Lost Crow Conspiracy (Blood Rose Rebellion, Book 2)

by Rosalyn Eves

  I shook myself and fished out Gábor’s letter, retreating to my window seat for better light.

  Thank you for sending Fräulein Dobos to me. She has been both sympathetic and helpful, though I cannot say that what we have learned has eased my conscience any. I hope to tell you more of what we learned when next we meet. Yours, Gábor

  I read the letter again, searching for—I’m not certain. Some words of love, perhaps, rather than gratitude. I read the signature over and over, tracing my finger over the Yours, wondering if Gábor meant it, or if it were simply a conventional closure. I had not spoken to him since Franz Joseph had interrupted him, and I could not help torturing myself with imagining he had witnessed our conversation just as Catherine had. What did his brevity mean here—that he was simply busy, or that he was trying to put some distance between us?

  *

  Sunday evening, after a brief reprieve from my confinement to attend church, I had just drifted off to sleep when I was awakened by a loud crack against my window. I lay blinking for a moment, trying to ascertain what I had heard, when a second crack sounded. I stumbled out of bed to the window, which faced the mews behind the town house.

  A pale face floated in the darkness just beyond the window. After the initial shock faded—was I still dreaming?—I recognized the face as Vasilisa’s and wrenched the window open. Oddly, it did not occur to me to wonder how she was flying: it seemed a perfectly reasonable thing for her to do.

  “I need you to come with me,” she said without preamble, “as witness.”

  I gaped at her, my mind still slurred by sleep.

  “Do not stand there looking witless. Come!” This last was said with an imperious hand thrust at me. Vasilisa was not wearing bells tonight either.

  I glanced down at the narrow street below my second-story window. “I can’t fly.”

  “Then it’s lucky I can. Come!”

  “Where?”

  “I must show you something. It is a matter of life and death to us.”

  Something in her urgent voice tugged at me. “I’m in my nightclothes.” A more formidable challenge presented itself: “And my sister should flail me alive if I left the house right now.”

  A spark lit Vasilisa’s eyes. “No, would she?”

  “I mean, not literally, but she would send me—”

  Vasilisa lost interest in Catherine. She flapped her hands at me. “Go and put clothing on, then come.”

  A powerful burning lit me. I had been confined to the house too long—I only needed a cause worth risking Catherine’s wrath. I stripped off my nightdress and pulled on an older frock. Vasilisa slipped a small stone bowl into her pocket—it looked like a mortar and pestle—and drifted into the room to help me fasten the hard-to-reach buttons at the middle of my back. I tried not to shudder when her cold fingers brushed against my spine, lingering a beat or two longer than was necessary.

  I followed Vasilisa to the window. She stepped onto the sill and I followed, crouching on the frame beside her. She grabbed my hand, and we stepped forward into the air.

  My stomach floated up as we dropped. I imagined Catherine’s shocked expression as the servants were called to scrape my broken body from the road. Then Vasilisa hauled me up behind her, with a strength I had not known she possessed. She wrapped my numb arms around her waist, and we flew through the warm summer air over the silent streets of Vienna, past the shuttered stores of the shopping district, over fountains glimmering in the half-moon light. St. Stephen’s Cathedral kept quiet watch in the distance.

  After the first rush of fear, I forgot myself in wonder, watching the miniature streets flash past, feeling myself in a fairy story. An old, remembered longing surfaced: the powerful ache I’d felt after seeing the world of the Binding for the first time. Hunger had shown me that world; now Vasilisa, Vienna.

  She set us down in an unremarkable street: a glance around the dimly lit space disclosed a series of darkened shops, a few medical establishments. Two figures waited beside an unmarked door: Borbála Dobos—and Gábor. My heart began thumping, and not simply with anxiety at being dragged from my bed and flown across the city.

  Vasilisa lifted her hand, and a pale light illuminated the door. She set her hand against the wood, and the lock clicked; then the door swung open.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “Dr. Helmholz’s laboratory,” Gábor said.

