A Study in Ashes (54 page)

“What was that?” wheezed the Blue King, visibly anxious.

“Most likely the Imperial Bank,” Keating replied. “Your headquarters are upstairs, aren’t they, Jane?”

Mrs. Spicer’s cheeks went from red to white. “Curse you, Keating!”

The nursemaid from the Black Kingdom rose, and silence fell. The representatives of the underground rarely spoke, but when they did the rest listened. “Destroy what you must, but do not disturb what lies below. If your weapons shake the earth, you threaten to wake our king.” She spoke with a cut-glass accent more befitting a duchess than a servant, but it was her words that caught Keating’s attention. “You wouldn’t like him much when he is awake.”

“Wake your king?” he repeated. “I doubt anyone in this room has the slightest notion what you are talking about.”

“He sleeps,” she said, the tilt of her head reminding him of a bird hunting a worm. “Do not wreck yourself upon his anger. He will demand recompense.”

“And what would he do?” the Blue King asked, sounding caught between incredulity and something close to fear.

The nursemaid turned to him, eyes impassive. “Whatever you dread most.”

“What is your name?” the Violet Queen demanded. “Who are you to threaten us like this?”

“The daylight world banished its nightmares long ago.” The nursemaid put one hand on each of the children, caressing their hair. “Leave us be, and we are an uneasy dream you will soon forget. But disturb us …” The rest of her statement hung unspoken.

The ground shook with a second explosion, and it broke the spell of the nursemaid’s warning, replacing a vague threat with something much more immediate. The Green Queen wheeled on Keating. “What are you doing?”

He bared his teeth in a not-quite smile. “Retaliating for what you did to me—only I’m better at it. Withdraw your troops from Scarlet’s borders.”

“I don’t bow to threats. Surely you know that by now.”

Another explosion followed, this one closer. A glass fell over, swamping Scarlet’s poisonous papers. People shuffled out of the downstream path.

Blue laughed, sounding like leaky bellows. “That’s not a threat, Mrs. Spicer. And I’d tell your troops to worry about your own territories. It sounds like there won’t be much left at this rate.”

Keating gave Blue an acknowledging nod. Green tossed her agenda to the floor. “This meeting is adjourned.”

There was a beat of silence. The children from the Black Kingdom watched the poisoned water trickle past them, their faces impassive. Keating tore his gaze from them and back to Jane Spicer.

“There are formalities to be observed. You defaced the Palace of Westminster,” Keating reminded her. “I’m sure the queen would like a word.”

Green scoffed. “I’m sure she’d like a word with you about those streets of hers you’re bombing.”

But then the double doors opened and Keating’s own soldiers filed in, their gold uniforms almost tastelessly bright. The Green Queen’s aides—pinched-looking men who looked like they hunched over ledgers from dawn to dusk—stood quickly aside.

“Surely you jest, Keating!” There was a flash of bewilderment on Mrs. Spicer’s plain face. He’d seen it before, in this very room, when they had ousted Gray. That time, she had been quite happy to take Gray’s property and let him go to the devil.
This moment of ignominy will come to each of us, sooner or later, until one of us has won
.

But the moment the soldiers touched her, she came back to life. “I left instructions!” she barked, struggling as her wrists were lashed behind her back. “If I don’t return, my people will know what to do.”

If you don’t return, your people will be popping champagne corks
.

She’d lost the iron control that kept her spine so straight and was thrashing wildly, kicking out at her captors. “Unhand me! I have wealth. I can pay you.”

“I’m sure Her Majesty’s private service will be interested
in the details, Mrs. Spicer. Be sure to answer their questions regarding your income promptly and without omission.” Keating kept his face in a superior sneer, but he didn’t relax until he saw her marched from the room.

Then he looked around at Blue, Violet, and the unsettling delegation from Black.
We’re the only ones left. Once events begin to move, they don’t dally
.

Another boom shook the earth. He’d given orders to flatten as much of Green’s territory as possible, sparing his own bank, of course. He gave the table a light rap with his knuckles. “Any other items of business we want to discuss?”

