I couldn’t say that about anyone else.
I turned my hand to give Conrad’s a squeeze. “I’ll be careful,” I promised.
“How can you be careful if you’re dead?” Conrad demanded. “This is exactly the kind of thinking that led to this whole mess, that led to that hole in the sky and our father being in a coma.”
“Hey,” Cal said. “If it weren’t for Aoife, you’d still be hiding in the Mists and I’d still be under the thumb of the Proctors. She saved us both from that.”
Quickly as I’d come to feel guilty about doing all of this to Conrad, anger replaced it, like flame turns water to steam.
“No,” I said to Cal. “Let him get it out. No secrets between us, Conrad.” I fixed him with a glare. “If you’ve got a problem, lay it on the table.”
Conrad’s lip twitched, the nervous tic he got when things weren’t going his way. “I never should have sent you that letter.” He sighed. “I was scared, and I made a bad decision.”
He might as well have pulled back his hand and slapped me, because that was what it felt like. The letter—the one that had touched off my leaving the Academy, finding out what my family could do, encountering Tremaine—had been so simple. Find the witch’s alphabet. Save yourself. A desperate plea from Conrad to stave off the iron poisoning that had consumed him, to free him from the Mists.
“So I should have stayed in Lovecraft?” I whispered. “I should have gone mad, just like our mother?”
“No!” Conrad snapped. “No … I just meant … you weren’t ready. You let Tremaine sway you and I couldn’t help you, because if I’d left the Mists he’d have found me, too.”
There it was. The unspoken ball of anger and resentment between us finally had a name. Conrad blamed me for falling for Tremaine’s tricks. Even though I’d tried to fix it. Even though there was no way I could have known the Fae were liars.
“You’ve got some nerve,” I told Conrad quietly. I felt like turning over the table, throwing my tea in his face and storming out, but I wasn’t one to give in to my rages.
“Do I?” he said. “I love you, Aoife, but you caused a lot of this, and I take partial blame because you didn’t know about anything involving our family, and you weren’t ready to fend off the Fae. I might not have a Weird, but at least I was prepared for the truth.”
“Not because of that,” I said. “That’s all true. I let Tremaine trick me.” I stood, smoothing my hands over the rough uniform the Proctors had put me in on Alcatraz. “You’ve got nerve for pretending that if it had been you he was offering the bargain to, you wouldn’t have done the exact same thing.”
I started to leave, quietly and without a tantrum. I could scream once I was out in the street. Cal moved to stop me, but before he could, I was intercepted by the waitress, holding a bevy of plates piled with steaming meats and vegetables.
I seethed. Conrad was incapable of seeing that he would also have taken the Fae’s bargain. And I seriously doubted he would have tried so hard to set his mistake right after the fact, all the way up to voluntarily going to the Brotherhood and using Tesla’s gate to the realm of nightmares. Bargaining with the Old Ones. Any of what I’d endured.
It made me sad, in an odd way, to know we were so fundamentally different that we’d never again be a family the way we had been when we were kids.
But then, that was what happened when you grew up. You found out that people you trusted weren’t who they said they were, and that big brothers you idolized were painfully human.
It was the worst feeling in the world, and I waved the plate away when the waitress offered it to me. “I lost my appetite.”
“Aoife,” Conrad started. “Don’t get upset. Don’t be like that just because you don’t like the truth.”
I pointed my finger at him and gave him my worst glare, one that I’d first seen framed by Grey Draven’s angular face. “Don’t start with me, Conrad.”
“Listen,” the waitress said. “I hate to interrupt, but there’s two gwai lo across the street who’ve been staring a hole in this place since you came in. Anybody you know?”
I examined the figures who’d been staring in the teahouse window. Hats pulled low over their faces, long coats, completely nondescript.
The Brotherhood’s goons.
“We have to go,” I said to Cal and Conrad. “Right now.”
“There’s a back door,” the waitress said. “I don’t know who you ticked off, but I got no beef with you. I didn’t see anything.”
