‘Was not Mr Riven I was meant to protect you from!’ Chalice wailed back. ‘I was to protect you from bloody Bellis Riven!’
After Chalice followed her unexpected disclosure with a little sob that was less sadness and more relief that she didn’t have to pretend any more, the stormbride collected herself. Despite the seeming ridiculousness of her statement Arden felt pity enough towards her contrite traitor that she returned to the outdoor fireplaces and put the kettle on the stove. She bid that Chalice sit near the fire.
‘So, if I have a cat-fight and roll around in the dirt with Jonah’s wife you’re to jump in and rescue me, then? She going to return and gossip about me to Mrs Sage in the market place, hmm?’
Chalice did not take kindly to mockery. ‘It is no laughing matter. Bellis is not to be trifled with.’
‘Ah, so she can manage herself. Mr Riven is not needed for her protection at all. For a moment Mr Lindsey almost had me fooled.’
Wearily, Chalice shrugged. ‘I was not privy to such detail. Mr Lindsay gave me my duties and I did them as he asked,’ Arden said bitterly. ‘Humiliated myself. Forced by loneliness into love with a man who cannot love me back. But Mr Riven’s wife is oblivious to my existence and I am as much concern to her as a butterfly flapping its wings on the other side of the world. So elucidate me on your cry of protection.’
Chalice swallowed, and spoke. ‘You asked me once why the Eugenics Society allowed Bellis to stay in Vigil after she was tested sanguis petrae.’
‘I did. Some guff about this being Fiction, and not Lyonne. And Mr Lindsay spun me a tale of gentle nurturing. But that wasn’t the reason, was it?’ She sucked a breath and recalled the words from Mr Riven’s mouth. There are exceptions.
‘No. It wasn’t the reason. The Society didn’t know what they wanted to do with Bellis once they realized what talent she really had.’
‘So. Your golden princess had a good old Fiction shadow.’
‘Sanguis petrae was the shadow. By her main talent, she trammelled something else.’
Though Arden had been told so much already, a fresh chill came upon her. Something else. The thing that made Bellis different. That kept her from going to Lyonne. That made her dangerous to Arden somehow, that she needed a Lion chaperone. ‘Spit it out then. What did she have?’
‘A thing so awful, that even the Society fears it, but wants very much as well. There have been many mutterings behind closed doors that I am not privy to.’
‘A thing so awful,’ Arden repeated dryly. She recalled her last witnessed dock accident with the sanguis inertiae and the careless worker who had walked into the halo of blood-forced air. Died so suddenly there had been no blood when the inertia tore him to pieces a second later. She’d spent an hour chasing off the stray dogs attempting to run off with body parts, while at the same time trying to calm the stunned young man who’d had his first fatality but not his last. ‘A thing so awful to keep her here.’
‘You think of death, Arden, but there are things that are worse. A thousand times worse! The Society were content for a while to leave her in the Sainted Isles. But a year ago a message came from our deepest agents. Something’s happened to her. Something bad. They needed Mr Riven’s assistance desperately. That’s all I know.’
‘Why not send the Lyonne Navy and protect Bellis Riven with a thousand guns and cannons if she’s so bloody vulnerable?’
‘Because she doesn’t need protection. She needs control. Because Jonah Riven was able to bring her back under sufferance before, he could do it again. It’s not her safety he brings at all, it’s her compliance.’
Arden breathed in a huge angry lungful of salt air. ‘On. Oh. So there it is. Bellis is too independent for the puppet master’s strings.’
‘We will all be puppets, if by chance Bellis gets your blood. Because those jars are heading towards her now, with a bunch of Clay City Hillsiders with not an ounce of sense to call their own.’
Arden waved her off. ‘Dim ignis blood is of no value to anyone. Why would it be of value to Bellis?’
‘You are sanguis malorum,’ Chalice said flatly.
‘Well yes, but—’
‘You are sanguis malorum in a family who have never, not once, bred without strong sanguine endowments, not even your priestly cousin for all he tried to hide it. Instead, your flame is scant. How does that happen? Whoever heard of a dim Beacon?’
