Chapter 22
When Rosamund returned to her cabin, there were two men in the bed. She sighed, left her husband and his lover to their sleep, and went to run the bath.
She shed her clothes, plunged into the water, and stretched out with one foot hooked over the brassy metal of the tap.
It was hot enough her skin flushed pink, clouds of lavender-scented steam wafting towards the tiled ceiling.
She picked up her book—an Oxford World’s Classics edition of Isaac Harding’s The Nouveau Odysseus, well thumbed and well loved—but she couldn’t concentrate.
She tossed it onto the counter, then reached with a languid left hand towards the shadows cast by the edge of the bath.
The pain was an old friend now; Rosamund had carved off so many pieces of her soul it felt instinctive, like picking at a hangnail.
She sometimes wondered if each piece lost did something to her—made her colder, made her sharper, made her less attached to life itself—but she couldn’t tell.
Whether that was the darkness’s fault, or the trauma of her past lives, it was a sacrifice she was willing to make.
In response to her offering, the shadows surged upwards, eager and pliable, draping over her fingers like silk.
Rosamund recalled a trick from the grimoire: she concentrated, made her request, and the shadows formed a tiny ship, rocking gently between her fingers as if moving on waves.
She played with it a little while, smiling.
Then she twitched her thumb too violently.
The shadow-ship jolted, and—simultaneously—the entirety of the Monumental lurched, sending water slopping out of the bath.
‘Whoops,’ she murmured.
Chagrined, Rosamund re-formed the shadows into a different shape: a crow, wings half risen in flight. It cocked its featureless head at her.
She remembered the last time she’d seen that crow, the night Miriam had come into the townhouse—the shadows holding her down, Miriam’s hand between her legs. I will make you mine.
Rosamund felt a pang of arousal, followed by anger.
She hadn’t expected to still find Miriam as attractive as she did, had thought that resentment would burn away whatever affection remained.
But, if anything, that resentment had stoked the flames, had made Rosamund want to rip her apart and taste her and fuck her and destroy them both—
The ship lurched again.
Rosamund breathed deeply, closing her eyes, allowing the shadows to dissipate. She couldn’t let her anger rule her. She had a plan, and she intended to follow it through. What Miriam had told her at dinner—it didn’t matter. It was Rosamund who had control now.
‘Greensleeves, farewell, adieu,’ she sang, reaching for the loofah. ‘To God I pray to prosper thee, for I am still thy lover true…’
The loofah burst into flame in her hands. She let the ashes slip through her fingers.
‘So come once again and love me.’
Miriam was suspicious—of course she was.
It was all too easy, too simple. Cybil and Esther had been puzzles, challenges, prizes to be won; Rosamund was none of those things.
She had offered herself up on a platter, dismissed their history with a sigh and a smile.
It was nauseating, undignified, cruel. It was everything that Miriam had wanted and everything she despised.
She watched Rosamund and her husband at breakfast the next day, concealed by shadows in a dark corner of the restaurant.
Walter Jennings was sawing through a beefsteak and a pair of sunshine-coloured eggs, the arms of his suit straining against his impressive biceps, gold wedding band sparkling in the light coming through the portholes.
Rosamund looked tired, dark circles under her eyes, but she still glowed within the confines of her cherry-toned dress.
Its V-neck was cut so deep that you could see the base of her ribcage, the swell of her breasts as she breathed.
Miriam decided she liked this era, liked the way Harding wore it, short-haired and scarlet-mouthed.
She wanted to bite into her like a peach.
Walter said something; Rosamund laughed softly, covering her mouth with her hand. She had such lovely wrists, so slender—it would be devastatingly easy for Miriam to snap them. Even Walter, with his tree-trunk limbs, would be no match for her strength.
He gesticulated wildly. Rosamund laughed more.
Twitching with jealousy, Miriam called to the shadows.
They slipped across the rug, between table legs and gilt chairs, until they reached the Jennings’ table. Then they crawled—slowly, to avoid detection—towards Walter’s plate, sinking into his beefsteak.
Walter went to cut another bite. As soon as his knife met flesh, a great spurt of blood fountained upwards, as if from a cut artery; it spattered across the front of his suit and along the table.
Rosamund wasn’t spared, blood misting her face and collarbones.
Walter swore, crying out, stumbling out of his chair.
Rosamund remained where she was, the only hint of shock a slight flinch and a grimace.
