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Authors: Marie Brennan

BOOK: With Fate Conspire
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He shook his head. “Drank faerie wine, as part of becoming Prince. Once you do that, you’re no good for the tithe; I doubt your friend ’ere could do it, either.”

So this was the Prince who was supposed to pass judgment on Dead Rick for what he’d done. She hadn’t seen much judging happen—but she was no longer certain she wanted it to. Not against the skriker, anyway. But Nadrett, yes. And Dead Rick had come to ask about Nadrett.

Stiffly, she reached out and took the bread. “A gift for the
Daoine Sidhe,
” Eliza said, laying the stale biscuit at Dead Rick’s side. “Take it and plague us no more.”

Irrith snatched up the food and tore a piece off, shoving it into her mouth like a starving woman. Chewing frantically, she broke off a second bite and slipped it between the skriker’s thin lips. “Go on, swallow it,” she murmured, shaking his shoulder as if that would do any good. Eliza edged her out of the way and lifted his head. Hodge gave her a hip flask, and she poured a dribble of its sweet-smelling contents into Dead Rick’s mouth, stroking his throat the way she’d done for her brothers and sisters when they were ill, until finally she thought the morsel had gone down.

He continued to twitch in her grasp. “Shouldn’t that help?” she asked, worried despite herself.

“Against all of this, yes,” Irrith said, gesturing around. Her own color had already improved visibly. “But it won’t do much against the absinthe he drank.”

Her worry grew. “I’ve never seen absinthe do this to a man. Not unless it was mixed with something bad.”

Irrith’s breath huffed out in a quiet laugh. “Our version is … special.”

Hodge’s own breath followed hard on her words, but his was a sudden hiss of pain. The man dropped into the nearest chair, his Arab companion moving swiftly to his side. Irrith said, “Are they—”

The panic in her voice was clear. Hodge waved it, and the Arab, away. “No new rails; I’ve done what I can to make sure those get put off as long as possible. But a bit of the woven stuff just went, near the Academy. We should do our business ’ere and get back; Lune can’t ’old without me for long.”

“This business ye have,” Eliza echoed. “It would be what, exactly?”

Hodge said, “Nadrett. You know who that is?” He waited for her nod before going on. “Then you know ’e’s a nasty piece of work. We’re trying to find out what ’e’s doing right now. Seemed a good bet that Dead Rick might ’ave learned something about ’im, seven years ago, and that’s why Nadrett took ’is memories. Looks like that was true, but if so, it’s gone. We gave ’im back everything in that box. ’E thought you might ’ave what ’e’d lost.”

Eliza hugged her arms around her body, feeling cold inside, despite the oppressive summer heat. “He said … Nadrett ‘smashed’ it?”

“The memories were on glass plates,” Irrith said quietly. “Photographs. Nadrett broke one whenever Dead Rick made him angry.”

The cold deepened to a sick fury. But Eliza couldn’t see how what she knew would help them. “He never told me anything about Nadrett. The last time I saw him, the only thing he said—the only thing that seemed important—was a story about a fellow named Seithenyn.”

By the looks on the others’ faces, it didn’t mean anything to Hodge or the Arab; the former was mortal, of course, and perhaps young Arab faeries learned different stories at their grannies’ knees. Irrith showed more confusion than anything else. “Seithenyn and Mererid … he told you about the
Drowned Land
? What has that got to do with anything?”

“It means Nadrett’s a fucking dead man.” It was a bone-dry whisper from the couch. Dead Rick’s eyes were still closed; Eliza was grateful to be spared another glimpse of that swirling, otherworldly green. He spoke like a medium in a trance, channeling information from some source outside himself. “Irrith—what ’appened to Seithenyn, after ’e killed Mererid and flooded the land?”

The sprite said, “He was cursed. By the waters of Faerie, because he killed Mererid, who was their daughter. If he hadn’t fled—” Her eyes, a shifting green almost as unnerving as the absinthe in Dead Rick’s, widened. “They would have drowned him. Ash and Thorn—you think Nadrett
is
Seithenyn?”

“Came ’ere,” Dead Rick said. “And made ’imself somebody else. No idea ’ow I found out … but there’s one way to know if I’m right.”

“Throw water on him?” Eliza asked.

She meant it to sound scornful; the idea was ridiculous. But the fierce, predatory smile on Dead Rick’s face told her it was no joke. “Show the waters where ’e went,” the skriker said. “Then let the curse do its work. Even if ’e runs, ’e won’t live; they’ll find ’im.”

