Transmuted

by Karina Cooper

The pounding that had filled it?

  I struggled to sit, but Maddie Ruth knew me well. She braced both hands upon my shoulders and held me down, her loose brown curls draping into my face. “Stop it,” she ordered. “You cause a fuss, and Mrs. Fortescue will call for a physician.”

  “Will he grant me laudanum?” I asked without thinking.

  Maddie Ruth’s snort was every bit as accusatory as Zylphia’s silence, or Ashmore’s reproach.

  There were none in this house who did not know of my weakness.

  Only Maddie Ruth made light of it direct. “Most like,” she shot back, “and then you’ll be a useless wretch all over again.”

  As though I had not been just that.

  I subsided, for she was at present stronger than I.

  Maddie Ruth had, for some time, entertained aspirations of becoming a collector. I had done all in my power to dissuade her from such a calamity. She was a smart creature, young in face and body but altogether too learned in mind. She could do better than the profession, and well I knew it.

  Once, she had served the Menagerie as mechanical engineer—one of them what saw to the various mechanisms and machines that the pleasure gardens utilized. My friendship with her had made of her a target, and so Ashmore had plucked her from the Menagerie to serve as my companion during my convalescence.

  With her help, and with Ashmore’s, I had achieved sobriety.

  I had great hopes for Maddie Ruth, ones that did not include her gallivanting about as a collector. That this made of me the Fanny to her, well, me was something I struggled with.

  She had the freedom to choose her own path. I simply refused to make it effortless for her.

  Because there was no room in the house for her to reside comfortably, she had made her home somewhere different—with the Bakers, I assumed, or with similar friends. She visited frequently.

  Her medical knowhow, learned in the Menagerie, no doubt salved Fanny’s concerns.

  Again, it seemed I owed Maddie Ruth something.

  “Because I know you’re going to think about it until your fever spikes again,” Maddie Ruth said with some briskness, “I’ll tell you everything I were told on your arrival.”

  I cracked open my burning eyes, peering out from under the compress that seemed to warm rather quickly on my brow. “You are a saint.” My voice came raspy and rough. “How long was I delirious?”

  “Ah.” Her eyes brightened with her smile, as cheeky as she’d ever been. “So you know you were delirious. That helps matters.”

  “Oh, hush.”

  “Can’t get it both ways,” she chided me, and sat with familiarity upon a chair I suspected she had grown comfortable with. “You slept for a full day, but you haven’t missed much.”

  A full day? Alarm whispered through me. I struggled to an elbow. “Hawke?”

  “Fine,” Maddie Ruth said firmly, once more pushing me prone. “It was a bit touch and go for a while.” When I blanched, she hurriedly added, “Because he’s a prat, not ’cos of his injuries.”

  I blinked at this. “What?”

  She took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. “His wounds are mending rather more quickly than is fair.”

  Relief seized me.

  “From what I gather,” Maddie Ruth continued, bracing herself on the side of my bed and cupping her chin in hands, “you went topsy-turvy in the brain, and Hawke lost his ever-loving mind. A fine pair you make,” she added dryly.

  “Shut it, already.”

  I couldn’t stop the little wiggle of delight this caused me. Hawke losing his ever-loving mind was not, in all honesty, a good thing.

  And yet… “Mr. Ashmore had to put him down,” Maddie Ruth said.

  “What?”

  She grabbed a pillow and slapped it over my face, holding it down until I gave up trying to sit again. “If I smother you,” she said, “would you lay still?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said meekly when she let up the cushion. I resolved to remain prone. “Tell me.”

  “Near as he tells it,” she said, though her brow remained furrowed as she watched me for signs of disobedience, “Hawke wouldn’t let no one near you. Fine sight that was, him bleeding all over and you insensible in his arms.”

  I winced.

  “Turns out Osoba’s not as dead as we thought,” Maddie Ruth continued. This turned flat and dry. “Always knew it’d take an act of God to end that bastard. As whips go, only Hawke were more frightening.”

  “You don’t seem that afraid of him now,” I pointed out.

