Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

“Did he say what he was doing?”

“No, he wasn’t in the mood to talk this morning. He just played with the baby.”

Tobias had always been good with children, but something wasn’t right. Poppy chewed her lip. Both Tobias and the clock were ticking wrong, but she didn’t have the experience to fix them.

“Look at that!” Alice said excitedly.

Poppy looked down to see Jeremy gather himself onto all fours and lurch forward. She dove just in time to catch him before he tumbled over into the leg of a chair. Jeremy laughed his ear-splitting baby laugh, probably thrilled to see his auntie grubbing on the floor in her Sunday best.

“He’s crawling!” Alice exclaimed.

“You’ll never keep him contained now,” Poppy said, suddenly feeling panicked. Who gave him permission to start growing up already? “Come here, you!”

She picked him up, putting him on her lap without regard for her skirts or her dignity. One hand in his mouth, Jeremy gave her his wide, innocent eyes. For an instant, she wished she could paint because there was so much worth capturing in that gaze. They were the soft gray of her brother’s, but with the perfect trust of a child. So rare and wonderful .

It was then she realized that she really had grown up.

London, September 29, 1889

LADIES’ COLLEGE OF LONDON

7:35 p.m. Sunday

TWO DAYS OF SLEEPING, EATING, AND SLEEPING AGAIN HAD done much to restore Nick’s energy. It was a good thing, because the Ladies’ College of London was about as easy to access as the average cloistered nunnery. Not that Nick was in the habit of accosting nuns—it was bad enough being a pirate without diving for obvious clichés. Still, dusk found Nick on the outside looking in—a familiar vantage point for an orphan who never had actually acquired a last name.

The buildings—and hence his Evie—were guarded by a high wall topped in nasty spikes. The gate was something out of a Gothic prison, and some enterprising gardener had removed every bit of vegetation that might have provided access over the wall. If he wanted in, he was going to have to prove his resourcefulness.

Fortunately, this was the sort of thing he was good at. He began a tour of the perimeter, looking for suitable drains to climb. Something underground might have done, too, but one never liked to burst in on the love of one’s life smelling of sewers. After all, he had gone to the bother of borrowing some of the Schoolmaster’s smart clothes. In fact, he hadn’t been allowed out the door until he was inspected and deemed to be in a fit state for wooing. For all his air of mystery and action, Edmond Baskerville had a sentimental streak.

Nick had stopped to inspect a likely looking downspout when a large raven landed at his feet. The size of the black bird was startling enough. The fact that it was wearing a tiny steel helmet had Nick blinking in surprise. He hadn’t expected to see his old ally here.

Greetings, Captain Niccolo. You have long been in a place none of the ash rooks dared to fly .

“Fair winds, Gwilliam, Lord Rook.” Nick used the bird’s formal title. “It has been too long.”

The creature spread his impressive wings—larger than the common raven’s—and bowed his head. The seed-pickers and eaters of worms sent word of your flight from the pit of fire. We dared not believe it was true .

“There is a proverb among the ash rooks that those who cannot soar gather more facts.”

If what they saw is not pushed aside by the sight of a tasty bug . The bird cawed at his own joke. Sparrows are not the most reliable spies. Do you return to the clouds, Captain Niccolo? You fell like rain the night the flying ship burned. Some of my flock still cannot abide the sight of flame. We did not all fly home to roost that night .

“The ash rooks fought bravely, as always. I mourn for the loss of your comrades.”

We are sorry that we could not do more to help .

“I had Athena with me. I was safe enough.” Even trapped inside a cube of steel, the deva had the power of flight—enough for two.

You buried her spirit in the cold ground .

“I hid her from the soldiers that took me. I did my best to protect her.”

So the seed-pickers say. We honor your intent, if not your methods. Air devas do not belong beneath the soil .

What else could I have done? Annoyance shot through him, confounding his tongue as he searched for a particularly blistering reply. But he never had the chance to make one.

Gwilliam launched himself from the ground with an enormous flap.

“Where is she?” Nick cried. “I can’t remember where I was!”

But the bird thundered through the air until he was sailing high above. He drifted over the wall with a rattling croak, and was gone.

“Fine,” Nick muttered, backing up enough that he could see the section of wall where the ash rook had disappeared. It had, in fact, lost a few of its spikes. At least the bird had shown him a way over. Nick braced himself, rubbing his hands together to limber his fingers. Here was his way in.

Nick got over the wall, across the grounds, and found the building where—according to the Schoolmaster’s notes—Evelina slept. He circled around the outside, waiting for someone to come or go so he could slip through the door behind them. When that didn’t happen, he pulled out a set of lock picks he’d taken from the Schoolmaster’s rooms and forced the issue.

His Blood gave him a talent for gliding unnoticed through rooms. He made good use of it, ghosting through the halls until he caught the whiff of Evelina’s magic. It was a warm, familiar scent drawing him home—and reminding him of the days, and nights, they’d last spent together, tangled in the bed of a Whitechapel brothel. Not the setting he would have chosen for their first such interlude, but now he would ever have a sentimental fondness for Miss Hyacinth’s establishment. He paused outside the door, forcing his mind away from that memory and to something far less disruptive to his concentration.

He knocked softly, fingering the lock picks in one hand. The dark-paneled walls of the college pressed down on him, disapproving. The very air of the place reminded him that he was no gentleman. The only way he would have set foot on school grounds was as the gardener’s boy. What right did he have to be there?

I have every right. She and I have been inseparable since we were children . But that wasn’t true, was it? She’d left the circus to become a lady. Well, I’ve loved her longer than anyone else . And there was no reason for them to be apart ever again. Nick braced his feet a little more squarely and knocked again, refusing to be cowed.

This time the door opened, and Evelina’s heart-shaped face appeared. She looked pale, her eyes circled by lack of sleep. She stared at Nick a long moment, her lips parted. Then her hands flew to cover her mouth as if stricken. Nick’s chest tightened at her look of obvious shock. Then she fell back a few steps, eyes welling.

This isn’t how it should go. She should be happy . He pushed into the room.

“Evie, I’m sorry,” he said. “I said I’d come back but …”

“You’re dead!” The lift of her voice made it a question—or so he thought; the words were almost too muffled by her hands to make out.

He strode forward, taking her wrists and pulling her to him. “Not quite.” In fact, he wanted to prove exactly how alive he was. “Just a bit late. I never was good with dates.”

She made a noise like an angry cat. “Late? You left last November!”

Tears trembled in her eyes until one at last escaped over the curve of her cheek. Her mouth, always so full and soft, quirked up and down in turns as if she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or break his nose. Nick’s chest melted in a warm ache. “Sorry.”