The Tower of the Forgotten (9 page)

"Little
fools, you’re in danger. What other reason could
there be?" She grabbed them each by the sleeve and
turned from the table.

Portia
intercepted her. "Where’s Lord Alaric?"

Gelender
looked her up and down. "You were poorly raised."

"That,
my lady, is irrelevant. Where is Lord Alaric?"

"Gone," she answered, her mouth puckering with distaste. "And I don’t know where he’s gone or why. I don’t ask impertinent and
inappropriate questions. Especially for someone who is a guest in his house."

"You
don’t intimidate me."

"I
am not trying to intimidate you. Not everything in life is a challenge,
Mistress Gyony; you’d do well to remember
that. And to recall that you are not a fully recognized member of your house,
nor have you achieved your age of majority. You have no right to question me or
Lord Alaric. Yours is to humbly submit to our will as a lord and lady of the
Grigori."

Another
tremor rattled the antiques in the curio cabinet. This one was larger. Portia
knew what they meant, or at least where they came from. The tower.

"That’s it. I’m finished with this
polite nonsense." Portia brandished the
axe, and Gelender stepped back, letting go of the two wards.

"You
wouldn’t kill me!"

"Of
course not. Who the hell do you think I am?" She swung the hammer
end up toward Gelender’s head.

Panicked,
the governess tried to bolt and ran straight into Imogen.

Imogen held her by the shoulders and gazed
directly into the woman’s eyes. "
Sleep
," she said in a voice that was
not quite her own.

Gelender crumpled to the floor.

"Are you ready?" Portia looked at Radinka, whose ivory
complexion had paled several more shades.

The
girl nodded and reached out for Imogen’s hand. "You must stay strong there. It will be the hardest for you," Imogen said. "I will be right beside
you, and so will Portia and Kendrick." Leaning into the girl’s ear, she whispered, "He wants nothing more
than to be a Gyony."

"Enough.
Let’s go. Radinka, show us the way."

Radinka
quailed a moment before straightening her spine and nodding. She led them
across the foyer and into Alaric’s sitting room. She
opened the bookcase expertly, and Portia knew she had done this before. It
pained her. Although Radinka was far older than she looked, she was still
considered a child by Nephilim standards and should not have been anywhere near
her training to join a House of the Grigori. She should have been still home
with her family, or playing in the halls of a chapter house somewhere. But that
childhood had ended long ago in the halls of Our Lady of Precious Hope convent,
and at the hands of those who had been sworn to protect her.

The
small room within surprised Portia, looking more like an oversized closet than
any kind of sinister secret passage.

"What
is this place?" She could feel,
however, that it was not as innocent as it seemed.

Radinka
pointed to the shelves built into the walls, each one crowded with all sorts of
strange keepsakes and knickknacks, from jewelry to photographs to silverware
and more.

They
are the mementos of a hundred people, or so. Anchors, he calls them, bindings.
Each one of these little things meant the world to someone. And he knows it and
he uses it to his advantage." She picked up a large
monkey wrench. "This belonged to an
Insinori girl, one of the youngest ever to be elevated to full house standing.
Her name was Kitty. He uses her the most. And this, you might recognize this."

Radinka
stood up on tiptoes, reaching toward the back of the shelf where the wrench had
sat.

"What
do you mean, he uses her?" Portia asked.

"Uses.
To do his bidding. On the other side. Although he does have a few living people
in thrall, mostly, these folks are dead. But he can control them with their
things. I can show you where he keeps them."

Portia
did not understand at all what Radinka could mean.

"Here." Radinka put something in Portia’s hand. "I think this will mean
the most to you."

She
knew the hairpin at once, but the context twisted her memories. There was no
way this could be here, but there it rested in her hand, the long twining ivory
shaft with the garnet cabochon on the end, as big as a robin’s egg. She became aware of the tears in her eyes and that
she was staring, open-mouthed, at the trinket.

"Does
this mean that he uses her, too?"

Radinka
nodded. "It does."

"Do
you know what for?"

"No,
not her. I have never been out with him when he had her with him. Only Kitty."

