The Bones of Ruin

by Sarah Raughley

  “Pratt…,” she whispered, her eyes growing wide as she saw the man hovering above her.

  “Iris!” But why did that awful man have Jinn’s concerned voice? “Iris, look at me!”

  She felt a new set of hands on her as the other applied pressure to her wound. Then her head was on someone’s shoulder. With each touch, she grew colder.

  “Max, do you have something to stop the bleeding?” Jinn.

  “No. No, I—” Max sounded beside himself. “I’m sorry. This is my fault. I’ve done so much wrong. Iris, it was me. I was the one who—”

  “Concentrate!”

  “Even if she dies, she won’t stay dead.” Max nodded again and again, reassuring himself, sometimes speaking English, sometimes slipping into Spanish. “She’ll come back. She’ll come back to us, won’t she?”

  Do whatever you wish to her. She can’t die, did you forget? A terrible voice mocked Iris from within her memories. Like soggy hands rising from a black swamp, it grabbed her and pulled her deeper into the darkness.

  “But I don’t want to die,” she said weakly. “I never wanted to die. Not even once.”

  “Iris… Iris!”

  She heard Jinn. Heard Max too, but she couldn’t see him. She could see Anne instead, trying to speak to her. She was hallucinating. She needed to break out of it, return to herself, but Anne’s whisper was so loud in her ears:

  Nekawa.

  “Stop it. Please! Stop! I can’t understand you! Leave me alone!” she cried, trying to writhe away from her. “The Hiva. The Hiva! The Hiva begins anew!”

  “Iris?” Max asked, frightened.

  “Get away from me!” Iris shut her eyes. “I’m sorry, I can’t understand you. I’m sorry. I’m not who you think I am! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

  “Iris, listen to me. Listen to my voice.” Jinn. He sounded desperate. That desperation carved out the contours of his graceful face from within the darkness. His high cheekbones. That sharp nose. Those cat eyes. Those lips that always grinned a little after he nitpicked her mistakes. “Listen to me,” he said again. “Wherever you are right now is not where you need to be.”

  “I killed him,” Iris cried as the pain in her side reminded her of the ashes in the Crystal Palace. “I killed a man. I did, didn’t I?”

  As Jinn and Max struggled to respond, Rin grunted in battle from a distance, steel clashing against steel, but it sounded miles away.

  “Gram and Jacques are still… Damn it!” Max swore. “Jinn—”

  “That girl, Rin. She’ll handle them,” Jinn hissed as Iris gasped for breath.

  “She can’t take them both on for long!”

  “Then you help her!”

  “But Iris—!”

  “Max,” Iris said, her eyes fluttering open. “Jinn. What am I? What am I? What—”

  “Iris, listen to me.” Jinn hugged her. “When I throw you up in the air, you always close your eyes. I know. I’ve seen it. Do you know why that is?”

  She felt his rough hand brushing the sweat dripping from her forehead as she trembled.

  “It’s because you know that no matter how long you stay suspended in that boundless space, my hands will find you again. Right now, just like that, come back. Come back to these hands. Come back to this moment. Here with me. Ground yourself in me, Iris. Ground yourself in me and survive it.”

  This time. This place. This her. She was more than just shattered memories. More than parts and pain. Jinn’s voice stretched forward, offering her a lifeline. She took it. She embraced the pain that would not kill her but caused her entire body to quake.

  Looking up at Jinn and Max, she tried to smile. But then Henry’s panic and fury rang out from the din of battle.

  “If you two demons don’t leave, I’ll blow you all to hell! Even if it means taking everyone with me! I don’t care anymore! I don’t care!”

  Iris was in too much pain to respond, but she could hear the quiver in his voice. He meant it. He would do it just to be rid of them.

  “Gram. Enough.” Next to Gram, Jacques jumped back from Rin, lifting his hand up in surrender. Sweat dripped down the girl’s forehead. She was a soldier, but the stress of having to fight both boars was clear. “We have the cards,” he said. “I won’t fight just to satiate your grim appetite.”

