by Kady Cross
“Are you all right?” Finley asked, then felt stupid. It was obvious the girl was not all right. She shouldn’t have stopped to ask. She had to find Griffin.
The girl lifted her head at the exact second that Finley realized something wasn’t right. Those weren’t tears running through her fingers, it was blood—blood that leaked from the raw, gaping holes where her eyes had once been.
“Bugger me!” Finley cried, jerking back when bloody hands reached out to her.
“You don’t belong here, Finley Jayne,” the girl crooned. “Go back to the breathing world, little mouse, before the big bad wolf comes calling.”
Finley scowled at her. She didn’t like being frightened, and she liked the things that frightened her even less. “I’m not afraid of Garibaldi, and I’m not afraid of you.”
Now it was the girl who frowned. Her dark brows pulled low over the glistening pits of her eye sockets. A trickle of blood dribbled by the corner of her mouth— there were stitches sticking out of her lips, like jagged little whips. “I don’t know who Garibaldi is, but I know who the wolf is, and he wants you.” She glanced over her shoulder. Could she actually see even though her eyes were gone? “He’s coming. Run, mousey, run.”
Her heart pounded in agitation, not fear. That was what Finley told herself. “Let him come.” But she moved onward. She wasn’t afraid to meet this “wolf,” but she wasn’t about to stand around and wait for him to show up, not when Griffin’s life hung in the balance.
As she walked away, she heard the dead girl behind her chanting, “Run. Run. Run. Run.” It was so very tempting to do just that, but she’d rather be boiled alive than admit fear. Still, she quickened her step just a bit. Bit of a creeper, that girl. The memory of those missing eyes was going to haunt her sleep for a long time.
If she made it out of the Aether alive, that was.
The cobblestone path eventually led to a curved, moss-covered stone bridge that crossed a glossy river. Water as clear and bright as polished diamond danced over rocks that looked as though they were chunks of chiseled obsidian. Finley stepped onto the bridge and didn’t pause to look over the side into the water. She didn’t want to know what was in it.
She didn’t even know if she was going in the right direction, but there was only the one path. How was she ever going to find Griffin in this place? How could she have been so foolish to think that it would be relatively easy? She hadn’t expected to step in and find him right away, but she’d grossly underestimated the size of the place. It was the land of the dead after all—a place made of energy. There was no limit to its size, was there?
Her throat tightened, and her eyes burned. What if...what if she never found him? What if he was lost to them forever? There were so many things she wanted to tell him, so many things she wanted to hear him say to her. There were still so many things about his life that she didn’t know—silly stories about his childhood with Sam, or going away to school. She wanted to know more about his parents. She wanted to know what it was that he saw in her that made him want to be with her instead of any other girl in London.
A tear trickled down her cheek. Finley swiped at it angrily with the back of her hand and sniffed hard. Bawling wasn’t going to solve anything, couldn’t accomplish anything. Crying was a waste of time and the last refuge of a desperate girl.
Desperate as she might be, but she had not lost all hope. Not yet. She couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
“Run. Run. Run.” The eerie whisper seemed to come from all sides—up above and down below, even from the trees themselves. At least a dozen voices urging her to run and run fast. A dozen girls hiding in the forest, watching her with raw-meat eyes. Who were they? What were they?
“Run.”
Finley walked faster.
“Run.”
Bloody hell, she was not going to run!
“Run.”
She stopped in the middle of a sliver of that silver light. It had to be the moon. Shoulders back, arms loose at her sides, she concentrated on her surroundings, opened up her instincts.
“Run.”
“No.” Her voice was quiet but firm. No need to shout and call attention to herself—or more attention to herself. “I’m not going to run.”
“You’ll be sorry.”
“Sorry.”
“A place with us.”
“She’ll be one of us.”
“So very sorry.”
“One of us.” The gleeful tone of that last multivoiced whisper made Finley’s teeth grind together.
“Damnation,” she whispered, and took off running as fast as her legs would take her. She’d only gone round a bend in the path when she saw a lavish house looming above. Music played inside—the kind heard in dance halls. She could smell cigar smoke on the air, and hear the rumble of male laughter.
That laughter turned her bones to water. It was an awful sound. A cruel sound. Was this The Machinist’s lair? Was she going to have to fight her way to him? She had been wrong when she called it male laughter. Men didn’t make such an evil sound. No, it was something else altogether that smoked and drank in that house. Whatever it was, it wasn’t human—not anymore.
She took a step back, but she couldn’t go backward—even though she’d prefer those mad girls to this. She had to go forward. She had to know if this was where Griffin was being held. Tortured.
“I’ll be damned,” came a familiar voice from behind her.
A shiver slithered down Finley’s spine. It couldn’t be. Slowly, she turned around, her heart squeezing itself into her throat.
It was.
