Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

Imogen rose and began taking the books off the shelves. There weren’t that many, but she hauled books until her arms began to ache. Almost at once, she realized that they filled up as quickly as she emptied them. Frustrated, she began flinging volumes, shoving them away to land like broken birds on the floor, white pages fluttering as they fell. And then she simply burrowed, thrusting her head between the shelves and sweeping with her arms.

That did the trick. The shelf seemed to grow and widen until it was a platform broad enough for Imogen to kneel and then push through a chasm in the wall behind. Ragged plaster scraped at her arms and ankles, but the hole was wide enough to crawl through. Imogen stumbled to her feet, blinking. Had she crawled out of the room, or into something else?

“Out, I think,” she murmured, allowing her eyes to adjust to an even greater darkness. The sharp breeze on her face told her that she was out of doors. So I escaped through the side of the house where I was trapped? Something about that didn’t seem quite right.

She walked a few steps, feet crunching on fallen pine needles. When she turned around, she could still see the hole—there was a brighter light beyond—but there was very little impression of anything but vague shadows around it. “What a peculiar place.”

Hesitant, she took a few more steps away from the hole, liking the sensation of freedom. Despite her lapses in memory, she was fairly sure she hadn’t escaped this far before. Then again, liberty brought risk.

Tension cramped her neck muscles, making it hard even to turn her head. She seemed to be in the middle of a clearing. About twenty yards away was the edge of a woods. The tree trunks were spaced far apart and covered with moss, some just jagged stumps as if lightning had blasted them away. Age hung in the air like a scent, as if this place had seen the birth of the universe.

It was too dark to see the treetops, but something blocked the stars. The only light shone down on the clearing from a shrouded moon. Nothing stirred but a chill, sterile wind. And yet I don’t hear the wind in the leaves. Maybe it’s winter here?

The detail struck her as odd since she wasn’t longing for a coat, but larger problems loomed, starting with what to do next. There were no cabs driving by, no helpful signs with an arrow pointing toward home. But surely there was a path to somewhere, and unless she wished to remain stuck in the study, she would have to take a chance.

Really, you’re a town girl, a debutante who knows how to match bonnets to dresses and not much else. You’ll lose yourself in the trees and perish .

“Oh, do be quiet,” Imogen told herself. Sometimes she really was no help. She took another couple of steps toward the edge of the woods and searched for some sign of a track.

But the farther she got from the room where she’d been, the less she felt that she was alone. She didn’t like to fall back on the cliché about feeling eyes follow her every move—and yet there was a sense of tingling pressure that said something slid through the darkness ahead.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said harshly, forcing herself forward until she was right at the edge of the clearing. The air felt odd, as if the pressure changed right on that line between open space and the murky forest. The grass beneath the trees was long and pristine. She didn’t see any paths, any sign of footprints. Maybe no deer lived in those woods to make trails. Maybe there was something around the other side of the house. Not, of course, that she could see the corner of the house in the dark. It just looked like an ocean of blackness behind her. And if it’s a house, who lives there?

Fear crowded around her like a fog, a malevolent intelligence plucking at her braid, her clothes, the skin of her face with a touch that was not fingers—not exactly. And yet, horribly, that tactile quality was real. Imogen shuddered, frozen in place. Part of her revulsion was because the feeling was so familiar. She’d had dreams that made her feel this way—she remembered those all too well. The frozen, suffocating horror of being stuck, unable to move while her breath was stolen away. And the ones about wandering away from her body, unable to find her way back. And then there had been the dreams about the Whitechapel murders.

That thought turned her insides to a block of ice. And the reason I dreamed all that was because Anna was there . Her dead twin had somehow shared her dreams while she slept, turning them into nights of unspeakable horror.

Anna, whose soul had been preserved by Dr. Magnus and installed in the murderous automaton named Serafina. And who then tried to kill me . Except that Imogen had blown her to pieces aboard the Wyvern . And even if Serafina had survived that, nothing could have been left of the doll by the time that ship had burned and crashed. But if the body was destroyed, what about the soul? Did killing one automatically do away with the other?

Imogen remembered Nick and Tobias rescuing her. Images were coming back in a flood—the battle, the fire, Tobias trying to make her put on a parachute. And then—everything had gone black. All that she remembered was the horrific sensation of being torn apart. I thought I had killed her .

Blood began pounding in her ears, loud beneath those soundless trees. Silent, still, ancient—the place looked cursed. And whatever waited in the forest wasn’t anything with a heartbeat. It was far more sinister.

Somehow her sister’s shade had dragged her here, and it was waiting for her in the forest.

Before she even knew she was doing it, Imogen backed away—retreating toward the break in the plaster wall between the shrinking study and the trees. Her steps turned to a jog and then she broke into a stumbling lope. She was sure she hadn’t walked far from the hole, but now the distance grew, leaving her running and running while the lurking darkness closed in.

Imogen bashed into the wall before she saw it, making herself reel. And then she remembered to crouch down, diving through the hole in a scramble of elbows and knees. She fell onto the carpet of the study amid the litter of books, rolling to an ungainly stop when she hit the divan.

Shaking, Imogen drew her knees under her and gripped the back of the sofa, pulling herself to her feet. Her long skirts tangled around her ankles until, furious, she kicked out at the froth of petticoats and ruffles—now grimy from the outdoors. Her foot connected with one of the books, sending it spinning into the wall with a thump. She bent and grabbed another book, throwing it as hard as she could. It connected with a china vase and sent it crashing to the floor.

“Ugh!” she snarled, the full force of circumstances closing in. She was trapped. Utterly trapped. Anger, dark and thick, began to bubble up—and it wasn’t just a red-tinged fury at the present. There was old rage, too. She was resentful at her father, for treating her like an investment to be sold at a premium. Angry at her mother, for letting it happen. Furious that Tobias had bartered his own freedom to Jasper Keating. Hating that she’d lacked the tools to protect herself.

And more than anything, loathing the terror that Anna represented. Anna, who seemed to be indestructible. Stronger. The survivor. She should be dead. I was the one who lived .

She picked up another vase and smashed it into the wall. The crash filled her with an unholy satisfaction. She picked up another book—despising the shifting letters on the page—and tore out a fistful of leaves.

She’d never allowed herself this kind of a tantrum before. Destruction, delicious and wanton, soothed the raw heat in her brain. Then she flung the disemboweled book aside and stomped to the drapes, shoving them aside once more. This time—perhaps her perception had been cleared because she was so enraged—the window was there.