Chapter 12
Chapter
Given my love of the ocean’s marvels, it was a great twist of irony to discover I was terribly prone to seasickness.
From the minute we boarded the Unity, only hours after Buckland and Henry had disembarked from it, my stomach began to heave. Lucy and I had been assigned a small cabin next to Buckland’s, and after we dropped our trunks, I’d collapsed onto the narrow pallet, moaning into the crook of my elbow.
“It’s all right,” Lucy said automatically, patting my back. “It will pass.”
“You promise?” I groaned.
“Well, no. But I can try to help, if you’d like.”
“No, thank you.” I groaned again and burrowed my head into the pillow. I had enough experience with Lucy’s healing skills to know she could only make things worse.
Buckland knocked on the door and cracked it open. “We’re about to get underway, if you’d like to come up for the sailing? How are you feeling, Mary?”
I answered with more groaning.
But I didn’t want to miss the departure, so I let Lucy help me up and followed them to the top deck.
Unity ran the weekly trade route to London from Lyme Regis, and over the years, I’d sent off plenty of fossils, packed in crates and straw, in its cargo hull.
Ajax was down there now. Buckland had borrowed a special crate from a friend at the Royal Menagerie.
The crate was constructed with a crosshatched wooden floor to allow solid waste to fall into a bed of straw below, and there were air holes drilled into the top.
I’d given him a water dish and a few old rags to try to pad the corners.
Still, Ajax had been…vociferous in his disapproval when we closed the door.
Henry said he told the captain that Ajax was a rare bird; the stamped Property of the Royal Menagerie on the crate helped the argument.
As long as no one peered too closely between the slats, we should make it to London without trouble.
We walked up to a platform, out of the way of the crew’s work. It was early afternoon. The sky was clear, the sun warm. Henry was already there, ankle hooked over one knee and a book across his lap. Round spectacles perched on the edge of his nose, and his brow wrinkled in thought.
I was half tempted to ask what he was reading, but I resisted the impulse. Instead I forced myself to look over the harbor, watching the shifting water and bobbing boats. My gaze lingered a little too long on my own storefront, now dark and locked.
Lucy had paid my rent. I’d sent money to Aunt Patricia for Mother. I’d taken Buckland to view the cave in which I found Ajax and his mother’s skeleton. Then we boarded the Unity.
It was a little painful, actually, just how easy it was to leave. With Lucy coming along, there wasn’t even anyone to whom I needed to say goodbye. Just lock the door and go.
I leaned against the rail, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth.
The captain called out, and the deck under us erupted into action. The sails billowed like white clouds, and then we were away.
For all that I wanted to be a geomagician, there was a reason I’d never traveled to London before. I was terrified.
It was one thing for the geomagicians to buy my fossils and respond to my letters. But there would always be a canyon between us—even with Buckland, as much as I counted him a true friend. I was an oddity, a curiosity as rare as my fossils. I wasn’t one of them.
I watched Henry from the corner of my eye, the wind tousling his dark hair. He taught me that lesson first.
I was no fool. I knew who and what I was. For all the Greek and history and philosophy that I’d stuffed into my brain since Henry left, I was still just a poor, uneducated girl mucking about on the beach.
At least in Lyme Regis, I didn’t have to hear the laughter. The whispers and snickers. Those learned men in their book-lined offices could deny me, refuse me, even reject me. But at least I wouldn’t have to hear it.
Only now I was going to London. And there was no turning back, because the ship was underway.
The captain came up a few minutes later and knelt beside Henry.
“That won’t be necessary,” Henry said, shutting his book. “As I said before, I will be quite comfortable.”
“But sir—”
Henry laughed and put a hand on the captain’s shoulder. “Keep your quarters. It is only three days.”
“What’s that about?” Lucy asked when the captain nodded and hurried back down.
“Oh, he was offering me the captain’s suite.” Henry had gone back to his book.
Lucy snorted. “What? Why would he do that?”
“Hmm?” Henry flipped the page. “Oh. Because I bought the shipping company before we left London.”
I snorted. Then groaned and clutched at my middle with a wave of fresh nausea.
But of course he had. They’d wanted the Unity to depart seven days before schedule, with no other passengers aboard? Easy solution—buy the whole company.
It was hard to remember that Henry Stanton was richer than the queen, since I still saw the shadow of an awkward, lanky boy in his face. But that boy was now one of the richest men in England. I should probably try to remember that.
He’d started with his father’s fortune and then, after university, made some wise investments in mining companies operating abroad, then purchased them outright. Now Henry Stanton was the world’s largest supplier of natural bitumen—a key ingredient, of course, in the reliquemical serum.
