While Eliza frowned at his choice of words—your Heaven, as if there were others—Dead Rick spoke again, with cold certainty. The whirling in his eyes had slowed, but still lent his words a skin-crawling cast. “And start scratch, in a foreign land? Not a chance. ’E likes being master too much for that. I don’t think ’e’s making no passage to Faerie. I think ’e’s trying to make a kingdom for ’imself, right ’ere.”
Eliza’s oath would not have bothered anyone in the Onyx Hall; it had nothing of God in it. She might not give a twopenny damn for the fae, but the thought of the bastard who did such terrible things to Owen and Dead Rick setting himself up as some kind of lord made her go white hot with rage.
The expressions around her, though, showed varying shades of hope. Irrith said, “If he can repair the Onyx Hall—”
“Not repair,” Hodge said, with certainty. “’E ain’t in the palace—we’re sure of that. But ’e might be trying to make a new palace. Maybe ’e already ’as.”
“How?” The Arab’s deep voice had the abstracted quality of a fellow whose thoughts are buried deep in a puzzle. “This must involve the photographs; if we can determine how, we may have some notion of what to search for.”
Eliza knew precious little about this sort of thing; her instinct was to stay silent, and let more knowledgeable people talk. But a useless silence had fallen, while everyone scowled or bit their lips and tried to find the answer, and perhaps the notion that had come into her head would help one of them. Even though it had nothing to do with the question of how. “What he’s photographing—’tis people, is it not?”
“It seems to be so,” the genie answered. “What are you thinking?”
Now everyone’s eyes were on her. She shrugged uncomfortably. “Only that I’ve heard tell of a number of people going missing in the East End. Not just missing: the story is, they were taken by the faeries.”
As she expected, Hodge shook his head, frowning. “That could be anybody in the Goblin Market. They steals people all the time, now.”
But Dead Rick said, “Where was it?”
“I think… I might know.”
The answer didn’t come from Eliza. The others all stared past her, and then she turned, and saw Owen standing, face paper white, hands tangled in a hard knot near his mouth.
“Did you see something? What—”
Irrith’s burst of questions cut off when she ran into Eliza’s outflung arm. She hadn’t stopped the sprite in time to prevent Owen from flinching back, but Eliza turned and put herself between them, hands on her hips, returning glare for green-eyed glare. “He’s about had enough of ye,” she said, addressing all the fae. Even Dead Rick. “What ye did to send his family away just now, I don’t want to know—but ye won’t be coming near him again. Do ye understand?”
“If you’re right about these missing people,” Hodge said quietly, not moving from his seat, “then more than just ’is safety depends on us knowing.”
“I know. But I will do the asking.” She turned her back on him, and looked to Owen.
He’d retreated into the corner, and stood with his hands flat against the walls. He shook his head, confusion scratching a faint line between his brows. “They say they’re my family, but I don’t—I remember you from the library. You took me to the church. And I think I remember you from before, too, but ’tis all in pieces. I thought I had a sister, but she was younger.”
Eliza’s heart ached. Healed—but not fully. He may never be completely well again. Wetting her lips, she said, “You’ve been gone seven years. Perhaps—perhaps it will come back to you. Were you in West Ham?” The name only deepened the crease between his brows. “In the East End,” she added. “Did Nadrett take you there?”
Haltingly, fumbling it out word by word, Owen said, “There was… a building. A warehouse. Or something. He kept people there. Like me. In cages. And one by one, they went away, until it was my turn.”
“How many people?” Eliza whispered. Whelan knew of three; she’d heard rumors of two more.
Owen shook his head again. “A dozen. Or more. I did not count.”
From behind Eliza, Irrith said, “When he took you away—”
Eliza cut her off again with a furious glare. Any idiot could see that was when Owen had been broken; his hunched shoulders proclaimed it. She had to swallow down tears before she could ask, “This building. Would you know if it you saw it?”
As gently as she posed the question, it still sent him rigid with fear. “No, no, I can’t—”
In a low voice, Hodge asked Dead Rick, “Could you sniff it out?”
“Maybe,” the skriker said, but he didn’t sound confident. “Depends on ’ow ’ard Nadrett’s trying to ’ide.”
If Eliza correctly understood what the fae had said, he would be trying very hard indeed. She risked going closer to Owen, and following him when he slid down the wall to crouch on the floor, arms around his knees. “You’re afraid of him, aren’t you,” she murmured. He nodded convulsively. “You don’t have to face him. We’ll do that part, Dead Rick and I will. But we need your help to find him first. I swear—” She hesitated, wondering if it was safe to say this to him; then she remembered the holy splendor of the baptism washing over him. “As God is my witness, I will keep you safe.”
The words produced no shiver of antipathy. That much, we’ve done; he’s ours once more. But Owen still looked afraid. Impulsively, Eliza reached out and took his hand in her own, gripping his fingers tight. “We don’t want anyone more to end up as you did. Help us, Owen, and we’ll stop him. You’ll not have to be afraid again.”
He might have been as mute as before, cowering on the floor like that. But after a moment, his fingers tightened hard enough to make her own ache, and he nodded.
“That’s my lad,” Eliza whispered. “We’ll bring the bastard down together.”
White Lion Street, Islington: August 24, 1884
How the Goodemeades had ever persuaded Mrs. Chase’s cat to play messenger for the woman, Hodge would never know. The tortoiseshell creature had shown up in his chambers, reeking of affronted dignity, with a note tied around its neck, and vanished as soon as he took the paper, with enough speed that he wondered if they’d put a faerie charm on the cat as well.
Dear Mr. Hodge, Your Highness, the note began—Mrs. Chase had never quite grasped the proper address for the Prince of the Stone.
I hope you will forgive me for making bold to write you directly, but the Goodemeades are not here and I suspect this matter is one of which you would wish to be informed immediately. There is a faerie gentleman in my house, in a very poor state, who says his name is Valentin Aspell; and I believe him to be the gentleman you have been seeking but could not find. If I am mistaken, then I apologize most sincerely, but ask you to tell either Gertrude or Rosamund of his presence, as I fear he needs someone to tend his wounds. Your obt. servt., Theresa Chase.
He left for Islington three minutes later, with the Goodemeades, short as they were, almost outrunning him in their haste. It was a risk, leaving the Onyx Hall, when he’d been out just the previous night; now it was afternoon, with trains running to threaten the palace’s stability. But he could not leave the matter of Aspell for others to handle. They took a cab, Hodge paying the driver handsomely while the Goodemeades whispered to the horses, and the resulting trip to Islington would not have shamed some competitors at Ascot. They burst through Mrs. Chase’s front door, and found they were in time—if only barely.