  Her round face eased up with another one of her smiles. Delightful, she was. “Well, that’s ’cos I know you’ll tear him to bits if he puts a hand on me.” Her smile faded. “I still fear Hawke, make no mistake.But it isn’t the same.”

  This was fair enough, and I wouldn’t force the issue. I was not the only one with scars to bear.

  “Is everyone safe?” I asked.

  “Enough,” Maddie Ruth replied.

  “Communion?”

  Her eyes lit. “Word is him and his Bakers chased that thing ’crossdead man’s haunt and lost him in the muck. Put a few bullets in him, for his trouble,” she added with the macabre delight of a ghoul.

  I frowned at her. “Are they all safe?”

  “One got torn up about the shoulder,” she said, patting her own as though to show whereabouts, “but none went toes up. Communion’s still down there working with that bloke Mr. Ashmore knows.”

  Uriah. That was a whole other conversation, and one I’d need to have with my tutor.

  Whatever secrets had underscored our visit, I needed to know.

  “And I’m to let Ashmore know the moment you awake, so I should do that,” she finished with a sigh.

  I let her go without comment, drawing the warming compress back down over my eyes.

  A fever. Underground footpads, beastmen, Osoba and thieves, and I was laid low by a fever.

  The sheer humiliation of it wasn’t to be borne.

  A tap upon my door preceded Ashmore’s entry. Were anyone else to witness such a thing, there would be rumors—gossip of the scandalous sort—that marked my tutor as more than just a friend. A gentleman did not enter a lady’s boudoir unless he was her husband.

  Or unless that lady were quite fallen.

  Few enough would care to note that the bonds between Ashmore and I transcended that of any such speculation.

  I summoned for him a smile, weary though I feared it.

  He wasted no preamble. “Before you loose your tongue,” he told me, coming to perch on the edge of my bed at my hip, “Hawke is mending well and Zhànzhàn is quite the suitable guest.”

  A circumstance I had lost track of.

  My humiliation, self-directed thought it was, would allow me no moments of rest. I sighed deeply, a gust that drew an answering curve from Ashmore’s mouth. “I have never,” I pointed out, “fallen to illness such as I did back there.”

  “You have.” One hand came to rest over mine. “But it was a delirium courtesy of the bliss, and not outright fever. It seems,” he added with no lessening of wry humor, “that you are to be congratulated.”

  I huffed a bit of protest. “I don’t see what for.”

  “Because if nothing else,” my tutor informed me gently, “you are wholly human. Your body, strained as you so force it to be, has reaffirmed this of you.”

  Of course. Leave it to Ashmore to make of this an object lesson; one, I admit, that perhaps needed learning.

  I was not so invincible that illness would pass me by. I had already noted the weakness that persisted after my dedication to sobriety. It was purely logical that other concerns come with it.

  And yet, I had failed.

  I placed my hand over his, capturing Ashmore’s fingers between mine. My eyes in their sockets burned, but whether it stemmed from the lingering cause of my fever or tears, I could not know. “Tell me all that happened below.”

  The door left open behind him allowed the lamplight to merg
e with what daylight lingered from outside my window. It touched my tutor’s profile and outlined it in stark white. He looked every bit an angel in that moment, haloed by his brilliant hair, but I would never tell him such.

  The man had enough ego without my care.

  His smile deepened, acknowledgement of my fervor, then faded again. The seriousness of his scrutiny did nothing to hamper the gentility with which he treated me.

  I sat in silence as he explained the course of events. How Hawke, bleeding profusely from the ragged wounds left upon him, had carried me back to the others. How the Bakers, allowed underground for the express purpose of their hunt, had continued to pursue the trail, and then, how Hawke had made to go after him—run the once whip to ground.

  The argument I’d dreamt of had stemmed, it seemed, from the fierce fray between Ashmore and Hawke. The latter wanted blood.

  The former dared not allow more than one such monster to run free.

  Without a shred of guilt in his eye, my tutor informed me that he had bound the ringmaster in alchemical chains—forced him to comply when Hawke’s thirst of blood had consumed all good sense.

