A Study in Silks (69 page)

“Evie?”

The spell broke, and she was suddenly grounded and heavy, glued to the earth. For a split second, she had truly merged with the air deva. The loss of that connection, the loss of that freedom, left her bruised and leaning on the desk for support.

“Nick,” she said breathlessly. “Why are you here?”

“Your uncle told me to come. He said I should be here for the finish, since I was involved. That was decent of him.” Nick looked at his feet, a frown pulling at the corners of his mouth.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s near the middle of April, and that means tenting season. Ploughman’s is moving on. That means it’s time for me to leave London.”

Loss wrenched a cry from her lips. The hollowness that followed seemed achingly final. She closed her eyes, willing back a sudden rush of tears. “I’ll miss you. More than you know.”

He gave her a hard look. “Are you sure about that?”

There it was: he was jealous. It was in every line of his body, every angle of his face. He was moving on with the season, the way the circus always did. For Nick, lush spring would fade to a sweltering, dusty summer traveling to every market square and mining town, while Evelina would have
her Season of balls and parties and then retire to a country manor for the hottest months. No two lives could be more different.

She had once looked up to Nick. He had wanted her to ask him to stay, but she hadn’t. Now he thought he was beneath her notice.

But it wasn’t like that. He was her Nick, and always would be. “I will miss you. I am sure about that.”

“What about Roth?”

She knew what he meant, but she pretended not to. “What about him?”

“I’ve seen you with him.” He looked away, as if the corner of the desk was intensely interesting. “Do you love him?”

“Nick.” Sadness congealed in her throat.

“I would never expect you to come back. But if you did, if you wanted to, I would do everything …” He trailed off, hope dying, or already dead.

“Oh, Nick.” She couldn’t say any more.

Rousing himself, he took one step, closing the distance between them. He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her roughly against the desk. The edge of it pressed into her hip with bruising force. She started to protest, but suddenly his mouth was on hers, crushing her lips against her teeth. He tasted more of anger than affection. There was no magic this time—it had never come for them when they were angry with each other, as if that drained the life out of everything.

Evelina strained to push away, not wanting him like this. Not wanting the memories of him tainted by rage.

“Stop!” She managed to get the word out. “Stop, please.”

“I’m not good enough for you?” His lip curled away from his teeth in a sneer, but he took a step back. “I saved you from Magnus. I
killed
for you.”

“You’ve been good to me.”

“The whole time you were a girl I never touched you. Anyone who tried would have had me to deal with. Doesn’t that count?”

“Of course!”

“Your Golden Boy is rich. That’s it, isn’t it? He’s rich and
educated and smells better than a man who has to get dirty before he can eat. Nothing but the best whores for him.”

Evelina slapped his face. The crack of it was loud in the little office. Nick’s hand went to his cheek, hurt and mockery warring in his eyes. “Are you saying you don’t love me, Evie girl?”

She swore under her breath. “Not like this.”

She couldn’t go backward. She wasn’t the same girl who had clung to his hand in the dirt yards where they trained the horses.

“How then?” He leaned in. “Is there any way I could ever measure up?”

Was there? Their shared magic would condemn them, but that wasn’t the only stumbling block. She’d gone to school. Her clothes were new, not bought from a barrow at the back of the market and crawling with lice. He was the king of Ploughman’s, but she had a future. “The day Grandmamma Holmes came for me,” she began in a dull voice.

Nick reached up, grazing her cheek with his rough fingers. “They took you away.”

She shook her head. “I always told myself that, too.”

Maybe it was time for the truth, or at least part of it. This would be the death of his fairy tale, the one where his lost princess was reclaimed. She could see him starting to understand, the hurt encroaching on his dark, liquid eyes. “No.”

“I begged Gran Cooper to let me go, Nick.” She put her hand over his, wishing she could soften it for him. Even now, after all these years, she was still torn between what she had and what she’d lost. “And Gran agreed. Oh, I ran away a time or two and tried to find my way back to Ploughman’s. I cried myself to sleep for months. I didn’t know what leaving would mean, and how many losses I’d suffer, but I knew I wanted more than Ploughman’s. I still do.”

Nick stared at her. “You wanted to go.”

“Just like my father did, when he was a boy.” Evelina looked away, unable to meet his eyes anymore. She felt a sob tremble in her throat, but swallowed it down. “That’s the truth.”

“Evelina, no.” He grabbed her wrist, as if that would keep her. “No. It was the magic. That was why we couldn’t be together. We had to be older and learn how to hide it.”

But they couldn’t. There was no turning back their power any more than they could command the sea.

“I’ll find a way, Evie,” he whispered. “I’ll figure out how to make it work.”

“Gran said that wasn’t possible.”

“I’ll prove her wrong.”

There was so much loneliness in the words, the tears that had threatened began to slide down her cheeks. She couldn’t cry. She’d lose whatever ground she’d gained.

And she couldn’t tell him any more than she had. He was the king of Ploughman’s, the Indomitable Niccolo. The circus was the only place he could call his own—but those people he loved had been willing to cast him out in order to stay safe from wild magic. She couldn’t tell him that was why she had chosen to go. What good could come of tainting his memories of the only home he knew? It would only make what had to be worse.

And that meant telling him only part of the truth. “I would die for you, Nick. You’re my oldest friend. But I want a different life.”

He didn’t answer. His breath was coming hard, like he had run miles, and his hand crushed the bones of her wrist.

“You’re hurting me,” she protested.

He let go of her with a curse. She look a long, shaking breath, her thoughts sputtering under an onslaught of grief. The anger in his eyes sliced through her like a knife. He’d killed for her. He would do it again, if she asked, and maybe that loyalty was one of the reasons she couldn’t stay. Deep down—maybe not so deep—she was afraid of him. Or herself.

