A Shadow Bright and Burning (34 page)

“You've saved us, Henrietta.” Fenswick stood on my bedside table and saw to a cut above my eye. The little hobgoblin spoke with affection. “Your queen will be pleased. They tell me she survived.” I winced as Fenswick pressed a stinging, wet cloth to my head. It didn't much matter, of course. Rook was dead. I wanted to go to sleep and stay asleep.

“The gossip among the servants has it that your queen will want to put the sorcerers more on the front lines now. What a difference that will make.” Fenswick made an irritated sound when I didn't respond. “There's no need to lie there like a fish, you know. You're not
that
badly hurt.”

“I will be once the soldiers come to take me back to the tower. The queen ordered my execution.”

Fenswick huffed. “Not this again. Do you really think you'd have been in this bed the past two hours if the queen thought you dangerous? Her Majesty took advice from the wrong people.” He dried my face. “No one will hurt you now.”

My vision blurred with tears. “They might as well kill me. I let Rook die.”

“What?” Fenswick's right ear twitched and bobbed. “No, he's alive. I've told you already.”

“What?” I grabbed the unfortunate hobgoblin by the shoulders and lifted him from the table. “How? Where is he?”

“Unhand me! I suppose I can't blame you, you were half blind and raving when Magnus carried you back here. Hopefully, this time you'll remember what I've said. Ow! Stop squeezing!”

“How could he be alive?” I gasped.

“Rook teetered on the edge between life and death. I merely saw to it that he tipped over the correct way.” Fenswick proudly flapped his ears.

“Where is he?”

“Resting in Blackwood's room. Do you think you can remember all this information? If you give me a moment to put my kit away, I can take you there.”

I tossed Fenswick onto the bed, threw the blanket off my legs, and stumbled for the door while he yelled at me to come back and carry him. Tripping twice, I checked every door along the boys' corridor until I found a room with a fire in the hearth and Rook propped up in a canopied bed, his arms and chest bandaged. Lilly dozed in a chair. When I said Rook's name, his eyes opened. Oh God, he was alive.

“Don't crush me, Nettie.” He laughed as I crossed the room and fell onto the bed beside him. “I'm not beyond the reach of death.”

“Are you all right?” I touched his hand. His breathing sounded shallow and strained, but at least he
was
breathing.

“I've some new scars.”

I buried my face in his shoulder. He stroked my hair.

“I'm so glad you're all right, miss,” Lilly said when I'd composed myself enough to sit up. She grasped my hand. When she let go, her fingers were all sooty. “Oh dear. I'll get the young gentlemen.” She wiped her hand on her apron as she left the room.

“You saved me,” I said.

“We saved each other. Always have.” He smiled. It was him, just as he'd always been. No, not quite. The more I looked, the more I realized something was different, though I could not tell…

The boys entered to embrace me and gather around the bed. Magnus and Blackwood stood by Rook's side, talking with him. Wolff and Dee each shook my hand before moving to pay their respects to Rook as well. They were all smiles and acceptance. I sat down, my knees weak with relief.

“Very well done,” Lambe said. He stood before me and placed his hand on my hair, almost like a blessing. “You were brave.”

“Thank you.”

“Just take care about the woman.” His eyes got that glazed, half-asleep look. “She got out of the fire. You must keep her away from the wood.” He patted my head and went to join the group.

Another vision. Sighing, I rubbed my eyes. It could wait till tomorrow.

I felt a pull at my skirt. Fenswick, huffing and puffing, motioned me out the door. Embarrassed for having forgotten him, I carried him into the hallway.

“Henrietta, I need to tell you something,” he said when we were alone. “It's about Rook's scars.”

“Yes, he has new ones from the battle.”

“Well, that's just it. They seem to be overpowering him.” The hobgoblin stroked one of his ears and stared down at it, not meeting my eyes.

“How do you mean?” I asked, careful.

Fenswick sighed. “I've known what his powers are for some time. For both your sakes, I've held my tongue, but now they're getting worse.”

“You're wrong. Rook was in control. He battled Korozoth, for heaven's sake!”

“Rook taking control doesn't mean what you wish it did, not according to my examinations. He's learned to master a certain amount of power. Additional scars will mean additional strength. The more he takes control, the more he changes.”

“Changes?” My voice sounded hollow.

“There are subtle differences now, in the eyes, in the ears. So long as he was safe in Yorkshire and his powers lay dormant, he was mostly a normal boy. He is in a state of transformation now, becoming less human.”

“No.” I put my hand on the wall to steady myself. I hadn't come so far, pulled both of us through so much, for this. “Korozoth's dead. He can't hurt Rook anymore.”

“Hmm.” Fenswick tucked all four of his hands behind his back. “We know that sorcerers may bestow powers upon their chosen human servants. Who's to say the Ancients can't do the same?”

Was that the purpose of the Unclean? If they were receptacles of power…
His abilities lay dormant. He's transforming. I brought him here. I forced him to come.
“We're going to help him.” I clenched my jaw.

“It's beyond all my medicine,” Fenswick said. He patted my hand. “I think it would be kindness to, well…”

“End it?” As though Rook were some rabid animal to be taken into the yard and shot. I grabbed hold of his paw. “You and I will work together. I don't care what it takes, we're going to stop this transformation. No one else can know.”

