Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

The only way Imogen would find out was by going home, and for that she would have to draw Anna out. “Nothing is going to happen unless she thinks she can catch me alone.”

Do you want us to hide? Bird asked.

“No,” Imogen said slowly, hating what she was going to say next. “I need you to go home. I have to finish this myself.”

London, October 16, 1889

HILLIARD HOUSE

9:05 p.m. Wednesday

POPPY WATCHED AS Bucky finished screwing the tiny mechanical door to the side of Magnus’s clock. It was made from whatever he could find at Hilliard House, because getting back to his workshop after delivering Poppy and Lord Bancroft wasn’t an option, especially with the fighting coming so close.

By that night, the battle had clearly turned in the prince’s favor, but communication had become sketchy. Some said the prince had disappeared. Others that he was in the palace. Still more had seen him in Cavendish Square, near Tobias’s home. The last report made her the most curious. There had been no sign of Keating, Tobias, Alice, or Jeremy and Mrs. Polwarren.

Poppy was more than happy to have Bucky there. Tobias had said plenty of times how he was good in a fight, and she figured her big brother would know. Plus, she needed Bucky to make the door. It might have seemed a strange request after all that had happened that day, but he hadn’t given it a second thought. It was for Imogen, after all.

Bucky stepped back from the clock. “There. Is that how you wanted it?”

“Show me how it works.”

He pushed a button on the frame of the door. It popped open, showing an opening cut through the side of the clock.

“Brilliant,” said Poppy. Madam Thalassa had told her to guard the door, but she’d found it a difficult thing to visualize. Having a lot of imagination was all very fine, but she’d kept changing the door from an ordinary front door to a castle gate to the bronze masterpiece she’d seen in a book of Italian cathedrals. If Poppy’s participation actually mattered—and it wasn’t just Madam Thalassa making her feel as if she were helping—she needed to settle on one door and stick with it. After all, how was Imogen supposed to find something that kept changing?

Bucky looked down at her, his eyes tired and sad. “Did I tell you I dreamed of her?”

Poppy nodded. “You gave her what she needed. And now you’re doing it again.”

“How do I know it wasn’t just me wanting her back so hard I invented it?” His voice sounded lost.

Poppy’s heart squeezed. He’d been with her father, dodging the enemy and risking his hide to get Tobias’s equipment to the rebels. Bucky was smart and brave, but when it came to Imogen he was as fragile as spun glass. “Because when she came to my dream I wrote to Mr. Holmes, and he found Evelina because of what Imogen said. It’s real, Mr. Penner, and you’ve made her a door to get home.”

He looked down, nodding. “I’m going to go sit with her for a while.”

Poppy touched his arm as he left, feeling oddly maternal. She watched as he went down the hall and turned into Imogen’s doorway. The house was deathly quiet, everyone subdued and waiting for news, good or bad, of the prince and his army. Behind her, the clock ticked like the countdown to doom. She sank to the floor, not caring if her mother caught her like that. After everything that happened, dirty hems were of no interest. She fished in her pockets, pulling out the metal forms of Mouse and Bird and warming them in her hands. She’d had the feeling all day that it was time for their adventure to be done.

Resting her head against the clock, she felt the deep tock-tock resonate through her skull. She imagined the open door and wondered what it would look like from the other side if she were small enough to walk through it. The view down the stairs would be rather odd, given that Bucky had put the door about five feet up. The first step out would be extreme, but disembodied spirits would probably manage …

And then her imagination was inside the clock, with all its moving gears, and she felt a malevolent breath on her neck. It rippled over her scalp, leaving a tingling at the tips of her ears. She wished she had a sword, or an aether weapon, or anything besides her own weak hands to fight with. She backed up until she was braced in the doorway, ready to jump herself if need be. Mouse and Bird rushed her way and she reached out to help them. They had to get home safely—that was her role to play—but more than that, more than the nightmare of getting trapped inside the clock, she was terrified of what might get out. Once again, she felt the dribble of cold terror down her back.

“Hurry!” she screamed, poised to fling herself into action.

And jolted back to herself, wondering if she had really cried out. Her heart hammered as if she’d just woken from a nightmare and she had that same disoriented feeling of being inside her body and yet not. Poppy shook herself, setting the toys down and wiping her clammy palms on her skirts. The clock ticked calmly behind her and no one was pounding through the house, so she suspected that she hadn’t actually screamed.

Thank heavens for that. Everyone was hysterical enough as it was.

Poppy heaved a sigh, thinking about her mother weeping, the servants fainting, and whatever else might have occurred. War, mayhem, and mediums aside, she really did live too much in her fantasies. Maybe it was time to get at least a little bit serious about life.

And then Bird opened its wings in a flash of crystal and brass, and launched into the air. Mouse sprang into motion, clambering over Poppy’s ankle, and scampered down the hall toward Imogen’s room.

Poppy sprang to her feet, hiked up her skirts, and ran. Serious was for people who didn’t have adventures.

THE CLOCK FELT unspeakably hostile without Mouse and Bird, but Imogen was done waiting. She wandered aimlessly through it, so used to the precipitous drops by now that she hopped from walkway to platform with barely a look down. She took risks, leaving herself exposed in the hopes that it would tempt Anna to jump from behind a gear with murderous intent. This insane adventure had to simply end .

Perhaps her impatience was an excuse for Anna to draw things out longer, because nothing changed. Time dragged on as meaninglessly as before.

Annoyed, Imogen flopped on the velvet-covered rack that housed the tubes of aether. She closed her eyes, letting the incessant ticking of the clock hypnotize her into a stupor. “I want to go home, Anna,” she said dully, doubting her sibling was even nearby to hear. “Why don’t we get this over with?”

As she lay there, eyes closed, the ticking pounding in her brain, she became aware of a sound that didn’t belong with the others. Tick, tick, tick , skrick, tick , skrick …

Imogen’s eyes snapped open. A pair of feet dangled just above her. She scrambled to her feet, stumbling back for a better look. Anna—dressed just like her, of course—was hanging from the beam above, a rough rope twisted around her neck. The face was mottled a ghastly hue, the tongue protruding. Imogen cried out in disgust. “What is this?”

The corpse started to laugh, the distorted features leering down. “Isn’t this what you’re begging for, sister?”

“Yes,” Imogen snapped. “I’m done with you.”

“Oh, poor, frustrated Im. Are you sure I can’t be redeemed? Forgiven? Absorbed back into your soul like some missing piece that’s wandered off?”

Imogen didn’t respond.

“Isn’t it all about enduring?” Anna taunted. “You’ll fight back, but never like you mean to make it stick. You’re the peacemaker, the good girl, the one who sees the good in everyone.”