Chapter 20
My first destination was Old Harrow, with its warrenlike streets and convenient shadows. I approached Pointer’s Bridge, my steps swift and my gaze vigilant.
Just as I reached the entrance to the bridge, I saw a carriage clatter up.
The driver had barely reined in the nervous horses before my escort, Howell, stepped out onto the sidewalk.
His movements were slow but deadly with rage and intent.
The light of a streetlamp washed over him as his gaze swivelled, through some preternatural sense, right to me.
“Silvers,” I cursed under my breath, and bolted onto the bridge.
More carriages passed, wheels clattering, hooves flashing. Prettily dressed couples strode arm in arm. A motor car coughed exhaust into the breeze, gusting it right into my face.
Footsteps pounded at my back. I wove past a startled couple and hurtled over the crest of the bridge.
A horde of merry makers blocked my path. I diverted into the street.
A tram bell rang frantically. I looked up into the vehicle’s glaring, orange lamps, and lunged back towards the sidewalk.
An arm laced around my waist.
My mind was still blinded by the streetcar, but my body knew what to do. I turned into the movement, grabbing my attacker’s wrist and driving my shoulder right into his stomach. I charged, propelling him backwards into the bridge railing with a vengeful cry of exertion.
For half a second, we struggled against the rail. He was stronger, not simply because he was a large man but because of his innate Silver strength, and it took only that half second for him to spin us around, making to pin me against the rail instead, stomach first.
I let him. It was a risk—if he had found bare skin and Leeched me just then, it would all have been over. But I was dressed for the weather, every bit of skin covered, and he had only brute strength.
Strength which I turned against him. Surprise flashed through his eyes at my sudden lack of resistance, then all I saw of him was a blur of clothing as I took his weight by one arm, hinged forward and, in one great and glorious effort, hurled him over the railing and into the river.
I straightened, panting, swaying. My hat was askew and partially over my eyes, accompanied by a swoop of unpinned hair.
Belatedly, I heard the satisfying splash of Howell hitting the river. I cracked a breathless laugh.
“I say,” a staring bystander said, gaping at me around his prodigious moustache. He had a bicycle beside him. “That was remarkable.”
“Thank you,” I panted. Shouts came from up the bridge now. Staring pedestrians parted with alacrity as two more Guild thugs stormed into sight.
Below, in the river, a furious bellow marked Howell’s position.
I pushed my hat and hair out of my eyes and made for the moustached bystander. He recoiled as I gathered up my skirts, stuffed them into my sash, and mounted his bicycle without a word.
“Thank you,” I puffed again, tearing my hat away. I bit the hatpin—now my only weapon—between my teeth and handed him the hat. “Reparations. Sell it,” I explained around the pin, and escaped into the warren of Old Harrow.
* * *
I took a winding and perplexing route into Old Harrow, spent a good quarter hour stashed under a bridge watching for pursuers, then made my way to the hotel where Pretoria had taken up residence: Hotel Cherron.
It was in the center of Old Harrow, its lintels and corners decorated with ethereal, windblown statues and its windows glistening with the light of gaslamps.
I hid my bicycle around the corner, shook out my skirts, then spun my windblown hair up and fixed it with the hatpin as I approached the doors. The valets looked at me oddly as I passed, but I was dressed well enough that they offered no protest, despite my flushed cheeks and lack of a hat.
I surveyed the lobby. It was, perhaps, too much to hope that Pretoria would be there at that very moment, in the splendid dining room to one side, or reclining on the many chairs situated between potted trees and orderly carts of luggage.
Still, my heart sank a little at the unfamiliarity of the faces all around.
I was exhausted. My nerves were raw. I was also not entirely at peace with my coming here, but between the police, the Guild, and Mr. Wake, I doubted home or Mr. Stoke’s office would provide any respite.
Besides, Pretoria had offered her help to find the artifact. It was about time I accepted.
I strode up to the woman at the counter and cited the false name Pretoria had given me at the museum. “Please inform Victoria Russel I am here.”
A few moments later, I stood before a lavishly carved door on the hotel’s top floor. The bellboy who had accompanied me knocked, then stepped aside with a bow.
There was a moment of quiet beyond the door, then a brush of wood—an eye at the keyhole, I sensed. I gave the little glass orb a pointed look, brow arched, trying to hide my weariness.
The door opened and Pretoria stood before me in a skirt and an exceptionally ruffled blouse.
