Chapter 22
Chapter
Snap. That was the sound in my brain as all of the fog cleared, and everything became obvious.
I’d assumed Henry wanted to use me as a game-piece in his campaign against Buckland. I was right. I just hadn’t understood how. I did now. I understood perfectly.
“You want me to support your theory,” I said, laughing—it was all so obvious now. “You think I had something to do with Ajax waking because of some kind of witchery? Which would, not incidentally, directly contradict Buckland’s proposed theory of flood-hibernation.”
All that talk of my truth-telling and fearlessness.
That’s why he’d spoken before of being allies.
Of friendship. Now, if I agreed with his conclusions, Henry hoped that my own conscience would force me to say so.
And if I did, it would probably humiliate Buckland more effectively than anything Henry could do directly.
Henry had caught me very neatly indeed. Because, yes, I was almost convinced by Henry’s theory despite myself.
Except, if I really was what Henry thought—a fossil witch—wouldn’t I have managed to resurrect something before Ajax? In all my years handling fossils, why was this the first?
I said as much to Henry as I folded my arms.
His smile reappeared, cockier than ever. “But Ajax wasn’t the first. No; the first was years ago. I saw it myself.”
My mouth fell open. I had nothing to say to that.
Henry’s eyes glittered. “Do you remember one morning, on the beach near Black Ven—”
“There were a hundred days like that,” I said flatly.
His lip twitched. “Well, that morning, Lucy decided she was going to swim the Channel. She kept going out past the breakers. Edgar was terrified; he paced up and down the beach, insisting she come back to shore before she drowned.”
“I remember.” My voice was sharp to hide the pleading. Please don’t, I meant. Because oh, I remembered that day. I remembered it all too well.
It was the day I knew I loved him.
While the Murrays were otherwise occupied on the shore and in the waves, Henry and I chipped several small trilobites out of wet stone.
“Do you think these were nests?” sixteen-year-old Henry had mused. “It’s strange we always find so many so close together.”
“Nah, breeding grounds, I bet,” I said, grunting as I popped a large chunk of stone free. “I suppose if you have to die, that’s not a bad way to go.”
Henry flushed pink. Heat rushed to my cheeks; I hadn’t even thought to be embarrassed until I saw he was.
“Yeah, I guess so,” he said, with a nervous laugh, and went back to his work.
But I couldn’t move. My pulse raced, and my palms dampened.
It felt like lightning in the air, as if the very atmosphere between us had changed. Like everything had changed.
A lock of hair fell over Henry’s brow, and his arm muscles strained as he chipped at the rock. He looked at me furtively, eyes darting away when I caught him.
I tried to focus on the fossil in my hand instead. I always found trilobites beautiful, with their armored plates. I ran my thumb down the little humps, imagining this creature scurrying across the seafloor, scavenging for food.
“Here, I’ll clean this one; you pluck out the next,” I said, and reached for one of the wire brushes. Henry thrust it out.
Our fingers brushed. Henry sharply inhaled, and I dropped the trilobite. It tumbled down into a crack in the rock, and I sighed and picked up one of the others. Best to keep occupied before I said something foolish about the shape of his hands.
That was it, really.
We cleaned the trilobites and headed back to town for lunch.
Henry avoided me for a few weeks, talking dull philosophy and theomagic with Edgar instead of fossils with me. But by the middle of summer, we’d found a new balance, carefully avoiding any subjects related to sex. Well, up until the very end, when the whole thing fell apart.
But I certainly hadn’t resurrected anything other than horrible, useless feelings that had bought me nothing but trouble.
“We cleaned trilobites,” I said uncertainly.
Henry nodded. “And you dropped one. Do you remember?”
I cocked my head. “Yes, I dropped it into a crevasse.” When our fingers brushed, it was like my skin was on fire. But I had no idea where he was going with this.
“It didn’t fall into the rock, Mary. It scurried down there. It escaped. Because it was alive.”
I blinked. “That’s impossible.”
“I thought so, too. Even then, as a boy, part of me thought I’d imagined it,” he said. “But I knew what I saw. I just couldn’t explain how. It wasn’t until you wrote to Buckland about waking Ajax that I understood what it must mean.”
Henry leaned forward. A lock of hair fell over Henry’s brow. I shook my head, trying to peel the past and present apart before they merged.
“Don’t you see?” he said. “Forget Buckland’s nonsense about hibernation.”
“I—”
Henry gripped my hands. “It’s you, Mary. You’ve done it before. And you can do it again.”
Henry’s eyes searched mine. A muscle in his jaw tightened, and his hands twitched, and my pulse beat a wild rhythm.
The door flung open with a bang.
We leapt apart, and my lungs stuttered with fear at the pale look of terror on Lucy’s face.
“The Inquisitors are here.”
My knees turned to jelly. Henry caught my elbow. Lucy ran over, and they held me between them.
“How?” Henry demanded.
“Conybore? Conywear?” Lucy snapped. “Some geomagician.”
“William Conybeare,” Henry and I said in flat unison.
“Apparently he went straight to the Inquisitors this afternoon and accused Mary of sorcery. They’re here now; Edgar and Buckland are trying to reason with them, but they want to bring you in for questioning.”
“Do you have any idea who I am?” I heard Edgar sneering from the hallway.
Inquisitors. My head was all wet cotton, all my thoughts filtered through a haze of white terror. This was everything I’d feared, come at once.
“Damn it.” Henry grimaced. “Buckland was sure we had at least a few days.”
Anger flared in my breast. They’d expected this. Why hadn’t Buckland said? Why hadn’t they warned me?
But they did. Buckland hadn’t wanted me to come to London. He’d wanted me to stay far, far away. I was the one who insisted on coming along.
Ajax. The fear twisted deeper, lodging like a hook. They’d execute him, too. Tear him apart, wing from wing, claw from claw. Tears welled in my eyes. I’d led Ajax to his death.
Footsteps outside. Lucy ran back to the door.
“Listen to me,” Henry said, and turned me toward him, gripping my shoulders. “This is our chance. They’ll want to know how you brought Ajax back. Tell them, Mary. You know it’s true. I can see it—I see it now in your eyes.”
“I can’t.” I shook my head, biting hard at the inside of my cheek. “You’re asking me to carry my own sword to the executioner.”
Henry’s expression twisted, agony and anger and, finally, fear rolling across his features before it cleared. He stepped back, letting me go.
“Then keep your head and your wits, Mary. I will do whatever I can to see you safely through this.”
God, be with me now, I prayed; then I inhaled, and exhaled, shoulders rising and dipping with each breath as we waited for the Inquisitors.