The Shield did not fall. Instead, he leapt backward, fishlike, his own bare feet thudding on the heaving boards. He flung himself at the dressing-room door, carried it down in a tide of exploding shards and splinters. He was gone into the darkness then, and the house settled against itself with an audible thump.
“Pax!” Mikal screamed, beyond the door. “Pax, Prima! Emma! Emmaaaaaa!”
Clare pushed himself up, staggered after him.
Miss Bannon’s dressing room was pale-carpeted, strewn with broken wood, and he thought, quite calmly, that she was going to be extremely put out by the mess.
The youth caught at his arm, but Clare evaded him easily enough. There was a very real danger of skewering his feet; when he reached Miss Bannon’s bedroom door he was gratified that he had not done so. “Emma?” he called tentatively, into the dimness. It smelled, powerfully, of a foreign, feminine country–perfume, and long hair, and silk. The rustle of dresses and the slightly oily healthiness of a dark-haired woman, the smoky overlay of sorcery, pear-spiced perfume, and a hint of rosewater from her morning ablutions. The impressions whirled through him and away, and he had stepped over the threshold before he knew it, blindly. “Emma, please, say something.”
“Clare?” She sounded very young, and breathless. “And… Mikal.” A huskiness–of course, that throat-scouring scream. Was it merely a nightmare?
Somehow, no matter how given the fairer sex was to vapours, he did not think so.
“Here.” The Shield sounded even more sober than usual. “What is it?”
“I am not dead.” Wondering, a half-disbelieving laugh. “I… Mikal. Clare.”
“Yes.” Mikal’s eyes were a yellow glimmer; Clare’s adapted to the darkness. He saw Miss Bannon’s bed, the dressing table and its beautifully clear oval mirror, the bulk of an armoire, other shapes he could not quite infer just yet. Mikal’s glare was a pair of yellow lamps in the dimness. “Come no closer, sir.”
“Mikal.” She sounded much more like herself now. “Do not be impolite. I am well enough. It was… simply a shock. Clare, have you been introduced to—”
“—the young man who was at my bedside? Quite an odd choice for a nanny, madam.”
“I suppose I am to let you lock yourself in the workroom and attempt to bring down my house with explosives?” Did she sound irritated? It was, he decided, a very good sign. “Yes, Mr Clare. That sounds ever so helpful. Kindly remove yourself from my bedroom, sir, I have little time to quarrel with you.”
“You do not need explosives to level your domicile, Miss Bannon. Which is why I am here.”
“The damage is temporary. Get out. No—” This was no doubt directed at Mikal, for there was a flicker of movement in the darkness near her bed. Light glinting from metal, and Clare’s skin chilled. “Mikal. Absolutely not.”
“Little thief,” the Shield said, softly. “Come closer, and lose a limb.”
“Just looking after me investment, squire,” came the cheeky reply–from right next to Clare, and he was hard-pressed to suppress a start. How very curious.
“Investment?” he enquired, blithely. “Did you think to replace Ludovico, Miss Bannon?”
“No.” Sharp and curt, material sliding, and a bloom of silvery light from the sconces near the door. A globe of malachite on her bedside table, next to a stack of novels–her taste in bed-reading was shockingly salacious, really–made a soft slithering sound as it turned in its stand, and a shiver ran through the house again. “I thought to ensure your safety, sir. A rather onerous duty, but one I have undertaken. Now leave me in peace, I must dress.”
She inhaled sharply, and Clare was confronted with the exotic sight of Miss Bannon shrugging herself into a wine-red dressing gown over her nightgown, lace and satin scratching against plain, high-necked white linen. Her small, well-formed feet were bare as his and Mikal’s, and her unbound hair was a river down her back. With her tumbled curls and the high colour in her cheeks, she looked every inch a child up too late on a holiday night. “Mikal, send Severine up and rouse Harthell, have the carriage prepared. We are bound for Whitchapel.” She strode for her dressing table, sliding past the Shield with a determined air.
“Whitchapel?” How extraordinary. Clare’s rebellious faculties strained, turning sharply in a most unwelcome direction. “There has been another murder.” And you have sensed it in some sorcerous fashion. Very extraordinary indeed.
She glanced over her shoulder, and he stepped back, almost into the nameless youth, who was observing this scene with a great deal of interest. “Yes. There has. And I must go.”
“Philip Pico.” The youth offered his hand, a firm shake, and settled into the carriage’s upholstery just where Ludovico had been wont to sit.
Clare suppressed a protest. It was illogical; the seat was there, he had to sit somewhere, and—
“Absolutely not,” Miss Bannon said. Her mourning today was wool, and her hair was in place again. There was no trace of the dishevelled, just-wakened child she had appeared, except for a slight puffiness about her eyes. “Archibald, I do not have time—”
“You–and she–asked for my aid in untangling this affair.” He quite enjoyed her discomfiture. “Which I am determined to provide. And this young man, no replacement for our dear Valentinelli indeed, is nevertheless bound to be quite handy.”
The door slammed, Harthell cracked the whip and the carriage jolted into motion.
Miss Bannon closed her eyes, the cameo at her throat flashing once. It was a familiar sight, and he knew a silvery ball of strange witchlight would now coalesce before the gleaming clockhorses, directing the coachman to whatever incident had drawn his mistress’s attention–and telling the rest of Londinium a sorcerer was impatient with delay.
So much irrationality he had learned to live with as merely part of his acquaintance with this most logical of sorceresses. Had he not often thought that if only all practitioners of the arts of æther were as practical as she, mentaths would have little difficulty with their number?
Now he cast a fresh eye upon her as the carriage jolted, and found she was pale, her veil tucked aside, her gloved fingers entirely too tense, and her chin set.
She met his gaze directly. How had he never noticed before that her manner was of a man facing a duel? So much of Miss Bannon only made sense if one ceased to think of her as a proper woman.
And yet. Her little attentions, her gracefulness, her arranging of matters to suit those about her, her collection of castaway servants–none of those graces bore a masculine stamp.
The woman in question remained silent, still gazing at him with that odd expression. As if she expected trouble from his quarter, and soon.
He drummed his fingers upon his knee. It was past baker’s-morn but still grey-dark, Londinium’s yellow fog choke-wreathing wrought-iron lamps both sputtering with gasflame and, in the better quarters, held to steadier life by carefully applied wick-charms. Hooves sounded and carriage wheels thrummed, even at this hour. The city did not sleep, and a vision of it as a gigantic coal-fed, sorcery-stroked beast had no room in a mentath’s logic-ordered brain.
Still, even mentaths had passing fancies. He leaned forward slightly. “Are you… are you quite well, Miss Bannon?”
“I was a-study all afternoon, seeking to discern a clew, ætheric or not, to the identity of our killer, and had absolutely no success. I did not wish to view the site of the second murder after a day spent so unprofitably, so I retired.” She took a deep breath. “Then I felt a woman die within my own corpus, sir. I am a trifle unsettled.” She did not look it. “And do forgive my manners. Mr Clare, meet Philip Pico; he is a cousin to Mr Finch and I have engaged him to perform a valet’s duty for you, as well as other small tasks you may require of him. Philip, this is your charge, Mr Archibald Clare. Esquire, I believe. Do behave appropriately.”