I couldn't be certain exactly what this nudge meant, but I guessed that whatever happened here today would have some impact on the future. I left the Amberger farm with almost certain knowledge that I would be returning some day.
Chapter Two
By the time I reached home, spending energy on anything other than climbing into the exotic bath seemed like a waste. Before long, I'd slipped into steaming water and let the heat soak into my tired bones.
Almost as soon as my eyelids had fluttered to a close, a dainty knock rapped against the front door, as if the visitor was attempting to knock without being heard.
"Will the gods ever allow me a moment of peace?" I wondered aloud as I climbed dripping from the bath, toweling myself dry. I prepared to march upstairs to retrieve a woolen robe, but I found one hanging from a hook right outside the bathroom.
"Odd," I muttered, and moved to the door, right as another light rasping of the knuckles against wood sounded.
Right before my fingers touched the handle, I had a premonition of danger. No weapons lay near the door. I frowned. Now why couldn't Aught have properly arranged those?
When the knock came again, the desire to be a proper host overcame my sense of security. I unlocked the door and opened it a hair, preparing to slam it closed should the visitor prove dangerous.
From my angle, I saw only a glass arm smudged with grease and dirt.
"Brassy?"
The girl from the Magdelen House stood outside my door in an oversized peasant dress. The homespun fabric was dingy brown and threadbare. By the damage and wear marks, it looked like the previous owner of the dress had been a big-boned girl who enjoyed the outdoors.
"Lady Dashkova," said Brassy, hugging her arms to her chest.
She'd been a bawdy girl working for Madam Maria until an Empty Man had destroyed the building. My role in the destruction left a twinge of guilt in my stomach.
"Come in, come in," I said, ushering her inside. "Unless it's the days' fashion to stand in your doorway in bathing attire."
The joke fell flat on Brassy's ears. She shuffled inside with the grace of a condemned prisoner.
The stark contrast between the girl who stood before me and the one who used to greet me flirtatiously at the Magdelen House seemed so large that it was hard to believe it was the same girl.
"What ails you?" I asked.
When she looked at me with her fierce blue eyes, part watery with welled-up emotion, part deep unspent anger, I realized my mistake. The last time we'd met, I'd flown through the wall of the Magdelen House before a murderous Empty Man made an assault on the building, burning it to the ground.
"My apologies, Brassy, I'm a fool. I'd forgotten what'd happened," I said, regretting my phrasing, as it further insulted the poor girl.
"It wasn't your fault," she said, guilt threading her voice. "If I'd never agreed to spy for them Loyalists, I wouldna lost my home, but Madam Sully'd threatened my ma. Never said they'd hurt her, but if the payments stopped, I wouldna be able to pay for her home."
On previous visits, Brassy had spoken with a flirty high-diction, cultivated for the type of clientele that visited the Magdelen House. Outside of that bawdy house, she'd returned to her normal speech patterns, though I heard glimpses of the previous girl in the choice of words.
"Your lip is cut," I said, noticing for the first time, cupping her chin so I could inspect the wound. "Where are you working now? Has Madam Maria rebuilt yet?"
Her gaze reflected the deepest pain. "No work. None of the houses will take me now, even if this"—she lifted her mechanical arm—" was flesh and blood."
"Then where are you staying?"
"A home for wayward girls. Them Quakers are running it," she said. "Call it Bridewells or something, but they always say it with a meanness behind it."
"My apologies," I said. "And your mother?"
Brassy squeezed her eyes shut. No words would come, so I took her in my arms and pressed her tightly against my chest.
She broke down and sobbed in my arms for a few minutes. Eventually she was able to get herself together, sniffling and rubbing her puffy eyes.
"Apologies, Lady Dashkova, I've gone and messed your bathrobe," she said with a sullen air.
"No worries," I said. "You've had a dreadful time since last year. How can I be your humble servant?"
Wiping her good forearm across her face between sniffles, Brassy gathered herself.
"I bring a message from Lady Chloris," she said.
