The Bones of Ruin

by Sarah Raughley

  “I ran from Coolie,” she corrected, feeling attacked and guilt-ridden all at the same time. “There’s a difference.”

  “Not to me.”

  “Oi, come on.” Max watched the street carefully. “That’s enough. I know emotions are still high after our adventure at the auction, but this little spat isn’t exactly helpful considering our present situation.”

  “Our present situation is this.” Iris’s hands balled into fists. “I’m going to the museum. Whatever key to my past is there, I’ll find it. With or without you. I won’t stop. I can’t.”

  The South Kensington International Exhibition. Adam. The girl with her sword of pure white. Granny’s cryptic accusation. And—

  Doctor Seymour Pratt. Simply thinking of him made her stomach heave.

  She needed to know what mysteries were locked tight deep inside her subconscious. The secrets piling up would soon kill her.

  Max nodded. “So we go to the museum.”

  “We won’t.” Jinn grabbed Iris’s wrist. “Temple said he made ‘arrangements.’ Who knows what he’s planned. It’s too dangerous.”

  “That’s why I’ll go with her,” Max retorted, grabbing Jinn’s wrist.

  “I said it’s too dangerous.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Iris,” Max insisted, shooting her a quick glance. “Go. Follow your instincts. And you—” He smirked at Jinn. “If you’re too much of a coward to risk your life for a beautiful girl in distress—for your friend—feel free to run. I’m staying right here.”

  “What did you just say?”

  “Enough!” Iris yanked her hand away before falling silent. She knew Jinn was only worried for her well-being. And she was encouraged by Max’s support. But she was tired of being talked at and about. “Jinn,” she whispered finally. “You’ve never told me about your past. But you at least know your past, don’t you?”

  Jinn stayed quiet. It was enough of an answer for her. Without being able to stop herself, she gripped his shirt and stared up at him, her eyes large and pleading.

  “I need to know mine.” Tears stung her eyes as the memory of her rage in the auction house haunted her. The sword-wielding girl’s words. The names she called her: Isoke. She Who Does Not Fall. “I need to know. Please help me. Please… I need you. You’re… you’re my partner, aren’t you?”

  For all those many moments the circus pair locked eyes during their routines, it was never this desperate, never this naked with emotion.

  “You’re my partner,” she said. “Before. Now. Always.” She buried herself in his chest. With or without you was a lie. She needed him, now more than ever. “Don’t leave me…”

  Trembling a little, Jinn covered his eyes with his hands and turned from her quickly, but before Iris could push any further, he let out a little laugh.

  “You win, Iris. You win,” was all he said.

  A beat of silence passed as the three stood in the alleyway under the crescent moon.

  “To the museum, then,” said Max.

  Iris nodded. There was no turning back now

  14

  AT THREE PAST MIDNIGHT, THE black gates of the British Museum opened slightly to Iris’s touch, startling her.

  “It’s unlocked.” In the cold of night, Iris’s fingers trembled around the iron. Aren’t they afraid of thieves?

  But Adam had told her to come here tonight. He’d had everything prepared for her beforehand. That must have been why the cobbled streets were empty. How Adam managed these feats was beyond her imagination. The power of wealth and resources, perhaps? Or the power of the mysterious club he belonged to. That Committee…

  Jinn and Max pushed the gate open and let her walk inside first before shutting it behind them. Two columns of white stone held the gate in place, and from its sides stretched a black fence around the museum, each black rod narrowing to a tip, piercing the night. The tall white columns shielding the shadowy southern entrance reminded her of the Greek buildings of ancient times.

  The three stood in the courtyard facing the triangular pediment upon the building’s flat, cast-iron white roof. Supported by the columns in accordance with classical fashion, it featured fifteen sculpted figures. Bodies of white stone depicting humankind through the ages as it acquired the knowledge and capital that would make people the undisputed rulers over life and land, whether life and land desired it or not.

  Power. Perhaps this was the story the museum wished to tell to those who passed by it, but for Iris it was an ominous symbol. The hubris of the stone men and women looming over her made her body tremble.

