Chapter Thirty-Five
They all panicked. Frida’s entire body seized up, and it was a good thing Dian had more wherewithal than she did, because if it was left up to her, she might have just never been able to move again.
By the time she heard the sound of a door being unlocked, and the heavy creak of ancient hinges, Dian was already dragging her behind one of the tables, the icy flagstones bruising her knees in their hurry.
A dour male voice muttered something, then they heard slow, measured footsteps approaching down the corridor.
Frida and Dian squeezed as far back as they could, finding shelter against the cold stone of the back wall.
Frida didn’t need to ask if Dian could conjure the raindrops.
The sickly cast to their face and blank fear in their eyes told her the answer.
Not in this corrupt place, and not while still recovering from magicking them through the door.
In the steel-white wash of the warded jars, Dian’s eyes looked vast and unreal, their pupils darker than the shadows themselves.
Without knowing what she was doing, she reached out a finger to graze the edge of their sleeve, as if she might reassure them.
‘It’s going to be ok,’ she mouthed.
But the faint light that clung to their cobwebs outlined them in earthy blue, and looking down at where she’d touched their sleeve, their expression turned stark.
When they lifted their gaze back up, lines of terror radiated from the knot between their brows.
Their throat bobbed, and Frida could almost read their thoughts. He will see us. He will find us.
Frida shook her head vehemently. ‘No,’ she breathed.
Moth, at Dian’s left collarbone, was not much more than a blur now.
Moving so fast, as if the very act of weaving might tie the threads of Dian back together.
Frida inched over a bit, as if she might shield Dian’s light.
And then there was the crisp tread of footsteps entering the room and Dian squeezed their eyes shut, letting their head fall back against the wall, their slack face white as death.
Frida turned away, a haze of rage turning her vision unexpectedly violet.
What had humans done to Dian, to fill them with such fear?
She could hear the footsteps coming closer, the faint clink of glassware, as if the man was inspecting the now empty dragonfly jars.
At the noise, Dian went entirely rigid and Frida, after a split-second hesitation, slipped her hand through theirs, hoping her warmth might help.
She was braced for them to rip away from her, but when the moment stretched and they kept holding on, she dared to hold tighter.
She could feel their panicked gasping slow, though their eyes remined closed, and although their fingers felt brittle as glass, their chest seemed to ease.
Holding her breath, Frida peeked out from beneath their hiding place.
Thankfully, it seemed the light from the warded jars hid Dian’s cobwebs, for the moment at least. The person she saw was not Henry Gladstone, nor anyone she recognised from the other portraits.
She understood this with intense relief, however whoever this man was, he was assessing the damage that she and Dian had wrought with narrowed eyes.
She didn’t think he looked like a servant.
He wore no uniform, and his clothes seemed smart and well made.
Dark breeches, a tailored coat. Practical.
In the half-light, she took in the thick blond hair, the wiry, muscular pitch to his shoulders, the haughty plains of his thin face.
Despite his size, he moved with surprising quiet.
As her nostrils flared, she smelled tobacco smoke and sweat.
She stared, wide-eyed and hollow chested, as he stepped back, and she was able to see that he’d put something down on the far table.
She had a sudden, awful thought that he might have just added the Jewel to the collection of treasures.
However, although it was a new jar, the inhabitant was not a dragon’s heart.
Instead, it was a slippery kind of fern, pea-green frilly creepers licking the sides of the glass.
Some kind of oceanic mandrake root, she guessed, or perhaps the fabled ruffle of a lake-dwelling pondfrussle.
Was this man Henry Gladstone’s accomplice?
She tensed as he turned to survey the room.
His eyes were still narrowed, calculating as he took in the open window and the breeze blowing in.
Quickly, she pulled herself back as his gaze roamed in their direction.
‘Shit,’ she breathed reflexively.
Dian’s eyes flew open and she shook her head, mouthing an apology.
Dian’s fear wafted off them, an almost tangible thing.
She could no longer hear the fairy’s breath, as if they’d stopped entirely, and their lips were so tightly pressed together, she wondered if they could breathe.
