Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

“Perhaps they are simply stronger here.” Magnus gave a shrug, and then another knife-edged smile. “All the more reason to stay safely tucked in bed at night. Unless—and this is merely a suggestion, of course—you bestir yourself to find a way to defend yourself against such creatures?”

He reached over, making a crushing gesture, and the thing melted into a splotch of dark shadow at his feet. Magnus’s hand trembled, as if the thing didn’t go easily. Evelina winced, wondering which one of them it had hurt worse.

Magnus looked up, triumphant. “Maybe that is a challenge you can believe in, since you think besting me is so far beyond your reach.”

She made an inarticulate growl of rage. He’d clearly revealed the thing right when he wanted her to see it.

“There is the spirit, my kitten.” Magnus started for the door, the darkness trailing him along the floor like a tremulous shadow. “I can work with that.”

Her sherry glass smashed against the door as he closed it.

Unknown

ANNA HAD BIRD. IT HAD TAKEN A WHILE TO FIGURE OUT where she had constructed her prison, but Imogen and Mouse had found it.

It was below, near the part of the clock where the bizarre, multicolored tubes of bubbling liquid filtered messages from the aether. They rose like glass pillars all around Imogen, each tube lit from within and shedding a soft light over the surrounding clockwork. The tubes were held within a velvet-lined rack, so for once Imogen had something soft to sit on or, in this case, lie on.

She was stretched out on her stomach looking down and across empty space to another structure that supported a pump. Bird was there, too, looking frightened despite the fact it was the first lark on record that was the size of a large turkey. But the cause of Bird’s distress was clear, because Anna stood there, too.

“It’s very strange,” she whispered to Mouse. “Watching her is like looking at myself.”

Whatever you see, that’s not what she is , Mouse replied from its spot near her elbow. She’s putting on a show to rattle your nerve .

It was working. Imogen clenched her teeth to keep from raging or screaming or weeping as Anna—wearing Imogen’s face and clothes—used a long bit of wire to poke at Bird through the bars of its prison, grinning as if she wanted nothing more than to pluck and roast the clockwork lark for her dinner. The petty cruelty was bad enough, but that wasn’t what bothered Imogen the most. It was that Anna made her face look so evil. Am I seeing a piece of something that lives inside me? And then she revisited the fact that Anna had been responsible for the Whitechapel murders. If she had Bird captive, it would only be a matter of time before something very bad happened to the poor beast.

Imogen squeezed her eyes shut, wishing herself anyplace else. It was too much. She had been stuck in the clock forever, and every step forward she made—figuring out where she was, or confronting Anna, or finding Bird—was accompanied by the discovery of another problem.

But giving up means that Anna wins . And then her twin would wake up in her body, loved and trusted by her family. Who knew what damage Anna could do in Imogen’s name?

Imogen forced herself to open her eyes and wriggle forward another inch to see if a slightly different angle improved matters. It didn’t. Bird was clearly visible, but she still had no idea how to get to the creature.

The clockwork lark had been confined within the upright frame of the pump that fed air through the tubes of bubbling liquid. Even if Imogen could have jumped or flown across empty space to the platform holding the apparatus, and even if she could have reached between the bars and dragged Bird back through the too-small gap, there was still no chance of success.

“How did she get Bird in there, anyhow?”

Mouse didn’t answer, but crept closer to the edge of the rack, tail snaking to and fro. Imogen sensed the creature’s worry.

The biggest obstacle was the mechanism of the pump itself. It was a length of brass that rocked up and down to operate a bellows, each steam-powered plunge of beam and counterweight forcing air bubbles through the shimmering tubes. The rush of the bellows sounded like rasping lungs, inhaling and exhaling in wheezing harmony with the rest of the clock. But with each gasp, the metal cage around Bird moved with a sweep of clanking, bone-breaking brass and steel. Anna snatched her wire back with each swing of the pump’s arm, but then laughed as time after time the clockwork nearly smashed Bird’s snapping beak.

Rage clawed at Imogen, and she dug her fingers into the thick velvet covering the rack of tubes. Bird had been the lookout when she’d crept through her bedroom window to visit Bucky; the clown who flew away with her hair ribbons; the faithful friend who had come here—to this insane place—to help her. “What do we do?” she asked Mouse. “Can we stop the pump at least?”

She didn’t think that would do anything drastic to the clock. The purpose of the bubbles, she guessed, was to infuse air into the aether so that it could be scanned for information, and then the choice bits of news coded onto one of the clock’s cryptic cards.

The mechanism is magic. We can’t stop it, but we can break the spell that put Bird behind those bars .

“How?”

Destroy your sister , Mouse replied. I’m sorry, but that is the only answer I know .

Imogen buried her face in her hands. Her skin was hot with her emotions. “I destroyed her once before. It didn’t work.”

You destroyed her vessel. She is not in a vessel now .

Frustration made her pragmatic. “So what are the rules of this place? Can I hurt her?”

Mouse’s whiskers twitched, tickling her arm. As long as your sister is wearing a face, she is vulnerable .

Imogen thought about that. Although Anna had been a presence throughout Imogen’s life, she had always appeared as an unseen force in Imogen’s dreams. Furthermore, since Anna had died as a child, she had never possessed the woman’s body she was wearing now. She must have had to manufacture what Imogen was seeing now. “How does wearing a face work?”

All her essence is occupied giving herself shape. The longer a mortal has been without a physical body, the more energy it takes to maintain a face .

“So if I hurt the body she’s made for herself, I truly weaken her?”

Correct . Mouse curled its tail over Imogen in a comforting gesture. I know it is not a pleasant thing to contemplate, but she can hurt you the same way .

Which meant Mouse and Bird were most likely vulnerable, too. Imogen chewed her thumbnail, her thoughts skittering anxiously.

Anna had given up teasing Bird with the wire and was moving away from the pump, leaping lightly from one foothold to the next across the cavernous gaps. Imogen began to think about moving to a more secure spot, although it would be hard to leave Bird stuck there in a prison too confining even to fluff its feathers.

“I remember one winter Anna learned how to make snowballs. She threw them at me until I learned to make them, too. After I hit her once, she hid.”

Do you think striking back will convince her to let you go?

“No, I think if Anna figures out that I might actually hurt her, she’ll stop taunting me and hide. The only way I can get a clean strike is if she doesn’t think I’ll do it. I have to surprise her.” Imogen scanned the scene below, wondering what sort of attack was possible. “But how? I don’t know magic, and I don’t know how to fight.”

You use what you have .

“All we have is a lot of clockwork. Maybe Evelina or Tobias could make an aether gun out of spare gears or something but …” An idea struck her silent for several beats. What she had was imagination, and a lot of faith in her friends. “Mouse, would you recognize the mechanism that types out those cards? I need to send a message.”