A Study In Ashes Part 12

See enclosed report. I'm terribly sorry. I wanted you to know before you heard elsewhere. S.

London, September 25, 1889.

LADIES' COLLEGE OF LONDON.

3:55 p.m. Wednesday.

EVELINA HAD READ THE NOTE SHE'D PULLED FROM THE LIBRARY wall several times already. She had been expecting something else-a request for information, or an opinion about something from the magical realm. Sometimes it was a question Holmes wanted her to slide into a conversation she had with Keating, never letting on who wanted the answer. She'd become her uncle's direct line to the Steam Council-or at least one of them-since she'd become the Gold King's prisoner. Keating liked dropping ominous bits of news, presumably to keep her afraid. Anything credible she pa.s.sed on via the library wall. Playing informant gave her a sense of purpose beyond her life as a caged pet.

But this time the note was different. Her uncle didn't pepper his letters-or any other communication-with expressions of emotion, so if he said he was terribly sorry, it had to be awful. Evelina had left the report folded shut since she had pried it from its hiding place yesterday, terrified of what it might contain. This morning, she had imprisoned the unread thing underneath a heavy book about scientific weights and measures.

Now hours had pa.s.sed and shadows crept from the edges of the room, eating into the pool of light cast by the gaslit chandelier. A few wall sconces joined the combat against the gloom, but it felt as if the air itself was growing gray with the gathering dusk. It mirrored Evelina's burgeoning sense of unease.

So she forced herself to get to work, focusing hard on the tasks she had set for herself. Moriarty had sent her the a.s.signments the male students had to complete, as well as the supplies to work through them herself. It was the first real help she'd had since arriving there.

Briskly she gathered the chemicals, cleared the worktable, and began to measure and pour. All she had to do was perform the steps, observe, and take notes-it was as simple as following a recipe. Except that every time she read the instructions she was supposed to follow, her mind darted back to the folded paper her uncle had sent, the unread set of words imposed over the others like a ghost determined to haunt her. She was going to accomplish nothing until she knew what it said.

With a curse, she fished the tightly creased sc.r.a.p of paper out from under its imprisoning tome and fumbled it open. She stood as she smoothed it out on the table, as if towering above the words gave her power over their message. The report was a single handwritten page, marked up as if an editor had gone at it with a pencil. It was the draft of a story to be printed in a newspaper; her uncle had contacts at the Prattler, so it probably came from there.

REMAINS OF PIRATE s.h.i.+P LOCATED AT LAST.

After months of speculation as to the final fate of the pirate vessel the Red Jack, sources report the charred remnants of an airs.h.i.+p matching the size and configuration of the notorious craft have been found on a farmer's property due south of London at the Willington crossroads, along with the bodies of the crew. Londoners will not soon forget the air battle last November, when the rebel pirates met their end. Nor will the populace soon forget the supplies the brave outlaws ran through the barricades of the Steam Council, enabling those who cannot afford the heat and light due to the cupidity of the so-called steam barons ...

"Cupidity" had been struck out and "greed" written above, and then the rest was barely readable, crossed out and reworded in a cramped handwriting Evelina couldn't decipher. That part wasn't important to her anyway. What did matter was the fact that Nick had been captain of that s.h.i.+p. Imogen hadn't been the only one struck down that day. Oh, Nick.

She'd offered Jasper Keating access to her magical talents in return for the Red Jack's safety. He'd intervened too late to save the s.h.i.+p, but had taken her captive anyway. The devil's bargain she'd made with the Gold King might have been worth it if only Nick had lived. But the article confirmed one more time that he hadn't.

Shaken, she braced her elbows on the table and leaned her forehead on her clenched fists. She feared the sorrow pounding through her, hollowing out what little courage she had left.

She'd searched for Nick at first, hunting for him in the spirit realms as she had hunted Imogen, but there had never been a sign. Admittedly, Nick's magic was tied to the air the way hers was tied to earth and woodland. They were opposites, two halves of a magnet, and sometimes that made them blind to each other. But still ... no, there was no reason to think he lived. Not after that crash. Not after those cold words in some reporter's scrawl.

