The Unnaturalists (13 page)

Syrus thought of the Manticore’s strange Heart with all its wires and hoses, its pulsing red light as she’d swallowed the Raven Guard whole.

“Why?” Syrus asked.

“Because she’s the only one that can get close enough to the Manticore to draw it out of its den and make it give over the Heart.”

Syrus knew the first bit to be false. Hadn’t the Manticore come out for him?

“This girl, this Vespa Nyx—is she a witch?”

Rackham’s lips wavered around his stained teeth. “Most assuredly. Funny that what Nyx wants has been in front of him all along. Reckon he wouldn’t want to have to sacrifice his own daughter, though.” He flung a few coins across the counter.

Syrus nodded, pocketing his payment. He headed toward the door, aware of the bearded man’s strange gaze on his back. He regretted that he’d had to cut a deal with Rackham with the stranger nearby; surely he had heard some of their conversation, despite their attempts to muffle it.

“Careful, boy,” Rackham said, before Syrus slid out of the door. “You may be stepping into things far beyond your ken.”

That he certainly knew to be true. He nodded swiftly again, and the little bells ushered him out.

As the door closed behind him, the young man walked to the counter.

“I’ll have that toad,” he said in a husky voice.

The tattler vibrated so hard it broke.

“And this,” he said, cradling the jar with a pale hand. “I’ll have this, too.”

He lifted his hand and a white mist rose around Rackham’s head, swirling much like the mist that had brought the Architects to the aid of the Harpy. The young man opened the jar and the mist hastened inside.

Rackham’s eyes went white. His mouth and shoulders slackened; but his fingers crept restlessly over the counter.

“There is no further use for you,” the bearded man said.

Without a word, Rackham pulled an antique dagger from below the counter and stabbed himself through the heart.

Before he left, the bearded man spoke a quiet word.

The room burst into flames.

C
HAPTER
11

I
’ve spent the past few days feigning illness and hiding in my room. Father has again come and said his good-byes to my door—I say I won’t see him for fear of contagion. Only my maid and Aunt Minta are allowed entry.

I wasn’t frightened the day Hal called me a witch, the day I nearly let the Waste loose on the entire city. But something about the encounter with Rackham and the thugs outside his shop has made this witch business all too real. It’s not that I can’t accept it. I’m still not entirely sure what it means, despite Hal’s words in the carriage. (Oh, those magenta-shadowed words!) Whether I can survive it, though, that’s the question. All I can see in my mind is the blank desert of the Waste spreading before me. Perhaps it’s no more than I deserve, heretic that I’m becoming.

And Hal . . . Nothing more was said after the incident at Rackham’s. We returned to the Museum in silence and he left me at the atrium without a backward glance. I struggle with what he must think and feel, what
I
feel. Princess Athena loved a guard in her father’s house, one who became the founder of the Architects. He was hunted all his days and it’s said that he met a dark and deeply unnatural end. I am no princess and Hal is no guard, but I have no
doubt we would also be hunted—the Empress is as intolerant as her ancestors. Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. Perhaps I’m only imagining that something lies between us, something more than the vast expanse of the Waste.

And I’m still a little angry with Hal for letting that boy who stole my toad get away, even if he did help us.

So, when Aunt Minta proposes that we go shopping in the Night Emporium, I’m filled with trepidation. Are Raven Guards out looking for me this very instant? Have Rackham or his thugs set a price on my head? Maybe that Tinker boy Syrus will change his mind and join in the hunt, take me down like an Unnatural with one of his darts.

“You can’t stay in there forever,” Aunt Minta says at the door of my room. “I’ve never seen you like this, Vee. I’d almost swear you were pining over someone if I didn’t know better.”

That settles it. I’m not some missish creature, overwhelmed by fate or sentimentality.

I bounce off of my bed and open the door.

Aunt Minta’s look of surprise vanishes into a smile when I say, “All right, then.”

If I’m to die soon, at least perhaps I should try just once to look fetching beforehand. And perhaps the next time I run into Hal, he’ll see an entirely new me.

We’re at the great crossroads of Chimera Park when the carriage halts abruptly.

“Sweet saints!” the driver exclaims above the hue and cry of traffic.

I throw open the curtain and look out, against Aunt Minta’s
protests. At first I can’t make sense of what’s happening. Before us lies the great intersection of Industrial Way and several other boulevards. The old observatory dome of the Museum and the roofs of the University halls poke through the green fog.

Then, I see him. A man wending his way through traffic, stumbling, shuffling . . . Is he drunk? Wherever he passes, carriage animals rear and scream, trying to get away from him. Drivers and handlers struggle to maintain control. But then he passes a carriage drawn by
myth
work unicorns, a conveyance only to be used by House Virulen, the third most powerful house in the realm.

What happens next I have never seen before and hope never to see again.

Steel sides heaving and joints steaming, the unicorns rear and plunge. Like the Refineries, they are also powered by
myth
. And like that power, they are supposed to be completely dependable.

But they aren’t now.

