Chapter Twenty-Three
Awareness returned in hazy flashes.
The first thing Calliope registered was smell.
Old mold, at least she thought that’s what it was, and something damp rotting somewhere.
Second was the pain. Never jump from a moving carriage again, Calliope!
Though, she ached less than she thought she would.
Small mercies. Only then did she notice the sound of breathing.
Most decidedly not hers. Or perhaps it was. At that point, anything was possible.
Her eyes flickered open.
The room was dark, light filtering only through narrow cracks between planks nailed across the windows, and for a moment, panic slammed into memories from the past and flashed through her head like nightmares.
Was she back in the attic?
Had Duvessa and her uncle found her?
How was that possible? She’d changed her name. She’d been so careful.
Calm down, Calliope.
She shifted and felt the pull of rope at her wrists, securing her to a chair, much as she’d tied Reaper, only her bonds were much more experienced. This must be penance for what she’d done to him.
A cough rasped from the far side of the room.
Her gaze snapped toward the sound, heart kicking against her breast. A shape hunched in the corner, knees drawn up, coat rumpled.
Sun and stars! “Mr. Rollings?” Relief surged so quickly it startled her, followed almost immediately by a pinch of guilt. She’d quite forgotten about the man. And from his state, he’d been here for a while!
He lifted his head. The shadows did little to soften the pallor of his face or the bruising that spread from his temple down the side of his face. One arm rested in a makeshift sling, and blood coated his cravat. “Ah, Miss Turner, you are finally awake.”
“How long ago did I arrive?” She must have been dead to the world if she had slept through being strapped up like this!
“About an hour or so, I believe.”
“I—” Her throat caught, but she had to dislodge this uneasiness from her heart once and for all. “I’m sorry. For that night. I was there, I saw them hit you, but I ran away.”
“You did the right thing, Miss Turner.” His lips twitched in something that might have been a smile, though it was gone too quickly to name.
“John would not have forgiven me if any harm had befallen you. He might have my head anyway. I should never have requested you to meet me at such an ungodly hour at such an ungodly place.”
“Why did you?” she asked softly.
“I wasn’t thinking straight.” He leaned his head back against the wall and sighed. “I thought I was being followed and didn’t want to lead them to your shop. Things went wrong, nevertheless.”
“An understatement.”
He chuckled. “I overheard three men looking for a girl. They asked about a woman with fair hair. They mentioned you by name.” His gaze found hers. “Your real name.”
Calliope swallowed a gasp. “Mr. Fitz told you.”
He nodded. “Rest assured, I shall never betray his confidence. But I’m getting too old for this.” His mouth quirked in a humorless way.
Cold prickled at the back of her neck. It could only have been Duvessa’s men, couldn’t it?
“Do you know if they are still in town?”
Mr. Rollings shook his head. “If they haven’t found you yet, they may have moved on.”
A girl could hope.
She forced herself to search the room they were being held in. Rough plank walls. A single door. No visible guards. But they were there. She could feel them. The masked men. Maxen’s enemies.
She tested the ropes securing her wrists, grimacing. She wouldn’t be able to break free on her own.
Rollings caught the motion. “Don’t,” he said quietly. “They’ll hear.”
“They?” That was hardly reassuring. She drew a long, steadying breath. “Someone will come, Mr. Rollings. In fact, they may be on their way already.” Maxen. He’d come. If he was still alive, he’d come.
Mr. Rollings coughed again. “Ah, Miss Turner. Do not tell me you believe in knights on steeds?”
“Not knights, no.” Though one of them was literally called Knight. “The Furys.”
That earned her an incredulous, almost pitying look. “Fury? Then you have met them?”
“Maxen Fury is my landlord.” Amongst other things.
The comical look that passed across his features almost made her laugh. “Then it must be fate. You put your faith in him?”
“I do.” So blasted much.
Another sigh. “I wish you had heeded my warning.”
“About the beasts that patrol the streets of Brighton?” She refrained from pointing out that Mr. Rollings asked her to meet in the very streets they patrolled. Instead, she said, “Perhaps you are right, Mr. Rollings. Fate had other plans. And they have been nothing but kind to me.”
“To Calliope Turner, yes. Not Calliope Balfour.”
“What do you mean?”
“How do you imagine they’ll react once they discover your blood is just as blue as the people who tortured them into becoming the beasts they are today? My advice, Miss Turner: run. If we survive this, if we escape here, run as far from Brighton as you possibly can.”
“Torture? You mean how they were treated by nobles?”
“Precisely that, Miss Turner.”
Would they truly shun her if they discovered the truth?
The ropes at her wrists suddenly felt too tight, the room closing in with the heaviness of his words. Calliope Turner. Not Calliope Balfour. The name struck like the edge of a blade she had thought long blunted.
And Maxen? His brothers? Surely they weren’t tortured in the literal sense? She thought of all their scars . . .
Her pulse thundered in her ears.
If Maxen learned the truth . . . would he cast her aside? Would he see her not as the woman who had escaped a nightmare and built a life from nothing, but as a reminder of the very world that had broken him?
“No, he—they—aren’t like that.” But could she truly claim that?
“Beasts are beasts.”
He couldn’t know what he was saying, could he? He couldn’t possibly understand. And yet, the way his gaze held hers, almost sorrowfully, told her he knew precisely what blade he had just twisted.
No.
Maxen couldn’t.
Wouldn’t.
But doubt, that sly devil, slithered into her heart. She couldn’t recall any disdain from him for nobles, but then, why would he discuss such things with her? They weren’t amongst nobles here. Would he lump her among them the instant he learned her name? Could she ever reveal her true identity now?
