by M. K. Hobson
Emily reached up, removed one pearl earring from her ear, then the other. She stepped carefully through the neck-craning crowd of men. She came to stand before Mr. Armatrout. He looked down at her, his face slightly amused. He folded the pocketknife and tucked it into his pocket.
“Wonderful show,” he said under his breath. “For someone who obviously doesn’t have much practice, that is.”
“Thank you,” she said softly. Her hand dipped into the bag for the letters. She handed them to him. He looked down at them.
“I’m supposed to show these around to everyone,” she said. “The Institute wants them widely disseminated. Once you read them, you’ll see why. They prove that Rex Fortissimus—his real name is Ogilvy Creagh Flannigan, I believe—embezzled millions while in the service of Boss Tweed. His Presentment Agency padded city contracts. These letters are the proof.”
Armatrout looked over the letters, his eyes appraising.
“Are they the real deal?”
Emily nodded. Armatrout snorted laughter.
“Well, you’d say that in any case.”
Emily looked at him. “The letters are real, and so is everything else. Mostly.” He looked at her, his face registering surprise at the modifier. She held his eyes calmly.
“I do love Mr. Stanton, very much,” she said softly. “He’s made terrible mistakes, yes. He’s made bad choices, yes. If I could stop loving him, maybe I would. But I don’t know how.”
Emily sighed, closing her eyes and opening them again. When she spoke, she did not look at Armatrout. It was as if she spoke the words to herself.
“Why should he be saved? Because I love him? No, love doesn’t make anything different. It doesn’t pay any debts. Should he be saved because he’s really tried to do his best? Because every choice he made seemed right at the time? That doesn’t make any difference either. Really, I don’t know why he should be saved. Maybe he shouldn’t be.”
She looked up, saw that Armatrout was staring at her. She gestured to the letters in his hands.
“That’s why I’m giving these to you. Because the truth does matter. And I think you serve the truth, the best you can find it. So serve it. Do what is right. I’m sure you can see what it is more clearly than I can. I only know that I love him. I do love him, despite everything. And that makes me blind. I don’t want my blindness to lead to more evil. True love shouldn’t do that.”
Armatrout turned the packet of letters over and over in his hands.
“I know you can see right through all the credomantic mumbo jumbo,” she murmured. “You think that this was all a show, and it was. But I wanted you to know it was more than that, too.”
Armatrout stared at her. For a moment, his smirk was gone, replaced with a look of wonderment.
“He’s a very lucky man,” Armatrout said finally.
“No, he isn’t particularly,” Emily said. “But I believe that he is decent. And that’s all I get.”
Armatrout tipped his hat to her. She turned away from him. As she did, newspapermen around her surged, knocking over chairs to get to him. They were snatching the letters out of his hands, passing them among themselves.
“Give, Armatrout!”
“You’re not keeping all the good stuff for yourself!”
Emily glided away from the scuffle like a beautiful, calm boat, closing her eyes. She thought of another credomantic precept that she could probably find in one of Stanton’s textbooks somewhere, if she ever had a chance to look.
The truth will set you free.
“Not exactly the way I planned it,” Miss Jesczenka said as Emily returned to stand by the lectern.
Together, they watched the pack of reporters grabbing at Armatrout. The big man was holding the letters high, protests roaring from his lips, but a dozen greasy hands had already reached up to snatch at them, and all around the room, reporters bent over their hard-won prizes, eyes scanning them greedily.
“Gentlemen!” Miss Jesczenka called to them loudly, over the din. “Gentlemen, I will see that you all get copies of the letters! Gentlemen, there really is no call for such dramatics …”
But then the dramatics really began.
There was the sound of kicked wood, and the doors at the back of the room, which had been closed for the conference, slammed open, banging back against the walls. Men strode in, a dozen men in gray uniforms bearing patches with the Institute’s crest. The Russians, already nervous from the reporters’ feeding frenzy, bristled and reached behind themselves for their rifles.
