Benjy was the same as always, but even the sturdiest tree bends over in time.
“Having another pair of eyes does help,” Benjy admitted. “If we get all the hexes, Oliver won’t have to lure us over here again with card games.”
“We certainly will,” Hetty said. “I’m more talented with magic than you.”
“Debatable,” Benjy laughed.
There was another thump down the hall, louder this time, and they heard something break. Instinctively they moved together, prepared to face whatever unknown danger lurked ahead.
“You first,” Benjy said to Hetty. “I’ll be right behind you.”
SERPENT
34
BEFORE THE MORNING WAS OVER, Hetty took a nap. She did so by accident, curled up in a chair. One moment she was reading a book, and in the next a blanket had been tucked loosely around her with care. As Hetty stirred, she thought it might have been Benjy who’d done it, but the low murmurs nearby told her it wasn’t the case.
Bent over the bed, Penelope changed Benjy’s bandages. As she did, she told him about all singing competitions in the coming weeks she expected him to assist with. From the unbroken flow of her chatter, he clearly was still asleep. While Benjy never minded playing for Penelope, the list that Penelope gave was a bit much. Half of them would probably happen, accompanied by a bit of arguing over music choices. But it didn’t matter. The lighthearted chatter was all that mattered, because it meant that Penelope was no longer worried about him.
“I forgot to tell you. I think I figured it out,” Penelope said as she smoothed out Benjy’s bandages. “Of course, you would have figured it out quicker, but it was good for me to try on my own. Otherwise you’ll take all the credit. Well, maybe not. You’re often quiet about your best ideas.”
“Because all he cares about are the ideas.” Hetty dropped the blanket on the chair’s armrest.
“I know.” Penelope sat down on the edge of the bed, picking up a small bowl. “It annoys me sometimes, but others not so much.”
“Any change?”
“Only the best kind. There is no swelling, and my remedies are speeding the healing of the wound. I’m not sure how much damage the hex did him, but I’ll advise him to be careful. My magic only supports what the body does on its own. It can’t perform miracles.”
“You say that, but I’m not sure what I would have done without you.”
“I think you’ll manage.” Penelope stood up and stretched out her back. “Burning that candle was a neat trick. I’ll have to use it myself one day.”
“Will you be here a bit longer? I’m going to the boardinghouse to pick up a few things.”
“A few more hours before I head home. I guess you can sleep in here—the spare rooms don’t have a proper bed. But don’t worry about Benjy. I’m going to give him something that’ll put him into a deeper sleep, to help speed up the healing. He won’t even know you’re gone,” Penelope added before she uncapped a new vial. “I’m going to bring Darlene with me when I return tomorrow. She heard Oliver and me scrambling about my apartment last night and refuses to be kept outside of the excitement.”
Hetty couldn’t imagine what Darlene could do, but there was no reason to turn help away.
After splashing water on her face in the tiny washroom, Hetty left the house and headed south for the boardinghouse.
She had so many questions about last night.
Some Benjy could answer when he woke, but the others would not be easy to come by.
She didn’t find a list of club members when she and Penelope had sneaked in, but she did see Isaac Baxter at the boxing match. That Benjy was attacked while Baxter was in the same room wasn’t a coincidence. There was a connection there—she needed only to find it.
For now, she’d go back to their room, gather up a few things, and hope that her landlord—
“I want a word with you, Mrs. Rhodes.”
Hetty stopped in her tracks, one foot hovering above the stair as she turned to face the last man she wanted to see right then.
Gone was the strangely buoyant man she had run into the other day. Her landlord was back to his usual cheerless self, with a glower that promised trouble.
“Is this about the rent?”
“This is about the ruckus that caused the building to shake enough to break windows. There will be a fee.”
“A fee?” Hetty exclaimed. “A ruckus? What sort of—”
“If you can’t pay it, you’re out of here. I’m giving you a warning. Next time I won’t be so generous. I knew you two were trouble.”
Hetty stomped up the stairs. But she forgot all about him the moment she caught sight of the door to her room.
The wards had been pushed hard enough to set off an alarm. This explained the noise her landlord mentioned. The wards were thin now, barely holding themselves together in the wake of an obvious frontal assault. It appeared that no one had gotten inside, but someone had tried very hard when they found they couldn’t.
With a jerk of her hand, Hetty undid the wards and opened the door.
Waiting for her in the middle of the room was her dress form with a knife stuck in its chest.
Hetty closed the door behind her and took full study of the room.
The window was open, with a crack small enough for a breeze to waft through. Like the door, the wards there weren’t broken, but had been pushed to their limits.
Someone had made a considerable effort to break in, but why?
The knife in her dress form gave her part of an answer.
That was frustration and anger. They came here for something, and it wasn’t to steal something.
No, that knife told her they’d come looking to cause harm. Finish the job, even, since Benjy was already injured.
The more she looked around, the more she knew it to be true.
Besides the dress form, nothing else was touched. The wardrobe doors were shut. Their trunk was still at the foot of the bed, clothes still neatly stacked on top of it.
Only their lantern showed any change. Sigils that had been carved into the metal to warn against danger glowed so brightly, she thought there might be light contained inside.
