Chapter 27
One would think, as the day progressed and the sun rose higher, that the room would get warmer.
Not so. If anything, Nigel was convinced that, in the last hour, the temperature had dropped by several degrees.
He checked the radiator—it wasn’t frozen solid.
Mrs. Boggs had, apparently, turned it on.
But she must have it at its absolute lowest setting.
It might as well be defunct for all the good it was doing.
He marched to the door, down the garret stairs, to the top of the fifth floor stairway. “Mrs. Boggs!” he bellowed.
A cacophony of small barking dogs accompanied the percussion of swift, disapproving footsteps.
He listened to both footsteps and dogs rounding their way up several flights of stairs, until finally Mrs. Boggs’s stern face appeared below him, illuminated by the musty hall lamp. “What now?” she demanded.
“The radiator! Turn it up!”
“It’ll cost extra!”
“I don’t care!”
“She doesn’t have any money, that girl!”
“I do! Send the bill to The Arcane Bouquet.”
“How do I know you’re good for it?”
By gods, but the urge to blast her into the next dimension was almost overpowering! But no. No, that’s not what Luna would want.
Nigel pulled his silver pocket watch out from his waistcoat.
It had belonged to Great Aunt Galatea and, before her, to her father.
A family heirloom and, even from down the stairway, Mrs. Boggs could see that it was worth a pretty penny.
Nigel watched her eyes light up with greed.
“Here,” he said, and tossed it down to her. “For security.”
Mrs. Boggs caught the watch, turned it over several times. Grunted. Then she stumped back downstairs.
“And where’s that doctor?” Nigel shouted after her.
“He’s coming when he can!” she hollered back, her voice just discernable above the yapping of her terriers.
Nigel had no choice but to return to the garret. There he perched on the edge of Bryony’s stripped bed, rubbing his hands together and watching to make certain Luna did not throw off her blankets again.
A sudden, hideous, roaring clatter erupted in the stillness.
It sounded like nothing so much as demons from the Dire Dimensions rattling chains and ripping through layers of warding spells.
Luna woke with a scream that turned into a terrible coughing spell, and Nigel leapt to his feet, hands forming sigils of protection .
. . only to realize it was the old radiator, protesting the steam abruptly rising through its frozen pipes.
Nigel cursed and went to Luna’s side, where she doubled over on the bed.
“It’s all right, Miss Talbot!” he shouted, trying to make himself heard over the rattle and bang.
“It’s just the heat coming on! It should be over soon! ”
It was difficult to be soothing when yelling at the top of his voice.
One of Luna’s thin hands wrapped around the lapel of his overcoat.
She peered up at him through strands of limp hair, her coughing fit subsiding.
It occurred to Nigel that he had never seen her hair like this before—so flat and lifeless, without either the bounce of pin-curls or the frizz of humidity.
It made her look quite ghostly, especially paired with the hollows around her red eyes and those bloodless lips.
And yet she was still the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.
The radiator was just beginning to calm into a gentle hum and hiss of steam, when Luna began coughing again.
She clung to him, her fingers gripping with surprising strength, as the agonized hacking tore from her throat and lungs.
Nigel could do nothing but hold her, support her, his cold, trembling hands wrapped around her burning skin.
He tried not to notice how the strap of her nightgown had fallen, baring her shoulder.
When the fit passed, he leaned her carefully back against the pillows and hastily pulled the blankets back up to her chin, tucking them tight. She turned her face toward the wall, shivering, and apparently unaware of his presence.
The room grew warmer by degrees. Nigel removed his coat and draped it over the end of Bryony’s bed.
Not much later, he removed his suit jacket as well.
Apparently, the radiator’s settings were either frigid or fiery crucible.
Eventually it grew so warm, Nigel was obliged to crack the one window to let a little air in.
He was just going about this task when he heard footsteps on the garret stairs.
Bracing himself, he turned to face the onslaught of Mrs. Boggs, prepared to do battle yet again.
Instead, however, an older man in a bowler hat, sporting a mustache that was more salt than pepper, stepped through the door.
“Saints above us!” he declared, surveying the room with dismay even as he pulled the scarf from around his neck. “Who lit the forge?”
He turned a keen-eyed gaze Nigel’s way, his expression immediately settling into one of intense disapproval.
He set a heavy medical bag down on the rickety table, tearing off his overcoat and hat.
“All right, I’m here,” he growled. “Spent the morning tromping through this leaky-icebox of a city on house calls, and was just sitting down to me luncheon, when lo! The phone rings, summoning me back into the winter wilds. Someone better be on the brink of death, or else I’ll be adding the cost of me soup and sandwich to the bill! ”
Nigel took in the man’s frayed cuffs and old shoes. “You’re the doctor?” he asked.
“No, I carry a medical bag around for the pure aesthetics of the thing.” The old man sneered out from under his mustache and pushed past Nigel to Luna’s bedside.
“Bucket’s the name. And yes, it’s Doctor Bucket to you.
I’ve been serving the slums of Lower Eastside for the better part of a half-century, and there’s not much I haven’t seen in that time. So tell me, what do we have here?”
