Tempered: Book Four of The St. Croix Chronicles

by Karina Cooper

  I found the ribbon and opened the book to the page it marked. I could not gather my thoughts enough to place the handwriting, but I knew it was not my mother’s or my grandfather’s. As worn and beaten as the book was, it could have come from anywhere.

  Huddled on the floor, I labored to piece together the fragments of formula.

  When the nature of it clicked, as a key into a lock, my heart slammed.

  I could do this.

  With some effort, the result could be achieved. The symbols I did not recognize could be learned—yet even as I thought so, a whisper of memory came to me.

  Aether and opium. The first was marked by three triangles around a circle. Mr. Pettigrew had shown me that one.

  As for the latter, it was simply designated with a shortened lp, with the last letter given a bold underline. Lachryma papaveris. The tears of the poppy.

  Aether and opium. The very root of that formula that my father had attempted to force upon me.

  My mother demanded that I undo what Ashmore had done; I had thought she meant to confront Ashmore, defeat his villainy once and for all, and free her from this spiritual prison.

  This formula corrected my naïve assumption. It was not freedom to attend an afterlife she wanted, but the autonomy of life itself.

  I held the key.

  So be it. I would break this cycle once and for all.

  Ashmore’s willful lies. My mother’s deceptions.

  I could not be certain which of the two retained the most truth, but I knew neither could be allowed to continue as they were.

  A ghost and a madman. Always, such Gothic tales come down to one or the other. It seemed my particular story involved both.

  I needed to find the madman, at least; Ashmore retained flesh and body enough that if he would not help, he could be a dangerous hindrance.

  I turned for the door, but hesitated.

  Was I prepared to take on the man who had been there for me at my most vulnerable? I had trusted him. I’d thought him a lover, a man to help me ease from opium’s blissful succor, and I’d come to see him as something of a mentor.

  I might not be alive were it not for him.

  Did I have the strength within me to run him to the ground if he proved recalcitrant to my demands?

  I lifted my chin.

  In this, I would not prove the weaker.

  “Ashmore!”

  Sprinting out of the library, I called again for him. When I heard no reply, I searched his study, traveled the halls I knew, found the kitchens.

  I found nothing.

  I hurried up the stairs, the book tucked into my arm, and hammered on Maddie Ruth’s closed door. “Maddie Ruth? Are you there?”

  When I heard no answer, I attempted the knob and found it unlocked.

  Stepping inside revealed that she was not within. The room was dark, hearth cold, and the bed clean and unrumpled. I did not bother to peer behind the furniture, for the outcome was certain—Maddie Ruth had not been here for some time.

  Had I hurt her so badly?

  The lack of timepieces in this bloody manor was enough to drive a sane woman mad, and I still wasn’t certain that I was sane. That I ambulated about muttering of ghosts and alchemy was sign enough of my rattled wits. The house seemed to echo around me, offering no sign of companionship in its creaking depths.

  Had it been days since I drank down Ashmore’s laudanum? Hours?

  The haze had left, leaving a muddled sort of awareness behind, but I did not think myself so far gone as to still be dreaming.

  Did they truly leave me?

  I hurried to Ashmore’s chosen chamber farther down the hall.

  This, too, mirrored Maddie Ruth’s—dark and cold. The drapes had been left open, revealing snow as it drifted beyond the window pane. It was eerily pale, glittering in the night as such infinitesimal stars might should they fall from the sky.

  This was no sort of weather to be out and about in.

  Had I been abandoned so suddenly? His valise was not in view; had he taken it with him?

  Was that flask of red laudanum no longer here?

  Thinking of it brought a ball of need to my throat so large, it was all I could do to breathe around it.

  I wanted it. I craved it, the bliss it would bring me and sweet forgetfulness. That small sampling I’d taken earlier, for all it emptied half the contents, was not enough.

  Yet as I dug my fingernails into the charred binding of the book I carried, I remembered the look of desperation upon Maddie Ruth’s face as she’d begged me to reconsider.

  I had nearly killed her in my foolishness, and still she pleaded for my well-being.

