The Iron Wyrm Affair Read online

  Mikal’s eyes glinted, yellowish in the dimness. He did not have to say I told you so. He merely steadied her, carefully keeping the vitae-soaked handkerchief away. “You look lovely.”

  Heat rose on the surface of her throat, stained her cheeks. “You prefer the dishevelled, then?”

  “Better dishevelled than dead, Prima. If you are careful, I believe you may stand now.”

  He was correct once more, damn him. As usual. Her legs trembled, but they held her. Mikal rose too, hovering, his hand near her elbow.

  “I shall manage quite well, thank you.” Emma exhaled sharply, frustration copper-bright to Sight cloaking her before she pushed it down and away. It was merely another weakness training would overcome. “Let us collect the mentath, then. I am loath to lose him now.”

  “Emma.” Mikal caught her arm. “Did you think I had deliberately left the one who shot you?”

  His mouth shaping her Christian name was a small victory, one she decided not to celebrate even internally. The thought crossed my mind, Mikal. “I was too busy to think such things. Come, leave that rag and let us find our mentath.”

  He did not turn loose of her. Instead, he held her arm – perhaps to steady her, perhaps for some other reason. Emma pulled against his fingers, silk slipping on her bruised arm.

  “You need another Shield. More Shields.” Said calmly, matter-of-fact. “A half-dozen at least. A full complement would be better.”

  I had four, Mikal. They died protecting me. “I need you to burn that vitae-infested rag and accompany me to wherever Grayson is filling that mentath’s head with useless supposition,” she snapped. “If you are unhappy with my service, Shield, then by all means remove yourself from my aegis and present yourself to the Collegia for extermination.”

  He turned pale. Such a thing did not seem possible, given his colouring. “I would that you had at least a single Shield you could trust, instead of losing precious time to backlash sickness because you will not let me perform my function.”

  Oddly, it stung. Perhaps because he was correct. Again. “We have no time for this argument.” The divan groaned slightly; she could have sliced ice with the words. Emma took a firmer hold on her temper. It was her besetting sin, that temper. “When this mystery is solved, we shall approach the question of whether I decide to take the responsibility of another Shield or three, or twenty, in addition to my current intransigent Indus princeling. We will make a fine meal for our enemies, yours no less than mine, should we continue in this manner. Now shut up and rid me of that handkerchief, Mikal. I shall find Lord Grayson and Mr Clare, and I expect you to accompany me.”

  She tore her arm from his grasp, set out for the door. Her skirts rustled oddly, and the floor was moving most strangely beneath her boots.

  The amber prie-dieu, dangling at her breastbone from a silver chain, turned into a spot of warmth. There was enough force stored in it for two strong minor Works, a multiplicity of Words, or merely to keep her upright until dawn’s Tideturn renewed the world’s sorcerous energies. Her sardonyx was drained, and should there be more unpleasantness in store tonight… well.

  It did not matter. The best thing was to go from one task to the next, as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

  There was a fsssh! and a pop behind her as Mikal called flame into being. The skin between her shoulder blades roughened instinctively. He was armed, and—

  It was ridiculous. If he wished her death, he had many opportunities on a daily basis to gratify that urge. She was stupid to waste time and energy fretting about it.

  Unless that is part of the plan, Emma. How long would you wait, for a vengeance? And you cannot credit any reason he might give you for how he became your Shield.

  Yet had Mikal not betrayed his sworn oath to the sorcerer who had almost killed her, she would be dead, and all this academic.

  She twisted the crystal doorknob and stepped into the hall. The dead clustered here, diaphanous grey scarves of ill intent or mere confusion, soaking into the walls. Lamplight – Whitehall was now fitted with gas – ran wetly over every surface, and she heard voices not too far away. One, no doubt, was the mentath. Who had dealt with a sorcerous attack with far more presence of mind than she would ever have expected from a logic machine trapped in ailing flesh.

  “Emma.” Mikal, from the darkened room behind her. “I wish you could trust me.”

  She did not dignify it with a response, sweeping away. Oh, Mikal. So do I.

