Chapter 35
Chapter
I woke, later, to the soft staccato of voices.
It was dark, just past midnight according to the reliq-clock on my nightstand, and only a little light spilled through a crack in the curtains and around the doorframe.
With a grunt of effort, I pulled myself from bed and hobbled to the door, pressing my ear against it.
Male voices. Two, I thought, though I couldn’t make out the words.
My chest ached, and I would have shrugged and taken back to bed if I hadn’t heard my own name next.
“—and Mary!” The voice faded again, and I turned the doorknob.
Before bed, Edgar’s maids had bullied me into a bath, heated with a never-ending basket of reliqs, and had dressed me in a blue nightdress, finer than any gown I’d ever worn. The soft silk swirled around my ankles as I padded down the hallway toward the voices.
“—they could have been killed, Ed.”
I paused, hand on the wall. That was Henry. I didn’t like the way my heart fluttered at his voice. It had fluttered earlier, too, when he returned to assure me that Ajax was biting his handlers especially viciously in my absence.
“Just promise me,” Henry continued. “I couldn’t bear it if—”
He cut off abruptly. I froze.
“You can come in, Mary,” Edgar said wryly.
I winced. Of course he’d set a ward of some kind. Silly me, forgetting again how many ways magic could be used when it was always at your fingertips.
Sheepishly, I entered. Edgar and Henry sat in plush leather chairs, a decanter of whiskey on the table between them and glasses in hand.
My heart raced a little when Henry’s gaze met mine—as it always did now, the stupid organ. Henry’s eyebrows rose, and my cheeks flushed as I realized I hadn’t worn a robe over the nightgown.
“I heard my name,” I said, folding my arms across my breasts.
“Sit, Mary. Please,” Edgar said, and gestured. “Can I pour you a glass? You’re in luck; Henry was just chastising me. A favorite pastime of his, you may recall. Perhaps you’d care to join?”
Henry leaned back with one arm thrown over the chairback, an illusion of ease that might fool someone else. But I could see the tension in the curve of his shoulder.
Edgar sat as he always did—back straight, elbows on the armrests—as if the seat could barely contain his restlessness.
I accepted the glass of whiskey and lowered myself into an empty chair. “And why is it you require chastising?”
“We—the government, I mean,” Edgar continued with a wave, “received some warnings that such an attack might be forthcoming. Henry is quite furious that I allowed my sister and yourself to attend yesterday’s session in light of that intelligence.”
“Allowed us?” I arched a brow.
Edgar gestured at Henry, in a show of, See? I told you. Henry scowled.
“The risk of a successful assault was considered very, very small,” Edgar said.
“And truly, Mary, if I’d understood the seriousness of the threat, I would have pushed to delay the whole thing.
As I wish I had now. I had so hoped my proposal would lead to change.
Instead, all I’ve managed is to throw London into violence. ”
“More protests? Is Lucy…” I trailed off, nearly afraid to ask.
“Under house arrest? Apparently,” said a cross voice.
We turned; Lucy stood in the doorway. She, at least, had remembered her robe. Her yellow hair hung over one shoulder in a loose braid, and her feet were bare. She sank into the fourth leather chair, across from mine.
“As I said, dear sister, you are more than welcome to venture from this house tonight over my cold and rotting corpse,” Edgar said cheerfully. “Otherwise, it’ll have to wait until morning, I’m afraid.”
It was impossible not to compare this man with the one who’d spoken in Parliament. Edgar was clearly at home here in his study, surrounded by his friends and his books, his energy lending a lively warmth to the room.
Lucy scowled and curled her feet under herself. “Well, have you heard any more news? Any idea who was behind the attack?”
Edgar shook his head.
“It wasn’t Prometheans?” I asked.
“Of course not,” Lucy sputtered.
“Who were they, then? Those two men?”
“I don’t know.” Lucy scrubbed at her face. “They could have been Libertines. They’re far more radical than we—though much smaller, too,” she mused. “Or Dunnites, I suppose. But they’ve been rather hesitant to do anything besides stage a few small sit-ins.”
“My money would be on the Libertines,” Henry murmured. “They used to sabotage my father’s factories, back when I was a boy.”
“Libertines? Dunnites?” My head spun.
Lucy looked surprised. “I’m sure I’ve talked about them before. There’s not just one reform movement, after all.”
“No. These things are always growing and splintering, sharing some aims and not others. Similar goals. Different tactics.” Edgar swirled his glass and grinned.
