Chapter Twenty-Five
Damien awoke two days later feeling as though he’d not only been beaten, but thrown beneath a carriage and kicked between its wheels.
His cheek was red and raised, and when he peeled the greying white shirt from his chest he could see a patchwork of bruising beneath it – yellows, purples, and angry reds spreading in patterns down his chest and arms from the blows he’d not managed to avoid before the fray had tumbled out of the doorway, and onto the street.
‘If only Pa could see me now,’ he muttered – crossing to the washbasin in the corner.
The water was old – he hadn’t changed it yesterday, and nor did he have the energy to traipse down to the small pump in the courtyard today.
He picked the lint from the water before splashing it over his face, under his arms, wincing as it sank into the collection of cuts he was amassing before running another handful of water through his hair – oily now, and dark with it.
Perhaps his father would’ve given him some speech – about how this was his fault. About how he’d brought it all upon himself.
But even that was generous.
The last time Damien had seen his father, he hadn’t uttered a single word to him – not in the two-hour carriage ride it’d taken them to reach that abominable school.
Not even as he’d stood in its cavernous doorway, a collection of trunks and cases at Damien’s feet.
He’d just looked at him with those sharp, dark eyes – and then he’d turned, and walked back to the carriage, shutting the door so hard Damien could hear the glass rattling in the windowpanes.
He pushed the thought away – for he didn’t want to think about that school.
About the Christmases he’d had to spend there, and the letters he’d waited for – soul stretched thin with hope that there’d be one from his father.
But the only people who ever wrote to Damien were the butler – his messages short, encouraging, but damnably brief – and the cook, who always sent a wax-paper package with hers. A treacle cake, or pots of jam.
A taste of home, she’d always write.
As though home wasn’t something he’d lost.
Damien gripped the edge of the washbasin, watching his fingernails turn white with the effort. And then he straightened, throwing on a new shirt, a new neck-tie, and turning for the stairs.
‘Any letters?’ he asked the sour-faced man now.
‘Mmm.’
He lifted the page of the penny dreadful he was reading, and shunted a small square of paper towards Damien. Damien tore into it, pulling the thin scrap of paper out quickly.
Lillian wants her update, it read, in shaky black lettering. And don’t forget – she knows where you live.
Damien hadn’t noticed how many sets of stairs Bertie had led him up before: from the foyer, to the auditorium, to the gallery level, and then up even further, until now.
Now every step ached, every bruise on his body singing until he stood once more in that long corridor at the top of the theatre, the circular windows casting a dozen, pale moons of sunlight upon the carpet.
And he thought of her.
Ava.
The woman he’d met that first night had been a woman defeated.
A woman bowing under the weight of something unseen.
But that was not the same woman he’d seen outside the inn.
That Ava had been fierce, and bright – and brilliant – and he wondered if that was what she’d been like on the stage, too.
The moment she’d stepped in front of him something had changed – in her voice, her presence.
He’d felt it in the way his pulse had stumbled in his chest, in the way it’d sent something hot and unfamiliar spearing through his veins.
Normally when someone did this, when they stepped over the invisible line he had long ago drawn in the dirt, he would leave. Or he would lean more heavily upon his rules: the tenets for life that had thus far kept him safely separated from the rest of the world.
And yet with her, he’d already broken most of them.
‘You can wait in the office,’ said Bertie, appearing at his shoulder. ‘Miss Lillian will be up in just a moment. She’s dealing with a costuming crisis.’
‘Sounds serious,’ said Damien, following her into the room.
The curtains were still drawn, the fire banked but not relit, and the glow from the embers bathing the room in a warm, reddish tinge.
This time, the birds were quiet, with only a gentle, rhythmic coo coming from one of the pigeon cages.
Damien’s gaze flitted to where the magpie had been, but the door was open, and it was gone.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ said Bertie.
‘Of course,’ said Damien, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he sat down, and counted Bertie’s retreating steps down the hallway.
Eight, nine …
She would be nearing the staircase now. And as soon as he heard the creak of the stairwell door …
He stood, crossing to the shelves. It was harder to see in the low light, but not impossible, and he let his eyes adjust, trying to read the black, scratched writing upon the shelves.
Income.
Payroll.
And one that said something far more interesting. Szarka’s Circus. The box’s knot had been loosened, and when he slid it from the shelf the birds were blessedly quiet – even as he opened it.
