Corpse & Crown

by Alisa Kwitney

“Thank you,” said Will, not looking at Henry. “But I think we should take the girl to the Royal Victoria.” It galled him beyond belief that Henry had gotten away with trying to murder Victor, but there was no way to acknowledge the crime without exposing Victor as a Bio-Mechanical.

  “It’s too late,” said Twist. “Hospital gates are closed till morning.”

  Will glared at Henry. “I’ll get my brother to help.”

  Henry licked his lips nervously and backed away. “Of course, of course—please give Victor my best.”

  Ignoring him, Will turned to Twist. “I’ll need help lifting her, and we’ll need to get a carriage.”

  “You can use my delivery wagon,” said the barman. “It’s around back. But have it back before daybreak.”

  Twist was just staring down at Nancy as if he were sleepwalking. “It’s not my fault,” he said. “I told her—just a little bit, to help get you back on your feet.”

  “We don’t have time for this now.” Will was surprised by the firmness of his own voice. “Do you know what she’s been taking? Laudanum? Opium?”

  “Ichor.” Twist looked on the verge of tears. “It’s supposed to help with the healing.”

  For the Gods eat not Man’s food nor slake their thirst with sable wine, thought Will, suddenly recalling a line from the Iliad. He might not know his chemistry as well as he should, but he knew his mythology. According to Homer, the Greek gods had ichor in their veins instead of blood, and this rendered them exempt from death.

  “Come on,” he told Twist. “Help me lift your friend.” He bent and slipped his arms under Nancy’s shoulders as Twist lifted her legs. He hoped to God Victor would know what to do to help her, but he had a premonition that this night would not end well.

  Mortals always fared badly in myths when they tried to emulate the gods.

  26

  It was nearly midnight when Lizzie and Aggie entered Justine’s room, waking her up.

  “My goodness,” said Justine, blinking as Lizzie adjusted the gas sconce on the wall, turning up the light. “What’s going on? It’s a bit late for a chat.” Justine was trying not to eavesdrop on their thoughts, but the tension in their bodies was impossible to miss.

  “Sorry to wake you,” said Aggie, offering Justine a cup of water with a metal straw. “It’s a bit of an emergency.”

  Justine took a sip of water. “I wasn’t really asleep.” When you spent most of your life encased in a metal cylinder from the neck down, sleeping during the day and waking at night was an occupational hazard. “What’s happening? Is there a letter you want me to read?” She was hardly going to be much use doing anything else.

  “In a way,” said Lizzie. “We want your diagnosis.” Before Justine had time to react, she added, “Boys, come on in.”

  There was the faint squeak of wheels as Victor and Will wheeled in a young woman on a gurney. Byram followed behind, looking on like a disapproving chaperone and thinking intensely jealous thoughts. The gurney was turned so that Justine could see its occupant—a bone-slender blonde in a stained and tattered red velvet dress.

  “I don’t understand,” said Justine.

  “This is Dodger’s friend, Nancy,” said Aggie. “The girl who was beaten and had the collapsed lung.”

  “I thought he said she was recovering,” said Justine. “This girl’s on death’s doorstep, from the looks of her. Is she even breathing?”

  “Barely.” Will stepped forward and launched into a long explanation that involved a public house, Henry Clerval and bootleg ichor. Apparently, ichor was the newest fad for gin fiends, absinthe drinkers and opium addicts. The girl, Nancy, had been taking ichor to promote healing—but either the ichor Clerval had supplied her was bad, or else it had made her dependent on the substance.

  Will left out part of the story that involved a thin blond thief named Twist. It seemed that Will and this thief had been attempting to bring Nancy to Victor for help, but ran out of steam before reaching Victor’s room. Reluctantly, Will had taken the unconscious girl to the room he shared with Byram before running up the stairs to fetch his brother. Byram, it seemed, was not as indifferent to Will’s activities as he tried to appear. He had been openly hostile to Twist, all but shoving him out the door.

  Interesting. But not as interesting as the reason that all her friends had brought the unconscious Nancy to Justine’s room in the first place.