We started for the kitchen as a throng of vendors pushing steaming carts passed, obscuring us from the Brotherhood for a few seconds.
“One more thing,” I said to the waitress. “I’m looking for a scientist. His name is Horatio Crawford. He does experiments with the dead. Have you heard of anyone like that anywhere in the city?”
Her eyes widened, and she took a step away from me. “I don’t mess with that stuff,” she said. “And I ain’t heard of no scientists. You want the dead, you go to the Spiritualist séances, down on Boneyard Row. But I don’t mess with that. Dealing with ghosts is bound to make you one yourself.”
“Boneyard Row?” I said. “Any particular Spiritualist?”
“I never been, but I hear the best one is Madame Xiang,” the waitress said. “Now get out of here before those goons decide to come in.”
We wound our way through a cramped and boiling kitchen and popped out into an alley.
“Well, this is perfect,” Conrad said. “No money, no plan and the Brotherhood a dozen yards behind us at all times.”
“It’ll be all right,” Cal said. “We can hide.” But he was fidgeting, and I knew he wasn’t any more optimistic than Conrad.
I wasn’t as down in the dumps. I did have a plan. “Come on,” I said, winding my way between rain barrels and piles of debris.
“Where are we going?” Conrad demanded.
“To see Madame Xiang,” I said. “You can come or not. I don’t really care.” I held his gaze until he dropped it to his shoes. I did care what happened to Conrad, of course—I wasn’t heartless. But I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so angry at him, and when we walked, I made sure I was in front so I didn’t have to look at him.
Finding Boneyard Row wasn’t much of a trick—everyone we asked knew where it was, and pointed us through an encroaching series of row houses, wooden and brick, thrown down seemingly at random and creating narrow alleys and streets teeming with people, carts and the occasional single-vent jitney, its two wheels bouncing over the rutted pavement.
We had to move at the pace of the crowd, and we inched along until one of the brightly hung windows, resplendent with gilt paint, silk curtains and crookedly painted statues of Chinese animals, read MADAME XIANG: SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATIONS FROM BEYOND THE AETHER TO YOU.
The surrounding storefronts all told the same story, but the burly man with a Fu Manchu mustache and long braid manning the door practically dragged us inside.
“Up the stairs and to the left!” he boomed. “Madame is always happy to help those in need, gwai lo or not.”
“Don’t know why they call us that,” Cal muttered as our combined weight made the stairs creak and snap.
“It means ‘foreigner,’ ” Conrad said. “It’s not very nice.”
Madame Xiang’s drawing room was done in the same opulent style, walls hung with red silk embroidered with flowers and forest scenes, deer and tigers and the aftermath of their meeting.
A table covered in green velvet sat at the center, a single ornate chair at the head and four chairs arrayed around it.
“Hello?” Cal called, peering cautiously toward the beaded curtain at the far end of the room.
The whole place gave off the air of a carnival—arranged for a specific purpose, but not real. I’d heard stories about Spiritualists, of course, mostly from Proctor information. They were heretics. Not only did they believe in a soul, an afterlife and magic, but they claimed they could use magic to communicate with the
dead.
Believing in ghosts, the Proctors would allow. Believing in magical powers that allowed a living person to commune with the dead essence of their loved ones—that would earn you a fast trip to a heretic prison.
Madame Xiang might be full of it, but hopefully she’d know where Nerissa’s doctor was, or if he existed at all.
When she appeared, Cal gave an audible squeak. I felt like joining him, and only a lifetime of not showing my true reactions in self-preservation kept my face composed.
Madame Xiang wore a long blue-and-gold gown weighed down with so much embroidery it bowed her shoulders. Her eyebrows were dramatic, and a tiny crimson bud of a mouth bloomed from the vast wasteland of white pancake makeup on her face. Her hair was done in elaborate loops, and giant glittering hair sticks protruded from the crown, studded with a bloody handful of rubies that swung and caught the golden light of the oil lamps.
“Welcome, travelers,” she intoned in a perfect British accent. “Do you seek the counsel of spirits this night?”
