Fateful (12 page)

“I do. I got a look inside this morning. Miss Irene turns out to have the key.”

“Good,” he says, almost fiercely. He wants to know Mikhail’s secrets even more avidly than I do. Perhaps we are both only speaking together to save our own necks, but that’s reason enough to cooperate. “All right then, what did you see?”

“Nothing that looked extraordinary, honestly.” I need to think about this very carefully, and truth be told, I am feeling a bit shaky. I sit down on the nearest machine, which is the closest thing the gymnasium has to a chair. The seat slides, jerking me to one side.

“That’s a rowing machine,” Alec says. Now that he says it, I can see how a man could sit in this contraption and work the handles, going back and forth to row as if he were in a boat. For now I simply steady my feet on the floor.

“Let me think,” I say. I close my eyes and imagine the box as it looked when Irene went through it. “Some candlesticks, valuable but awfully plain. Probably a hundred years old at least.”

“I doubt Mikhail’s after candlesticks.”

I peek at him long enough to glare. “Shhh, let me go through it, would you?” I’ve never fussed at a gentleman in my life—and while Alec might be an American millionaire instead of a member of the nobility, he certainly counts as a gentleman. He doesn’t rebuke me, though, just accepts it as his due with a small smile. I close my eyes once more. “Some old coins, Spanish maybe. A few pieces of jewelry: sapphire earrings, a pearl choker, the tiara with the opals, and . . . and a golden pin.” I swallow hard. “One in a pair, but missing its mate. And then there was a very old sort of knife, maybe a dagger—I wouldn’t know.”

“A dagger?” The tone of Alec’s voice opens my eyes. His entire body is tense, and as he stands above me, I again sense the presence of the wolf. “Describe it. In every detail.”

“About so long.” I hold my fingers perhaps nine inches apart. “A long, thin, triangular point. The hilt might’ve been made of gold, but it was so old it was half gray. The scabbard had some etchings on it, illuminated with gilt. The etchings looked sort of like letters, but not proper English letters. And there was something else on the hilt, this weird scratched shape. Nothing I could read.”

I hold up my hand to trace the shape, but as I do, I realize I’ve seen it before: It’s that peculiar asymmetrical Y—the one I first saw on Mikhail’s watch.

“That’s the symbol of the Brotherhood.” Alec slams one hand against the wall so hard I jump. He doesn’t seem to notice as he paces the length of the gymnasium. “It’s an Initiation Blade.”

“A what?” The word “initiation” resonates, reminding me of what Alec and I spoke about this morning. “You mean—for the Brotherhood initiation?”

“Exactly.” Alec leans against the wall next to me, letting his head fall back. I can see his Adam’s apple work as he swallows hard. “You don’t know all the family secrets, Tess. Somebody among the Lisles, maybe generations back, was connected to the Brotherhood.”

Who could it have been? Of course—Uncle Humphrey, supposedly Mikhail’s old friend. The Viscount has never liked to discuss Uncle Humphrey; he lived far out in the country, on a much humbler estate than his station in life would have demanded. The Viscount called him a crackpot, and perhaps that’s as much as he knew about it. Now I wonder if he was a werewolf too. Or did he fight against them?

I abandon those questions; they’ll get us nowhere. “What’s an Initiation Blade? Why does Mikhail need it?”

“They were forged long ago, so long that the date is lost to memory.” Alec looks down at me, sadder even than he was before. “And nobody remembers how precisely they were made, which is why they are so rare and valuable now. The core of the dagger is silver.” He pauses. “Silver has the power to kill a werewolf. Remember that.”

Is he telling me this so I can defend myself against Mikhail, or so I can defend myself against him?

He continues, “Within an Initiation Blade, the silver dagger is then plated with gold, which allows werewolves to touch it. When one of our kind is cut with the Blade, and the old magic is called on, the supernatural energy that rises from a werewolf’s nearness to silver creates a change—something no one fully understands. But it’s the change that allows us to transform into a wolf if and when we will, except on the night of the full moon. The Brotherhood controls all the Initiation Blades and has done for centuries. This one must have been lost until now.”

“And that’s what Mikhail is after.”