  According to Adam, a man would be waiting to greet them at the entrance. But though the gas lamps stationed atop the gate columns were lit, the wide walkway to the entrance remained empty. Iris, Max, and Jinn made their way down the stone path, checking the grassed areas at their sides, but no shadows lurked in the darkness.

  Iris tied her shawl around her waist. “There’s no one here.”

  Max, still shirtless, shivered in the night as he peered around the columns. “That Temple bloke didn’t seem like the type to be pulling your leg about something like this.”

  Jinn checked the gates behind them. “I wouldn’t trust him. We still don’t know what his real intentions with you are.”

  Indeed, Adam had too many secrets. He dangled his half-answered questions like worms on a hook. But the underlying sincerity in his eyes whenever he spoke to her, however darkly mischievous their expression, couldn’t be brushed aside.

  Adam Temple… She just didn’t know what to make of him. He said he’d prepared something for her. Prepared what?

  The answer to that question came sooner than she expected.

  The two barely adolescent girls emerged from behind the Grecian white columns at the south entrance, hand in hand as if partners on a stage. They were twins in more than just their round faces, mannequin bodies, and sedated brown eyes. The extravagant black dresses they wore were the same, their skirts fanned out like open umbrellas, their stockings as black as the curls swiping their waists. They descended the entrance’s stone steps, perfectly in sync, until they came to a stop and smiled the same sleepy smile.

  “What is this?” Iris whispered as Max and Jinn closed ranks with her immediately. “What’s happening? Who are you?”

  “Three extraordinary questions.”

  The voice had come from above. That man… Iris had seen him outside the window in Adam’s manor. She’d thought she’d just been imagining things. She was wrong.

  He’d appeared from seemingly nowhere, standing at the very tip of the triangular pediment with his black cape covering his body, his harlequin mask hiding his face and his top hat tipped forward.

  “I don’t imagine they’ll answer, unfortunately,” he said. “They don’t speak.”

  “Who in the blazes are you?” Jinn squeezed his hands into fists and stood closer to Iris.

  “I am but a messenger—the official messenger—for the illustrious and powerful Enlightenment Committee. How do you do?” The man bowed with a sweep of his hand. “Much like Miss Iris, the name I hold now is not my true name,” he continued, his black leather boots curled upward at the tips. “But some have correctly dubbed me a fool, and I must say, I find it quite suits me.”

  “Certainly dressed like one,” Max muttered.

  “Congratulations, Miss Iris and company,” said Fool. “I welcome you to your preliminary challenge of the Tournament of Freaks!” Reaching within his black cape, he threw up sparkling confetti into the air that exploded like little firecrackers into colors of every kind. “The first of many battles to come.”

  “Tournament of Freaks…?” She stepped back from the twins’ doll-like grins, brandished like a weapon.

  “Survive this test, Miss Iris,” said Fool, “and you will gain many of the answers you seek. Answers dutifully promised by Lord Temple. But beware. Misses Faith and Virtue Sparrow are not as fragile as they look. Otherwise they wouldn’t be under consideration for Mr. Corte
z’s team of champions.”

  “Cortez?” Max said, and turned to Iris. “The little man at the auction?”

  Iris remembered him standing atop his chair to bid on them, his black goatee reaching well past his chin. Like Benini, like Bellerose, like Adam… he was a member of the Committee.

  “Champions,” she whispered, now having heard that word for the third time. And as she stood in the museum courtyard, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that if she wanted to know what Fool had meant, she’d have to get past the Sparrow twins.

  By the looks of the two, it wasn’t clear to Iris if they even cared about winning this fight. They seemed to simply do as they were told without a word. What had Cortez done to them?

  At once the girls raised their arms with blank expressions. A chilled fog rose from beneath Iris’s feet as snow descended upon them and began blowing around the courtyard with increasing ferocity until Iris could no longer see the Sparrow girls at all.