The pain of loss came in hot, salty tears tracking over her cheeks. Until now, until this fresh slice, Nick's absence had grown familiar, thumbed through like a diary written end to end with the story of her guilt. Evelina had asked him to help in Imogen's rescue, and he'd done it at the cost of his own life. It was her fault he'd been there at the battle. Yes, she had tried to save him, but she'd failed. She made a strange, gasping sound, and started to sob silently, clenching her teeth so she didn't make any noise. She didn't want anyone pa.s.sing by her rooms to hear.

If only. Her life had been a string of if onlys, but the real question was what now? She had been numb and then furious at her fate. The anger had risen like a fever, but like a fever it had eventually broken. It had to, or she would have burned to death in the fires of her own outrage.

She had felt empty ever since. Most days she could keep the chasm inside hidden even from herself-but not after news like this.

The shuddering stopped, and Evelina wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. Mechanically, she rose and went to her bedchamber to wash her face. The room was pleasant, but had little that marked it hers. The only familiar object was the black leather train case her Grandmamma Holmes had given her, sitting on her dresser.

She poured water into the basin and splashed her face, her bracelets clinking against the china washbasin. Normally she avoided the mirror, but she couldn't help catching a glimpse of herself in the oval gla.s.s that hung above the washstand. Why are you here, when Imogen and Nick are gone? There was no good answer to that. She wasn't even sure it was true. Her dark hair was neatly pulled back, her features as they had always been-but today she seemed a stranger, as if somehow she'd walked into the wrong life.

The disorientation was nothing new. She'd felt it often since arriving at the college, as if this was all someone else's nightmare. Maybe too much had happened. Maybe she spent too much time alone. Or maybe it was that everything she'd hoped to find here had been a false promise. Perhaps Deirdre, simply looking for a husband, had the right of it-except that there would never be anyone else for Evelina. All she could do was endure.

She pulled a towel from the hook beside the washstand and dried her face, scrubbing until her cheeks lost their bloodless hue. Then she went back to work.

This time the words on the page behaved themselves, and she began making progress. She measured and mixed carefully, her mind as carefully calm and light-footed as someone venturing across a fresh-frozen pond. This was the same experiment that had blown up the laboratory-Moriarty was taking a risk by giving her the materials for it-and she refused to contemplate anything except what was right before her nose. She turned on her small gas burner and picked up a beaker with a pair of long-handled tongs.

A noise outside the door made Evelina jump, and the beaker in her hand wavered. A drop of liquid spilled from the lip, splas.h.i.+ng to the burner below. She s.h.i.+ed away just in time to avoid a rush of bright green flame that fountained upward.

She barely had time to suck in a breath before the flame vanished, the destabilized aether distillate consumed in a flash. Evelina's hand shook slightly as she placed the beaker back on the table and turned down the flame. Only then did she have the nerve to look upward and see yet another nasty scorch mark on the ceiling, joining the other two she'd already made so far since setting up her own equipment.

"b.u.g.g.e.r," she said quietly, and then hastened to open the window before the matron detected the odor of her handiwork. The quadrangle lay steeped in semidarkness. As predicted, the skies had opened up. The brown stone buildings had a.s.sumed a dour air, as if they disapproved of the sensibly dressed young females hurrying through the pelting rain.

Then the noise came again, and what remained of her concentration scattered. At first she'd thought it was another student cras.h.i.+ng about-give a girl a hockey stick, and bid the walls farewell-but it was someone knocking on the door. d.a.m.n and blast on toast with cheese. The last thing she wanted was to face a visitor. Irritably, she went to answer the door.

"Who is it?" she asked, half expecting the matron. The stern-faced woman checked on her daily, no doubt to make sure she didn't perish from a nasty chemical accident.

The Clock Tower blearily announced five o'clock, its bongs sounding forlorn through the steady patter of the downpour. Evelina opened the door, heard the familiar creak of the hinges, and stopped cold. For a moment, her mind lagged behind her senses, failing to process obvious data.

"Tobias," she said stupidly. "Why are you here?"

The look in his gray eyes was impossible to read. He'd always been tall and fair, handsome as a fallen angel. That was still true, but there was no denying he had changed. The lines of his face were sharper, the set of his mouth devoid of any laughter. Tobias Roth looked like a man who rarely slept.

