Tangled Webs (28 page)

Just as she reached the edge of the large bottom basin, she tripped and fell to the ground in a tangle of skirts and limbs. Tiny bits of gravel dug into her palms as she pushed herself onto her
knees. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. The thing she had tripped over lay across the pathway, partially hidden in the shadows. She used her hands to feel her way to it.
After the first brief touch, she froze.

A body was lying there.

Panic took hold of her. Her feet were unsteady as she stood and stumbled toward an ornate glass lantern that sat next to the patio steps. The hot glass burned her fingers, but she didn’t
feel it. Her entire focus was on the dark shape behind the fountain.

As soon as she set the light down, she saw the knife,
her knife
, protruding from the man’s large, jewel-colored chest. Arista stared at the still form in horror.

It was Lord Huntington.

He had on the same ridiculous bright green jester costume as before, and the vest still strained the buttons in front. A bright red stain was spreading rapidly across the green material.

She had seen a figure moving by the fountain only minutes ago. Whoever attacked Huntington had been right there.

Arista leaned over the body and listened for a breath, tried to see if his chest rose or fell, but it was too hard to see in the dim light. She leaned in closer and finally realized that there
was no sign of life left in the body, though it was still warm.

Her fingers came away from his chest sticky and warm. Blood. She hastily wiped her hands on her black dress. They shook uncontrollably. What should she do? Call for help? Slip away before anyone
saw her? Her knife was in Huntington’s body, but she didn’t know why.

A twig cracked behind her.

Arista whirled around to meet the wide-eyed stare of Lady Amanda Luckette. Her piercing scream filled the night. People poured out of the house. Four Watchmen ran to where Arista knelt. Two
dragged her to her feet. Lanterns were held up, illuminating Arista and the grisly scene at her feet. Another man of the Watch knelt beside the body. “He’s dead,” the man
said.

“It’s Lord Huntington. She’s killed Lord Huntington.” The whispers flew through the crowd.

“It’s Lady A.” The voice came from the outskirts of the crowd, deep and familiar. Wild. Dread pooled in her stomach. Nic had warned her, but she’d thought she had time.
“That’s her. She once threatened me with a knife. That same knife in Huntington’s chest!”

Mob mentality took over like wildfire.

“Lady A killed Lord Huntington.”

“I knew this day would come.”

“She’s a bad one, deserves everything she gets.”

The voices swirled around her as the men’s grip tightened on her arms. The one who had knelt by the dead man came to stand in front of her. She shut her eyes against the lights and noise
as he ripped the mask from her face. Gasps and more excited whispering followed.

“Who is it?”

“Who is she?”

“She’s just a young girl?”

“A girl’s been blackmailing
le bon ton
all along?”

Several more of the Watch pushed through the crowd. There were now half a dozen standing around her.

“Send for the coroner and get this crowd back inside,” barked the one who’d unmasked her.

“I did nothing,” Arista said in a strained whisper. “I found him like that.”

The man sneered at her. “You were found with the body. No one else saw you. There is blood all over your hands. Your knife’s been identified as the one sticking in the man’s
chest. That is more than enough evidence to see you hang.” He leaned in closer, so close his rancid breath made her gag. “Do you know how many will be glad to see the infamous Lady A
hang? And you
will
hang for this. I’ll just take what’s inside your pockets, too.
He
said he’d pay extra for ’em.”

He pulled out the letters that she’d meant to return to their owners. The blood inside her veins turned to ice.

This man was on Wild’s payroll.

Her heartbeat thumped dully in her ears. She stood exposed in front of all these people. It was over. It was all over. Frantically she scanned the crowd for help. Nic had warned her to leave, or
something bad would happen. She’d never dreamed she’d be exposed for all of society to see. To be framed for murder. Her knees buckled and, if not for the guards, she would have sunk to
the ground.

Nic
.

No.

Again she searched the departing faces, but there were no allies to be found. Several of the men Lady A had had dealings with looked nervous, like she would spill their secrets right there in
the garden, but most of the faces she saw were cold.

No one would help Lady A. Not when they had been waiting for this very moment.

“Bring round the carriage,” the man in charge snapped.

Pain shot through her arms as the guards twisted them behind her back and pushed her forward. Her toe caught a rock and she stumbled, sending a fresh sharp stab of agony through her arms. She
fought back a wave of nausea at the pain radiating through her limbs.

One of the men pulled a length of rope from the carriage, and for one panicked second she thought they meant to hang her right there in the street. She fought against the hands holding her, but
there were too many, and they were much stronger than her. They lashed her hands together behind her back, so tightly that the rough rope instantly chafed the skin on her wrists, creating a new
kind of torture.

“I didn’t do anything,” she said to the men around her. They only laughed.

With her hands tied, only one of the Watch was needed to control her now, and he shoved her roughly through the open carriage door. Without the use of her hands, Arista stumbled and fell,
landing hard on her shoulder.

More laughter sounded from outside the carriage before it dipped as another man from the Watch stepped inside. A single lantern hung from a hook in one corner, throwing sinister shadows onto his
face as he watched her.

Arista pulled her knees as close to her body as she could and lay in a ball on the cold floor. The carriage took off with a lurch, and her head slammed into the hard wood of the seat. Stars
danced in her vision. Each time the wheels hit a rut, the carriage rocked and spikes of pain drove into her body.

The guard watched her closely, as if he enjoyed the agony that was inflicted. He most likely did, as the Watch’s reputation was not any better than that of the men Bones employed. It made
her even more desperate not to show how much she was hurting.