"Portia,
what is it?" Curious, Imogen turned
Portia’s wrist to see what had so upset her. She
gasped and blessed herself. "Oh, heaven help poor
Lady Hester, she’s been through so much
already!"

"Can
these ties, these ‘bindings,’ be broken?" Portia’s hand closed protectively around the hairpin.

"I’m sure they can. I’ve just not quite worked
out how. I mean, how to sever them and leave the poor spirit intact. It goes
badly if it is done wrong. He showed me once, to scare me, I think."

"Does
he have you bound, too?" Imogen’s voice creaked just a little with worry.

Radinka
could not answer, she only looked away. Imogen sucked in a sharp breath. "Oh, Radinka…"

"And
Kendrick?" Portia said.

He
chimed in. "Not by Alaric’s doing. He doesn’t need to put spells on
me. So long as Radinka is here, so shall I be, too."

That’s noble of you and might work to our advantage." Portia looked around the room. There were so many things,
all piled seemingly haphazardly onto each shelf. "So,
if the anchors are in here, then where are the people?"

"This
way." Radinka pulled aside a curtain to reveal an
ornate door frame that was entirely bricked up.

A
chill radiated from those bricks, and using her double-vision, Portia could see
that they formed a small measure of protection between the worlds. In her
sight, she could see the endless night that hung over a lonely hillside beyond,
studded with small white boulders.

The
foundation shivered again, moaning through the bricks. Radinka motioned them
over to the doorway. Her hand passed through it easily, and she reached back
for someone else to follow.

Portia
motioned Imogen and Kendrick forward. "I’ll bring up the rear."

They
seemed to evaporate through the wall; Portia lingered a moment, running her
thumb over the hairpin. It radiated familiarity. As she closed her eyes, she
saw a vivid memory of her childhood at Penemue: Lady Hester watching her class
playing outside in the grassy field beside the orchard. Captain Cadmus standing
by her side, bent to say something directly into her ear. Hester turning and
the warm morning light gleaming off of her shining blonde hair, the carved
ivory hairpin set with a garnet the size of a thimble at its head. Portia held
that object in her hand.

And
Hester waited in the shadowlands beyond.

Portia
passed through the doorway; it chilled her to the core. It took a moment for
her eyes to adjust to the ever-shifting low light. A shallow valley overgrown
with grass the color of plums stretched out beneath a familiar grey sky. Rocks
seemed to grow from the low hillside on either side of the meager path. Portia
examined one and found it to be a headstone, not a boulder.

Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…"

"Over
here." Radinka waved from a nearby ridge. She and
Imogen knelt by one of the markers with Kendrick standing protectively at their
backs, his eyes scanning the horizon for threats.

In
the distance, danger waited, casting a bluish beacon far into the sky. But
nothing appeared to be coming for them yet.

Radinka
closed her eyes and bowed her head over the wrench.

"I
think," she murmured, so softly that Portia
almost did not hear, "that had things been
different, I might like to have been a Vedma, a healer. I think that might have
been nice." Her voice dropped in pitch. "But Lady Analise had other plans for me."

"You
may still get your wish," Portia told her.

Radinka
shook her head. It took a moment before she could speak. "No. Analise took that part out of me and replaced it with
another. I can only speak to souls of the dead now, no longer the living."

When
she looked up, Portia was met with the memory of the child’s light eyes in the shadow-side foyer of the Penemue chapter
house. She had seen her.

Portia
made a good-natured dismissive sound. "You were able to speak
to my soul and I wasn’t dead. I think you can
learn again to touch the living with healing."

Radinka
remained unconvinced and gripped the wrench tightly. She sighed and said, "Mistress Portia, you don’t walk among the living
anymore. Not like the rest of us. You, I could heal, I think. Imogen, too. But
no one else. Trust me, I’ve tried."

Kendrick
came up to Portia’s shoulder. "A couple of cats," he said, "and a handful of birds. Young ones, too weak to be weaned
and lost from their mothers. I told her they would have died anyway…" He shivered. "She used to be so
lively, you know? She used to be able to make flowers bloom with a touch and a
prayer. She keeps trying." He gazed down at her
with eyes brimming with tears. "Her magic is of the dead
now, and this is not a mantle she’s carried lightly, or
well."

