“Ash and Thorn,” Irrith said from behind him. “Yvoir, what in Mab’s name are you planning to do to him?”
Yvoir blinked owlishly at them through the lenses over his eyes, which allowed the Academy engineers to better study the alchemical balance of the machines they built. “What?”
Tension gripping his throat too tightly for him to speak, Dead Rick gestured at the chair—at the bands on its arms, its legs, even where his head would rest.
“Oh.” Yvoir turned the lenses up, so that his eyes were no longer refracted into weird layers. “I mentioned there may be muscle spasms, yes? It is necessary to make certain you do not move from the path of the light; if we do not send the image directly into your eyes, you may lose a part of what we seek to return. Is it a problem?”
Dead Rick’s jaw ached from being clenched so hard. The sight of the chair called up a nameless dread in him—no, not entirely nameless; he could identify a portion of it very well indeed. Once he was locked into position, he would be at the mercy of those around him, unable to move so much as a single hand to defend himself. Every Market-honed instinct he had screamed at him not to be an idiot, not to trust these people, no matter what they promised…
Irrith had learned something of him in these last few days. She stepped around in front of him, lifted her hand, and when he did not flinch away, rested it on his arm. “I’ll be right here,” she promised. “The instant you say the word, I’ll let you out. Even if Yvoir isn’t done. If you want it to end, all you have to do is say so.”
She was still asking him to trust her, and he was still petrified to do it. But you’ve done worse, ’aven’t you? Trusted Valentin Aspell, without even knowing who ’e was. ’Cause you was too desperate to pass up the chance.
He’d been under Nadrett’s thumb at the time. Now he was free of his master. He could hold on to the memories, and wait until—
Until what? Until he found someone else he did trust? Dead Rick looked around the room, at the alchemical diagrams on the walls and strange equipment littering the shelves. All the foreigners were here for a reason: because there was no other place like this in the world, where fae had found a means of describing the half-rational, half-symbolic rules that governed the realms existing in the cracks of the mortal world, and then translating those rules into mechanical devices. Once this place was gone, he could wander a century without finding anyone else with the necessary skills to help him.
And then there was the possibility Hodge had raised. Maybe he’d known something that threatened Nadrett, and that was why the bastard had stolen his memories. If there was any fragment left that might hurt his former master…
With stiff legs, Dead Rick strode over to the chair and dropped into the seat. “I ain’t going to back out. Do what you ’as to.”
Irrith bit her lip, and gave him a startlingly grave nod. “Here,” Yvoir said, handing her a crystal vial. “Prepare this, and have him drink it.”
The Green Faerie: absinthe from beyond this world. The moment Irrith withdrew the emerald that capped the vial’s slender neck, a powerful scent filled the air, like bitter anise carried on ephemeral wings. Irrith emptied it into a small cup; then she laid a slotted silver spoon across the top, with some kind of glittering crystal balanced in the center. Over this she poured a liquid that shone like moonlight. When it dripped into the absinthe below, the concoction swirled into a thousand different shades, dizzying to watch.
Dead Rick meant to toss it off in one gulp, the better to get this over with, but it turned out not to be that simple. The first taste of the bitter liquid, blooming warm on his tongue, seemed to lift him partially from his body, so that he wasn’t sure if it was going down his throat or not. He was suddenly very aware of the motions involved in drinking: the angle of the arm, the tilting of the head, tongue and throat working in a specific fashion. Only his intellectual understanding of these things allowed him to continue; he had to trust that his body was responding as it should.
Distantly, he heard Yvoir speaking. “—partial separation of the aetheric component from the rest of the elements; it will aid the reintegration of the memories into the spirit. And, of course, the lunar sympathy of the absinthe will play a role as well. Ah, my lord, you’re just in time. Irrith, if you would be so kind…”
A peculiar sort of clarity settled over Dead Rick’s mind. Without looking, he knew that Hodge had entered the room, followed by Abd ar-Rashid and Wrain. He knew that Irrith was apprehensive as she reached for the manacles on the chair, and that he was mad beyond question to let these people chain him down.
He also knew he had no other hope of regaining his memories. So he swallowed the keening whine that wanted to escape his throat, dug his nails into the worn ends of the chair’s arms, and let Irrith bind him into place.
Two leather cuffs around his ankles. A band across his knees. Another across his chest, and his wrists bound to the chair; then, her face tight with reluctance, Irrith strapped his head to the back of the chair, and moved into position the side braces that would prevent him from twisting in place.
Dead Rick’s heart beat an accelerating tattoo against his ribs. It was more than just his appalling vulnerability, but he couldn’t tell what the rest was—
“Pardonnez-moi,” Yvoir murmured, and his delicate fingers slid thin wires under Dead Rick’s eyelids, to brace them open.
Was it his fear or the absinthe that made everything so sharp, both close and yet impossibly far away? This must be what faerie wine tasted like to mortals, bitter and compelling, lifting him partway out of the world he knew, into sight of something more, whose existence he had never before suspected…
Yvoir’s machine rolled into position in front of him, something like opera glasses lowering before his pinned eyes, the precious chain of his memories set to begin scrolling in front of the box that would create the necessary moonlight. Dead Rick felt Irrith’s hand slip into his and grip his fingers tight; without thinking, he gripped hers back, hard enough that he could feel the delicate bones grind together. The sprite didn’t make a sound.
“Are you ready?” Yvoir asked, and Dead Rick answered with a wordless grunt. It was supposed to be a yes, and it seemed the French faerie interpreted it as such, for he began to turn a crank on the side of the box, and pure silver light filled Dead Rick’s vision.
As if from the other side of the moon, he heard scattered words. “Un moment—” “Should I—” “Commençons—”
And then the memories clacked into motion, the first plate of glass falling into the path of the light, and the shapes hidden therein shining straight into Dead Rick’s eyes.
Memory: September 14, 1877
He fought against the straps even before he knew what Nadrett and Chrennois had planned, because it didn’t take a bloody genius to guess it wouldn’t be anything good. But they’d drugged him before they chained him to the chair, and then they forced his eyes open with wires and pushed some kind of two-lensed camera right up into his face, and he didn’t even have time to snarl before white light flashed and a piece of himself was torn straight out of his head.
Dead Rick’s scream echoed off the stone walls. The straps dug into his body, hard enough to bruise, and when the spasm faded he heard Nadrett say, “Did you get it?”
Clattering wooden sounds, the gentle splash of liquid, and then an apologetic sound from the French faerie. “No. It is not precise; I can only take what is foremost in his mind. You must persuade him to think of what you want removed.”