Not five feet away from her, on what had turned into a deserted street lined with theaters and entertainment parlors, was Lord Felix August-Raynes. He looked less angelic in this place, more like the devil he was. Tall, blond and blue-eyed, he wore a gray suit and carried a silver-topped walking stick that matched the small bar that bisected his eyebrow. The only thing he was missing from the last time she’d seen him was the imprint of her boot on his forehead.
He grinned at her as the eyeless girls crept up behind him, flanked him. They crouched about him, stroked his coattails as though they were so much less than he.
“Finley Jayne,” he said, eyes glinting like flint. “The one that got away.”
Before she could react, the girls rushed her. Lord Felix seemed to suddenly appear right in front of her—so close she had to lean back to avoid touching him. The girls grabbed her arms and legs. She tried to fight them off, but there were too many. Lord Felix grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. He grinned.
“I’ve got you now.”
Chapter Six
Jack only came home to change. He wouldn’t have done even that had it not been for the blood on his shirt cuffs and waistcoat. People tended to be alarmed by that sort of thing when one was out and about.
There had been trouble at one of his clubs. He owned two—one that was for gambling, drinking and any other sort of “manly” pastime. The other was a bit more sedate. He called it The Bastard Club and meant it in the literal sense of the word. Everyone who belonged to the club—male or female—was the illegitimate offspring of a member of the upper classes and peerage, such as Jack himself. His father was an earl and a top-notch wanker.
Not many people knew of the club. Jack had only approached those he was certain of when he first started it, and then let the members discreetly spread the word. It was the sort of place that the nobs might get all up in arms about and cause enough of a fuss to make running it difficult—wouldn’t do for all their ignored, unwanted children to gather forces behind their backs.
At first, there were those who thought of the club as a place a body could go to rage about the unfairness of life, how they should have been the heir, and so forth. That wasn’t the case, however. What happened within thos
e thick walls was an exchange of information. They each had their own little group of people who were closely connected to the aristocracy. Most of the information came from servants who worked in the various households, and some came from the fringe of society with whom they spent most of their lives.
Servants often had the best information. They were broadly ignored by those who employed them, regarded as little more than furniture with limbs. By the same token, their masters often spoke freely in front of them, not even realizing they were there—or perhaps assuming they weren’t bright enough to understand. And of all those underpaid and undervalued household staff, there was none better than a lady’s maid. Not only did she overhear what the women of the house said to one another, but she would get news from other female staff, and—if she was comely enough—information from the male staff, as well. Plus, the lady’s maid was often in the company of maids of the same position from other households when ladies visited one another or attended balls. A good lady’s maid, possessed of wit and a degree of pleasantry, was one of the most informed people in all of London.
Jack had certainly befriended his share of lady’s maids over the past few years. As a result, and thanks to his club, he knew more about the aristocracy and nobility of England than they knew of themselves, and he rarely hesitated to use it to his advantage if opportunity arose. A man armed with knowledge was richer than any king.
Today he had heard that he was going to be an uncle. His father’s daughter—one of his wife’s children—was with child herself. The news disturbed him. He would probably never know the child and was pissed at himself for regretting it. He didn’t know his sister either, though he’d seen her several times. There was no denying their connection—even Jack saw the resemblance between them. She looked nice. Too nice to associate with her infamous bastard brother.
He had also heard that his father had taken a new mistress, a performer Jack knew quite well himself. That could certainly come in handy. The young woman would tell him everything she knew for the right amount of coin, and Jack didn’t mind spending it.
But the best news—the absolute best—had been word that his father needed a rather large loan to cover his gambling debts. Jack owned all of the man’s IOUs. Every debt. And now he planned to offer the man the money to pay them off, at an astounding rate of interest. Then, he planned to demand immediate repayment. He’d take silver, gold, whatever the lord had to give. He’d take the clothes right off the bastard’s back. He’d take until the slimy lord had nothing else to give and was in complete ruin. Men had committed suicide over less, and Jack didn’t care what path his father chose to take. He didn’t care about the loss of his own money.
Just last week he’d ruined Lord Abernathy, the man who had hired him to transport the crate Mila had been kept in. Abernathy had a romantic interest in young men, and it had only taken a few words in a few well-connected ears for the bounder to get caught in the act at a certain brothel that catered to those tastes. Abernathy was no longer welcome in society, so Jack had heard. Seemed his lordship had fled to his country estate in disgrace.
The man had put Mila in a box. Treated her like something less than dirt. He had to pay for that.
The house was quiet as he walked up the stairs. Mrs. Brooks would have departed for home already, as it was one of the days of the week when he cooked for himself and Mila. She liked to watch him in the kitchen and help him mix ingredients. It was a simple thing, but it was something he looked forward to every time. He wasn’t a master chef by any stretch, but he could cook and do it well.
“Poppet?” he called as he loosened his cravat, walking toward his bedroom. “What do you fancy for supper?”
There was no answer.
Jack paused in the corridor, and turned his ear toward Mila’s room, listening. “Poppet?”
Still nothing.
“Mila?”