  “Leave her,” Ashmore had commanded.

  So cold.

  Regardless, the secrets I untangled surely put my own actions to shame. Josephine claimed to kill her father to keep him from Ashmore’s hands, yet I could not fathom the cold-bloodedness required for such an act.

  Had she learned that from Ashmore? The man sired a line, utilized his own blood to advance his longevity. Few could be so monstrous as to sacrifice one’s own blood over and over.

  And still, I did not understand why he warned my mother to refrain from bearing a child. Did he want to die?

  I could not look at the bed where I had spent those hours. In all honesty, it was not the relations that bothered me quite so much. After three hundred years—a number that stuttered in my reasoning, for such a thing seemed so impossible—there was no concern of blood too close. By and large, many of Society’s kissing cousins were a great deal closer, and their marriages raised no eyebrows.

  Oliver Ashmore—Nicholin Folsham, I supposed—was certainly not my cousin, and we’d done so much more than exchange kisses.

  Was all of it the ruse it appeared to be?

  Shivering, I left Ashmore’s chamber and made my way once more down the stairs to the foyer.

  Every step ached. I had hoped that a taste of the bliss would once more turn my body invulnerable to such concerns, but I still hurt.

  I could not let it stop me. If I had truly been abandoned, I needed to know for certain. The only method that would reveal my circumstance was a visit to the stables.

  I could not imagine Ashmore leaving without his hounds. If they remained ensconced comfortably in the stables, then I knew Ashmore must be about somewhere—sulking, perhaps.

  Or seeing to Maddie Ruth’s injuries.

  With all my heart, I would make this up to Maddie Ruth ere this was done.

  In the murky light afforded by the raw ambience of the windows and the pale snow fluttering outside, I appraised the portico I had struggled so hard to avoid entering when first Ashmore delivered me to this frightful place.

  It was wider than expected, each panel made of oak and larger than I was accustomed to seeing in the forefront of any home. I had not visited any bucolic estates in my time, leaving me to wonder if it were simply a statement of wealth and flamboyance. Guests would arrive to the large doors, sweep inside and be greeted by the lavish dual staircase beyond.

  Tiny white fingers of ice and snow danced along the panes inset in each, though the faceted glass fractured the light into pale shattered moonlight beyond.

  Would I find naught but emptiness behind this door? A ghostly wail drifted from the dark and wintry moor, echoing a shuddering groan from somewhere behind me.

  Dreamlike in its being, I hesitated between two lonely worlds—that of the creaking mausoleum that had taken the remnants of my family and turned it all to shadow and dust, and the treacherous heathland covered in a blanket of glittering ice.

  Both promised isolation. Emptiness.

  Possibly even death.

  Instinct, driven and sharp as blades, demanded that I remain inside where it was warmer, safe. Were I to step one foot beyond the threshold, I knew without knowing how or why or even what that I would lose.

  I would lose something important.

  Rubbish, certainly, for there was no life for me here. Only ghosts
and a madman.

  The mysteries of the crumbling estate called Siristine had proven too much for me, after all.

  Bracing myself against the cold I expected, I seized the doorknob and threw the door wide.

  At the same moment, a wild howl arose across the night. Wind sheared through my gown, blew my hair over my shoulder in a fan of red. I shivered as icy claws dragged into my skin. The moor was hungry this night.

  Before my eyes, a figure covered in shards of sparkling white convulsed. Hunched, twisted, it unfolded like a thing torn between ice and shadow. Pale gray glittered in the faint light afforded by the drifting snow.

  Surprise and fear wrapped into a strangled noise as a long, thin limb lashed out.

  There was no glint of moonlight through translucent form, no sparks of ghostly power. What struck my temple was solid and real.

  I spun from the impact. My sight turned white. The book fell from my flailing grasp, to thud hard against the floor and fall open, pages fluttering in the wintry wind.

  I collapsed to the cold floor beside it, my suddenly numb fingers a mere reach from the threshold I sought.

  As I fought my shattered consciousness, the figure crept slowly into view.