"Are you that shocked to see me?" he said, his voice flat.

"Frankly, yes." The last time they'd been alone together, all kinds of disaster had followed.

"Then we are of a single mind. I'm astonished to find myself here." He took off his hat. "The matron knows of my presence. You needn't worry about being thrown out for entertaining unauthorized visitors."

He clearly expected an invitation into her rooms, but Evelina balked. Once Tobias had been her best friend's das.h.i.+ng brother, and she had loved him with the innocent fervor of a schoolgirl. Then he had been the man she'd wanted to marry, and he had all but proposed. Now he was a husband and father, and he had no business standing on her threshold.

A thread of anger, and anguish, tightened her throat. "You didn't answer my question. Why are you here?"

The corners of his mouth twitched down. "It wasn't my idea. Keating sent me."

That made her fall back a step. He took the opportunity to push past, the folds of his coat swirling behind him. Evelina smelled the rain and a waft of his cologne. Once that alone might have made her weak, but she'd learned the hard way it never paid to be too soft when it came to Tobias. The man had a way of obliterating her good judgment.

But that wasn't her only worry. "Is there news of Imogen?"

"Nothing new. Nothing new with anyone."

He was still using that flat tone, and it raked her already raw nerves. She was still teetering on the edge of weeping, and that was the last thing she wanted. Not in front of Tobias. "Then to what do I owe the honor?" she asked dryly. "I thought it was Keating's wish that we stayed apart. I seem to recall you marrying his daughter."

"That's old history."

The offhand remark smarted. "You must be close to your first wedding anniversary."

Tobias didn't reply. Instead, he stood uneasily in the middle of the room, looking around at the bookshelves and stuffed furniture.

"Things have changed." Tobias set his tall hat on the table. It looked elegantly out of place beside the explosion of her books and papers. "I'll be the one checking on you from now on. Once a week."

Evelina's face went numb with surprise. She'd thought things couldn't get worse. "What? Every week?"

His brow furrowed. "For pity's sake, I'm not a leper."

No, you're a knife to the heart. "It's always been Keating, or his man of business. Why you?"

Tobias gave a short, sharp laugh. "Don't you wish to visit with me?"

A protest hovered on her lips, and she teetered between honesty and good manners. Honesty won. "Is this some kind of test? Are you here to shake my virtuous resolve, Mr. Roth?"

Is that even possible anymore? Too much had been stripped away from her. She wasn't even sure she had that kind of feeling left in the ruins of her heart. And yet, while she'd adored Nick for as long as she could remember, she had once pined for Tobias, too. There was a time when they had both held a piece of her soul, and to her confusion she had learned that it was entirely possible to love more than one person.

But in the end, it became all too clear that Tobias couldn't love whom he chose, and now he was more entangled than ever. And after the feast of Nick's pa.s.sion, she would never go back. She would have all of a man, without reserve, or nothing at all.

Tobias was regarding her sadly. "You were never the one at fault, Evelina. That was always me."

Evelina gave him a long, careful look. His clothes were still fine, but there was something untidy about him. It wasn't the disarray of a drunkard or a mad genius. He looked as if he simply didn't care anymore. As if something inside him had broken.

"Don't be daft," she said more tartly than she intended, and turned to fuss with the books on her desk. "We never did more than kiss."

"Only that? I rather thought we meant something to each other once."

Evelina froze, her back to him. She gripped a heavy book, longing to throw it. "Of course! Yes!"

"I'm happy to hear it."

Anger speared through her-at him, at Keating, at herself for rising to the bait. She didn't want this, and Tobias didn't know enough to leave her in peace. She felt her fingers clench hard, nails digging into the book's fat spine. "I surrender. What do you want me to say?"

She abandoned the volume and turned. They ended up mere feet apart, squared off like opponents in the ring. Gradually, a silence fell over the room, the only sound the rain pattering outside, a door closing down the hall. Evelina could feel the s.p.a.ce between them like a physical pressure, hot and p.r.i.c.kling on the skin.

