Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

Nick gave a chuckle, one of those deep, masculine sounds of pleasure that said he knew exactly how he’d conquered her. In response, she nipped his lower lip, drawing another sound, this time of curiosity. She could feel their magic pulling toward each other, churning and eddying like a current where a river meets the sea, but they both held it in check. There would be time enough for dalliance when they were both on his ship and safe in the sky. And Evelina would commit any misdemeanor to make that future come true.

She put a hand on his chest, melting a little more as she felt the beat of his heart, alive and precious. “If you don’t leave, I won’t let you go.”

He sighed, and she felt the rise and fall of his chest. He stepped back, and all at once the room was there again, cool and spare. She shivered, feeling exposed without his arms around her. She bit her lips together, not wanting to cry because he was leaving so soon—or because sudden fear made her want to beg him to stay.

Letting him go wasn’t the selfish choice. Holding him back would be. “Good-bye, Nick, and come back quickly.”

He sketched an extravagant bow that came straight from his days in the circus ring. “Be safe, Evelina.”

She waited until the door closed before she let her tears fall.

Dartmoor, October 4, 1889

BASKERVILLE HALL

4:20 p.m. Friday

“THE KEY HAS TO BE TURNED EVERY TWELVE HOURS,” EVELINA explained to her uncle as he fussed with her silver bracelets. “Nothing Tobias has will take the bracelets off. And I can’t believe Dr. Watson drugged Tobias!”

They stood behind the hall, the vast expanse of the moors stretched out before them. Many described the place as desolate, but she didn’t agree. To her, there was a fierce loveliness. The land rolled in an undisciplined patchwork of browns and greens, the fieldstone fences more suggestions than effective walls. Splashes of gold and vibrant red flamed by the creek beds and ditches.

The wildness of earth and broad, sweeping sky didn’t bother her in the least. The place was rich with spirits of every kind—both the devas of the natural world, and the echoes of the primitive men who had built the cairns and stone huts that dotted the landscape. They weren’t hostile, but they were indifferent to the mortals that huddled into tiny, whitewashed villages. Unlike the tame farmlands closer to the big towns, the moors had business of their own.

Rather like the landscape, Holmes was unmoved by her protest. “Mr. Roth is in excellent care and, from the looks of him, he is overdue for medical treatment. What is the matter with him?”

“He won’t say. In fact, Tobias barely spoke at all the whole way here.”

“He always was an idiot.”

Evelina stiffened, but there would be no changing her uncle’s mind on that point. “I wish we could get the bracelets off altogether.”

“I will get the Schoolmaster on it as soon as possible. He knows every maker of consequence. One of them will figure it out.”

She wondered if there were safety measures that would render the key useless once Tobias discovered the theft—but raising that now wouldn’t help anything. Instead, she took the key from Holmes and strung it on her necklace for safekeeping. “What now?”

Her uncle gave her a serious appraisal. “Now you join Miss Barnes and help her destroy Her Majesty’s Laboratories. I am surprised that you didn’t guess that she and Madam Thalassa were one and the same.”

Evelina was still smarting at the deception. “I didn’t recognize her without her medium’s robes. Those sketches in the newspapers are never any good.”

Holmes raised a brow. “She’s already held up her end of the bargain and visited Miss Roth in her sickbed. She is guardedly hopeful that her solution will work.”

“And you kept your promise to Poppy.”

“Indeed I did. And now we move from small promises to larger ones. On to the destruction of the laboratories, and after that, the Steam Council.”

The energy in his voice rippled down Evelina’s backbone, carrying a power of its own. At Nick’s side, she’d spied out the Blue King’s army and survived an attack by his soldiers, and she knew just what kind of horror a war would unleash. And yet she knew equally well the price of doing nothing. Nellie Reynolds had shown her that all too clearly.

Still, she was afraid. Everyone she cared about had endured some sort of tragedy in the last few years, and this was only going to increase the danger hovering over her small world. No matter what choice she made, it wouldn’t keep her loved ones safe—not all of them, anyhow.

And her instinct said to fight, for all that road frightened her. She closed her eyes, holding the intoxicating beauty of the moors inside herself, storing it against what was coming. Soon enough, she would need all the loveliness she could find. When she opened her eyes again, she was steady enough to smile.

“I’ve always wanted to work by your side,” she said to Holmes, “but this isn’t anything like your usual cases.”

Holmes raised his eyebrows. “The details change, but every case involves someone who wants what they shouldn’t have, a great many lies, and at least one instant when I wished I’d became a baker’s apprentice.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Evelina said lightly, remembering her adventure in the Gold King’s warehouse. “The last baker I met had a problem with dragons.”

And for once—though it was for a very short while—she rendered her uncle speechless.

“THERE WAS A gunpowder factory back there,” said Miss Barnes in a low whisper, pointing straight ahead through the dusk. “Do you see that?”

Evelina crouched in the ragged grass, doing her best to avoid the gorse bush poking her with long, needle-sharp spines. They were approaching the laboratory from the moor, rather than the road. Normally she enjoyed a ramble across country, but she’d heard nothing but tales about bogs swallowing up innocent victims, and the ground here was squishy—not to mention that they were sneaking up on armed men. They had waited until twilight, but there wasn’t enough cover for her liking—especially not here, where the land sloped downward from a high tor. Evelina might have magical powers, but what she really wanted was a good revolver.

Nevertheless, she looked for the ruined factory. What she saw were the stumps of stone buildings, pale against the heath, one cylindrical tower still stretching into the sky. “What happened there?”

“Some sort of explosion. After that they closed it down and the laboratories moved. That’s what’s in the buildings on the other side of the ruins.”

Her Majesty’s Laboratories looked like nothing so much as a row of cottages with a dairy behind them. Which explained the cows—they were the perfect cover. Rough-coated, white-faced beasts, they dotted the land between where Evelina crouched and the cottages began. She eyed the pasture suspiciously, wondering about the wisdom of sneaking through the long grass.

“Do you know what you are supposed to do?” Miss Barnes asked.

Evelina nodded.

“Best of luck. Remember, you’re the only one of us whose power works a little differently. That’s why you’re going in first. The dampening shields inside the building should not work as effectively on you, but don’t take that for granted.”

The woman squeezed Evelina’s hand and crept away, her homely tan-colored coat all but vanishing in the grass.

Left alone, Evelina felt insignificant beneath the vast sweep of sky. The sun was low, outlining fractured clouds with pale fire, but already the moors had assumed a purplish hue. She could see the faint glow of devas—spirits of the land—flickering across the moor. They’d resisted all attempts to communicate, but she hadn’t pushed. It was enough to know that they were there, because that meant the moor itself was healthy. Although—she noticed the lights came nowhere near the buildings Miss Barnes had pointed out.