The blood began to pool on the plate, the pristine white tablecloth, the cream-coloured carpets. There was a general groan of horror across the first-class restaurant. Some servers, uncertain how to help, fluttered closer and then veered back again as the blood spread towards them.
‘What in God’s name—’ Walter snarled, turning to an unsuspecting waiter. ‘What the hell kind of steak is this?’
Rosamund sighed and stood up. She used the heel of her hand to swipe blood off her jaw, then said, ‘Excuse me.’ She turned to look directly at Miriam—that made Miriam smile; of course she’d known she was there—and then she left the restaurant.
Her husband was too busy arguing with the staff to notice or care.
Miriam followed Rosamund out into the corridor, still shrouded in shadows.
Rosamund must have known she was behind her, but she didn’t react.
She just kept walking, blood running in rivulets down her shoulder and into the plunging back of her dress.
They walked through numerous empty corridors, down a set of stairs.
All that time, Rosamund said nothing at all.
Eventually, Miriam tired of the game. Materialising, she said, ‘Where are we going?’
Rosamund stopped. They were in a narrow corridor full of cabins.
Above them, a crystal chandelier swayed gently with the movement of the ship.
There was still blood beaded on her collarbone.
Miriam considered pressing her against the wall and licking it away, but she didn’t want to distract Rosamund from her anger.
The fury in her expression was too exquisite, too wonderfully familiar, to be obscured.
There she is, Miriam thought. Just as I remembered her.
‘Leave him alone,’ Rosamund said.
‘Who?’ Miriam asked, in faux innocence, allowing a glimmer of a smile to pass over her lips.
‘Walter. He hasn’t got anything to do with this—with us.’
‘I rather think he does, darling,’ Miriam purred. ‘I am a jealous god. I don’t like to share.’
Behind Rosamund, the shadows pushed her forward; she stumbled slightly, then looked over her shoulder as if betrayed. ‘You’re not sharing anything,’ she said, a note of resignation in her tone.
‘Oh?’
‘He’s just a friend. The only friend I’ve ever had, in fact.’ Rosamund straightened her back, lifted her chin. ‘If you do anything to him, I’ll never forgive you. I’ll hide myself away again until the deal is done.’
Miriam stepped forward, placing herself in the middle of the corridor, forcing Rosamund to take a step back toward the wall.
‘You used to be so much fun,’ Miriam said, sighing.
‘Remember us, that night in London, when you let me in through the window? When you begged me for it, when you wept with pleasure? Where has that girl gone?’
Rosamund scowled. ‘You slit her throat.’
‘Oh, yes—so I did. In my defence, she would’ve killed herself if I hadn’t.’
‘You couldn’t even allow me that,’ she said bitterly. ‘You had everything that mattered—my life, my heart, my soul. Of course you needed my death, too.’
‘Don’t act as if I never gave you anything, darling.’ Miriam took another step forward, forcing Rosamund to press her back against the wall. She reached out, trailed a finger down that lovely throat, catching the final scarlet beads and streaking them across her skin. Blood on snow.
Rosamund shivered. Her pupils were wide and dark, her lips half parted. Already, Miriam could see her anger beginning to fade. Rosamund was so weak to her touch; she always had been—without that, without lust, Miriam wondered if she’d ever have signed the deal at all.
‘You want me to spare Walter Jennings,’ Miriam said.
Mute, Rosamund nodded.
Miriam leaned in and whispered into her ear, ‘Then beg me for it.’
Rosamund’s breath stuttered; it seemed she still remembered that night in London, after all—the last time Miriam said that to her—despite the century that had passed.
‘I…’
‘Go on,’ Miriam murmured. She skimmed her mouth across her neck, darting out her tongue to taste her skin.
Rosamund squirmed. Miriam’s lips twitched in triumph.
Finally, it felt as it always had: that glorious push and pull, digging in her nails and peeling away Harding’s stubbornness, leaving her exposed and raw—
‘Go fuck yourself,’ Rosamund said, and she disappeared.
Utterly astonished, Miriam took a step back, staring at the blank space on the wall.
The corridor was silent, except for the soft, mocking tinkle of the chandelier above her head.
It had been so sudden, so abrupt, that for a moment, Miriam couldn’t believe it had happened.
Then she snarled and kicked the wainscoting so hard that it cracked.