All is Fair (24 page)

“No, Sam, I’m literally incapable of stopping all of this. I’ve wanted to, for a long time, but it’s… just what I am.”

Sam gripped the metal he’d been working tight. “That’s such bullshit. You’re incapable of picking up the phone and saying, ‘Let’s pay those people proper wages and, while we’re at it, let’s spend some of these profits on cleaning up the mess we’ve made.’”

Iron shook his head. “Have you ever known anyone with an addiction? You can find them over a toilet, throwing up their guts, losing everything in their life and say to them, ‘Just stop drinking’ and it’s simply impossible for them. Even when it’s obvious it’s killing them.”

“Alcoholics can recover,” Sam said, the metal rattling against the anvil as he struggled to rein in his anger.

“Neugent killed Leanne, but I was the one who made him into the thing he is now.” Iron stared at the anvil. “I do that. I’m poisonous without even trying to be. Everything I’ve ever done in my life has been part of this… this natural talent. When I became Lord Iron it was amplified – the company machine grew and took over until it propagated itself endlessly. It isn’t just me, it’s the people I’ve hired, the ethos of the companies I own. I’m the root of all of it and it won’t change just because I have a moment of clarity.”

Sam didn’t know what to make of what he was saying. Was it depression? Self-pity? Or was there something else involved, something unbelievable like the Fae and that world they lived in? Questions and worries surfaced again about the wedding rings and the railing at the park and the plugs that formed in his wounds, but he didn’t want to lose focus. “Of course you can change it. We could go to the house, right now, and you could close the business down.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Sam lifted the metal and struck the anvil with it, the dull clang filling the forge. “People are dying, people are being murdered and poisoned by the only air they have to breathe and you have to take some responsibility for it!”

“I am,” Iron said, looking at him in the eye again. “That’s why you’re here.”

“Eh?”

Iron lifted the tip of the metal, ending its vibrating song, and inspected its tip as Sam wondered whether to pull it away from him and whack him over the head with it. “I’ve tried so many times to find the right one and they end up killing the best people around them. Neugent was the last. I realised it was all my fault – when I got too involved the poison in me would leech into them. Just like CoFerrum, just like everything else in my life. But I have the solution now, and that’s why I’ve brought you here and tested you and had you taught. Because you can take on the mantle and do something better with it.” He smiled. “Everything’s going to be all right, Sam.”

And then he threw himself forwards, still holding the tip of the metal and directing it to his chest. It pierced him before Sam even fully registered what he was doing and he tried to let go of the other end of it with a horrified cry. His hand didn’t co-operate, as if his fingers and palm were magnetised to it. Sam staggered backwards as Iron pushed himself forwards, further onto the spike of metal, an awful wet gurgling erupting from his throat as bubbles of blood emerged from his mouth and died on his lips.

Sam hit the wall of the forge, the blunt end of the metal now against his own chest, Iron’s eyes still fixed on him and now only inches away from his own. He could smell the blood and felt it spray onto his face as Iron coughed. The metal felt hot again, even through his glove, and he feared his own heart was going to be pierced as the pressure built.

Iron’s smile was fading and his skin looked like it was made of wax. Sam struggled to breathe as the heat from the metal penetrated the thick leather apron, then his shirt, and flooded into his chest. He shook violently and felt a warm liquid running down his leg as the last rattling sigh escaped from Iron’s lips and he became a dead weight at the other end of the shaft. As he collapsed Sam was pulled down with him, still unable to release the metal. Iron’s blood ran down the shaft and over the gloves, dripping off the cuffs and onto his wrists as Sam heaved his chest up and down, feeling like the air was drowning him.

17

Cathy waited for Carter on the lower floor of the bookshop, conveying her apologies and embarrassment with one glance at Jane. His footsteps clumped across the floor above them, did a circuit of the room with the fireplace and then made their way back. When he came down the stairs, Cathy hoped he didn’t have something on him that would detect the Charm to open the Way to the Nether reading room.

“Everything seems in order,” he said. “I’ll sit here whilst you browse, if that doesn’t get in your way?”

“That’s fine,” Cathy said. “We’ll be upstairs, that’s where… the best books are.”

“And the comfy chairs,” Jane added. “Shall we go up?”