Hodge let out a soft whistle. “Bloody well easier than trying to get at ’im by force. But first we ’ave to find ’im, and from what Bonecruncher tells me, ’e’s pushed off to Faerie already.”

A brief silence—and then Dead Rick sat bolt upright, mad eyes flying open once more. “Off to Faerie? Not bleeding likely. ’E’d die the second ’e set foot over there. Aspell was wrong!”

It seemed to mean something to everyone else there, save Eliza. Even Owen was frowning, as if trying to stitch his shredded mind back together. With the tone of a man making an argument he did not believe, but felt should be given due consideration, the Arab said, “He could still sell the right to use it, and then take his profits elsewhere. There are other lands than this, and not all are threatened by iron. Not yet, at least. Nor can he be bothered by things of your Heaven where men are not Christian.”

While Eliza frowned at his choice of words—
your Heaven,
as if there were others—Dead Rick spoke again, with cold certainty. The whirling in his eyes had slowed, but still lent his words a skin-crawling cast. “And start scratch, in a foreign land? Not a chance. ’E likes being master too much for that. I don’t think ’e’s making no passage to Faerie. I think ’e’s trying to make a kingdom for ’imself, right ’ere.”

Eliza’s oath would not have bothered anyone in the Onyx Hall; it had nothing of God in it. She might not give a twopenny damn for the fae, but the thought of the bastard who did such terrible things to Owen and Dead Rick setting himself up as some kind of lord made her go white hot with rage.

The expressions around her, though, showed varying shades of hope. Irrith said, “If he can repair the Onyx Hall—”

“Not repair,” Hodge said, with certainty. “’E ain’t in the palace—we’re sure of that. But ’e might be trying to make a
new
palace. Maybe ’e already
’as
.”

“How?” The Arab’s deep voice had the abstracted quality of a fellow whose thoughts are buried deep in a puzzle. “This must involve the photographs; if we can determine
how,
we may have some notion of what to search for.”

Eliza knew precious little about this sort of thing; her instinct was to stay silent, and let more knowledgeable people talk. But a useless silence had fallen, while everyone scowled or bit their lips and tried to find the answer, and perhaps the notion that had come into her head would help one of them. Even though it had nothing to do with the question of
how
. “What he’s photographing—’tis people, is it not?”

“It seems to be so,” the genie answered. “What are you thinking?”

Now everyone’s eyes were on her. She shrugged uncomfortably. “Only that I’ve heard tell of a number of people going missing in the East End. Not just missing: the story is, they were taken by the faeries.”

As she expected, Hodge shook his head, frowning. “That could be anybody in the Goblin Market. They steals people all the time, now.”

But Dead Rick said, “Where was it?”

“I think … I might know.”

The answer didn’t come from Eliza. The others all stared past her, and then she turned, and saw Owen standing, face paper white, hands tangled in a hard knot near his mouth.

“Did you see something? What—”

Irrith’s burst of questions cut off when she ran into Eliza’s outflung arm. She hadn’t stopped the sprite in time to prevent Owen from flinching back, but Eliza turned and put herself between them, hands on her hips, returning glare for green-eyed glare. “He’s about had enough of ye,” she said, addressing all the fae. Even Dead Rick. “What ye did to send his family away just now, I don’t want to know—but ye won’t be coming near him again. Do ye understand?”

“If you’re right about these missing people,” Hodge said quietly, not moving from his seat, “then more than just ’is safety depends on us knowing.”

“I know. But
I
will do the asking.” She turned her back on him, and looked to Owen.

He’d retreated into the corner, and stood with his hands flat against the walls. He shook his head, confusion scratching a faint line between his brows. “They say they’re my family, but I don’t—I remember you from the library. You took me to the church. And I think I remember you from before, too, but ’tis all in pieces. I thought I had a sister, but she was younger.”

Eliza’s heart ached.
Healed—but not fully. He may never be completely well again.
Wetting her lips, she said, “You’ve been gone seven years. Perhaps—perhaps it will come back to you. Were you in West Ham?” The name only deepened the crease between his brows. “In the East End,” she added. “Did Nadrett take you there?”

Haltingly, fumbling it out word by word, Owen said, “There was … a building. A warehouse. Or something. He kept people there. Like me. In cages. And one by one, they went away, until it was my turn.”