“I can’t believe I was fool enough to think he booked passage on this ship only to come after me. They’ll want that Blade more than anything, Tess. They must have learned of it recently; if they’d known about it before, they’d have stolen it from the Lisles. Burned their house down, if they had to. There’s nothing Mikhail won’t do to get his hands on it.” He slides down the wall, forearms on his knees, so that we’re eye to eye again. “You realize that Mikhail now knows he can do this without killing you. And he won’t care.”

It’s not like I wasn’t scared before, but it’s a hundred times worse now. Before I thought that maybe I was just a toy for Mikhail to bat around, in danger from him but perhaps able to buy safety with my silence. Now I know that killing me isn’t something he would have to do to accomplish his task; it’s something he
wants
. Something he’ll seize any excuse to do.

I don’t have to say anything; Alec can see what I’m feeling, or sense it somehow. “Mikhail’s anything but stupid,” he says. “He won’t attack you in front of witnesses. He only went after you in front of me that first day onboard because he thought he could coerce me into joining him, and now he knows that won’t work. You’ve simply got to avoid being alone as much as possible.”

“Won’t be hard to stay near the family, with Lady Regina wanting something every five minutes,” I try to joke. The Italian shawl is still draped over one of my arms; when I reach her, she’ll be furious. Let her shout at me forever, so long as I don’t have to be alone. But then I gasp. “Oh, no! Tomorrow!”

“What’s tomorrow?”

“My afternoon off.”

I’d been so looking forward to it. Horne, Ned, and I would each get one afternoon off during the trip to America—Ned’s is today. Lady Regina told us as though she were doing us a special favor. What she really wanted to do was make us use our free afternoon for the month while the family is still onboard and has ship’s stewards to do their bidding. That way she could work us harder once we reached the United States. Her motives didn’t matter to me when I thought I’d have an afternoon to lounge about on deck and feel the sunshine on my face—especially given my plans to quit shortly thereafter. Now all those hours away from the Lisles feel like a death sentence. “He’s close to Layton now. He’ll realize I’m not with them, and come after me.”

Alec weighs the problem, then nods. “You’ll simply have to spend the day with me. Given the people I’ve . . . endangered, by being what I am, I ought to protect someone at least once. So we’ll stay together.”

There’s a fluttering in my belly when he says that, but I don’t trust it. I might have more faith in Alec than I do in Mikhail, but he, too, is a monster. “You said I was to stay away from you. For my own good.”

“The situation has changed now.” He tries to sound practical about it, but I realize he feels it too—that illogical, powerful need for us to be together. “You don’t have to be afraid. We’ll stay in the public areas of first class. People will be around us the whole time.” His voice grows softer. “Safe as houses.”

“Safe as houses,” I repeat. “But—sir, you can’t be seen socializing with a servant. It isn’t done.”

“I don’t really care what people think of it. Nobody will have the courage to confront us directly. So we’ll snub them right back, pretend they’re not even there.” Can he really not see the divide between us? I must be gaping at Alec, because he shrugs and adds, “After you become a werewolf, you give up on the idea of fitting in.”

I notice that he didn’t suggest going down to third class, but if I were him, I wouldn’t want to trade down either. The Lisles might see me up there, which would be awful—but then again, this is a large ship. It’s not as if I was able to find Lady Regina with her shawl even when I was looking for her. “I could wear something nice. So it wouldn’t be too obvious I’m a servant.”

“When will the Lisles let you go?”

“Just before luncheon.”

“Then I’ll meet you at the grand staircase just before luncheon.”

“I haven’t said yes yet. We’ve got to think this through. Isn’t the first-class dining room opposite the staircase? What if Mikhail sees me?”

“What if he does? It might be better, actually, if he knows I’m guarding you. Then perhaps he’ll back off for a while.” Alec rises once more to his feet, and this time I stand with him. It’s nice that he’s taller than I am; so few men are. He becomes more formal now. “Will you accept my invitation?”

Don’t be stupid. This man is cursed to be a monster. He’s tied to dark powers you can never understand. Even if he weren’t, after what you’ve learned about Daisy and Layton, don’t you know that no servant girl can ever trust a wealthy man?

The stupidest part, I realize, is that I’m considering denying myself the only protection I have—because I’m afraid of my own heart.

“Yes,” I say. “Tomorrow, before lunch, at the grand staircase.”

