These Vicious Masks: A Swoon Novel (25 page)

Lost in the bustle of my thoughts, I only realized where I was when my cab came to a jolting stop outside Camille’s building. When I knocked on her door, an elderly man poked his head out
this time. “Oh, Miss Wyndham, come in.”

She led me into the dressing room, where she tilted my chin up, admiring her work one final time. “Did it all go accordingly?” she asked.

“Not quite,” I said. “But it was instructive, nonetheless.”

“It often is.” She soaked a rag in a bucket of water warmed by the sunlight and set to reversing the process, scrubbing off my makeup, massaging a tingling substance into my hair,
manipulating my shoulders and chest. As she worked, I could swear my muscles were relaxing and my hair lengthening with her every touch, returning almost imperceptibly to equilibrium. It took only
a fraction of the time to undo her work.

When she had finished, she motioned to the large looking glass. “Please tell me if there’s anything I’ve missed. I’ll fetch your dress from the other room.”

She left me alone with my reflection. My appearance looked as close to normal as I could tell, though it still felt strange with the loose men’s clothing I wore. Maybe my dress—wait.
I’d left my dress in this wardrobe.

I cracked the dressing-room door open and called out, “Miss Camille, my things are here.”

No response. The entire apartment sat silent. She was nowhere to be found in the other two rooms. A chill ran down my spine as I rushed to open the front door and stepped out into the vacant
hall. Why had she just left without warning?

“What a pleasant surprise, Miss Wyndham.”

Smiling up at me from the lower staircase landing was my answer. Dr. Beck.

N
o. No. No.

Not him. Not now. Not this way.

No one even knew where I was. My breath caught, and I fumbled for words before realizing that I should have been running. I bounded upstairs past the second floor, third, fourth, the clatter of
footsteps following from one flight below. My chest heaved and my cravat flapped wildly out of my open waistcoat as I pushed myself forward. My suit was less cumbersome than a dress, but it was of
no help to me once I burst through the roof door and stumbled outside. A vacant roof, a single entrance, and a five-story drop. The setting sun over the London skyline pleasantly bade me
good-bye.

“Miss Wyndham, please.” Dr. Beck and Claude had already caught up, standing by the door. “If you will oblige us for just a few minutes.”

“No, I am in a bit of a hurry, thank you,” I shouted back.

Camille poked her wrinkled head out the roof door behind them.

“
You
called them?” I shouted at her. “Why?”

She gave me a sort of frowning smile as if I’d asked a stupid question. “I told you. There’s no greater pleasure than removing one mask to reveal another.” She turned to
Dr. Beck. “Are we finished?”

“We are. Go enjoy this beautiful evening,” Dr. Beck said with a pleasant smile.

She nodded and shut the door with an aching metal wail.

“You were seconds away from death the other night,” Dr. Beck said. “Yet you still persist in chasing us. It seems stubbornness runs in your family.”

A strong wind rushed in from the west, sending my hair flailing across my face. My heart thumped for Rose. She was still alive, then. I felt flushed, tense, seething. My mind flashed through
hundreds of painful fates for him if only I had Mr. Braddock’s abilities.

“Don’t you
dare
hurt her!” The empty threat escaped against my better judgment.

Dr. Beck took slow steps forward and shook his head. “You keep insisting one girl’s comfort is far more important than millions of other lives. Do you understand how ridiculous you
sound?”

He didn’t deserve a response.

“You attend church, yes?” he asked. “Of course you do. Why is it acceptable that martyred saints and even ‘the Son of God’ can sacrifice themselves all for a set of
beliefs? The actual results from those sacrifices are still up for debate, while the possibilities that stem from Miss Rosamund’s are as clear as day to anyone—and you cannot accept
it.”

There was nothing else to do, nothing to say. I could hear people from the street below, but could they hear me? Could I call for help without Dr. Beck knowing? Backing up to the edge of the
roof, I lashed out the way I knew best. Loudly.

“Even with your power, you’re still a terrible scientist! There’s a reason your fellow scientists ridicule you,” I yelled. “It’s because
they—”

“—know my work is going to accomplish nothing and
help
no one?” Dr. Beck finished calmly. A look of mild amusement unfurled across his face. “I’m sorry, I
took the words out of your mouth. Please, continue.”

Oh, God. A frightening revelation struck me. It explained how he could block my attacks, how he responded to unfinished sentences, how Arthur and William saw that he never made mistakes, how he
always had a plan. Was it possible? It existed in myths, but . . .

“You—you . . . can see—”

Dr. Beck smiled serenely at me. “The future, yes, Miss Wyndham. I am impressed. Now you know I am not exaggerating when I tell you I am one step ahead of you. I was born to be one step
ahead of you. I will know if someone is coming through this door before he himself even knows. And I can assure you with complete confidence, no one noticed your plea for help, no one cares, and no
one is coming.”

I didn’t know how it felt to have the life sucked out of me, but his words managed a close approximation. He could see the future, and he was only admitting everything because he knew I
was going to be dead in less than a minute.

Dr. Beck met Claude’s eye and nodded in my direction, and the giant stomped closer. Dear God, this was really the end of me. What a stupid way to go. Strangled, stabbed, bones broken,
maybe all three at once. I had to do something. Anything. And then I saw it. As I moved toward the corner of the roof, another building came into view. It was right next to us, one story lower, a
manageable jump, an actual escape.