Nigel opened his mouth, but was interrupted by yet another eruption of painful coughing from Luna.
The old man turned his face away, waiting for the fit to subside.
Then he pulled down the blankets and pressed his stethoscope to her chest, listening intently.
“There it is,” he declared after a moment.
“Pneumonia. Both lungs. Bad case of it too, I’m afraid.
Not a very merry Green Yule for this unlucky miss. ”
Nigel’s innards knotted tight. “How serious is it, Doctor?”
“Serious enough that I won’t charge you for me soup,” Doctor Bucket replied, casting Nigel a resentful look.
“This is the way of it every holiday season, ain’t it?
Just when a man most wants to put his feet up and listen to the gentle strains of the Bally Philharmonic over the thaumatic waves .
. . bam! Half of Lower Eastside succumbs to deadly plague or bile or pestilence or whathaveyou! ”
He proceeded to give Luna a thorough examination, for which Nigel turned his back to offer privacy. He half-wondered if, now the doctor was here, he ought to remove himself from the vicinity entirely. But he couldn’t bear to. Not until he knew she would receive proper care in every particular.
The room grew more oppressively warm by the moment. Nigel loosened his tie, unfastened his collar.
Finally, the doctor rose from Luna’s beside—taking care to duck away from the low ceiling—and stomped over to his medical bag. “Are you her husband?” he asked, even as he popped it open and rummaged inside.
Nigel’s throat thickened. “No,” he admitted.
“Brother?”
He shook his head.
“What are you then?”
“I’m her—” Nigel paused. He’d almost said boss, but then, remembering the lie he’d told earlier, switched at the last second. “I’m her cousin.”
“Uh huh.” Doctor Bucket paused his rummaging to cast Nigel a knowing look. “Good character my arse,” he muttered as he went back to business, pulling oddments from the bag’s depths. “Tell me, are you the kind of cousin who feels comfortable applying poultices?”
“Poultices?” Nigel’s brows rose. “You mean, as in . . . on her . . . ?”
“That’s right. On her chest. To draw infection from the lungs.”
“I’ve never . . . That is to say, I have no experience . . .” Nigel stopped. His hands felt suddenly sweaty, sweatier even than the rest of his overheated self. “Whatever she needs,” he finished lamely.
“You don’t need to undress her, if that’s a worry,” Doctor Bucket added, with another speaking look Nigel wouldn’t dare to interpret.
“I’ll apply the first one now and leave you with the stuff.
You just clear off the old one and apply the new every two hours, until there’s a change in her breathing.
” The old man raised a salty brow. “It’s going to be a long day followed by a long night, I’m afraid.
If she can pull through ‘til morning, I trust she’ll be all right.
She’s young and strong; there’s a good chance there won’t be any permanent damage. But only if someone’s here for her.”
“I’ll be here,” Nigel said immediately.
Doctor Bucket grunted. “Have you managed to get any liquid into her?”
“Tea. Chamomile.”
“Good. Water too, if you can. And”—the doctor pulled out a glass bottle and what looked like a small, plastic shot glass—“this. Don’t try to disguise it in the tea. It won’t work. Nasty stuff, but you make sure she swallows. She’ll try to spit it up, so you’ll have to hold her mouth closed.”
Nigel’s eyes widened in horror. His ears pounded so that he could scarcely take in the dosage instructions. “I’m . . . I’m not sure I can do that,” he managed at last.
Doctor Bucket shrugged. “If you want her to live, you’ll do as I say.”
“Won’t you remain and help?”
“I’ve got other calls to make before me Green Yule’s Eve supper. If I’m lucky, I might get home before the plum pudding is served.” The doctor rested a heavy hand on Nigel’s shoulder. “Now,” he said, in gentle tones of professional comfort, “where should I send the bill?”
Nigel cleared his throat and gave the address for The Arcane Bouquet.
Doctor Bucket nodded and patted his shoulder a few times.
“Your little, um, cousin is lucky to have you,” he said, before turning back to his patient.
He set about scooping a foul, black, charcoal substance onto a square of white cloth, which he then applied to Luna’s pale breast with sticky plaster.
He followed this up by uncorking the medicine bottle, tipping a dose down her throat, then pinching her nostrils shut and holding her chin firmly closed while she struggled.
It took all the self-control Nigel possessed not to launch himself at the man and drag him off her, but he held himself in check, gripping the back of the one little chair until his knuckles whitened.
When the struggle was over, Doctor Bucket checked that the sticky plaster was still in place. Then he turned and pressed the bottle of medicine into Nigel’s palm. “Every two hours,” he said, “or so. Do your best. I’ll be back to check on her in the morning, see how she’s getting on.”
With that, he closed his medicine bag with a snap, leaving behind medicine, poultice ingredients, and sticking plasters. He scooped up his coat, hat, and scarf and made his getaway from the sweltering room, like a Green Yule ghost, come and gone.
Nigel turned to look at Luna, lying back on her propped-up cushions. Her eyes were closed. The ugly black poultice seeped through the white cloth stuck to her breast, which rose and fell swiftly with her labored breath. Every ragged gasp tore at his ears.
Running both hands through his hair, Nigel shook his head and bit back a curse.