The Clockwork Wolf (21 page)

Why save my life and risk his own again to attend to me at the station? Did he really believe I could give back to the tribe whatever had been taken from them?

As I brooded over the night's events, Dredmore returned, this time alone and carrying a tray of tea. He set it down and poured a cup, bringing it to me. “You must be thirsty.”

Absently I blew on the surface of the steaming brew before I took a sip and sighed. “I've decided to steal Winslow from you. Will he work in far more congenial surroundings for almost nothing, or should I first rob a bank and buy a better house?”

“There is no better house,” he assured me as he peered down at my face. “Your color is a little improved. Mrs. Eagle said she heard the shaman speaking to you, but could not make out the words. What did he say?”

I set down my cup. “I've been thinking on it, but it made no sense to me.” I repeated the native's instructions before I added, “The tree-man, that could be Lykaon. The spirits of the Aramanthan were imprisoned in that oak grove by the Druuds, and he is using native magic.
Perhaps this War Heart the shaman wants back was the spell he stole.”

“A spell cannot be cast by words alone,” Dredmore told me. “Something must be paired with them to provide the necessary power. We use stones and runes, as the Aramanthan once did, but the natives use blood ritual.”

I made a disgusted face. “You mean animal sacrifice.”

He inclined his head. “They are fiercely protective of their magic. The shamans educate their apprentices only by words spoken in a place of complete isolation. No Torian has ever been permitted any real knowledge of their practices.”

I gave him an ironic look. “Yet somehow you know the manner in which they teach it.”

“I like to take long walks in the hills.” He picked up one of the bones. “This is a piece of a small animal's leg bone. Fox, perhaps.”

“Blue fox.” My head ached as I said the words. “He chanted those words when he was binding me. He also said little fox.”

“The natives often take animal names.” Dredmore unfolded one of the leaves and held up another bit of blue feather. “The shaman wore this color?”

I nodded. “A cap covered with those feathers. Foxes are little, I suppose, but they're not feathered or blue.”

“Blue Fox is a name, and given his penchant for the color, probably his.” He produced a small leather bag and carefully put all the vines and bones into it before tying it. “And, if I am interpreting his works correctly, you are Little Fox.”

I scowled. “I certainly am not.”

He seemed amused. “As you like. The manner in which he bound you suggests a healing ritual, but the leaves and feathers inside the bones appear to be a different sort of invocation.”

“Regret for slaughtering a small animal for no bloody good reason?” I suggested.

“No. One does not relinquish bits of a medicine cloak out of regret.” He tucked the leather bag under my pillow. “I think he meant to extend his powers to cloak you. To protect you, Charmian.”

“Magic doesn't work on me,” I reminded him as I removed the bag and tossed it over the side of the bed. “The Aramanthan knows it now, too.”

“Mrs. Eagle said one of the Wolfmen had managed to bite you this time.” He touched the back of his hand to my brow. “No fever. Do you feel any nausea?”

I didn't like how solicitous Dredmore was being; it wasn't in his nature to fuss like a worried mother. “No, and why do you ask?”

He took a charred bit of metal from his pocket. “Lady Bestly sent this to me by tube with a note explaining what had happened at her home.” He turned it. “It's hollow-tipped, and there is part of a valve inside.”

“I'm sure Docket would understand that,” I said, “but my knowledge of mech is limited to things like steamdogs and carri controls.”

“Lykaon mechanized the teeth to do more than bite.” Holding the charred metal over the tea tray, Dredmore poured a few drops from the pot into the tooth. When he touched the hollow tip with his finger, the tea dribbled
onto his skin. “Whatever is put in the teeth is transferred by the bite.”

Now I understood why he was worried. “Poison?”

He used a napkin to dry his hand. “That, or perhaps blood. It is an important component of native rituals.”

“Yes, and now I
am
nauseated,” I informed him, but my mind was working away at what he'd told me. “Lady Bestly was bitten by her husband, and so were Rina's girls when they were attacked in the park. All of the Wolfmen tried to bite me, too, but this was the first one who succeeded, and only because he had mechanized teeth.” I looked at him. “Lucien, were any of the men who were attacked bitten?”