  “So why have you brought her to me?” Justine had a suspicion she knew the answer, but she wasn’t used to having this many people in her room, and it was difficult to tune out the discordant tumult of so many different thoughts and emotions coming at her at once.

  “Because we need to know if Nancy is still in there,” said Lizzie. “Victor and Will think she’s beyond saving, but they don’t want to make a mistake.”

  “Everyone thought I was dead,” said Victor. “But my mind was perfectly fine. We need a test to tell us if Nancy is trapped inside her body—or if the vital spark of her is already gone.”

  With a sinking feeling, Justine understood. “You told them about me, Lizzie?” She already knew the answer, though. She could hear Will, thinking about what he would give to know what went on in Byram’s mind. Byram, on the other hand, was musing over how awful it would be to have a lover who could peer into your thoughts and discover every hidden secret and doubt.

  Forget about them. Blocking out their internal voices, Justine focused on Lizzie, who was crossing her arms and lifting her chin. “I’m sorry, Justine, but this is more important than preserving your privacy.”

  Justine felt a surge of anger. “Shouldn’t that be my decision?”

  “I beg your pardon,” said Aggie, “but what about my privacy? I shared your room for weeks and you never told me that you could read me like a diary.”

  “Oh, she can’t read just anyone’s thoughts,” said Lizzie. “Just mine. When Professor Makepiece put us both in the galvanic magnetometer, some kind of bond was established.”

  That was not precisely true, but Justine did not correct her. Lizzie’s mind was easier to read, but Justine could hear anyone, provided they were standing less than a few yards away.

  “I’m sorry,” said Aggie. “I misunderstood.”

  “Then so did I,” said Will. “I thought Lizzie said that Justine could tell if there was anything left of that poor girl’s consciousness.”

  Ah, so that was what they wanted. “You’re asking me to probe her mind?” asked Justine.

  “I don’t know if it’s possible,” said Lizzie, removing something from the bottom of the gurney. It was a cap of varicolored wires attached to a battery with a switch. “But it’s worth a try. I’m suggesting we use a galvanic charge to augment your brain’s natural powers.”

  “It may be too late to save Nancy,” said Victor. “But if she’s really gone...”

  Then maybe I can have her body. Justine looked into Victor’s eyes. She had known him longer than any of the others. Back when he was still her father’s favorite Bio-Mechanical project, he had been kind to her. “How do you know I’ll tell you the truth?” she asked quietly.

  “Because I know you,” he replied.

  “Let’s try it.”

  Lizzie smiled, then dabbed Justine’s brow with a green liquid—ichor? After that, she placed the cap on Justine’s head and nodded at Victor, who turned a switch. Justine felt a slight tingle from the electricity as Lizzie placed one hand over Nancy’s forehead, then touched Justine’s brow in the same place. Of course, all this was entirely unnecessary, but Aggie’s reaction told Justine that she was right to keep her abilities a secret. No one would ever trust me if they knew my mind doesn’t need augmenting.

  “Is it working?” asked Lizzie.

  Her scalp tingling, Justine closed her eyes and let herself sink into Nancy’s mind. Once, as a very little girl, Justine’s mother had taken her for a s
wim in a pond with some other children. That had been the day before the illness that had weakened her legs and lungs, and she still remembered the feeling of slipping under water and into a different world.

  Inside the still waters of Nancy’s consciousness, there were tiny ripples of memory—a color, a feeling, a sense of longing for something or someone who was no longer close.

  You’re drifting apart, thought Justine. She pictured Nancy’s mind as a school of silvery fish, being tossed this way and that in a sea storm. Do you want to stay together?

  Together, thought the tempest-tossed flashes of Nancy’s dispersing mind.

  I could keep you together. With me.

  The pellucid flashes were farther apart now, but there was one last coherent thought: With you.

  Justine found it harder than she would have expected to swim up to the surface again. She became aware of a liquid, rhythmic sound, as if the ocean had a heartbeat, and realized that the sound was growing fainter. She’s dying, thought Justine with a flare of panic. She’s dying and I’m going down with her, like a passenger in a sinking ship.

