Transmuted

by Karina Cooper

  Toast and jam, roasted potatoes with black bits still in—my favorite with crackling, I would most readily admit—and the ever-present sausage. The spring sausages imported were especially juicy and plump, and I helped myself to them with great relish.

  I had always eaten a plate full, at least before the worst of my addictions had settled in. There was a time then when I ate nothing at all but the tar that fueled me.

  I’d lost a great deal of flesh, thanks to my proclivities, and was only just beginning to earn it back. The conditioning with which I maintained my form and flexibility had shaped my figure to something much less round at bosom and hip, though I was happy to see that my ribs no longer protruded.

  These were small matters, in the scheme of such things, but I preferred my build to be sturdier, rather than small. I already had to work that much harder to toss a man on his ear.

  Therefore, I polished off first one plate, then half of another, all the while sharing idle talk with Fanny. She chuckled at various matters—my retelling of the more humorous bits of gossip I’d read, and Levi’s gamine smile around a mouth full of bread.

  When her eyes sparkled and shone, my chest squeezed tight with love.

  Making Fanny smile had become one of my great pleasures.

  “Where is Mr. Ashmore, then?” she asked, wiping her fingers upon a cloth. It was customary to remove one’s gloves for eating. The fine tremors that affected her hands did not go unnoticed.

  Was she thinner? Did she eat of her repast less than customary?

  “Abed,” I said, forcing myself to take a moment’s calm. I was overly concerned. Fanny smiled with ease, and I saw nothing in her features to indicate illness. “I gather he maintained another late evening.”

  Fanny clucked her tongue gently. “And is Zylphia still feeling the mornings?”

  “Rather,” I replied ruefully.

  “That will pass.” Sympathy colored my companion’s reassurance. “Poor dear.”

  Indeed. Zylphia carried her unborn child with the same aplomb she had much of anything else in this life, fairly unruffled save for matters of greatest import. I had seen her afraid only a few times in our friendship, and for all that, she maintained an air of capability and maturity that I often envied.

  To see her feeling so poorly was a new circumstance.

  Fanny cradled her tea in one hand, sipping delicately. Her dignity had always been such that I doubted the frailty of age would dent it. “And did I hear Hawke this morning?”

  Oh, bollocks. My cheeks flamed, for all she asked with such innocuous curiosity.

  Little my companion did was so innocent.

  I pushed my plate away so that I might pull my teacup and saucer closer. It was unnecessary, but gave me something to look at. “Oh, yes, I think so,” I said, striving for airy and managing little more than guilt.

  Fanny saw right through me. When it came to such matters, she often did. “I see.” Her lips pursed. “More of your nighttime antics?”

  Were it not for the sole fact that I had already swallowed my tea, I might have choked on it. “What?”

  “Your adventures, Cherry,” she clarified patiently.

  “Oh.” Heat seared my cheeks. Burned all the way to my hairline. “Of course. No,” I added hastily. “Not mine. Hawke has been accompanying Ashmore on his errands.”

  “Oh?” Her wispy white eyebrows rose. “You appear to be rather settled, my dove.”

  Why was it that such simple words forced more blush to my already telling skin? The heat saturating my whole being echoed a throb of tightness under my brow. “Whatever do you mean?”

  Her smile, when it came, was fond. And accusatory, all at the same time. “You are hardly a miss content to remain at home, Cherry.” An obvious enough truth that it required no support from me. “I am always expecting to see you gone come morning, out on another grand lark.”

  If it came across the table as more sad than approving, it certainly found easy purchase in the niche my guilt had carved within me. I did not like feeling as though I left Fanny wondering if I would return to her. Of course I would return.

  Hadn’t I done just so?

  I reached across the corner and took her hand. Her skin was paper thin beneath my fingers, dry and so fragile.

  But her grip was firm as she squeezed my hand in kind. “Oh, pay no attention to this old woman,” she added quick enough. “I am still unused to this new order of things. You are, after all, a widow of some means. What you do is no longer my business.”

