“In a poor state” fell far short of describing Aspell’s condition. The former lord had always been pale as the underbelly of a fish; now that pallor had a grayish-green cast. If faerie bodies persisted long enough past death to need graves, Hodge would have said the bastard had just crawled out of his own.
Mrs. Chase stood by, twisting her hands, staring at the unconscious faerie on her canvas-draped sofa. “He all but fainted onto Mary when she opened the door. But I didn’t dare fetch an ordinary doctor—”
“It wouldn’t have done any good,” Rosamund said, as Gertrude knelt to peel aside Aspell’s blood-soaked shirt and coat. “Dead Rick said he was shot with iron.”
Gertrude’s breath hissed between her teeth when she uncovered the wound. Ugly black lines radiated from the torn flesh of his shoulder, spiking across his arm and chest. Enemy though he was, even Hodge flinched at the sight. He’d seen blood poisoning before, though never on a faerie.
“It looks as if he dug the bullet out himself,” Gertrude said, her fingers gently probing. Even the most delicate touch made Aspell jerk, moaning indistinctly. “But nobody drew out the poison the iron left behind. This… may kill him.”
Hodge clenched his jaw. “Don’t let ’im die yet. We need ’im to say where ’e ’id the Prince’s ghost.”
“I have no intention of letting him die under any circumstances,” Gertrude snapped. A glare from Rosamund echoed her sister’s sharp words. Hodge flushed in shame. He hadn’t meant it that way—not really—though it had crossed his mind that it wouldn’t be any great shame if Aspell were to croak. Now he felt like a terrible person, and Mrs. Chase was staring at him as though he were a grandson of hers not yet too old for a good thrashing.
“Let’s shift him downstairs,” Gertrude said, with all the brisk, no-nonsense confidence of a nurse. Mrs. Chase hastened to apologize, explaining that she had not been sure whether the sisters would want Aspell in their home; Rosamund waved it away, and bid the parlor wall open.
To make up for his earlier mistake, Hodge stepped forward without prompting and lifted Aspell from the couch. The disgraced lord weighed very little, even for his slender build, and hung limply from the Prince’s arms. The only difficulty was making sure not to crack his head against the wall as Hodge navigated the narrow staircase.
Once within the tiny faerie realm of Rose House, Aspell breathed more easily. While Hodge settled him onto another couch there, the sisters hurried off to gather supplies, and Mrs. Chase closed the entrance behind them. Hodge stood aside, letting the women do their work—and grim, unpleasant work it was, leeching what poison they could from the faerie’s body, while Aspell sweated and whimpered under their touch. Good job they can’t see inside my ’ead, Hodge thought. Neither the brownies nor their mortal friend would approve of the satisfaction he got from seeing his father’s murderer in pain.
But he didn’t want the treacherous sod to kick the bucket. Not now, and not like this. Hodge waited, crossing his fingers, and was rewarded at last with a stirring that looked more like life. Aspell’s eyes opened a slit, their usually green irises darkened almost to black.
“Where’d you put the photo?”
The faerie’s mouth moved soundlessly, not quite forming words.
Another glare from Rosamund stopped Hodge before he took more than one stride forward. Gritting his teeth, the Prince said, “Galen St. Clair. You ’ad ’is ghost; Dead Rick told us so. Where’d you put ’im?”
Gertrude helped Aspell sit up a few inches, and poured a dribble of water between his pale lips. It seemed to give him energy: when he had swallowed it, the faerie sank back, glared black venom at Hodge, and said, “I put him nowhere. He was taken from me. By Nadrett.” He coughed, and a spasm of pain twisted his face. Once that had passed, he added, “Who has been my captor, as well. Until I escaped.”
Bloody convenient. There was just one flaw in the notion that Aspell was lying: the iron poison pervading his body. The snake might have had a good reason for abandoning all his people in the disintegrating Goblin Market—though Hodge could not imagine what that might be—but not for letting himself come so close to the edge of death. Being Nadrett’s prisoner, however, explained it neatly.
Hodge thought about asking how Aspell had gotten away, but realized he didn’t care. Other things mattered far more. “Where?”
The shaking of Aspell’s head was almost imperceptible. “Don’t know.”
“You say you bloody well escaped from there; ’ow can you not know?”
“I leapt aboard a train,” the faerie growled. Both brownies hissed in sympathy. Even Hodge flinched; with no bread to protect him, and that poison in his veins, it must have been agony. “Somewhere east,” he added, in a whisper, as if that growl had taken most of his remaining vigor.
Thinking of Eliza and Dead Rick, even now searching the area for sign of Nadrett and a new faerie realm, Hodge asked, “Could it ’ave been West Ham?”
Aspell nodded, exhausted.
Well, it lent weight to Eliza’s notions, at least. If Owen failed to identify his former prison, might Aspell succeed? Before the Prince could even think about asking, Gertrude told him quietly, “You should let him rest.”
But Aspell’s eyes flew open again, life flooding once more into his face, and he stretched out one gray-tinged hand. “Wait. What I said before. I must speak to Lune.”
“You aren’t going anywhere,” Rosamund said firmly. “Not for a good long while.”
“And you ain’t getting anywhere near Lune,” Hodge added.
“Then carry a message for me!”
Panic tinged the words. He must be desperate, if he was willing to trust Hodge with a secret that not that long ago had been too valuable for anyone else’s ears. And—“What’s your price for it?”
Aspell spat out a curse entirely at odds with his usual elegance. “For you to pay me, or me to pay you? This is for the Onyx Court, you cretin. I bargained because it was the only way to gain access to Lune, and she is the only one who might listen to me.”
“She’s the one you betrayed!”
“And she knows why. To save the Onyx Court: not to destroy it.” Aspell sagged deeper into the embrace of the couch, his burst of vitality flagging. “You must promise to carry the message.”
All three women were looking at him, now, not Aspell. If Hodge refused—or agreed, and then didn’t follow through—he suspected there would be a second round of those looks from before, that made him want to crawl in shame. Through his teeth, Hodge said, “I promise.”
Gertrude had to give her patient more water before he could muster the strength to speak. When he did, his words were enigmatic. “Francis and Suspiria.”
Enigmatic to Hodge; the brownies sat bolt upright at the names. “Who are they?” Hodge asked.
Rosamund answered, to spare Aspell the need. “They made the Onyx Hall.”
“With help,” Gertrude reminded her.
Hodge knew the story, in its broad outlines; he’d been told it when he asked why repairing the palace was so hard. Mostly it was the abundance of iron, but also what had been lost in the interim: of the various powers that helped create the Hall, nearly all were now dead.
Including the mortal man and faerie woman who shaped it in the first place.