  But Gram wasn’t finished. From the corner of her eye, Iris could see Gram approaching, causing a panting Rin to back off immediately. Shouts of approaching officers could be heard.

  “Not enough,” said Gram, and in a flash, he took Jacques’s ax.

  It flew.

  And then Bately was screaming.

  Iris lifted her head in time to see Bately’s right arm drop to the ground.

  “Good God…,” Max whispered as Iris shut her eyes. Bately’s shrieks pierced the air.

  When she looked again, Gram was skulking off behind a patch of flames, letting Bately’s arm dangle in his grip. Jacques escaped in another direction. Rin tossed Iris an apologetic look before tending to Bately so he wouldn’t bleed to death. As for Iris, she was already being scooped up, lifted into Jinn’s arms.

  “Damn it.” Henry fell to his knees. “Damn it all to hell.” His voice cracked as he wept.

  39

  TWO DAYS AT CLUB URIEL. Iris stayed in bed. Jinn and Max left their room only when they needed to. As Mr. Mortius delivered their meals to them, that wasn’t often. Iris held on to the pocket watch Max had stolen for her. Its song comforted her.

  Every so often, Cherice would come in to cheer her up and gossip.

  Ah, so the final card was at the Tower of London. That was where the Earl of Shaftesbury had been imprisoned after turning against King Charles II. Iris couldn’t care less. After taking all three cards, Gram and Jacques had been the only ones to pass the second round. It didn’t matter.

  Everything was jumbled in her head. Carl Anderson’s words, his death. The dungeon. Pratt and the man she’d reduced to ash. Gram and Jacques. Everything weighed her down to the point where Jinn had to lift her up and force her to eat two nights in a row. One night, when Max was asleep, he simply held her as she wept in his arms, crying for Granny.

  This was a mistake. This was all a mistake. The only time she voiced this out loud, Jinn was on the first floor getting more of Club Uriel’s medical supplies. It was Max who’d told her gently not to give up. But even as he insisted, he had very little of his usual charm. It was like he couldn’t look her in the eye.

  Every day she woke up knowing that the members of Club Uriel were likely gossiping about their battles based on Fool’s reports and Wilton’s new show. She hated them all.

  Then on the third day, Mortius appeared at the door. “Miss Iris, Lord Temple would like to see you at the terrace on the second floor.”

  Oh yes. Adam. After promising the Enlightenment Committee the moon, Bellerose had been left with a dead Carl Anderson, a tortured Adam, and no new information gleaned from the little champion she let get away. According to Adam, there was no information to give. Just Madame’s sick desperation. She couldn’t stand up to the Temple name.

  Max dropped the newspaper he was reading on the table. “He can eat shit,” he barked with the kind of fury that startled Mortius—startled even Iris. Jinn was on his feet.

  “It’s all right,” Iris told the boys. She felt strong enough. “This won’t take long.”

  At least she hoped it wouldn’t. At some point, Max and Jinn must have made a pact to try to keep her mind off things, for they took turns trying to make her laugh, bickering with each other so obviously for show. It’d helped, somewhat. But now that she was walking back into the room of beautiful green flora, anxiety filled her once more.

  Adam stood on the terrace waiting for her in a brown jacket and vest. If he had any lingering trauma from his time in Bellerose’s dungeon, she couldn’t see it.

  She hated this feeling. She hated being on the terrace despite the much-needed air. She tightened her hold on the white shawl Granny had made her. Where to
start.

  Ashes in the Crystal Palace. Secrets in the dark.

  Adam held out his coin. “Try to set aside everything that’s happened,” he said.

  Iris was too tired to even be baffled at what he was suggesting. Had Carl Anderson’s corpse been buried yet? But there it was, that honesty again. The silent plea for her to believe him just this one more time.

  “No matter what you might think of me, I am on your side,” he insisted. “We need to practice so you can find my father.”

  Find his father. For what again? For the truth? As she looked into Adam’s eyes, Anne’s voice called out to her. The word escaped from her lips before her mind could catch up:

  “The Hiva.”