  “Come,” Vasilisa said. “You three must witness this for me. The Congress will not believe the report of a praetherian.”

  I followed her into the lab, wondering what the penalty was for breaking and entering. Suppose someone caught us?

  Gábor slipped beside me and took my hand. I clutched it, grateful both for the warmth of his presence and for the reassurance that whatever I had been reading into his silences was the product of my own fevered imagination.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked as the door swung shut behind us.

  “You’ll see,” Borbála said, her voice grim. “We think the doctor has been going outside the law in his research.”

  Vasilisa kindled a small light for us to see by. Her eyes glittered as she led the way deeper into the lab.

  In the front were several small rooms: a stale and stuffy sitting room with empty teacups still resting in a ring on a low table; a couple of rooms buried in paper and diagrams, books stacked haphazardly upon every surface. No wonder Dr. Helmholz had needed Gábor’s assistance: his writing was atrocious.

  At the end of a narrow hallway, we found a larger, much tidier room that smelled strongly of lye. A pair of plain tables marched down the center. Closed cabinets lined the walls, and an assortment of glass beakers and vials occupied the shelves above the cabinets. Some undercurrent in the air pricked my nose; even without being able to identify it, the smell set my teeth on edge.

  Vasilisa frowned at the work space and stomped back down the hallway to the nearest office, sifting through the documents until they snowed down around her in a paper blizzard. Gábor and I followed. The pages settled on the floor in drifts: nearly illegible scrawls in German, a half-finished drawing of a gnome, a more polished sketch of a vila that made me blush. I could not tell, from the pictures, whether Dr. Helmholz pursued his study of the praetheria because he despised them—or desired them. But some strong emotion had prompted the dark lines scoring the paper, nearly tearing it through in spots.

  “Bah,” Vasilisa said, dropping another sketch, this time of a creature of beast aspect, heavy lips curled back to reveal scimitar teeth. “I should burn this place down, but then we would not find what we seek.”

  “I think there is another door, in the workroom,” Gábor said.

  Vasilisa did not respond, stalking back into the large workroom again. She began inspecting the room, opening the unlocked cabinets, pushing at the locked ones, tugging at the shelves. I feared she would overset one and rain down glass debris on us, but she did not. Gábor released my hand, and he and Borbála began tapping at the walls between the cabinets. I hovered behind them, still not entirely certain what we were looking for.

  One of the cabinets groaned open at Vasilisa’s tug. I jumped, and a section of the wall gave way.

  The smell reached me first: strongly chemical, and underneath it a metallic note and the sickly sweetness of rot. My stomach knotted. I did not want to follow Vasilisa into that room. To witness, she had said.

  “Come,” she said, and the compulsion was back, tugging at my legs and my heart.

  I took one step forward, then another. Half a dozen more, and I was standing on the threshold of a secret room, fighting back stinging bile in my throat. Gábor and Borbála pressed into the opening beside me.

  Five tables, ordered in a line. And atop each of them a praetherian. Dead. Surgically neat incisions split them open, rib cages (or what passed for ribs) folded back to display the organs inside. Some tree-creature, with rings and cavities instead of organs. One of the light-creatures I had seen at the ball the night
the praetherian was shot, its skin now dull and lightless. Its shape was androgynous, its torso narrow where it met the arms and broadening to softness above the hips. A smaller shape was laid beside it, curled around itself like a newborn kitten. A baby.

  I staggered back from the doorway and fell to my knees, gagging. I knew, dimly, of unsavory scientific sorts who resorted to cadavers from grave robbers to study anatomy. But it had always seemed like a story one would tell to frighten children. This, I suspected, was much worse: where would one come upon praetherian corpses in the city? They would be difficult to find, far easier to create.

  Dr. Helmholz presented his findings to the Congress. This was the man the world trusted to give them objective information about the praetheria, so they could feel justified in shutting them away. He was not a scientist. He was a murderer.