‘Stop.’ Arden’s voice was cold as her fire. ‘Hush now, Chalice. I saw your face when you realized my blood had gone away with the Tallwaters. Even pure ignis serum would not inspire such terror.’
Chalice’s cheeks were almost as red as her hair, and she cast a guilty glance in Arden’s direction. ‘Am I not allowed to speak?’
‘I know what you are going to say. You will suggest to me that I too have a shadow, and this concerns you, as I am now in danger of whatever lies over that horizon. And I will reply, if I did have another endowment, it would have shown up in testing long ago and the Eugenics Society would certainly have put it to laborious use. But they didn’t, because what I have is useless.’
Chalice looked at her, bleak. ‘Would you like to know what it is you have?’
Arden snatched up a cloth and put the whistling kettle aside. Its strident cry faded to splutters. A heaviness in her. Grief, almost. She had suffered muchly being sanguis malorum, dim of light, but at least the little fire she had was a Beacon expression, a pure talent in an honourable ancestral line measured in centuries. She had been content, with her small blue flame, her skerrick of sanguinem ignis, she could call it her own.
Now even that confidence was muddied by the threat of a shadow, power cut in half, less than the sum of her parts. Her future dreams of work and meaning were corroding before her eyes. She was corroding.
‘No, Chalice,’ Arden said. ‘I don’t think I want to know. Because you are saying that my shadow endowment was never of any value to me or the Society, but of great use to another person more cherished than me, more loved and more free. To think my blood will give her freedom, but only commit me further into servitude … it hurts beyond meaning.’
‘Darling you have …’
‘No, don’t say a single word.’
Chalice’s translucent skin crimsoned. ‘If Bellis receives your blood, she will want to know its source Arden.’
‘The Sainted Islands cover an area as large as Fiction. There would be tens, hundreds of thousands of prospectors and indigenes there right this minute. How in all the wide expanse of ocean is my blood going to land in one missing woman’s lap?’
‘Postmaster Harrow knows his daughter is out there.’
‘Excuse me? Postmaster Harrow yesterday spent ten minutes cursing Jonah for harming her!’
‘But not for murdering her, am I right? That man steams open every letter and correspondence that comes in or out of this town. He listens on the telegraph every night. I don’t care if Gertrude Modhi says she wrote to the Lyonne Offices in code for twenty years, a child could crack those missives. Everything we know, he knows!’
Chalice stood up, and pointed an accusing finger across the waves towards Vigil. ‘Mr Harrow labours under the belief of the dutiful, battered daughter, fleeing from her cruel husband. He will trust that Bellis does not yet dwell in the abyssal court of the Deepwater King. He would have told the Tallwaters how to take your blood and how to find her.’
25
No
‘No,’ said a third voice.
They’d been so wrapped up in their private exchange, they had not heard Mr Riven’s arrival at the lighthouse. By his face, he had heard everything. Arden saw his panic. She tried to head him off as he bore down on Chalice, fists balled.
‘Jonah, wait.’ Arden dashed between him and Chalice. ‘She hasn’t said she’s going to do anything.’
‘She’s Lyonne Order,’ Mr Riven rasped. ‘They’ve experimented and assassinated and ruined lives for centuries. They will not make a sinner of Bellis. I will not allow it.’
‘That’s not what—’
‘Arden,’ Chalice said. ‘Go back to the lighthouse. Let me deal with him.’
‘You don’t know Bellis, Lion.’ Mr Riven’s voice dropped to a growl. ‘You treat her as a mad thing needing control but you don’t know her.’
‘Oh, but we do know her, Jonah Riven. We do!’ Chalice shrieked back. ‘Jonah Riven, do not imagine for one second we believed Bellis’ sweet innocent face, her delicate lies, her mental fortitude against the endowment God cursed her with! From the very beginning we saw her true sympathies and you enabled that, you supported her through the flowering of her abominations. You!’
‘Chalice!’ Arden shouted, too late to stop the words coming out of the woman’s mouth, but Chalice, once started, could not be stopped.
