Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

Evelina growled from behind his stifling fingers.

“Oh, come now. You’d never have put on such a show unless you wanted me to catch you. Surely you didn’t think I would leave you forever?”

He pressed his lips close to her ear. “I’m sure by now you’ve learned I cannot die.”

Southwest Coast, October 5, 1889

SIABARTHA CASTLE

7:25 a.m. Saturday

WIND WHIPPED THROUGH EVELINA’S HAIR AS SHE RAISED her head above the rim of the basket of Magnus’s balloon. Above, the black silk globe rose like a storm cloud, captured in a net of silver rope. Below, the southern coast spread in jagged beauty, the green fingers of land lost among mists of salt and spray. They’d flown through the night and now morning spread with grim purpose beneath a steel-gray sky.

Fear slammed her, making her knuckles white on the wicker rim. It wasn’t the height, but the fact that she had no idea where they were going—or how she would ever get back. “Where are we?”

“Tintagel is that way,” Magnus remarked with a wave of one gloved hand. “All crashing waves and Arthurian claptrap. The property values on places like that are astronomical and for what? Useless unless you want to attract day trippers.”

He raised his voice to be heard over the wind, the quartet of steam-driven propellers, and the rush of the pumps converting aether distillate into the lifting gas that kept the balloon afloat. And somewhere in all that machinery was a navigation system that had kept the craft on course despite the dark. The black balloon was clearly designed for nocturnal journeys—and with Magnus that meant nothing good.

Evelina fell back into a slump at the bottom of the basket and buried her face in her hands. A new chain rattled where Magnus had strung her bracelets together, turning them into handcuffs. She’d had to turn the key in the bracelets a few hours ago when she’d felt the first tingles of pain that signaled their reactivation. It hadn’t been a dignified operation with her hands bound together and the key on a chain around her neck, and in the end Magnus had been obliged to help her—one captor assisting with the bonds of her other.

Vertigo assaulted Evelina, a mix of fatigue and the pure insanity of her predicament. It was too much after what she’d seen the night before. It was too much ever, because it was Magnus.

“Oh, come now, kitten. Surely this is better than returning to the Gold King’s thrall. I heard what you did for your pirate, sacrificing your freedom for the Red Jack . Very touching, if somewhat pointless.”

That made her lift her head to glare. She was about to protest that Nick had lived, despite everything, but stopped herself just in time. Magnus had baited a trap for Nick once; she wasn’t going to help him do it again. The longer he believed Nick dead, the better. “I made my choice and you weren’t it.”

“No,” Magnus said with a flash of irritation. “And that poses a logistical problem for me. I was prepared to wait for you to come to your senses, but things became a little more urgent now that Serafina is gone.”

Serafina, the insane, murderous star of his automaton ballet. Anna’s vessel. Even the memory of her reawakened the pain of her knife sliding through Evelina’s body. “Gone? Truly gone? Or is she as hard to kill as you are?”

“Alas, she was completely destroyed, as were all of my creations. Otherwise,” Magnus said with a twist of a smile, “I would have far less need of you.”

What does that mean? she wondered. And what does he know about Anna? But Magnus had busied himself with the pumps, adjusting the dial on the silver canisters lashed upright in the middle of the basket. That was the difficulty of being spirited away by air. Killing one’s abductor wasn’t a good response, unless one knew how to fly the wretched contraption—which she didn’t.

“I see from the burns beneath your bracelets that you were playing with dangerous chemicals. What was it?” he asked in that professorial voice he had used so often as her teacher.

Instinctively, she cradled her hands against her chest and wondered how to respond. Was it better to pretend to be his student again? Or was it time now to make it plain that she was done listening to him? She compromised. “I overbalanced the dampening fields in the laboratories.”

“Using an elemental salt, no doubt? Clever, but very dangerous. Most of the available substances are utterly toxic. Next time, use a few drops of your blood to activate it, and don’t touch the stuff with your bare skin.” He flashed a derisive smile. “And if it’s salt of sorrows, don’t even breathe near it. If that was what you used, be glad you didn’t have more than a pinch.”

Somehow, he knew exactly what she’d done. Evelina crouched against the wicker of the basket, misery welling up inside her. Magnus was worse than the bracelets. They only reacted to what she did. The sorcerer detected where she’d been and half the time what she was thinking.

The balloon began to dip, drifting downward. Gripping the woven wicker rim above her, Evelina ventured another peek at the ground. The cold sea wind raked her face, blurring her vision with tears. Magnus was wearing goggles, she was not.

But she could see well enough to feel a swell of panic. Spears of dark rock thrust out of the water, their bases disappearing into a churn of waves. A scatter of whitewashed houses clung to the base of the cliffs, seeming to huddle for shelter from the open water beyond. There was no sheltering cove here, no harbor or breakwater to spare the shore. There was only a finger of barren land thrusting into the sea and at its crest, a castle of bare black stone.

“Was it going for a song?” Evelina asked dryly. “Not many day trippers here, I suspect.”

Magnus laughed. Whatever his legion of other faults—including a gruesome sort of insanity—he did have a sense of humor. “Ah, no, this is an old pied-à-terre from former days. I had been living in the Black Kingdom, but grew tired of endless caves. At least this place has windows. It may be inconvenient and drafty as anything, but it’s wonderfully private. We’ll be quite cozy here until this nonsense with the Steam Council blows over. We can catch up on your lessons.”

Evelina cursed under her breath, yanking in futile frustration at the chain that bound her hands. Magnus’s instruction had proven a double-edged sword. He was the only creature she knew who could teach her about her own power, but at the same time he had used her curiosity against her, cursing her with a sorcerer’s hunger. The more time she spent around Magnus, the less she could count on remaining Evelina Cooper. That, more than anything else, spurred an overwhelming motivation to get away.

Magnus deftly adjusted a lever that angled the propellers a degree. The balloon shifted slightly west, rotating lazily until it caught the wind. They were close to the castle now. The style of it was ancient—a misshapen tower of dull black stone surrounded by a high wall on three sides. But the most striking feature was the front edge of the tower, for it thrust out over the cliff, leaving a sheer drop to the thrashing ocean below.

The basket cleared the edge of the wall, and Evelina could see the details of a bailey—an enclosed yard where once there might have been stables, blacksmiths, chicken coops, and all the other necessaries that made up a community. Now the auxiliary buildings were deserted, the wood crumbling and bleached gray by the chill salt air. There were a handful of servants standing by to assist with the balloon, but they looked like they wanted to bolt at the first opportunity. This is the absolute end of the earth . And from what she could see, it hadn’t ended well.