  Vasilisa knelt beside me, her fingers digging into my chin, her bone-pale eyes piercing mine. “Witness,” she said again, insistently. A thin sheen covered her eyes—rage, or grief, I couldn’t tell. I suspected both. She dragged me down the row, stopping before each of the bodies in turn. “Witness.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  A trickle of sweat ran down my neck, itching between my shoulder blades. I fidgeted in my saddle, and Holdas snorted at me. Nearby, László shot me a look that might have killed a lesser man. I puffed out my cheeks, then released the breath slowly. A crow landed in the trees nearby and cocked its head at me. Not now, Varjú, I sent at it irritably. The crow had taken to following me the last morning or two, but I doubted László would approve of my new pet. The crow cawed loudly, making László flinch, before fluttering off.

  We’d arrived in the copse of trees when wisps of early-morning fog still hugged the grasses. Now the only hugging being done was the infernal heat wrapping around us as the sun crested overhead. A scout had brought word just after dawn of a rich carriage lumbering our way, but it was taking an eon for it to reach us.

  A new epitaph: Here lies Eszterházy Mátyás. He couldn’t wait.

  At last, like heavenly choirs singing, we heard it: the distant thudding of hooves, the dull creak of wheels.

  At a signal from László, we erupted from the trees, screaming and firing pistols into the air. The horses pulling the carriage shied back. The driver swore, then threw his hands up.

  László waved one of his men toward the carriage. The man yanked the door open, argued with the inhabitants, and then rode back to us, a purse fisted in each hand and a triumphant smile on his face. We returned home on a wave of energy.

  That night I joined a few of the others and László in a game of twenty-one. We played at the sturdy wooden table dominating the kitchen of the farmhouse where László currently camped. As the cards began to fly beneath a flickering lantern, my blood thrummed through me. It wasn’t the prospect of money, though the jangle of coins in my pockets whispered their own kind of lure. It was the game itself, the thrill of risking everything on a single card.

  I downed a shot of vodka purchased by that day’s spoils and thought perhaps the life of a bandit suited me after all. There was, besides the camaraderie, the thrill of riding up on a carriage—the heady sense of risk, of unknown challenges, the need to think quickly on my feet.

  It was very much like gambling.

  *

  I woke late the next morning to a pounding skull and an eerie quiet.

  I stumbled out of my bedroll and into the kitchen, where Bahadır sat alone at an empty table, reading.

  “There’s bread in the cupboard and tea on the stove.” Bahadır’s Hungarian was soft and gently accented.

  “Where are the others?” I poured some tea into a green-glazed ceramic mug and lifted it to my lips.

  “László sent some out scouting. Some of the others have gone to church. I believe it’s Whitsunday.”

  A flash of memory: hurtling across the fields on Holdas to win the Whitsun King crown, Noémi’s and Anna’s smiling faces as I crossed the line. I’d died before I could collect on my winnings: a full year’s free drink. I wished, with a furious, futile intensity, that I could be at Eszterháza again this year, riding Holdas in the race, quarrelling with the squire, teasing Noémi. I would never have that life back.

  I finished my tea and a thick slab of bread, then eyed Bahadır. The morning stretched long and empty before us. “Do you know what happened to the ring you took from me?”

  “László has it. I don’t know where he put it.”

  “Hmm.” I scratched my cheek, thinking. The Lady had kept me clean-shaven while I slept, but already a short beard had taken over my chin. The hairs were coarse against my fingers. “Do you play cards?”

  The boy set his finger in his book to mark his place. “Not often. My faith forbids gambling.” I had seen him a couple of times, early in the morning and at other times of the day, at his prayers.

  “What if we play without real stakes? How does whist sound?”

  Bahadır shut his book. “I know the rules. I will play you for a story.”

  The boy’s eyes were dark, his scar livid against his cheek. He surely had stories. And me? What stories would I tell if I lost? Would I tell him how I’d flown down from the world tree, where the Lady had brought me back from death? Perhaps I’d tell him how my cousin and I split the world wide with a spell when I died.

