Marie Brennan - With Fate Conspire

Satisfied with that answer, Cyma let him go, and went back to the task of reestablishing her life.

The Underground, City of London: October 6, 1884

Eliza insisted on riding the train. Never mind that the new stretch of track opened with hardly any fanfare, compared to years past; it was commonplace now, the extension of the Underground, though most of its growth was to the west. To most Londoners, this addition meant little, except that gentlemen in their top hats were saved a minute’s walk from the slightly more distant Mansion House Station. Now they could alight at Cannon Street, or Eastcheap, or Mark Lane.

Dead Rick resisted coming with her—more, Eliza thought, out of superstitious dread than any real danger. Iron still had power to harm him, though the bread she tithed kept it at bay; he would never be happy in the cold body of a train carriage. In some ways, she couldn’t blame him: the noise and clammy foulness of the air meant the journey would never be pleasant, not until the railway companies made good on their promises of smokeless, steam-free engines.

They would, someday. She had seen glimpses of it, in that moment when the enchantment burst outward. Gleaming trains capable of terrifying speed, clean as the promises made twenty years ago, when the Underground first opened.

Faerie gold bought them a place in a first-class compartment at Blackfriars, and Dead Rick glared away anyone who tried to join them. Alone on the padded seats, with the gaslight flickering overhead, they passed from Blackfriars through the underbelly of London.

Hands cupped against the window, Eliza peered into the darkness. “So we aren’t going through the palace anymore?”

“You never was,” Dead Rick said. He didn’t look out, but closed his eyes and drew in a slow breath, as if tasting the air for something. “I mean, you sort of was. Two things in the same space, mostly not touching.”

“And now?”

He grimaced in a way she recognized; his mouth took on that twist every time he had to deal with the scholars’ theories. His thin lips had softened, though, from their hard set of before. “Sort of yes, sort of no, but in a different way. The palace is all over London now, not just in the ground. But ’ere, too. Blood and Bone, don’t ask me to explain it. You just ‘step sideways,’ is all.”

It was as good a phrase as any for what had proved to be their first challenge: getting out of the palace. The old entrances were gone, lost alongside every other physical landmark except the London Stone, and after some amount of fruitless effort Dead Rick had finally turned to her and said, “You’re the mortal; you puzzle it out.” She’d almost called on God, just to see what would happen. But she was nervous of disrupting the Ephemeral Engine’s work, and so in the end she took his hand and concentrated, thinking about the world she knew. They walked forward—but yes, sort of sideways, too—and then they were on Whitechapel Road, a stone’s throw from where the Darraghs lived. There was a possibility that going from faerie to mortal London would always require the assistance of a mortal, and a faerie for the reverse, but no one yet knew for sure.

Mansion House rattled off behind them; soon they were slowing into Cannon Street. Somewhere just above their heads, the London Stone sat in the wall of St. Swithin’s. Its reflection was the one thing that persisted below—that, and the Engine itself—but it wasn’t the heart of the palace anymore, not like it had been before. Dead Rick glared away another gentleman who otherwise could have joined them, and when he was gone, Eliza asked, “Who is staying?”

The skriker shrugged, putting his bare feet up on one of the leather-padded seats. “Not sure. A lot of them foreigners is still around, from the Academy and the Market; they ain’t bothered by the same things as us, iron and such, so they just cleared out while everything was crashing around our ears, and will come back now it’s safe.” He snorted. “It’ll be a cross between the East End and the Royal Society down there.”

Eliza pressed her lips together. “Just so long there’s order. Ye may not have a Queen anymore, but somebody needs to make sure ye don’t get another like Nadrett.” She gave Dead Rick a sidelong grin. “Or I’ll sick the constables on ye again.”

Eastcheap Station, close by the Monument to the Great Fire of London; once the fae had captured lost time and placed it in a room beneath that column, to help them combat the threats against their home. Such grand deeds they had done, and so few of them known to the people above. She still marveled at it.

“Want to ’ear something mad?” Dead Rick asked.

Eliza laughed. “Always.”

“Niklas thinks ’e can figure out a way to make this”—the skriker rapped the side of the carriage with his knuckles—“drive the Engine.”

She stared at him, thinking she must have heard wrong. “The train ? But—what about the iron?”

“You asking me to explain it? ’E said it ’ad something to do with magnets. All this iron circling around generates power, or some such. Damned if I understand it. But then we wouldn’t ’ave to worry about keeping the thing going.”

They certainly needed some source of power. As Wrain had predicted, the Engine was still clanking away, weaving more and more of the faerie palace. The growth had slowed, and aside from the immediate vicinity of the Engine—where things still changed every time one blinked—the result appeared stable, but if it was to go on functioning, it would need fuel. And no one had any intention of letting it stop.

The train drew into Mark Lane. Eliza and Dead Rick alighted there, for the nearby Tower of London Station had been closed when the new track opened. “You going back to Whitechapel?” Dead Rick asked.

Habit made Eliza draw her shawl around herself, as if to hide again. “I… don’t know.” She hadn’t yet. Whitechapel was complicated; Quinn might not be hunting her anymore, but there was still Maggie Darragh to consider, and Fergus Boyle, and Owen. None of those were matters that could be dealt with in the space of a few days.

Including her own self. The work of seven years had ended; now what would she do? Find factory work, as Tom Granger had suggested all those months ago? Go into service with some other rich family, and hope they were better than the Kitterings? Perhaps Mrs. Chase needed another maid. The expansion of the palace had swept the Goodemeades’ home into itself without faltering, so Eliza would be able to step through into Rose House any time she liked.

A gust of wind gave her a better reason to wrap her shawl close. The day was a chill one, and gloomy enough that gaslights still burned in many places, although it was early afternoon. A reminder that, whatever she did, it had better pay well enough to buy a warmer shawl. Winter was coming on.

Dead Rick, bare-armed in the cold air, noticed her discomfort. “If you’d like—” he said, then stopped.

They’d never truly had the conversation, the one where they settled all the pain and questions between them. Looking at him, Eliza realized she no longer needed it. Somehow, in the course of healing Owen and hunting Nadrett, calling ghosts and creating the new palace, they’d found a new balance of friendship. And she was comfortable with that.

He caught her smile, grinned, and kicked a broken cobblestone with one dirty foot. “You is a real medium, after all. And there’s that Myers fellow, as studies ghosts. You probably don’t need my ’elp no more, but…”

“I’d be glad to have it, I would,” Eliza said quietly. As they had planned, seven years ago. She might not make a fortune, might never tour Scotland and France and the United States—but she could make enough to live on, and even to help the Darraghs. For now, that would more than do.