Chapter Thirty-Two Vina
Chapter Thirty-Two
Vina
You asked me why I was sad. You know how it is. I dreamt of her again. Mary. Her strange legs, her golden talons. I dreamt she was flying across London, with the sun at her back, and she was laughing. I hope wherever her soul’s gone, she gets to fly like that. That’s all, really.
Source: Letter from Ella Blackwood to Oliver Pryce
Hari was wroth with her, but doing his best not to show it.
He’d handed back the hagstone charm Vaughan had given her—“It seems you somehow misplaced this, Vina. Strange”—and though his voice had been mild, his eyes had been daggers.
Still, Vina felt somewhere between elated and miserable. She’d seen Simran. Held her.
“So she doesn’t know herself,” Hari said flatly. “And she threatened to stab you with a knife.”
“A bookbinding knife,” Vina said. “That’s almost like not trying to stab me at all. It was sweet.”
Hari buried his face in his hands.
“She’s home safe,” Galath said, which Vina realized was his attempt at comfort.
“I know,” Hari said. “I know. Wash your hands again, Galath. I can still see silver under your fingernails. We’ll hide out here today. In the evening, we’re taking Vina to Oliver. I’m not leaving you free for a fae with your hair to track you down. You need a cunning folk’s warding, Vina.”
Vina, suitably chastised, went with Galath and Hari to Whitechapel, to—hells—a molly-house. Not the sort of place she wanted to visit with the folk who’d raised her, especially in the deep night.
The molly-house was busy, full of people of all sorts of genders and clothing, laughing and drinking, cigarette smoke clouding the entrance.
Hari made his way confidently through the throng, directly to a dark-skinned older woman with long braids and a low-cut dress.
Ella, the cunning woman who’d sent them to the witches in the cemetery.
She was leaning over a strange device—a square with dials.
“You. Hari’s girl,” she said, gesturing Vina over. “You have any idea what this is, and what kind of tale it comes from?”
“No,” said Vina. “What does it do?”
“Not a clue,” she said.
A few regulars were leaning in, watching in fascination as the woman hit a dial and made the item blare out noise.
“I think it’s playing music,” one man said.
“Why does it sound so crackly, then?” another asked. “That piece of metal sticking out of it—what if you move it around?”
“Ella,” said Hari. “Where’s Oliver?”
“Performing,” she said. “Some incarnate tales over at the Theatre Royal. I warned him not to—I’m fearful the archivists will turn their eye on it. But so far, they’ve been too busy hanging pamphleteers and the like. Let’s hope his luck sticks. What are you doing here, Hari?”
“My Vina’s caught the attention of the fae,” said Hari. “They have her hair. I need her warded.”
That set Ella moving. She ushered them out of the room to an office in the back, lit by a dingy excuse for a fire in the grate.
“You’re lucky I’m here,” she said. “Sit. Drink this tonic. And I’ll touch blessings on your skin. We’ll set you right.”
Vina sat.
“Thank you,” she said gratefully. “I know it’s an awful bother.”
“No bother at all.”
The tonic tasted like herbs, bitter and softened only by a little honey for sweetness. The cunning woman began to murmur blessings, and light from her hands brushed Vina’s skin. After a long moment, the light began to move on its own, without the need for her voice to coax it.
“It must be strange finally knowing yourself,” said Ella neutrally. “Will you be seeking out your witch in this life? Killing her?”
“I won’t be killing her,” said Vina. “I… Our tale is changed.”
“Tales changing,” Ella said thoughtfully.
“We’ve been seeing a lot more of that, haven’t we?
First the Eternal Prince rising up, and now—you.
” She paused. “There was a girl who was murdered in this building,” said Ella.
“Maybe Simran told you, some time in your last life. I’ve been assured it wasn’t your father who killed her. I trust Hari enough to accept it.”
That Galath hadn’t earned her trust didn’t surprise Vina.
“If you ever get Simran back, you tell her the girl was a kinnara,” said Ella.
“Her death, her being an incarnate, it all haunted me. I couldn’t rest until I found what she was.
I still don’t know her tale’s name, or what she was meant to do before her life was cut short, but at least I know what she could have been. ”
“I will get Simran back,” said Vina.
“Yes, I suppose you will,” said Ella. “Or you’ll die trying. I know your kind.”
Hari stopped them at the bottom of the stairs back up to Simran’s flat. “Someone’s up there,” said Hari grimly. “They crossed the witchmarks I left on the threshold.”
“I’ll deal with them,” said Galath.
“No,” said Vina. “Look, we told the witches to meet us here. It might be them.”