A trolley flies down the hill; its brakes are out. The conductor screams as the
myth
work unicorns head straight for it. The crazy, stumbling man will be crushed between them if someone doesn’t stop the collision.

I leap out of my hansom. Aunt Minta’s shout is lost in the scream and press of traffic.

My lungs want to implode, but I push myself through the pain. The patrol officer shrieks at me with his whistle. The trolley flies down the hill toward the Museum entrance, the conductor waving his arms frantically. From the other side of the track, Hal races toward the nearest unicorn’s bridle.

I have no idea where he’s come from—perhaps on his way to afternoon classes after some errand of the Architects—but he sees
me at the same moment I see him.
Help me,
he says, and it’s as though he’s right next to me, whispering in my ear. Then he leaps at the bridle. His hands glow with pale, familiar light. I move toward the trolley and the man bent on putting himself in its path. I don’t know how Hal thinks I can help him exactly, but I remember how I escaped Rackham’s grasp. I set my thoughts on the trolley and imagine it braking to an impossible halt before it reaches the intersection. I imagine the man safe. A barely perceptible glow builds around the trolley’s front wheels.

The man raises his head and howls—the scalding scream of unoiled gears. His eyes, white and milky as flint, meet mine. My concentration breaks. In that moment, I’d swear the man throws himself directly in the trolley’s path.

I look away, shuddering, as the trolley squeals into the intersection, grinding the blind man beneath its wheels.

All is still. I can’t hear anything for a long while except the man’s scream answered by the trolley’s brakes. I can’t help but feel I’ve failed in some crucial way, and I’m so overcome that I stand there in the eternal drizzle of glowing soot and steam, watching my tears darken the backs of my kid gloves.

“Vespa!” I hear my name from across the tracks. I start toward Hal, my legs weak as porridge. But when I see the condition of the
myth
work carriage, I run again.

Though Hal must have stopped the unicorns just in time, the carriage didn’t fare quite as well. The traces have twisted and the wheels collapsed under the enormous strain of stopping too quickly. The carriage lies on its side. The driving wight is a twitching wreck. Together, Hal and I clear away the shattered stairs and pull at the door. Someone pushes to get out.

“That was good work,” Hal says under his breath. “You almost stopped the trolley.”

“Thank you.”

Hal’s knowing gaze makes me blush. “Where have you been these many days?” he says so steady and low.

Thankfully, I don’t have to stammer my excuses because we finally pull the door open.

A young lady stands in the wreckage of her carriage. She’s the vision of beauty—snapping dark eyes and tumbling black curls—with not a hair out of place.

“Mistress Virulen,” Hal says, his voice suddenly gone formal and stiff. “Allow us to assist you.” There’s a strangeness in his voice I can’t place.

A crowd gathers around us, whispering in awe.

“This is the most unfortunate circumstance for a meeting,” the young lady says, as we help her out of the wreckage. Her voice is gracious and musical; she seems not the least bit troubled to emerge to a throng of gawking admirers.

“To whom do I owe my rescue?” she asks. A smile plays about her lips, and I can imagine how the newspapers will eat this up.
MISTRESS VIRULEN PULLED SMILING FROM THE WRECKAGE OF HER CARRIAGE
, and so on.

We introduce ourselves. Mistress Virulen’s eyes hold mine for a beat longer than they do Hal’s, but she keeps hold of Hal’s hand long after she releases mine.

“Is there somewhere we can escort you, my lady, until a safe conveyance can be hired for you?” he asks. “I suppose your father will send dray oxen to fetch his carriage.” I watch the tender way he releases her. Jealousy snaps at me with green jaws.

Her perfume is both heavenly and heavy—bergamot, damask rose, spice. She waves her free hand as if there’s nothing to trouble over. “I’ll hire a hansom to take me home.” She looks around at the expectant crowd, smiling. “Surely one of these noble people will kindly return me to my father’s estate.”

Several affirmative shouts answer her.

“But first, let us see the cause of all this hullabaloo.” She pulls us toward the front of the trolley.

“My lady, I don’t think—” Hal begins, but one look from her silences him.

We move forward.

I don’t want to look, but Mistress Virulen’s grip is too strong to resist. She pulls me toward the still-smoking front wheels. Another crowd has gathered there—officers, a barrister or two, and a few Pedants. Father is among them, crumbs still dotting his cravat. He must have been taking his lunch in his favorite pub, the Surly Wench, up the street.

When he sees me, he blanches whiter than the Sheep of Learning.

“Vee!” he says. He comes to me as if he wants to embrace me, but Mistress Virulen’s hold on my hand stops him.

“Mistress,” he says, bowing toward her.

She inclines her head.

A light drizzle begins. Mistress Virulen releases me so I can pull my hood up over my hair. Some thoughtful person brings her hat, miraculously undamaged, from the wreckage of her carriage and she affixes it over her gorgeous black curls. I resist the urge to fiddle with my hair. Why can my curls not be so tidy? They rebel against order, which is why I most often wind them up in braids or chignon, despite the unfashionableness of such styles.