Tapping the lantern, she brightened the light to reveal magical residue.
Even as she cast the spell, though, she knew she wouldn’t find anything.
How could she?
Magical residue covered everything from the ceiling to the floor in thick layers. But that was hardly helpful. She and Benjy cast spells at such a volume that evidence of anyone else’s magic would be impossible to find.
Even tracing it to the window was little help, for the residue splotches melded with all the magic outside.
Hetty shut the window and placed a fresh ward on it, this time the sort of thing that would trigger more than just a mere alarm. They should have been using spells like that in the first place, but they hadn’t wanted to upset their landlord.
From there, Hetty started gathering everything in the apartment she could not bear to lose. Clothes, their precious books, the lamps, the pot of Moonleaf, the map, her sewing kit, the quilt off their bed . . . she piled it all into the tub and then drew star sigils along the rim.
It shuddered and lurched upward until it hovered beside her. Hetty started walking and it followed at her heels.
When Hetty came downstairs, her landlord was in the hall complaining to one of the neighbors in the communal kitchen. As the floating tub came into view, voices grew silent.
“Here’s your fee.” Hetty tossed the can of coins at him. “The rest you can take from selling the furniture,” she said. “We’re moving out.”
CRANE
35
WHEN HETTY WALKED through the door, Oliver and Thomas’s conversation stuttered to a halt at the sight of her tub floating behind her like a duckling.
Both gawked at her, but Thomas jumped up in alarm, his chair scraping against the floor.
“Don’t.” Oliver put a hand on the other man’s
arm. “Sometimes it’s best not to ask.”
Hetty went upstairs and found Benjy still asleep. Penelope must have succeeded in getting him to take a sleep potion, for Hetty was able to drag the tub across the floor without him even stirring.
Penelope wasn’t here, but there was a note left next to a half-empty vial of pale blue liquid:
If he wakes in pain, two spoonfuls. If he complains, one. And you get some rest. I will know.
Placing the note aside, Hetty busied herself with settling the items she took from the boardinghouse. In no time at all, each item had found a new home, whether in the wardrobe, a drawer, or in a stack on the nightstand. A few things she left in the tub, like their quilt, but nearly everything was tucked away.
As she stood there with her sewing kit in her arms, the memories she had pushed back returned with great force.
What mess there had been in their room could be blamed on the wind. But the knife was the only proof she needed for an intruder. It was also the reason Hetty had gathered their things with no attempt to return. That dress form was as tall as a person . . . and in low light could easily be mistaken for flesh and blood. Even if the intruder knew otherwise, though, the message was clear.
It was a good thing they weren’t home last night.
Hetty placed her sewing kit next to the healing tonic Penelope had left and reconsidered that sentiment.
It had been lucky they weren’t home, but this wasn’t much better.
Whether the enchanted sleep was responsible or not, Benjy’s face was peaceful and relaxed. When Hetty lifted the bandages, she saw that the healing salve had done its work. The sickly green veins around the wound had vanished, leaving only the mark where the candle had kissed his skin. She replaced the bandages with care, running her hands slowly along his face before moving away.
Settling on the foot of the bed, Hetty started sorting the slips of papers that had been locked away in Charlie’s box. Spreading them around her, she sorted them into little piles based on type: receipts, ticket stubs, notes, flyers, and newspaper clippings. The more she flipped through the pages, the pattern to Charlie’s bets became clear. While there was a rich variety of activity, he was most diligent in cataloging the boxing bets. In addition to the page that Hetty had first stumbled upon, other pages broke down the winnings of each week in more detail.
Hetty pored over those pages closely, studying how the lump sum of winnings broke into smaller amounts, with initials marked beside each cut. While the initials were different week to week—as were the numbers—one initial appeared like clockwork.
Hetty tapped on the looped B. It appeared on every boxing-related note, with the earliest date from late November. This was meant to be Benjy, but out of all the sums listed, his was always the smallest number, no matter how big the winnings grew.
She mentally calculated the difference between the money won in these matches and the amount that ended up in Benjy’s pocket. When she landed on the final number, she almost tossed the book into the wall. The gap between owed and paid was a chasm so gaping that if Charlie had still been alive, she’d have tossed him right into it.
How could someone who called them a friend do this?
This was more than selling the dresses that Hetty had made for his wife as a gift. This was more than leaving his tenants to live in squalor. This was stealing. And it did not matter if he had done it out of greed or because he was fending off creditors, or out of fear of losing his fragile freedom. He took money he didn’t even earn.
She moved to put the paper down, but there was no more space for a new pile.
“There needs to be a table,” she mumbled, staring at the stacks of paper that surrounded her.
“A desk would be better.”
Benjy sat with a pillow propped behind his head. He tugged at his bandage as he read the pages in his hand. More papers were piled next to him, but not how she had first arranged them but in a pattern that would only make sense to him.
“How long have you been awake?”
“Since you started going through these papers. What did you find?”
“Nothing that can explain what happened to you last night. Or that the lead you planned to follow meant you’d be taking a beating.”
