He looked around as if realizing for the first time that we were still on the floor. An actual smile broke out on his face and it was all I could do not to kiss him until he had no facial expression besides smiling. Until he was nothing but happy.
“Yes. And for constantly rescuing me.” His eyes glistened. “I do not deserve your trust.”
“I trust approximately three and a half people, Sebastian. I do not give it lightly.”
“That makes it all the more valuable. And I am sorry I am not worthy of it.”
“You are,” I said, finally releasing my hold on him and climbing to my feet. “So stop being so … you-know-what.”
“After you,” he said, taking my hand and standing.
I kept his hand in mine. “Promise me you won’t just turn yourself in to Captain Goode.”
He looked behind him at the door, longingly, then back at me, torn. “I won’t. I promise.”
I tugged at him, leading him back up the stairs, just to be certain. We walked up quietly and slowly, our fingers intertwining, the overwhelming sensation somehow serving as a comfort. At my bedroom door, he kissed my forehead, and the feeling stayed with me long enough to crawl into bed and reach against the wall to find him. It was faint, but it was there, that current.
And for a moment, it was stronger. I imagined him on the other side, hand to wall, matching mine. And then, somehow, I was finally able to sleep.
Chapter Seventeen
A HEAVY THUMP ON the ceiling interrupted my sound sleep, the most peaceful night since the ball. I opened my eyes to see early morning sun streaming in through the gauzy curtains. Another loud thump reverberated above me, and the more I thought about it, the more it sounded like someone dead on the floor.
I scrambled out of bed, yanking on a robe. Rose looked up sleepily, stirred awake by the noise, and I opened our door to find Miss Chen opening hers across the hallway.
“Whose room was that?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
My mind was full of horrible imaginings as we made it up the flight of stairs and to the end of the corridor, where I found one imagining come true. Tuffins emerged from his bedroom, his nightshirt bearing streaks of blood.
Oh God.
“Tuffins, are you all right?” I asked.
“Only a bit startled,” he said, looking completely composed. “Your guest, Miss Rao, has climbed into my room.”
A heavy breath left my body. He wasn’t hurt.
“Miss Rao?” I asked, as he opened the door and ushered us inside.
It was her. She had collapsed in a corner chair, her head lolled back, her clothes covered in blood, a bag of her belongings strewn on the floor. Her eyes slid over to me. She was still conscious.
“I need to be healed,” she rasped, as if that wasn’t apparent.
“Someone help me,” I said.
With Tuffins’s and Miss Chen’s help, I carried her out of his room and to the last empty bedchamber, setting her down gently on a clean coverlet. Tuffins hastened downstairs to get supplies, employing Rose’s and Catherine’s assistance, while I took a chair next to Miss Rao and held her hand. Miss Chen yawned and leaned on the wall by the window.
“What happened?” I asked.
Miss Rao gritted her teeth. “I was ambushed. The night before last.”
“How?”
“The power remover. He filled the India Secretary position with someone from your Society,” Miss Rao said. “They were with two others, waiting for my attack.”
“He’s … taking over the government now,” I said in disbelief.
“He must have used Miss Fahlstrom to predict the attack,” Miss Chen said. “And you still escaped from them.”
“I used my fog. But he took my power from me.” Miss Rao looked away from me, her face stricken, then flushed with anger. “Again.”
A chill ran through me. When she was in the Society prison, I hadn’t been able to fully understand what it was like to lose such an essential part of ourselves. Now I knew. “I’m sorry.”
“How did you get in here?” Miss Chen was looking doubtfully out the third-story window.
“I did not have strength enough to find my way here until this morning. Then I climbed through the window.”
“Of course, that’s something most people can do with extensive injuries.” The look Miss Chen gave Miss Rao was somewhere between fear and worship.
“You’re welcome to rest here for however long you need,” I said. “Your powers should return in a day and a half.”
Miss Rao turned from me, her lips thinned, looking unhappy about the time frame.