By the time the carriage rolled to a stop, Arista could taste blood from biting her lip so hard. Tears were burning in her eyes, and her nose was running. She couldn’t stop crying; her
body seemed out of her control. The Watch man dragged her upright by her arm, and it was finally too much. Fire exploded in her shoulder.

A frantic sob escaped her lips. He held her there on her knees and grinned. Tiny lights danced in her vision, and she fought the darkness creeping in. Through her life, she had experienced pain,
but nothing compared to the raw agony ripping her apart now.

The door opened and the man shoved her out. There was no way to brace herself. The cobblestones raced toward her head—

She refused to scream—

Arms caught her before she hit and dragged her to her feet. A huge stone building loomed up out of the darkness, and even from the street she could hear the shouts and screams coming from
inside. Her blood ran cold. Looming above was the massive stone structure every thief in London feared. Most who went in never came out. It was a dark and desperate place.

When she refused to walk, they simply dragged her through the huge iron door at the front of Newgate Prison. A hulking figure stood just inside to meet them. He was easily six feet tall, and had
arms as thick as tree trunks. He watched her without a trace of emotion.

“What do we do with this one?” the jailer asked.

“There is to be no trial. Hundred witnesses. She’s to be hanged for murder at dawn.”

T
he Watch man yanked at the ropes. When they fell away, the blood returned to her fingers, causing prickles of pain each time she moved them. Angry
red welts covered her skin where the rope had scraped.

“I’m not a murderer!” she said, but no one listened.

Instead, the jailer looked her up and down and grinned.

“I got just the room for her.”

He pulled a pair of manacles off the wall and snapped them shut around her aching wrists. Thankfully he let her keep her hands in front of her body, with a small length of chain that allowed her
to move, albeit in a limited manner.

“Fill out the paper there, listing her crime, and I’ll be back.” His keys jingled as he turned and led her through a maze of dimly-lit hallways.

The groans and screams were so much louder inside, and the stench—God, it was bad. Arista had to fight back the bile that rose to the back of her throat. Fingers reached through the holes
in the iron doors they passed. The people inside hissed and growled like animals.

The jailer finally stopped and jammed his key into the lock of a door that looked like all the rest. “Here.” When the door opened, he shoved her inside the dark room and she heard
the door slam shut before she could even catch her balance. Arista stood in frozen terror.

She heard movement—scuffling sounds all around her—but could not see what made the noise. There were no lanterns in the room. She moved until the door was at her back, then slowly
sank down until she sat, propped up, facing a room full of who-knows-what.

The walls echoed with tortured moans, and the stench inside the room overwhelmed her. The tears she had been fighting finally broke free and slipped down her cheeks unchecked. This had to be a
nightmare. It could not be real.

Even as she repeated that to herself, the cold seeped up from the floor and chilled her to the bone. The one saving grace was that it made her too numb to feel any more pain, and she sat deathly
still.

The room was about twice the size of the room Bones had kept her in. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, Arista could make out dozens of bodies sprawled across the floor.

At the far end of the room, a figure detached from the shadows and started toward her. A misshapen figure, walking with an awkward
shuffle-thump
gait. Arista pushed clumsily to her feet,
trying to force the cold from her limbs, at least enough so that she could move if needed. Others were stirring awake now, and several sat up, rubbing their eyes until they saw her.

Arista pressed back against the steel door, but it would not give under the pressure. A scratching sound came from near her and Arista saw a young girl cowering in the corner. There was
something so familiar about the look in her eyes. The fear. Arista took a step toward her, but the girl scrambled back until she had wedged herself in the corner. She had the look of a wild animal
about her.

It was a look she remembered well.

“Are you a lady, then?” a different woman asked. She had on a dirt-stained shift and her feet were bare and black. Her hair had been nearly all chopped off, and stood out from her
head in uneven peaks. “We don’t get many hoity-toities in here. That dress would fetch me a nice hot meal.” A gleam came into the woman’s eyes as she stood.

Arista watched the woman warily. She’d had run-ins with people like her before. They weren’t all there in the head, and that made them more dangerous than if they were in their right
mind. Arista slowly wrapped the extra chain around her fingers.

The woman crept closer, licking her cracked lips.

The others would be no help—already they were cowering away from the crazy one. A low whimper came from the girl in the corner. Arista’s stomach rolled. A sour taste coated the back
of her tongue. It would not be the first time she had fought for what was hers. She could scream, but her voice would only be one among hundreds. No one would come to her aid here. She gripped the
chain tight in her fist and waited. There would only be one chance to take the woman by surprise. The woman outweighed Arista by at least four stone.

“Time to pay up, your ladyship.” The woman lunged at her. Arista waited until the woman’s hand was almost at her neck before she swung her chain-covered fist as hard as she
could at her jaw. Her fist connected with a thud, and the woman’s head snapped back. She moaned low in her throat and fell to the ground in a heap. Arista stared down at her, panting for air,
but the woman didn’t move.

Everyone in the cell froze, looking at Arista. The girl in the corner pushed herself to her feet, and her gaze kept darting to the woman lying on the floor. Arista didn’t know what to do
next. She loosened her grip and the small length of chain unraveled. There was blood on her knuckles, but she wasn’t sure whose it was.

A woman leaned over the body. After a moment, she looked up. “She ain’t dead. Don’t matter much—heard you’ll be swinging from the rope at dawn. Corpses don’t
need clothes, so they’ll be hers come morning.”

A loud metallic
clink
sounded on the door right by her head, and she jumped away as it swung open. “You.” The jailer pointed at Arista. “Outside.”