“You're asking me to put us all in danger.”

“I'm asking you not to give up on him so soon,” I said, my voice shaking with desperation.

Fenswick considered this, removing himself from my grasp. “He's a good boy. I would hate to destroy him. But if he cannot be brought back,” he warned, “if his suffering grows too great, I'll tell the Order, and they will end his pain.”

“Agreed,” I whispered. “But first we try.” I wanted to fall to my knees. Not this. Not more pain, and not now. “I wonder if you might clear the boys out, doctor. I'd like to stay with him awhile.”

“Naturally.” Fenswick waddled in, yelling, and a moment later shepherded everyone from the room. Lambe carried him out, petting his right ear.

Rook seemed so small in the bed. Alone, I sat beside him again.

“Are you well, Nettie?” He smiled. He didn't know. He wouldn't know.

“Yes.” I sounded strange, even to myself.

Rook said, in a more subdued tone, “When I'm healed, I plan to leave this place.”

I startled. “What? Why?”

“You don't need me. You've great new work to do, and…new friends. I'll hold you back. I can find work—”

“You have to stay with me, Rook. Please.” Tears spilled down my cheeks.

“It's not proper.”

“Who's to say what is proper? I already live outside of society's good opinion. How much more damage can this possibly do?”

He laughed. It looked as if he wanted to agree, but then he said, “You have Mr. Magnus—”

“Magnus means nothing to me, not in that way.” My voice almost failed. “You are the most important person in my life, and you've always been. Please don't ever leave.” He placed my hand over his chest, so that I could feel his heart, a soft and steady beat against my palm.

“I won't go if you don't want me to.”

Not tonight, not tomorrow, not a year or twenty or fifty years from now. My shoulders shook. Why should love be so painful?

“You know I'd hate to ever leave your side,” I said.

“As you wish, Henrietta,” he murmured. I leaned my forehead against his. His breath caught, and we drew nearer…until the darkness at the corners of the room began to close in around us. Instinctively, I flinched. The shadows vanished. “I'm sorry,” he sighed. “It always seems to get in the way.”

“Yes.” I wore a false smile. In his eyes, I recognized the change I'd noted before. The irises were pure black. No blue at all.
There are subtle differences now, in the eyes….

Someone cleared his throat. Magnus watched from the doorway. “They sent me to tell you there's a messenger. The queen has summoned you. It doesn't look dangerous.” He appeared to have heard everything. I didn't care about that. At least, I couldn't. Not anymore.

“Thank you. I'd like to wash up, but afterward I'll go directly.” I squeezed Rook's hand and left the room, brushing past Magnus on my way out the door. A moment later, I heard his footsteps behind me. He looked determined.

“What is it?”

“Howel, you don't understand—”

“Yes, I do. You came back for me when most others would have left me to rot. You're my dear friend, as you'll always be.” I emphasized the word
friend.
I held out my hand to him, praying it remained steady. “I hope you'll invite me to your wedding. I want you to be the brother I never had.”

I already regretted this. That didn't make it any less right.

He stared at my hand for a moment, as if he didn't know what on earth it was. Slowly, he took and kissed it. “I'd be honored to be that close to you, Howel.”

“Thank you,” I said. He held on for too long. Then he kissed my hand again. That tingling warmth spread throughout my body. I wanted…

No. This had to stop. I tried to politely slip away, but he held on. There was a determined look in his eyes.

“I can't,” he whispered. “I can't let you go.”

“You will.” I yanked out of his grasp. “Or we won't see each other again.” I walked off, feeling sick to the core of my being. If he felt half as awful as I in that moment, he was sorry enough.

T
HERE WAS NO FANFARE, ONLY A
servant who led me down dark halls to a large room. My heart was pounding despite my best efforts to remain calm. After all, if the queen wanted me dead, she wouldn't have allowed me to have Blackwood and Fenswick as escorts, though they'd been instructed to remain in the front parlor. I just hoped I'd got all the soot off me.

I was shown into a small receiving chamber. On the far side of the room, Queen Victoria sat in a chair before the fireplace, her dog in her lap. She looked very small and young now that she had removed her jewels. She smiled when I entered.

“Sit, Miss Howel.” I did. “We…that is, I know what you've done tonight.”

“I'm glad that I was able to stop Korozoth, Your Majesty.”

“Lord Blackwood came to see me straight after the fighting and explained how the ward happened to fall.” Would she now blame me for the trouble in the first place? “It grieves me that Master Palehook could have abused my people and my trust so shamefully.” She stroked her little dog's head. “Even if I could replenish the ward, I would not.”

“So Your Majesty isn't angry?” I twisted my hands in my lap.

“No. I'm pleased, both with the destruction of one of the great Seven, and what I've learned of your people.”

“My people?” The sorcerers? The magicians? I felt no surge of belonging to either.

“The sorcerers have been left to their own devices long enough. They behave as if they are sorcerers first and Englishmen second.”

“They're not my people, Majesty. My father was a magician with a talent for fire. Howard Mickelmas did teach me how to pass for a sorcerer. I was prepared to accept your commendation and lie to everyone.”