Dearly, Beloved (37 page)

Rupert interrupted me by invading my personal space and squinting at me as if I were a slide under a microscope. His breath was horrid, and I stopped breathing altogether. “Let me give you a bit of advice before you say one more word. You are a young lady, and you should not concern yourself with such dark matters.”

For a moment fear took over, and I thought of fleeing the field, heading for the nearby man-made forest of trees. This was stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid
. And yet, I tried to feel my way through. “Are you certain? For I’ve heard of living girls being … singled out.”

“That was an accident,” he said sharply. He looked at me for a tick, before leaning closer. “What are you really doing here?”

Honestly, I didn’t know. And so I called it off with, “Being foolish, obviously.”

“Good girl. But I do thank you. I clearly owe my sister a chat.”

He didn’t step back. Neither did I. My heart was fluttering, my thoughts a blur. I hadn’t gotten a thing, and what’s more, now I’d lost Opalina and her need to brag. I wasn’t as good at this game as I thought.

But then Rupert surprised me. After his fleshy mouth moved in a slow circuit, following the orbit of a thoughtful tongue, he said, “Keep an eye on the news. An ear to the grapevine. Whatever it is you females do.”

“When?” It came out far too quickly.

“This weekend.” He raised himself up. “Consider it an illustration
of what might happen to you if you don’t keep your mouth shut.”

Despite his rank breath, greasy hair, and thinly veiled threats, Rupert was now my knight in shining armor. He’d at least given me something. I touched his arm as I passed by him, allowing the outward swell of my skirt to brush his thigh. “Thank you.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” he said, turning to watch me go.

Without looking back, I made my way into the house and rejoined my group. It worked. It actually
worked
.

Twenty minutes later we were back outside, Rupert lingering to watch. I tried to quietly encourage this by manipulating the cant of my body, the fall of my hair. I wanted him to remember me fondly, maybe even to grow interested—it’d cut down on the risk of him overthinking our encounter, wondering if perhaps I had a motive other than bringing a competitor to ruin.

Lady Mink noticed Rupert’s attentions. At one point she leaned in and hissed at me, “You’re shaming yourself. I forbid you to even consider it. You could do so much better.”

I knew I could. I knew I would, as soon as I got back to my computer.

“I’ll kill him.”

“No you won’t. I will.”

Sitting behind the bushes at the tearoom had only been humiliating, at first—but the moment Allister showed up and opened his mouth, it became excruciating. Nora forbade me to make a move unless the situation went thermonuclear, and so I remained seated, an obedient beau and bodyguard, having to listen to that moron prattle on about how he could “protect” her. The longer he’d gone on, the more condescendingly he’d spoken to her, the greater my anger had grown.

Then he insulted her and her father. In a funny way, that offered me some reassurance. I’d heard the words, and they occasioned a wave of nearly debilitating anger, but I hadn’t ripped his tongue out. Progress. I’d become a regular New Victorian gentleman.

Wherever Coalhouse had gotten off to, he’d not taken Sam’s car. I directed it through the EF. “Telling you how bloody innocent he is, how he never did a wrong thing in his life—do you think he actually believes that? Is he deluded?”

Nora pulled her gloves off and pressed her hands to her face, leaning back in the passenger seat. “I have no idea. We didn’t get anywhere, did we? That was stupid.”

“Very, very stupid,” I concurred. “Because now I’m just going to obsess for the rest of the day over what it’d feel like to pop his head off.”

“Don’t write checks your conscience won’t let you cash.”

“Says the girl who came up with the idea in the first place.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“His tone when he was telling you why
he thinks
he did the horrible things he did, like you should just smile and go, ‘Oh, I never thought of it that way, I guess you’re a good guy after all, tee hee!’ ” I pulled into the driveway. “I wanted to lay him out.”

“Welcome to my world. Oh, and this is why you’ve ruined me for all other boys.”

Parking, I looked at her. “So, you think he knows anything else?”

Nora sighed. “He sounded like he was telling the truth. It got a little weird at the end. If he cares so much about me, why didn’t he sit right back down and quiz me about the hijacking?”

And that was the kicker. “Are you sure you didn’t know he felt that way about you?” I hated sounding like a jealous lover—snarly or not—but I wanted to know.

“God, no.” Nora stuck out her tongue. “Not before the whole thing on the airship. I mean, today was probably the most expressive I’ve ever seen him. He ran away before I could verbally eviscerate him. I was trying to get info first.”

“He finds you
‘fascinating,’
” I mimicked. “But you
‘compromise’
yourself.” Good God, I wanted to punch him in the face again. Just one good, solid, honest, knuckle-itching punch.

Nora opened her door. “Calm down. He’s not the last person
who’s going to say stuff like that about us. You said so yourself. Just forget about him.”

I had, and I knew she was only reminding me of the truth. But hearing it from
him
had set me off.

Once we were inside, an irritated Renfield intercepted us. He’d changed his clothes, at least, throwing a waistcoat over a clean shirt, though his hair was still rumpled. “Where did you two go?”

“To meet up with Allister,” I told him, yanking my jacket off.

“You were with him?” Renfield asked, agape. “I didn’t know! I would’ve texted you!”

“Texted? Why? Mind explaining what the hell you’re on about?”

Renfield looked uneasily between both of us, his eyes flashing. “Yes. Come with me.” And with that, he turned and headed up the stairs.

Nora and I shared an exhausted look before falling in behind our skinny strategist. He led the way up to the attic. Father Isley was nowhere to be seen, and Renfield’s multiple computers were humming along industriously, his little steam “holographic” projector hissing away beside them. The largest computer monitor, edged in tooled brass, showed a series of virtual chessboards.

