by Zoë Archer
“Old friend of yours?” Cassandra whispered.
“Never seen him before.”
The door to the office opened and the man entered. Cassandra hurried after him, Sam close at her heels.
“Good morning, Miss,” the telegraph operator called out cheerfully as he puttered about the office. “And, uh, Sir.” The room now filled with sunlight, revealing the plain floors, the counter, the telegraph machine proudly displaying its modern convenience on a desk. The telegraph operator lit a fire in a squat stove and set a kettle on top. As he rubbed his hands to warm them, he turned to her. “So terribly sorry the lines were down yesterday. We’ll send your telegram this morning, though! Never known the lines to go down for more than half a day. Brought a friend with you this time, I see.” Again, he glanced at Sam standing beside Cassandra, unable to hide his disquiet.
“I need to draft a new telegram,” Cassandra said. She tugged off her gloves to take the operator’s proffered pen and slip of paper.
As she began to write, the telegraph operator cleared his throat uncomfortably and stared at Sam. Sam, catching the operator’s scrutiny, moved from her side to study the advertisements pinned to a nearby wall, seemingly intrigued by what he saw there. His alert posture and rigid shoulders told her he was anything but interested in a few scraps of paper touting the latest in wheat-threshing devices or ladies’ bonnets.
Cassandra peered up through her lashes to observe the operator. An expression of deep unease flitted across his jowly face, growing more and more apprehensive the longer he looked at Sam. But what was it about Sam that so disturbed this very ordinary man? Sam had been careful to hide the tear in his clothing, and he certainly did not look like a disreputable character. If anything, Sam radiated military bearing. His authoritative presence should be reassuring. Yet something, some…uncanny aura around Sam troubled the operator.
She hurriedly finished her telegram and handed it to the telegrapher. He started, as if surprised to find her there, then read it through.
“You sure you want to send this, Miss? It seems a lot of nonsense to me.”
Precisely. All written communication between Blades had to be encoded. “Yes, please do send it exactly as it’s written.”
He shrugged as he sat himself down at the telegraph. With her message propped up at his elbow, he began to tap the key. He frowned down at the machine, then tapped the key again. Still frowning, he rose and checked the wires running from the telegraph.
“What’s the matter?” But Cassandra already knew.
The telegrapher shook his head. “I just don’t understand it, Miss. The lines have never been down this long. There’s no accounting for it.”
Cassandra suspected that there was, in fact, a clear reason why the typically reliable telegraph lines weren’t functioning. The Heirs of Albion were powerful enough to block them, particularly if they were trying to hide the movements of one of their men. She fought a shiver—aside from seeing Broadwell earlier, she’d had but one other encounter with some Heirs, and that had been mercifully brief. But now she was beginning to have a truer sense what they were capable of.
“Perhaps you can come back later today,” the telegraph operator suggested. Then his gaze slid to Sam, grew uncomfortable again. She could almost hear the telegrapher’s thoughts, I hope she doesn’t bring him with her.
Sam had his back to the man, but he turned his head slightly, catching the operator’s tangible sense of agitation.
Cassandra put several coins on the counter. “I’ll pay now. Just send the telegram as soon as the lines are up.” Then she stepped quickly to Sam and looped her arm through his.
He tensed at her touch, but allowed her to lead him toward the door. “Good morning,” Cassandra called over her shoulder, and then she and Sam were out on the street, striding briskly away from the telegraph office.
As they walked, passing sleepy-eyed servants and delivery wagons, Cassandra held onto Sam’s taut arm. His crystal gaze snapped down to where her bare fingers rested on his sleeve. Flickering in those pale blue depths came the barest suggestion of longing, but it vanished before she could be certain.
“You shouldn’t,” he growled.
“Shouldn’t what?”
“Touch me. I repulse you. Just as I repulsed that bloody simp at the telegraph office.”
“You couldn’t disgust me, Sam.”