  Justine tried to cry out for help, but couldn’t find her voice. For some reason, Victor and Lizzie appeared to be moving in slow motion.

  The room darkened into grainy shadow, and now Justine was floating up through the depths of Nancy, but instead of finding herself back in her body she was outside her head, floating up to the ceiling of her room where she hovered at the level of the decorative wooden molding, looking down as Victor bent over her body.

  “Something’s wrong! Her body’s shutting down,” said Victor, ripping the cap off Justine’s head.

  Justine watched with a sense of resignation tinged with sadness as Victor flipped the hatch and pulled her wasted body out of the iron breathing apparatus.

  “I can’t find a heartbeat,” he said, listening with a stethoscope.

  “Oh, no,” said Lizzie, her hands covering her mouth. “No, it can’t be.”

  Aggie was shaking Justine’s limp body gently and massaging her hands in an attempt to wake her up. “Come on back to us, Justine.”

  Will was crying and Byram was comforting him.

  It was only when Victor removed his stethoscope and took Lizzie into his arms that Justine understood. She was dead.

  With a final, desperate surge of strength, she dove back down into the lake of Nancy’s mind, pushing herself deeper, past the silvery fading memories and the last, lingering desires. Help me stay, she begged, and the pieces of Nancy caught at her and pulled her deeper still.

  When she opened her eyes again, she saw that Lizzie was crying into Victor’s chest. “It’s my fault,” she was saying. “I should never have taken the chance.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” said Justine, in an alto voice that sounded unfamiliar to her own ears. Sitting up on the gurney, she smiled into ten pairs of startled eyes. “It worked.”

  27

  Aggie pulled the covers over the girl who looked like Nancy but spoke like Justine. “You’re sure you don’t need me to stay with you?”

  “I’m sure. I’m feeling amazing, really. Not even sure I’ll be able to sleep.” Justine smiled. Her new face was freshly scrubbed of grime, her dark blond hair washed and combed, and her slender body dressed in a fresh, lace-trimmed nightgown. “Thanks for letting me stay in your bed, Ags,” added Justine, now happily ensconced in the room Aggie shared with Lizzie.

  “I’m still not convinced we did the right thing.” It had seemed strange and callous to leave Justine’s lifeless body in the iron lung. Aggie wondered which of the nurses would discover her.

  “I don’t see how the doctors can help,” said Justine with a shrug. “All they could do would be to study me.”

  “But do you really want to give up your identity? Your name?” Aggie assumed that Justine Makepiece had savings. As Nancy, she would be poor.

  “I’m afraid that giving up my identity happened when I switched bodies,” said Justine. “I can’t see a judge giving me access to my money while I look like someone else.”

  On the other side of the room, Lizzie gave an exasperated huff and pulled the covers over her head. “Stop talking. I need to sleep before it’s time to treat the queen and Dodger again.”

  Justine frowned. “What about you, Aggie? Don’t you need to close your eyes, even for a little while?”

  Aggie considered it. Even before tonight’s craziness, it had been one hell of a long week. She glanced at the clock—5:00 a.m., which gave her an hour to rest. The Queen was always at her stroppiest first thing in the morning—she disliked the current night nurse—so Aggie needed every second of rest she could grab before dealing with the feisty and addled monarch.

  There was a faint snore from Lizzie’s bed. Her roommate had already fallen asleep. That decided her. Sinking down into a chair, Aggie covered herself with a shawl. “I’ll just sit for a moment.”

  “I’ll pay you to stop talking,” said Lizzie, slurring her words. “Ten dollars to let me sleep.”

  “How much in pounds and shillings? Besides, you were asleep,” said Aggie.

  “Twenty.”

  “Pay me in pastries,” said Aggie. “Preferably cinnamon buns.”

  “I’m not sure whether I like cinnamon buns,” said Justine, barely containing her excitement. “But I think I’m starving. I want food!”

  Aggie mumbled something, realizing that she would have to sneak some food back for Justine before too long.