“Is there a chance that you might have been followed?” Miss Chen asked.
“I do not think so, destroyer,” Miss Rao answered. “But I am not certain.”
“Destroyer.… I should put that on my cards,” Miss Chen muttered to herself, heading for the door. “I’ll wake Mr. Adeoti. We need him to take a walk around the house to check and make sure she wasn’t.”
Miss Chen left the room as Tuffins brought in a basin of water and Miss Rao’s bag.
“Thank you, Tuffins,” I said.
He nodded and left us.
“I like that man, Tuffins,” Miss Rao said. “If all Englishmen were like him, this country would be better off.”
“I can’t argue with that,” I said.
As the healing ran its course, I took one more survey of Miss Rao’s injuries. It was hard to tell through the crusted blood, but the wounds that were once visible to me seemed to have closed.
“Do you still feel pain anywhere?” I asked.
“No,” she said, testing her cuts. “Though I find I am still tired.”
“My healing doesn’t usually fix that,” I said. “You must not have eaten for some time. Breakfast will be downstairs when you’re ready.”
I rose up and slid out the door, giving her the privacy to clean up.
As I made my way down the stairs, I wondered if it were at all possible to persuade Miss Rao to join us. Despite our common enemy, despite the healing I’d done for her, she still didn’t seem to trust me. She’d called me selfish the last time she was here, and she had been right. I was still a risk.
When I entered the dining room, a sudden silence greeted me, hushed whispers abruptly cut short. Rose and Catherine stood at the table, hiding something behind their backs, both looking pale. Laura had Soot settled on her lap, and she was busy petting him repeatedly, as though only he could make everything better. Emily started digging into a plate of fresh eggs and slices of bread. I took the seat across from her.
“Ev, I—” Catherine started.
“Good morning, Miss Wyndham!” Mrs. Tuffins emerged from the kitchen with a plate of pastries and cakes and set it down on the table in front of me.
“Oh, I—thank you. Good morning,” I replied, overwhelmed with the food.
Catherine waited for Mrs. Tuffins to return to the kitchen before she pulled out a newspaper and set it on the table in front of me. “I’m so sorry. I went to take a walk and … everyone is talking about it. Mr. Braddock turned himself in to the police.”
My entire body tensed as my vision went a little fuzzy.
“How … no … no, Sebastian’s here. I stopped him from doing that last night.” I glanced down and tried to make sense of the flagrantly inaccurate news story.
“There isn’t much information there since it happened early this morning,” Catherine said. “All that we know is there’s going to be a trial at noon at Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”
My mind went blank, and I stopped understanding what words were. I came to a few moments later, at the door to Sebastian’s room. I looked down to see my hand on the door handle, not knowing how I had gotten here. But Catherine’s arm was around my waist, and she seemed to be holding me up. She was talking at me, but I still wasn’t able to make out the words. Just her concerned eyes and slightly confused expression.
“Evelyn. Are you listeni
ng? Rose, I think…” Her words faded in and out as my body drifted into Sebastian’s room. It was extremely tidy, which was unsurprising. Everything was in order, except a sheet of paper folded on the pillow. I found I had been expecting that, without knowing it. My given name was on the front in small, neat script. Inside were two words.
Trust me.
That was it.
That was all he had to say for himself.
The lying, impossible, infuriating, selfishly self-sacrificing fool.
I sat down heavily on the bedspread, and Rose’s face swam in front of me, her mouth set severely.
“Ev. Pay attention to me.”
“I am,” I said as the sound rushed away from my ears and I focused on the present.
“He could very well have some plan,” my sister said. “I think we need to assume he has this under control.”
I leaped up. “He turned himself in! After he promised me, promised he would do no such thing!”
“Maybe there’s something he couldn’t risk telling you,” Catherine argued. “Your desire to kill Captain Goode would compromise it.”
