Chapter 52
Chapter
I had never been to war, but I’d read accounts of combat. The haze of smoke and fear, the sounds of pain and fury, the meeting of metal and flesh.
I could imagine it now, as I struggled toward the square. It wasn’t war, but there were soldiers nonetheless, with their bayonets level, advancing on the crowd. This certainly felt like war.
“Clear the area immediately. Clear the area immediately. On order of Her Majesty, clear the area, or we will be forced to take defensive action.” The voice was on repeat, reliq-enchanted to be heard for a mile square.
The black-bands were singing, trying to drown it out.
In the center of the crowd was a platform made of several stacked, overturned carts.
Lucy stood atop it.
Her gold hair was loose, wild around her shoulders. She’d enchanted her voice, too. I could hear her, clear and warm, over the song and the orders both.
A row of constables and red-coated soldiers eyed the crowd warily, as if they expected violence at any moment. But Lucy ignored them.
“They are few,” she was saying, her eyes sweeping the crowd, “but we are many. The only power they have over us is what power we give them. Revoke that power. Reclaim it. It is yours. Your magic is yours, my friends!” She threw up her arms, and I could see the power of her conviction spreading, moving through the crowd.
Heads nodding. Arms rising. I felt it stirring, even in my own chest, against my fear.
“They will say that we have nothing with which to bargain. But I tell you, you have everything. Do not let—hey! Hey! Leave her alone!”
A fight had broken out in front of Lucy’s makeshift stage. A man in a tattered black coat grabbed a bayonet. Shouts rose. I was shoved from behind as the crowd surged forward. A gunshot went off, like a crack of thunder, and then the world exploded.
The earth bucked, the very ground under our feet rolling like a ship at sea.
The rumbling roar that followed was guttural and terrible, and I thought of titans and gods, risen from Hades, and then the building on the far side of the square simply collapsed, like an old man whose knees have given out.
It crumbled in a way I hadn’t known buildings could, and a fog of dust swallowed us all, and everything was screams, and limbs, and blood.
I crawled over the wounded. They moaned and reached, tearing at my sleeves. They cried, and bled, and I prayed for them, I did. But I had to reach Lucy.
One of the red-coated officers stood stricken, face blank with shock.
I shook him by the shoulders. “Those manifold reliqs. I know you have them. Use them. They can heal.”
He only stared. He had a long cut under his cheekbone, a waterfall of blood.
I slapped him on the other side. He blinked, startled, and focused.
“Heal them,” I commanded, and waded on. The dust was clearing, and in its wake was horror—but also people cautiously rising to their feet, and then kneeling to wrap tourniquets and stanch wounds. I pressed on to Lucy.
She had tumbled between two of the carts, her leg caught in a wheel-spoke, her foot turned wrong.
Her body was limp and loose, blood-soaked strands of hair across closed lids.
I was too late.
“Lucy! Oh, God. No.” I brushed the hair from her brow, and cradled her head. Tears streamed down my face, falling onto her matted-red hair. “No, no, no, no, no.”
Her lids fluttered. I gasped and shouted for help.
The officer helped me turn the cart. An old woman with silver braids worked Lucy’s leg free. A thin man with tattered shoes tore his sleeve and wrapped it around her head. It soaked through at once.
“The manifold reliq,” I demanded to the officer. “You can heal her.”
He shook his head. “It’s empty. I managed six or seven of the most grievously wounded, but…” He gestured helplessly at the scores of the wounded around us. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” I said, gritting my teeth. “You did the right thing. Here. Help me carry her.”
The man cradled Lucy in his arms, her head falling against his chest.
I didn’t bother knocking this time. I kicked the damn door in, shouting.
Edgar raced down the stairs, freezing when he saw his sister in the officer’s arms.
“She needs help.” I burst into tears again.
I paced so long outside Lucy’s room, I think I wore a pattern into the tile. I had no real idea what was going on outside this house; for all I knew, there could be more collapsed buildings and violence across the city. But I couldn’t worry about any of that until I knew Lucy was safe.
“Mary?”
I spun at Edgar’s voice. My shoulders unknotted. He was smiling.
“She’s all right. She’s awake.”
I shoved past him into the bedroom. Lucy was still in her bloodied, dusty clothes. There was a neater, clean bandage on her head, but her hair was still matted red. She was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.
I sat in the chair by her bed and took her hand.
“Oh, Luce. I thought you were dead,” I whispered.
“Well, now you know how it feels,” she said drolly.
Edgar chuckled, folding his arms. “You know, I never had to play nursemaid so often before you two came to town.”
“I don’t even know what happened,” Lucy said. “One minute I was talking, and then I think there was an argument, and the next…” She frowned.
“It was a manifold reliq. They used it like—like a cannonball, almost.”
I looked at Edgar. He needed to know this, too. He could help.
“The Geomagical Society sold a trial batch to the home secretary’s office, for the military to use against the black-bands. They plan to sell more. You have to stop it, Edgar. It isn’t right. That kind of power…it’s too dangerous.”
Edgar was frowning. “You know this for certain?”
“Henry confirmed it,” I said, and his frown deepened. “He thought I’d be pleased.”
