“I ain’t stupid,” Mr. Wallis said. “Care for a drink, Lady Daphne’s friend? On the house.”
“No, thank you,” Sophia said.
“Now, stay here,” Daphne said. “It may take me a little while, because he’s outdoors and I’ll have to Skip there from Portsmouth, and it’s a long way—well, longish way—but we’ll be in time, I know we will.” She vanished. Sophia immediately went for the door.
“I thought you was staying here,” Mr. Wallis said.
“So did Daphne,” said Sophia, and emerged blinking into the late afternoon light. She had been to Dover only once before, and that many years ago, and she had forgotten how crowded the town was. Carriages of all sizes rumbled past in both directions, passing carts laden with crates and bundles ready to ship out on the next tide. When was the next tide? Though she knew in her bones she would be at their rendezvous on time, she could not help feeling fear that she was wrong, that Lord Endicott would be able to Bound into whatever location his Bounder knew the signature of, stroll through the city, and step onto the right boat just as it was casting off.
Sophia found a quiet corner, took off her glove, and felt around in the drawstring bag for the fob. Her hand fell first on Mr. Rutledge’s ring, and she had enough time to See him still staring down the same empty road before she thrust it away. Then the fob was in her hands, and she Saw a town, not Dover, thank God, and a sign with no writing on it, just the five-spiked sun that meant a public Bounder transportation company. She dropped the fob back into the bag and ran, tugging her glove on as she went.
She had no idea where she was going, had not seen any of Dover in Dream except that one fatal spot where Lord Endicott would be, and she had to stop and ask directions to the harbor more than once. The men she spoke to, one an elegantly dressed gentleman, the other a sailor with blue tattoos on his wrists, eyed the red gloves without comment. What did they make of her, wild-eyed and imperfectly concealing her agitation? She had no time to care what other people thought. She ran on, pushing people out of her way, wishing she could See through Lord Endicott’s eyes as she ran.
She skidded around a corner, ran down a street lined with blank-eyed buildings of stone, ricocheted off a woman bundled up against the cold, and realized she was within sight of the harbor. In the distance, the famous white cliffs rose tall against the grey sky. Another storm was coming in. It might prevent the ships from sailing out, which would prevent Lord Endicott from leaving—but she had forgotten, she would be the one stopping him.
She walked more slowly now, casting about for anything familiar. This was definitely the correct street, and she had been standing on the right-hand side. She turned to put her back to the buildings on that side and began walking sideways, glancing quickly to either side to keep from running into anyone. Other pedestrians gave her looks that said they thought she was mad.
As if she were seeing the shops overlaid on their Dream counterparts, her real vision and her memory of Sight slid together, matching her Dream exactly. She stopped to look around. Behind her was a gap in the row of shops where an alley cut between two buildings, leading she could not tell where. It was more of a crevice than an alley. She looked at the sky. The light was not right, and the sun had not yet reached the right place. Sophia took several steps down the alley until she was concealed from the passing bystanders, then removed the pistol from its bag and began loading it. She spilled a few grains of powder in her haste and made herself slow down. There was no hurry. Everything was coming together as she had Dreamed.
She went back to the mouth of the alley, the pistol concealed in her cloak, and settled in to wait, watching the crowds for her prey to come into view. No one looked her way. She began to feel as if this were the Dream, in which she passed invisibly through the crowds her Dreaming mind conjured. Some of them would witness Lord Endicott’s death. They would be able to tell the world the truth.
The truth. Sophia looked at her red-gloved hand. Would they know the truth, though? That she had been forced to seek revenge because the world would not give her justice? She needed a plan for when this was all over. She would not be able to return home immediately, because Sir Arthur would want to arrest her, even though her only crime would be executing a madman and a criminal. She might need to take ship to France for a while. Cecy would be devastated. Sophia’s hand began to tremble. Cecy would just have to understand, that was all. None of them were safe while Lord Endicott lived.
