Chapter 37
Miss! Miss!”
An empty street stretched before me, echoing with hissed shouts.
A line of soldiers crouched in an alleyway, half focused on me, half on the street behind me.
One leaned out, as if preparing to sprint in my direction.
They all looked harried and exhausted, and several civilians huddled in the space beyond them.
Gunshots erupted behind me. I sprinted for the cover of an abandoned streetcar and landed inside just as bullets tore up the street. I crawled the length of the vehicle and peered out the far end.
The soldiers were fully engaged in a firefight by then. I had no choice but to cover my head and hold fast.
When the shooting died down, chased by running footsteps, I peered back into the street. Empty. The soldiers were gone, as were those they had been protecting. Armed civilians advanced up the street towards the streetcar, rifles and cudgels in hand.
I held my breath. If they were Separatists, I could cite Harden’s name—as Mayfair, of course. I’d learned my lesson before.
But there was a chance the attackers were Zealots. Baffin might be quietly supporting the group, but here in the chaos of the streets, the lines were far more blurred.
I steadied myself. Slipping back into the rows of seats, I crawled beneath them, flattening myself against the wall, and went still.
Someone boarded the streetcar. I heard others moving past, muttering and reloading rifles and kicking debris out of the way.
Boots approached me. My neck screamed at the awkward angle but I held perfectly still.
One step. Another. The boots came even with the row I hid beneath.
Jasper, the distrusting Separatist from The Three Trees, peered over at me. Our eyes met, clear as day, and he did not seem in the least surprised. Perhaps he did not recognize me. Perhaps he did. Regardless, all he did was sniff, brush at his nose, and continue on his way.
Relief made my stomach weak. As soon as the sounds of their passage faded I scurried from the streetcar to a side street and took off at a mad sprint.
I had been an idiot to leave Lewis and Harden. This was madness, absolute madness.
Somewhere off in the city, a woman screamed. There was such terror in that scream, such horror and helplessness, I could bear it no longer.
No more skulking. No more hiding. I ran to the closest shelter I knew—home. And if Baffin’s people came there looking for me? So be it. It was evident that reaching Pretoria would not be possible until the Separatists went to ground and the city calmed.
The front door was tightly locked, but I forced my aching, spent muscles up the wisteria one more time. The balcony door was unlocked. My room was still in disarray. But it was my room—my possessions, those I had not carried off with Pretoria or had been confiscated by the police, were here.
This small bit of fortune nearly brought me to my knees. I stood in the clutter with tears in my eyes, surveying the familiar desk, chest of drawers, bed, and cracks in the plaster. It was cold, but the sun through the glass of the balcony door warmed my back.
Hieronymus was not there, of course. But I had not expected him to be.
I quietly found clothes. They were ill-fitting and worn, but better than the horrific gown and Thera’s stolen coat.
I risked opening the tap in my little water closet and scrubbed myself as best I could with fresh, clean water.
I found canned food in the kitchen, though the gas had been cut off.
I tended my wounds and bound them—myriad bruises and scrapes, many of which I had not been aware of until that moment.
I found no signs of what Thera had done to me, but that was no real consolation.
I threw the buttoned gown and her coat and hat into a corner.
Then I went back to the balcony doors. The sun was close to setting over the rooftops and there with a view only of the courtyard, I could believe that the city was not at war.
I could tell myself that the last week had not occurred, that Lewis was still abroad, Mr. Stoke was alive, that there were no priceless artifacts set in the jumble on my desk.
I could almost believe that I had not been violated and meddled with to unknown effect.
Then I saw drifts of smoke rising up into the blue sky, and noted how many of the neighbors’ shutters were firmly fastened.
The light waned. Twilight slowly crept up the walls of the courtyard, chasing the last rays of the sun.
I raised a hand to my throat, dreading what I might feel. Or what I might not.
Would my threads twine tonight?