“Stop staring at my bosom,” she scolded me.
The bellboy went scarlet and promptly dismissed himself.
“That blouse is… voluminous,” I observed. “Trying to make up for something?”
Pretoria grabbed me by the arm and tugged me into the room. “I searched the entire city for you,” she said, locking the door and delivering me an accusing look. “Until I heard the newsboys shouting. You’re in the damned papers, Tillie. ‘Rogue Adept arrested for murder of Harren War Hero’.”
I paled, more at the reminder of Mr. Stoke than the distortion of the truth.
“Then,” Pretoria went on. “I go to break you out of prison and find you taken by the Guild. Then I go to Golden House, and find you had already been shipped north!”
“I escaped at that juncture,” I said, gesturing at myself and my obvious presence in the room.
I furrowed my brows, looking from her to the room itself.
There were a jacket and hat on the large bed, set out next to a fine little revolver and a parasol with an oddly shaped handle.
There was masculine clothing, too: a tweed waistcoat and jacket cast over the opposite side of the bed, along with a fashionable walking stick and bowler hat.
I heard muffled movement and a splash, and noted a closed door. There was another person here, in the washroom.
My nerves jangled.
“Who is that? Your husband, or a paramour?” I asked, but the inquiry was factual, without judgement or vitriol. I couldn’t summon either.
“My husband.” Pretoria rubbed at her neck, her facade of irritability falling away as she took me in. A haunted quality entered her eyes and, for all her bravery, wit, and gusto, I saw the harried woman beneath. The fretful sister. “Ottilie… I am so sorry. Your Mr. Stoke. Your arrest. Madge…”
I stood poised, so still I began to tremble. Memories of Mr. Stoke assailed me once more, interspersed with flickers of Madge’s face, painting in golden light. Mr. Moran, standing between me and a closed door. Howell, leering across the carriage. Mr. Wake, waiting in the darkness of Stoke’s office.
On sudden, over whelmed impulse, I closed the distance between us and embraced my sister.
There was a certain stiffness to the gesture, an unfamiliarity that faded as she let out a long breath next to my ear and clasped her hands behind my back. She set her forehead on my shoulder and for a lengthy while, we did not speak.
“I escaped,” I reassured her, voice muffled. “Madge could not keep me. They could not.”
“Of course they could not,” she said, but she sounded as though she were reassuring herself.
“But it was horrible,” I confessed. “She is horrible. She is… There is so little of her left, Pretoria.”
She held me tighter and I battled within myself, summoning and casting aside a dozen things I might have said.
“I deponticated one of their thugs,” I offered finally, permitting myself a brush of smugness at the memory. “Right off Pointer’s Bridge.”
“Of course you did,” she said, gave me one last squeeze, and stepped back. She flicked a few stray hairs from her face, took my cheeks in her hands, and kissed my forehead.
Something very painful happened inside my chest. I was saved from her seeing whatever pathetic facial expression accompanied that feeling as she glanced at the bed full of weapons and clothing. “I suppose I won’t be needing these. So long as you are sure you were not followed?”
“I am sure.”
“Good, then shall I order dinner?”
“Yes.” I nodded emphatically. “Then, we need to talk.”
She eyed me at that, but nodded. “Perry!”
The washroom door opened and a young man appeared.
His mop of black hair was damp and the towel about his hips cursory, flashing a good deal of thigh.
His eyes were long, pointing to partial Ondi heritage, and his pale skin was smooth, unmarked and unbearded.
He was tall, too, with an athletic physique.
He was, in short, precisely Pretoria’s type, as far as men went.
But, in the predictability of his appearance, he was also not what I anticipated.
Pretoria had lovers. Pretoria had intimate friends.
But Pretoria had never expressed an interest in marriage, let alone to a presumably Entwined man.
That union was precisely what the Guild would have wanted, and for that reason, it was suspicious to the highest degree.
“Oh,” Perry said in mild startlement. “Who are you?”
“Ottilie,” I replied. “Your sister-in-law.”
He looked suddenly self-conscious and glanced down, ensuring his towel was closed. It was not. “I see. A moment?”
He vanished back into the bathroom and Pretoria pointed me towards a seating area near the tall windows. “Make yourself comfortable. I will order us some dinner, then we shall conspire.”
I settled myself in a comfortable chair and stared out at the sleeping city. Meanwhile, Pretoria summoned a maid to order dinner, then vanished into the bathroom to converse quietly with Perry.