The Tower of the Forgotten (2 page)

Portia blinked, trying to feel the
difference between the eyes through which she now saw and the ones she’d always
had. They did not feel any different, and she had not gotten a good look at
them herself. But she had seen the reaction to them. Fear, awe, curiosity,
lust. As golden as wolf’s eyes, she would never be able to hide her nature from
anyone who looked into them.

"I’ll live. I’ve no other choice, do
I?" Portia smiled, a little lopsided. "It’ll be all right, you’ll see, my love. Besides, I’ve
lived with silver hair for so long, golden eyes shouldn’t be so much more difficult."

Cadmus
cleared his throat and yawned in a loud, grandiose manner. Portia could hear
voices outside, coming nearer.

Imogen’s face fell. "I must go. But I’ll be back, Portia, I promise!"
She slipped her long fingers into the neck of her gown and pulled up a
tarnished silver heart-shaped padlock charm with a keyhole cut through its
center. She pressed it to her chest lovingly. "Did
yours…?"

Smiling,
Portia rolled back the gold embroidered cuff of her other sleeve. A tea-brown
ribbon wrapped several times around her wrist, and from it dangled an equally
tarnished little silver key. "Of course."

They
spent their last moments in a lingering goodbye kiss until Anna stepped between
them.

"I’m so sorry, Portia, but we must."

"I understand."

The
three of them meandered out of the large, striped tent and into the fading
sunshine. Portia wanted to wave and call out to them, but instead, she settled
back into her corner and, when she felt certain they were long gone, took the
letter out of her sleeve. The short missive told her nothing that Cadmus had
not. The Primacy knew where she was. They knew what had happened to her, or at
least pretended that they did. They advised her once again to stay quiet and
stay put. They would send further instructions.

"Poxy
bastards." She folded the note back into the
envelope and rose on her tiptoes until she could just reach the corner of it
into the nearest lantern. The expensive paper smoked a long while before it
caught fire. Portia held it until it burned down to her fingertips. It did not
so much as singe them.

"Parlor tricks?"

Portia
jumped. She had not heard the man enter. He came in on silent feet, pausing to
tie down the flap behind him. She tensed, drawing her legs beneath her and
pressing her wings close to her back, ready to strike.

The
man turned, sweeping his cloak back from his arms, and touched the brim of his
hat to her. His eyes were hidden behind peculiar blue-tinted glasses fitted
with several magnifying lenses that could be dropped down in any number and
combination from the brass frames. He fiddled with them, raising and lowering
several of them in succession as he looked her over. He nodded and murmured to
himself, then shook his head as if disagreeing with his own thoughts.

His
drawn face was pale in the dimness, and his lean body was all but lost in the
folds of his rich wool suit. But in Portia’s vision, she could tell
that he was no ordinary man. And no ordinary Nephilim, either.

"Do
you know who I am, girl?" he whispered with only
a minute movement of his thin lips.

"What
does the Primacy wish of me?"

"Astute." The magnifying lenses clicked into place and up again.
Finally satisfied with what he saw, the man pushed the glasses down his nose
and gazed at her with unblinking green-grey eyes flecked with gold. "The reports do you no justice, Mistress Gyony."

Portia
shrugged. "The reports do not concern me. How long
do I have to stay here? It’s humiliating and I am
damn tired of it."

"That
is not for you to decide, I’m afraid. You are far
too valuable to risk, and here, you are safe."

"Safe?
Here? Safer here than in my own home?" She felt each feather
of her wings start to stand on end as irritation coursed through her body. "What about the information I have? Surely that means
something to you!"

"We
have enough information."

"What’s your name, sir?"

"Names
have power, Portia Gyony."

"I
know. That’s why I want yours."

He
paused, tilting his head to regard her. "Lord Alaric Regalii," he answered, finally. "Does that please you?"

"Enough.
Now tell me when you’ll get me out of this
place."

"Soon." He glanced around, nose wrinkling as if finally noticing
the interior of the tent for the first time. "You won’t think it soon enough, I’m sure, but I’d like you keep you
somewhere safe where we can keep an eye on you. That gives us a bit more time
to investigate the tower before anyone goes and causes a ruckus."