“Well, I only plan on murdering Sebastian now, how about that?” I was snapping, and I knew I was snapping; I could not reconcile any of this. How could Sebastian make such a terrible, foolhardy choice?
A door slammed downstairs and hurried footsteps headed up. Mr. Adeoti and Miss Chen appeared in the doorway. She looked between us, saw the note lying limply in my lap. “The fool.”
I threw my hands into the air. “Finally, someone agrees!”
“He left early this morning,” Mr. Adeoti said, sounding as mournful as if Sebastian were already dead.
“You tracked him?” Rose asked.
“Only a little. I saw he left and was planning to turn himself in to the police. Perhaps that will help him get a fair trial,” Mr. Adeoti said, stretching his optimism to its limits.
“I should wake Mr. Kent,” Catherine said, heading out of the room. “He will want to know.”
“He wasn’t there when I woke up,” Mr. Adeoti called after her. “I don’t know if he’s had a very late night or an early morning.”
“Impossible to tell with him,” Catherine grumbled.
The others stared around the room helplessly. My heart was beating dully beneath my wrapper, the thumping sounding a little off, as if it had lost its natural rhythm.
“I need my boots,” I murmured, heading to my room.
Rose sighed, sending me a doubtful look, but followed me to change into our day dresses.
“I truly believe he will be all right,” she said.
“I wish I had your confidence,” I said, shrugging on my traveling coat.
I strode downstairs, finding Miss Rao glaring up at me. She was wrapped in a cloak as if she couldn’t stand to spend another minute in the house with us. I could feel another chastisement coming. That I was unable to control myself. That I was going to get all my friends killed. When all I wanted to do was to see Sebastian once more and help him in any way I could.
“You are going to this trial?” she asked.
“I am,” I said firmly. “You don’t have to stay if you’re worried I’m going to get us all killed.”
She cocked her head at me, her long braid slipping over her shoulder. “You won’t. I’ll be making certain you do nothing foolish.”
“Oh,” I said, finding myself prepared for everything but that. “You … you’re helping us, then?”
“I’m finding you useful, healer,” she said. “That’s all.”
That was a start, at least.
I turned around to find everyone ready in the cramped vestibule. Rose and Catherine following down the stairs, Miss Chen and Mr. Adeoti watching from the top, Laura and Emily putting their coats on, and Mrs. Tuffins making them promise to be careful.
“Do take care, dears. The streets are quite lively today,” she fussed.
I opened the door and found that to be rather an understatement.
Outside was chaos. Groups of neighbors congregated outside of market stalls, storefronts, and homes, gossiping about the news. Vendors with their stocked wagons clogged the road, all headed in the same direction. Newspaper boys ran through the streets, shouting the news too fresh to be in their papers.
“The trial starts at noon! Lincoln’s Inn Fields! The Cap’n seeks justice for Braddock’s crimes!”
I stepped outside, across the threshold where I thought I’d convinced Sebastian to keep fighting. My lips burned as I pressed my hand to the door, wishing I had Mr. Adeoti’s power so I could sink back into that moment mere hours ago, when Sebastian’s kiss seemed to be a promise to stay.
Before it became a kiss good-bye.
Chapter Eighteen
FROM THE MOMENT we entered Lincoln’s Inn Fields, one thing was apparent: This wasn’t a trial. This was a blasted festival.
All of London seemed to have descended upon the square, and where there was money to be made, there were vendors to make it. Their stalls lined the footpaths, displaying every sort of Sebastian Braddock–related souvenir one could imagine. Veils and gloves to protect oneself from his deadly powers. Captain Goode charms that warded Sebastian off. Even Braddock Be Gone was for sale, a restorative tonic to counteract any prolonged exposure.
Our group managed to resist such temptations and make our way to the center, where crowds converged on the latest addition to the square: an amphitheater, carved into the ground, resembling an ancient Greek excavation site. The trees and plants had been cleared out to fit the thousands of spectators, tiers had been sculpted out of rock to give everyone a view of the stage, and a metal shell had been formed around the stage to ensure everyone heard the proceedings. Captain Goode had used all the powers at the Society’s disposal to make this as public as possible.