"Oh, a message," I said, feeling a knot form in my gut.
Lady Chloris was the rusalka who had lived in the Magdelen House before its destruction. Before that, she'd been a friend of Ben Franklin's, though I'd never learned why they fell out. Chloris had a gift for finding things: for a price.
"Lady Chloris wanted me to tell you something. She made me repeat it back to her so many times I thought my head would explode. To make sure I didn't get none of the words wrong," said Brassy, her gaze focused on a distant spot with the intent of remembering.
At the mention of Lady Chloris, the mass of prophecies in my head shifted, churning with unfathomable purpose. They'd been rather quiet the last few weeks, with only twinges from time to time to let me know they still existed.
"I await the Lady's message," I said.
Brassy gave a heavy sigh and then as she began to speak, she took on another persona, mimicking the ethereal tones of Chloris. The transformation was so eerily real, it made me wonder if a bit of magic was involved.
"Princess Dashkova, the debt between us grows quite large. Though you may have forgotten, you owe me a visit from a special someone. I'm sure we can come to an arrangement to avoid further entanglements," said Brassy, and upon finishing, she slumped back into her melancholy self.
A deep rooted fear reached up and wrapped its tendrils around my throat. I found it hard to breathe. I'd forgotten about my second visit to Chloris, the one I'd thought was my first.
Franklin's warnings about seeing the Lady had been lost to the memory thief. Without understanding the danger I was in, I'd given her a hair from my head and promised that she could meet my son, Pavel.
The message dripped with implications, the first and foremost being that I needed to see her immediately.
"Where does the Lady live now?" I asked, fearing the answer.
"Cutter's Spring. It feeds the Schuylkill," said Brassy.
"Dear me," I muttered.
Not only had I destroyed Brassy's living, but I’d forced Lady Chloris out of her preferred housing arrangement when the Empty Man had attacked. Did Chloris blame Madam Maria or me for the fire?
"Where is Madam Maria these days?" I asked.
The petite girl lifted one shoulder. Even with the hint of darkness behind her fierce blue eyes, I couldn't help but smile at the girl's gesture, which could only be called “cute.”
"No one has seen her?" I asked.
"Not since the fire," said Brassy.
I could guess that Chloris had punished Madam Maria for letting me see Brassy and ruining the arrangement. A lesson for being careful with the supernatural. But did she want to punish me as well?
"Lady Dashkova," said Brassy, her lips pursed into a bow. "Are you really a princess?"
Lady Chloris had coded her message behind vague wording. The use of princess had to be intentional, along with the emphasis on the title in the message. Was she threatening to inform the Russian Empire of where I resided? I had to believe they already knew, which meant she was implying something else. But what?
"Yes," I said. "I held that title at one time in my life. No more."
"Very well, Princess Dashkova," said Brassy, switching back into that high diction.
"I insist that you call me Katerina," I said. "Truthfully, I've never felt comfortable with that title."
The girl looked about uneasily.
"Very well," I said, "I shall give my response to the Lady in person. You performed admirably. I'm sure she would be pleased at th
e way you presented the message."
Brassy seemed like she wanted to say something else, but only stared at her hands.
"Are you well?" I asked, wanting instead to climb back into my hot bath before it cooled. I had a mind to try one of the handles I'd not yet attempted.
"Lady Dashkova," she said, ignoring my request, "I don't want to go back to the Quakers."
Her eyes were as large as the moon.
"You have no other place to go?" I asked. "No friends or family that can take you in?"
"There was Miss Sully, and Madam Maria, and my mother, of course, God rest her soul," she said.
I'd destroyed her life like I had so many others. Unlike the others, however, this girl was mostly innocent.
If I moved the cauldron into my room and let her use the guest room, it might work. Of course, I would have to somehow explain Aught. And keep her away from anything to do with the Society. But was this what Chloris wanted? Was she a spy?
It was possible, though I didn't want to believe it. Even though she'd spied for the Loyalists, she'd only done so because of the threat to her mother.
