Stefan Bachman - The Peculiar

Not a moment too soon. The door to the hallway opened quietly. Mr. Jelliby held his breath. And John Wednesday Lickerish slipped into the room.

It took Mr. Jelliby a second to fully grasp his own bad luck. This was a dream, surely. Perhaps there was a gas leak in the palace and he had breathed the fumes, or contracted lead poisoning, and the effects were coming on now in hallucinations and headaches. But no. This was his life. And it made him angry.

Confound it! Confound everything! Of course it would be the faery politician. And of course the bulb-headed blighter would choose this room to enter, out of all the hundreds of rooms in Westminster. Now if Mr. Jelliby were to be discovered it would mean more than just humiliation. It would mean an investigation, banishment from his club and all his favorite drawing rooms, perhaps even arrest. Hiding inside the furnishings of a private Parliament chamber only days after widespread rumors of spying was not something that could be interpreted favorably. With a few well-placed words, his opponents could easily have him thrown out of Parliament altogether. Mr. Jelliby had half a mind to burst from the cabinet then and there, and shout at the faery that he was bringing him ill fortune by the buckets and Mr. Jelliby wanted nothing to do with him. But of course he could never have brought himself to do it. He simply sat, rooted to the bench, and watched through the glass pane.

The faery politician walked to the center of the room. He glanced around him. Then he moved toward the large mullioned windows that looked out over the Thames and undid a latch, throwing wide the casement. His hand went out. Something moved in his palm-metal feathers and mechanics. A clockwork sparrow. It rose out of Mr. Lickerish’s palm, fluttering for an instant in the air. Mr. Jelliby saw a brass capsule catch the sunlight and glint from one brass leg. Then the bird shot away across the river and was lost in the ribbons of smoke rising from the city’s roofs.

Mr. Jelliby took a very small, very careful breath. A capsule. It was carrying a message. The bird was a messenger bird, like the sort his grandparents had used when there were no such things as speaking-machines and telegraphs. Only the ones his grandparents had used had pumping hearts and soft feathers. A contraption of the sort the faery had just launched did not come cheaply. Mr. Jelliby’s own household didn’t have any. Ophelia wasn’t taken with such things, being sophisticated, and far more interested in magic than in machinery. But he had seen them often while promenading: automatons shaped like dogs, like crows and spiders and even people, staring with beady eyes from the windows of the fine mechanicalchemist’s shops on Jermyn Street. Clockwork horses were the newest craze. They were hideous and loud, shot steam from every joint, and looked rather more like rhinoceroses than horses, but the king of France owned a stableful, and the Queen of England, not to be outdone, had purchased a fieldful, and soon every duke and minor noble owned at least one mechanically drawn coach.

The faery refastened the window and turned to go, again casting a wary look around the room. He was only steps from the door to the hallway when it was thrown open again. It only barely missed knocking out a few sharp faery teeth.

Mr. Jelliby couldn’t see the visitor from his hiding place in the cabinet, but he did see the Lord Chancellor’s face go sharp, saw his eyes harden and his hands grasp at the fabric of his coat. It was someone the faery knew, then. Someone he didn’t want to see.

“You stinking candle,” Mr. Lickerish hissed. “What are you doing here? Melusine, we must not be seen together! Not in public!”

It was the lady. The lady Mr. Jelliby had seen rushing down the brilliant passage in Nonsuch House. Mr. Lickerish pulled her into the room and shut the door behind her, drawing the bolt with a sharp clank.

She stepped into the middle of the room. “We are not in public,” she said, turning to face the faery.

Mr. Jelliby stared. Her lips, bright red in the powder of her face, had not moved. The voice had come from somewhere in her vicinity, but it was not the voice of a lady. It was not even the voice of a man. It was a thin, cold, lazy-sounding voice that made Mr. Jelliby think of frosty leaves against stone. And it was unmistakably the voice of a faery.

Mr. Lickerish stamped his foot. “Melusine, we-”

“ Don’t call me that,” the voice snapped. Again the red lips were motionless.

Mr. Lickerish’s eyes went wide, expanding into two black moons. With savage suddenness, he lifted his walking stick and struck it hard across the back of the lady’s head. There was a yelp. The lady bent forward under the force of the blow, but her face remained stiff.

“Never are you to give me orders,” Mr. Lickerish said, lowering the walking stick. “Melusine .” He spat the name.

“Forgive me, Sathir .” The voice was subdued again. “That is her name. It is not mine. It brings back memories to her. Ones I do not wish her to recall.”

Mr. Lickerish began to pace to and fro behind the lady’s back. She remained still as waxwork, a shadowy statue in the center of the room. With a start, Mr. Jelliby realized her face was directed straight at his hiding place. She wore a little top hat that hid her eyes, but was she watching him? Right that very moment? He stared at her, wondering who she was. Her clothes had been sumptuous once, all those yards of velvet, the seed buttons and swirling stitchery. They weren’t anymore. The plum-colored skirts had become filthy, every swish bringing to light layers upon layers of lace and petticoats, discolored with dirt. One of her gloves was torn and flecked with what looked like dried blood. He tried to make out her features, but all he could see was a dainty chin and that red, red mouth.

“Why are you here, Jack Box?” Mr. Lickerish stopped pacing long enough to glare at her back. “Speak quickly and beg the wind-strewn stars it was important enough to disturb me. The Privy Council is convening in less than five minutes.” He took a pocket watch from his waistcoat and examined it fiercely.

“Minutes,” the voice said, disdain and disbelief coming together in a point. “Minutes are for humans .”

Mr. Lickerish’s eyes grew round again. The lady took a few halting steps away from him. “No matter!” the voice added quickly. “You must do as you please, of course. I have found a new one.”

There was a pause.

“I saw it the day I took Child Number Nine, watching from a window. It lives right across from Nine, in the same alley”

Another pause. Still Mr. Lickerish said nothing.

“The faery districts are a boon to us, Sathir. Tens and hundreds of changelings just waiting to be plucked up. And no one gives a tinker’s thumb if they live or die.” A brittle, unpleasant laugh sounded in the room. “The last one I didn’t even have to steal. I bought it right from under its mother’s nose. For a purse of rose hips.”

Mr. Jelliby, who had developed a cramp and was trying every possible way to relieve it without making a sound, pricked his ears. Changelings. Where have I last heard about- Oh. Oh dear. It was John Lickerish, then. He was a part of it. The Lord Chancellor of England, and all tangled up with the deaths of nine half-bloods.

All Mr. Jelliby could think of was his awful luck at having to know this. If only I had stayed out of this accursed room. He might have chosen a different door, or pretended to be lost, or simply stayed in the council chamber and faced the stares. He might have gone home a few hours from now and spent a pleasantly uneventful evening complaining to Ophelia about his many woes. Because Mr. Jelliby didn’t want to know who was murdering the children. They were changelings, after all. They were far away, and he had never known them, and he had his own troubles. But the conversation went on, and Mr. Jelliby was forced to hear every word.