"I
fear that Nigel may have begun again—"

"Nigel?
That grasping Aldias brat?" Lord Alaric scoffed. "Even if it was he that Imogen claimed you fought, and yes,
we have debriefed her on this matter—you did get a chance to
visit with her just now, I trust?" He cleared his throat. "Anyway, there is no way he can recover the mass and matter
to threaten us again. So put those fears to rest, my dear girl, and try to make
the best of things here."

"Do
not underestimate him."

"I
promise not to," he told her, placating.

"It
would be to your peril," she warned once more.

"We
have our best investigating the matter of this tower. We will send for you,
Mistress Gyony." He slid the glasses
back in place and shrugged the cloak closed over his body. He untied the tent
flap’s lacings and stepped through, pausing to bow
his head toward her gilded cage. "Your duty to the Grigori
will be noted."

Portia gave him a curt nod in reply. "Good.
I’ll be wanting a parade."

—
2
—

"THE TOWER OF MIRACLES!" Halford Kirkley, the most
senior partner of the traveling circus and sideshow, had strolled into the tent
that housed Portia’s cage. "It’s making us rich, rich I tell you, Quentin! The
pilgrims! The cures! The advertising writes itself! Now, what shall we do with
her
?"

Quentin Seymour hastily followed, rolls of
architectural plans and a notepad clutched in his ink-stained fingers. What
Quentin may have lacked in ambition, he made up for in business sense. He
eyeballed the shoddy tableau of the cage and blew through his lips.

"It’ll be a boon, combining both attractions. But it just means
we’ve got to move her again. Like a wildcat, that
one. And do we dare leave her out there at night? I don’t think we can pay anyone enough to take the job of shifting
her back and forth." He tucked his plans
under one arm and flipped through the notebook.

"Bah,
she’s been weak as milk since we got her settled.
Once she gets accustomed to her new home I think she’ll be just as docile. Won’t you, girl?" Halford turned to address her directly for the first time.

Portia
bristled, but did not respond.

"But
Hal, wasn’t she plucked from that same tower by the
Airship Corps? I’d hate to endanger this
venture by giving her an opportune means of escape back there. Perhaps that’s what it’s waiting for: her
return. And if she goes home again, we lose them both, and where would our
revenue be, then? I’ll tell you where—"

"Nonsense!
She isn’t going anywhere. Especially if you build
a nice and sturdy pavilion!" He snatched one of the
rolls from Quentin and stretched it out before him. "Besides, I have been in contact with Mr. Hadrian Magister,
who has certain interests staked in the tower, and he assures me that we will
have no troubles whatsoever; he knows precisely how to handle all of this. And
he is willing to pay top dollar to have her new setup placed there as soon as
possible."

It
was Quentin’s turn to seethe, but he
hid it poorly. "And just who is this
generous benefactor that is going to graciously assist us in our quest to make
money?"

"Oh,
now, now dear chum, don’t be so coy. I have no
intentions of replacing you as partner, but I did need to seek some outside
influence. Besides, he was some excellent methods for dealing with our
occasionally problematic habitué."

They
both turned and laid their stares onto Portia. She gazed back, unmoved. Halford
handed one side of the scroll to Quentin and ran his fingers across the
topographic drawings of the coastline. The tower had been hastily sketched in,
Portia saw, as well as an image of a grand pavilion nestled amid the rocky
cliffs facing the sea.

"You see, Quentin, this is the
moment we’ve been waiting for. We can forget this two-bit freak show and enter
the world of
bona fide
attractions! The Circus
Avernus!"

Quentin sighed and took the sheet of vellum
back from his partner. "We shall see, Hal. But mark my words, I do not like
this." He tucked the architectural plans beneath his arm and huffed, stalking
out of the tent.