“We …,” I started, but she minced across the room, sat in the largest chair and stuck out feet roughly the size of my fist.
I’d read about foot binding in my history classes, but to see the result was gruesome. I tried not to stare.
“Sit!” Madame Xiang commanded, then rang a small silver bell that she pulled from her voluminous sleeve.
I felt now as if we’d not only walked into a carnival but also gotten on a ride with no end in sight.
A servant appeared. He was enormous—quite possibly the largest fully human man I’d ever seen. So tall he had to duck under the beaded archway, his suit strained at every seam and the tea tray he carried was comically small in his hands.
I didn’t know where to look—at Madame’s face, at her feet or at this mountain, who set down the tea and retreated.
“Thank you, Fang,” Madame said, and smiled at us. “Please. I can discern through the aether that you are weary. Warm yourselves.”
We all took a small handleless cup, more to be polite than anything.
The tea was bitter. It reminded me of medicine Nerissa used to force on me when I was feverish and coughing.
“We have a question for you,” I said.
Madame waved me away. Her nails were painted gold and shone like eagle talons under the lamps. They looked like they could rip my flesh.
“They all come with questions, but the spirits already know the answers,” she said. “Drink! All will be revealed in time.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Conrad said. “We didn’t come here for a reading.…” He trailed off, and blinked in confusion, looking at Cal and me as if we’d all woken up in a particularly gaudy bad dream.
Worry started deep in my mind and quickly blossomed into alarm. Conrad’s words sounded as if they came to me down a long tunnel, and were drowned out by the booming of Madame’s precise English syllables.
“Just relax, dear hearts,” she said. “It’s nothing fatal. Just a little nip to help you sleep.”
Too late, I recognized the taste hiding under the bitter tea. Medicine, yes, but the kind Nerissa used to help herself sleep. Strong opiates that would tumble you down a tunnel of dreams as quickly as you could swallow it.
“You …,” I slurred, but the horrible room tilted sideways, and I felt the faint impact of my body hitting the dusty Persian carpet.
Madame approached and nudged me with one of her horror-feet. “Don’t worry, my sweet,” she intoned as black whirlpools consumed my vision. “It will all be over soon enough.”
When I woke up, I saw a much less nightmarish version of Madame Xiang standing over me. Her hair was done in short, fashionable curls. My drug-addled mind realized she’d probably been wearing a wig before.
Her makeup, too, was chic and light, though I could see a white rim where she’d wiped off the pancake stuff.
“Awake?” she said, and smiled at me. “Good. Beginning to think I gave you too much.”
I tried to stay calm and see if I was tied up. I wasn’t, but as my vision cleared I saw that Fang stood in front of the only door, arms folded, staring at me impassively. I didn’t see anyone else, and hoped that Conrad and Cal had fared better than I had with the drugged tea. I still felt as if I were seasick on the deck of a ship.
“You …,” I started, but then thought better of it. She was fully aware of what she’d done, and I didn’t have the strength to be righteously angry. Mostly, I was just relieved that I wasn’t back among the Proctors.
“I’ve got good news,” Madame Xiang said, “and I’ve got bad news.” She was still wearing the robe, but she moved normally, and I saw that the bound feet were prosthetic, an illusion furthered by the folds of her robe.
“Good news,” she said. “You and your friends are young and strong. That means Fang won’t just dump you in the bay, or leave you to wander out into the street in a haze and get rolled for your vital organs. There are degenerates out there, you know.”
“And the bad news?” My mouth felt like cotton and my mind felt like someone had used it for batting practice. I wondered what could be coming if that was the good news. I didn’t like the way Madame was looking at me, but there was nothing I could do. I was weak and dizzy, and I knew from when Nerissa used laudanum to help her sleep that it took hours to wear off.
“The bad news,” Madame said, patting her curls, “is that none of you have any money. So I’m going to have to make back the time I took with you some other way.”
She gave me a nudge and a sweet, motherly smile. “What were you thinking coming to the Boneyard with no money, dear? It’s positively silly.”
