Iron Cast

by Soria, Destiny;

“It could still be a thespian,” Gabriel said. He gave Corinne an irritated look but kept the gun lowered.

  “Are you serious?” Charlie asked.

  No one replied. Even Ada was regarding him with a sudden unease. Charlie looked at her, perplexed, then shook his head.

  “Our first kiss was the day after we met, by the fountain on the Common.”

  Ada winced, and Corinne shot an accusatory glare at her. “You told me that was weeks later!”

  “It was an . . . accident,” Ada said.

  Charlie grinned at her, but before he could say anything, Ada reached up and grabbed his chin.

  “What happened to your face?”

  Charlie’s hand went to his left eye. Corinne hadn’t noticed before, but it was swollen and darkly bruised.

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “I just came to make sure you made it back okay last night.” He very generously included all of them in the statement, but his eyes flicked toward Ada.

  “Why wouldn’t we be okay?” Corinne asked.

  Gabriel had put away his gun, but a part of her suddenly wished he hadn’t. They had no way of knowing if Charlie had come alone. He’d never given them any reason not to trust him, but Corinne couldn’t stop thinking about those HPA agents, about how at ease they had been in the Red Cat, like they owned the place.

  “Let’s go downstairs,” Ada said.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Corinne said, but it was a useless protest as Ada was already pushing open the panel.

  Charlie didn’t seem surprised by the secret door, which meant that Ada had already told him about it at some point. Something Corinne intended to berate her about later. She glanced at Gabriel, who seemed uninterested in helping her dissuade Ada.

  “I’m going to circle the club,” he said. “Just in case.”

  It was a prudent precaution, but Corinne suspected he just didn’t want to be involved. He went up the half-flight of stairs to exit through the club. Corinne locked the back door and followed Ada and Charlie into the basement.

  Downstairs, once Charlie had convinced Ada he didn’t need a cold compress, Corinne was finally able to cut in. “Charlie, what happened last night after we left?”

  “I don’t— I’m not sure,” he said.

  He was sitting on the sofa, his shoulders hunched over. Ada sat near him, her eyebrows drawn together as she studied his face. Her hands were tight fists in her lap.

  “Was it Stuart Delaney?” Ada asked.

  Charlie nodded.

  “Friend of yours?” Corinne asked.

  He nodded again. “I was there when they took him,” he said. “We were leaving for the night, out the stage door, and they were there, waiting.”

  “Ironmongers?” Corinne pressed.

  “I don’t think so. It was two men in suits. No masks. One of them had iron knuckles.”

  His hand floated halfway toward his shiner in reflex, then fell limp.

  “I blacked out,” he said. “I don’t know how long. When I woke up, Stuart was gone. He’s not—”

  Charlie cut himself off and looked between them, his expression torn.

  “He’s not the first,” he said at last. “Carson’s kept it quiet, but there have been others in the past couple of months.”

  Corinne met Ada’s eye. She had to be thinking the same thing.

  “It had to be the two agents we saw last night,” Corinne said.

  Ada nodded, her fists tightening.

  “You saw agents at the Red Cat?” Charlie asked, lifting his face. “Luke doesn’t let the agency anywhere near his club.”

  “Has anyone told Carson that?” Corinne asked. “Because he seemed pretty chummy with them when he was taking their money.”

  “You saw him take money from them?” Confusion and disbelief swirled in Charlie’s expression.

  “Yes.”

  “I have to go.” Charlie stood up and reached for his hat.

  “You can’t go by yourself,” Ada said, standing with him. “Not if they’re just grabbing people off the street.”

  Charlie was poised to argue, and Corinne was prepared to agree with him, because he certainly wasn’t going to camp out in the Cast Iron indefinitely. Gabriel interrupted from the stairs.

  “I’ll go with you. It’s on my way home.” He looked at Corinne. “I’ll stop by Maury’s and be back in time for the dinner.”

  Ada seemed satisfied, which Corinne thought was a little hypocritical.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “So Charlie isn’t allowed to go by himself, but it’s okay if Gabriel gets himself snatched?”

  “I’m not a hemopath,” Gabriel said.