  Adam gave no reaction. His expression remained still.

  “Hiva,” she said again. “The Hiva.”

  He leaned back against the balcony rails. “What do you know of it?”

  “You know what it is, don’t you? The Hiva? And…” She searched her memories. The outline of Doctor Seymour Pratt emerged from the darkness, causing a violent shudder. “The white crystal. And the Crystal Palace. My heart.” She remembered the bullet shattering against it. “My bones. And… and—”

  It was all jumbling together.

  “What do you know of these things?”

  “And you.” She didn’t dare step any closer, though his gaze seemed to beckon for it. “You, as a child, looking up at me that day at the South Kensington fair with a white dress in your hands.” Her hand began to tremble against her chest. “The explosion. And we Fanciful Freaks.”

  “No, Iris. You’re not like them.”

  A heavy silenced passed between them as they studied each other underneath the cloudy sky, the sounds of carts, wheels, and trotting horses filling the empty space.

  “Tell me everything,” Iris whispered.

  “If I did, would you be able to handle it? Are you handling it now?”

  “Tell me!” She pounded the balcony railing, letting part of her shawl slide down her body. “Is my life a game to you?”

  “No, Iris. No.” With two strides he closed the gap between them. “The truth isn’t something that should just be told to you. You have to discover it yourself. To feel it in your bones. Lay the pieces one at a time in a way that’ll help you understand. What has rushing gotten you? Jumping in headlong has only hurt you.”

  Iris scoffed. “And you care so much about my well-being.”

  “I do, Iris.” His fingers lingered near her but dared not touch. “I think I really do.”

  Iris stepped back, leaving his fingers to grasp the breath left in her wake. “I can’t tell if there’s anything about you that’s real.”

  Adam turned his head slightly but couldn’t seem to meet her eyes. “I didn’t kill my father. But Neville Bradford did die at my hands. Before that, I also tried to kill Carl Anderson.”

  Iris backed farther away from him. “Why?”

  “It was my father’s fault.” Adam’s expression turned vicious as he thought of the man. “By telling them his secrets, he sealed their fate. Those are dangerous secrets, Iris. If either the Committee or the Crown ever got ahold of them, they could be used as a weapon.”

  “Against who?”

  “Against you.” Adam swiveled around, his face reddening just enough to show his frustration. “Your true identity. That’s what my father was researching. That’s why he left my family and traveled around Africa looking for clues. He still has those secrets in his journal. Even though he was an Enlightener, he couldn’t agree with the Committee’s tournament, their plans for the world.”

  “Plans…”

  Adam’s hands tightened around the railing. “The Committee wants to leave this world to die. They believe they have a way out—to another world.”

  Iris was so numb at this point, she simply let the information wash over her. Another world. Maybe that was where she’d come from. Maybe that was what had made the Fanciful Freaks. At this point, whether he was telling the truth or not, anything was possible.

  “I told you that the Committee believes they should be the ones to guide humanity’s transition,” Adam reminded her. “My father disagrees, and without his research, his secrets, the Committee won’t be able to follow through with their plans. Right now he’s hiding from their spies. But I’m sure he’s searching for someone worthy to give those secrets to. Someone worthier than the Committee. Worthier than the Crown. And whichever rival finds out the secret, it’ll be you in danger. That’s why I lied and told the Committee I killed my father. That’s why you have to find him first before they realize he’s alive.”

  Iris fell forward, letting her forearms hold herself up on the railing. He was right. Being told all these things made her head ache. Her breathing quickened as she watched the street below without seeing the pedestrians, the carriages, the newsboys selling their wares. A pinch in her chest and ribs caused her to shut her eyes and breathe in deeply as she let her mind catch up to the information flooding her.

  Adam finally cupped her face with his hands. “When I first talked to you at the amphitheater, I was shocked. I didn’t expect to see so much good in your eyes. So much innocence and life. And now…” He trailed off, looking deeply into them. “Now I know that the moment you learn the truth, that will be the moment your misery will truly begin. But I—”

  He stopped, fighting with himself. Iris’s lips curled inward as fear gripped her. Just what kind of hell was waiting for her on the other side of the truth?