He shook his head. “The Wolfmen use their claws on them.”

“The market tram was filled with women.” And the Wolfman had gone berserk trying to get inside. Only I had been able to lure him away . . .

Felicity won't eat,
Rina had said.
And Janice, poor gel, hasn't kept down a meal in days.

“Me. Lady Bestly. Rina's girls and the lady in the park.” I looked at Dredmore. “The men are being attacked only because they're getting in the way.”

His dark eyes narrowed. “In the way of what?”

“I think Lykaon is sending the Wolfmen out to find women. To hunt them.” I yanked the coverlet aside. “We have to go to the morgue and see the bodies from the Hill.”

“Not until after sunrise.” When I tried to argue he nodded at the bedposts. “Shackles will make your slumber very uncomfortable.”

“I'm not sleeping here.” If what I suspected was true, I would also need more help than Dredmore could provide. “I must summon Harry.”

Dredmore's expression darkened. “To my home? I think not.”

“Don't be tiresome—and don't try to bespell my grandfather again,” I added. “It absolutely infuriated him.”

He folded his arms. “That is hardly discouraging, Charmian.”

“This is why you have no friends,” I told him before I closed my eyes. “Come on, Harry. I need you here.”

The air chilled as a patch of mist appeared at the foot of the bed. Instead of forming itself into my grandfather, it stretched upward and crackled with miniature streaks of lightning.

“I am Merlin, master of all mages,” a terrible voice boomed, the sound causing the very windows to rattle. “Those who trifle with me and mine do not live to regret it.”

“Dredmore is very sorry about casting that spell on you,” I told him quickly. “Aren't you, Lucien?”

My host gave me an ironic look. “Decidedly.”

The little bits of lightning stopped, and the mist took on more solid form. “Back in his clutches again, I see.” Harry inspected me. “And now his bed. Haven't you an ounce of self-respect, gel?”

“It wasn't my idea.” I told him about the Wolfmen attacking me at Lady Bestly's. “I need you to pop over to Rina's and check the two women there who were attacked in the park.”

“I'm not a physick,” Harry complained.

I nodded. “But you are the only one who can tell if they've been possessed by Aramanthan spirits.”

•   •   •

Once Harry was dispatched to check on Felicity and Janice I finished my tea and regarded the sorry state of my gown. “Did Rina happen to leave a change of garms for me?”

“She did not.” Dredmore went to the armoire and opened it to sort through the gowns hanging inside.

I joined him. “Should I ask why you have an armoire filled with women's clothing in your bedchamber?”

“This is not my bedchamber.” He took out a rose-colored waterfall of organza and satin with gilt braiding and delicate embroidery of cascading amaryllis. “You can wear this.”

I made a rude sound. “To an evening at the opera, perhaps.”

I took the gown from him and put it back, selecting instead a dark blue paneled skirt with a green and neatly tailored plaid dress jacket. Although the silvery half-lace bodice and the handkerchief hemming were somewhat fripperish for my taste, and the entire ensemble probably cost more than I made in a year, at least I wouldn't look destined for the ballroom.

“This will do.” And then, because I couldn't help myself, I said, “These are very fine. Your lady friends never came back to claim them?”

“None of them have ever been worn.” He closed the doors to the armoire. “The other things you'll need are in the dresser there.” He headed for the door.

“Lucien.” I waited until he looked back at me. “Whose gowns are these?”

“Yours.” His lips twisted. “I had them made for you,” he said softly, and out he went.

After that admission I had to have another look in the armoire, which contained three dozen gowns made of the finest fabrics and tailoring and suitable for every possible occasion.

“But no wedding dress. How remiss.” I stalked over to the dresser and began opening drawers. They were filled to near overflowing with chemises, waisters, petticoats, and tiny little under drawers made of linen, cambric, and Nihon silk in snow white and flowery pastels.

“Sweet Mary.” I held up one evil-looking confection in jet black satin trimmed narrowly with scarlet velvet, also sized exactly for me. “Just because my best friend is a harlot doesn't mean
I
am.”

