The Unnaturalists (14 page)

She grabs my hand again and pulls me onward, as if we’ve been fast friends forever. I don’t know her at all, except what little gossip I hear in the Museum halls and at the dinner table. I recall Aunt Minta saying once that Mistress Virulen was on the hunt for the perfect match, that the Virulen Estate isn’t as prosperous as it once was. But if her gown and hat are any indication, her family is prospering quite well.

I sigh in relief to find that the body is already covered with a white sheet, though blood slicks the cobbles, the front of the wheels. I can see from the depressions in the quickly staining sheet that the body has been cleaved in two, and I’m torn between fascination and horror.

Mistress Virulen has a strangely fervid expression. I’d almost say she finds this exciting, but it would be wrong for a lady of quality to be anything but grieved by death.

“Ladies,” Father says, “perhaps you should step over to the café there, out of view of this tragedy. We shall join you momentarily.”

A swift look passes between Hal and me, but Father picks up on it. He glares at Hal.

Mistress Virulen reluctantly allows me to draw her to the café across the road. Room is made among the crowding patrons for us to have a seat by the window, and I am glad to be surrounded by the smell of coffee grown deep in the Eastern wildlands rather than the death and smoke outside.

Mistress Virulen is restless, staring out the window. She smiles at me when our coffee comes, her full attention finally bent on me.

“Miss Nyx,” she says, “I have a proposition that may interest you.” She looks at me over her teacup. Her teeth are whiter than the bone china.

“Oh?” I say. I take a long sip.

“How would you like to be my Companion?”

I splutter and then do my best to recover my dignity by hiding behind my napkin. When I’ve swallowed my incredulity along with the scalding coffee, I say, “Come again, my lady?”

She laughs. “You silly bird! You know what I said!”

“But, my lady, I’m hardly qualified for such an honor. And you barely know me.”

“That is precisely why I would rather have you!” she says. “Any girl who is brave enough to try to stop a trolley to save me certainly deserves a reward.”

It’s as if the cold outside seeps into my veins instead of the warmth I seek from my coffee. I gulp it hurriedly, trying to steel myself, and nearly sear my tongue off in the process.

“I’ve no idea what you mean,” I manage to say.

She laughs at me again. “Oh, don’t be coy. Of course you do! I saw you through my carriage window before everything turned upside down. You were practically glowing with”—she leans closer, the feathers on her hat nodding toward me—
“magic.”

My face is hotter than the dregs of coffee in my cup. If she saw, then everyone must have seen. And with the incident at the Museum with the Sphinx, it’s a wonder newspapermen aren’t beating down our townhouse doors to get answers. Or that the Raven Guard haven’t come to lock me away. I wonder if she saw Hal, too, and if she will try to blackmail him. Perhaps he’s better at hiding it than I am. He must be, if he hasn’t been caught yet.

“We could be of much use to each other, you and I,” she says.

“And what if I’d rather not?” I try to sound arch, but I come off more like a petulant child.

“I suspect you’d find your life a deal more uncomfortable than you already do.” She leans even closer, so that the topmost feather on her hat almost tickles my nose. “You should understand, Miss Nyx, that I always get my way.”

I force a smile, but it is more truthfully a grimace.

Father and Hal wade through the crowd. Aunt Minta comes behind them.

“We’ve a hansom for you, Mistress Virulen,” Father says. His eyes wander between us. “That is . . . if the two of you are finished?”

She stands, her skirts hissing against the table. I stand with her. “I believe we are, Pedant Nyx,” she says, holding my gaze. That wicked smile curves her lips again.

She takes my hand. “I shall send the formal invitation to you as soon as I return home. I’ll look forward to your acceptance.”

I nod. Under better circumstances, Father’s quizzical gaze would make me laugh. Hal looks between us, his expression completely unreadable.

Mistress Virulen is off in a whisper of exotic perfume and puff of nodding feathers.

“Invitation?” Father asks.

“She wants me to be her Companion,” I say.

Realization dawns on his face just before he embraces me. He knows what this means—that I will be exposed to more connections in higher places than he and Aunt Minta could ever reach. Such a position almost guarantees me a match far beyond his wildest dreams.

As long as I don’t botch it up. And as long as Mistress Virulen keeps her knowledge to herself. Therein lies the bargain.

I rest my cheek against his robes, breathing in the damp,
scholarly smell and loving it more fiercely than ever. My eyes meet Hal’s over Father’s shoulder. I think he knows what this means too. No more Museum for me. And perhaps no more magic, if I am to survive. His gaze is hard, his eyes almost too brilliant to bear.

“I’m so proud of you, Vee! Today has truly been a red-letter day,” Aunt Minta says, as she arrives. The news apparently is already being whispered about; my indiscretion in racing from the carriage is already forgotten.

I think of the scarlet letter on Athena’s robes at her execution and can only agree.

C
HAPTER
12

A
fter his visit to Rackham’s, Syrus had watched the witch for many days. He wished he could write her a letter, but he didn’t know how to write in the Cityfolk language. And he didn’t have the coin to pay someone to take dictation, even if he had thought it wise to put such information in a letter, which it wasn’t. And how did he expect her to respond? “Your father plots against you and the Manticore needs you.” He doubted if he was a City girl and someone told him such a thing that he’d respond favorably. When he added the fact that he’d stolen something precious to her . . . well, he didn’t expect she’d welcome any contact from him, really.

But it had to be done.