  Chapter Four

  In One Fashion or Another

  The door was swept unceremoniously open, and Grayson visibly flinched. Clare was gratified to find his nerves were still steady. Besides, he had heard the determined tap of female footsteps, dainty little bootheels crackling with authority, and deduced Miss Bannon was in a fine mood.

  Her sandalwood curls were caught up and repinned, but she was hatless and her dress was sadly the worse for wear. Smoke and fury hung on her in almost visible veils, and she was dead pale. Her dark eyes burned rather like coals, and Clare had no doubt that any obstacle in her way had been toppled, uprooted or simply crushed.

  Green silk flopped uneasily at the shoulder, a scrap of underclothing tantalisingly visible, but there was no sign of a wound. Just pale, unmarked skin, and the amber cabochon glowing in a most peculiar manner.

  Grayson gained his feet in a walrus lunge. He had turned an alarming shade of floury yeastiness, but most people did when confronted with an angry sorcerer. “Miss Bannon. Very glad to see you on your feet, indeed! I was just bringing Clare here—”

  She gave him a single cutting glance, and short shrift. “Filling his head with nonsense, no doubt. We are dealing with conspiracy of the blackest hue, Lord Grayson, and I am afraid I may tarry no longer. Mr Clare, are you disposed to linger, or would you accompany me? Whitehall should be relatively safe, but I confess your talents may be of some use in the hunt before me.” Clare was only too glad to leave the mediocre sherry. He set it down, untasted. “I would be most honoured to accompany you, Miss Bannon. Lord Grayson has informed me of the deaths of several mentaths and the unfortunate circumstances surrounding Mr Throckmorton’s erstwhile guard. I gather we are bound for Bedlam?”

  “In one fashion or another.” But a corner of her lips twitched. “You do your profession justice, Mr Clare. I trust you were not injured?”

  “Not at all, thanks to your efforts.” Clare recovered his hat, glanced at his bags. “Will I be needing linens, Miss Bannon, or may I leave them as superfluous weight?”

  Now she was certainly amused, a steely smile instead of a single lip-twitch, at odds with her childlike face. With that spark in her dark eyes, Miss Bannon would be counted attractive, if not downright striking. “I believe linens may be procured with little difficulty anywhere in the Empire we are likely to arrive, Mr Clare. You may have those sent to my house in Mayefair; I believe they shall arrive promptly.”

  “Very well. Cedric, I do trust you’ll send these along for me? My very favourite waistcoat is in that bag. We shall return when we’ve sorted out this mess, or when we require some aid. Good to see you, old boy.” Clare offered his hand, and noted with some mild amusement that Cedric’s palm was sweating.

  He didn’t blame the man.

  Mentaths were not overtly feared the way sorcerers were. Dispassionate logic was easier to swallow than sorcery’s flagrant violations of what the general populace took to be normal. Logic was easily hidden, and most mentaths were discreet by nature. There were exceptions, of course, but none of them as notable as the least of sorcery’s odd children.

  “God and Her Majesty be with you,” Cedric managed. “Miss Bannon, are you quite certain you do not—”

  “I require nothing else at the moment, sir. Thank you, God and Her Majesty.” She turned on one dainty heel and strode away, ragged skirts flapping. Clare arranged his features in something resembling composure, fetched the small black bag containing his working notables, and hurried out of the door.

  His legs w
ere much longer, but Miss Bannon had a surprisingly energetic stride. He arrived at her side halfway down the corridor. “I know better than to take Lord Grayson’s suppositions as anything but, Miss Bannon.”

  Miss Bannon’s chin was set. She seemed none the worse for wear, despite her ruined clothing. “You were at school with him, were you not?”

  Was that a deduction? He decided not to ask. “At Yton.”

  “Was he an insufferable, blind-headed prig then, too?”

  Clare strangled a laugh by sheer force of will. Quite diverting. He made a tsk-tsk sound, settling into her speed. The dusky hall would take them to the Gallery; she perhaps meant them to come out through the Bell Gate and from there to find another hansom. “Impolitic, Miss Bannon.”

  “I do not play politics, Mr Clare.”