Radinka
turned back toward the headstone and began again to focus on the wrench. Two
beads of light rose up before her, one from the tool and the other from the
stone, and merged into one glowing sphere. Then, like a flower unfurling its
petals to the sun, the sphere opened into the shape of a sprightly young woman
in coveralls and boots with welding goggles perched atop a mass of unruly
curls. She was a study in sepia, looking more like a photograph than a ghost.

She
grinned at Radinka and clapped her grubby hands together. "You found me!"

"You made it easy."

"Oh, my! Who’re your friends?"

Radinka
turned to look at Portia while the other girl stood still and transfixed. "This is Mistress Portia Gyony and Mistress Imogen Gyony. You’ve met Kendrick."

Nodding but not coming any closer, the girl
offered her name. "I’m Kitty Insinori. And I’ve heard tell of both of you."
Noting Portia’s surprise, she explained, "I have been dead for a bit here and
I’ll tell you what, there’s nothing much better to do than gossip!" She pointed
at the array of headstones dotting the landscape. "He puts more people in here
every day it seems. Some of them just heard the stories, but some of them know
you, Mistress Portia, or
knew
you might be a truer statement."

"How many?" Portia asked.

Kitty
shrugged. "Few dozen, I guess. We’re never all awake at the same time, and when we’re split apart things aren’t
so clear. We can sort of hear one another, but it’s more like listening to people talk in their sleep. While you’re still asleep, too."

"Split apart?"

Radinka
held up the wrench. "Yes. The soul is partially captured here in the person’s treasured object, and
the other half is allowed to cross into the realm of the dead, but can move no
further than this shadow realm while still tethered to the living world."

"I see. And you know this how?"

"Because
being an Aldias was forced upon me. Nigel and Lady Analise were thorough. Even
my dreams were polluted with this knowledge."

Kitty’s face clouded. "That’s hardly fair! At least here they let us sleep in peace,
mostly. Although things travel this road, more and more often as of late. It
makes us all fretful. Lady Hester, especially."

The
confirmation rang through Portia’s soul. "Lady Hester?"

"Yep.
Right over there." Kitty pointed to a pale stone, simple and shaped almost like a column, across the narrow track.

Portia
took a step and stopped herself. Her palm began to sweat around the ivory
hairpin.

"What
are you, anyway?" Kitty took a courageous step toward Portia, tilting her head to one side, looking intently at her
wings.

Portia
saw, in the layers of images that made up the girl’s being, that part of her face had once been burned
completely to the bone. She smelled hot, acrid steam, not fire. A chemical burn
of some sort. And oddly, she heard Hester’s voice calling the girl’s name.

"So you knew Lady Hester?"

"Briefly."

"Did you meet her in Penemue?"

"Where? No. There was a battle, at a country house. Can’t
remember what it was called, Crieve Hall or something, anyway…she was there. She was good. She helped me out when I was
hurt. I didn’t think she knew what she was doing, but she fixed me right up. Beginner’s luck, I guess."

Portia frowned. "Helped you how?"

"She
healed me. Made me right as rain, till I went and got myself killed anyhow." She laughed at that. "Oh, well. She says I
saved the day anyway. Which I guess is all I ever really wanted to do with
myself."

"I
didn’t think healing was an art the Edulica knew.
Beyond the basic stuff, anyway." Portia racked her
memories for any instances where she might have been hurt enough to warrant
Hester’s healing prowess, but all that came to mind
was the occasional bruise and splinter and a fever now and again.

"Edulica?" Kitty’s golden brows knitted
together. "You must be thinking of someone else. Lady Hester was Regalii."

Portia
nodded. "So we’ve recently learned. But it seems she got better."

Kitty laughed.

"For what purpose did Lord Alaric bring you here?"

Her merry smile vanished and she pointed, far across the bruised sky. "To work on that engine under the tower. It was old. I got to
take it apart and make it shiny! I basically had to rebuild the blasted thing
from the ground up. No one does any maintenance over there."