“I have a tincture that might help with your seasickness, Mary,” Henry said, still not looking up from his book. “I get a touch queasy at sea myself, so my physiomagician keeps me well supplied.”
“I’ll manage,” I grunted in response. I didn’t want Henry’s fancy remedies any more than I wanted his pity.
“Well, do let me know if you change your mind.” He closed the book and stood. I tried to surreptitiously read the spine: Geomagical Uniformitarianism, by Charles Lyell. “Or if you’d like to borrow the book.” He winked before strolling off.
I spun to Lucy after he’d disappeared. “The absolute gall of that man. He’s insufferable.”
“Yes, because everyone knows the way to best offend a woman is to offer her”—she raised an eyebrow, and I could tell she was trying not to laugh—“a book.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I would like to read Lyell’s book, though. Maybe you could ask to borrow it?”
Lucy did laugh then, and I huffed off to see if Buckland had a copy on board.
After dinner—I managed to choke down half a stale roll—I crept down to the cargo hold with a reliq-lamp, navigating around barrels and wobbling stacks of boxes. I’d taken some of the dried fish and boiled eggs for Ajax’s dinner.
I called softly. “Ajax?”
I swung my light around, studying crates for the Royal Menagerie stamp and listening for the sound of rustling wings.
“Ajax?”
Finally, I heard a small hoot, and followed the sound.
“Hello, friend. It’s me,” I murmured, as I popped the locks and lifted the hinged crate top, trying to position my torso so he couldn’t fly out when I opened the lid.
I needn’t have bothered. I’d expected Ajax to fling himself up and try to escape. But the pterodactyl hardly moved. In fact, his beak only twitched a little, and his eyes were glazed and milky. The smell of sick was choking.
“Oh, no.” I gasped. “Oh—oh, no, no, no.”
I hugged Ajax against my breast and stumbled back toward the stairs. His body was limp, his heartbeat distant. Oh, God. Please, no.
My room wasn’t far. I kicked open the door. “Lucy? Luce?”
She wasn’t there. And Buckland’s room was empty and dark.
A door swung open across the narrow hall.
Henry. He was in a burgundy dressing robe and slippers. The ready smirk slid off his face when he saw Ajax in my arms.
“Bring him here. Quickly, now.” He hurried us inside. “I can help.”
“Please,” I cried, as we lay Ajax on Henry’s bed. The pterodactyl’s head lolled listlessly. “Please, Henry. He’s—important.” I swallowed.
“Of course he is,” Henry murmured as he yanked the reliq from his nightshirt—a belemnite on a golden chain—and pressed his other palm to Ajax’s chest.
“It will take more than one,” I said, and pulled off my own reliq, tossing it onto the quilt. “Where are your others?” Henry was rich. He would have a stash, somewhere. I turned to search his chest of drawers.
But Henry shook his head. “Don’t need ’em.”
I would have been annoyed, except I could tell he was concentrating. His eyes were focused, and a vein pulsed in his brow.
Ajax let out a pitiful, guttural sound, then closed his eyes and went still.
“No!” I threw myself forward, reaching for Ajax, but Henry caught me around the waist with his free arm and held me while I fought.
“Trust. Me. Mary.” Henry grunted.
“Let me go!”
“Just…a second…” Henry said as I flailed. “And…there.”
Ajax opened his eyes, then popped to his feet, cocking his head inquisitively.
Henry released me and I leapt to Ajax, stroking first his head, then his belly and tail.
“You gave me quite a fright,” I chided, bopping his beak lightly. Ajax squawked.
“I’m sorry,” I said sheepishly to Henry. “I must have overreacted. I really thought he was almost dead.”
Henry’s dressing robe had come untied in our struggle, and I could see whorls of dark chest hair above the gap of his nightshirt collar.
His face flushed as he hastily tied the sash. “Seasick, I think,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Though I suspect he was suffering from dehydration. He’s lucky you found him in time.”
“You think he really was ill, then?” I frowned. “But I asked if you needed more reliqs, and—”
“And I said we didn’t need them,” Henry said calmly.
“Then he can’t have been that poorly. I’ve seen healings before, Henry; I’m not an imbecile. Last time I had an ingrown toenail, the physiomagician said it would take three or four reliqs to heal.”
Henry sat next to Ajax on the bed. Ajax laid his head on Henry’s knee, and Henry scratched under the pterodactyl’s chin.
“Yes. Well. I think you might want to sit down for this.” He gestured to the wooden chair.
I crossed my arms. “What kind of game are you playing?”
“No games. It’s just that this”—he opened his fingers to show the belemnite still on his palm—“is a manifold reliq.”
My knees buckled.
Henry was up at once to catch my fall. “See, now, that’s exactly why I thought you might want to be sitting.”