  I think you are a deadly player when you lower yourself to do so, miss. “Politics play, even if you do not. If you have no care for your own career, think of mine. Grayson dangled the renewal of my registration before me. Why, do you suppose, did he do so?”

  “He does not expect you to live long enough to claim such a prize.” Her tone suggested she found the idea insulting and likely all at once. “How did you lose your registration, if I may ask?”

  For a moment, irrationality threatened to blind him. “I killed a man,” he said, evenly enough. “Unfortunately, it was the wrong man. A mentath cannot afford to do such a thing.” Even if the beast needed killing.

  Even if I do not regret it.

  “Hm.” Her pace did not slacken, but her heels did not jab the wooden floor with such hurtful little crackles. “In that, Mr Clare, mentaths and sorcerers are akin. You kill one tiny little Peer of the Realm, and suddenly your career is gone. It is a great relief to me that I have no career to lose.”

  “Indeed? Then why are you—” The question was ridiculous, but he wished to gauge her response. When she slanted him a very amused, dark-eyed glance, he nodded internally. “Ah. I see. You are as expendable as I have become.”

  Her reply gave him much to think on. “In the service of Britannia, Mr Clare, all are expendable. Come.”

  Chapter Five

  An Insoluble Puzzle

  “I cannot understand why it is often so difficult to find a hansom,” she muttered, as she reclaimed her hand from Mikal’s.

  “I have applied logic to the question.” Clare’s tone was thoughtful. He shook his top hat, removed a speck of dust from the brim, and replaced it on his head with a decided motion. “And, to be honest, I have never arrived at a satisfactory answer.”

  The driver, his own battered stuff hat set at a rakish angle and his rotund body wrapped against the chill, cracked his whip over the heaving, coppery back of his clockwork horse, and hooves clattered away down the dark street. Tiny sparks of stray sorcery winked out in their wake. Gasflame flickered, wan light hardly licking the surface of the cobblestones, not daring to penetrate the crevices between.

  “At least we were not attacked during this short voyage,” Clare continued. “I must confess I am relieved.”

  Are you? For I am not. An enemy resourceful and practised, not to mention financed well enough to send sootdogs and hired thugs, was likely to have an idea of the finitude of even a Prime’s power. The Tideturn of dawn was distressingly far away, and even that flood of sorcerous energy would not stave off the effects of fatigue and hunger.

  Worry about such an event when it becomes critical, Emma. Before then, simply do what must be done. She straightened her back. For Bethlehem Hospital crouched before them, a long pile of brick and stone shimmering with misery.

  The very bricks of Bedlam were warped, but had nevertheless been carried from the old site in Bishop’s Gate two decades ago with the Regent’s false economy. Sorcerers had warned against reusing the building materials, but it had done little good.

  The sprawling monstrosity, its cupola leering at the sky and running with golden charter-charms, took up a considerable space – physical as well as psychic layers accreted for a good two hundred years since the insane had begun to be “treated” rather than merely confined or executed. In the near distance, the smoke of the Black Wark rose, the kernel of Southwark with its cinderfall and pall of incessant gloomy smoke.

  Emma swallowed drily, and Mikal’s hand closed over her shoulder. She stepped away. Any Shield would not like a sorcerer setting foot in this place.

  Of course, Mikal was not any Shield, any more than she was any sorceress. There was a time when a sorceress of her Discipline would have been executed as soon as certain proclivities and talents began to show, whether she was Prime or merely witch. A man whose Discipline lay in the Black, rather than the White or Grey, had less to fear.

  Men always had less to fear.

  Emma raised her chin. Gaslamp glow picked out screaming faces swirling in the brick wall, and for a moment it was difficult to separate the audible howls from the silent ones. It sounded a merry night in Bedlam, cries and screams from the depths of the building muffled by stone, a seashell roar of discontent. The ætheric protections set on the place resounded, a discordance of smashed violins and overstressed stones.

  Her prie-dieu warmed further against her chest. It would have to be enough.

  She set off for the postern, her heels clicking against cobbles. Her skirt was ragged, and its hem was torn. She must look a sight. Irritation flashed through her and away.