Lucy squeezed my hand and looked sharply at her brother. “You see? I told you. Nothing good can come of that cursed Loom. Nothing good at all.”
Edgar exhaled, running a hand through his hair. “I am not too proud to admit you may be right.”
“Tell us what happened, Mary,” Lucy said. She tried to sit up a bit more, then winced in pain and settled back.
“Well, this morning I was initiated as a Society member, and I learned—”
I choked. Henry hadn’t been lying. I was bound. Lucy’s eyes were wide with alarm.
“I can’t tell you,” I croaked. “I’m forbidden. But let’s just say, I learned how much they keep from us.” I was surprised at the fury in my voice. “The powerful, I mean. The secrets that they hold. Isn’t that right, Edgar?”
He nodded slowly. “It’s true.”
We were silent, Lucy looking between us, as if she might be able to read the truth there.
“So, following initiation,” Edgar said, after a long moment, “you went to speak with Henry?”
I nodded. “That’s when I overheard about the manifold reliqs being sold to the government. When Henry explained, I made him think I supported the plan. But…” I felt cold, remembering the way the earth had exploded underfoot.
“But?” Lucy asked softly.
I gripped her hands. It was time. There would be no going back after this. Not to the Society. Maybe not to Henry. My heart thumped against my chest, sorrow at odds with my conviction. But this was right. I was sure of it.
I leaned forward.
“I want to help you, Luce. I want to help you stop the Loom.”
A long silence followed. Lucy studied my face. “You’re sure?”
“After what happened today…the damage those manifold reliqs can do…yes, I’m sure.” I exhaled, then quickly added, “Now, before you get any ideas, I’m not going to help you sabotage the machinery or anything like that. Not that you were planning such a thing.”
Edgar raised a brow as Lucy flushed.
“But I’ll help you campaign against it. Or try to persuade Henry to close it down himself. Or, Edgar, you helped finance the thing in the first place, right? What if you pull your funding?”
He shook his head. “I was an early investor, it’s true, but there are plenty others now, and many more eager to take my place if I backed out.”
“Then we’ll do something else. We will figure it out,” I said. “But I want to help. However I can.”
“And what about Henry?” Lucy asked. “If he doesn’t come around?”
“I don’t know,” I said miserably. “But there’s something else I need to tell you, too. About Henry.” I swallowed. “About me.”
“You can tell us anything, Mary,” Edgar said, with a steadying hand on my shoulder.
And I did. I told the Murrays the truth about Ajax.
About the other reanimations. The tanks of ancient creatures currently at Henry’s house.
I even shared Henry’s theory of magic, that I was some kind of witch with a special affinity for fossils.
About Buckland’s flood-hibernation theory. About how it was all a lie.
Lucy’s eyes went wider and wider, her lips tighter and tighter as I continued.
“I…see,” she said, once I finished.
Edgar watched me intently; I could practically see the wheels turning in his mind. “Who else knows about this resurrection power?”
I shook my head. “No one but Henry. Which is why, well…”
“Right.” Edgar nodded. “If we try to stop his operations at Glasswater—”
“—and Henry decides to fight back—” Lucy continued.
“Then he can simply hand me over to the Inquisitors, with all the proof to damn me,” I said, only to be met with a dreadfully discouraging silence.
I was still worrying at the problem when Edgar reappeared with tea, insisting it would help to keep our spirits up as we strategized.
Would Henry really turn me in to the Inquisitors? He claimed to love me. But he’d claimed the same before, and had chosen ambition nonetheless. I needed to be realistic, even if it hurt: I had to assume he might do the same again if we challenged his Loom.
Edgar brought the tray to the bed and laid it over Lucy’s lap, fussing with the teapot.
“I’m not an invalid,” she said, shooing him away. “I can pour it myself.”
Edgar took his cup and saucer and walked to the bay window. “It looks like things have calmed down out there,” he said, peering onto the street below.
I drank my own tea gladly, the heat coating my throat and settling my nerves.
Edgar sighed, still looking out the window. “It’s really a shame our Henry is such a damned liar.”
I snorted, but Edgar continued. “Only two days ago, he insisted you weren’t yet ready.”
“Mary?” Lucy’s voice was thin, and her hand trembled on the quilt.
“Edgar, come quickly, she’s gone ice cold,” I said, and gasped as I caught her fingers.
Edgar didn’t turn; he was a dark silhouette against the sunlit glass. “You weren’t ready to accept your powers, Henry said. You needed more time. We had to be patient. The experiment would have to wait until you were ready to see the truth. To embrace it.”
Nothing he said was making sense, and Lucy’s lashes were fluttering shut. Her hand went limp in mine.
“I mean it, Edgar, Lucy needs help,” I tried to say, but the words came out slurred.
Edgar finally turned and cocked his head. “But all this time, you already knew you were a witch. Because he’d told you! Even resurrecting things in secret.” He chuckled. “The absolute gall.”
I was slipping. Fighting against the weight of my eyelids.
My head flopped against the chairback, the muscles in my neck gone slack.
Edgar strode over, his voice gentle. “Don’t fight it, Mary. It’s going to be okay. It’s just a sedative.” He patted my cheek. “I’ll see you on the other side.”