His eyes flashed, glacial blue. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
Cassandra stopped walking abruptly. When he tried to pull away, she gripped his arm tightly and she glared up at him. “And I don’t think you know who the hell you’re talking to. Me, Sam. Remember how you and Charlie used to hide when I’d try to tag along? I never let you hide then, and I won’t now.”
“This isn’t children’s games, Cassandra,” he gritted. He shoved his wrist into her line of vision, and she stared at the corded muscle and tendons there. “See something missing?”
All she saw was the strength of him. “No—”
“Look closer.”
She did, and then saw it. The stillness of his skin.
“No pulse,” he growled. He pulled his wrist away.
Aware of a maid and a crossing sweeper openly watching them, Sam tugged her into a narrow alley. He glowered down at her, crowding her against a wall. On either side of her head, he planted his large hands, and leaned close. Despite his size, his effective caging of her and the biting fury in his gaze, she did not back down.
“Don’t let your childhood fancies turn something rotten into a fairy story,” he snarled.
A quick burst of anger flared within her. “I never said—”
“Remember how I said that after Broadwell turned me and the other men, that our will wasn’t our own?”
She nodded slowly, anger dissipating, as a miasma of horror began to creep through her.
“The thing he used to transform us, it gave him power over us. We had to obey his every command. We were forced to do things.” His voice dropped into a harsh rasp. “Can’t…can’t even tell you what those things were. Don’t want those images infecting you. They were…repellent. Disgusting.”
Fresh sickness pushed through her. “Murder?” she breathed.
“And worse.” He fought against a tide of emotion, his mouth pressed tight. The column of his neck moved as he swallowed. “We were still at war, and we were still soldiers, but we went far beyond even the most depraved marauders. None of us could stop ourselves, no matter how hard we fought. Broadwell controlled us, and, for his own gratification, we could only watch as he forced us to violate all of humanity’s morals.”
Sam’s eyes squeezed shut as if to block the images that now seethed through his mind, his head hanging down. A lock of black hair fell across his forehead—just as it would when he was younger and bent over a particularly engaging book. Which she inevitably would try to snatch away.
But no book could ever contain what Sam must have seen, what he had done. Cassandra could not begin to comprehend what that must have been like for strong-willed Sam to have his will taken away, to be impelled to commit crimes not only against others, but against himself. An unbearable torment, but one that had to be borne, because there was no other choice. Dear God, no wonder he looked at the world with a cold, remote gaze. It had to be the only way to survive, or else be driven mad by memories.
Cassandra raised one shaking hand and placed it against his jaw. His eyes flew open and they both inhaled at the contact of flesh to flesh. Beneath her palm, his skin was marmoreal, hard and cool. Yet she also felt the tiny tremors that wracked him.
“It’s not your fault,” she said.
He sucked in a breath that he did not truly need. “Damned quick to forgive me,” he growled. “When I can’t forgive myself.”
She wouldn’t accept his self-reproach. “Broadwell did those things, not you. You said yourself that you had no control.”
Sam pushed against the wall, swinging away from her. He stare
d down the length of the alley, where two cats nosed the rubbish. Empty bottles, bones from someone’s supper, a newspaper. Such an ordinary scene from any little English town, so far from what Sam had witnessed—and done.
She knew then that she hated Broadwell, hated him in a way she thought she could never feel. As if she could level cities with her rage. This went far beyond what her mission entailed. What he’d done to the men of Sam’s company infuriated her. And what he had done to Sam turned her blood to fire. Broadwell had to be stopped.
“I broke free,” he said on a guttural rasp. “After about a year of that hell, I somehow broke the hold he had on me.”
Incredible. “If anyone has the strength of will to sever a supernatural chokehold, it would be you. Such an obstinate bastard.”
He snorted at her coarse language, but didn’t deny that he was exactly what she called him.
“You were able to fight back,” she said, stepping closer. She spoke to his broad back. “There’s your proof. No blame falls on you. It’s Broadwell’s alone.”
