Tina Connolly - Copperhead

“So, this Millicent,” said Jane, as Helen pointed her out. “What did you want to tell me about her? You seem bursting with some news. I brought her face as you asked, but you just told me not to ‘wave it around in front of her as I try to convince her.’” She eyed her younger sister. “I don’t suppose you’re finally going to let me do you, are you?”

“Not yet,” said Helen, and she lit up inside, for now was the moment. “Because I need every ounce of fey charisma I can get. I have a plan, a great grand plan.” A breath. “I’m going to help you.”

Jane looked dubious. “Even with the bit of fey in your face, you wouldn’t be able to do the facelifts right away. I barely have the ability to wield the fey power to do it, and that’s after months of practice.”

“No no no,” said Helen. “I’m going to help you talk The Hundred into it.”

Jane looked nonplussed. “Thank you for your offer, but I don’t see how your presence will help. I’m the one with the experience with the facelifts and the history with the fey. Surely if I tell them the facts, they’ll understand that it has to be done.”

Helen raised her eyebrows at Jane. “Really?” she said. “How long have you been working at this task? Half a year?”

“Off and on,” said Jane. “But I’ve been studying to do the facelifts, too. It hasn’t been all talking to the women.”

“And you’ve managed to convince how many of The Hundred?”

“Well. Six,” said Jane.

Helen squeezed her sister’s arm. “So don’t be a goose, silly. This is exactly where I come in. Look, I might not be perfectly tactful always—”

Jane raised her eyebrows at this.

“—but your idea of tact is to force out the words ‘in my opinion’ as you tell someone exactly what you think of them.”

“So what’s part two of this grand plan?” Jane said dryly to this tactless comment.

“I’ve already talked to Millicent,” Helen said, and the words she had told herself to keep in tumbled all out. Her face lit up, glowing with the joy of the surprise of it, with the good she was going to accomplish for Millicent, for Jane. “She’s all ready for you. She wants you to replace her face. Tonight.”

Jane turned a shocked face on Helen and shoved her younger sister into the nearest alcove to whisper furiously at her. “Tonight? It’s not a haircut, Helen. It’s a serious operation. It’s not something I can just do, just like that.”

“You can,” insisted Helen, heart rat-a-tat. “But you have to do it secretly, upstairs, while everyone is downstairs. It’s her only chance.” Jane couldn’t say that she was wrong, that she was foolish. This was new Helen, determined to make things come out right. “You have all your supplies, don’t you?” Helen pointed at the carpetbag that Jane carried everywhere.

“I suppose,” said Jane. “But—”

“But nothing; you’re just nervous, now that I’ve done it so quickly and gotten everything ready to go.” The words tumbled headlong from her lips. The mad rush, the intrigue, the heady thrill of brink-of-success: it all made her feel so alive.

“True, but I have justification for nerves,” said Jane. “It’s a dangerous operation at the best of times. To do it with no warning, on a tight timeframe, no room for error?” She shook her head. “You just don’t understand.”

Helen felt the familiar pressure against her skull in response to people telling her she was wrong, that she didn’t understand, that she couldn’t do something . The pounding in her head thudded as her will rose up, flattening everything before her like the sound of a bell spreading across town. “No, you don’t,” she said, and it was with tremendous effort that she kept her voice low, whispering the words right into Jane’s ear. “Mr. Grimsby won’t let her go anywhere. Won’t let her leave the house. Says it’s unsafe—though with the iron mask it’s perfectly safe—well, at least as safe as it is for anybody. She’s a prisoner, Jane. And she wants this done—but he won’t let her. Says he doesn’t trust you. Something about dwarvven connections and rabid women’s lib ideals.”

That lit a spark in Jane’s green eyes, as Helen had known it would. It was simple truth, but Helen knew how to deploy incendiary truth.

“Well,” said Jane. “Well.” She rocked back on her heels. “I will talk to her. Tell her about the procedure. My goal is to help them all, obviously. But tonight, with no warning? Perhaps she will be sensible and let us pick a day next week—do it with more preparation.”

Millicent wouldn’t, Helen was sure. Poor Millicent Grimsby had begged and begged for an outing, and finally Grimsby had brought her, iron-masked and heavily guarded, to a Copperhead meeting of the men at Helen and Alistair’s house. Safely ensconced in Helen’s bedroom, Millicent had poured her heart out and Helen’s own heart had burst in response.

It was up to Helen to save her, and it had to be tonight. Jane would just have to understand.

Helen showed Jane how to slip around to the back stairs and wind her way to the garret. After a suitable interval, she caught Millicent’s eye and gave her the nod. The small woman in the iron mask did not nod, did not move. But Helen knew she knew.

It was quite dark outside now. The room pressed together, quieting and erupting by turns as people found seats or decided to stand. The room was packed, for which Helen was immensely grateful. She found a spot that seemed perfect for sneaking away.

Men—leaders—came into the room in a clump. They had been off somewhere with Grimsby. Her husband, Alistair, was among the gang of men. They spilled into the room like a pack of hunting dogs, jostling each other as they moved to the front. Before Grimsby stirred them into a passion over Copperhead, they had spent all their time drinking and gaming. When they moved, when they tumbled and rolled, she saw the puppy dog in them still. Helen was glad she did not have her mask on, obscuring her vision. The electricity was at half the brightness it had been for that dance in the spring. It was dim yellow, unlike the familiar blue light of her childhood. Before the Great War.

The men straightened as they drew closer to the front and the strange sheet-covered lump in the middle of the room. They no longer reminded her of anything tame, but something fiercer, colder, and they stood straight around each other as if they were one pack surveying their quarry. Everything drew still as their presence filled the room, all eyes turned to the front. Helen searched around, checking for her escape route, and in doing so caught a tiny flicker of movement by the window—a lithe man in closely fitted black leaned on the windowsill as if he had always been standing there. But what then would have drawn her attention?

Boarham and Morse—Grimsby’s two particular right-hand men—moved to flank the machine. Morse was stoop-shouldered and pinch-faced, the meanest of them all. Boarham was heavy, lumpy, toadying. “We will begin,” said Boarham, “by updating you on the preparations that have been made as we remain under siege by the fey. Later in the evening will be the event you are most anxious for: Grimsby will reveal his new weapon that—we hope—will eventually annihilate the fey for good.”

Breath caught at the word, at the hope. Annihilate .

“We move ever closer to our goal,” Boarham said. “ One People. One Race .” All around her, fingers flicked out to touch their hydra lapel pins in solidarity. “But first a moment to remember James Morrow, who since our last meeting was a casualty of the fey blight, when the blue carpeting his front garden turned out not to be powerless bits of many different fey, but one whole fey, lurking in wait with a concealed fey bomb.…”