  “But you still need to know,” Adam said resolutely as if to convince himself. “I had Cordiero killed because he threatened to come too close to your secret. I would do the same to the other members of the Committee. Make no mistake.”

  Iris couldn’t move, couldn’t even speak as he stared at her with the intensity and honesty of a beautiful monster.

  “I am a murderer and a deceiver,” he said. “I know that. But I still wish you’d believe me. Let everything be done at the right time, in the right order, under the right circumstances. Continue with the tournament. Let the heat of battle dislodge those sleeping memories. Find my father. During the final round, I’m sure you’ll remember. Once you find my father, I promise, everything will fall into place.”

  “The tournament…” Iris thought of Gram and shuddered. “If you care so much about me, then why ask me to participate in such a horrible game?”

  “Because it’s through that game, through the horror and violence, that your true self will awaken.”

  My true self… Iris gripped the peach-colored lace around her neck as she thought of the ashes littering the floor of the Crystal Palace.

  “Trust me,” Adam pleaded, and gave her the coin. “Everything at the right time.”

  * * *

  Trust him. But how could she? Trust a monster? Trust a devil? A demon? Though his pleas pulled her in, deep down she knew this man was leading her into hell, even though his desire to protect her was also his truth.

  Truth.

  An unknowable, unavoidable conclusion awaited her. Something so terrible that Adam wouldn’t dare utter it except at the right moment.

  Despite her fear, she lay underneath her bedcovers, night after night, holding Adam’s coin, attempting to feel his father’s essence of life.

  That unstoppable drive to know. Her insatiable need for self even if it drove her so far into the dark that she ended up losing the parts of her that she most cared about. John Temple had gone to the Dahomey in search of She Who Does Not Fall. If his son would not tell her, then she would make John do it.

  Club Uriel announced that the final round would take place at the end of the week. For the next two nights, Iris practiced. She practiced feeling the life forces of those around her, Jinn and Max in particular as they slept in their beds, never letting herself go too far for fear of what she might do to them. She controlled her breathing, closed her eyes with the back of her head on her pillow, felt the fluttering of her eyelashes and the weight
of her eyelids, and imagined their essences entering into her, warming her skin until her entire body pushed them out again with a shiver.

  Max and Jinn tasted different: one sweet like grapes, the other savory bread. It was silly to imagine it like that, but the differences helped her discern between their essences.

  No, their anima, she thought. She somehow knew that was the right term.

  And so one night, she poured all her energy into the Temple coin. Psychometry, Jacob had told her a few days ago when she asked whether or not it was really possible. A scientific theory that one could pierce through pasts and presents, lives and afterlives by sensing the flow of life through an object. A coin, for example. Or a man’s body. Even the air. The flow of life was everywhere. She just needed to pluck the right string.

  Finally, she did. John Temple. This string that she felt pulled her from the inside. While Max and Jinn slept on, she physically followed the string out of her bed, out of Club Uriel, out into the cold, dark night. It was leading her to someone living and breathing—and in London.

  She navigated the dark streets of the city until she came to the steps of a train station. She looked up at the large, bright clock on the white brick building. It was nearly three in the morning. That would explain the lack of people, but as she descended deeper into the station, passing the wooden signs directing passengers to their platforms, she quickly realized that the station was quite suspiciously empty.

  Iris tied her shawl around her head like a bonnet and, inspired by Rin, used the white fabric to cover her face, keeping her head down as she descended another flight of steps.

  Then she heard voices.

  “… your entourage…”

  “Mr. Bosch told us he’d be sending his head man…”

  Bosch of the Guns and Ammunitions Company? An Enlightener. Her heart sped up along with her steps. As she approached the underground platform, the voices grew louder.

  “Ridiculous! Do you expect us to believe this is the head of Bosch’s development team?”