“Should have broken free of it sooner,” he muttered.
Now she was getting frustrated. He was so determined to punish himself. “Did any of the other men break Broadwell’s hold?”
“No.”
Cassandra stepped in front of him. “That kind of magic—I know something about it, and the fact that you were able to free yourself at all from it is bloody miraculous.”
He stared at her, and there was a tiny, nearly imperceptible gentling, even though his face lost none of its striking angularity. “I cannot understand you.” His voice was low, smoky. She felt herself drawn closer. “Why are you not sickened by what I’ve said? How can you bear the sight of me, knowing what I am and what I’ve done? Aren’t you horrified?”
“Make no mistake,” she answered. “Everything you’ve told me, it’s torn me open, down to the heart of me.” She curled a fist over the center of her chest. “Yet, despite it all, I know you, Samuel Acton Reed. I know you. And I’ll never turn away from you.”
“Clinging to the past,” he muttered, yet his gaze warmed.
Was she? Were her girlhood dreams manipulating her woman’s judgment? Perhaps she so desperately wanted the fantasy she had created in her youth, she willingly overlooked evidence that could shatter such finely wrought constructs. This man before her was not Sam, not as she knew him, and, by his own admission, he’d done terrible, ghastly things. He had been killed and rose again as the living dead.
And yet, gazing into his diamond-blue eyes, that seemed to yearn without knowing they did, the instinct on which she so assiduously relied told her no. He’d undergone the most profound change possible, alive, then dead, and then this awful amalgam of both. The things he had been forced to do…no wonder he had to cauterize his emotions. Anyone would have been turned into a true monster from such suffering. But not him. Not Sam.
“I’ve cut free from the moorings of the past,” she said, taking his cool hand between her two warm palms. “The current of the present has brought us together now.”
He stared down at their joined hands—his large and roughened from soldiering, hers smaller and slender, but stronger, she hoped, than they appeared. She inwardly grimaced to see slight crescents of grease under her nails, but she’d only just returned from inspecting a cotton mill when the Blades’ summons came. No time for washing up, she’d dashed back out the door.
If now he saw the grime on her hand, he didn’t seem to care. For a moment, his hand lay motionless in hers, but then, very slightly, his thumb rubbed against her wrist. A shiver ran through her, sparking sensation. They both glanced up at each other, and their gazes held with a new awareness.
They broke apart at the sound of a woman stepping into the alley and beating a rug. The woman gave the worn rug several good thwacks with a wire carpet beater, then stared openly at Cassandra and Sam with commingled curiosity and distrust.
Without speaking, Sam offered Cassandra his arm, and they both strode quickly from the alley and down one of the larger streets. The town was too small for their movements in the early morning hours to go unnoticed, yet she didn’t know where she was headed—not only in the street, but with the mission. She’d always had a strong sense of purpose, and being directionless now frustrated her. And the future of her mission wasn’t the only uncertainty. She glanced over at Sam, walking silent and tall beside her. This growing attraction between them created new mysteries.
Broadwell was on the move. She did not know where he headed. Communication with the Blades in Southampton had been severed. No one would be coming to her aid on this crucial mission. She had to plan her next step, and quickly. Every hour meant more distance between herself and Broadwell. But what her next step might be, she had no idea.
She and Sam walked without direction and without speaking. Yet she felt them both guided by an unknown force. When they passed a familiar storefront, they both stopped and stared at each other, recognizing something at the same time.
“This is the direction Broadwell went,” she realized. “Last night, when he rode out of town.”
“Pursuing him,” Sam said, “without knowing it. I’ve been chasing him for what feels like an eternity. It’s all I have, now.” He studied her. “You’re after him, too.”
“I’m supposed to track him,” she admitted. But after that, and without support from the other Blades, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do.
“Why?” When she did not answer right away, he pressed, “The magic that created me—you said you knew about it.”