  Before Corinne could formulate a reply, he and Charlie were already halfway up the stairs.

  “He’ll be fine,” Ada said once the door had shut behind them.

  Corinne wanted to reply that she didn’t care whether Gabriel Stone lived or died, but that seemed unfairly harsh. It was also patently untrue. “Boys can’t manage anything themselves,” she said. “Least of all staying alive.”

  Ada’s expression twitched, but it passed so quickly that Corinne couldn’t tell if she was appreciative or unamused.

  “Speaking of which,” Corinne went on. “Where the hell is Saint? Why does he think he can run all over Boston while there are killers and kidnappers and God knows what else on the loose?”

  “I told you, he’s at the Mythic. He’s helping with the set.”

  “That’s hardly a priority right now, is it?” Corinne flopped onto the sofa, stretching out her legs and resting her head on the arm. “Besides, we’re mad at James and Maddy.”

  “Just because you’re mad at someone doesn’t mean the rest of the world is,” Ada said. She seemed to come to a decision and jumped to her feet. She disappeared into their room and reemerged seconds later with her coat and cloche.

  “Where are you going?” Corinne asked, scrambling to her feet.

  “I need to check on my mother. The HPA knows where she lives.”

  “Yes, because they’re trying to catch you.” Corinne was already headed to their room to grab her coat. She knew she wasn’t going to dissuade Ada, and she couldn’t let her go alone.

  “We’ll be careful,” Ada said, pulling her hat onto her head. “I just have to make sure she’s all right.”

  “It’s too bad Gabriel isn’t here to tell us how reckless we are,” Corinne said. She slipped into her coat and was pleased to find some kid gloves in the pocket. “I might actually agree with him this time.”

  At Corinne’s insistence, they took the long way to the apartment, staying off the more trafficked streets. Ada didn’t argue, but she thought the measure was unnecessary. All the white-slick roads were empty this morning. The snow was falling faster now, sticking to her eyelashes and blurring her vision.

  Corinne was hugging herself and skipping to avoid the denser patches of snow. She had always been better suited for sunshine and springtime. Ada kept her hands buried in her pockets. Melting snow was thick on her wool coat; and despite her hat, she was beginning to feel the dampness on her scalp. An umbrella probably would have been a useful thing to bring along.

  “I haven’t seen your mother in ages,” Corinne said. “You think there will be any of that bread waiting? I can’t ever remember what it’s called—pan?”

  “Pão.” Ada hunched her shoulders, trying in vain to protect her neck from the chill. She had forgotten a scarf. “Cor, my mom’s pretty angry at me. She might be mad at you too—I don’t know.”

  “Why?”

  “We had another fight. About Johnny and the Cast Iron. About what we do for a living.”

  Corinne’s lips were a grim line. Her hair was stringy with the melting snow, and thin rivulets ran down the contours of her face.

  “We’re just doing the best we can,” Corinne said. “You’ve done all this for her.”

  “That doesn’t make any of it right.” Ada’s voice was so soft that the fluttering snow drowned it out. />
  Shawmut Avenue emptied onto her mother’s street, and she could see the apartment building a block down on the right. Corinne started to cross the street, but an unfamiliar shape caught Ada’s eye and she grabbed her arm. The black, hulking car was parked across the road from the apartments. There was a man leaning against the driver’s side door, puffing on a cigarette. Ada didn’t see his face, but the hairs on her neck prickled. Corinne saw him too and cursed. She backed up and threw open the door of the nearest shop. Ada ducked in behind her.

  The shop had wall-to-floor windows, mostly obscured by artfully displayed bolts of cloth. Ada and Corinne huddled behind a violently magenta drapery and peered through the window. Once the man had finished his cigarette, he stayed where he was. He did open the car door at one point, but he only stuck his head in for a moment, then straightened back up.

  “It’s one of the agents from the club,” Corinne whispered. “His partner must be in the car.”

  They were definitely waiting for someone, Ada realized. She could see it in the casual sweeps of his gaze up and down the street. They were waiting for her. If she had come by her usual route from the Cast Iron, she would have turned the corner and walked right into them.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Ada and Corinne turned to face the clerk, a pale woman with a pinched face. Her hands were balled into tight fists at her sides.

