The Fire in the Glass

by Jacquelyn Benson

  The walls were completely covered in long lengths of black curtain. Small windows set into the gables illuminated the space remarkably well, the light dancing with motes of dust suspended in the air.

  Then she noticed the ceiling and gasped.

  It was painted.

  The entire, enormous expanse of it was covered in an elaborate mural, done in rich tones of blue and gold.

  The style was Egyptian. It consisted of hundreds of figures. Some were immense, stretching for ten feet or more across the plaster. Others were minuscule, forming armies of tiny bodies. There were figures ruling from elaborate thrones, or plowing the earth, or poling featherlight boats down blue rivers.

  Animals marched side-by-side with gods, their skin hued ivory or earth-toned or vibrant lapis blue. Scorpions danced with snakes and jackals. A baboon held an slender pen delicately in his hand, poised above the white surface of a scroll. A woman with a profile marked by strength and determination held a winged scarab over her head, surrounded by both the living and the dead.

  Woven through all of it were the stars—hundreds upon hundreds of shining silver stars.

  It was Egyptian, but not, the renderings both more abstract and more alive than what Lily had seen of Egyptian art in journals or encyclopedias, or in the halls of the British Museum.

  “The ceiling of the Temple of Hathor at Dendara,” Ash said quietly from beside her. “Scholars believe it is most likely some kind of astrological chart. A depiction of the influence of the stars over the destiny of gods and men. Not an exact replica, of course. She took some liberties with it.”

  “Your wife painted this?”

  “Yes.”

  There must have been thousands of figures, each with its own distinct personality and character. Creating them would have been an immense undertaking, all while bent over half-backwards or suspended like Michelangelo under the Sistine Chapel.

  But this masterpiece wasn’t appreciated by endless crowds of worshipers. It was locked away in an attic where only the dust and forgotten things gazed upon its wonder.

  “Why?” Lily demanded. “Why would she do this here?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted softly.

  There was a tired sadness in his words that struck at her viscerally.

  It was the woman he had loved who had made this, a woman who had been lost to him for thirty years.

  “There is more,” he added, before she could think of the right way to respond.

  Her attention shifted to the black curtains that covered the walls, yard upon yard of dark fabric hanging still and quiet around the periphery of the room. It gave the space a funeral feeling, like the viewing chamber at a wake.

  Her skin crawled. As much as she was still awed by the starscape on the ceiling, Lily began to wonder if perhaps she should never have climbed the attic stairs. The space around her felt like a sarcophagus should be resting in the center of it. It was a tomb.

  “Under the curtains?” she asked.

  “Her last work,” Ash replied.

  The silver stars twinkled over her head as Lily absorbed the enormity of it . . . and realized why she was here.

  Ash had hinted at this before, the first day they met in the quiet gray light of the reflection room. He had told her then that he recognized Lily from his wife’s last painting—a piece that had been completed years before Lily was born.

  But this was no simple canvas in a frame. Under those curtains lay a painting the length and breadth of two enormous townhouses.

  What did all that dark, shadowy fabric conceal?

  Lily was not entirely sure she wanted to find out.

  “Why is it covered up?”

  Ash approached the wall. He brushed his fingers over the black cloth, which danced in response.

  “Because it is not easy to see. When she painted this . . . her art and her power had reached their greatest intimacy. It represents what she was at her most complete, and that makes it . . . challenging.”

  “Her power. What was it?”

  “I have told you about the force I believe drives your visions.”

  “You mean fate.”

  “Evangeline could sense it.”

  The room seemed to grow bigger around her and more cold, like the space between the stars.

  “I don’t understand,” Lily replied.

  “Your eyes are organs that translate light into image. Your ears turn waves of sound into song. My wife possessed an organ that was tuned to the relationships of meaning between all things. The manner in which people and objects and events are connected not by the laws of physics, but by significance. That is what her art was, Miss Albright,” he explained, his voice patient but heavy with old pain. “Her attempt to translate that sense into something the rest of us could perceive.”

  The black curtains seemed to grow heavier, more substantial. The notion of what they hid felt something like a threat, even as nebulous as it was in Lily’s mind . . . or like a very dangerous promise.

  “So whose fate is this?” she asked, taking in the whole of the enormous, empty room.

  “Mine, perhaps. Yours. Maybe all of ours.”

  The cold of the space was beginning to sink through the fleece of her coat, finding its way into her bones. It was also far too still in the attic, that tomb-like atmosphere taking on an oppressive weight.

  “I want to show you part of this work. Are you willing to see it?” Ash asked.

  She was afraid. It made her turn defensive, scrabbling for nonchalance in the face of something that was so clearly and undeniably extraordinary.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” she tossed back.

  Even Lily could feel how hollow the words sounded in the face of those yards of black curtain with the secrets of the entire sky spilled out over her head.

  He crossed the room to the center of a long stretch of unbroken wall, moving unerringly to a seam in the fabric.

  He pushed it apart, exposing the work underneath.

  Lily gasped.