Halford
watched him go and clucked his tongue. "He’ll come around, my treasure,"
he murmured to Portia, idly stroking her cage. "I
have been waiting for you, waiting for this…for so long. And we’re going to make the best of it. Together." He slid his arm between the bars, knocking loose a few of
the paste pearls, and reached for Portia. She shuffled back away from his hand
and his fingers fell upon the hem of her gown instead. He clenched the heavy
satin and gave it a nearly playful tug. "We’ll go far together, you and I. You shouldn’t fear me, my plum." He blew her a kiss and
strolled out of the tent, leaving the flap open to the chilly night wind.

"Perhaps, you should fear
me
,"
Portia growled. Halford did not return.

* * * *

"What
do we have here?" The creaking voice
seemed to come from nowhere, but as Portia squinted, she could see a stooped
figure in the shadows behind the still-open tent flap. "Surprised that you’re still here, girl.
Thought you’d have long ago flown the coop."

She
did not sense any menace from the individual, only a certain wry amusement. She
cautiously came to toward the bars, but remained out of arm’s reach. "Who are you?"

"Me?
I’m nobody." Coming forward, the
speaker coughed with a wracking, rattling wetness. "Just an old woman come to look upon things no mortal should
ever have caged."

In
the dim light, Portia could see her better. Dressed in brightly patched rags,
she wore a purple paisley headscarf with long fringes that trailed into her
pale eyes. One was the faintest blue and the other a milky white. She titled
her head to one side, then alternated, closing each eye, looking at Portia
through each of them several times.

Nodding,
she hobbled closer to the bars, gripping them with gnarled, long-fingered hands
that looked surprisingly strong.

"You are far too trusting."

"Madame, please…"

"And
obviously trusting of the wrong sort! What do you see when you look at me,
girl?"

Portia
opened her mouth to object, but the movement behind the crone caught her
attention. As if through a sheer curtain, she could see them: four wraiths
hovering at the woman’s shoulders. If she
focused on them, they became clearer. Two men of middling age, one dressed in a
soldier’s uniform, the other in a suit many
decades out of date. A child stood at the second man’s side, a boy, she thought, but could not be certain, as the
child wore a full skirt and had brown ringlets yet wore a sailor cap. The last
was a woman, standing apart from the others, her red dress hanging
provocatively off one shoulder but in a way that made Portia think it had been
torn and fallen there, rather than worn that way to entice.

"Who
are they?"

"My
guides. Can’t run a fortune-telling
operation without them, at least, not an honest one, in my opinion."

"What
do you want from me?"

She
laughed, bringing on another fit of coughing. "Want?
Me? God, darling, I don’t want to offend, but
there isn’t anything you could offer me that I’d want. Well, nothing that I’d
be willing to pay for, anyway."

"So,
why are you here?"

"Wanted
to see for m’self. And really see.
Because I couldn’t believe what the
little Bat-Boy was telling me, even though the Bearded Lady backed him up on
it."

Portia
shook her head, not understanding.

"You aren’t all there. Or at least
all
here
."

"What?"

"Come
over here and I’ll show you."

Portia
glanced around the cage for the gate and turned toward it.

"Not
that way, you foolish girl. Just come here."

"Listen,
grandmother, you’re beginning to—"

"
Get over here
!"

The air between them rippled, subtly and
momentarily. This woman had power and had long ago learned how to wield it
well. While it did not command Portia, it impressed her.

And
she saw what the woman was trying to show her.

When
she concentrated on the tent and the cage in the same way that she had focused
on the woman’s ghost companions, her
surroundings changed. The bars looked flimsy, flickering almost, as if they
were made of water, not iron. The woman smiled and took her hands off the cage
and passed her fingers through the bars.

"So,
grandmother, you aren’t all here, either."

"You
may, in fact, turn out to be smarter than you look." She chuckled.

Portia
stepped down onto the floor of the tent, wishing she had known about this trick
yesterday. She would have hugged Imogen with all her might, which was
considerable.

"Peace,
peace," the fortune-teller patted Portia’s arm. "You’re far too hard on yourself. Things like these, they don’t come with instructions. And not all of us are lucky enough
to have experienced friends." She winked at her
guides, who remained still and silent behind her.

"And
how did you come to this, grandmother?"