“Our invite was kind, Miss Black. The assent was your doing.” The voice that greeted my return to consciousness did not lose even an iota of its maddeningly even character as it switched languages from what I assumed was native Chinese—a language I never had the opportunity to learn—to the Queen’s English, completely without trace of accent. “We are pleased to find you did not suffer unduly in your...haste.”
The commentary came from behind one of two embroidered screens, each gleaming red silk panel shot through with gold. The room was brilliant, illuminated brightly by fire and gaslights affixed to each wall, and decorated in matching crimson and gold panels. Tigers and dragons battled for supremacy in the uncomfortable heat.
“You look flushed,” observed the voice when I said nothing. “Are you unwell?”
I did not turn to see if two of the Chinese servants waited by the doors. I knew they would, blank-eyed men with matching top-knots, undecorated robes and slippered feet. Like Chinese soldiers made of tin, they would hold their positions and would not allow my departure unless the Veil willed it.
I tucked my hands behind me and studied the dividers with as much impassive patience as I could summon.
My neck hurt, that did not surprise me, but the ache behind it, that rasp in my throat I could not ignore, suggested I had more to worry about than a thump from a foreigner.
I was coming ill. A touch of the ague from all this frolicking about in the cold and damp, no doubt. I frowned. “As well as can be expected,” I said, giving no ground. “What can I do for you, sir?”
The voice, to be truthful, lacked all distinction of either sex. It was not as honeyed as certain feminine voices, yet it lacked the deep tones of a truly dark-voiced cove. When he spoke his native tongue, he did so in those higher ranges the foreign language seemed to demand.
I had decided on “sir,” as the manner of the Veil was rather aggressive and somewhat reminiscent of Hawke’s more diplomatic moments.
The Veil sighed, a sound nearly swallowed by the crackle of the fire, whose light I could see glowing through the first screen’s silk paneling. “You are well aware of your dictates, Miss Black. Shall we avoid all these terribly English pleasantries?”
For perfectly ordinary words, evenly spoken, the Veil had a way of turning a phrase. This time, it was wariness that crept along the rippling flesh of my arms. I took a step back, shoulders straightening. “If you’d prefer,” I cautiously said, aware that comparing a lack of pleasantries to heathen dispositions might not be quite so much the appropriate thing. “If this is about Mr. Coventry—”
“You may save your excuses,” the Veil interrupted. Despite the heat of the room, my wariness turned to chilly concern. “We are equally as aware of your doings as you are of our demands. That you chose to spend your evening in one of our establishments is no secret.”
I bristled at the unspoken accusation. “I was staying close to Coventry.”
“And yet here you are. Where is he, we wonder?”
My mouth closed on the hot words that formed. The Veil knew very well where Coventry was, no doubt.
I glared at the screen, cleared my throat in non-verbal denial of any wrongdoing. It scratched, aching with the effort.
I could not fall ill now. This was not the time, nor the place, and I would not trust anyone here to see to my well-being with any degree of selflessness.
Nor did I want to be a burden on the sweets who tolerated me thus far.
Clenching my fists, I attempted to soften the issue at hand. “If you’ll allow me to beg your pardon.” The civilities bedeviled me. “I have plans to see to his collection this very day.”
“That will neither be possible, nor welcomed.”
“Have you another bounty posted, then?”
“We have another task entirely for you.” When I narrowed my eyes, folding my arms across my soot-stained shirt, the voice sharpened. “Let us be very clear, Miss Black. You are here not because we desire it.”
“Yes, I’ve been made aware.” I did not soften my own tongue, either. “You want the serum Professor Woolsey made.” Before the Veil could interrupt again, I pushed on, taking a step forward—but no farther, for I knew how quickly the Chinese men behind me could move. “What am I to do about that? The professor is dead, his works destroyed. There is neither hide nor hair of his madness left.” None, of course, but myself.
What I had not told others—what had not been made apparent even to me until it was far too late—was that my father, Abraham St. Croix, and the mad Professor Woolsey had been one and the same man. The serum he’d concocted had been his greatest achievement, the likes of which no alchemist alive could ever hope to create again.
That was what the madman had railed in his time of triumph.
That was simply madness.
Whatever the formula was, whatever the serum, opium had been its root, and the alchemical ingredients within still proved a powerful tool—if it could be unlocked. The things I had gone through while under its sway continued to haunt me, to frighten me.
Yet I had no method by which to hunt it down. My father’s secret laboratory had been emptied, his body taken, all of his tools gone.
The cameo that had sported my mother’s likeness was gone forever.
These things I could not share with the Karakash Veil. I could not even share them with Zylphia.
I was not so daft that I’d admit this to the Veil.
Instead, I looked at the floor between my feet and admitted, “Whatever had been designed, it was used and discarded upon its failure. The professor who developed it is dead.”
“You are sure of this?”
“I am.” More than sure. After all, the same rival collector who would go on to murder my husband had killed Mad St. Croix at the crux of his achievement. I had watched my father die, though I sometimes wondered as to the veracity of my memory on the subject.
At the time, I had been quite gone on the opium concoction.
That the sweet tooth I had been hired by the sweets to collect and the collector working for my father had been one and the same was terrible enough. He had with one hand saved me from my father’s murderous inclinations, and with the other murdered my own husband in those few hours after our vows.
Whatever life I had owed him, the sweet tooth had taken. An act I would not soon forget—and bore no intention to forgive.
“This leaves us with a terrible problem, Miss Black.”
I had long stopped cringing at the term. Where some called me cherie, Hawke had long been the only to call me “Miss Black”—a name given for my black hair, I believe. He knew my true hair color now, but he had not given up the name.
The Veil used it with impunity.
“I will keep collecting for you.” It wasn’t my favorite of the options at my disposal, but it was the lesser of two evils.
“And how do you propose to do that,” the Veil silkily replied, “when you have failed us twice?”
My teeth clicked together. “Haven’t I just explained? The serum—”
“The móshù—” Chinese for magic, as far as was explained to me, “—was only the first of two, and Bartholomew Coventry is the second. We do not give third chances.” The denunciation inherent in each flat word stung. “Had it not been for the efforts of our wūshī, you would have delivered your pound of flesh long ago.”
A shudder seized me, forcing me to tighten my arms around myself. “I can not be stopped now.”
“Yes, we know of your desires.”
I sincerely wished that the voice would change. Gain an octave, mock me, something that gave me a clue as to what the speaker thought. I did not know if he was speaking the truth now. “How?” I asked, trying very hard to keep the accusation from it. “Did Zylphia tell you?”