"You may stay with me," I said, hiding my reluctance.
Brassy's eyes lit up like the sun.
"I am your humble servant, Lady Dashkova," she said, almost hugging me, but then curtseying like a duchess.
"Not permanently. Just until you've figured out what you're going to do," I said. "And you must call me Katerina. Not Lady, or Princess. I've put those days long behind me."
Brassy beamed. "Yes, Lady—" She put a hand to her mouth and smiled coyly. "I mean Katerina."
"Do you have anything you want to fetch from the Quakers?" I asked.
She shook her head.
"You can't wear that dreadful collection of rags. It breaks my heart just looking at you," I said. "Run upstairs and find something in my wardrobe. You're a hand shorter, but we can fix that with a needle and a bit of thread."
She burst upstairs before I could warn her about Aught, taking steps two at a time. She might have squealed as well, but I'd wandered back into the bath, dropped my robe, and climbed back into the water.
It was still warm, but not that delirious hot that soaks into the muscles and turns one into a melted candle.
I was leaning against the tiled step, my body submerged up to my ears, when Brassy climbed into the bath. I was not modest amongst fellow women. When Empress Catherine made visits to Siberia, we often lounged naked in the banya sweat houses, along with her ladies-in-waiting. But her sudden appearance startled me.
"Brassy," I exclaimed.
"Apologies, Miss Dashkova, it's big enough to hold a carriage. The Lady Chloris sometimes let us swim in her pool," she said. "I can leave if you desire."
"No. No. Stay," I said, holding my arm over my chest. "I wasn't expecting it, that's all."
The water only came up to her belly button. She didn't seem intimidated by my nakedness, so I tried hard to do the same. Though I was a fifty-eight year old woman in my head, I realized that I appeared to be in my mid-20s.
In contrast, Brassy reminded me of the dancers from the Far East who could bend themselves in ways I thought not possible for a person. Their troupe sometimes visited Saint Petersburg, and Catherine loved the distraction.
Dipping my head back and staring at the god Neptune on the ceiling, I asked, "Aren't you worried about getting it wet? Won't the gears rust?"
"Not iron, Madam, I mean Katerina," she said. "Made of brass, every one."
"Oh, that's right," I said, closing my eyes.
Brassy waded to the other side while I tried to picture the contortions the troupe members would put themselves in.
"Brassy, where did your family hail from—"
Trying so hard to distract myself, I'd forgotten to warn Brassy about the knobs on the organ of pipes. I heard the grinding of the valve and the squelch of incoming pressure before I could stop her.
Splashing up out of the water, the word "No" formed uselessly on my lips.
Brassy looked back, biting her lower lip, with her hand on the rightmost handle. The one shaped like a five-pointed star. The one Ben Franklin had told me never to open.
Chapter Three
The other side of the bath seemed a lifetime away.
"Turn it off! Turn it off!" I screamed while wading through the water.
A low grumble deep in the earth shook the bath. It sounded like an avalanche crashing down a mountain.
Frantically, Brassy tried to turn the handle with both hands.
"It won't move," she said.
I'd almost made it to the other side when the first tentacle burst out of the pipe. It shouldn't have been able to fit. The purplish-green appendage was thicker than my forearm and rippled with murderous intent.
It threw Brassy across the bath, clipping me in the shoulder and knocking me from my feet. By the time I'd clawed my way out from under the girl, a second tentacle had emerged.
I knew without a doubt that these weren't like those little black beetles that fed on my dead skin, but a real danger to the pair of us. I hesitated between going after the handle and fleeing the bath, but something in my head, the prophecy maybe, told me that if I let this thing continue to escape out of the pipe, we'd all regret it.
Brassy came up next to me, hair splattered across her face.
"We have to turn it off," I shouted, forcing my way forward through the water.
Tiles from the ceiling chipped and fell into the water as the house shook. A terrible sound like the rending of a huge steel girder seemed to come from the place where the pipes disappeared into the wall.