Ren gestured earnestly with both hands. “This is going to sound wild, but stay with me.” He glanced at Nora. “Vespertine Mink is contacting me through ACL.”

“What?” Nora demanded. “She emailed you?”

“No. Not email.” He returned his attention to me. “I think she knows something. Something that could get her into trouble.”

“Something about Allister?”

“Indeed.” Ren took his seat. “A few days ago I started getting a ton of emails warning me my account at Aethernet Chess Live would be deleted if I didn’t start logging in again. I haven’t had
a chance to play since the whole airship debacle. So the night I gave you the background checks, I came back up here and logged in, and almost immediately a new account friended me. AllSeeing12.”

“Okay?” I said, not understanding.

Renfield called up another screen, also featuring a number of chessboards—all belonging to “zboy69.” He clicked on the first one and the Punk projector hissed all the louder, concentrated jets of air “drawing” a misty 3D version of the board and its pieces within the steam. “So, I decided to play. Said hello. The other player said nothing. They played, though. They played
well
.”

“This is absolutely gripping, Ren.”

Ren grinned widely, spontaneously. “I know. Anyway, I won. And the other player finally said something in chat—but it wasn’t ‘congratulations.’ It was a series of words. Intracapsular. Macular. Nystagamus. All terms that according to the
Aethernet
,” he peered at Nora, “have to do with eye surgery or sickness.”

Nora peered right back at him. “You’re right, Ren. You’re completely and utterly insane.”

“No. Far from it. It was code. This morning, the player was back. She won. A message flashed up that said, ‘TE first edition.’ ”

“What’s that?”

Renfield stood and attacked a pile of old nondigital books sitting on the floor. I would’ve thought them part of Isley’s reference collection. He picked up one called
Ophthalmologist’s Desk Reference
, written by Dr. Thaddeus Eckleburg.

“Where did you get that? Is that Papa’s?”

“Finally found a copy in the New London Library. Wasn’t technically supposed to take it out of the reference stacks, but I’m not above wriggling out bathroom windows.” He flipped the book open. “This particular paragraph includes the words intracapsular,
macular, nystagmus …” He showed us the page. “On page H123.”

“I don’t get it,” I said.

Ren’s lips twitched again. He almost looked like a schoolboy showing off his winning science project, all the while trying to be humble about it. “It’s Miss Mink. The account she used to play me under was Harpist123. She’s an absolute bloody genius.”

Nora’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

“So I got back on here. And that’s when she started chatting in earnest.” He whirled around and pressed a button on his keyboard, calling up a chat screen. I leaned over his shoulder to look. It was brief, and to the point.

zboy69: I think I understand.

AllSeeing12: Allister has taken leave of his senses. D has to watch her back.

zboy69: We need specifics.

AllSeeing12: Trying to get them. Risking a lot.

AllSeeing12: Have to go. More later.

This wasn’t good. “So now we’ve got
him
to worry about, too?” I said.

Nora ignored me, staring at Ren as if he’d uttered the mother of all blasphemies. “It can’t be her. Mink hates my guts. Pamma showed me the interview video online—she’s practically told the entire
nation
she hates my guts.”

“Miss Dearly, listen—” Ren said.

“No, you listen!” She leaned right up into the skinny zombie’s
face. He pulled his book away from her, hugging it protectively. “Seriously, Mink wouldn’t spit on me if I were on fire. She detests me, just like I detest her. There is
no way
she would do anything to try and help us. Besides, that’d be breaking rank with the aristocrats, and she’d never do that either.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He should know,” Nora said, pointing fiercely at Ren. “The aristocrats of my tribe might play catty games and gossip, but they look out for each other. They can even vouch to get one another out of jail. There is
nothing
Michael could do that would cause her to go to this much trouble. We all
know
he has issues! Just like her!”

“All right, I get a turn now,” Renfield said. Nora glowered at him, but shut up. “I played with very few people when I was still at base. Miss Mink was my favorite partner. And she’s the only one who knows my face now, and what I am, and about my connection with you. To anyone else, my screen name is just a screen name.”

“But you just admitted you played with other people.”

“It’s her,” he said firmly. “I know it’s her.”

“But it’s so complicated. And how would she get ACL to send you notices?”

“You just said aristocrats don’t break rank. This way keeps her safe. Who would scrutinize one account out of
millions
on a public game server? She probably signed up for it anonymously. Throwaway email, proxies, she could even spoof the account emails if she knows a little code—
I know
how she did this.”

“It makes sense,” I told Nora. “I don’t know what it’s meant to do, but it makes sense. It’s pretty smart, actually.”

Nora took an enormous breath and held it until her cheeks went purple. When she released it, it was with a little growl of frustration. “Well then, we should pay her a little visit!”

“No!” Renfield practically shouted. “We can’t be seen with her. What if she’s going to these enormous lengths because she’s frightened? We have to protect her.”

“Oh, so we’re protecting
her
now? Have you even considered that maybe she’s not trying to help us? That maybe she’s trying to set up a massive practical joke?”

I laid a hand on Nora’s shoulder. “Hold up. Let’s just see if she comes back. Maybe now that we’ve met up with Michael, he’ll say something to her, and she’ll say something else to
us
. Maybe that’s what we accomplished today.” Lifting my eyes to Ren’s, I said, “Keep at it.”

“No.” Nora backed away from me, her cheeks reddening. “Listen. You two don’t know Mink, so don’t try to logic me out of this.” She pointed at Ren. “She is
messing
with you. If this is even her. This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of. Something from a cheap mystery chapbook.”

Ren blinked. “Miss Dearly—”

“We have bigger things to worry about right now. Even if it is Mink, I’m not about to listen to her. You use your computer, Ren, and you tell her that if she has something to say to me? She can say it to my face.”