  The feeling this engendered within me was as mixed as it always was when I thought of such things. Anger that Hawke was as arrogant, as supremely confident, as ever. Concern that my tutor had been forced to utilize such methods.

  Uncertainty as to how Hawke would take such a thing, or if this would be our lot forever, the three of us—tangled by ties stronger than steel and always in uneven balance.

  Ashmore, bound to me by a vow as old as he was.

  Myself, bound to Hawke by matters of a heart too battered to give in—or let go.

  Hawke, bound by the breeding that drove him into such beastly behaviors, and the alchemy Ashmore utilized to compel him into obeisance by sheer force.

  I did not know what Hawke felt for me beyond that of a hunger to claim. After all, even in the throes of the thing that he became, he protected me.

  But whether that made of me a possession or a lover, I could not begin to understand.

  And so the circle began all over again. I goaded Hawke. He risked himself to protect me. Ashmore reined him in when he pushed too far.

  I cried.

  Ashmore mended the pieces.

  And still I waited for Hawke.

  Letting go of Ashmore’s hand, I covered my face. It was warm, still, but the fierce h eat staining my cheeks was rather more embarrassment than illness. “I am such a fool,” I groaned.

  “Aren’t we all?” Ashmore returned, gently for all it stung.

  I chuckled despite myself. “What of the other beastmen?”

  “One flanked Osoba,” Ashmore said. I went stiff in shock, for I hadn’t so much as sensed them. “Two were slain by the Bakers. They were…” He thought for a moment. “They were unstable in the extreme, easy to defeat but too far gone for the serum we created to be of much worth.”

  I frowned. “Wait. Do you mean to say that the alchemical concoction created by the Veil is flawed?”

  “I suspect so,” Ashmore said. “Or it is the men themselves who could not handle such strain. Nevertheless, there are three less in this world, which seems to close all but Osoba’s chapter.”

  “Well done,” I managed, striving for approval and failing into a sigh.

  Ashmore’s smile claimed fundamental understanding. “You did well enough, minx.”

  “Save for a rampant fever.” I allowed my hands to fall to the bedclothes. “What of the Bakers? Maddie Ruth says Ish is still below.”

  “He has taken on the service demanded by Uriah,” Ashmore explained.

  “Is that all right?”

  “According to whom?” When I gave him an exasperated stare, he patted my hand again. “Worry not, minx. By all evidence, the murderers Uriah demanded we find are one and the same with Communion’s quarry. It did not take much for Uriah to see reason.”

  “And your relationship with him?” I asked.

  My tutor hesitated. “Complicated,” he allowed. “Once upon a time, when he was a younger man, we were accomplices of sorts.”

  “He knows of you?”

  “In part.”

  “Which part?” I asked, tongue firmly in cheek.

  Ashmore waved that away with a dry murmur of dismissal. “Only that I am more than I seem. He has afforded me no undue curiosity.”

  “Is he trustworthy?” I asked, sobering.

  “In part,” repeated my tutor, and added quickly, “Uriah is far more cunning than most. He senses that my secrets are as like to bring an early grave as anything else, and so is content to make of me a tool when possible.”

  I could not imagine anyone using Oliver Ashmore as a tool. Then again, this was the nature of the Underground. Those who did not use were used, and there was always someone above to use again.

  “And when it is impossible to use you?” I asked, curious.

  Ashmore’s lips quirked in wry acknowledgement. “Then an ally shall suffice, if he must.”

  I nodded. “Clever.”

  “Indubitably.”

  “You did not,” I pointed out, “tell me all of this for what reason?”

  “What reasons did I have to assume that rascal had made of himself anything?” Ashmore countered. He folded his arms over his waistcoat, once more in his shirtsleeves. Fanny must not be about. “I was as surprised as any to hear this Emperor of Earnings nonsense.”

  I chuckled at that. “Fair enough.” Yet this did not salve my own stinging pride. “What shall I do now?”

  “Well, your fever seems to have broken already,” Ashmore replied, unfolding once more to pluck the compress away and place a palm upon my brow. His hand was cool to the touch, and dry. It felt good against my skin.

  That my heart did not leap nor did my stomach tremble was something that relieved me.