  Iris shielded her face from the blizzard. “What’s happening?” she just barely had time to ask before the earth began to quake beneath them. Yelling, Iris managed to stumble out of the way. A long, thin icicle burst through the ground where she’d stood. Another one. Another three, right at her side. With each explosion of ice and stone debris, Iris flipped out of the path of danger, putting her tightrope training to use, but by the time the courtyard had settled, she’d lost track of the others. She could only hear the sound of their struggling.

  “Jinn!” she called frantically. “Max!”

  “Iris!” Jinn called back. “Where are you?” He sounded so very far away.

  “My sense of direction’s been blown to hell,” said Max somewhere behind her. “All this dodging. I have no idea whether I’m facing left or right.”

  If the Sparrow twins’ plan was to separate and confuse them, it succeeded. Ice and snow. The girls worked together to cause the kind of mayhem Iris had never witnessed before. Their only chance was to get to the girls themselves.

  “Max, Jinn, can you hear me?” Iris cried over the pandemonium. “We’ve got to—”

  Iris felt the point of an icicle lifting her off the ground. Her boots slipped off the surface, but the freezing tip pierced her flailing hand. Iris let out a cry as the icicle continued into the sky, carrying her up with it. To take the pressure off her hand and keep it from ripping in two, she lifted her skirt and hugged the thick icy skewer with her entire body, holding on for dear life as its momentum carried her higher and higher.

  And then stopped.

  Wincing in pain, she pried her right eye open, then her left. The icicle was gone. The pain in her hand vanished. The wound disappeared.

  And then she saw herself. For a split second when she gazed into the courtyard. She saw… herself. Yes, she was there down below, holding on to her head. What was going on?

  And then she was falling, falling back into the blizzard swirling around the courtyard of the British Museum. Iris felt her bones break upon impact. What an annoying, painful inconvenience. She waited patiently for her body to mend itself before sitting up with a haggard breath, attempting to figure out what had just happened to her.

  She checked her left hand. The wound and pain were back. Somewhere in front of her, a stream of fire and an explosion of steam told her Jinn was fighting the dangerous ice skewers in his own way. But what about the one that had launched her up into the sky? Why did it disappear the moment she—

  The moment she left the snowy fog.

  After jumping back to avoid another icicle bursting from the ground, Iris racked her brain, trying to remember what she’d witnessed while in the sky. Up there above the museum, she saw it for only a moment. The blizzard raging on inside a large but limited area, like a bubble. The Sparrow twins stood directly under the full moon, their arms trembling as they held each other tightly. Red mist swirled around their linked hands.

  And when she had looked down from that vantage point, no fog or snow blinded her sight. Jinn and Max were dodging icicles that didn’t exist. The courtyard was just as pristine as how they’d left it.

  But she’d seen herself too… So you’ve noticed my weak point, have you?

  Max’s words came to mind as she remembered. No matter how powerful the Fanciful Freaks were, their power always came with limitations. Iris had thought the twins were controlling the weather. What if it was nothing more than a snow globe of illusions—one they could make only while their hands were joined?

  Then the icicle. Being carried into the air. It was all in her head…

  But there still had to be some kind of tenuous connection between reality and fantasy. Though it’d taken place in her own mind, the illusion the Sparrow twins had given her nonetheless gave her a true perspective of what it’d be like to be outside their field of influence—what she would see if she were truly in the sky looking down.

  Iris wasn’t sure. But it was time to put her theory into practice. “Max, Jinn!” Iris cried, whipping her face away from a lash of snow. “Get to the twins. Break them apart!”

  “What?” Iris heard Max grunt in pain.

  “Just trust me!”

  Iris peered up at the full moon just above the south entrance. As long as she didn’t lose her sense of direction… “Follow my voice, Jinn! Find me!”

  She started running, calling to the boys whenever she could accumulate enough breath. The icicles always announced themselves, shaking the ground before breaking through. She timed her jumps to avoid them cleanly, each time with better precision.

  “Iris!” Jinn. She’d found him. She reached out to him and grabbed his hand.