Leading the gang in gray was a tall, spare man in a black suit. It took Emily a moment to understand what her eyes were seeing. When she did, abrupt joy flooded through her.
“Mr. Stanton!” she cried, running across the room to him. She threw herself into his arms, and he folded her in them tightly. He pressed his lips against the top of her head, his hot breath stirring her hair.
“Goddamn you,” he whispered fiercely. “You’re not leaving me, Emily. I won’t let you.”
Emily ignored the words, ignored everything. She held him tight, squeezing her eyes shut, wishing everything else in the world would vanish. They stayed that way for longer than they should have, because when she opened her eyes, she saw that the reporters hadn’t vanished. Indeed, they’d all flipped their notebooks to new pages and were scribbling furiously. Reluctantly, she pulled away from Stanton, aware that just a bit more reticence might be in order. She noticed that Dmitri and his men had clustered close behind her, rifles drawn and leveled. They were grimly eyeing Stanton and the clot of Institute security that surrounded him. Emily had the sudden, terrible urge to laugh. A couple of true lovers with their security teams facing each other down.
Stanton, too, became more aware of the situation. Emily saw his face change as he looked around the group of reporters. His face became guarded and he frowned.
“Smile,” Emily whispered to him. But Stanton did not smile. In fact, if anything his scowl deepened. The reporters began barking in unison.
“Mr. Stanton! May we have a comment?”
“Mr. Stanton, do you feel confident in your ability to put these base and unfounded accusations behind you?”
“Mr. Stanton, are you terribly concerned by the anguish your fiancée has suffered?”
“If my fiancée has suffered from anguish, it’s because you and everyone like you has been bothering her with your ugliness and insinuation and disgusting filth!” he barked at the reporters, his green eyes shining with rage. “She shouldn’t be here, subjected to this kind of … pawing! You howling pack of wolves!”
Pencils scratched rapidly over page-turning pads. The story was getting better and better.
“Sophos, what are you doing here?” Miss Jesczenka’s quiet voice came at Emily’s elbow. “You know you shouldn’t be out of the Institute—”
“And you!” he barked, whirling on Miss Jesczenka. “What are you thinking, putting her through a press conference? Parading her before them? Are you insane?”
“Mr. Stanton.” Dmitri’s voice was a low throbbing insistence beneath Stanton’s keening fury. Stanton looked up, suddenly noticing the dozens of rifles that were trained on him. “I think it’s time you leave. Now.”
Stanton looked at him. He clenched his teeth. “Who the hell are you?”
“I represent the Sini Mira,” Dmitri said, his eyes coming up to Stanton’s, meeting them with hard brown determination. “We are here to protect her.”
“The Sini Mira? Protect Emily?” Stanton fairly spat the words. “Eradicationists who want to see magic and those who use it destroyed utterly?” He pulled Emily closer, his arm closing protectively around her.
Sudden inspiration lit Miss Jesczenka’s eyes. Stepping back, she drew a deep breath.
“Yes, indeed!” Her voice resonated through the room as her eyes turned on the Sini Mira men with a look of desperate terror revealed. “Oh, indeed! These are the very men who tried to kill her! The men who tried to murder her in Chicago! Gentle
men, we were not at liberty to disclose this fact, but we were forced to come here today against our will! These brutes forced us to come!” She leveled a trembling finger at Dmitri and his confused-looking comrades. “These men wish to murder Miss Edwards!”
“But they let her have a press conference first?” Emily heard Armatrout mutter, but no one seemed to pay any attention to him. The reporters were agape at the rifles, at the Institute security men who were already pressing forward, hands raised. Miss Jesczenka’s terror was filling the room like a palpable thing.
“Run, Sophos!” Miss Jesczenka said, her voice extravagantly pleading. “Take your true love and run!”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Emily heard Stanton mutter as he wrapped his arms around her. Flames flared up around them, flames that burned with extreme brightness but gave off no heat. In a moment they were gone, and in another moment they were tumbling heavily together onto the floor of the Sophos’ office in the Institute.