“Stop her!” I heard Dr. Beck yell.

I took off in a sprint.

My shoes smacked across the thick stone roof and crinkled over the small gravel pits. The steady rumble of Claude’s tread followed me doggedly. I could feel him moments away from grabbing
me, but I caught sight of the ledge, a few long strides away, and the simple plan burned into my mind. Just run, jump over it, and live. That’s all I had to do.

So I leaped, my glimpse of heavenly freedom on the opposite building moving closer, closer, within reach. My stomach floated up weightlessly as my jump became a drop. My chest hit the edge of
the roof hard, knocking out my breath. As I slid back, my hands scrambled to grasp brick, rock, anything, for God’s sake, please.

And I fell.

A rush of air and a blurry procession of bricks streamed by me and cut out with empty thuds and cracks of pain spiking through my legs and across my side. I tasted bitter metal, and a sudden
numbness took over. Carriages clanked, a baby cried, bells rang, a woman screamed, and then it all quieted down to final thoughts (so this is what dying is?) before even those faded away into a
blissful shroud of nothingness.

A
STARK ROOM
greeted me when I awoke.

With a groan, I sat up and rubbed the blur out of my eyes—it felt like I had overslept by several years. The glow of gas lamps shone through the room’s tiny window, and drops of rain
pattered against the pane.

I rolled and twisted off the bed, feeling a shudder when my feet touched the cold floor. Instinctively, I rubbed my leg: no lingering pain, no scar, no mark at all. My last memories were hazy,
but I could distinctly recall the falling, the utter fear, and the peculiar understanding of pain. The reality of being fully recovered instead of fully broken sent goose pimples prickling up all
over my body.

At the sound of my sheets rustling, a nurse, slumped over in a rickety chair by the corner, stirred and shot straight up. “Miss Bradent, one moment, I’ll go fetch him,” she
said, already halfway out of the room.

Miss Bradent? I glanced around the room, noting the white stone walls and the dreary lights. I wasn’t in an asylum, was I? What other place on earth could look this depressing? It was too
dark to see out the window and not quite tempting enough a prospect to wait and find out for myself. In a hurry, I slid off the stiff bed and tiptoed to the door. I pulled it open, and there stood
Mr. Braddock on the other side of the threshold, his breath drained and his person drenched.

“Miss . . . Wyndham . . .”

“So. You’ve finally arrived,” I managed to mutter, my voice hoarse from disuse.

Only a few inches away, he heard me clearly. His tense hands clutched the doorway, and his eyes dropped downward. “I’m—I’m sorry. How do you feel?”

“Absolutely blissful. Perfect is an understatement,” I replied drily, pulling back and widening the gap. “How did you find me?”

“The hospital. They found you in an alleyway with no identification. My card was in your pocket, and they contacted me.”

As Mr. Braddock spoke, he raised his head and stared pointedly above my right shoulder, his flushed cheeks growing even redder. I looked down and realized my white hospital gown appeared to be
slightly transparent. It was hard to care about covering up my body after it had been through so much, but for the sake of Mr. Braddock (who had retreated into the hallway), I turned around with
forced composure, padded back inside the room, and crawled into the bed.

“Mr. Braddock, please come in,” I called. “I don’t give a fig for propriety at the moment.”

His dark head peeped around the corner. He slipped in, closed the door, and leaned against the farthest possible wall.

“Why does the hospital think I am Miss Bradent?” I asked.

“I told them you were my cousin Elizabeth and had you moved to this private room, so I could watch from the street,” he said.

“Always a distant cousin,” I muttered.

He bit his lip for a moment before giving in to the questions he was holding back. “Tell me. What happened? How did you come to be hurt?”

“I fell off a roof,” I said vaguely, clenching my jaw. I wanted him to feel miserable.

Concern and disbelief filled his eyes. “It was true, then,” he murmured, unlacing his arms and starting toward me before pulling back, remembering to remain stoic. “By the time
the ambulance arrived, your injuries were so minor, they concluded you fainted in the alley. The only witness was a drunkard, and his story about the roof sounded too unbelievable—even to me.
Given the circumstances, you were quite—”

“Lucky?” I finished with a bitter laugh.

The silence boiled through the room. If he bit his lower lip any more, it would fall off. “Does anything still hurt?” he finally asked.

“No.”

He rubbed the back of his head in distress, stepping forward slightly. “What were you even searching for? What was possibly worth all this?” he asked.

I steadily told him about my encounters with Camille, William, Arthur, and Dr. Beck. When I finished, I found him glaring at me. I was getting particularly tired of that look.

“So it was for nothing,” he said, taking another step. “I don’t think you fully understand how fortunate you are. We’re still figuring out the extent of your
powers. You just as easily might not have been protected from such severe injuries. Or if the ambulance had arrived earlier, one of the doctors could have observed your healing ability, and you
would be—I don’t know—locked up somewhere to be studied! It was pure chance that you’re not de—I thought you promised to stop this recklessness.”

“And what about your promise? Why did you just disappear . . . ?”

“. . . leaving me to that terror and pain?” was the unspoken end to the question, but he heard it nonetheless. A stricken expression crossed his face, making him look younger and
gaunter as he grasped the end of the bed. I almost felt delight in his reaction. Then I remembered the mountain of guilt he was already struggling with and simply felt wretched for us both.

“I was following Lord Ridgewood,” he said.