King Coal gave him a withering look. “Not now, Mr. Keating.”

“Then shall we discuss terms?”

Blue laughed, exchanging a glance with Moriarty. “You’re blowing up London. I have a lot of terms for you, none of them polite.” He reversed his chair away from the table, and his Blue Boys assembled behind it. “I’ll see you at the barricades.”

This wasn’t how Keating had wanted it to end. There should have been a treaty—one he could break at his leisure. “You’re inviting the Baskervilles to do their worst.”

“I’m tired of wondering what they’ll do. Maybe it’s time we broke a few eggs, Mr. Keating. Let’s see what kind of a pudding we have at the end of the day.”

Keating sneered. “And no doubt you’ll eat it, whatever it is.”

King Coal chuckled. “Put what you like on my plate, Mr. Keating. I have a prodigiously strong stomach. Perhaps I’ll eat you alive.”

He wheeled out of the room, leaving the Gold King alone with Mrs. Cutter and the alarming children.
Damnation
. He turned to the nursemaid. “I imagine there will be a great deal of panic on the streets. Would you like an escort to your homes?”

“Thank you, sir, but no,” the maid replied in her cultured accent. “We’re used to fending for ourselves.”

Then the boy smiled, showing a row of sharply filed teeth.
Keating caught his breath, a primitive response making him push back his chair.
Are they even human?

Which was the only reason that when Moriarty ducked back into the doorway and fired his weapon, the bullet slammed into Keating’s shoulder instead of his heart.

The war was on.

London, October 8, 1889
CAVENDISH SQUARE
4:05 p.m. Tuesday

“MOTHERS ARE OBLIVIOUS CREATURES,” POPPY PROCLAIMED
. Poppy had come to visit Alice for the afternoon and they’d taken Jeremy for a walk, leaving his nurse behind. It had seemed like a delightful idea—they both needed some cheering up, and Alice was one of her favorite people. Poppy wasn’t sure how well it was working, though. She kept thinking about the coded message—wondering how Bucky was getting on with it—which led her to what Bucky had said about Tobias, and that kept ending up with her wondering how long she could go without telling Alice her husband was nearby. Poppy would have felt better if she could have
done
something instead of stewing with anxiety, but she hadn’t had a single good idea. She bit her lip, trying to concentrate on how cute the baby was, and not how guilty she felt.

“We quickly develop the ability to ignore what is not essential.” Alice picked up Jeremy, who was fussing and—Poppy had to acknowledge it—slimy with drool. “I learned quickly not to wear silk in the nursery so that I could put cuddling my son first.” She then made adoring noises until Jeremy giggled.

Poppy smiled at a pair of older ladies, who were all but staring at the striking red-haired woman and her perfect child. They didn’t notice her, so she returned to the task of
pushing the perambulator. It was one of the clockwork models, so it trundled along practically on its own, ticking gently as the spring wound down. It was one of the newer models, so they’d only had to stop and wind the crank once.

The day was dry, if not sunny, and cool enough to make a brisk walk pleasant. Still, it was a long journey around the park near Cavendish Square—about twice the circumference of the world when one had an infant in tow. By the end Poppy had been tempted to weigh Jeremy to see if the quantity of liquid emerging from the baby in various forms corresponded in any way to what went in, or if he was somehow pulling all that fluid from the aether. Alice took it utterly in stride, mopping up her infant with a doting calm.

Some of the fussing was surely because, having discovered that he could squirm from one place to another, Jeremy was already plotting his next adventure. Being carted about like luggage was beneath his dignity—at least for the next dozen yards. After that, he began to content himself with a speculative gumming of his blanket. The state of blissful silence lasted until they arrived back at Alice’s door.

Poppy gathered their shopping while Alice sent one of the footmen out to wrangle the perambulator. Jeremy was starting to nod off, face squashed against his mother’s shoulder, and Alice mounted the stairs to the nursery, not even bothering to shed her wraps.