His hand clenched around the papers. “That’s why I didn’t want you to be there. I was going to smoke out who’d collected Charlie’s bet, and I couldn’t throw the match with you watching.”
“It’s all fake,” Hetty grumbled, unmoved by this remark.
“Not everything.” His hand reached for hers. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sure you are,” she snapped, but didn’t move her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me about the money?”
“I was embarrassed. Charlie cheated me to such heights that I thought it all a big mistake. I only found out by a slip of the tongue . . . and . . . Well, let’s just say there’s a good reason he was reluctant to talk to me the last night we saw him alive.” Benjy smoothed the wrinkled papers. “He thought paying me part of the money would fix everything.”
“And did he pay you?”
Benjy nodded. “I got enough to pay off some of our debts and the rent.”
That explained their landlord’s cheerier mood earlier that week.
“Good, one mystery solved.”
Benjy settled back onto the bed with a weariness that had nothing to do with his wound. “You’re not mad at me?”
“Not as much as I was last night.” She placed her hand on the bandage, pressing gently against his chest. “This makes it hard. I want to know why it happened.”
“It was the police.” He frowned. “They disrupted the match. I thought that’s what happened.”
“I don’t think it was them.” Hetty shook her head. “Isaac Baxter was there. He ran when he saw me, but I couldn’t chase him given the chaos that broke out. I think he did it.”
“Could have been someone else. Someone who placed a hefty bet on me losing. A few moments more and it would have been a knockout.”
“It better have been a knockout,” she teased, but he remained pensive.
“Baxter fits. But I’m not sure if it’s because we want him to fit or because it’s the truth.”
“He wouldn’t have run if he was guilty!”
“If he saw even half the glower you gave me, that would have been enough to send anyone running.”
“Well, you deserved it.” Hetty returned her attention to the papers strewn about. “All this boxing and you never made more than a handful of coins.”
“Charlie was always very good with money . . . usually parting people from it.” Benjy picked up the book with all of the betting notes inside. He patted the area next to him absently. Hetty slid over, sitting close enough to read the words on the page.
“These are debts he owed white bankers.” Benjy pointed to the names. “The initials mark which ones. This is a liquor tab at a saloon he frequented. These are the stores he borrowed from on credit. But this”—he tapped the corner of a page, where a triangle was sketched—“I don’t know what to make of this.”
“That strikes me as important.”
“I agree, but we have no way to answer the question.”
Hetty studied the sums amassed before her, all written in careful handwriting. Charlie spent long hours striving to make sure it was all correct. He was always precise like that. Always knew where everything was, even the things he was uncertain about.
“He was making money for something, not just to pay back debts,” Hetty said. “He already had so much. Yet he wanted more, even when he had plenty.”
“He always saw freedom as the things he owned and the comforts that came with them.” Benjy dropped the book, turning his head toward her, moving close enough that he brushed against her. “What happened today?”
“Why do you think something did?”
Without his eyes leaving hers, he pointed to the tub sitting in the middle of the room. “This doesn’t belong here.”
�
��Someone broke into our room.” Hetty quickly described what she had found, skipping over nothing, though she saved the detail about the knife left in the dress form for last. Sitting next to him, away from the boardinghouse, the whole thing seemed like one of her stories: distant and hardly able to touch her now. “The knife was a message.”
“An effective one,” Benjy added. “We’re not going back there.”
He said this as if expecting she would argue with him. She had no arguments. Hetty didn’t fear that the intruder would come back or even bring harm, but it tarnished her feeling toward the room and the comfort she often felt within its walls. It wasn’t the best place in the world, but it had been theirs.
“Oliver doesn’t seem to mind us staying for a while,” Hetty said. “Although he might soon change his mind.”
Benjy chuckled. “What did you do?”
“I just asked a few questions. A man came by to bury the unidentified body, and it turned out to be his brother. I might have been a bit rude since it was the same man who got you fired over a wagon, Preston Stevens.”
Benjy sat up as if lightning had struck overhead.
“The owner of Elmhurst Cemetery. The dead man is his brother?”
This was a question not meant for her to answer.
Benjy shifted papers on the bed, upending the neatly made stacks until he found a card, and he thrust it under her nose.
“ELM four twenty-four,” Hetty read.
“Or Elmhurst Cemetery on April twenty-fourth. I knew the numbers were a date, but the shortening of the name threw me off. I never thought it to be the cemetery. I never connected it to Charlie. Why would I? The cemetery owner’s brother . . . Well, that means a great deal left uncovered.”
Instead of explaining the importance of this discovery, Benjy rolled off the bed and went to the wardrobe for a change of clothes.
Hetty picked up the paper he’d dropped. Elm, she thought, tapping Charlie’s handwriting.
Just like Benjy, she’d had a flash of insight, but it did not rouse her to leap from the bed like he had. Charlie had said something about elm that night he’d tried to talk to her, the night before he died. If she hadn’t cut him off, had let him speak, would he have said Elmhurst? If he had, would she have listened? Cemeteries were hardly something Charlie had ever involved himself in, so it would have caught her attention. She might have listened. Would Charlie still be alive if she had?
The Conductors Page 34