Things were very busy about the Nyx household. There was much to-ing and fro-ing. The witch often went out with her aunt on long shopping excursions in Midtown or to Uptown for the Manticore knew what. Syrus couldn’t follow her very easily into Uptown; only respectable sorts were allowed there, so he was forced to climb wicked-looking fences and skulk around flower urns, hoping no one would drag him by the ears out of the gates.

He asked a servant what all the fuss was about and the old man smiled. “Our young miss is to be Companion to Mistress Virulen.
She’s preparing to move to the Virulen Estate after Carnival.”

Syrus nodded, feeling the urgency of his mission press even more closely. He needed to speak to her before she went to Virulen. She’d be closer to the Manticore then but much harder to reach. And who knew what would happen to her beforehand?

No matter how he tried, though, he couldn’t get close enough to her at a moment when she was alone. Unless he just happened to hide in the right dressing room at the Night Emporium, he didn’t see himself managing it. And the mere thought of that gave him the willies.

Still . . . He eyed the townhouse. There was one place and one time when she’d be alone, when he could be certain no one would disturb her or interrupt him. Her bedroom at night. This thought didn’t make him much more comfortable than the idea of catching her in the dressing room, but it still might be a better alternative, unless she screamed or triggered the banshee alarm. He rolled his eyes. Surely, she was more sensible than the average City female. She had seemed very practical and quite brave when she had stepped in to keep the highwayman from taking the strongbox in her carriage. She’d been brave during the fight at Rackham’s too, even if she’d still wanted to come after him for the accursed toad.

Surely, she’d see reason if he could make her understand the urgency of the matter. He had, in fact, tried to return to Rackham’s to steal the toad back, but was astonished to discover that Rackham’s was now a burnt-out husk. The rest of the block had barely escaped going up in flames, and no one knew what had happened or where Rackham had got to. Some said it was the Raven Guard belatedly getting around to torching a hexshop. But if so, why hadn’t Rackham’s arrest and execution date been made public? The
Guard generally made a big show. This quiet bit of arson wasn’t their style. Had the Architect come back later for revenge?

Syrus sighed as he slipped down the alley alongside the witch’s townhouse. Whatever the circumstances, the toad was gone. She would just have to accept his apology and believe that he was telling the truth.

He wasn’t sure which was her bedroom, but from the flower-printed curtains he could just see above him, he’d guess this was the one. He wished for a moment that Truffler was with him; his friend would have been able to sniff her out just as well as he did any rare mushroom. Not that she’d like being compared to a fungus, Syrus imagined.

He waited until night fell completely to climb up the drainpipe and onto what he hoped was her window ledge. He listened for a while. As far as he could tell, everyone was still downstairs. Dinner was surely over and perhaps they were in the parlor, reading or—The sound of a pianoforte tinkled up the stairs. Syrus tested the window. It was closed but not locked. It only took a little force from his file and wedge to lever it up enough for him to slide through.

He closed it quietly. An everlantern cast a dim glow over the room, and the
myth
radiator plinked and hissed near the window. A fire had been laid on the hearth against the chill; Syrus was thankful he wouldn’t have to worry over frightening a maid. He turned, taking in the flounced petticoats draped over a chair, the carelessly piled books everywhere. Definitely her room.

Although he was more than used to picking pockets, he’d never quite graduated to outright thievery like many of the lads in Lowtown. It was uncomfortable standing here surrounded by all the witch’s things, knowing he could easily take more of her valuables,
except for the fact that he was here to persuade rather than rob.

The room itself was discomfiting to him just by its very existence. The bed looked warm and deep; he couldn’t help but press down on it with his palm—cloud-soft goose down. He had always slept cocooned in thin quilts with his family in the leaky passenger car, hearing Granny Reed get up in the night to feed the old potbelly stove, wondering if he would ever know what it was like to be warm all over all at once. This sort of luxury he’d never imagined, though he knew that by Cityfolk lights, the Nyxes were not rich. Still, there were paintings and other art on the walls, dried flowers in a vase, an embroidered dressing screen.

Syrus felt terribly out of place. He looked for somewhere he could hide until the appropriate moment. He settled in a corner between the hulking wardrobe and a bookshelf. He didn’t want to hide in anything and unduly frighten her, much as the idea of springing out of a wardrobe amused him.

He crouched down and stared at the spines of all the books with their indecipherable letters. He hoped he would never have to learn to read the Cityfolk’s language. The thought of their deadly dull thoughts pressing in on him made him dizzy.

He stiffened and hunched as close to the wall as he could when the door opened.

“Good night, Aunt,” he heard the witch say. With a swish of skirts, she and her maid disappeared behind her dressing screen. He tried to think of something else, so as not to hear her undressing. He had kissed a girl behind the train car before, but that was as far as things had gone. The thought of what a witch would do if she caught him peeping at her was quite unpleasant.

The maid banked the fire and left. Syrus waited until he was sure
the witch had climbed into bed and pulled the covers up around her. Then, he slipped out from behind the wardrobe.

He coughed slightly. “Miss Nyx,” he said, “I must speak with you.”

She sat bolt upright. It was hard for him not to laugh at her in her nightcap with the covers pulled up around her and possibly the most indignant look on her face he’d ever seen on any female. She narrowed her eyes.

“You!” she said.

“Listen, Miss Nyx, I . . .” he began. Such formal language coming out of his mouth was odd, but he didn’t want to offend her either. He knew the forms for dealing with Elementals, but a witch? He wasn’t quite sure what was proper.