Amanda Quick - Quicksilver

She removed the key and put it into her pocket. The customer who called himself Mr. Newton entered the shop, bringing with him an air of unsettling energy.

“I wish to commission some more curiosities, Mrs. Bridewell,” he announced in a low, raspy voice. “They must be powerful.”

Everything about Mr. Newton, from his fine clothes to his watch fob, screamed money. By rights he should have appeared distinguished, Mrs. Bridewell thought. He ought to have commanded respect. Instead he seemed oddly bland and innocuous, more like a butler than a gentleman. He was rather short, with thinning hair that was a dingy shade of blond. His features were neither handsome nor ugly. In every aspect he was monumentally forgettable, the sort one passed on the street without a second glance.

But Newton had now purchased several of her special curiosities, and she was becoming very uneasy. In general, her customers tended to be desperate wives or impatient heirs. They preferred to rent a clockwork device with the intention of using it only a single time. When the difficult husband or the lingering wealthy relation was out of the way, clients were more than eager to return the toys. The power infused in the devices made most of her customers nervous. Beautiful as they were, the curiosities were not the sort of objects that one put on display in the library, where well-meaning maids, visitors or children might attempt to wind them up.

But Newton was different from her customary clients. He bought the toys outright, and he had not returned any of them, although she had assured him she would refund some of his money if he did so. She did not care to know how Newton was using her lovely creations. She never questioned her customers. What they did with the devices was their business.

What concerned her about Newton was that he was using the toys far too often. If he got careless the police might stumble onto her profitable little sideline. The police, however, did not worry her nearly as much as Arcane’s new psychical investigation agency did. Rumor had it that the firm of Jones & Jones had assumed the responsibility of looking into crimes of a paranormal nature. Not that the agency had any right to interfere in the private business affairs of those who happened to possess a little talent, she thought. Nevertheless, she did not want any trouble from that quarter. The Joneses were a dangerous lot.

“I don’t have any more curiosities prepared, Mr. Newton,” she said. She bustled around behind the counter, instinctively putting some distance and some glass between herself and the client. “I thought I made it clear that my special curiosities are made to order. It takes time to infuse the energy into the glass.”

“Yes, yes, I know. I want you to start work immediately. I am in something of a hurry.”

She cleared her throat discreetly. “May I ask if there was a problem with any of the other curiosities that you purchased? Did they fail to work?”

“No, no, they functioned as you said they would. But I need more power. I have concluded that if I employ several of them at once I will be able to achieve the effect I require.”

She hesitated. The sad truth was that the pursuit of her art took money, a great deal of it. There was never enough. The fine materials and components required to create the curiosities were expensive. Many of her clients had trouble coming up with the rental fee, but Newton never questioned her prices. Clients who did not try to bargain were scarce and, therefore, valuable.

“I suppose I could have some more curiosities ready for you in three days,” she said finally.

“Excellent. Remember, they must be as powerful as you can make them.”

“I will see what I can do,” she said briskly. “But I must have the full amount in advance.”

He was not pleased with that, but he did not argue. “Very well.”

She waved a hand to indicate the several curiosities on display. “You may choose the ones you want me to enhance.”

“Let’s start with the Queen,” Mr. Newton said. “She’ll be quite appropriate for what I have in mind.”

Virginia followed Owen through the iron gate and into the night-shrouded gardens that surrounded the Hollister mansion. She contemplated the darkened house from beneath the hood of her long gray cloak. The windows appeared to be fashioned of obsidian. They glinted, black and opaque, in the moonlight. No gaslight or candles lit the interior of the house. There was no sign of a glowing hearth.

“You were right,” she said. “It does appear to be vacant.”

There was a muted clang of iron on iron as Owen closed the gate.

“I made a few inquiries. I learned that Lady Hollister dismissed the staff very early on the morning after we found Hollister’s body,” he said. “A discreet undertaker took away the body. No one has seen Lady Hollister since that day.”

“Where did she go?”

“No one seems to know. Hollister had a country house in the north. She may have gone there by train.”

“One can hardly blame her for wanting to escape this dreadful place.”

They made their way into the old drying shed. Nothing inside had been disturbed, as far as Virginia could tell. She waited while Owen turned up the lantern. When the yellow light flared they started down the stone steps into the ancient abbey ruins beneath the mansion. She sensed Owen heightening his talent.

“Do you perceive anything?” she asked.

“Nothing to indicate fresh violence,” he said. “But the old energy is still here. He brought the girls in through this passageway and removed the bodies the same way. That kind of thing soaks into the very walls.”

“Just as it does into mirrors.”

“I suspect that there is a second entrance inside the house.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Convenience, if nothing else.”

They went past a familiar intersection.

“That is the corridor where we found the carriage,” Virginia said. “The one that leads to the cell where Becky was held prisoner.”

“Yes. We are not far from the mirrored chamber.”

They rounded another corner. The lantern light splashed down a short stone passage. There was a door midway along the hall. It was closed.

Owen stopped. “That is the door to the mirrored room.”

She halted beside him. They were standing so close together in the narrow confines of the stone passage that the hem of her cloak brushed against his leg.

“This corridor looks just like all the others,” she said. “How did you find me the other night?”

“The place reeks of violent energy. That room is the focal point.” Owen studied the closed door. “The other night when I came down here I feared that I would be too late.”

She knew from the flat, cold way he spoke that if he had found her body in the mirrored chamber, her name would have been added to his personal list of those he had failed.

“But you weren’t too late,” she said gently.

He did not respond to that. He went toward the door, flattened his back against the ancient wall next to it and motioned for her to do the same.

“In the event we encounter another clockwork guard,” he explained. “The stone is our best protection.”

He reached out with one gloved hand and opened the door. It was not locked. The heavy iron-and-wood door swung inward slowly. The interior of the room was drenched in darkness. Virginia listened closely. She knew that Owen was doing the same. There was no clank and thump of mechanical claws.

Owen pushed the door wider and moved into the opening. He held the lantern aloft.

“Empty,” he said. “No clockwork devices. But someone has recently redecorated.”

Virginia looked past him. The bed still stood in the center of the chamber, but it was neatly made up with pristine, crisply ironed linens and a pretty quilt patterned with pink roses. There was no sign of the bloodstained sheets.