She looked up the street again, then at the sky. Still not time yet. She had left her watch at home and had no idea what the actual time was. The pistol was growing heavy, but she didn’t dare put it away in case Lord Endicott came and she fumbled getting it out.
Someone cleared his throat, very nearby. Sophia brought the pistol up and swung around fast in the direction of the harbor. “Please don’t shoot me,” Mr. Rutledge said, stepping out from around the far side of the next building.
Sophia lowered the pistol. “How did you get past me?”
“I didn’t. I went down to the harbor by a different road and was returning this way, hoping I would find you before it was too late.”
“Do not interfere. This is where Dream has led me. Lord Endicott will not escape me.”
“No, he will not. Rowley’s men are coming into Dover as we speak. They will capture him, I promise you. Go home, Mrs. Westlake.”
“You understand nothing,” Sophia said, bringing the weapon up as she spoke and forcing Mr. Rutledge back two steps. “He is charming, and noble, and he will not face death, and that is unacceptable to me!”
“His evil will be exposed for everyone to see. You will be vindicated. He will never be able to torment you again. Why is that not enough for you?”
“Because it is not!” Sophia realized where the pistol’s muzzle was pointed and lowered it. “He will find some way around whatever meager punishment the courts hand down! This is the only way I can protect myself, and Cecy and her baby, and everyone I love.”
Mr. Rutledge wrested the pistol from her hand as easily as plucking an apple from a tree. “That is not the reason,” he said, low and intense. “Don’t lie to me, Mrs. Westlake. You want revenge. Endicott hurt your pride and made you look the fool, and you can’t bear that.”
She felt as if he’d shot her in the chest. “That’s not true,” she began.
“It is true. I know you. You are strong, and brilliant, and you know the use of your talent better than anyone alive. But you’re also proud, and you cannot endure being made mock of. You need Endicott dead because alive he is a constant reminder of how you were betrayed.”
“That’s not true,” she repeated, but faintly, feeling as if her voice had been stolen away. “He—it is justice—”
“It’s revenge,” Mr. Rutledge said. He looked at the pistol in his hand, then offered it to her; she took it automatically, clutching it tightly because her fingers were numb. “If you will only be satisfied with his death,” he went on, “I won’t stop you killing him. Then I will take you into custody, and hand you over to Rowley’s men. You will go to prison, and you will be tried, and when they discover you used your talent in killing Endicott, you will hang. And you will deserve it.”
She gasped. “You can’t mean that.”
“I do mean it. This is not who you are, Mrs. Westlake. The woman I know would never hurt her friends by destroying her life so thoroughly. If you kill Endicott, you become a stranger to me and to everyone you know. And I think you will be a stranger to yourself.”
“But—” she said, and could not think of a way to end that sentence. She looked at the pistol she held. Its oiled barrel gleamed. “But he will win,” she said, quietly, and tears came to her eyes.
“He lost the moment he tried to bury your name with the War Office,” Mr. Rutledge said. “Every attack he has brought against you has failed. You simply haven’t been able to see it.” He put his hand on her arm. “Please, Sophia. Remember who you are. Let this Dream of vengeance go.”
&
nbsp; His hand was warm, even through all the layers of sleeve and cloak and glove. She looked up at him, at those dark, intent eyes, and the hard knot of pain at the center of her chest began to loosen. He was right. She had already won. “I can’t,” she said, then closed her mouth on whatever foolish words might try to escape her lips. “Mr. Rutledge, how foolish have I been?”
“Not foolish. Desperate. And I believe you have forgotten how many people care about you and will not leave you defenseless against your enemy. Think of Mrs. Barham and Lady Daphne.”
“They have gone to great lengths to support me. I have used them shamefully ill.” Sophia wiped her eyes with her free hand. “I hope they will forgive me.”
“I believe they will.”
“They are not my only friends. Mr. Rutledge, I owe you a debt.”
Mr. Rutledge smiled. “You can set it against the debt I owe you, for forgiving me my inability to believe the truth of your words. I deserved your anger.”