“It’s so kind of you to open after hours for me,” Cathy said to her as they went upstairs, purely for Carter’s benefit. As long as he didn’t come up too – which she doubted – everything would be fine.

They went to the stained-glass door at the far end of the shop and Jane got the key ready. “If he starts coming up the stairs I’ll tell him you’re in the reading booth.” She opened the door to reveal a little cubby with another comfy chair in it. “Then I’ll come through and warn you, all right?”

“Thanks,” Cathy said as the door was closed and the key inserted. “I’m sorry to be a bother. It’s such a pain in the arse, all of this bodyguard bobbins, but it’s the only solution I could think of.”

“It’s no trouble,” Jane said and then unlocked the door. “Everyone else is already here. Enjoy!”

Cathy stepped across the shimmering threshold and into the secret reading room. This time it was full of people; she counted ten men and women, all evidently from the Great Families. A young woman who looked very much like Charlotte stood up.

“Your Grace!” she said and the conversation died, along with Cathy’s confidence.

Cathy reminded herself this wasn’t like a normal salon. “I’m Cathy,” she said. “Miss Rainer was my Governess and… and I think she used to organise this, am I right?”

Everyone nodded but they were still staring at her. She could feel the skin on her neck burning, and in moments the sensation reached her cheeks. “Um… I don’t want to screw this up, just because I’m the Duchess. I knew Miss Rainer before I became Duchess, it shouldn’t get in the way.”

“Of course not!” the woman said. “We’re so sorry, we knew a new person was coming but we had no idea it was you! I understand you’ve met my mother, Charlotte? I’m Emmeline and this is my brother, Benedict.”

Emmeline made the introductions and Cathy rapidly forgot all the names. Only two others were Londinium residents; the others came from all over Albion. A woman said she was from Aquae Sulis but Cathy didn’t recognise her.

“This is so exciting!” Emmeline said, leading her to one of the chairs. “We haven’t had a new member in four years! How is Miss Rainer? Where is she teaching now? Why hasn’t she been in touch with us?”

“We feared something had happened to her,” Benedict said. He was handsome but still boyish. Cathy suspected he hadn’t yet been packed off on his Grand Tour.

Everyone was looking at her. “She’s not… herself any more,” Cathy replied. “My parents discovered she was teaching me something worthwhile and complained to the Agency. I managed to track her down and… well, it’s not good.” There was a collective sense of grief. All of their lives had been touched by Miss Rainer. “But I promise I’m going to find a way to restore her.”

“She’s not the first,” Emmeline said, glancing at her brother.

“We need to stay positive though,” Benedict said and others agreed. “It’s what she would want.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Cathy said as she sat down. “So. What have I missed?”

“Emmeline recited a very moving poem,” said the woman from Aquae Sulis. “And Benedict has brought something to share, haven’t you?”

“I’ve written an essay,” he said, patting a leather wallet resting on his lap. “And Alicia, didn’t you say you had some thoughts about the Suffragettes you wanted to discuss?”

Alicia, a lady from Jorvic, nodded. Cathy looked at the others but they just seemed to be waiting for something. “And then what happens?”

Emmeline frowned. “And then we have tea and decide what next month’s theme should be.”

“Hang on… is this just a discussion group?”

“Yes,” Benedict replied. “Were you expecting something else?”

“I didn’t know what to expect, I just found an old invite. I thought there would be planning, you know, working out what to do about Society. Taking action!”

Emmeline sank in her seat and Benedict took a sudden interest in his shoes.

“I mean, why else are you meeting?” Cathy pressed. “Surely you’re trying to work out how to change things for the better?”

“There used to be more of us,” Benedict said. “Men and women who were like you. Who wanted to be more… active and vocal about our cause in Society.”

Cathy wondered if they’d split and she’d found her way to the cowardly half of the group. “Where do they meet?”

“No, you don’t understand,” Emmeline said. “They were removed from Society and replaced by less troublesome spouses, or cursed in such a way as to make it impossible for them to cause any scandal. Like our mother.”

“Charlotte was such a pioneer,” Alicia said. “When she spoke, we felt like we could do anything!”

“But she took it too far,” Benedict said. “She was too passionate and she humiliated Father. If she wasn’t Lady Violet’s favourite she would have been replaced like all the others.”