  “Good morning, ma’am,” Corinne said, with all the genteel manners her aborted boarding-school education afforded her. “We were just—”

  “You’re not welcome in here,” the clerk said, but she was looking directly at Ada. “Get out.”

  Ada’s cheeks burned. It was a shame that never really got easier, burred as it was with anger and sorrow. The shop clerk’s hostility was the least of her worries, though. If she went back onto the sidewalk, the agents might see her.

  “Please,” Ada began.

  “Go on, before I call the cops.”

  Ada thought about the Haversham Asylum, about the basement, about the screaming inmate who had never returned. She wasn’t going back there.

  She glanced at Corinne, who nodded once.

  Ada started to hum, gently at first so that the melody wrapped around the woman and held her fast before she even realized what was happening. The clerk trembled, trying to fight it, but her face was already slackening. Ada eased smoothly into a song, a lullaby her mother used to sing. The words didn’t matter as much as the melody and the way her voice shaped and sharpened it.

  The disdain was gone from the woman’s eyes, replaced with a doleful weariness. Ada’s song guided her to the corner, where she sank to the floor and rested her head against the wall, half concealed by a cabinet of gaudy buttons and spools of thread. She looked for all the world like a child, curled up for a nap in the midst of a trying day.

  “Let’s go,” Corinne said once the clerk had started to snore.

  Ada followed her through the door behind the counter. The corridor in the back had only three doors. The first was a closet, the second was locked, and the third let out into an alley. The cold air tasted heavenly. They ran down the alley in the direction they had come, slipping and sliding on the accumulating ice. Corinne was laughing breathlessly.

  “That was the fastest you’ve ever managed it,” she cried. “Soon you’ll only need a few bars before they’re out like a light.”

  Ada didn’t reply. The woman’s hate, the fright from their narrow escape, and her own guilt roiled in her chest. Every time she used her talent on an unsuspecting reg, she told herself that she didn’t have a choice. Or that they deserved it. But it never seemed enough, somehow. She couldn’t get her mother’s words out of her head.

  I love you so much, but this is not how things were meant to be.

  Ada had always thought it was the justice system’s fault, for taking her father away from them. But what if Ada had been the one to ruin everything? What if the day she shook hands with Johnny Dervish was the day that the lives they wanted had been irrevocably lost?

  They ran all the way back to the Cast Iron, constantly searching for signs of the agents or their car, but the road and sidewalks remained empty. The snow had stopped, leaving the air peculiarly sharp and dry. The sky overhead was a blinding sheet of white. Other than the snow crunching beneath their feet, all of Boston felt like a silent, cavernous tomb.

  When they were a block away, Ada slowed down, pulling Corinne’s arm.

  “What?” Corinne asked, looking around anxiously.

  “Can we even go back to the club?” Ada asked, her own breath coming in ragged gasps. “What if it’s not safe?”

  “The Cast Iron is always safe,” Corinne said.

  “They won’t sit outside my mother’s house forever,” Ada said, sidestepping to avoid a slick pool of ice. “They’ll try the Cast Iron next. The lock on the door isn’t going to keep them out, and eventually they’ll find the entrance to the basement.”

  “They wouldn’t dare,” Corinne said.

  “Why not? The rest of the crew is gone. Johnny’s gone. Any protection the Cast Iron had is probably dead with him.”

  Ada could see how her words affected Corinne. She hadn’t wanted to say them, but there was no use ignoring it any longer. With Johnny gone, there was no one on their side. Corinne’s pace slowed further. Then she stopped. She turned to face Ada. Her hair was wet and matted, and there was a high color in her cheeks. Her brown eyes were harder than usual.

  “Where else is there to go?” Corinne asked. “The Red Cat? Down Street? All we have is the Cast Iron. It’s ours.”

  Ada had the urge to hug her, to comfort her, because she knew that Corinne’s ferocity was the only way she knew how to be brave. But Ada was thinking about Haversham. It was always waiting in her thoughts. In the snow it would be deceptively beautiful, the window ledges lined with white, the iron gates bold against the pale sky. Maybe all they were doing was delaying the inevitable.