“The witches who sold you to the fae?” Galath replied, eyebrow raised.
“The witches who gave me a choice,” Vina corrected.
“And I chose to risk my life. I’m sorry I caused you harm, or frightened you.
And I’m sorry you had to…” She thought of the silver blood on Galath’s clothes, his knuckles.
“I’m sorry,” she continued, “that I have been a—a burden. But we need strength like the witches have to face the archives.”
Galath’s jaw was tight. He reached into his coat and drew out a dagger. He handed it to her, hilt first.
“You don’t have your sword,” he said. “I will follow.”
Vina rose up the stairs. The door was open, the ground charred. She stopped. And stared.
“Edmund?” she said faintly. “Sarah?”
The both of them looked singed. Whatever Hari had placed in his threshold trap had hurt them both.
Sarah’s wrists were lashed together, her mouth gagged.
If looks could kill, Edmund would have been dead a thousand times over.
Instead, he was sitting on the leather sofa, elbows on his knees, staring at Vina with a look that was half wary and half something she couldn’t name.
Relief, maybe. But it was foolish to think that.
The last time they’d met, he dragged her back to the Tower to wait for her death.
“Edmund,” said Vina. “What are you doing here?”
“So you are still you,” Edmund said. “Strange. The Queen held a funeral for you, you know. Closed casket, though.” He tilted his head, examining her. “You look younger. Hell. I thought you’d look the same as I remembered you, somehow.”
“You look a lot older,” she said. “But not as bad as I thought you would. Chin up!” The quips that came so naturally once felt stilted in her mouth. Her heart was hammering. “Why have you got a witch tied up?”
“I was at the Palace,” said Edmund evenly.
“Got sent home from a post I didn’t much want anymore anyway.
Looking after your bitch of a witch, at the Tower, by the way.
And then I found this witch skulking around the Palace’s walls, trying to find a way in.
She said she was looking for you. We had a long chat over a blade, and I told her I’d let her go if she told me where to find you. ”
Vina looked at Sarah’s bound arms, then looked back at Edmund.
“I didn’t say when I’d let her go, did I,” said Edmund. Then Edmund stiffened, reaching for his sword hilt in a quick motion. He rose to his feet.
Behind her, she heard Galath’s soft tread as he slipped into the room.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” Galath said, voice low. “Pretend I’m not here.”
“Put the sword away, Eddie,” said Vina.
“It won’t do you any good,” agreed Galath, voice almost unpleasant. Uncanny. It was like listening to a predator imitate the sounds of its prey. “You can gut me through, and I’ll still break your neck.”
“Maybe you should try, then,” snarled Edmund.
Vina raised her hands in a placating gesture.
“Behave yourself, lads,” she said mildly. “I have some questions that need answering before anyone guts anyone. Where is Simran? Is she all right?”
“Still with the archivists. She’s not smart enough to know she should run,” said Edmund. “I tried to convince her, but she’s all piss and vinegar—there’s no moving her.”
“You were trying to… move her?” Vina asked. “Save her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s been a long time,” Edmund said heavily.
“And I’ve thought about you—what we did to you—a hell of a lot.
Me and Matthias, we thought we were doing the right thing bringing you back to London.
We thought it’d feel right eventually. But it never did.
” He swallowed, shifting uncomfortably. “We tried to visit you in the Tower, but no one was allowed in. Only your dad, I think. The next we heard, it was your funeral. I thought… I thought, it was like sending you out to be slaughtered to keep us alive. Like you were a sheep instead of a person. Doesn’t seem honorable, does it? ”
Vina’s throat was dry. No one had ever told her, she realized, how unjust her death was.
She hadn’t thought anyone would grieve her.
And yet here he was, Edmund, hotheaded Edmund, with lines of grief around his mouth and a slump to his shoulders, like he’d carried the guilt of her death all these long years. As if she deserved to be remembered.
“I thought I’d get her out because it’s what you’d want,” said Edmund.
“And then I saw you at the ball. You, with her.” A bitter laugh.
“You should have run off with her then. I don’t know why you bloody didn’t.
So when this one turned up, I knew I’d have to find you and tell you to sort yourself out. ” He gestured at Sarah.
Vina took a step toward him.
“How should I sort myself out?” Vina asked.
“You should run,” said Edmund bluntly. “Go where the Queen can’t find you. Or the Prince. I can feel him—we all can. He’s going to be impossible not to love, but terrible with it. I don’t know that he’ll be any good for your kind either. So get out of here while you can.”
“I’m not going to,” she said. “I can’t do that, Eddie.”
“I should have known,” he muttered.