Chapter 13
MARIETTA
I looked straight ahead, trying not to sneak glances at Gabriel. My shop girl skirt snapped around my legs as I tried to keep pace.
I disguised a look at him by pretending to watch a carriage clatter past. The rising sun set half of his features in the light and half in shadow.
The cityscape changed to a dingy gray as we entered the East End and were enveloped by the aetheric drift.
The pollution made estate magic and subsidized infrastructure harder to hold.
No one chose to live in the East End if another option was available.
Gabriel was dressed again as a dock worker, but the cocky walk he’d adopted before was clipped and edged.
He had retreated into the cold man he’d been when we’d first met.
I fought to keep from rubbing my eyes. The night had been wretched. And lonely. Muddled and confused thoughts vying with irritation and betrayal. Was manipulation the price of feeling safe?
And was I being unfair? The thought had made me toss and turn.
Just remembering the look in his eyes before he walked from the room left me numb.
But he had to give me something—allow me to understand what he was thinking—or else I was going to continue to feel used.
After we finished here, I would find a way to ask.
The numbers along the street increased until we were standing before a drab three-story building that matched the address written in Octavia’s note.
Papers and food scraps littered the stairs of the walk-up. I followed Gabriel to the top. His fist rose to knock, but before his knuckles made contact with the wood, the door opened.
A man with a long scar curving under his chin stood in the frame, obviously on his way out. He opened his mouth to say something, perhaps “Pardon me” or “Good day.” Gabriel cocked his head to the side to receive the comment and his body moved fractionally to allow the man to pass.
Then their eyes met.
The moment suspended.
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
The man moved first, bolting back inside, the door crashing into the wall. Gabriel went from a dead start to a sprint as he raced after. I hiked my skirts and ran as fast as I could in their wake.
The fleeing man tossed himself through an open window, and I gasped as Gabriel dove after. I looked right, then left. A closed door innocuously stood to one side.
I forced it open. Both men were picking themselves off the ground, the stranger in the lead, Gabriel going from a somersault into a full-on sprint once more.
Rubbish bins overturned, laundry ripped from its pins.
A Yorkshire terrier gave chase and its little legs pumped after the two men, who were in no danger of being caught by the small bundle of fur.
I rushed after them, but I was about as useful as the Yorkie, trailing and yapping at their heels. Gabriel harshly gestured to the right, and I followed the movement. The street formed a U. They would come right back to me. The men disappeared into the bend.
I wished I had my pistol. I had always prized it over a nonexistent power for combat magic. But maybe I could work magic now that I couldn’t before? What could I do to grab Worley?
Our estate magic had dwindled further with no Winters living on the premises, so I still couldn’t draw from that, and the East End had none of the ambient magic overflow found in gilded neighborhoods.
And even if I could work the magic of my name, I couldn’t coat the neighborhood in ice. People carrying babies or on their way to work were on the walk and in the street. The best I had ever been able to do was sparkles.
Sparkles. Catching someone with sparkles. The thought caught.
Crash. Yelling. The two men curved around the bend, legs and arms pumping as they wove through foot traffic, horses, and trash.
Worley was unsurprisingly agile. The notes had said he was a former footman, and most footmen were quick on their feet.
Physical magic was used often in the servant classes to strengthen muscles and hold posture.
The shock was that Gabriel was catching up.
I touched the stars at my wrist, almost unconsciously.
Worley veered, and I scrambled forward. The old me would have reached for the cold weather magic my name destined me for—icicles, frost, blizzard clouds. Cold sparked at my fingertips automatically, but I let it pass. This wasn’t the magic for me. Not yet.
And I would not fail.
Sparkles formed on the tips of my fingers. I pictured the ferns I hid behind when Felicity Tercake tried to find me at a ball—the feeling of being unseen—and shoved it into the sparkles, then lunged into his path.
He caught me in the midsection, grunting in surprise, while I shoved my hands against his uncovered neck. The magic left my fingers in a rush.
I slammed the ground. Everything went gray. No sounds, no smells, the image was static in front of me. Then it wavered. Gabriel’s face appeared in front of mine. His lips moved.
Whoosh. I gasped for breath. His fingers tightened around my arm and then he was off again. I pressed one hand against my stomach. I thought rather inanely that all the butterflies may finally have been crushed for good.