  Were it Hawke, I would never find such ease.

  Of course, neither could I picture Hawke tending me so kindly as this. The very idea was laughable.

  Truly, I had an awful fascination for terrible things.

  “I shall ensure you take a draught of restorative for the next few days,” he told me, brisk as a physician. But the corners of his eyes creased as he smiled. “You are made of stern stuff, rest assured. This is but a stumbling block.”

  I frowned as he stood. “Such words come easy to you,” I replied, grumpy for it. “It wasn’t your constitution failing at a crucial moment.”

  “You are not wholly to blame.” He stood by my bedside, looking down at me with great affection. The encouragement he afforded me was not subtle, and for that, I was grateful. “We all thought Osoba dead. Although I had wondered as to the consequences Magnitudo might cause, I had not expected that. Were I in your place,” he added, “I might not have fared better.”

  “Now that’s a bit of bollocks,” I returned flatly, “and well you know.”

  He winced. “Language, minx.”

  As if he hadn’t utilized it himself. He bent to press a kiss to the top of my head; as warm a gesture as I might receive from Fanny.

  “I will send Zylphia to attend you,” he said. “When you are presentable, we shall discuss our plans.”

  “Am I given leave to ambulate, then?” I asked tartly, seizing the bedclothes like I would tear them off right this instant.

  The sigh he afforded me was long suffering. “As though you would wait for any such leave.” The door closed behind him.

  I found myself in rather good spirits in his wake. There were many concerns to address— the deaths of the men and women in that Underground apothecary, the girl who’d been part of the Veil,Hawke’s wounds and struggling nature.

  The diamond whose location we had gained no clue of.

  As I eased to my feet, a bit shaky about the knees but rather more concerned with the hunger in my belly, I considered that there were many options laid out for us.

  Osoba was no doubt tied to the murders in the Underground; Ashmore had indicated as such
. It was quite possible that his presence also implied the nearby location of Zhànzhàn’s brother—and if that were so, then what caused the Veil’s twisted whip to occupy the same location as a fencing ken that might be linked with the Koh-i-Noor?

  Did that link the stolen diamond with the Karakash Veil?

  I could think of at least one who would have these answers.

  A gentle rap upon the door preceded Zylphia’s query. I bid her enter, already wriggling out of my nightclothes. They were stiff with the remains of my night sweats.

  “Already straining at the bit, are we?” Zylphia asked.

  I smiled at her. “Draw a bath, would you? I’d like to prepare.”

  She wasted no time in doing just this. Soon enough, I was submerged in the warmth of the tub Booth carried up, and Zylphia scrubbed at my hair ’til the water ran black with the leavings of the soot still mired in. “What is your hurry?”

  “The thrill of the chase,” I told her, with remarkable cheer. I didn’t know from whence it came, not completely. Yet I had memory of such a feeling in years prior—that anticipation, the excitement that came with the trail of a bounty.

  I had wondered, in some small part of me, whether it was opium that allowed me to feel so. Quarry or not, the orchestra of life became so much more when colored by the bliss.

  Yet I was sober. Of that, I had little doubt.

  Zylphia’s chuckle was as music to my ears as she helped me dry, tend my hair and dress. “That look in your eye promises a bit of sport.”

  I winked at her. “Perhaps. Were you informed as to everything?”

  “I was,” she confirmed. “What will you do?”

  I checked my appearance in the mirror. A quick spin ensured that all was in order. Zylphia had chosen a simple day dress, rather than an evening’s jacket and full skirt. None would care. It was respectable enough for a night spent home.

  “First,” I said, meeting my own eyes in the reflective glass. “I’ve more than a few questions for our guest.”

  Zylphia’s lush mouth hardened. “Were it up to me,” she said evenly, “I’d have left her tied out front.”

  I turned, wrapped my arms around Zylphia’s expanding waist, and hugged her tight enough to squeeze an ooffrom her. “Never you mind,” I said, fierce protectiveness surging through the excitement already lapping at my senses. My smile was as ferocious as any collector’s on the trail. “I won’t let her get away with a single thing.”