It was filled with … cuttings. Just newspaper cuttings.
Reams of them, threaded at the corner in nonsensical piles, and as he brought them closer to the fire, to the glowing coals, his brow furrowed.
Many were in a language that he couldn’t understand – Greek?
The Cyrillic alphabet, perhaps? But there was one from The Star in London, one with a line drawing of a tiny figure atop a high wire, and what looked like a mountainous drop below.
Liliána Szarka ascends the high wire, while her father, the Ringmaster, watches from below.
He wished whomever had cut this hadn’t cut the date from it, too, for the figure looked like that of a child. As though she couldn’t have been any more than six or seven, and yet there she was – suspended over nothing, arms held wide as wings.
Footsteps in the corridor.
He slipped the pages back into the box, replacing the lid with careful silence, twisting the yarn back into place as the footsteps grew louder, accompanied now by the familiar thunk of her cane, and the chakker-chak of the magpie upon her shoulder.
As he replaced the box upon the shelf, his gaze shifted south slightly, to one he hadn’t seen before.
And a name he had.
A. Adams.
‘That was fast,’ said Miss Lillian, stepping past him to the desk, and leaning over one of the gas lamps.
She pulled matches from her top drawer, the magpie fluttering loudly upon her shoulder until the room was lit with yellow warmth.
‘I thought I would have to send Bertie in person for your reply.’
‘It’s not in my interest to drag this out forever,’ said Damien, his eyes flicking back to the shelf.
The box he’d taken was sticking out ever so slightly. Why hadn’t he pushed it flush, with all the others?
‘So then?’ Miss Lillian sat down, and the magpie hopped onto the desk and began preening its iridescent feathers. ‘Bertie said the two of you were at the theatre. Why?’
‘It wasn’t planned,’ said Damien. ‘I found her outside the stage door. She was eager to see her mother’s dressing room again. She said it’s the last place where it feels as though her mother is still alive.’
Lillian’s dark eyes narrowed a little. ‘How touching,’ she said, scribbling something down. ‘Shall you tell me what you’ve learned, or shall I sit here guessing?’
‘Well, she agreed to take me on,’ said Damien.
Lillian’s expression flattened. ‘I set you loose for two weeks, and that’s all you come back with? A story about her mother’s dressing room, and that?’
‘No,’ said Damien, the muscle in his jaw bunching slightly. ‘I came to tell you that she can do it. Mesmerism. I saw it, first-hand.’
Lillian’s eyes widened. ‘And how did it go?’
Damien looked at the bird on her shoulder, at the way it dug its beak through its feathers. As though it could sense his gaze upon it, the bird looked up – cocking its head at Damien.
‘It was … uncomfortable.’
‘For her? Or for you?’
‘For both of us, I believe. But she managed it.’
Lillian plucked up a pen, dipping it into the almost-dry inkwell. ‘What of her technique?’ she asked. ‘Did she use the coin? The bell?’
A shadow of a frown crossed Damien’s face. ‘A pocketwatch,’ he said. ‘Though we’ve only had one session. “To build trust,” she said.’
Miss Lillian arched an eyebrow. ‘And did she succeed?’
‘Succeed?’
‘In gaining your trust?’
Damien gave her one of his more lop-sided grins. ‘Very few people succeed at that, Miss Lillian.’
He was sure he saw her roll her eyes, but it was so fast, and the room so dimly lit, that he couldn’t be sure.
‘She is taking this seriously, then?’
‘I should say so,’ said Damien.
‘And you are the only one?’ Miss Lillian leaned over the desk. ‘The only one she’s practising with?’
‘I … believe so. She spoke last time of moving the location of the sessions. Something about her house not being suitable – but I’m not sure where it’ll be yet.’
‘Let me know, as soon as you find out,’ said Lillian, scribbling something at pace. ‘And find out what happened in Edinburgh.’
Damien raised two dark eyebrows. ‘Edinburgh?’
‘Yes.’ Miss Lillian shook the pen, sending splatters of black ink flying. ‘Because I don’t believe for a moment it was “nothing”.’ Her voice was soft now, her attention firmly fixed elsewhere. ‘And my job …’ She trailed off, and Damien sat there for a moment, expectant.
‘Your job?’ he prompted.
‘Is none of your business,’ snapped Lillian. ‘I trust you can see yourself out?’