Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

“There should be a bridge,” she said, pointing. “Ah, look, there it is. We came to this part of the tunnel a little early, that’s all.”

Relief pushed back his paranoia. “Clever Alice.”

Dark smudges shadowed her eyes, but she managed a smile. The sweetness of it brought an ache to his chest, knowing how much it cost her. She had reined herself in with iron self-control, but she was still a mother who had lost her child—and that didn’t begin to touch the question of her father, or the war. Her strength staggered him.

He stood, leaving the lantern at his feet. He brushed her cheek with his fingertips. “You amaze me.”

Her lips parted, as if in reply, but he kissed her before she could speak. The taste sang through him, muddling in his senses with the still, heavy darkness and the distant sound of water. He deepened the embrace, exploring the sweet warmth of her. He had never embraced the magical, but the moment was ripe with significance, as if they had been stripped down to the bare essentials of themselves.

“Do you think there will be anything left of London when we get back to the sun?” she whispered, as if the question were too dreadful to be spoken aloud.

He wished he could keep her there, and trade the world above for a bed with her in it and all the time to prove himself the husband he’d always wanted to be. But he made himself smile instead. “That depends. I’ll probably be out of a job, at any rate.”

She wound her arms around his neck. “I want to see what you can do without my father breathing down your neck.”

His heart quickened, awakening the pain in his stomach again, but he swallowed it down and let himself dream for an instant, turning the pages of the future like a storybook. “I might be a disaster and land us in poverty. I’m not particularly practical.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Leave the money to me. I know my way around a patent application. I’m not entirely ignorant of my father’s business, even if he doesn’t know it.”

You would have been the perfect wife . But he stepped back, out of her arms, because otherwise he would shatter. “Then let’s cross that bridge and get this little task out of the way.”

The look she gave him promised much, but he tried not to see that promise, picking up the lantern and letting her lead the way. His head was spinning slightly, emotion combining with the close atmosphere.

They approached the bridge, and his heart lurched. It was a slab of stone about four feet wide, with no railings. Both edges sloped down, giving it a slight ridge all the way across, though there was plenty of room to walk. It was the chasm underneath that gave Tobias pause. It was around twenty feet across and—at least as far as his eye could perceive—a bottomless rip in the earth.

“Are you sure this is the way?” he asked.

Alice gave a slight, unhappy laugh. “One doesn’t forget something like this. The only way to cross it is to just start walking and not look down.”

If Keating had crossed, he would do no less. “Then lead on, my lady.”

She did, her slight form confident as she began the crossing. But Tobias had gone about six steps when another fit of wet, desperate coughing hit him. Eyes blurred with tears, he pulled out his pocket handkerchief and fought for air, forcing himself not to move his feet as he doubled over. He felt Alice’s touch. No, you should be halfway across by now. Don’t risk coming back for me! But of course, he couldn’t speak a word.

“Tobias?” she asked gently once he had finally quieted.

“Just go,” he gasped. “I’m all right.” And he hid the bloodstains on the handkerchief.

This time, her expression was accusing. But she turned and went, which was what he wanted. He followed after, drained by the fit. It was a mental effort to put one foot before the other, but slowly they progressed across the yawning gap below. When they were three-quarters of the way across, he saw movement on the other side of the bridge. Tired as he was, at first he thought it was just a trick of his eyes.

He was wrong. It was torchlight. His first impression was of a band of ragged, dark figures with hoods drawn over their faces. Dread shot through him. He’d never seen these creatures, but he’d heard of them. Wraiths . They were the soldiers of the Black Kingdom, and they carried an aura of something fearful, like the knowledge of injury just before the strike of pain. Around their knees swarmed a crowd of something—eyeless faces, twisted limbs, and headless things melted into a shadowy pool.

They’d attracted the wrong kind of attention. “Alice!” he said, hoping to warn her.

She saw them the moment he spoke. The sight of the spectral figures startled her enough that she scampered back a few paces, and in doing that she lost her footing on the sloping bridge. She fell backward, skidded, and began to slide toward the edge.

Tobias lunged for her, throwing himself down to stop her fall. He clung to her, all too aware of her heart fluttering beneath his chest. Her gaze met his, wide with alarm, and a protective warmth surged through him, clogging his throat until speech was impossible. He was aware of everything—the hard, sandy surface of the rock beneath them, the soft tickle of her hair against his skin.

“I have you,” he said. As long as there is breath in my body, I’ll keep you safe . “I love you.”

And then he felt the pressure of a gun barrel against the back of his head.

EVELINA, NICK, AND PRINCE EDMOND WALKED WITH THEIR escorts in silence. The creatures kept their weapons drawn, moving with a whisper of mechanical joints that made Evelina’s skin crawl. Her unease was compounded as the air grew stale. She could feel the tunnel dipping, and the sense of the magnetic power of the place increased.

“May I ask how it is that you came to be down here?” the prince finally asked the group’s leader. She seemed to be the only one willing to talk.

“Those of us who wished it were made welcome in the underground. At least,” she gave an odd shrug that didn’t quite move the way it should, “those of us who are mostly sane. All of us sacrificed pieces of our flesh in the laboratories, but some of us gave more.”

“Why weren’t you in the battle aboveground?” the prince asked.

She turned pale eyes on him. They might have been blue, but in the poor light they looked almost without color at all. “That was the intention of our so-called masters, but there were too many opportunities to escape.”

“You could have fought the steam barons.”

“Your rebels do not care for us any more than the rest.” She held up the hand that was still made of flesh. “Perhaps you yourself do not recoil from our kind, or perhaps you simply cover your disgust well. But not everything changes because of one battle. Win or lose, we are condemned to hide.”

The prince looked about to argue, so Evelina jumped in. “I thought the laboratories were there to discover what made magic work. And yet what I saw there looked like experimentation of all kinds.” She’d meant to smooth over the conversation, but a low snarl rippled through the entire group.

The woman waved them to silence. “It is a fair question. The barons learned enough to destroy our abilities, but never to replicate them. Lack of progress prompted them to try other things. After all, they had a steady supply of subjects for their testing.” She gave Evelina a curious look. “When were you there?”

“I was there the night it was destroyed.”

“Ah, you were with Madam Thalassa?”

“Yes.”

“That was a blow well struck.” The woman’s look of satisfaction made her look younger. Once upon a time she might have even been pretty, but suffering had stripped any softness from her features.