  “We need Max,” Iris said. “Jinn, use your fire!” And when his dragon’s breath exploded an icicle behind them—“Max!” Iris called. “Follow the steam and you’ll find us!”

  Running at this speed, they should have crossed the courtyard in a minute at most, but Iris and Jinn ran toward the moon for what felt like ten minutes or more. Iris’s hypothesis was right; this truly was an illusory world. But it was a world with boundaries. As long as they could exploit the boundaries, they’d have a fighting chance.

  “I’m here!” Max said finally, jumping through the steam and shards of ice bursting from Jinn’s attack. He grabbed Iris’s other hand, and Iris pulled him toward her.

  As they ran, Iris explained as much of her theory as she could. “Do what you can, Max. We need to separate the twins!”

  “That I will, but I’ll have to work fast,” Max said. “I can’t hold my breath forever.”

  Hold his breath? Was that how it worked? His weakness? Iris didn’t have time to ask.

  Max took in a deep breath.

  “Remember, follow the moon! That’s—”

  Suddenly Iris felt the wind knocked out of her, her sense of time skewed. She blinked, and Max was on the steps of the museum, breathing heavily. The veins in his forearm bulged as he held the girls up by their wrists, their feet swinging childishly in the air as they shrieked like bats. The red mist chaining them together had disappeared.

  The illusion collapsed. The blizzard, the fog, the icicles. The museum was exactly how they’d left it. Their wounds and pain vanished. But for Jinn, this wasn’t over.

  “We have to finish it,” Jinn said, striding forward.

  Iris grabbed his wrist, holding him back. “Wait, what do you mean by that?”

  Jinn’s eyes glinted dangerously. “You know what I mean.”

  “Jinn!” Iris was horrified. “They’re children!”

  “I know. I know that.” Jinn cringed at his own suggestion, the emotional battle raging inside him stiffening his body as he watched the girls struggle in Max’s grip. “But they almost killed us. They still could kill us!”

  Iris looked down at her dress, where Adam’s revolver seemed even heavier.

  “Iris.” Jinn grabbed her hand wrapped around his wrist. “Even if you can’t die, death isn’t the only thing to fear.” He squeezed, gazing at her desperately. “I won’t let the
m hurt you any further than they already have. That’s the promise I’ve made to myself.”

  Even separated, the girls bit and kicked Max, trying to join their hands once more. But kill someone? She couldn’t imagine it. It was wrong. It was unthinkable.

  But sometimes such things are necessary, a tiny, nasty voice from deep within her whispered. You wanted to kill that man at the auction house, did you not?

  Doctor Pratt. Just thinking of his calculating beady eyes made something vicious in her stir. But that was different—an uncontrollable thirst, a need she couldn’t explain. Standing here in front of the museum entrance, Jinn expected her to make the choice to end someone’s life…

  Humans are such awful things, the voice within her said. Maybe it would be better if they all—

  Iris let go of Jinn, shut her eyes, and covered her ears. “There has to be another way!”

  “Indeed, there is!”

  Fool. From atop the museum, the cloaked man threw two long copper needles into the necks of Faith and Virtue, who slumped over lifeless in Max’s grip.

  A wide-eyed Max placed the girls gently on the stone steps. “You didn’t—”

  “Never you worry, my boy. They’re only asleep. I may be a fool, but I boast expertise in the holistic practices. Rejoice! For they live.”

  Max checked their pulses and nodded. They were indeed alive.

  “They’re no longer your concern.” Fool straightened his white gloves. “It’ll be up to Cortez to decide what to do with them after I lay his champions at his feet.”

  Iris’s fingers curled into fists. “Champions, champions, champions! You keep mentioning it. What do you mean?”

  “As you’ve passed your test, you’ll find out soon enough, sweet girl.” Fool swept his arms to the side with a welcoming gesture. “The British Museum is yours to explore. You are free to enter… and abandon hope. Follow the trail, and you’ll find the answers you are looking for. But a word of advice.” He touched the rim of his top hat. “From here on, strengthen yourself. For the journey to the truth is not for the faint of heart. Especially a truth such as yours.”