The tentacles writhed and whipped as we approached. I ducked one, only to get caught in the arm by the second one.
My arm had a line of bloodred circles. The tentacles had vicious suckers along their length.
Water exploded around us as we fought forward. Brassy shrieked while I screamed what I hoped was a warrior's cry, but it probably sounded as frightened as hers.
Attempts to reach the handle were beaten back by the tentacles. Though the creature had no eyes in the room, it knew preternaturally where we would move.
The longer we failed to turn the handle, the more I feared a third, and fourth tentacle emerging. Or possibly the whole creature, which I knew instinctively was bigger than the house, and probably more dangerous than all the Empty Men together.
Before long, I realized our assault was futile. The tentacles easily kept us back. The only hope we had was to cut the appendages off or injure them so they would retreat into the pipes.
Bits of tile and ceiling fell around us. The house sounded like it would come down soon after.
Frightened of what might happen if I allowed it to continue, I decided to release my fledgling magic.
The light deep inside my head yearned to be free. I summoned it upward, trying to control the surge, but the potency of it overwhelmed. My attempts to master the magic had thus far proved ineffectual, and fighting back the terror already flooding through my veins from the tentacles left nothing for containment.
When it came, it was like a fount of fire bursting through my skull and out my eyes and mouth. Sorcerous power flowed over the tentacles. They writhed in agony. Steam erupted in geysers. It felt like I was standing in the River Styx, battling the kraken. Eventually, the tentacles fled back into the pipes.
What happened after, I couldn't tell, since I was trying to close off the magic to keep it from hitting Brassy. It was like trying to throw the logs of a burning fire back into the fireplace. Each time I grabbed one, another fell out.
By the time the magic was back inside my head, I was whimpering against the steps, barely keeping my lips above water. But at least the pipes were closed.
Brassy helped me out of the bath, wrapping a robe around me. She laid me on the couch. The inside of my skull had filled with lava. The release had been too much, too fast.
"Katerina," I heard distantly. "Are you well?"
Words bubbled
uselessly to my lips, relaying nothing except the absolute pain that gripped me. I could feel it lessening, but the progress was glacial. Like watching the sun move across the sky while your eyes burned out.
In what could have been minutes, or hours, I heard Franklin's voice through the pain. He'd sensed the earthquake had been supernatural and had been coming to get me, only to find I was the source of the quake.
Brassy explained what had happened while I scratched at the rough fabric of the couch, praying for the pain to retreat.
Eventually, someone put a liquid to my lips and I drank it down. Then merciful oblivion took me.
Chapter Four
I woke the next morning on the divan. Franklin was sitting on the hard backed oak chair across from me. He gave me a wistful smile.
"How do you feel, Kat?" he asked.
My voice came out gravelly. "Like a thousand elephants stomped through my head. Which is to say, better."
"I'm glad to hear that," he said. "I was worried about you. Brassy said you forced that creature back into the pipes so she could turn it off."
"What was it?" I asked, squinting.
"I haven't the foggiest," he said. "It's good that Brassy was there, or there would have been no one to turn the handle after you hit it with your magic."
I wouldn't have been in that situation if Brassy hadn't turned the handle, but that bird had flown. Ben explained the bath was damaged beyond repair. Some of the handles might work, but the bath would not hold water and the structure of the house had been greatly damaged. If an inspector ever examined the house, it would have to be condemned.
After a long moment of contemplation, I asked, "Where is she?"
"Asleep. She took the night watch. She didn't want to leave your side, even when I came back to relieve her. She feels at fault for what happened," he said.
"My fault for not warning her," I said, though it took considerable effort to speak.
"Are you feeling well enough to travel?" he asked.
"I could if it was important," I said reluctantly.
He rubbed his chin.
"Imperative," he said, standing up. "I shall fetch the carriage while you change into something suitable."
The Franklin Deception (The Dashkova Memoirs Book 4) Page 2