I retreated to the edge of the bed and waited. I waited for the sun to pass over the rooftops. I unbuttoned my collar again as shadows crept across the floor and the last of the sunlight winked out. I turned my throat, bruised and battered, towards the mirror, and waited.
I closed my eyes. At first, it seemed my threads would not come. Tears welled in my eyes.
Then, a tingling awoke on my skin, beneath my jaw. It spread, familiar and warm, behind my ears and down my throat, over my collarbones and up through my hair, across my temples.
I brushed a hand over my skirt. Memories separated from the fabric, shockingly clear.
They were recent—me picking them up off the floor, shaking them out and clothing myself in them.
But my relief was so strong I sobbed aloud and clasped an ashamed hand over my mouth. I was too tired, too emotional, too…
Somewhere distant, church bells rang a curfew.
Further awareness overcame me. For my threads were still spreading, moving beyond their usual twilight positions. I felt their warmth from my temples across my forehead, from behind my ears over my jaw, and from my collarbones over my breasts, down my spine.
Energy returned to me—a frantic, desperate spark. I untucked my shirtwaist and divested myself of it with hasty fingers, then pulled down the sleeves of my combinations.
Threads covered my entire upper body. I pulled up my skirts, revealing my bare legs, and saw with growing bafflement that threads trailed there, too—prickling and twining and smoky.
Moonless. Wake’s voice drifted through my head. Now I am what a Moonless becomes.
I closed my eyes. Memories began to come to me, images not connected with this room or my person. I realized with growing apprehension that they were carried on the air coming through the cracked balcony door.
Soldiers in the streets. Winds whisking past closed shutters. A body hung from a lamppost against a backdrop of impervious, ever-flowing river and grey-clouded sky.
Thera’s attempt to nullify my power had failed. Instead, she had amplified it.
As the Guild had done with Wake.
I will spare the reader a further account of my thoughts that night, for they were myriad, complex, and deeply personal. My plans were in shambles, my future uncertain, and I, it seemed, was irrevocably changed.
Finally, however, my exhaustion was too much. Even once my magnified threads retreated, I could not leave the apartment in such an exhausted and bewildered state. Even fear of the searching Guild and prowling Wake could not convince me to go back out into the turbulent city.
Besides, no one would think me stupid enough to come home.
* * *
I awoke to warm sunlight. There was a weight on my legs and I instinctively did not move them, so as not to dump Hieronymus onto the floor.
My eyes snapped open. I cried out shamelessly and seized the warm bundle from the blankets, clutching him to my chest and burying my face in his fur. He mewed disagreeably and squirmed out, landing on the bed and twining around my back before buffeting my fingers for scratches.
He was whole. He was safe. For one sunny, warm moment, all was right in the world.
Then someone knocked at the door.
I froze. Ronny mewed and leapt to the floor, stretching in the sunlight. The balcony door was cracked—good heavens, had I forgotten to close it?
The knock was firm, but not agitated. My first thought was Pretoria, but she would not have knocked. Neither would Wake or the Guild. It was Lewis or Harden then, perhaps.
I debated climbing out the balcony door. But as I stared at Hieronymus, trying to figure out how to carry him down, a key clicked in the lock. There was no more decision to be made.
Constable Hopgood stepped inside. He saw my state and averted his eyes, but entered all the same and closed the door quietly.
“I apologize, miss, needs must,” he said, holding one hand over his eyes and looking at the floor.
I found my tongue—and my shirtwaist, which I hastily buttoned. “You? What are you doing here?”
“Mr. Stoke requested I watch the apartment for your return,” he confessed. “I came by this morning and saw the balcony door open.”
It said a great deal that he would continue such a duty so long, particularly in the state the city was in.
“Did he ask you to do that when he told you about the artifact?” I asked.
Hopgood looked taken aback, but in a pleased way. “He said you might unravel it.”
I felt a sad smile cross my lips. “Is that it, then? His confidence in me was so great that he abandoned me?”
“Not at all, miss.” Hopgood rested a hand on the balcony door. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll let him explain.”