I picked out the plainest undergarments I could find, scowling as I stripped and donned them. The scanty things were sinfully comfortable, naturally, and the gown fit as if the seamstress had been dressing me for years.

Before I put on the dress jacket I checked the gown-maker's label, and found the initials SD along with the hand-inked face of a smiling, sleeping maiden—the hallmark of the ton's favorite gown maker and the most exclusive dress shop in Rumsen, the Silken Dream.

“Bridget.” I jerked on the jacket and did up the jet buttons, wondering how hard it had been for Dredmore to persuade my friend to make up the dreamy wardrobe
for me. “I hope you got at least a thousand pounds out of him before you sewed up this lot, you traitor.”

I tried to brush my hair into some order, but it was a tangle of hopeless snarls. I also found a thumb-size patch of too-short hairs on the side of my nape; someone had cut away a short tress.

My old boots looked dreadful beneath the silvery lace hem of the glowing paneled skirt, but I stubbornly buttoned them up before I stomped out of the bedchamber. Outside I found Winslow coming to intercept me.

“Welcome back to Morehaven, Miss Kittredge,” he said, giving me a polite bow. “I am happy to see you have regained your senses.”

“So I am, Mr. Winslow. Thank you for the tea.” I peered down the hall. “Where is the Master of Connivance?”

“His lordship asked that I escort you to the viewing gallery,” Winslow said.

“I have to go to the morgue—”

“So you will, miss, very shortly.” The butler made a calming gesture. “The master wished me to say that the ice encasing your animech rodent has nearly melted, and you may want to observe his examination of it.”

I pressed my palm to my brow. “Bloody hell, I forgot about the rat.”

“It has been an eventful night.” Winslow indicated the center stairwell. “This way, please.”

I followed the butler up to the third floor of the house and into a corridor that had been recently renovated, judging by the smell of fresh paint and recently sawn wood. “Has Dredmore been redecorating?”

“The master had the gallery relocated from the second floor last month,” Winslow said as he directed me into one of the rooms. “To provide a safer place of observation for a particular guest.”

Inside the room I was astonished to see three of the four walls and the entire floor had been replaced by enormous sheets of glass, which stopped me in my tracks.

“The glass is very thick, miss,” Winslow assured me. “It will not break.”

I took a cautious step forward, feeling a bit disoriented as I glanced down into another, seven-sided chamber with a dark oak floor that had been precisely inscribed with hundreds of runes. In the center stood an obsidian pedestal upon which sat the ice-encrusted rat in a pool of melted water. It didn't move, so I assumed it was still partly frozen. Then the glitter of the walls drew my gaze, and I saw every surface had been covered in large tiles of orange rock that sparkled with millions of gold flecks.

I recognized the rock, of course. “Is that tangerstone on the walls?”

“It is, miss.”

I blinked. “It's flawless.”

“I believe so, miss.”

I stared at the butler. “Winslow, in the city they charge fifty pounds an ounce for tangerstone, and that's for the cracked, damaged sort. I don't even
know
how much an ounce of perfect costs.”

“Rather more than fifty pounds, miss,” he said.

One of the stone panels opened into the chamber as Dredmore entered in a spell-casting cloak made of mirror
weave. I'd seen less elaborate versions with a few of the tiny round looking glasses stitched onto gilded cloth, but every inch of Dredmore's sparkled.

Before I'd come to know magic was real I'd have thought it nothing more than flashy showmanship; now the glassy cloak alarmed me. Mirror weave was bespelled very specifically to deflect evil power away from the wearer, and Dredmore had covered himself from neck to ankle with it.

“Maybe he ought to just toss the rat into the furnace,” I said to Winslow.

“That would waste the opportunity to discover the mage who enchanted it,” Dredmore said in a voice so clear he might have been standing beside me instead of two floors beneath us.

“Can you hear me as well?” I asked, and when he nodded I gestured to the rat. “Just how dangerous is that thing?”

“I won't know until I rekindle it. As a precaution I've sent the staff out of the house.” He approached the pedestal. “It will have no effect on you, of course, nor Winslow, as long as he remains beside you.”