“Where?” Abby breathed.
“Edward’s old room,” Kitty said.
Abby could feel the young man trying to help them, trying not to become deadweight between them, but he was fading fast.
When they got him into her fiancé’s old room, Syrus Reed collapsed onto the bed. No one had been in here since Edward had passed six months ago. No one except Abby. She’d made sure the bedclothes and counterpane were straight, that Edward’s coat still hung in the wardrobe and that his shoes were still neatly arranged at the bottom of it. Even the dresser still held all her fiancé’s things—his worn pocket watch, his straight razor and strop, a carnelian pinkie ring Abby had given him against her mother’s admonitions.
The oddity of having a man in Edward’s bed again made Abby cross her arms over herself, as if warding off a blow. She didn’t want to remember the last time she’d lain here with Edward, having sneaked out of her room down the hall because she could not bear the fire in her body any longer. Nor the final time Edward had lain here—his normally ruddy skin so unearthly pale—before Doctor Ah Yue had closed his staring eyes and declared him gone.
But Syrus… he was as different from Edward as could be, she thought. Dark where Edward had been fair. Mysterious where Edward had been so plainspoken and earnest. By the look of him, she doubted he’d stay long. But then, Edward had intended to stay forever, and now he was six feet under.
“I imagine this one will be shipping out as soon as he’s better,” her mother said, as if to confirm her thoughts. “Good luck to him, poor boy.”
Abby crossed her arms over herself, trying to banish the thought that she’d hoped he might stay.
Her mother turned to her. “Not a word he’s here, understand? I don’t want to run afoul of whatever landed him on the riverbank.”
Abby nodded. “I’m afraid more than a few saw us making our way here. A man wrapped in naught but a shawl is hard to miss.”
“Be that as it may, anyone asks, we don’t know nothin’. Worse comes to worst, we can stow him in the Mousehole.” The Mousehole was what her mother called a suite of hidden apartments her father had built for those who needed even deeper sanctuary. Of course, people who wouldn’t hesitate to blacken Ah Chen’s name had gossiped that he smuggled more than just refugees into London, but the rumors were baseless.
Like her husband, Kitty used the Mousehole to help people in need.
“Have Myrtle get the fire going in here so we can have some hot water. He wants bathing.”
“I can help—” Abby began.
Her mother raised a brow at her. “I think not, young lady. Now do as I ask, and then be about your chores. And no more mudlarking, do you hear? Lord knows what trouble you’ve brought on us now.”
Abby complied, but she couldn’t help smiling sadly at her mother’s attempts to keep her from glimpsing Mr. Reed in his natural state. She’d already seen everything she needed to see.
Syrus surfaced from dreams of mermaids singing and caressing him as they swam past. Their mockery and the depths at which he’d been entrapped by them left him cold and feeling half drowned again. Memory broke over Syrus, sharp as a wave of standing alone on a battlement above the sea, listening to the mermaids singing.
He had no idea how long he’d been asleep—a day perhaps? He looked around at the plain room, the little fire and kettle swung away from the hob, a tray of food sitting close to the hearth but not close enough to burn. Syrus had the distinct feeling this had been someone’s room—a man’s, perhaps—the impression made stronger by the items carefully placed on the dresser.
His head spun as he stood. He took a breath, running his hands along the unfamiliar shirt that scratched his ribs, the even-scratchier trousers that hugged his legs. His lungs still felt waterlogged. He considered looking in the wardrobe but thought better of it. Instead, he squatted on the floor and reached for the tray.
Syrus picked up bread with trembling fingers and crumbled it in his mouth, then pushed the kettle closer to the little fire.
With food, the weakness abated somewhat, though he found himself longing for an extremely rare bit of meat and hating that longing. He couldn’t say when he’d last eaten. The Ringmaster had always been stingy with rations for his charges.
He stared into the flames, thankful to be clean and ostensibly safe for the time being, though he knew such safety was an illusion. Memory floated up, a leaf on a still pond. He had escaped once before, he knew. They had caught him; that was when Sally had whipped him.
Syrus’s fingers drifted over the scar. He sighed, wondering how he appeared now in human form. What did it matter, anyway? In all of Scientia, no one had dared befriend him. But he doubted anyone could have overcome the yearning and bitterness he felt for Olivia.
Scientia. Olivia. These were new names to him. He turned them over in his mind like jewels. He had a dim memory of the city of Scientia, with its aerial streets and deep tombs. He recalled a throne room, and Olivia taking her place by the dais.
Once the queen he had served and loved, Olivia’s true nature as a warrior automaton had been revealed by Nikola Tesla. She had become a general in the battle that had ensued.
Syrus could not now remember why the battle had been fought—there was a sense of creeping horror, a dark shadow over his memory. But he knew that the girl he’d loved was lost to him forever, little more than a living statue.
Pan ruo yun ni, he whispered. As different as Heaven and Earth. So he and the clockwork general would always be.
He heard again the mermaids’ taunt: “…who will you take for your bride?”
He shredded the rest of the bread on the plate into tiny pieces. No one, he thought.
Meat. He needed meat. More to the point, he needed to hunt to forget the sharp ache that Olivia left inside. He could smell mice in the walls, a cat who hunted them curled in the kitchen. He could smell the grease Cook used sizzling in the pan, and the half-rancid bit of beef the hungry serving boy kept sawing bits off when no one was looking.
He sighed.
The door opened and he smelled the girl. He had never hungered after human meat until his enslavement in the circus, and then his hunger had been mostly born of rage and revenge. People smelled differently in the place he came from. Here, they smelled like food.
But this girl… it seemed impossible that she could smell of good things in a place like this, but he caught a whiff of scent that reminded him of the wild roses in the Forest of his birth. A whiff that made him think she might be like him. Had that been why she’d found him and brought him here, rather than leaving him to lie in the muck? Might there be others like him stuck in this world?
Before he knew it, he was up and had hold of Abby’s wrist. “Are you also a werechild?” he asked, peering into her hazel eyes.
Her pupils widened. She hesitated, but then pulled herself out of his still-weak grip.
“Begging your pardon, Mr. Reed, but I have no idea what you’re going on about!” she said. Her accent was thick and rollicking, like the river itself. He was at pains to understand her; it was like being caught between the different halves of himself, wavering in and out of form. Of both worlds and yet none.
“My mistake,” he said. “Humblest apologies.” He sat down dejectedly on the edge of the bed. There was only one place where there were others like him. A place he dared not go if he valued his freedom, and yet the only place he could go if he wanted to ensure the freedom of those he’d left behind.