But that was all. The girl in the bed might very well just be Louisa Kittering.
She heard sounds a couple of floors below: a door opening, and footsteps upon the stairs. Eliza shoved herself up and hastily wiped her face with her apron, scrubbing away sweat and tears alike. Bolting upward would only trap her in the servants’ quarters, so she headed down instead, and almost ran into Mrs. Fowler on the landing.
The housekeeper looked at her suspiciously. “I heard a noise. What are you doing up here?”
Eliza dropped a curtsy, hoping it would hide the effects of crying. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Fowler. My foot slipped on the stairs, and my heel came down dreadful hard. I didn’t mean to disturb anyone. I just finished in Miss Kittering’s room.”
But Mrs. Fowler was too practiced at seeing through the lies of maids. “And that sent you up to the attics? You certainly weren’t coming from Miss Kittering’s room just now. You look a fright, girl; what has happened to your hair?”
An exploring hand found sweaty tendrils escaping from beneath her cap, no doubt from her exertions with the furniture. “I—I’m sorry,” Eliza stammered, grasping for any plausible excuse. “I’m afraid I’m not feeling well—”
The housekeeper took her roughly by the shoulder, pressing the back of her other hand to Eliza’s forehead. “You’re very clammy. Perhaps you’re falling ill. Well, we can’t have you coughing and sneezing around the family, can we? You’ll take over that new maid’s duties below stairs; she can do your work above.” Mrs. Fowler released her, and when Eliza did not immediately move, said, “What are you waiting for? There’s stains that need cleaning, and you’ve wasted enough time already. Get on with you!”
A shove sent her stumbling toward the stairs. Eliza caught herself on the railing, and thought, Now is your chance. She could quit—blame Mrs. Fowler’s insistence upon her working while ill, as if she had any right to expect otherwise—and go. Run away before Louisa had a chance to tell anyone what she’d done.
And do what? Without the changeling, she had nothing. No hope except to march up to Scotland Yard and ask the Special Irish Branch whether they arrested any faeries along with their Fenians.
She had nowhere to go, not even Whitechapel. But she had a position here, unpleasant as it was; and if Louisa didn’t have her sacked, then at least Eliza could save a bit more money while she tried to think of a plan.
“Yes, ma’am,” she mumbled to Mrs. Fowler, and made her way downstairs.
Whole minutes passed—whole hours, it felt like—before Louisa Kittering was able to move.
She spent those minutes staring at the bedroom door, as if the maid would come leaping back through, reciting prayers and waving a solid iron cross to banish her. Not that it would do much good; that might overcome the protection of bread, if the human was devout enough, but not the armor that shielded her now. Still, no amount of safety was enough to erase the inevitable flinch, the instinctive fear.
Especially if the maid knew what she was.
An absurd thought. This was not some rural village, where people still believed in faeries; this was South Kensington, literally across the road from the Museum of Natural History, where humans kept the preserved corpses of exotic animals from around the world, and specimens to illustrate their own supposed descent from apes. And while the maid might be from a less scientifically minded part of England, it would be quite a leap for her to think of faeries—especially when the girl who once lived in this room swore she said nothing of it to anyone.
Yet the maid—Hannah, that was what the girl had called her—must have had some reason for waltzing about the room with furniture. And Louisa had heard cautionary tales of fae, innocents less familiar with the mortal world than she, caught by such tricks, forced out of their changeling roles and back to whence they’d come.
She was not surprised to find, as she swung her legs out from beneath the bedclothes, that her feet were trembling. So were her hands. That had been one of the oddities of her new life, discovering that cold bothered her as it never had before; but this was nerves more than chill. For all that her changeling state protected Louisa more than mere bread, she felt naked, exposed, vulnerable. This was no brief masquerade, a glamour thrown over her faerie face and discarded when it was no longer needed. She had taken over the life and name of the girl who was once Louisa Kittering, and until she managed to break free of that young woman’s ties, it meant subjecting herself to the constant scrutiny of those around her.
She was only safe so long as they didn’t know what she was. The Goodemeades and their mad plan to come out of the shadows looked a good deal less appealing, now that she stood to lose very directly by it. Then everyone would know how to recognize the signs of faerie things. As long as they remained ignorant, though, she remained safe—and free.
Gloriously free! Louisa could not help but grin at everything around her, from the pictures on the walls to the brass knobs of her bed, as if she’d never seen any of it before. The touch of her bare toes against the floor steadied her after that fright, and she bounded over to the window to peer out at the street below.
A carriage rolled by, bearing on its doors some peer’s coat of arms; she could not make it out from up here, and likely wouldn’t have recognized it anyway. She’d thought to go along with Mrs. Kittering’s plans and marry that baron’s son, the one with the absurd name—or perhaps someone even more highly placed. Taking on a human life didn’t mean giving up all of her faerie charms, after all, and the glittering beauty of the haut ton did have its appeal. But wedding a peer would limit her freedom too much, unless she kept her husband continually enchanted; and besides, Louisa had never desired to be a faerie bride. She’d known such a creature once, a nymph who left her husband after he struck her three times, and didn’t see the point.
No, she would not marry. There was no need for it anyway. Once she was settled into her new role, she would cut her ties with this family, and go wherever she liked. After Frederic Myers, perhaps. He had a wife in Cambridge, but surely it wouldn’t take much to change that, especially if Louisa Kittering suddenly discovered a mediumistic talent and began channeling the spirit of Annie Marshall. She even looked a bit like the dead woman, if she turned her head to the right angle; Myers had sneaked glances at the girl all through that London Fairy Society meeting, back in March. Now that the face was hers, she could make use of that.
Silly fool, she chided herself. This was her escape from Nadrett, so that she no longer depended on his shelter and bread. She’d known from the moment she saw Myers at the meeting that spending time around him would be… unwise.
But just because Nadrett thinks he might have another use for the man later on, doesn’t mean he will, whispered the part of her that had grown tired of caution and control. With your help, Myers could even take steps to protect himself. Wouldn’t that be better than leaving him in danger? She stood with one foot in each world now; why not make use of that? She could do anything Louisa Kittering could, and more.
But a glance back at the door sobered her. That freedom was hers only so long as she was Louisa Kittering. One direct admission of her true nature, and the bond would be broken. Which was hardly a concern in the ordinary way of things—but what of the maid?
There were other ways to force a changeling out. It all depended on how strong the maid’s nerve was.