“A bit of a change from the Old Bailey.…” Catherine said.
She and Miss Rao were on both sides of me, one propping me up and the other keeping me from rushing down to the stage. Rose, Emily, Laura, Miss Chen, and Mr. Adeoti followed us as we slipped into a row near the back. I could feel their worried eyes on me. I didn’t know if that was better or worse than the delighted exclaims and gleeful grins surrounding us, waiting for the main attraction. There hadn’t been a public hanging in London since I was a child, but I had the sinking feeling that if you added a noose and an executioner, this would feel rather like one.
The stage below, however, had been set up like any other criminal court, as if to give the impression justice would somehow be served here. On the left side was the judge, sitting at a raised bench above tables of clerks and writers. At the back of the stage, a box of jurors looked angry and ready to condemn Sebastian already. And in the center of the stage were tables for the prosecution, which consisted of Miss Fahlstrom and several men organizing their notes. Captain Goode stood out among them, the sun catching on his excessive number of medals. From what I could tell, there was not a single defense lawyer for Sebastian.
Boos and jeers spread through the crowd from front to back, which could only mean one thing. Sebastian was escorted in by Mr. Seward, the man who controlled water, and the ice guard, Miss Quinn, to the right side of the stage, where he was placed, handcuffed, in a raised and enclosed box.
“Murderer!”
“’Bastian Braddock the Bloody!”
“The noose is too good for him!”
“Hang! Hang! Hang!”
The air was positively flammable. One match and this could turn to riot. The wall of policemen standing at the bottom of the stage were mumbling and shuffling, unsure about whether to be more afraid of Sebastian on one side or the unruly mob on the other. But some of Captain Goode’s society members and bodyguards were interspersed among the police, and they looked rather confident they could handle anything and preserve the peace. To be fair, they probably could.
In fact, the cannibal girl who attacked me the other night lifted her hand up, crackling sparks of electricity into the air. The display
silenced the crowd and earned a scornful “pah” from Miss Rao.
With everyone in place, a clerk rose from a desk below the judge’s bench and stepped to the center of the stage. He addressed both the crowd and the jury, his voice echoing off the walls. “Sebastian Braddock stands charged with one hundred and thirty-eight counts of murder, treason, attempted assassination on the Queen, setting fire to the British Museum and the colonial office, and the destruction of a home at 34 Lowndes Square and two trains at Paddington Station. How say you, Mr. Braddock? Are you guilty or not guilty of these offenses?”
Sebastian cleared his throat. “Not guilty.”
More jeers and hisses erupted around the court. Sebastian didn’t acknowledge them. He seemed for all the world to be perfectly at ease. His ink-dark hair was ruffled but only enough to appear dashing, his eyes were cast up to the sky, and his arms were comfortably rested on the bar. He looked like a young lord who figured his good wealth and privilege could get him out of anything. Only those who knew him well—my heart skipped for a horrible second as I realized I might be the only person left alive who could claim to truly know him—could see that it wasn’t arrogance. That shell was no thicker than an egg’s and cracked with less pressure applied. I had been mistaken at first, thinking Sebastian masqueraded as a melodramatic, prideful fool. But he was not any of those things.
Perhaps a fool, actually.
But seeing him up there, exposed and vulnerable, I desperately wanted to save him. I knew that this was no play at melodrama, but his deep, grounding wish to do something right. Only he was wrong, of course. This solved nothing except likely getting him killed.
And all we could do was watch as the clerk took his seat and the judge motioned for the prosecution to begin.
Captain Goode rose to his feet and put his hand to his heart as he addressed the jury and the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, you are very brave to be here! Let no man say that England is not full of brave men and women!”
These Vengeful Souls Page 18