  “Of some means,” I echoed, but with a self-deprecating ache. “Hardly true, is it?”

  This earned me a sniff, a dismissal as far as Fanny cared to take it.

  That I was penniless, supported only by Ashmore’s indulgences, meant that for all intents and purposes, I looked rather more like a scandalous woman than anything else. To be certain, the apparent perception was that of Ashmore keeping a mistress.

  Were we still mired in the politics and matters of reputation, it might have been more important.

  That Fanny continued to ignore the subject of my standing—to the point where she refused to engage upon it—was not cruel. It was, I understood, her method of ensuring that no argument would divide us; a bit of play-acting, really.

  That what she did not acknowledge, she would not be forced to pursue—to my unhappiness, surely.

  I had not become the proper lady she had hoped for.

  This sorrowful thought continued to hound me for much of the day. After the morning’s repast, I helped Mrs. Booth with a bit of cleaning—to her fussing, as if we still retained the demands of Society’s roles—and retired to the parlor to pore over the stolen diamond’s documents.

  The heaviness assailing my flesh was no doubt thanks to my interrupted sleep. I could not attempt a brief rest, not if I expected to arrive at my studies on time, so I would persevere and find a bit of sleep after.

  A drop of laudanum might ease the worst of this sleepy ague I nursed, but this created an all-new ache inside my skin. I could not allow myself to think of such matters.

  The information ceded me by Lady Rutledge remained fairly straightforward. The Koh-iNoor was a beautiful diamond, rough in appearance first, and then glittering and smooth after Garrard & Co. had cut it again. A shame that so much of the diamond had been lost in so doing, but it certainly did much for the stone’s luster.

  What baffled me was a simple matter of greed.

  If one had the means to break into Wakefield Tower, thereby earning the run of the Jewel House, why stop at this single diamond? Why not take a few other gems?

  Certainly none of the regalia—such items would be easily traced no matter the fencing ken that harbored it. One was certain to run into more difficulty attempting to pawn the Jewelled Sword of Offering than random bits of gems and gold.

  What did this say of the thief?

  A collector seemed the most obvious conclusion, and one that I’d leapt to initially. And if not a collector, then at least a body with access to the notes therein—unless, as it occurred to me, the note was not actually the same as a bounty’s but simply similar in design.

  I tucked the parchment under my nose and inhaled deeply. The pong of rotting water similar to that of the Thames assailed me again. But with it, a fragrance different from the acrid stench I associated with the fog that filled the collector station just east.

  “Bugger,” I muttered.

  “Always charming,” Ashmore replied behind me, earning a startle and sudden flutter of papers.

  On the mark, the hall clock chimed twice.

  “Well timed, as ever,” I noted. A hand pressed to my chest to still the leap surprise had caused.

  My tutor looked much more rested than he had that morning, with a healthy tint of pink to his otherwise stark white features and a warmth to his smile to ease the substantial yoke of his own impression.

  Youthful as Ashmore might appear to the nonchalant eye, there was a worldliness about him that belied
his apparent years. That came primarily from the fact that his years numbered among four centuries, of course, but also—and I had begun to suspect this of myself, as well— from the weighty burden that unlocking the secrets of the cosmos forced upon one.

  Often were the times I wished for a magical key to solve all of the world’s problems, and every time, Ashmore lectured me on the necessity for secrecy, for sense; for, above all things, the need to refrain from such thoughts.

  The secrets of the cosmos were not the panacea they seemed. The world needed to find its own answers.

  One day, I would master all the Trumps, as far as Zodiacus. I would do so, because I refused to leave this path halftrodden. It was the first I’d chosen myself, and the only I’d committed wholeheartedly.

  A fine enough goal, assuming I did not meet my end attempting it.

  “Fanny sends her regards,” I added as my tutor came around the sofa to share the seating with me.

  He plucked the still of the diamond from under his hip, casting it a cursory inspection.

  He wore brown again, as he was wont to do; simple duds that did not paint him as the gentleman I knew him to be, but a workman of none-too-apparent value.