  Filthy garments. Matted gray hair.

  Pale, owlish eyes.

  “I’m so sorry,” a voice said, a worried mutter. “Don’t be hurt, now. Don’t cry.” It bent to pick up the fallen book with spindly fingers and blackened nails.

  My lashes fluttered closed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The bright light bore a blue cast to it, edging away darkness and the smothering sense of heaviness I struggled to surface from.

  My head throbbed terribly, but not so much that I could not hear the shuffle of feet upon stone flooring. The same floor provided no pillow for my back.

  It smelled of stale air and gathered dust, as all things in this house did.

  I cracked open my eyes, only to groan as the brilliant blue-white light of the laboratory’s show globes seared through my sight.

  So I’d been carted all the way to the laboratory. I raised my hand to shield my gaze while I struggled to gather the rest of my senses.

  Discarded, as a broken toy might be by an absent-minded child, I lay unwatched and alone between two worktables. To my right, a series of flasks and spherical, long-necked retorts bubbled and hissed.

  To my left, mortar and pestle were left among an array of old books, each cracked open and left to dampen in the cold air. I seized the edge of the table to drag myself to my feet. In the mortar, gold dust glinted in soft sheen.

  Beside it, a squashed globule of brown tar caught my eye—and my senses.

  My fingers cramped against the table’s edge. My throat closed.

  I could think of so many reasons to reach for that opium. Sweet medicine, Turk’s delight, I could take a bite from it to ease the pain in my head, and to settle my nerves. I knew as inarguable fact that it would make that what I needed to accomplish so much easier—both to achieve and to bear.

  Guilt—my old, familiar companion—twisted in my belly.

  “Cinnabar and arsenic,” came a strained mutter. “Poppy tears, yes, yes. What is that? What is it?”

  I tore my gaze from the innocuous brown tar.

  It was to ginger hair that they focused upon first.

  Bold copper hair flown wild and swept back from pale skin. Blood, fresh enough to gleam in the unwavering light, stained the back of a torn shirt, crimson where the shirtsleeves met the blackened hem of a dusty waistcoat.

  Ashmore sat within the innermost ring created by the triple circles, his back to me and shoulders rounded. Beside him, curled around his hip as though dropped where she lay and left abandoned, Maddie Ruth lay in utter stillness.

  “Maddie Ruth!” My worry slipped from me, startled and shrill. The graveled voice muttering beyond the carved circle in the laboratory floor ceased.

  Ashmore’s shoulders stiffened, but he did not turn. Instead, a long, protective hand curled around Maddie Ruth’s shoulder.

  Still, she did not move. If she breathed, I could not see it.

  “Stop!” Porcelain shattered upon stone; a sound so loud as to send echoes like birds flocking for safe escape.

  I jumped, my heart surging with surprise and raw fear.

  “Awake, she’s awake now. We can begin, my precious girl, see?”

  I took a step towards the carved circles, but the muttering sharpened.

  “Wait. No. No, no, poppet, leave that one be. Dangerous, yes, dangerous.”

  Slowly, gripping my skirts in my aching hands, I turned to the wasted, gaunt figure beckoning me with hurried, secretive motions.

  His hair was stringy and gray, standing on end about a skeletal rictus framed by a matted beard nearly all white. His clothing hung on him, lashed into place with strips of other bits of cloth. His feet were bare against the cold stone, toes blackening at the tips. He looked a ghastly shade of gray, his skin stretched taut over his thin features. It mirrored the gaunt thinness of his limbs.

  His eyes sparkled. Pale as a cloudy winter sky.

  My penny dreadful tale now involved one ghost, two madmen.

  And me.

  Never, in any of my wildest imaginings, had I thought to face this man again. “Shush,” he hissed when I opened my mouth. “Little ears are all about. Come, come.” Begrimed fingernails gestured. “Come here, poppet, there’s a girl.”

  I glanced at Ashmore’s back, but he did not turn his head to regard me. He did not acknowledge me. Cradling Maddie Ruth’s motionless figure, he did nothing else.