Inside the Institute, the air was still as a tomb. Emily sat up slowly, pressing a hand to her head. She felt slightly dizzy, as if she’d been drinking vodka again, but the feeling passed quickly.
The office was a shambles, Emily noticed first. Pieces of colored glass from the huge stained-glass window behind the desk littered the floor, showing glimpses of the blue sky beyond; curtains drooped from their rods, and everything was covered with a thin film of crumbled plaster dust. Emily looked down at Stanton, lying on the floor. His face was pale, skeletal, and bruised. She put an arm around his shoulders, helping him sit up.
He grinned wanly, his green eyes flat as marbles. “I can’t imagine how I did that. The Institute hasn’t an ounce of power left.”
“That wasn’t the power of the Institute.” Emily smiled, stroking his cheek. “That was true love conquering all.”
“Have you been reading my textbooks?” His eyes fluttered closed for a long moment before opening again and focusing slowly on her. She brushed a speck of plaster dust from his face.
“I was doing all right. The Sini Mira didn’t mean me any harm. Miss Jesczenka was just making the story better for the reporters. Please tell me you didn’t hurt yourself with that silly trick.”
“There is nothing else I can do, Emily,” he murmured. “I’ve lost the Institute.”
“Don’t say that.” She looked around the office, the despair in his voice making her imagine the roof crumbling to pieces on top of them. “Not here.”
“There’s not much more damage that can be done,” Stanton said, seeing the direction of her gaze. He was silent for a long time, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft. “I was so worried about you. Are you really all right?”
“I have nine lives, just like a cat,” Emily said.
“And you’re just as careless with them.” Stanton was silent for a long time before he spoke again. “I know you saw the book.”
She didn’t want to ask him about the hideous red book. Right now he was broken and tired, and all she wanted to do was soothe him and stroke the hair back from his broad hot forehead. But he did not want to be spared this, she knew. And sparing him this would be just like his mother … gliding over unpleasant things, encouraging his emptiness. Making him as empty as the Senator. She wouldn’t do that to him.
“You killed people,” Emily said softly. “You killed people when you were at the Erebus Academy, and you took their blood.”
“Yes.” There was no apology, at least.
“Were they good people?”
“I don’t know,” Stanton said. “We were never encouraged to ask.”
“How could you?” Emily said, her voice thin with pain. “How could you have done it?”
“I did it because they meant nothing to me. They were only objects to be used to achieve power.”
“But you’re not like that now,” she said. “I know you’re not.”
“I try not to be,” Stanton said. “I try very hard.”
He sank his head against her breast, breathing softly. She stroked his head.
“When I thought you’d left me, part of me was glad,” Stanton murmured, after her long silence made him realize she didn’t intend to speak. “I was glad you’d come to your senses.”
“Hush,” she said.
“I told you I wasn’t someone you should fall in love with. I told you I’d done terrible things. I’m sorry I didn’t let you go back to Lost Pine, where you could be happy.”
“I didn’t want to go back to Lost Pine,” Emily said. “And I’m happy with you.”
“Don’t lie,” he said. “That’s my job.”
“I’m not lying,” she said.
“How could you love me?” The question was desperate.
Emily searched for the right answer, but finally just shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said.
Stanton was silent for a long time.
“I’ve always grabbed for the things that I wanted,” he said at last, his voice low and sleepy. “The Erebus Academy, the Institute … but nothing is ever what you want it to be. The harder you grab for it, the more deeply it cuts. And it mocks you for being foolish enough to reach for it at all. You come to fear touching anything at all, because you know that if you do, it will become terrible.”
Emily said nothing.
“I didn’t want to touch you. There is no cruelty in you. There’s no deceit. I’ve never known anyone like you. How could I bring myself to ruin that? Why do you think I kept telling you to go marry the lumberman? He’d never have to lie to you. He’d never ask you to accept so much ugliness. You deserve someone like him.”
“Hush,” Emily said again.