“No, you did not, and I…” She became conscious again of his hand on her arm and blushed. Could she tell him she thought of him as much more than a friend? No, the streets of Dover were not the place for such a declaration. She felt as if she were waking from a long, oppressive Dream in which nothing made any sense. “I want to go home.”
“Lady Daphne is around the corner, waiting. Do you still have my ring? I will tell you when Endicott is captured.”
“Thank you,” she said, stepping past him into the street, “but I don’t care anymore.” She turned right to join Daphne—and saw Lord Endicott not twenty paces away.
Sophia gasped, and took half a step back. Lord Endicott looked as startled as she did. Then everything happened at once:
Lord Endicott brought his pistol to bear on her
Mr. Rutledge grabbed her arm and slung her roughly behind him
A clap of thunder, high and sharp and very nearby, rang out
and Mr. Rutledge grunted and stumbled backward, knocking her down.
In which it is uncertain who is hunter, and who is prey
ophia screamed, lending her voice to the chorus of screams the gunshot had elicited, and staggered to her feet, still clutching her pistol. Lord Endicott bowed low to her, a courtier’s bow, then took off running toward the docks. She screamed again and ran after him, but he was Shaping himself as he ran and becoming as fleet-footed as a deer. She stopped and brought her pistol to bear on him, her hands shaking. There were too many people, but she could just see him, at the limit of her range—
“Sophia, help!” Daphne cried. “Help me—he’s bleeding—I can’t do it, Sophia! Help him!”
Her words struck Sophia like the bolt of lightning that surely should have preceded that thunderclap. She turned to see Mr. Rutledge lying too still on the ground and Daphne crouched a few feet away, her head between her knees. No one was approaching their little tableau; almost everyone stood frozen, or was looking about in confusion as if Lord Endicott had not taken his shot mere feet from where they stood.
Sophia threw the pistol away and ran as hard as she could back to Mr. Rutledge’s side, falling to her knees and grabbing the front of his coat as if that would make him stand. Blood was spreading across his ugly brown waistcoat and pooling beneath him. Sophia pulled up her skirt, not caring who saw, yanked at the seams of her shift until most of it tore free, and wadded the fabric up and pressed it hard against his chest. Mr. Rutledge moved then, reaching toward her, and she said, “Hold still. Daphne. Daphne. Stop being a self-indulgent child and get help.”
“But I don’t know—who do I get, what do I do, Sophia?”
Sophia tried to steady her breathing. She would have to be the sensible one, no matter how much she wanted to fling herself across Mr. Rutledge and sob. “Dr. Garland,” she said, but realized she did not know where the doctor was. With Cecy? Was she ill enough for Lewis to call Dr. Garland for help? There was no time for Daphne to Bound all over London, looking for an Extraordinary Shaper. “Wait a moment,” Sophia said, thought Show her to me, and dropped into Dream like a stone into a pool, barely registering her body’s collapse across Mr. Rutledge before the doors of Dream opened up before her, all of them bearing the doctor’s face.
She threw herself into the nearest one, and Saw Dr. Garland as a two-dimensional painting, frozen in the act of speaking to someone not represented in the Dream. Panting, she looked wildly around for a door to the outside, a window, anything, and Saw nothing but blank white walls, smooth and shiny like pearls. She rose out of Dream as rapidly as she had dropped into it, gasping as if she were rising out of the ocean’s depths, and found that Mr. Rutledge had put his large, bloodstained hand over hers where it lay on the front of his coat. The touch of his hand made her want to weep.
“No,” she cried, and dove back into Dream and the doors with the doctor’s face overlaid upon them. “No!” she shouted again, and the doors shivered, and shattered, and then only one remained, and she let it pull her into another Dream of shining white walls and a flat drawing of Dr. Garland—and a single tiny window, one glass pane too thick to see through.
She could feel time sliding away from her, and for half a moment she imagined herself waking from Dream to discover she was clutching a corpse. She screamed and struck the glass with all the strength that was in her. Her fist passed through empty air, and the glass splintered and melted away, leaving a hole she could barely fit her head and shoulders through. In the non-light of Dream, she saw a street, carriages like black turtles creeping along the street, a familiar stair—and relief shook her sleeping body so that she woke before she could bring herself out of Dream. “Go to Cecy,” she gasped, “and bring the doctor here, and hurry.”
