Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

“Trust me when I say you won’t regret my offer. I know what evidence Scarlet had on Green. I got it for him. My network is second to none. I can get you whatever you want on whomever you please.” As she spoke, her words dropped to a huskier range, losing at least half their polish. It was a bit like listening to a voice undress.

“And all you want is the shelter of my armies?”

She cast her gaze downward, thick lashes dusting her cheekbones. “I’m the only baron without regiments of my own. I wouldn’t mind a few of those German airships that Scarlet had his eye on, if you can see your way to throwing them into the bargain.”

And what, pray tell, would a whore do with airships? Still, he would rather have an alliance than not. Of any of them, Violet was the weakest and the one he trusted least. With the fewest obvious weapons, she would aim for the throat at once, not bothering with a warning blow.

He raised her hand to his lips. “Why don’t we commit to an agreement in principle and work out the finer points after today’s council?”

“Do you promise that we will both survive it?”

“It goes without saying that will depend on both of us. Together, perhaps we may.”

She slipped her hand through his arm, awarding him a practiced smile. “I would feel much better with a friend at the table.”

“As would I,” he said, knowing that all he had gained was a slight delay before her knife sank into his spine.

He escorted her through the double doors to the council chamber. Their aides were already assembled and talking loudly among themselves. Those with status—like Mr. Juniper/Moriarty and like Roth once upon a time—stood directly behind the chairs of the principals, forming a ring of spectators around the table. The hubbub collided with the sound of glassware as servants placed glasses and pitchers of water on the table.

He saw Violet to her seat and then circled to his own. Green was once again playing the role of chair, which had the disadvantage of forcing them to listen to her grating voice; it was enough to make one’s ears bleed. Keating sometimes wondered if she had talked the late Mr. Spicer into his grave.

He glanced around the table, noting that the Black Kingdom—better known as the underground realms beneath the London streets—had sent three people this time. A nursemaid in her apron and starched cap sat between a girl of about twelve and a boy of about eight. They were dressed very correctly, the girl in a pinafore and the boy in short pants, but all was black and white without a stitch of color. All three were utterly unsmiling, with eyes slightly too large for their faces.

Normally, Keating would have objected to seeing children at the table, but this was the Black Kingdom. No one knew who ran it and no one really wanted to know. There was an aura of something wrong about everyone who appeared from down there. Keating wouldn’t have been surprised if any one of the three had extracted a live rat from a pocket and eaten it whole and squirming.

The Green Queen banged her knuckles on the table to bring them to order. “Gentlemen! And ladies. Order, please!”

Her voice sliced through the room, mowing down conversation like so much hay. She then began the recitation of several points of order, which Keating tuned out. His attention went back to the rest of the table, wondering who was in league with whom. There was rumor that Blue had made a pact with the Black Kingdom, but wasn’t sure that was true or even possible. Nevertheless, of all the steam barons, the Blue King—better known as King Coal—gave him pause. Thanks to Evelina Cooper, he knew that before the air battle Dr. Magnus had been Blue’s maker.

Then the Green Queen’s words broke into his thoughts. “Let us take a moment to remember those absent today.”

“Yes, let us,” Keating interjected. “William Reading is no longer in his chair, regaling us with his unique sense of humor.” Or his lethal poisons . “However, despite what the newspapers would have us believe, his death is hardly a mystery.”

And then he heard the sound that he had been waiting for—the deep rumble of an engine. His stomach uncoiled as one element of uncertainty resolved itself in accordance with his plans.

Gr-r-r-r-r-r-r-R-R-R-R-R-R .

As the motor grew louder, they all looked up at the model of the dirigible hanging from the ceiling, but the engine they heard was actually flying low over the rooftops. Keating pulled out his pocket watch. On time down to the second . He started to feel downright cocky.

“What do you mean, not a mystery?” asked the Blue King in his high, reedy wheeze.

Keating made a gesture and one of his aides produced William Reading’s portfolio, as well as a pair of gloves. Keating pulled the extra gloves over his own and snapped open the portfolio, removing the plans for the brass abomination and spreading them across the table. “Pray, do not touch these unless you are adequately gloved. There is a deadly poison on these pages.”

The few who had been leaning forward with interest drew back at that, but everyone obviously recognized what the pages were. Moriarty bent closer, his eyebrows raised as he peered over the Blue King’s shoulder.

“Did Reading give you these?” asked the Green Queen, her square, unlovely face flushing a mottled red.

“Yes,” Keating said. Did it matter that Scarlet hadn’t precisely meant to give them up? “Though I think the more interesting point was how he came by them.”

He gave Valerie Cutter a significant look. In the last few days, he’d dug out the secrets of her involvement in the matter of the Clock Tower, and he was putting her on the spot. Now was the moment where he found out what her alliance was worth—would she stand with him, or not? She fidgeted for a moment, toying with the fringe on her sleeve, and then replied with a dainty sigh. “He received them through one of my intermediaries.”

“And your intermediary got them from?” Keating prompted.

“Green’s maker, Mr. Blind.”

King Coal wheeled his chair to get a better view of Green, his look incredulous. “You put the bug in Big Ben? That hardly seems your style.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Cutter, a hint of claws in her tone. “Mrs. Spicer runs the financial district, after all. Clerks, bankers, lawyers, insurance men—those folks are good at putting a stick in the spokes when they take a notion.”

Jane Spicer rose from her seat, ramrod-straight beneath the stiff silks of her bottle-green dress. Then she fixed Keating in her sights and raised a finger, pointing like the accuser from a Shakespearean tragedy. “No one ever stood up to him. I had to make a statement.”

No, you didn’t . Keating’s gut clenched, knowing everything depended on the next two minutes. Either he was going to get rid of this harpy, or they would all turn on him together. “You, Mrs. Spicer, wanted my territory in the City of Westminster. If you think destroying a national monument—”

“You seized Scarlet’s territories without so much as a by-your-leave!” she snapped.

“Did you have first refusal on a piece of it?” Keating asked coolly. “I’m sure you have a solicitor who could call upon mine.”

“You took it right out from under the rest of us.”

“Isn’t winner take all the point of commerce? I’m sure some of the smaller counting houses had the same complaint when you swept in.”

He’d barely finished speaking when the first bomb dropped. The rumble of the explosion rattled the drinking glasses on the table. A puff of dust fell from the model dirigible, indicating that it was time to clean.

“What was that?” wheezed the Blue King, visibly anxious.