"Say nothing." Tobias's face was bland but when he spoke, his voice held an entire palette of emotion. "I'm forced to be your jailor. I'm supposed to ensure you are behaving yourself. That is all."

And at that moment she knew that this visit was his punishment, not hers. Keating was well aware that it hurt Tobias to see her. How much her magic appalled him. She sucked in her breath, feeling it catch under her heart. It would destroy Tobias if he thought she understood-and worse yet if they acted on any lingering feelings. They knew that from the last time they'd slipped. Never again.

Evelina felt as if she were falling. She was already choking on the ocean of grief in the room and it seemed unfair that she had to find strength to face more. But there was no choice-people in shackles didn't get to walk away. And just because Tobias couldn't be her lover, that didn't mean she dismissed his pain.

Mustering her courage, she drew herself up, raising her chin at a teasing angle. "I'm going to write and complain. Even a prisoner has rights."

His eyebrows rose. "Rights?"

"You're like a bad omen. Whenever you and I meet, things go wrong. The least Keating could do is protect me from that."

One corner of his mouth quirked. "You can't blame me for everything. It smells like something exploded in here."

"You knocked and startled me."

"And caused an explosion?"

"I spilled my solution into the flame. It was your fault."

"That's logic fit for a madhouse."

"Don't be cruel." She held up her wrists to show the silver cuff on each arm. "If I've gone half insane, consider my circ.u.mstances."

His chin tucked in, a gesture of surprise, and then he grasped her right forearm for a better look. Silence held them for a moment. Until Keating had taken her prisoner, Tobias had never known about her magic-indeed, he loathed anything that smacked of the supernatural. She braced herself for recrimination and distaste, but it didn't come.

"Keating told me about these." He turned the bracelets over. They appeared solid, their only markings a tiny bit of flowing script that read: Her Majesty's Scientific Laboratories.

"Did he tell you how they work?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Only that the cuffs keep you within the boundary of the college. Keating's men can track you if you wander off."

She shuddered. "I would never make it that far. They deliver a horrid shock if I try to leave. It's as if a thousand darning needles are amputating my arms at the elbows."

Evelina felt a b.l.o.o.d.y satisfaction at the horrified look on his face. But beneath her triumph was a twisting ma.s.s of hurt and shame. She'd been trapped and caged, and it galled her.

"That's monstrous," he said softly.

She didn't know how to reply to the pity in his voice. But then she saw his bandage, and it gave her something else to focus on. "You're hurt." She reached out, touching the wound linen that peeked from beneath his sleeve.

"Just a steam burn," he said. "Nothing at all. Nothing like the rest of our wounds." And he put his hand over hers, fingers gently wrapping hers in familiar warmth.

Oh, no. She put her other palm against the gray wool of his coat, jewels of rain still caught on the soft weave. His chest moved, alive and warm, and loneliness swamped her. But this time she knew enough to pull away. That loneliness was her ache for someone else. Someone who not only loved her magic, but had his own. "I made this bargain."

"For the sake of Captain Niccolo," Tobias said in a tight voice.

There was nothing she could say. "Yes."

There was a long silence, then Tobias sighed, something extinguished in his eyes. "I'm sorry. Believe that I want you to be happy."

Evelina felt her chin tremble and ducked her head. If she cried, Tobias would hold her, and right then they were both sad enough to need the warmth of it. But it wouldn't lead anywhere either of them could go. She cleared her throat, pulling her pride to her like a child clutches a blanket. "Are you happy?"

He hesitated, but then his mouth quirked. "Sometimes."

"I'm glad." She felt the energy between them s.h.i.+ft, moving away from the most dangerous ground. She relaxed an infinitesimal degree. "And at least I get the education I always wanted."

"Is it everything you thought?"

His question caught her off guard. "No."

Tobias stood patiently, waiting for more.

"I don't know," she finally said. "I've been through too much to content myself with the predigested nonsense they consider suitable for females."

A smile tugged at his lips. "I understand there was an incident. Were you making a statement?"

She sighed. "For the record, the demise of the laboratory was not premeditated."

"Keating hopes you'll find a way to put magic into machines. It would put him miles ahead of the rest of the Steam Council."