“About magic of its kind, yes, but not whatever turned you into…” She searched for the appropriate word. “Into a zombie.”
His mouth curved into a wry, but genuine, smile. “I prefer the term ‘living dead.’ Less ghoulish.”
That smile made the kindled awareness within her flare higher.
She made herself concentrate on the topic at hand, not his extremely attractive smile. For half a moment, she debated whether to reveal the truth to Sam. Secrecy was always paramount. Yet if anyone could be trusted, and at any particular time, it was Sam, and it was now.
In silent agreement, they continued walking, tracing Broadwell’s path.
“The object that turned you into the…living dead,” she began, “there are more of its type. Not many of them can raise the dead, but they all possess magic. Some are stronger than others. Some are so powerful, they could destroy entire nations—or create them. They are known as Sources, and they are scattered across the globe. Wherever human civilization has taken root, you can find Sources.”
He made a soft noise of incredulity. “If you’d said that to me three years ago, I would have demanded you give me a taste of whatever you’d been drinking, and then bought the bottle.”
She smiled at that. “We both know the truth now.”
They approached some steep, treacherous steps that had been washed moments earlier. A fine place for a person to slip and break their neck. Cassandra used to run at breakneck speeds up and down the hills around her home, but she had been barefoot or in Charlie’s old boots then. Now, her dainty ladies’ boots could send her crashing onto her bottom, or worse, her head.
Before she could debate the safest way down, Sam took her hand from the crook of his arm and laced their fingers together. Down the steps he guided her. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, he slowly surrendered his grip, as if reluctant to let her go, their palms sliding against one another.
She took his arm again, but everywhere within her reverberated with his touch, his care. They continued along the street like any ordinary man and woman on an early morning stroll—yet there wasn’t anything ordinary about either of them.
“Unfortunately,” she continued, somewhat breathlessly, “there are people who not only believe in the Sources, but seek to find and subjugate Sources for their own gains.”
“Like Broadwell,” growled Sam.
“He’s a member of the Heirs of Albi
on.”
“Pompous name.”
She snorted in agreement. “And the Heirs only get worse from there. They spend their miserable lives plundering the world’s magic to ensure England’s primacy.” Her voice turned to steel with long-standing hatred. Seeing the way Sam’s jaw tightened at her words, he seemed immediately to share her loathing for the men and their objectives.
“How do you know about Broadwell, and these Heirs?”
“Magic, on its own, cannot defend itself. So there are people—a very few people—who try to protect it. They are called the Blades of the Rose. And I’m one of them.”
If pride tinged her words, she felt somewhat justified. What the Blades sought to accomplish was nigh impossible, because there were always more greedy, cold-blooded men than altruistic ones, yet that was part of what made the work of the Blades so necessary. And, she acknowledged only in the innermost recesses of her self, she truly liked the challenge.
“And that’s what you were doing outside the tavern last night.” Sam’s voice softened with wonder and, yes, a hint of admiration. “I’m not the only one hunting Broadwell.”
“My orders were to track him after he’d been spotted in the area. I was supposed to wire headquarters as soon as I confirmed Broadwell’s presence, and other Blades would head up to try and retrieve the Source he’d stolen. But the lines have been down for days.” She frowned in consternation. “Which means I’m on my own.”
Sam stopped midstride, bringing Cassandra up short. Yet he helped balance her before she could stumble. As she gazed up at him, she saw a new light in his eyes, one that had not been there an hour earlier.
“Even the most solitary wolf doesn’t hunt alone,” he said.
She stared at him, surprised yet again. This driven man was a hardened warrior. He also had carefully escorted her down steep stairs, yet did not treat her as if she were made of crystal. And he wasn’t alive, yet he made her heart speed. A mass of contradictions. But she liked contradictions, for in those undefined spaces one was no longer beholden to any rule or preconception. A person could find their true self within contradiction.
