“I could go as well,” Stephen began.
“No, you couldn’t.” Colin’s voice was calm and cold, even if there was more than a touch of sympathy in it. “You can’t do a damn thing there, and you have problems of your own here. People you’re responsible for too, Lord MacAlasdair.”
“He’s right,” said Mina, and managed a smile. “Thank you. For everything.”
Stephen wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, not for very long but forcefully enough to leave her breathless, her lips tingling. “Come back to me,” he said, when he finally let her go.
“Of course,” said Mina, and fled into the hall.
A short time later, though it felt like years had passed, she stood in a dark room and watched her sister. Florrie slept on her side as she always had. At first glance, she looked healthy enough, at least in the dark. Only by looking closely did Mina see the way her hair was plastered to her face with sweat. Only by watching for several minutes did she see how shallow Florrie’s breathing was and hear how she wheezed with each inhalation.
Mina closed her eyes. Almost immediately, she made herself open them again. She couldn’t hide from Florrie’s illness, and she shouldn’t if she could have.
“It’ll be all right,” Alice whispered at her side. “We’ve all been sick a few times, haven’t we?” But her voice lacked confidence, and the basin of water she carried shook a little. She swallowed and pitched her voice a little higher, toward the figure who sat at Florrie’s side. “Mum, Mina’s here.”
Mrs. Seymour looked up slowly. She stood, wrung out a damp cloth for the final time, and then picked it and the bowl up before she came over to the door. Encumbered as she was, she couldn’t embrace Mina, but she gave her a one-handed squeeze with what must have been the last of her strength. She looked exhausted.
She apparently wasn’t the only one. “You look all in,” she said to Mina. “I told your father it wasn’t so bad, but—”
“Doesn’t matter. I’d want to be here.”
“Both of you go downstairs,” said Alice. “And then to bed. I’ll sit up with Florrie, and Dad’s said he’ll take over when I’m knackered.”
“But I—” Mina began.
“Go on, dolt. You’ll make yourself useful before long. We all will. And you’ll both be more useful with sleep.”
“She sounds like you,” said Mina, reaching out to take the bowl from her mother as she went downstairs.
“Funny,” said Mrs. Seymour. “I was going to say she sounded like your Aunt Jane.”
It was good to laugh with family again, but the moment didn’t last long. It couldn’t.
“Professor Carter said she fainted this evening,” said Mina, as they reached the kitchen. Mrs. Seymour began to fill the kettle. Falling into old patterns, Mina emptied the bowl into the sink and started getting the tea things ready.
“She did. After supper. We thought it was nothing at first. A bit of a cold, maybe, or—well, I thought it might be female troubles, though she’s young for that. But we couldn’t wake her, and then the fever started.” Mrs. Seymour wiped at a nonexistent spot on the stove, keeping her face turned away.
Putting down the teacups, Mina hugged her mother from behind. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”
“What could you have done?” Mrs. Seymour asked sharply, but she patted Mina’s hand.
“Been here,” said Mina. “Has the doctor been?”
“Oh, yes. The lady doctor I wrote you about. She said to try and keep the fever down, and to give her tea and broth and similar when she wakes. She can’t say what it is, though,” Mrs. Seymour added.
“Just a fever, maybe. That happens,” said Mina, trying not to think of stories she’d read in the Times or heard at Professor Carter’s. Steamships came in every day from all around the world. Along with passengers and official cargo, might they bring diseases? Maybe even one that a London doctor hadn’t ever seen?
Maybe she should stop borrowing trouble.
Mina let go of her mother and went to get the canister of tea.
“She’ll be here again tomorrow,” said Mrs. Seymour. “I’m sure—she seems very bright.”
“And if she can’t do anything,” Mina said, glancing for the first time toward the hallway where she’d hung her coat, “we’ll find someone who can.”
Forty
“I’m not sure why you feel this need for urgency,” Colin said.
He lounged at the library desk, occupying the seat that Mina had taken for weeks. He sat far more casually than she ever had, though, with his feet crossed on the desk and the chair tilted back, not at all worried about damaging either the wood or his spine.
He’d never needed to worry about such things. The MacAlasdair wealth was more than sufficient to replace a chair or a desk, and the backbone of a dragon scion could stand up to a kick from a horse, let alone bad posture. Stephen had never even been conscious of either for most of his life.
Of course he thought of Mina. Everything in the damn house reminded him of her.
“The arm will be better in a few weeks,” Colin added in the face of Stephen’s silence, glancing derisively down at his sling. “It’s mending now. Ward’s hated you for a lifetime, and he’s been trying to kill you for months. What’s another fortnight or two?”
“I didn’t know what he was doing before,” said Stephen, pouring powder into the barrel of a derringer. Most of the time, he didn’t bother with guns. Baldwin had owned the only revolver in the house, and Mina had taken that with her to Ward’s office and then her home. This older gun, one of the relics of his father’s time in London, would at least give him two shots at Ward, assuming that it didn’t explode in his face. He would rather not change shape unless he had to, at least not until Ward was dead. “We killed one of his half men. I don’t want to give him time to make another one.”
“Maybe he already has,” said Colin. “You don’t send all your forces on a raid. Even I know that. Maybe he has a small army.”
“Then I still don’t want to give him time to make another one. He uses people for these creatures he makes, Colin.”
“Yes,” said Colin, “very bad form. Not worth getting killed over.”
“I’m not planning to be killed.”
Colin snorted. “Trust you to think people plan to get killed.”
Powder, charges, cap: Stephen double-checked the gun and put it down. “Colin,” he said, “he’s doing this because of me.”
“No, he’s—” The brothers locked eyes. Colin sighed. “Fine. I’ll not waste my breath. But I’m coming with you.”
“You’re hurt—”
“And still sturdier than Miss Seymour was last night. You’re not investigating now; you’re going into battle. I can cast spells one-handed, and a cast makes a fair bludgeon in extremis. I’m coming with you.”
Argument would be futile. Stephen knew that from Colin’s voice, even though his brother’s posture was as casual as ever. “Then there’s nothing more for me to say. At least Judith’s still at home, if things go very badly.”
“I thought you weren’t planning to get killed.”
“And I thought people don’t generally plan on that.”
Colin shook his head. “You’re a right nuisance when you’re melancholy, you know that?”
“I’m not melancholy.”
“You’d think a MacAlasdair would be a better liar. At least you’ve slept. You have slept, haven’t you?”
“Yes, Mother,” said Stephen. He had, in fact. A long life had taught him how to keep his emotions from getting in the way of his body’s most basic requirements. The night had been dark and peaceful. He’d only begun to worry when he woke up.