“I …” I licked my lips, trying to work some feeling back into my face. “I didn’t want a reading. I want Crawford—the Death Doctor.”
“That sad drunk?” said Madame. “Why on earth does a sweet girl like you want him?” She stood, removing the robe and revealing a smart narrow-skirted day dress, stockings and subtle gold jewelry. She stepped into black pumps and affixed a small white hat to her hair.
“I lost … someone,” I said. I rolled my eyes around, but I didn’t see Cal or Conrad. I heard a snore, though, and that made me feel a bit better. At least one of them was still alive.
“Oh?” Madame paused, taking her hat back off. “I was going to go meet with the leader of our tong to negotiate a price for the three of you, but now I’m interested. You’re actually going to attempt the doctor’s journey?”
“I have to go to the Deadlands,” I muttered, squinting against the glare of the lights. They seemed to grow brighter with each passing second. “I have to get Dean.” The filter that kept me from blurting things out and that connected sentences was broken, that was for sure.
“And who is Dean?” Madame said, sitting back down. Even Fang seemed interested.
“I love him,” I said. “It’s my fault he’s dead.”
Madame patted me. “I’m sure that’s not true, dear. You’re far too young to be causing misery.”
“I’m the destroyer,” I told her earnestly. I couldn’t shut myself up. Damn these drugs. “I’m Aoife Grayson. I blew up the Engine and I made the world end.”
“Goodness,” said Madame. “I thought that selling you to the tongs would be a great fall, but you’re already as low as you can go.”
She said something to Fang, and he shrugged.
“Old Ones return,” she sighed. “I might be getting soft in my old age, but I’ll take you to the doctor, if you promise me one thing in exchange.” Her playful smile was nowhere in evidence.
“Sure,” I said, feeling incredibly expansive. Why didn’t I do more favors for people I barely knew? I had no idea. The laudanum certainly didn’t.
“If this actually works,” Madame said, “you find my brother and you give him a message for me.” She looked away. “He died on the crossing from Hong Kong. Jammed in steerage. He was always a delicate one.”
“What should I tell him?”
“Tell
him I’m sorry,” Madame said. “But it was him or me.”
She snapped her fingers at Fang. “Get them something to wake them up,” she said, “and then bring the car around.” She looked back at me, and I was aware enough now to feel a chill at her perfect but perfectly blank smile.
“Our young lady here has an appointment with the Death Doctor.”
8
To Speak with Spirits
MADAME XIANG’S JITNEY was a long Packard that belched steam from under the hood like a dragon as Fang maneuvered it through the crowded streets.
“Do you do this a lot?” I asked Madame. Cal, Conrad and I were crammed in the back while she sat up front. “Drug and rob people?”
“Only the gullible ones,” she said. “I am quite an accomplished medium. My husband and I help the tong often.” She gestured as people leaped out of our way. “I think my abilities scare them quite a lot.”
We rode another few feet in silence, and then Madame turned to me. “And what about you?” she said. “I hear the destroyer has some fearsome abilities of her own.”
“That’s just a story,” I said curtly. I wasn’t about to get into it with a robber medium who worked with a criminal gang. I didn’t want this woman to know I had the ability to push aside the very fabric of space and time. I was sure the leader of her tong would love the chance to travel via Gate between the worlds.
As the Packard made its way inch by inch through the crowds, the streets went from rutted to mud to barely there, and the character of the Boneyard changed. Where before the streets had been crowded and smelly but vibrant, now people hunched under overhangs, or peered through windows, faces half-obscured by the night.
A rain started, battering the Packard’s roof, and the tidal stench from the mud in the streets smothered all of my senses. Cal coughed and I felt bad for him. It had to be ten times as bad with a ghoul nose.
The houses got worse, too—broken windows, boarded-over doors, women in scant clothing beckoning from upstairs balconies while sharp-faced men guarded the doors and watched the Packard pass, licking their lips with a sort of hunger that made me nervous
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