Chapter 19
Madge came to me sometime later. There were no clocks, and no windows to see the sun by, but I felt the passage of time in the emptiness of my stomach.
“Come with me,” she said, and led me downstairs with a Silver mage at our heels. She said no more, and try as I might I could not read any clues from the perfect lines of her posture and her lovely, caged face.
Down the stairs. Across the foyer. I felt a shock of trepidation, then a shudder of confused hope as a servant opened the door and we swept outside.
That hope surged as I saw a carriage waiting at the gate. The city was calm in the dusky half light and my threads openly twined, creeping above my collar and over my jaw and temples.
“I am sending you to Kesterlee,” Madge said, gesturing me towards the carriage. “Matters in Harrow are growing increasingly unpredictable, and there is no need for you to remain. These mages will ensure your safety on the road.”
I noted several Silver mages standing beside the carriage in fine but practical travelling clothes. They would present a challenge, but I could not have hoped for less.
Kesterlee was a long journey, a day and a night. We would need to stop to rest, to at least change the horses.
There would be a chance to escape. Or to be rescued.
But Madge had to know that. So why was she taking this risk? Was it truly to keep me safe, or simply to have me out of the way?
I eyed her. “Why are you doing this?”
She looked down her nose at me, white lashes thick around her blue eyes. “Pardon me?”
“What has changed?” I asked.
She glanced from me to the waiting mages. That was her only movement, other than a twitch of her hand. Her hand that bore her wedding ring.
It might mean nothing, but I remembered how Moran had looked at me that morning—the interest, the appraisal—and instinct whispered a fresh warning in my ear.
“Be safe and well.” Madge produced a smile. It was a strange, unhealthy thing, a studied turn of lips, like a puppet. “I am glad to have you back, Ottilie.”
I could not force a smile in return, no matter how hard I tried. So I simply stepped up into the carriage. “Goodbye, Madge.”
“Goodbye, Tillie.”
I sat back in the coach, letting the shadows inside hide my face and calm my threads. One of my handlers climbed in across from me, the door clicked shut, and the carriage began to move.
I did not look back at Madge, or wave goodbye. I could not. The shutters on the carriage windows were closed.
I allowed a span of time to pass as I corralled my thoughts and worries.
It was easier, now that I was on my own again, away from Madge and the Golden House.
Whatever had spurred the sudden change of plans, I was away from it.
I had eaten, slept, and washed, and the heels on my boots were hard enough to crack a skull.
It was time to escape.
We trundled away from Golden House. I noted each jostle and turn, marked our speed, and bided my time.
My escort, meanwhile, adjusted the tight fabric of his trousers across muscular thighs, sucked his teeth, and settled back with spread knees, pistol glinting under one arm. He was perhaps forty, with short hair neatly parted in the usual style.
He met my gaze with a squint. “Do not do it.”
“Pardon me?” I asked, feigning affront.
“Make an attempt for my pistol,” he said. “I am a Silver. I will subdue you.”
I held out an ungloved hand. “Can you do it anyway? It seems unconsciousness would be preferable to your company.”
He scowled, reached into his pocket, and produced a pipe. He lit it with the click of a lighter, momentarily filling the carriage with a wavering warm, orange light. Then he blew a long stream of smoke into my face.
I screwed up my nose and fought not to cough. I reached to open the window.
He lifted a foot, of all things, and planted it over the latch. He continued to survey me from this lounging position, puffing and waiting. The smoke thickened.
I leaned back, eyebrows high. “You are no gentleman.”
“Mr. Moran doesn’t like gentlemen,” my escort said. “Too many scruples for his line of work.”
“I see.” I watched him. “What is his line of work?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he leered.
I considered pressing the topic, but escape felt more relevant at that point. My internal clock was ticking. “What is your name?”
“Howell.”
“Well, Mr. Howell, I wish I could say I am sorry, but I find I am not.”
His gaze narrowed.
“You should have been better informed before taking this assignment,” I said, and, rocking back on the seat, kicked him with both booted heels. Between his legs.
He curled up like a squished spider, limbs coiling, head bowing. His pipe dropped. He hardly made a sound, just a long, thin wheeze.
I lunged across the carriage, snatching up his falling pipe by the bit.
Reaching around him, I grabbed his pistol.
Naturally, he tried to stop me. It was a valiant effort, considering how direct my kick had been.
I did not allow him to touch my skin—my neck, my face.
I flicked the burning ash into his eyes and stuffed the bowl of the pipe into his mouth.
He spasmed, wailing and choking breathlessly.
The carriage door was locked from the outside, unsurprisingly. But the window was less secure. I smashed the shutters open with an elbow.
So it came to pass that as the carriage trundled through the darkened streets of Harrow, I squeezed out the window and fell flat onto my back on the cobblestones.
I had no time to be winded. In a flash, I saw the carriage wheels trundling right towards my temples. I rolled.
Another figure landed next to me, bellowing for the carriage to stop—a second mage, apparently having been riding with the driver—while a third leapt off the back of the contraption. She landed practically on top of me, only to stumble backwards as the horn of a motor car blared.
I took half a second to check my surroundings.
We were still in New Harrow, heading west. The last of the sun had descended over a skyline of roofs, chimneys, and smoke ahead of us, while to the east the Grand General’s crystalline palace glittered on its hill, overlooking all.
It looked bloodied and bruised, in the last of the setting sun. A knife covered with gore.
The blare of a horn snapped me back to myself. I located my feet just as the mage who had been with the carriage driver made a grab for my arm.
His hand did not land. I danced aside and shot him in the knee, turned, and did the same to the second mage, the one who had been on the back of the carriage. I blinked rapidly then—a quick snap of eyelashes as I processed what I had done. Brutal. Efficient.
Just as the Guild had taught me to be.
I threw the pistol aside with a curse and bolted into the evening crowd.