  Clare fell into step beside her. “Why is a sorcerer in Bedlam, may I ask? Was there no other sanatorium?”

  Her jaw was set so tightly she almost had difficulty replying. “Not with a fully drawn Greater Circle free, no. Llewellyn is no witch or Adept. He is – was Prime; even mad or broken he is not likely to be amenable to containment.”

  “Ah. Was Prime?”

  Will I have to teach him the classes of sorcerer? “Sanity is a prerequisite for carrying the title. However disputable one considers the term when applied to a sorcerer.” And he is a peer; he cannot be thrown in a common prison. For a moment her skin chilled, and Mikal was close enough that she could feel the heat from him. She knew without looking that his mouth would be set tight in disapproval. So was her own.

  “I see.” Clare absorbed this. “Miss Bannon?”

  For the love of Heaven, will you not be quiet? “Yes, Mr Clare?”

  “Is it advisable to enter through the side door?”

  For a man who functioned by logic and deduction, he certainly seemed thick. “The main entrance is closed and locked at dusk. I do not relish the idea of wasting time waiting for the head warden to be called from his divertissements. Also, the more unremarked we can be, the better.”

  “I hardly think we will pass unremarked.”

  A sharp retort died on Emma’s tongue. Perhaps he was simply making conversation, seeking to set her at her ease. Or he wished to find out if she was as empty-headed, as most men, even fleshly logic engines, considered women to be. “Llewellyn is being held near this door.”

  “I see.”

  Do you? I fear you do not. The outside guard was half-asleep, propped in the doorway at the top of a short flight of uneven stairs. Heavily bearded and reeking of gin, he blinked as the trio approached, and by the time Emma had set foot on the first step, bracing herself, his eyes had widened to the size of poached eggs and he had straightened, pulling at the high-collared broadcloth of his uniform coat. “Visitin’ hours is one to three—”

  Mikal was suddenly there, shoving him against the wall and making a swift movement. The ulp the man made was lost in the sound of the double blow to chin and paunch. Mikal’s fingers flicked, subtracting the ring of heavy iron keys from the broad leather belt. There was a gleam of sharp metal, and the sliced belt thudded to the top step. The man slumped; Mikal lowered him fairly gently.

  Clare’s eyebrows nested in his hairline. “Is this really necessary?”

  Paused on the second step, Emma strangled a flare of impatience. You are an irritant, mentath. “If Mikal is doing it, yes.”
r />   Mikal already had the correct key selected and inserted into the postern door. “The man reeks of gin,” he remarked. “He was disposed to be troublesome. Petty authority.” His lip curled, disdain clearly visible in the set of his shoulders as well. “He will not remember us.”

  “Let us hope as much.” Clare did not sound convinced.

  The door opened with a small groan; Mikal glanced inside. He nodded, once, and Emma continued up the stairs.

  They plunged into Bedlam’s grey confusion. Gaslamps hissed down the long hall, and she braced herself. For a moment the walls rippled, the entire hungry, semi-sentient pile of stone resonating as it took notice of what she was.

  The Endor! The Endor is here! A mouthless, windless whisper, unheard by living ears, brushed against the surfaces of her skin and clothing. Grey smokelike figures crowded close, their sighs rising in volume as they sensed she could hear them. Ghostly fingers brushed her, slipping over the smooth, hard shell of a Prime’s will; Mikal half turned and caught her arm. At the Shield’s touch, the entire hallway clicked back into place with a sub-audible thump.

  Another of a Shield’s functions – an anchor. The more ætheric force a sorcerer could carry, the more danger of being lost on the currents the rest of humanity could not feel.

  “Miss Bannon?” Clare, with a faint touch of concern. “You’ve gone quite white.”

  “Quite well,” she murmured. Found her usual crisp tone again. “I am quite well, thank you. Mikal? Llewellyn is down the hall to the right. Fifth door, I believe.”

  “He will not be happy to see us,” Mikal observed, but his grip was bruising-hard.

  No, he did not like his Prima setting foot in this place. She was a fool to mistrust him. A traitorous warmth bloomed in her belly, was sternly shelved. And yet, how long before he decided she was as expendable as Crawford had evidently been?