Daphne vanished. Sophia removed her hand from Mr. Rutledge’s limp one and bent over his face, and her terror faded a little when she felt warm air sighing out of his mouth, though his eyes were closed and he was still motionless. She went back to leaning hard on the wound. Blood had soaked through the cloth and was turning her red gloves redder, filling the air with its sharp hot coppery smell.
She realized she had an audience, men and women crowded around murmuring, carriages stopped where the crush of people blocked the road, and she shrieked at them, “Stay back!” They moved back, but only a short distance, and Sophia wished she could leap to her feet and pummel them until they fled, gore-crows that they were. She looked at Mr. Rutledge’s face again; he was far too pale, and his eyes were still closed, but his lips were moving. “Don’t try to talk,” she said.
“… not… your friend…” he said, his deep voice almost inaudible.
Sophia again felt as if she were the one who had been shot. “I promise I don’t want vengeance anymore,” she said. She shook her head to dash away the tears she had no hands for wiping. “Please do not hold it against me that it took so long. I cherish our friendship.”
He shook his head, slowly, making it flop back and forth. “…stay with me…”
“I’m not leaving.”
Mr. Rutledge smiled, then coughed. Blood flecked his lips. He shook his head again. “…want you to marry me…” he said.
Sophia gasped, then began to laugh. “You know I could never marry anyone but you,” she said, crying harder now through her laughter. “Now stop talking, or I might change my mind.”
He smiled again, then lay still. Sophia looked around, though it was hard to see through her tears. Where was Daphne? How long could it possibly take her to Bound to Cecy’s drawing room and Bound back to that tiny room in the tavern and then Skip… oh, it was too far. They would be too late. She had killed him.
She pressed harder and did not look at Mr. Rutledge’s face, afraid of what she might see there, remembering how empty Richard’s face had been at the end, how vacant, and the thought of seeing that emptiness again on the face of the man she loved tore at her heart. I hope Lord Endicott is gone, she thought, and laughed again. She sounded hysterical. The last thing she needed was her nemesis coming back, armed and ready to
kill her now that her protector was—not dead, he’s not dead, he can’t be dead—
“Move aside, Mrs. Westlake,” Dr. Garland said, following that command up by shoving Sophia away from Mr. Rutledge so she sprawled on the paved sidewalk. Daphne came to help her stand, though she was still shaking.
“Forgive me, Sophia,” she sobbed, “I didn’t know—how will they use me on the battlefield if I can’t bear the sight of blood—oh, no.” She turned away and knelt, pressing her face against the hard-packed earth of the road. Sophia ignored her, her eyes fixed on the doctor and her patient, who lay far too still.
Dr. Garland slung her satchel on the ground and unrolled it, taking a large pair of shears from it and cutting through Mr. Rutledge’s ugly waistcoat and his shirt to reveal the expanse of his stomach and chest. Blood still flowed from the rough, round hole. Dr. Garland put her hand over it and sat in the attitude of someone listening to a distant sound.
“All of you, move back or I’ll give you hives,” she said in a loud but pleasant voice, and the crowd moved as they had not for Sophia. “Mrs. Westlake, I don’t want to lie to you,” she said more quietly. “This doesn’t look good.”
“He’s dead,” Sophia said, and sat down because she was afraid she might collapse if she did not.
Dr. Garland shook her head. “But the treatment could kill him. Just—don’t panic, whatever you see.” She put both her bare palms on Mr. Rutledge’s chest, framing the wound, and he began convulsing so hard Sophia could hear his head striking the hard stones. Without thinking, she slid to put her hands beneath his head, cushioning it, and thought I am getting blood in his hair, but it is his blood, perhaps he will not mind so much and had to bite back another hysterical laugh.
Wondering Sight (The Extraordinaries Book 2) Page 30