‘Your monstrous wife will not be much longer happy out there shuffling around some deserted island like a castaway!’ Chalice continued at a wail. ‘She’ll not be content forever on the dregs of her power! She will turn her eyes towards Fiction, or Lyonne, and what will happen then? How deeply will her sin go? How deeply will it be your fault? More deaths upon your head, Mr Riven? More slaughter to your name?’
Mr Riven raised his fist, the whites of his eyes rolling in his face gone near-purple with rage.
‘I would not strike a woman,’ he said quietly, and if not for the cords straining at his neck he could have been giving confession at a church. ‘Or a man less my size. But you, Madame Lion, I will say it again. You do not know Bellis. Nobody did. She was a good person and you people treated her like shit.’
‘She would not have ever been in control of it, Mr Riven. Not ever, not even if she were a saint. Even you and your little healing tricks could not ever cure that wound festering in her mind. We kept her safe. We even let you out of prison so you would do your duty, and you still let her go!’
‘I want you gone from this promontory, Lion,’ Mr Riven said with such abyssal coldness Arden feared for his soul. No man could speak such banked-down fury without immolating on the spot. ‘And gone from Vigil. All of you. You have forced this evil upon Bellis.’
‘We will go only if you return to your wife and tighten the noose, Mr Riven,’ Chalice said. ‘Oh, don’t whine that you’ve made a promise to stay here and leave her to her mendacities. Search your heart. You have felt it this last month, haven’t you? Felt your longings sharpen, your desire for healing focus. Ever since we brought Arden Beacon here, and have you for once wondered why?’
Mr Riven’s harsh gaze landed on Arden. He’d acknowledged much the same to her in Miss La Grange’s boudoir.
‘I never said anything,’ Arden protested. ‘I don’t know what is going on!’
Mr Riven winced as if she’d betrayed his secret. He was a man in despair. Arden wanted to wrap her arms around him and take him down from that terrible precipice. I did not mean for this to happen, whatever this is.
She saw the decision in his face, the making up of his mind.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Jonah, no. Don’t go to Bellis, please.’
‘I need to warn her. That blood of yours is a poison.’
Bleak and cold, he turned to leave. His strides outmatched hers. It took a while before she could catch up.
‘Jonah. It’s what the Lions want. To use you.’ Her breaths came in short gasps. ‘They would make a slave master of you.’
‘Or will you be the master? You’ve influenced me. Somehow. I heard Miss Quarry say it. A wicked influence in your blood that Bellis must not get. Well, then. Go. Go find your safety. You’ve done enough damage.’
His rejection struck her as a blow. She wanted to protest her innocence, but he moved too fast to catch up, and she had to stop to catch her breath.
She barely noticed Chalice sliding alongside, speaking low and insistent.
‘Arden, it is time. Mx Modhi has a boat ready.’
‘No, Chalice. Don’t speak to me.’
But the woman spoke despite Arden’s insistence. ‘Your watch here is ended, darling. We played with the fire of your shadow endowment, but we underestimated the risks of your presence when Bellis Riven was so close. Let us deal with the remains. Go on back to Vigil with Mx Modhi now, and back to Clay. You’ll get your Guild degree, I promise. You’ll get your airshipman lover, or any other thing you want.’
The words broke the spell. Arden turned to Chalice. ‘You knew what was offered?’
‘Yes.’
Arden held up a fist, clenched, daring her to come closer.
‘Am I so easily manipulated, you Lion witch? Are these my strings? Well, I cut them now! They are cut!’
‘I—’
‘I’m not going home. And her name is Bellis-damn-Harrow. She is not a Riven. The marriage was a sham all along, and Jonah’s just too damn honourable to realize it.’
Arden broke away and began to run. Chalice struggled to keep up. ‘Wait, Arden, where are you going?’
Arden whirled, snarling. ‘To stop him from doing something stupid. Whatever mendaciousness is going on here, he doesn’t deserve that infliction.’
Arden didn’t wait to hear Chalice’s blessing. She hefted up her skirt hem and ran after Mr Riven.
‘Jonah,’ she yelled. ‘Jonah, wait.’
The urgency of her footsteps made him slow down.
‘What is it now?’