  Save that only the blind would fail to note the courtesy with which he operated.

  “I am sorry to have missed the morning repast,” he replied, then flipped the picture to face me. “The blot here is a common circumstance with the wash used in processing the photograph.”

  How he knew that I’d wondered was one of Ashmore’s many gifts. Intuitive, that fellow. I took the picture. “Thank you.”

  “Most welcome.” He had not come with books for our lesson, nor with the various tools of the trade. We would retire to the attic for such things, where we were less likely to be overheard or stumbled upon.

  The small laboratory Ashmore had installed there provided plenty of opportunity for practice. As long as I did not accidentally set aught on fire, it would suffice.

  In my defense, I had only caused a fire once—an inappropriate and woefully damaging use of Magnitudo, the twelfth Trump,so far beyond my skill that I still do not know how I’d drawn upon it.

  Ashmore had thought my ability to call upon the powerful Trump to be the result of lingering cracks in my spirit, leftover from my mother’s attempted possession. That the backlash had knocked me quite cold was, as he’d put it, deucedly lucky. It might have killed another.

  The Trump no doubt killed the man I’d used it on. Ikenna Osoba, the Menagerie’s lion prince claimed to be from far-flung Africa, had vanished in the aftermath, his flesh aflame. The sound of his screams still echoed in my dreams.

  There was much I still dreamed of. Nights I woke alone and sweating.

  My studies often took the place of sleep when my mind would not calm.

  “Before we set to lessons,” Ashmore continued, amicably for the moment. He would not wear that stern mask until we were once more teacher and student; he became quite the severe taskmaster when instructing. “Have you thoughts as to this evening’s excursion?”

  Ah, a matter less overtly boring than written papers and philosophical discourse. Not that I minded the latter, only that Ashmore was much more thorough than I had patience for. Each Trump taught was a lesson in tolerance—and penmanship.

  “I knew three guides qualified to take us below,” I replied. “Of them, I suspect one’s met his Maker by way of barrel fever.”

  Ashmore’s eyebrows climbed his pale forehead. “Bit of a drunkard?”

  “A vast understatement,” I assured him. “If the Thames turned to rum and glass, he’d chew through it all and bleed out happily all the while.”

  My tutor’s eyelids flinched—a general twitch of amusement laced with distaste. “You have quite the gift, minx.”

  I spread my hands, ungloved because I’d simply forgotten where I put them, and drew my most innocent smile. “I’d have to send a bantling to the other two, simply to see if they remain where they always are. ’Tis been a long time since I’ve traversed the border.”

  “Aye.” He rubbed his thumb along his barbered sideburns, which were slightly more orange in hue than his hair. “I’m sure much has changed in the ghost market.”

  “Have you been?” I asked, leaning forward.

  “Not for many years.”

  “How many?”

  “Since before you came,” he assured me.

  I huffed a sound I’d learned from Fanny.

  Ashmore studied me with a forthrightness that did not lack Hawke’s intensity so much as channel it different. I enjoyed the company of those who preferred a direct approach.

  This explained a great deal of my immediate circle. Even the youngest of my associates, Maddie Ruth Halbard, was a forthright little thing.

  Although not so young as I insisted on thinking her, now that I came to consider it. Maddie Ruth turned seventeen soon.

  And if she would see a birthday, that meant my own birthday came sooner, near the end of May.

  I would be one and twenty.

  The year I was to inherit all that was my father’s and become an independent woman of means.

  The melancholy this caused in me did not go unnoticed by my sharp-eyed companion. Ashmore’s frown bit deep into the corners of his mouth. “Why so gloomy, of a sudden? Adventure awaits, you know.”

  “I know.” So warned of my apparent inability to mask my feelings, I forced a smile as I rose. Shaking out my skirts provided me something to hold my focus. “I’ll send out runners come closer to dusk. If any of my guides linger, we’ll have our plan set for the night.”

  “Which entrance,do you think?”