“I wanted to believe that somehow you would be invulnerable to all this. That you’d be armored by that wondrous common sense of yours. But it was a foolish thing to believe. It will ruin you just as it’s ruined me.”
“You’re not going to ruin me,” Emily said. “Keep your chin up, Dreadnought Stanton. It’s always darkest before the dawn, right?”
“Now I know you’ve been reading my textbooks.” He smiled, closing his eyes and holding tight to the arms she held him with. Within a few minutes, he was asleep, breathing deeply.
“Oh, my poor love,” she said, pressing her lips to the top of his head. “My poor, martyred love.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Dawn and Darkness
The next morning she woke before he did, stirring from dreams of frenzied reporters and rifles. His warm body was stretched out beside her. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed was that the dawn was very bright. She raised a hand to her eyes, wondering if the stained-glass window had given up entirely and the sun was beaming down on them through the empty frame. But then she realized that it wasn’t the summer sun glowing so brightly. It was Stanton, sleeping peacefully as a cherub.
He glowed as if lit from within. She sat up abruptly, staring down at him with astonishment. The clothes that had hung off him limply the night before now fit with perfect detail. He looked as if he had just gotten back from a month at a celestial spa drinking tonics made of starlight. Emily looked around the office. The wreckage of the night had vanished completely. The stained-glass window was whole and unbroken, colors streaming through it like individual elements of an extravagant promise. Every bit of plaster was in its accustomed place, gilt glittered madly, and it even seemed that a phantom cleaning crew of renewed power had taken a duster to the shelves and a broom to the carpet.
Beside her, Stanton sat up with the swiftness of a man waking from a nightmare. He looked around, blinked three times, and then looked at Emily.
“Am I dead?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I don’t think heaven is this garish.”
Grinning, he took her face in his hands and kissed her—a bright celebratory kiss. After having been apart so long, Emily found herself moving in ways that ensured celebration would quickly give way to something far more intimate. Before it could, however, the office door flew
open with a bang.
“Mr. Stanton!” Rose burst in, waving a sheaf of newspapers. Breathing hard, Emily hastily climbed off Stanton’s lap, glaring at Rose. “Miss Emily, thank goodness you’re safe! Mr. Stanton rescued you from the clutches of those evildoers! I knew he could do it! Hooray for Mr. Stanton!”
“Yes,” Emily muttered, pulling up the neck of her dress. “Hooray for Mr. Stanton.”
“Good morning, Rose.” Stanton had stood, and was brushing dust from his coat, even though there was no dust to be brushed. Rose, staring at him, dropped the bundle of papers she was carrying. Then she reddened and hastened to pick them up.
“Oh, me and my butterfingers! We can’t have a mess, not when everything looks so … so wonderful now!” Rose looked up, eyes beaming around the office. “It’s even more beautiful in here than it ever was!”
Stanton reached down to help Emily to her feet, his thumb stroking her palm suggestively. The touch sent a shiver up her arm.
“Rose, run along and fetch us some coffee and a big breakfast. I’m famished. Are those the morning papers?”
Mute, Rose offered the papers to him with trembling hands, then hurried out. He took them to his desk and spread them out. Emily looked at them over his shoulder, bringing up her good hand to twine her fingers in his hair. How had she never noticed how soft it was?
“Dreadnought Stanton’s Fiancée Refutes Scandalous Allegations,” read the first headline. It was accompanied by an above-the-fold engraving of her, posed in a modest and demure posture she couldn’t remember having assumed. “Dreadnought Stanton Rescues Fiancée from Foreign Attack at Fifth Avenue Hotel,” read another. “Dreadnought Stanton Defies All Odds to Rescue His Love from Clutches of Bloodthirsty Slavs.”
They all carried some variation on this theme; the headlines were all on the front pages, and they all carried pictures of engravings of Emily in idealized detail. Stanton’s eyes quickly scanned each of them, but it was a paper at the bottom of the pile—a sober, serious paper with only a few very small illustrations—that he lingered over. It was The New York Times.