She gasped cold air, her lungs burning. ‘Yes, there is something wicked in my blood. It was kept from me too. But we can still get the blood-jars back before they get anywhere close for any Islander to pick up. Whatever is in them, we won’t endanger Bellis by letting them near her.’
‘The Tallwaters already have an advantage of a day. It’s almost enough.’
‘If they’re trying to get out to the Sainted Isles in Fine Breeze, they’ll take nearly two days to do a trip that Saudade could make in less than one. You can get to them before anyone else does.’
‘You’d wager ten hours on your uncle’s boat?’
‘Fine Breeze handles like a bathtub. Lyonne Hillsiders cannot sail from one side of a canal to the other without getting lost. I checked the currents earlier, they’ll be pulled around the southern route, the long route along Tempestas. We have time.’
‘The southern route?’ His thoughts were so ferociously deep, even the air stilled around him.
‘Check my instruments if you must. They are never wrong.’
He released a breath. ‘All right. All right then. I trust your instruments.’ He ran his hand through his shortened hair. ‘We’ll bring David Modhi,’ he said. ‘I need another experienced engineman if I’m going to run Saudade at full speed.’ He turned and caught Chalice trying to make as unobtrusive an exit as possible. ‘And you have a few martial tricks up your sleeve I would wager, Madame Lion. Willing enough to use them on me, before.’
Cornered, she protested vehemently. ‘What, I’m not trained for that kind of fighting …!’
‘I don’t want that traitor coming with us,’ Arden said.
He was not finished. ‘Perhaps it would be best if you stayed behind instead, Mx Beacon.’
Even more untenable. Arden shook her head stubbornly. ‘No, three people against four adults is too much. You need my help. I will not stay behind. I’m coming with you.’
Saudade was already stocked from days of kraken fishing, and ready for a good week more. Mr Riven’s choice of crew, however, would prove harder to assemble.
Mx Modhi had words to say when she discovered her son had been given an offer to crew on board the black ship. Though most of her argument occurred behind the closed door of her now-floating harbour office, her disagreements rang loudly over the pier.
‘I’ll not have it, David. You’re not going to go with him.’
‘You’ve always hated him, Mother.’
‘I’m no fool. Disaster stalks that man the same way it took his family. He’ll be the end of you, David. The end!’
Arden swayed from one foot to the other, uncomfortable at hearing a private conv
ersation so openly. Would have felt better if she could have met someone’s eye and shared the awkwardness, but she could not bear to look at Chalice, and Mr Riven was in a world of his own, so all she had was the old dog, Chief, gazing expectantly up at her with his milky cataracts.
The rickety door flung open, and David escaped, wound up and fuming.
‘Get back here!’ Mx Modhi bellowed. ‘I’m not done with you.’
The boy turned to Mr Riven, hoping for a word of support. He only shrugged, midway between thrusting a brace of harpoons into a leather quiver. ‘You are eighteen years old, and a man. Your family discussion belongs to you, and the conclusion belongs to you.’
‘David,’ Mx Modhi warned from her doorway.
David turned about to her, panting with exultation. ‘I’m eighteen. I’m a man.’
‘You’ll be a dead man!’
She slammed the door shut.
Chalice rubbed her hands together. ‘Well then, now that that is agreed upon, I’ll, ah, leave Gertrude Modhi with some instructions on what to tell Mr Lindsay and we can be off.’
‘And get her to feed my dog,’ Mr Riven added. ‘If anything happens to me, her boy gets the boat. I have a will with the Black Rosette tavern keeper.’
Chills in her bones, and Arden tried not to linger on his words. Surely their journey would not come to that.
Once on Saudade, Chalice paced the foredeck, twisting her Order medal in her hands so it became a storm-spouse triangle, untwisting it to become the rose of the Order. David remained joyously active with his newfound liberty, running to secure the ship and lay the mooring ropes into neat coils.
After some barked commands to the youth, Mr Riven climbed into the wheelhouse to ignite the kraken oil engine. Blue sparkles coughed from the funnel. The side wheels churned through the water before the screw-propeller foamed up the water beneath. With the same dark, imposing grace of the creatures it hunted, the boat moved away from the dock, and at last they were in pursuit.
Monstrous Heart Page 27