  “You’re right,” Ada said. “There’s nowhere else that’s safe for us.”

  Corinne was either relieved or triumphant. She turned before Ada could tell. They walked the rest of the way back to the Cast Iron without speaking.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Gabriel arrived at the Cast Iron at five o’clock on the nose, lugging a garment bag with a rented tuxedo. Ada was the only one in the common room to greet him, as Saint still had not returned from the Mythic and Corinne had just decided only a few minutes earlier that maybe she should start getting dressed. He went to Johnny’s office to change. When he reemerged, Ada was surprised at how well the rental fit him. With the clean black lines and starched tails, Ada could almost believe that Gabriel was the sort of person who would be invited to a Wells party. The rental had even included a pair of shoes, polished so that the toes each reflected a pinpoint of light.

  Gabriel was pulling at the sleeves, his eyes downcast, and Ada realized with some amusement that he was self-conscious.

  “You look perfect,” she told him, though she wasn’t sure if that would make it better or worse. “Well, almost.”

  He had knotted the necktie with a four-in-hand, which Ada knew Corinne wouldn’t stand for, even though Corinne had never once managed to tie any kind of proper knot. Ada climbed off the couch and gestured wordlessly for permission. Gabriel shrugged, closer to helpless than Ada had seen him before. She loosened the tie nimbly.

  She had learned the skill from her mother when she was a little girl. Every morning Nyah had tied her husband’s tie, teasing him with the names of the knots, stealing kisses. Eventually Ada took over, standing on the edge of the bed, trying to sing along with her father in Portuguese. Sometimes her mother would sit beside her. She would hum and watch them both with her soft brown eyes, and Ada would wonder if she was studying them in the way she studied recipes, parceling out all the individual ingredients and trying to see how they made the whole.

  Ada tied a Windsor and straightened it with a touch of pride. She was feel
ing a strange sense of camaraderie with Gabriel tonight, maybe because of his assistance with Charlie earlier, or maybe because he was so blessedly stoic in the face of Corinne’s peculiar brand of temerity. Corinne didn’t tend to keep friends long, which meant that Ada didn’t either. She didn’t mind usually, but it was nice to know there were other people in the world who were, if not a match, then at least a challenge for her best friend.

  “I’ll bet your mother would have liked to see you in this,” Ada said, brushing off his shoulders.

  Gabriel’s lips wrinkled in a rueful smile. “I doubt it. She would say that my father and my father’s father were workingmen, and that was always good enough for them, so why isn’t it good enough for me?” He hooked two fingers under the collar and tugged absently. “She’d probably also ask why I felt the need to dress like a penguin.”

  Gabriel handed her two cuff links, and she palmed them, admiring the flourishes etched into the silver.

  “My mother thinks tuxedos are dashing,” she said while she pinned the cuff links in place. “She won’t admit it, though.”

  Gabriel smiled in return, a small, unfamiliar action. Corinne was making a racket in the bedroom, but there were no cries for help or breaking glass, so Ada assumed she was all right. She moved to perch on the arm of the sofa and cast an appraising eye over Gabriel.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  Gabriel said nothing, which as far as Ada could tell was as close to assent as he ever gave.

  “Why are you helping us? Why do you care?”

  It had been gnawing at her since the night they had found out about Johnny, when everyone else had left. Corinne took it for granted that Gabriel had remained, because the Cast Iron was everything to her and she couldn’t imagine that the same wouldn’t be true for everyone who passed under its roof. But Ada knew that few people loved this place like Corinne did, with her impossible, unquestioning tenacity. Sometimes Ada thought that even Johnny couldn’t be as devoted. For Corinne, it was something deep-rooted, stretching far beyond the Cast Iron’s role as safe haven, farther than its history in Boston, when the city’s artists—hemopath and reg alike—would gather around crackling fires upstairs and speak of Titian and Mozart and Kant, spinning ideas like golden thread, tearing down kings and sparking revolutions. For Corinne the Cast Iron was an unbreakable fact. Something that had always existed and always would.