The Mysterious Madam Morpho

Page 16

She had just rolled over and hidden her head under her arms when she heard one of the badgers scream. A weight disappeared off her back with another scream. She smelled metal and heard the clanking of gears, followed by the snapping of bone and the rip of flesh and heavy thumps and a dying howl. When she dared to look up, she found copper eyes regarding her, green lights in their centers glowing unnaturally. A badger’s boneless body lay beside her on the ground. Just beyond, a man’s form kneeled over another pile of gray fur. As if coming up out of a dream, she recognized Henry, clad in his flapping leather coat and holding a blood-spattered wrench.
“Imogen, are you harmed?” He kicked the badger aside to grasp her hand and help her sit up.
She was shaking all over, teeth clacking together. He held back as if afraid to touch her, but she dragged herself into his arms. Henry hugged her close as she burrowed her face against him, anxious for the man hiding underneath all the damnable layers. His hands fluttered over her, searching for damage, lingering over the rip in her skirt.
“I’m bitten,” she managed to whisper, and he swore. Taking her in his arms, he stood and began walking quickly toward the caravan.
“If something else smells you, we might not be enough to fight them off,” he said. “I saw you with the periscope and almost didn’t bring Raith with me. Thank heavens I did. They nearly had you.”
“Some things books can’t prepare you for,” she whispered.
She looked down and realized that the copper and steel creature padding at his side was a clockwork cheetah, its silvery teeth scrawled with blood and thick gray hairs. It was eerie, how it seemed so fluid and alive, its joints moving smoothly and its eyes glowing green.
When a soft brown rabbit hopped out of the grass, Henry said, “Raith, kill the bludbunny,” and the cheetah leaped elegantly, steel fangs open to crack the rabbit’s neck. Imogen shuddered, and Henry pulled her closer. There were more bludbunnies and more cracked bones, but she didn’t look up again until she heard a wagon door open.
The door shut behind them, and she knew from the smell that it was his car, not hers. She looked up, confused. Still holding her in a way she found suddenly intimate, he elbowed a large button hidden behind the coatrack, and a bed unfolded from the wood-paneled wall with a smooth whir. He set her down gently against the pillows and turned away.
“Henry, I shouldn’t be here—”
With his back to her, he unbuttoned his coat and threw it to the floor with the hat and goggles. He turned to her, himself again, sweat darkening his hair and green eyes burning.
“You should. I’m sorry I turned you away. If I hadn’t been such a coward, you would never have gone running across the countryside on your own.”
“It’s done. You saved me. I don’t think there’s any permanent damage.”
“There might have been. My stubborn silence was nearly the death of you. And by bludbadger, no less.” He gave a strangled sort of laugh and collapsed next to her, lifting the torn hem of her skirt and running a hand along the gash on her ankle where the creature had slashed her. “You were lucky. It probably won’t even leave a scar.”
“I’m not worried about scars. I just want to know, once and for all, why you keep turning away from me. After the other night, I’d say I deserve to know.”
He jerked his hand away from where it had idly been stroking her ankle and rubbed his eyes. “That was unkind of me. You’re right. I should have known I could trust you from the beginning. Once I’ve told you the truth, you can decide for yourself.” With trembling hands, he unlaced her remaining boot and set it beside the bed. “I was at King’s College once, too, and there is also a price on my head—perhaps an even higher one. Do you follow the papers?”
“My father did. Sometimes I caught the front page.”
“Then you’ll remember the story about the clockworks in the London Carousel that malfunctioned and nearly killed all those children and the Magistrate?”
“Good heavens, who could forget that?” she said. “The bloody thing exploded!”
“Indeed. And do you remember the name of the foolish mechanist responsible?”
She thought back a handful of years. It had happened before she defied her father and fled to King’s College and Beauregard’s employ, in the days when she would try to catch up on the manly world through ink smeared by her father’s buttery fingerprints.
“I don’t remember. Clockworks didn’t interest me at the time. But I know he was never caught,” she said slowly.
He smiled, swallowed, looked away, a blush riding his cheeks. “You can see why I might wish to stay hidden, then, especially around London.”
She laughed, and he jerked back as if surprised. “Henry Gladstone, are you telling me you nearly blew up the Magistrate?”
“Er. Not on purpose. I was very young.”