  That Ashmore let me direct the conversation so readily was not as much a relief as a thing to be grateful for. I gathered the papers in hand, but only to sort through them for the envelope. “Wapping, I think. Aside from that I’m more familiar with it,” I explained, offering the envelope, “the note smells rather strongly, doesn’t it?”

  Ashmore dutifully put nose to the interior,then recoiled with a cringe. “Sewage.”

  “And?”

  Brow furrowing, my tutor took another tentative sniff. His nostrils flared in his aquiline nose.

  When the answer did not immediately occur to him, he took another, deeper breath. Realization dawned swiftly.

  “It smells of rotting eggs, doesn’t it?” I asked.

  “Sulpur,” he said, tone thoughtful. That he used the original Latin word for it was a matter of course.

  “Exactly so,” I agreed cheerfully. “Sewage and sulfur. The first can be found anywhere an Undergound passage lies, but the latter is remarkable only in the sense that the largest verifiable market is nearest the Thames Tunnel.”

  “The ghost market is a good resource for such reagents,” Ashmore added, reclining in the sofa to drape one arm along the back. He worked the hypothesis through with growing interest. “If we are suggesting that this note came into contact with sulfur, then the market is as likely a place as any.”

  “And anyone likely to buy a stolen diamond would be at that market.”

  “Perhaps even a vendor himself,” he added for me.

  I nodded. “’Tis a guess, but seems a fair enough starting point.”

  “I cannot disagree.” He stood, offering a bent arm. “As for now, we’ve more pressing matters to see to. Shall we see to lessons?”

  I took his arm, laying my fingertips in the bend of his elbow, and smiled up at him. “Might I hope there will be less writing today?”

  “Ah, minx.” He patted my hand over his arm. “You may always hope.”

  “Demon.”

  He chuckled, entirely unapologetic.

  Chapter Seven

  When the bells chimed a visitor, shortly before supper was to be laid out, I was caught in my rooms, stepping into an evening dress. I did not have quite so many dresses and gowns as I’d been forced to wear above the drift, but I attempted a modicum of propriety for Fanny’s sake.

  Zylphia h
elped me, for a corset was no small feat to attempt alone.

  “Are we expecting a guest for supper?” I asked, holding on to a post of my bed. The question ended on a gasp as Zylphia wrenched tight the lacings.

  “Can’t say,” she replied, but with the distracted air of one whose focus remained upon the knee placed in the small of my back rather than the subject at hand.

  I subsided, turning my attentions to ensuring that I could breathe through the panels cinched so tightly. “Why so snug?” I managed.

  “Is it?” Zylphia tied off the lacings, then slipped the ties for the bustle around my waist. “Almost ready. Mrs. Fanny says we’re having poulets aux nouilles.”

  One ofMrs. Booth’s newest additions to her menu, this dish was comprised of pasta, chicken, and a variation of vegetables for garnish. Served warm, the flavors of the spices came together with remarkable palatability. The beauty of the dish, however, was that it tasted almost better when chilled.

  Soon enough, I was dressed, my curls done up in a simple yet effective twist. She’d pinned my hair to within an inch of its bloody life. Although I was not forced to wear black when at home, I settled for a deep indigo gown, a shade away from mourning hues and still somber enough to soothe sensibilities on the subject.

  Zylphia’s dark hair had been coiled in a similar vein, but wound into a tighter knot—as befitting one who played at maid. I no longer argued with her, similar to the manner in which Mrs. Booth had given up on fussing when I took rag to furniture.

  This time, she laid off the apron marking her as servant. Her charcoal dress was somber enough without it. With a bright-eyed smile, she gestured me down the stairs ahead of her.

  Really, I should have known better than to trust such an angelic face.

  I strode into the dining room, gloved hand buried in my skirts to ensure I did not tread upon them, and had already opened my mouth in greeting when the tableau before me sharpened.

  The words died on my tongue.

  Hawke turned away from the fireplace, its embers left in a permanent state of glow in deference of the cooling May evening. The chandelier above, its light caught in a multitude of faceted crystals, shed a scattering of reflected points of light over his dark hair, neatly plaited, and outlined the set of his shoulders.