  The colors were stunning, bolder than life. Red and green danced with purple on a background of the darkest midnight blue, all threaded through with gold. The figure of a woman was depicted there, with flames in place of her hair and eyes of cold silver. She held a staff in her hand. It sprouted branches covered in sharp green needles and crimson berries, marking it as a yew. It looked dangerous and alive, full of potential.

  The shadow of an older man fell behind her, his face turned away, making him unrecognizable. It was lined with shame and grief. A tarnished crown sat on his head.

  Behind that were the doors.

  There were hundreds of them, of every imaginable shape, style and size, layered over each other to form a maddeningly complex puzzle.

  Each one was cracked open, letting a thread of gleaming light spill through.

  On the woman’s gown, in crimson and gold, the rippling silk was marked with the forms of a thousand golden keys.

  At her right, just visible beyond the edge of the black curtain Ash held in his hand, Lily glimpsed part of another figure.

  It was only a hand, encased in a gauntlet of shining black steel. It extended toward the woman with the flaming hair, almost close enough to touch—but not quite.

  Something about it compelled her, dared her to see more—a dare she felt a desperate desire to fight.

  There was a banner under the woman’s feet, just like the one Evangeline Ash had held in her hand in the portrait in the Carfax Gallery.

  The Prophetess

  No, she thought instinctively, fear washing over her. This wasn’t her. It couldn’t be her.

  The figure on the wall was powerful, a veritable goddess. She was the center of a universe of significance.

  Lily was a creature of the periphery. She had always been a half-step to the outside.

  Her mother’s relationship with Lord Torrington. The finishing school. The world of Drury Lane, where she had been accepted thanks to her pedigree but always viewed as something sligh
tly other, something that did not entirely belong.

  Ash had made a mistake.

  And yet . . . the yew in the figure’s hand, like the wood that made up Lily’s walking stick. The sawdust that covered the floor under her feet, which weren’t clad in delicate slippers, but in sturdy brown leather boots, much like the ones on her feet right now, which she wore for riding her Triumph.

  And there in the corner, almost lost in the shadows under the crowned figure at her back . . . a pool of blood and jewels glittering in the darkness.

  Like the paste gems that had scattered across the pavement when her mother had fallen to the knife of a thief.

  The stars overhead were spinning, the gods and kings waiting for her answer to some unspoken question.

  “What does this mean?” she managed to say, her voice like dust in her throat.

  “That you have a vital part to play in what is coming.”

  “And what is coming?”

  “I believe you are better situated to answer that than I am,” he replied.

  She looked to the rest of that enormous space, to the endless expanse of night-black curtain, hanging still as death over who-knew-what secrets.

  “What else is here?” she demanded.

  “A great many things.”

  With a reverent air, he slowly pulled the curtain closed over the image of The Prophetess.

  With the painting was once more hidden from view, Lily’s anger found room to rise.

  She hadn’t asked for this.

  What purpose did it serve? All it had done was pose a thousand questions, none of which she was capable of answering. She was left feeling as though she carried an even greater burden than before.

  How could she be so important and yet so useless? So powerful and so completely out of control?

  “What do you want from me?” she demanded.

  “I do not want anything from you, Miss Albright.”

  “Then why did you show this to me?”

  “Because she would have wanted you to see it.”

  “It isn’t me.”

  It was a weak denial, however forcefully she made it. Ash did not bother to refute it.

  She turned and stalked toward the stair, the need to leave becoming overwhelming.

  She stopped at the top, turning to face him again.

  “What I can do—it is an accident. Nothing but happenstance. It’s no use to anybody.”

  “Perhaps, Miss Albright. And perhaps you are far more than you have ever suspected.”

  Her temper flashed, threatening violence. She remembered herself before it lashed free. This place was sacred. It was the heart of a grief even she couldn’t claim to understand, a grief that belonged to the man who stood before her. However shaken she was by what she had seen here, she had to respect that.

  She needed to leave.

  “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  She did not wait for an answer. She ran down the stairs, leaving Ash standing in the center of that tomb-like gallery like an ancient monk in his dark robes, acolyte of some isolated and unwelcoming temple.

  TWENTY-TWO

  SHE WANTED TO HURT something.

  It was a mindless violence, wrapped up in the instinct to run from what she had been confronted with in Robert Ash’s attic.

  She contained it as she stalked down empty halls and grand staircases until she came to the familiar entryway with its marble Newton and battle-blazoned shield.

  Rattled as she was, even the grand scale of that space felt oppressively close. She needed air.

  She moved to the door at the far end of the hall and pushed through it into the garden.

  It was enclosed by high brick walls. Twisted branches and dry stalks indicated dormant shrubs and blossoms, still bedded down and sleeping.

  She breathed in the crisp, cold air, waiting for the pounding in her head to pass.

  It was nothing but the madness of a brilliant but disturbed artist. The woman’s husband, in his lingering grief, filled it with undue significance. The figure in the attic was not a representation of her destiny. It was oil and pigment on plaster. That it had felt for a moment like something more was due to the artist’s undeniable talent and the unnaturally still atmosphere of the room.