With a snort, she reached for his hand and pulled him around, forcing him to face her. “You look very much as if you’re going to bolt again, you silly fool,” she said.
”And you seem to think you’re immune to danger of any sort.”
She smiled and ran a fond hand over the scar in his beard. “Now, look here. I don’t care a fig about your exploding carousel. It was years ago, and we’ve all made mistakes. Whatever we were in the city, you and I, it’s clear we’re something very different outside tall walls and civilized society. Do you like me?”
“You’re bleeding on my bed, darling.”
“Answer the question.”
He reached out softly to stroke her cheek and pull her into his arms. “You are the most fascinating creature I’ve ever met that wasn’t made of metal,” he said softly, a smile lighting his face and making her wish very much to see what was under his beard.
“Well, then. I find you agreeable. I found what we did under the tent more than satisfactory. You’ve just saved me from a very ugly death. Can we admit, then, that we are happy together?”
“Gladly.”
“And so long as we keep each other’s secrets, there is no reason we can’t be honest with each other?”
“Agreed.”
“And you won’t go locking me out or getting all stiff?”
“Can’t make any promises regarding that last bit.”
She snorted. “And we agree you’ll shave that infernal beard?”
He stroked the object in question with a sly smile. “It’s been a fair disguise. But if you ask it, I’ll shave,” he said. “But you’ve got to shave something, too.”
Imogen spluttered and felt herself turning red. Fussing with her ripped skirts to hide her embarrassment, she barely had time to consider the logistics of such a plan when he caught her face again.
“And you’ve got to tell me, too.” He kissed her, just a gentle brush of warmth. “What are you really running away from, Imogen?”
It was her turn to sigh and look away. But he wouldn’t let it go so easily.
“I know Beauregard wants his specimens, darling, but there’s something else, isn’t there?”
“I wish it were only the specimens.” She cleared her throat, wiggled her toes, and generally avoided his gaze. “He was my professor and my employer and my landlord, and I took him as a lover. Or perhaps I should say that he used me as such. He wants those specimens, make no mistake. And he wants me. But what he wants most of all is this.”
Imogen carefully unpinned the brooch from her jacket and pressed the button to unlock the tiny hinge. Inside was a single red hair.
14
“That’s not a butterfly.”
He held out one finger as if to touch the thin red filament where it lay on a folded bit of scribbled parchment, and she whipped it out of reach.
“Indeed not.” She snapped the locket’s door closed, and they both exhaled in relief, as if the object within was finally safely caged. “What you saw is one of the last true hairs of Aztarte, the Bludmen’s goddess.”
“Then your butterflies . . .”
“Are dead. It’s only charmed necromancy, I fear, no true talent on my part. I wish they were alive, more than anything. I wish to see them floating on every breeze, quivering on every bush. I wish I could build a beautiful greenhouse filled with flowers for them to live out their short, brilliant lives and make hideous, monstrous babies. Alas, all I can do is call them forth for some little while and pretend, for a moment, that they are real.”
“Then why does Beauregard want them so much? Surely it’s not the money.”
“He wants the hair and the spell. If he figured out how to use the magic, he could make a mammoth tap dance or bring back the corpses of kings. He wants to become even more famous. And he’s that old-fashioned, hardheaded sort that can never rest when a woman has the upper hand. He thought to make me his plaything, and I took all that he held dear. He wants revenge.”
Henry looked around his wagon, his eyes resting with significance on the clockwork cheetah sitting still as stone by the door. “But then why did you plan on using them as your act? Surely that would call him out and invite violence against you?”
She sighed sadly. “I had heard the caravan was moving out the next day. I supposed it would take a few cities to build the equipment, that it would be months before anyone in London knew of the deception. I thought it was the only answer, as I’ve no real skills outside of research and scholarship, an area where I’m ridiculed and shunned. I nearly burst out crying when Criminy confirmed that we would be here for another week. But Letitia was so kind, patting me, promising me that it would all be for the best.”
“From what I hear, she’s never wrong,” Henry said, his gaze lingering on Imogen’s brooch. “It’s funny—I had thought to bring you good news later today. The reason Vil turned you away was true—the paints I was using for the final touches of the butterfly circus are harmful, and I wanted you far from the vapors. Perhaps you will think it bad news now, but your act is ready.”