicious release from the workhouse—not to mention the way she’d vanished after—she doubted the man thought well of her. The Darraghs’ room would be the first place he’d come, if he went looking. So if Eliza wanted to come here, she needed a disguise, and a better one than just a deep bonnet. She needed a faerie illusion—a glamour, as they called them.

Now she needed to convince Maggie to let strangers into her lodgings.

“Miss Darragh?” she said, and the shadow in the doorway nodded. “Father Tooley sent us. May we come in?”

At the word
us,
Maggie squinted past her into the darkness of the court, where Eliza’s companions waited. “Sent ye? Why?”

“For your mother’s sake,” Eliza answered. “We belong to a charitable society, and would like to help you if we can. I promise we won’t ask more than a few minutes of your time.” It happened occasionally, that well-meaning women from the better classes decided to help out the less fortunate. They didn’t come by at night, when few honest people were out and about, but she hoped Maggie wouldn’t think of that, not before she let them in.

From behind Eliza, a friendly voice spoke up. “We’ve fresh biscuits to share.”

Maggie hesitated as if fighting with her common sense, but the delightful smell that suddenly filled the court decided her. “Ma’s asleep, so be quiet.” She stood aside to let them in.

With the weak light of the candle now falling on Maggie’s face, Eliza saw what shadows had previously hidden. The young woman’s eyes were red-rimmed as if she’d been straining them on too little sleep, and indeed, a half-finished pair of trousers were draped across a three-legged stool, next to the room’s one light. Other fabric scattered around showed that this was no bit of personal mending; Maggie had taken on piecework to earn a few more coins. Not enough coins, if her hollow cheeks were anything to go by. Heart cramping with sympathy, Eliza wondered if the biscuits would be the first thing Maggie had eaten that day.

The small room seemed even smaller once six people were crowded into it. Mrs. Darragh lay on the bed, crumpled even smaller in sleep, with a moth-eaten wool coverlet pulled tighter over her shoulder. Maggie stood over her protectively, facing Eliza and the other three. With the door closed, they were alone as anyone could get in the back alleys of Whitechapel, where eavesdroppers were only a thin wall or floor away.

The plump woman who looked exactly like Rosamund Goodemeade, only a little taller, unfolded the napkin in her basket, revealing the biscuits inside. Their smell was sweet heaven in the drab little room, and Maggie twitched as if she wanted desperately to seize them in both hands. Rosamund gave them over freely, but Maggie just stood clutching the basket. “What is it ye want?”

Eliza wet her lips. After seven years, the moment had come; she was surprised to find it terrified her. Whatever speech she’d thought up, to explain everything in a quick and sensible way, had vanished from her mind, leaving a roaring blank. But she had to speak; Maggie’s suspicion was growing with every silent moment. The words burst out of her. “Maggie, ’tis me. Eliza. I’ve found Owen.”

Maggie’s hands went white on the basket. She gripped it now as if she would swing it into someone’s face, should they gave her half a reason. “What the devil kind of joke—”

“It isn’t a joke! The faeries had him, Maggie, as I always said, but I’ve found him, and I brought him here, but we had to disguise ourselves in case—” Eliza stopped herself. That didn’t matter; all that mattered was bringing Owen home. “Rosamund, show her—”

Like a breath of wind whispering over the fine hairs of her arms and legs, the glamour she wore fell away. And Maggie, eyes wide and unblinking, hands still white on the basket’s handle, stood rigid for a full three seconds. Then her legs gave out, and she fell hard to her knees on the floor beside the bed.

It woke Mrs. Darragh, who made a plaintive noise and rolled over. Her eyes opened; for a moment they swept over the room in unfocused confusion. When her gaze sharpened, she gave a wordless cry and sat bolt upright, one hand pressed to her heart as if it would give out on the spot.