Cathy thought back to her visit, how lovely Charlotte was. She could imagine the Fae adoring her beauty and the trouble that would bring. “Which family was she born into?”

“She was from Mundanus,” Emmeline said. “She was spotted by our father on the way home from a Suffragette rally. He had no idea what she’d been doing.”

“He stole her,” Benedict said, the anger straining his voice.

“But that’s a breach of the Treaty,” Cathy said.

“It happens all the time,” Alicia said. “Didn’t you know?”

She didn’t. Cathy sat back, appalled at how naive she was. From ignoring where the servants came from and how they could be treated, to discovering that mundane women could be kidnapped from Mundanus without anyone caring or doing anything about it, made her feel sick. What else was she ignorant of?

She considered telling Max about what had happened to Charlotte, but if she’d been taken in the early nineteenth century her family would be dead. Would she want a life in which she had the freedom she’d been fighting for without knowing a soul? And modern life was so different, it could be too much of a shock. It explained why she’d changed Miss Rainer’s fortunes; Charlotte had brought radical ideas into Nether Society with her and Rainer had been spreading them ever since.

“What happened to the others? You said they were replaced.” She’d heard of that at least, but she wasn’t exactly sure what it meant.

“They’re sent away and never come back,” Emmeline whispered. “No one knows where they’re taken nor what happens to them.”

“We don’t even know if they’re still alive,” Benedict added.

Cathy worried a button on her glove, the sombre mood of the room being the last thing she’d expected. “I don’t suppose one of them was Clarissa Arvensis-Ranunculus?” She was one of Miss Rainer’s students, one whose file ended abruptly with the cryptic code she’d asked Max to decipher in her last letter to him.

“Yes!” Emmeline said. “Do you know what happened to her?”

“No, she was just someone I hoped to meet.” She ran through the other names she could remember and the assembled confirmed that all had been replaced. None of them had been Londinium families, at least none of any note, so Max was the best bet in tracking them down. “I’ll look into it,” she said.

“Shall I read my essay now?” Benedict asked.

“No, wait,” Cathy held up a hand. “I know I’ve just got here but I’m sorry, I’m not taking the risk to sneak out just to listen to an essay.” When Benedict’s young face displayed his sadness she said, “I’m sure it’s really interesting, but I can read essays at home.”

“We can’t,” Emmeline said pointedly.

“But what I mean is that if we’re all taking the risk being here, let’s put it to better use. Let’s work out what we can do to find others like us. And we need a way to communicate securely with each other. We need to plan who we need to talk to and get on side, what we can say to them and who we think might be sympathetic.”

The group wouldn’t meet her eyes. No one said anything. Alicia took a breath but only to cough delicately into a handkerchief.

“I’m sorry, your Grace,” Emmeline finally said. “It’s too dangerous. We take comfort in each other and this keeps us from madness, but we aren’t the kind of people you’re looking for. They stood up for our rights and look what happened.”

“What do you think the Suffragettes endured?” Cathy stood up, unable to keep calm in the face of such cowardice.

“The Suffragettes didn’t have to contend with Charms and the Fae,” Benedict said.

“No, they had to contend with the police and prison officers who force-fed them and people jeering at them on the street and their own families turning against them. What kind of feminists do you think you are if all you’re prepared to do is just hide away in a bloody bookshop and talk?”

“Living ones,” Emmeline said, now standing too. “I’m sorry we haven’t met your expectations, and I’m sorry we’re not as brave – and reckless – as my mother, but we’ve lost people and seen with our own eyes what horrors can be committed.”

“So have I!” she shouted and immediately regretted it. Cathy held up her hands, ashamed of herself. “I’m sorry. I thought that if there were other people who had the same values we could actually achieve something.”

“Having the same values does not mean we believe the same action should be taken,” Benedict said. “If this group isn’t what you want then, respectfully, your Grace, perhaps you need to look elsewhere.”

She scanned the faces. All were nervous and tense. They were probably afraid she was going to force them into doing something by virtue of her status or that she’d do something that would lead others to them who would cart them off too. They were frightened and she didn’t have the right to tell them how to protest, any more than she had the right to be angry with them for not being what she’d hoped.