  She shouldn’t have come here.

  She kicked at the gravel of the path, then followed it toward the carriage house.

  She pushed through the door and stopped at the sight of a tall, thin figure crouching next to her motorcycle.

  “This is yours?” Sam Wu asked without taking his eyes off the bike.

  “I’m sorry for parking it here. I didn’t want to leave it in the mews.”

  “The 500 cc Roadster.”

  “It is,” she confirmed.

  Sam took a rag from his back pocket and wiped a line of dust off the engine cover.

  “They’ve got a 550 cc out now. It’ll run over 50 without an ounce of bother.”

  “I can imagine.”

  He stood, tucking the rag back in his pocket and adjusting his cap.

  “Still. Nice motor.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Need help getting it back outside?”

  Part of her wanted nothing more than to grab the Triumph and roar out of the mews away from The Refuge, but she had come here for a reason and now, unexpectedly, she found herself with the opportunity to pursue it.

  She wondered how what she planned to ask would be received. She had every reason to suspect the young man in front of her viewed her with nothing but suspicion and hostility. She wasn’t entirely sure she could blame him.

  He was also her best hope of executing the next part of her plan—a step that had to be taken for her to settle, once and for all, whether the hospital was a clue that might save Estelle or another damned distraction.

  “Actually . . .” she began. She was cut off by the creak of the door opening behind her, the light it admitted flashing off the chrome of the Rolls Royce.

  “Sam, have you seen . . .” Strangford stopped as his eyes fell on Lily.

  He was framed in the light pouring in through the doorway. There was something just a touch more disheveled than usual about his hair. He must have been riding, she surmised, then realized that the sight of him was trigging an unusually potent reaction somewhere inside her chest.

  She fought it.

  “Good afternoon, my lord,” she replied.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Sam raise an eyebrow at the strict formality of her tone.

  Strangford noticed it to. She could see the question it raised in his eyes, but it was not one he would ask aloud in front of the chauffeur who stood beside her.

  “I called on you earlier,” he said.

  “Yes. I got your card. I planned to return your call as soon as I was able.”

  The response felt lame.

  “Are you alright? Is there anything—”

  “No,” Lily cut in. “No, it’s all very well, thank you.”

  The dust motes danced in the still air of the garage, sparkling in the glow that spilled in behind him from the garden.

  Silence stretched, patently awkward, across the space where some other conversation should have happened.

  Sam cleared his throat, scratching at his hair under his flat cap.

  “I should go,” Strangford said. “The session opens at four.”

  The session at the House of Lords. Her thoughts flew back to the news she had learned from Roger the paperboy—that Lord Deveral’s arraignment had been scheduled for little more than a week away.

  Strangford was a peer. As such, he held a seat in Parliament and would be among those who heard it.

  “But if you need me—” he began.

  “If I have need of you I will be sure to let you know,” she cut in smoothly.

  She was exquisitely aware of the awkwardness of her words, of how inadequate they were to what had already passed between her and the man who stood in the doorway. They were a hand against his chest, pushing
him back. She told herself the distance should make him feel safer as well.

  Her effort did not go unnoticed. She could read the surprise and confusion clearly in his face, along with something else—hurt. He covered it up, wrapping himself in courtesy like a cloak.

  “Then I shall wait to hear from you.” He turned to Sam. “I came to ask if you had seen Cairncross.”

  “He’s in the kitchen with my gram,” the younger man replied promptly.

  “The one place I didn’t think to look. If you’ll excuse me, then.”

  Lily realized he was actually waiting for her to do so.

  She nodded, not quite trusting herself to reply.

  He turned to go.

  “Strangford,” Lily called after him, the name tumbling out of her lips.

  He stopped, looking back.

  She caught herself, reining in whatever impulse had prompted that outburst.

  “Nothing. Good afternoon.”

  His gaze lingered on her for a moment. Then he was gone.

  She found herself looking longer than was strictly necessary at the open square of the doorway.

  Distance, she reminded herself firmly.

  “Did you need a hand, then?”

  “Sorry?”

  “With the motorbike,” Sam clarified.

  Lily snapped back to herself. There was work to be done.

  “No. But I was hoping I might speak with you for a moment.”

  Sam’s expression shifted, a touch of wariness coming back into it. He walked over and closed the door through which Strangford had left, cutting off the spill of light.

  “I’m supposed to be seeing to the horses.”

  “I can talk while you work.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  He strode across the bay, passing the quiet silver shadow of the big Rolls and the black, looming presence of the carriage, its lacquer polished to a dark shine. A door on the far side opened into a narrow row of stalls.

  The air smelled of fresh hay and manure. The space glowed with a warm, comfortable, animal heat. Two spacious stalls held the chestnut and the bay Lily remembered from their trip to Abney Park.

  They whickered as Sam came in, tails twitching. He plucked a brush from a rack on the wall and opened the first stall. He moved inside and began working the bristles through the bay’s coat.