  Though the morning outside was bright, inside the farmhouse it was cool and shadowy.

  My stories were not safe. My blood began humming. “For a story,” I said.

  *

  I won the first several hands, and Bahadır told me his story. Or rather, he told me one of his stories. Even as his words spelled out one version of himself, of his life, I wondered what stories he was not telling—what other Bahadırs might coexist inside this slight, even-spoken boy.

  “My father was an ağa, a leader of the Janissaries. Do you know them?”

  I nodded. My history lessons had covered the Janissary soldiers, the magical-military arm of the Ottoman Empire. As the Islamic faith barred the practice of magic, non-Muslims (mostly Christians) with magic had been conscripted into the Janissary forces to help guard the empire against Luminate forces.

  “The Janissaries were nearly abolished in 1826, after resisting military reforms by the sultan. Cannons were fired at the barracks and thousands died. But not all of them. The sultan could not afford to destroy them completely, not with Russia looking for reasons to expand into Ottoman territory. My father was one of the men appointed to train up the new ranks, to keep them in line.”

  From the haunted look in his eyes, I could guess at what happened next. “He failed?”

  Bahadır nodded. “He was blamed for a failed coup and executed. As his son, I was to share his punishment, but I ran.” His fingers brushed the scar on his cheek.

  “How did you come to be a bandit?” I asked. “Isn’t thievery against your faith?”

  He met my gaze evenly. “Isn’t it against yours?”

  I laughed. “Touché.”

  Bahadır studied me a moment longer. “I was young, alone, hurt, and starving. It was winter when I reached the Hungarian puszta, and I lay down alongside the road. I hoped I would sleep and not wake. I did not think I had anything to live for. Ákos found me, gave me food and a place to sleep, money to send to my mother and sister. That was more than anyone else had done, so I stayed.”

  *

  One of the men did not return that night. At first László was irritated—the man had a wife not far from Debrecen. Probably he had taken unasked-for leave. He’d pay a small fine when he returned, and László would think no more of it.

  When another of the men reported that the missing man had been in company with them as far as the nine-arched bridge, László only laughed. “The fool probably stopped for a tankard or three at the csárda there. He’ll be home in the morning.”

  I could not shake a curious disquiet. Whitsunday. I had not forgotten what happened to Anna last year: she had been followed by t
he fene across a moonlit field. At the time, I had dismissed her stories as a girl’s wild imaginings, but I had learned since that Anna was not that sort of girl.

  I was not the only uneasy one.

  “It’s not a safe night to be out alone,” Ákos said, tugging at a red curl by his ear.

  “It’s a clear night, three-quarter moon,” László said, pouring himself another shot of vodka. “But you want to search for the blockhead? Do as you please.”

  Ákos was already standing, Bahadır right behind him. I sighed. I’d much rather stay in—drink some of László’s vodka, challenge him for my father’s ring. But my bones would not settle right.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  *

  The puszta stretched empty and white beneath the moonlit sky, a wind making the grasses tremble like waves on a lake. We’d ridden back to the csárda and found a crowded taproom but no sign of the man we sought. Now we were riding a widening circle around the farmhouse.

  A silent-winged owl swooped through the air near us, and Bahadır startled. For once, Ákos did not laugh.

  “This night is full of ghosts,” Ákos said.

  We rode onward.

  I’d kept my animal sense alert, feeling through the air around me for anything out of the ordinary. Most of the movement I caught was mundane: mice and other nocturnal creatures moving through the brush, the glide and sweep of owls hunting. But something wasn’t right. There was an absence, some distance to our left, where no animals stirred.

  I nudged Holdas toward the absence, and the others, after a shared silent look, followed.

  “Did you see something?” Ákos asked.

  “Call it a hunch, rather,” I said.

  As we drew closer, the sense of not-rightness intensified. There was something else too: something not quite animal. Not human either, as my animal sense didn’t register them. Something sentient.