  Why did he not break free of the circle as he once had before?

  “Cherry,” hissed the emaciated vision.

  My feet felt as though lead weights had banded to them.

  I could not let on my fears now. If I did, if I gave any thought to the conclusion I’d reached, I was afraid that I would betray my knowledge. I did not know if my mother was present, or if she simply occupied the flesh that was mine and claimed it when she could, but I strove hard to empty my thoughts.

  I filled them instead with a recounting of the Trumps.

  It always started with a fool.

  Taking a deep breath, I raised my chin, straightened my spine, and strode past the stone etchings with care.

  Silver glinted from within some of the carved symbols surrounding Ashmore’s prison. A bit of liquefied gold filled the channels, hardened now to a solid state.

  I wanted to prod at the designs, to peer at which had been filled with noble metals and which were left alone, but doing so might tip my hand.

  Not that I had much of a hand to play. Not yet.

  I passed Ashmore without a glance, though my foot came down in a bit of blood that squelched beneath my weight. The feeling this invoked was the same as if I’d stepped unwittingly upon a garden slug. Every fine hair on my nape lifted.

  I swallowed down a cry, compelled myself to approach the wildly beckoning creature.

  “Hello,” I said, coming to a stop not far from the outstretched hand. Forcing my hand to remain steady, gritting my teeth as every nerve within me demanded I run, I took his filthy, spindly fingers in mine. “Father.”

  Behind me, I heard Ashmore curse.

  The wide, pale eyes behind a curtain of grimy hair shone brightly as he beamed a near toothless smile upon me. Abraham St. Croix, or what was left of the mad doctor my father had been, furrowed his bushy gray eyebrows at me. “There you are,” he scolded, tugging at my hand as he pattered back to the table he’d abandoned. “You naughty girl, you made us worry so.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. It came harsh from my throat. Tears filled my eyes, but I could not let them fall, and so I cleared my throat and said with greater force, “I was delayed by Ashmore’s efforts.”

  A pop of violet light flared behind me. “Cherry, get away from here!”

  I turned, unable to help myself, and nearly faltered with relief when I saw Ashmore standing. The a
mount of blood saturating his clothing from the back had looked too large to indicate a small wound.

  His glower, his fierce fury, could all be addressed later.

  “Why did you come?” he demanded. The desperation upon his face tugged at my heart.

  I said nothing, unable to say the words that would brand him a traitor. If I offered encouragement, comfort, then it would betray my true intentions.

  I turned my back.

  St. Croix scoffed, a whispering hiss that I did not realize was laughter until I saw his emaciated shoulders shaking with it.

  I’d found the doctor and the alchemist, as mad as they came, but where was the ghost?

  “Father,” I began gently.

  He stopped laughing as though I’d pulled a switch. “What is it?” he demanded, abruptly irritable. His shoulders moved as that of a vulture or creeping bird of prey, thin enough that I could easily see the bones from the gaping collar of his too-loose shirt. “Why do you wait? Get to work, girl. All will be as it was.”

  The echo of the phrase he’d prattled on to me those months ago did not frighten me this time. Abraham St. Croix was not the man he’d been, even then when he was already quite mad. This was a frailer version of the doctor who had bound me, prepared to sacrifice me for the woman he loved. If he came for me now, even in my weakened state, I could handle him easily.

  Whatever he had gone through after being stabbed through the heart, whatever sorceries or alchemical mysteries had saved him, it had all taken too great a toll.

  I pitied him.

  I thought of reaching out to him, but he had made no move to touch me since dropping my hand. Instead, he busied himself arranging the bowls upon the table from smallest to large. He continued to murmur to himself, though only the odd word made itself clear.

  I leaned closer, though the fragrance of his unwashed body was eye-wateringly sour. “Father, have you been watching over me?”

  He looked blindly down at the work table, his hands held out as though reaching for something. Yet he did not move. Instead, his beard twitched. When he tilted his head sidelong, his gaze did not quite fall on me. “Shall I tell her? Shall I share watching her with the noose about her delicate neck?”