He doesn’t reply, but I can see the reflection of my own gladness and confusion in my eyes. In some strange way, we are alike. A boundary has been crossed.

Chapter 11

AFTER FINALLY LOCATING LADY REGINA, AND BEING scolded for taking so long with her shawl, I’m released to change from my now-dusty morning uniform into my evening uniform, and to eat something for dinner if I’m lucky enough to have the time. Hopefully I will; that one sticky bun Irene gave me wasn’t much to go on after missing tea last night. I must be the only person going hungry on the
Titanic
—the richest ship in the world.

Making sure to remain in sight and hearing of others the entire time, I dash down to F deck, through the doors that separate the classes, and enter my cabin, which is empty. None of my bunkmates are inside, and neither is my evening uniform. Just as I’m getting ready to curse worse than the groundskeeper when he’s had a pint of gin, the door opens behind me and Myriam walks in. Her thick dark hair is a frizzy mess, the way it gets when you’ve had to spend too much time in heat and moisture. But in her arms, neatly rolled, is my uniform.

“I hate ironing,” she says.

“Oh, thank you!” I take the uniform up and see that Myriam’s done a wonderful job; this is as neatly pressed as I could manage, or perhaps even a professional tailor could do. “Really. It’s marvelous.”

“Do you intend to spend all of luncheon changing clothes, or would you like to hurry so that we can actually eat?”

I ought to correct Myriam: The midday meal is luncheon only for the rich. For us, it’s dinner—the main meal of the day. At night, when they get dinner, we only have tea. Sometimes it’s no more than bread and butter washed down with a cup of tea. But who knows, perhaps it’s different in America.

Her unspoken assumption is that we’ll have dinner together, and I suppose we will. As I hurriedly change, brushing and hanging my morning uniform so that it will be presentable tomorrow, I realize that—with hardly a kind word spoken between us—Myriam and I have somehow become friends. I’ve never had a friend outside my family or the other servants at Moorcliffe before; it feels almost strange, but kind of interesting, too.

The third-class dining hall isn’t anything so grand as the one for first class, of course, but it’s still a bright, cheerful space, with gleaming white walls and well-polished floors. Myriam informs me that last night there was an impromptu dance after the meal, because a piano has been provided even for the third-class passengers. An Italian who had brought a violin and a German who had brought an accordion joined in with the volunteer piano player, nationality unknown, to play tunes for hours. “Some of the ship’s officers joined us,” she says, as if it were an afterthought. “Not the captain, of course. I’m sure he’d never show his face down here.”

“Just some of the lower officers.” I take a big bite of my roll, gulp down some tea. “Like, for instance, the seventh officer, a Mr. George Greene?”

Myriam doesn’t deny it. She rests her chin in her hand, half lost in thought. “He is not at all the sort of man I would once have imagined for myself. I thought another man from Lebanon, some friend of my brother’s in New York, perhaps. George is—oh, Tess, he’s been everywhere in the world. Even India.”

It’s funny to see her so starry-eyed, though I don’t mock her. After the past couple of days with Alec, I understand that feeling better than I used to. “He seems awfully nice, too. He’s gone out of his way to be kind to me.”

“Is it true that sailors have girls in every port?”

“George doesn’t seem the type.” Though who am I to know what type George is or isn’t? After everything I’ve learned in the past twenty-four hours, it feels as if I hardly know anyone, even some of the people closest to me. I think of Alec—man and monster—and the hours I’ve promised to spend with him tomorrow. “But it’s hard to know when to trust a man.”

“You say that like someone who has reason to doubt a man’s intentions.” Myriam raises one eyebrow, as perfectly shaped as a bird’s wing. “And here I thought your overnight adventure probably had an innocent explanation.”

Our eyes meet across the dining room table. For a long moment, neither of us speaks. We’re surrounded by the clinking of plates and forks and chattering in half a dozen different languages, but the silence between us seems louder than all the rest. She’s teasing me, but not; what Myriam’s really doing is giving me a chance to confide in her about last night, if I want to. In some ways I do want to. But who would ever believe me?

“Nothing improper happened last night,” I say.

“You are keeping a secret.”

“What a brilliant deduction. You’re a regular Sherlock Holmes.”

Myriam frowns. “Who is Sherlock Holmes?”