Poppy let Alice go ahead, the fresh air making her yawn. She stowed the packages of embroidery thread and adventure novels that she’d bought—all of them took place in exotic lands and one even had headhunters!—and took off her coat. Then she trotted upstairs, hearing the faint clatter of the housemaids in the kitchen, she hoped making tea.

Alice was just tucking Jeremy into his nest of blankets when Poppy slipped into the room. Alice bent over to kiss her son, a loose strand of her fox-red hair sliding over her brow. “He misses his father,” Alice said.

“How can you tell?” Poppy asked dubiously—but still with a pang of guilt and worry.

“I just can.”

There was no point in arguing, and after Madam Thalassa
and Mouse and Bird, Poppy wasn’t sure what to doubt anymore. “I’m sure Tobias wishes he were home.”

Alice gave a half smile, her eyes full of complexities. “Thank you for coming today. I was very glad of the company.”

Poppy bent over the cradle, wanting to tickle the sleeping baby but knowing better. “I was glad to. I like having someone to visit on my own.”

Making a considering sound, Alice turned to adjust the curtains. “It was hard, you know, coming into your family. You and your friends are all so close knit. I didn’t have brothers and sisters, so it’s been a bit hard knowing how to make a place for myself.”

That surprised Poppy. “I think we all just barged our way in.”

“Even Evelina?”

“She’s always been around,” Poppy said, and then wished she hadn’t. Alice had tensed—but Poppy soon realized that sudden hunch of the shoulders had nothing to do with what she had said. Thunder was rolling through the air.

“Come look at this,” Alice said, the curtains pushed back in one hand. The gray afternoon light washed over her, making a strong contrast to the dim room.

Poppy came up beside her, wary of the tension in her voice. “What is it?”

“Look at that dirigible.” Alice pointed to the skyline. “Isn’t that the
Helios
?”

“Yes.” The shape of it was seared into Poppy’s brain, a souvenir from the night of the air battle. “I wonder what it’s doing right over London? It’s flying awfully low.”

And then its belly opened, and tiny black shapes spilled out. “Damnation!” Alice cried, grabbing Poppy’s arm so hard pain shot through it.

“What?” But Poppy found out in the next instant. The windows rattled as a distant boom shook the entire world, as if a giant boot had just stomped the earth.
Not thunder at all
. Three more rumbles followed in quick time, and Poppy grabbed for Alice—but she had whirled away, snatching Jeremy from the cradle and clutching him close.

Mrs. Polwarren, the wet nurse, flew into the room, the baby gown she had been mending still in her hand. “Ma’am, what is it?” she demanded in a querulous voice. “What is going on?”

Whatever it was, Poppy couldn’t make sense of it. She scrambled back to the window, trying to see more, but there were trees and buildings in the way. What she could see was dirigibles appearing in twos and threes in the northern skies, their balloons a bloody red.
The Scarlet King’s air fleet
.

But the Scarlet King was dead. Someone else was raining down destruction.
Who? Why?
She started to shiver even as she craned her neck to see the airships fly over like swift, silent birds of prey. This was a nightmare. It was completely illogical and awful. She fixed her glare on the dirigibles, willing them back to where they came from.
There are people down here. What did they do to deserve this?

Then Alice was at her elbow, still holding the baby as Mrs. Polwarren rustled in the drawers behind them. Alice spoke quietly. “I told her to pack a bag in case we have to leave in a hurry.”

Suddenly Poppy wanted to be home so badly her stomach twisted. Im was there, and her mother. “And go where?”

“I don’t know,” Alice said, her blue eyes suddenly bright with tears. “Someplace safe for Jeremy. I wish Tobias were here!”

She looked so terrified, every bit as bad as Poppy felt. She leaned in close, dropping her voice to nothing. “He is; he’s at Bucky’s toy factory.”

Surprise bloomed on Alice’s face. “What?”

Poppy held a finger to her lips, and Alice gave a short, sharp nod. The next moment, a fresh barrage of rumbles growled low and distant. Mrs. Polwarren knocked a picture over on the dresser, making everyone jump. Jeremy started to cry.