“Rather like us, in fact. Will it be Lucy’s rabble-rousing that secures that fairer world of magic?
My politicking, poor as it is? Or will it be the promise of Henry’s great Loom? ”
Henry chuckled. “And Viscount Merlton, Lord Edgar Murray, behind them all.”
“If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself,” Edgar said, and shrugged.
“Well, you know how I feel about your ‘Loom,’ ” said Lucy. “The very concept of manifold reliqs concentrates magic in the hands of the wealthy, rather than expanding the right to self-determination of one’s own magic.”
I was only half listening as Edgar countered that the Loom would provide financial independence, if not magical; and was that not an intermediate step toward freedom?
I was thinking instead of the old viscount, who had so feared his witch wife’s power that he let her die in agony.
I hoped he rotted deeper in his grave every time his son or daughter spoke of magic and freedom in the same breath.
“It is no replacement for direct action.” Lucy was shaking her head. She sighed and wrapped an arm around her knees. “I should have been out there yesterday.”
I startled. “But if you’d been among the protestors—”
“Mary, don’t you dare say whatever inane thing you’re about to.”
“What, that you could have been killed?”
“They’re my people. I should have joined them,” Lucy said.
I tried not to let her see that it hurt me. Wasn’t I her people, too?
“Is it so crazy that I don’t want you to die?” I snapped. “It just seems like all of this is getting a bit out of hand.”
“All of this?” She stared. “All of this, Mary, is my life’s work. Wouldn’t you risk it all for yours? At least I am trying to make a better world.”
I was stung silent, and Henry caught his breath.
“Luce.” Edgar said her name softly. “That wasn’t fair.”
Lucy flushed. “You’re right. Forgive me, Mary.”
I nodded, but my cheeks were hot with shame. Was that really what she thought of me?
“This has been a trying time for us all,” Edgar said, as if that could set the matter to bed. “But I must admit, I have been glad to have us four together again.” His cheek dimpled. “That summer in Lyme Regis was the best time of my life.”
“Of mine, too,” Lucy murmured. She flashed a smile. “Which is shocking, really, given that you three spent most of your time talking about old books and bones.” She groaned and waggled her eyebrows. “Remember Ed’s obsession with Pharaoh’s magicians? The ‘secret arts’?”
“Oh, to be young again.” Edgar laughed. “Ah, well. I suppose we all have to grow up sometime, don’t we?”
Henry chuckled as he poured more whiskey. “To Mary. Who brought us together. Then, and now.”
I stayed quiet as the others toasted my name, and knew that each was remembering that summer, with sweetness and sorrow both. Just as I was.
Lucy caught my eye over her glass. I’m sorry, she mouthed.
I nodded, accepting the apology, but I understood now that something—some vital cord of trust between us—was beginning to fray.
I followed the physiomagician’s orders dutifully for three days so that on the fourth, when I insisted on attending Buckland’s public lecture at St. Paul’s, he begrudgingly consented.
“But do make sure she takes it easy, Lord Merlton,” the physiomagician said, sighing and pushing the spectacles up his crooked nose. “You appear healed, Miss Anning, but we can’t be sure how your heart is recovering. And you come straight here after the lecture, you understand?”
I agreed, but Edgar caught my eye when the satisfied physiomagician left the room.
“You’ll be headed back to Buckland’s, then?”
I grinned. He knew me well. “I need to get back to my work.” And to Ajax and the other specimens. Henry brought me updates, but we couldn’t speak openly in front of Edgar or the staff, so I was eager to check on things myself.
“Look after yourself, all right? Don’t let my sister get you into trouble. Things out there are still unstable.” Edgar jerked his chin toward the window. “Now, we better get going. William Buckland will have my head if I’m the reason you’re late for his great triumph.”
I knew Edgar wasn’t much for hugging, so I swallowed a lump in my throat when he wrapped an arm around me.
I’d long considered Lucy a sister. But while Edgar was dear to me, we’d never been close.
For all our letters and Christmas dinners at Lucy’s cottage, I often had the uneasy sense that I didn’t quite measure up.
That Edgar was always waiting for me to prove myself worthy.
But now, as Edgar ruffled my hair, I thought back to all those letters and dinners and wondered if I’d missed the depth of his affection all along.
It cost two pence to enter St. Paul’s. How different my life was now; one month ago, I wouldn’t have been able to afford the entry fee to see my own discovery on display.