“How many people?” Eliza whispered. Whelan knew of three; she’d heard rumors of two more.

Owen shook his head again. “A dozen. Or more. I did not count.”

From behind Eliza, Irrith said, “When he took you away—”

Eliza cut her off again with a furious glare. Any idiot could see that was when Owen had been broken; his hunched shoulders proclaimed it. She had to swallow down tears before she could ask, “This building. Would you know if it you saw it?”

As gently as she posed the question, it still sent him rigid with fear. “No, no, I can’t—”

In a low voice, Hodge asked Dead Rick, “Could you sniff it out?”

“Maybe,” the skriker said, but he didn’t sound confident. “Depends on ’ow ’ard Nadrett’s trying to ’ide.”

If Eliza correctly understood what the fae had said, he would be trying very hard indeed. She risked going closer to Owen, and following him when he slid down the wall to crouch on the floor, arms around his knees. “You’re afraid of him, aren’t you,” she murmured. He nodded convulsively. “You don’t have to face him. We’ll do that part, Dead Rick and I will. But we need your help to find him first. I swear—” She hesitated, wondering if it was safe to say this to him; then she remembered the holy splendor of the baptism washing over him. “As God is my witness, I will keep you safe.”

The words produced no shiver of antipathy.
That much, we’ve done; he’s ours once more.
But Owen still looked afraid. Impulsively, Eliza reached out and took his hand in her own, gripping his fingers tight. “We don’t want anyone more to end up as you did. Help us, Owen, and we’ll stop him. You’ll not have to be afraid again.”

He might have been as mute as before, cowering on the floor like that. But after a moment, his fingers tightened hard enough to make her own ache, and he nodded.

“That’s my lad,” Eliza whispered. “We’ll bring the bastard down together.”

White Lion Street, Islington: August 24, 1884

 

How the Goodemeades had ever persuaded Mrs. Chase’s cat to play messenger for the woman, Hodge would never know. The tortoiseshell creature had shown up in his chambers, reeking of affronted dignity, with a note tied around its neck, and vanished as soon as he took the paper, with enough speed that he wondered if they’d put a faerie charm on the cat as well.

Dear Mr. Hodge, Your Highness,
the note began—Mrs. Chase had never quite grasped the proper address for the Prince of the Stone.

 

I hope you will forgive me for making bold to write you directly, but the Goodemeades are not here and I suspect this matter is one of which you would wish to be informed immediately. There is a faerie gentleman in my house, in a very poor state, who says his name is Valentin Aspell; and I believe him to be the gentleman you have been seeking but could not find. If I am mistaken, then I apologize most sincerely, but ask you to tell either Gertrude or Rosamund of his presence, as I fear he needs someone to tend his wounds. Your obt. servt., Theresa Chase.

He left for Islington three minutes later, with the Goodemeades, short as they were, almost outrunning him in their haste. It was a risk, leaving the Onyx Hall, when he’d been out just the previous night; now it was afternoon, with trains running to threaten the palace’s stability. But he could not leave the matter of Aspell for others to handle. They took a cab, Hodge paying the driver handsomely while the Goodemeades whispered to the horses, and the resulting trip to Islington would not have shamed some competitors at Ascot. They burst through Mrs. Chase’s front door, and found they were in time—if only barely.

“In a poor state” fell far short of describing Aspell’s condition. The former lord had always been pale as the underbelly of a fish; now that pallor had a grayish-green cast. If faerie bodies persisted long enough past death to need graves, Hodge would have said the bastard had just crawled out of his own.

Mrs. Chase stood by, twisting her hands, staring at the unconscious faerie on her canvas-draped sofa. “He all but fainted onto Mary when she opened the door. But I didn’t dare fetch an ordinary doctor—”

“It wouldn’t have done any good,” Rosamund said, as Gertrude knelt to peel aside Aspell’s blood-soaked shirt and coat. “Dead Rick said he was shot with iron.”

Gertrude’s breath hissed between her teeth when she uncovered the wound. Ugly black lines radiated from the torn flesh of his shoulder, spiking across his arm and chest. Enemy though he was, even Hodge flinched at the sight. He’d seen blood poisoning before, though never on a faerie.

“It looks as if he dug the bullet out himself,” Gertrude said, her fingers gently probing. Even the most delicate touch made Aspell jerk, moaning indistinctly. “But nobody drew out the poison the iron left behind. This … may kill him.”

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