They were still holding her hand, but so hard now, she could feel her small bones creaking. Even Moth had stopped, frozen mid-web.
They listened to his soft boots pad over the flagstones, coming closer.
There’s no one here, Frida screamed in her head. If Dian couldn’t dissolve them both into the raindrops, then by sheer force of will, she would do it herself. Go away, she yelled silently. There’s no one here! GO AWAY!
What this man would do if he found them, she had no idea.
Judging from the jars it wasn’t pretty. He hovered above them, and she could see the polished leather of his boots, the thick trunks of his calves wrapped in dark breeches.
She could smell the tangy stench of his sweat, his breathing, slow and calm.
Neither Frida nor Dian moved an inch. They’d missed the chance to introduce themselves politely.
She didn’t imagine people in the nineteenth century reacted to intruders any better than in the twenty-first, and hiding under a table was a clear expression of guilt in any time period.
Menace seemed to waft off the man, freezing the breath in Frida’s lungs.
This is not what she thought a visit to Forge House would feel like.
No one’s here. She vibed the words into the universe. NO ONE’S HERE.
And then, out of nowhere, the man just moved on, muttering angrily to himself, his voice harsh, like sandpaper.
She hadn’t conjured a raindrop like Dian, but her muscles were trembling just the same.
It wasn’t until she was sure the man had headed down the corridor, and she heard the heavy creak of the door’s hinges, the thud of it closing behind him, that she let herself suck in a massive, life-giving breath.
A few seconds later, the unmistakable click of a large metal key turning in the lock.
Dian let out a frantic moan. When they turned to her, their eyes were bloodshot – dark pools, shot through with veins of molten metal, clammy heat radiating off them.
‘Oh, great skies above,’ Moth murmured, looking as if he was about to wilt out of existence.
Frida was already hauling herself out of the shadows, Dian scrambling after her.
‘Let’s go, let’s go!’ Moth squeaked.
Although Frida wholeheartedly agreed, her hand clenched around her tattoo of the terracotta dragon’s tail. ‘I have to look around first.’ She couldn’t leave without looking for clues. For all she knew, Henry Gladstone had stolen the Jewel.
Dian nodded. They didn’t ask her any questions, seeming instead just to sense her urgency.
She was grateful for that. For the fact that she and Dian might be .
. . maybe not understanding each other but perhaps understanding-adjacent.
She set off at a run, rummaging through drawers, hunting through stacks of instruments, scanning reams of paper.
There was a back room, with sharp metal hooks hanging from the ceiling and knives with such keen edges she could have wept.
If she found the Jewel, she didn’t know what she’d do.
The very thought that it could be amongst this catalogue of horrors was world-ending.
It wasn’t, though. And although she tried to read Henry Gladstone’s notes, they were all written in a dense, unintelligible shorthand.
The most useful thing she found was a crate of bruised apples, next to a huge cast iron sink in the back.
She used the sink to wash some of the dirt from her face.
Then finding a ceramic mug on the side, she drunk deeply, before offering it to Dian.
She wasn’t sure if they’d touch it, but after a moment’s pause, they took it gratefully.
And when she handed them half the apples, they didn’t hesitate.
For a few minutes, the two of them just stood next to each other, the sounds of munching echoing through the humming silence.
The apples were a crisp shock of sweetness.
Frida had to admit they were delicious. Afterwards, she felt a thousand times better and Dian had regained a measure of colour to their cheeks.
Whether it had to do with the apples, or the brand-new cobwebs Moth had been diligently weaving across Dian’s heart, Frida didn’t know.
But she smiled, remembering Antony’s old collie-cross who’d preceded Peter the Poodle.
Marvin had always needed to wear a soft, tight jacket they’d called his ‘support sweater’, a kind of full-body hug.
Frida had often wished they made them for humans.
Looking at Moth’s delicate woven threads, she wondered if they had a similar vibe.
Whatever the case, seeing Dian start to recover eased a tight private knot deep within her.
As if they’d heard her, Dian cocked their head at her, asking a silent question. Frida shook her head, sinking back against the nearest table.