“Perhaps you are right, Mr. Rollings. However, beasts are often misjudged by us. They are, after all, humans too.”
Somewhere outside, a laugh cut through the air, followed by footsteps and the door unlocking. Light flared as it swung open, making her squint. A figure stood framed against the doorway. Tall, blond hair neatly arranged, eyes locked on her.
Mr. Peregrine!
Memory surged. His voice leaning into her . . . his hand covering her mouth . . . words she had dismissed as nightmare when blackness claimed her. So it had been him all along!
His mouth curved into a smile, almost pleasant, but his eyes—cold and flat—betrayed whatever mood he tried to create with that grin. “So we meet again, Miss Turner.”
Words lodged in her throat.
“You should have remained at Talon’s, where I left you. Then it might not have come to this.”
“Something tells me it would always have come to this.”
“Perhaps.” Then, with chilling ease, he pointed the black barrel of his pistol level with her heart. “Unfortunately, I’ve been instructed to take your life.”
“What?” Calliope managed, her gaze flicking between him and the pistol. “By whom?”
“It’s nothing personal, Miss Turner. Someone wants to teach Maxen Fury a lesson. You, it seems, are the means to do it.”
“So I am to die here today. And you are to kill me.” A strange calm settled over her. One she hadn’t thought possible in the face of this situation. If she were to perish at this moment, she would perish only with one regret. That Maxen’s was not the face she’d take to the afterlife.
“I ought to do just that, but I confess, I find the task rather distasteful.”
Calliope blinked. “So you don’t intend to steal my life?”
His smile turned sharp. “Now, now. I didn’t say that.”
*
Violence raged in his blood.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so furious. Perhaps the day he’d tried to kill his father but had got beaten to within an inch of his life instead. But he couldn’t recall such bone deep rage in his memories.
Killing rage, perhaps.
But not this deep, burn-this-damn-island-to-ash sort of rage.
The rain had thinned to a cold mist that slicked the earth as they reached a run-down cabin where the tracks stopped.
“Something’s off,” he said, and swung down before his gelding had settled. Everything was too quiet. Too abandoned.
Reaper and Drake dismounted beside him.
“I agree,” Drake said, dismounting.
“A trap?” Reaper asked, following suit.
Not a trap, but he felt it in his bones—the wrongness. “She’s not here.”
“You can’t know that, Max,” Drake said.
“I know.”
“Well, what now?” Reaper asked. “Do we still go in?”
Maxen’s jaw tightened, nodded. “Round the back.”
They slipped along the wall. The place looked unlikely to withstand a proper storm in its present state.
Even the back door seemed tacked on as an afterthought, its planks swollen with damp, a rusted hook-latch the only thing tethering it to a warped post. Drake pressed it with a finger. The wood moaned in protest.
“This can’t be a hiding place, can it?” Reaper muttered. He shifted to shove the door open, but Drake’s hand shot out, clamping his wrist. Drake inclined his chin toward the base of the door.
Well, hell. A wire, thin as thread and taut as a violin string, ran along the sill and climbed the hinge. It vanished into a crack.
“Blackguards,” Reaper mutter. “Do you think someone is here?”
Maxen’s lip curled. “Let’s find out.” He pushed the door open and a glass shattered to the ground.
“What the devil are you doing?” Drake snapped.
“They’d have heard us approach on horseback.”
Drake grunted.
Maxen slipped a double barrel flintlock from his trousers and stepped over the threshold inside, his brothers at his back. Inside, the air hung heavy with age. However, there were other unmistakable scents. Sweat. A hint of cologne. Subtle, but he caught them nonetheless.
People had been here. And recently.
The cabin also wasn’t very big. A table and two chairs, which, by the looks of it, hadn’t been used in years. Dust coated all the surfaces, and yet no footprints. His gaze fixed on the only other room within.
Calliope.
It hit him like a fist square chest.
There. She’d been there.
He closed his eyes, only long enough to master the rage boiling in his blood. Then he strode forward and stepped inside, gaze sweeping the chamber. In the center stood a single chair. A coil of rope lay at the base of it.
Maxen clenched his fists.
“Two,” Drake said behind him. “Two people were held here.”
Maxen followed his brother’s gaze to the corner, where an iron ring had been driven into the wall at shoulder height. Another rope lay discarded there, stained with smudges of blood.
He advanced to the chair and dropped before it. She sat here. His gaze hunted for even a drop of blood. A note was left on the seat. One word was scrawled across it.
Talon’s.
The same stroke as the note slipped beneath his bedchamber door. That wretched bloody miscreant. “Peregrine.”
Drake stepped up to the chair, retrieving the note. “This damn fool.”
“Is he brave, or does he have a death wish?” Reaper asked darkly.
“Why would they keep her here?” Drake asked. “It couldn’t have been that long.”
“To switch her?” Reaper suggested.
“And then tell us to find her?” Drake muttered. “Does that even make sense?”
“They wanted me to see their strength,” Maxen said, certain. “They wanted me to feel how they could touch me. That our walls aren’t impregnable.”
Drake cursed.
“Damn rats,” Reaper muttered.
Maxen took one last look at the chair before striding from the room. He passed the table he hadn’t given much attention to earlier and halted. There, pressed into the dust, lay the clear shape of a hand.
He set his own beside the imprint, his dwarfing it.
Hers. She had braced herself here. Left a clue.
That’s my girl.
She probably hadn’t known about the note Peregrine left.
Maxen slipped back out with his brothers. Rain fell as Maxen swung up on the gelding and gathered the reins tight.
“Talon’s,” Reaper repeated. “They want us out of our territory.”
Drake scoffed. “Fool’s thinking.”
“If it’s not ours, then we take it,” Maxen said. “We take it all.”