She had left Ploughman’s once to save his life. She would do it again to save them both.

“I can’t continue this conversation.” She pushed past him out the door, shrugging off his hand when he tried to stop her.

When she reached the corridor, she started to run toward the sound of her uncle’s voice.

And away from Nick calling her name.

TOBIAS CONSIDERED A
pot sitting on a plinth. Much of the exhibit was gaudy, covered in gold and jewels—the sort of things people had at coronations or funerals or trotted out to impress the neighbor barbarians during the sacrifice. This was just a pot, brown with some zigzags of white and red paint, but it was beautiful in its proportions. The name of the maker was lost in time, but his soul knew that potter’s soul and sent its thanks.

Something simple and lovely was exactly what he needed after listening to his father crow about winning a tidy sum on Nellie Reynolds’s trial. The money made up for what had been lost with Harter’s Engines. Like any inveterate gambler, Lord Bancroft was expansive in the afterglow of victory. There would be dinners and gowns and nights at the club, thanks to the unfortunate actress. The good times were back.

In contrast, Tobias wished he could find the peace to create something as baldly perfect as the pot on the plinth. He was willing to bet—to continue the gambling theme—that the potter had been an orphan.

His communion with beauty lasted less than a minute. Then the crowd closed in.

Oddly, it was the Gold King who broke his reverie. Keating spoke in a confidential tone, putting a fatherly hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure you’ve heard that the Magnus question is resolved. I recall you expressed concern about the man the night of the Westlakes’ ball.”

“I did, yes.”

Keating had given Tobias a law-and-order speech that would have done the prime minister proud. Having grown up around diplomats, Tobias was something of a connoisseur of such things.

“It wasn’t the conclusion I had anticipated,” Tobias added, “but I can’t say that I’m sorry. The man was a menace.”

“Some people invite fate to deal with them irrevocably.” Keating inclined his head, a little sorrowful, a little cocky.

Oh, he is good
, thought Tobias.
Chilling, but he has the amused statesman nod down perfectly
. The only flaw was that Keating watched his audience’s reaction a little too closely. He was still testing out his mask.
Is he going to make a play for a seat in Parliament? A ministerial role? Maybe more?

“I don’t waste time, Mr. Roth. And I admire your willingness to speak out and identify a problem. In fact …” he fished in his pocket and drew out a watch.

To Tobias’s surprise, he handed it to him. “What’s this?”

“The world’s smallest steam engine. What do you think of it?”

He struggled to collect his thoughts, which were still parsing through newspaper accounts of Magnus’s demise. There hadn’t been an arrest. Had Keating played a role in the man’s death? If so—Tobias turned his attention to the watch before mounting horror suffused his face.

The watch was a large hunter with a case, but the back opened up to reveal a tiny boiler. It was almost burning hot to the touch, uncomfortable unless one held it by the chain. “A clever notion. I’d love to take it apart. But it hardly seems practical. You’d roast a hole in your pocket, wouldn’t you?”

“We think alike, my boy.” Keating gave him a sly smile. “I’ve had my doubts about Bancroft, but the jury is ready to see if you’re cut from better cloth.”

Tobias tensed, as if the floor were suddenly made of crackling ice.

He saw the steam baron had got the desired result. Keating’s smile was reminiscent of a jolly crocodile. “Keep the watch. It’s yours. The previous owner doesn’t need it anymore.”

“Previous owner?” Had he had seen the watch somewhere before?

The smile disappeared. “Aragon Jackson. My former aide.”

His father had said there might be an opening on the Gold King’s staff. Jackson had been a pet inventor of sorts, hadn’t
he? The watch felt slippery in Tobias’s hand. “Former? Is Mr. Jackson no longer with you?”

“He was obliged to leave. Permanently.”

Good God. Did irrevocable fate remove the right monster?

“I like to collect good people,” Keating said affably. “Think about it, Mr. Roth. You could have a free hand and all the tools and supplies you need. You could spend day after day doing nothing but tinkering to your heart’s delight. And I pay well.”

It sounded like salvation and damnation in one tidy package. Tobias struggled between the urge to run and a desire to leap at the offer. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” Keating patted him on the shoulder. “Come have dinner with my daughter and me some night. You know Alice, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Tobias with a greasy feeling in his stomach. “I have the pleasure of Miss Keating’s acquaintance.”

“Excellent. We’ll have a talk about things.”

NICK STARED AFTER EVELINA, NEARLY BLIND WITH MISERY
. He shouldn’t have kissed her, especially not like that. He should have just left town. Now even when he came back to London, he would have no right to see her.

Anger charred his veins, fueled by a horrible helplessness. What could he do? He already made the best living possible for someone with no last name, and that was chancy. All it would take was one fall during the show, and he would be done. But what choices did he have?

He looked around the room, suddenly unsure why he was there. None of this business with artifacts and thieves was his problem. Holmes had been a good sport to ask him along, but he didn’t have a place in their story. Nameless Nick was just the bit of rough that gave the narrative spice and then vanished when it was time to light the fire and draw the drapes against the dangerous night.

Fly
.

He looked toward the spot where he thought the voice had come from. Evelina had left her basket. It had been knocked over during their grappling kiss, the contents spilling out across the papers littering the desk.

Fly
.

Nick took a step toward the mess, both repulsed by and reverent of anything Evelina had touched. As he reached out to right the basket, his hand tingled as if he’d been scalded.

There was an ugly lump of clockwork that looked as if it had been rescued from a fire. Or a shipwreck. Whatever it was had been damaged. Curious, he picked it up.

You came
.