Silence. She wasn’t put out about earlier, was she? Sulking because he wouldn’t treat her like something—someone—less than she was? Bloody hell, he wanted to kiss her—wanted to do lots of other things, as well. God knew he’d thought about it enough. She was his responsibility. He was supposed to protect her, not become one of the men he tried to protect her from. She deserved a good man—when she was ready for that. He wanted her to have the best of everything, and that hardly included him.
Mila didn’t know how the world worked, didn’t know that it could be so completely cruel to a young woman, or so judgmental.
As he walked up to her door, he thought about one of his other meetings that afternoon. He had gone to an establishment that specialized in teaching deportment and other such skills about which he knew very little. Oh, he knew all about manners and society, but not everything expected of a young woman. He’d hired someone to come to the house and instruct Mila in all those things. When she was done, Griffin King was going to take over as her guardian, pass her off as a distant cousin, settle a large dowry on her and make sure she ended up with the sort of man she deserved.
Jack hoped King knew that he planned on being part of that process. His girl wasn’t going to marry just any inbred lord. Jack would dig deep into the affairs of every prospect until he found the perfect one. Someone kind, with a good income. Someone with a decent family that would take her in. Someone strong to handle her stubbornness, but gentle enough not to hurt her emotionally. He wouldn’t have to worry about her physical care, not really. She already knew to break the arm of anyone who tried to harm her.
There had to be at least one man out there who would see Mila for the gift that she was. Someone who could love her.
He knocked on her door. As he expected, only silence followed. He reached down, turned the knob and pushed the heavy slab of wood forward. “Mi—”
As soon as he crossed the threshold he knew something was wrong. Her bed was neatly made—something she rarely did even though he nagged her about it. The door to the armoire hung open, revealing a large, empty section. There were little items missing from her dressing table. Most importantly—and more disturbing—was that the copy of The Adventures of Pinocchio that he had given her was gone.
That meant Mila was gone.
Jack’s chest tightened. And tightened. And tightened. He gasped for breath, pressing his fist against his heart because the damn thing felt as though it was trying to chew its way through his ribs. He staggered forward, his other hand coming down on the bedspread. His fingers curled around something small and cool. He gripped the unknown object and clung to it as he dragged deep breaths into his lungs, forcing the muscles of his chest to relax.
What the ruddy hell had that been all about? He’d been left before, had people run off on him when he’d served their purpose. It had started with his father, so why should it hurt so much now? She was just a girl. Not like she was Treasure or his mum.
No, Mila wasn’t either of those women. Mila was something else entirely. Mila was strong like Finley, and full of the same wonder as his mother. Nothing had been able to diminish his mother’s love of life, not even being treated like rubbish. But Mila was oddly smart and intuitive in ways that most people weren’t. She made connections that most wouldn’t make. She was so frank and so honest. Too much so, and more often than not, she was dangerously innocent and naive.
Where was she? It didn’t matter that she could throw a grown man around like a rag doll. It didn’t matter that her bones couldn’t break. She could still bleed. She could feel pain, and there were people out there who would take advantage of her. He knew this because he used to be one of them. But he hadn’t been that Jack since the day he decided he needed to save her. He wouldn’t say he was necessarily a changed man, but he was certainly an altered one.
He straightened, the pain in his chest having subsided, and opened his hand. The object he’d found on the bed was a small brass cylinder—the kind used for capturing music or voice performances
. It wasn’t one that came with music already engraved because there was no stamp in the metal to identify it. It had to be one Mila had made herself.
With the brass clutched once more in his fist, Jack went to his own room—“the cave” as he liked to think of it. It was decorated in white and black, with the odd splash of color. Normally, he found the austere colors soothing and peaceful, but nothing could calm him at that moment. He put the cylinder in the small Victrola and wound the clockwork mechanism tight. Then, he sat down in a chair near the small table and pressed the switch to begin playback.
Static crackled softly. “Hello, Jack.” He smiled at the sound of her voice. “If you’re listening to this, well, it’s because I left. If you’re not listening to this...well, I guess there’s no point in saying much. I’m not terribly talented when it comes to words, but I’ll try to say things properly. I just couldn’t stay here any longer. You have been so good to me, and I...appreciate that. You’ve been a good friend, but I don’t want to be your friend, Jack. I don’t want to be your burden, your...responsibility. I want more. You already know this, and now I know that you don’t want me the same way. I can’t be your pet or your doll or whatever it is I am. I’m not a child, and I need to learn to take care of myself rather than let you or Griffin do it. You understand, don’t you? I hope you’re not upset with me, but most of all I hope you’re not glad to be rid of me. Don’t worry about me, Jack. But maybe...you could miss me just a little. I’ll miss you.” Her voice cracked on the last line, and Jack felt the lump that must have been in her throat erupt in his.
He swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. He must have gotten something in them because they began to water. Mila was out there in the dark, alone. She was strong, but she was still vulnerable, and a pretty little thing like her was easy prey for a man like his father—or a man like him. God, why couldn’t she understand that he wasn’t good? Why did she insist on making him something he wasn’t?