  Don’t worry about that now. Rest. Trying to find a comfortable position, she realized she was still wearing her dark specs. Yawning, she removed then and placed them on a side table. The room was still shadowed, so she wasn’t worried about taxing her eyes, but her fatigue was making the furniture appear to tilt and spin.

  A familiar pair of slightly bulbous blue eyes gazed back at her from underneath a frilly mobcap.

  Oh, no.

  Aggie turned on the light. “Lizzie? You have to wake up. The Queen’s out of her room and wandering about.”

  Lizzie rubbed her eyes. “What are you talking about? How do you know?”

  Aggie fumbled for her spectacles. “Because I just saw her.”

  * * *

  “Oh, thank goodness you decided to come in early,” said Shiercliffe the moment Aggie and Lizzie walked into the receiving room. “We’re having a bit of a crisis this morning.” The matron’s tone was even, but she was still in her dressing gown, her graying braid visible under her sleeping cap.

  “What happened?” asked Aggie.

  “The night nurse discovered poor Miss Makepiece had passed away in the night, and rang the alarm. Unfortunately, the nurse who was supposed to be watching Her Majesty left her side, and now...” Shiercliffe nervously closed the neck of her dressing gown. “We have the night staff searching all the wards, but so far, we haven’t located the queen. The kaiser is due to arrive tomorrow! If she isn’t found...”

  “Leave it to us,” said Aggie.

  “She does seem to like the pair of you.” Shiercliffe looked older and less formidable than Aggie had ever seen her before. “Perhaps try the dining hall? Her Majesty talks about sausages a great deal.”

  “Great idea,” Aggie called over her shoulder as she dragged Lizzie toward the back staircase.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Lizzie and Aggie were running out of places to look. They had checked Dodger’s room, which looked horrifyingly like a prison: no Queen and no Dodger. They had unlocked the supply room that Victor and Lizzie had renamed the Department of Neuroscience: empty. Desperate, Aggie had opened the door to the morgue, where she was greeted by two cadavers that had been used for a student anatomy class.

  “Don’t suppose either of you have seen the queen? No?” She slammed the door shut, rubbing her arms to drive away the chill.

  “You’re getting loopy,”
said Lizzie. “Maybe we need to stop and get something to eat.”

  “Our malfunctioning Bio-Mechanical monarch might be running around London. I think we need to keep going,” said Aggie.

  Lizzie grabbed her arm. “Wait. Do you think they’ve left the building?”

  Aggie froze, struck by a sudden mental image of Dodger leading the dotty and vulnerable Queen through the back alleys of London’s roughest neighborhoods. Was she imagining it, or seeing it through Dodger’s eyes? She felt like tearing her hair out. Here she was, hanging on to her position at the teaching hospital by a thread, and the queen was her sole responsibility. If something happened to her, then Aggie might as well pack her bags tonight.

  “If they’ve gone,” she said, “there’s no telling what could happen. What if someone they meet realizes they’re both Bio-Mechanicals?” She and Lizzie knew firsthand what happened when people formed a mob.

  “All right, let’s think this through,” said Lizzie. “When you saw the queen, did you get any clues as to where she was?”

  “I didn’t pay attention,” said Aggie. “I just assumed they would be down here somewhere.”

  Lizzie gave her an assessing look. “There is one way for you to find out.”

  It took Aggie a moment to catch on. “Oh, no,” she said, reflexively putting out her hands. “You want to let Dodger into my head?”

  “It’s the only way, Ags.”

  Aggie swallowed. “All right. What should I do?”

  “What did you do when it happened before to make contact with Dodger?”

  Aggie removed her spectacles.

  “Do you want to sit down?” asked Lizzie.

  “I’m all right.” She actually felt giddy with fatigue. Her earlier desire for a cinnamon bun had morphed into a deep-seated craving for an enormous slice of shepherd’s pie. Most embarrassingly, she wished that someone would give her a hug. Not that she would ever admit any of this to Lizzie.

  “Think about Dodger,” said Lizzie. “Try to reestablish the link.”