Gabriel returned a minute later, swearing. He crouched in front of me and moved my hand. A quick press around my ribs had me gasping. He pressed against my chest, my stomach, and under my arms. I was too dazed for more than murmured answers to the questions he asked.
“Bruising, definitely, but nothing looks broken. Nothing a healing potion won’t fix.” He picked me up and set me on my feet. The coldness was gone from his eyes, replaced by something wild.
I grabbed the edges of his coat. “I invisible-sparkled him.”
“What?” Some of the wildness retreated. “You tagged him?”
“Yes. Invisible to him, but he’ll glow for those who know to look at night.”
“You are a wonder.” His hand went to the back of my neck, eyes closing briefly. “We need to turn Worley’s room. He may have a lapse of judgment and return. But we won’t get a second chance at seeing what’s inside.”
People were already staring and pointing.
“Share your magic with me.” He held out his hand. “Coat me in it.”
“Make you forgettable?”
“You have no idea how valuable that would be to me. But you are still finding your feet and halfway out from what you did to Worley. Just a blur is all we need.”
I carefully placed my ungloved hand atop his. Magic trickled through the contact. I pictured him becoming one with a crowd of equally unrealistic, beautiful men.
My eyes shut, lethargy stealing over me. Then a torrent flooded into me, making me nearly jackknife.
“Shhh. I know. You have to eat the rush of it first. Sip the rest, a little at a time. Just like that.” I gasped against his shoulder. He tucked me into it and led the way back to the building and up into its guts. With each inhale and tucked step, I grew steadier.
Worley’s second floor door was locked, but Gabriel made quick work of it. A few of the other boarders wandered by, but no one said anything. Nice neighbors. If the blur worked, they wouldn’t remember our faces well—but they sure as spirits saw us breaking in.
The room was dark. Gabriel led me inside. I didn’t know what to think of his care in touching me again. He shut the door and opened the curtains. There were few adornments in the dingy, unremarkable space.
But an uneven stack of parchment, charcoal, and smudgers caught my eye. The most interesting things in the drab room. I moved the drawing tools aside. Beneath them was a partially completed sketch. The woman looked very similar to one of the victims in the coroner’s sketches.
“Gabriel. Look at this.” I moved the picture off the top, but the papers beneath were clean. Charcoal marked the wood of the desk and a few smudges smeared the wall.
He didn’t respond.
“Gabriel, I think Worley drew a picture of one of the victims.” I turned to see why he hadn’t responded.
He was standing, knuckles white around the cupboard handle, staring inside. “I think you are correct,” he finally said.
I hurried over, clutching my ribs, and looked around his shoulder.
The window allowed just enough light to see sketches plastering the three walls.
Women’s faces stared back. Handbills, notes, newspaper clippings.
Vein Ripper captured! There were dates and times.
Lists of names and places. Candle stubs clustered around the cupboard’s floor. A mad, makeshift shrine.
“Oh my.”
“Quite.”
There were handkerchiefs and scraps of lace pinned between other items.
“What are these?”
“Pieces from the victims? I don’t know.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Too grotesque.
“Should we light the candles to get more light? Do you see any—ah.”
He waved his hand and an eerie blaze ignited on the floor, casting wicked shadows on the sketches. The sketches were lifelike, making them terrifying.
The women’s eyes looked down at us, and I shivered.
It was as if I were in Octavia’s journal and these women were sitting in judgment.
A yellowish tinge washed Gabriel’s face—an odd effect of the lighting.
I took a quick look behind me; the last thing I wanted was for Worley to wander in while our backs were turned.
I focused on the sketches again. Most of the drawings were studies rather than complete portraits—showing only eyes, lips, hands, or nose profiles.
Faces were obscured with fabric or animals.
A veiled woman stretched out a gloved hand.
“There are four or five different women sketched here. Maybe more. It’s hard to tell.
But one looks considerably older than the rest. His mother, maybe? ”
Gabriel shuddered.
“She looks familiar.” I touched a picture of a woman in profile. “Is there another picture of her from the front?”
“No.” He crouched down. “Do you see anything resembling a weapon? That’s what we have to find.”