The Wondrous and the Wicked (7 page)

T
he Champs de Mars didn’t usually look this way. At least, that was what Vander was telling Ingrid as they strolled down the crushed-gravel esplanade toward the iron behemoth that was the Eiffel Tower. Vander, who stood more than an arm’s length from Ingrid, gestured to the palatial three-story buildings surrounding them.

“They’re constructed out of plaster,” he said. “Quick to go up, and even faster coming down, I suppose.”

The buildings, all connected by arcaded façades and domed entrances, had been built specifically for the Exposition Universelle, opening in just over two weeks. Ingrid’s mother’s art gallery would be opening that week as well. She and Mama had spent the last month working furiously to ready the abbey. The stained-glass windows had all been repaired, each alcove chapel cleaned out and dusted, and the organ tuned, and men had come in to construct walls to run between the nave and the side aisles, where most of the art would be hung.

Ingrid had exhausted herself with the work, taking up much of the manual labor on her own. A scandalous thing for a lady of the British peerage, but it had been a way to drive out thoughts of Grayson and Gabby—and Luc.

“It seems a shame,” Ingrid said of the exposition buildings. “They’re beautifully done. Especially the Château d’Eau.”

She glanced over her shoulder toward the head of the Champs de Mars. The soaring Eiffel Tower sat at one end of the esplanade and the ornate Château d’Eau at the other. A grand, tiered fountain surrounded an extravagantly carved dais set in the center of the chateau. She’d heard that the fountain would be illuminated at night once the exposition began, as would the Eiffel Tower.

The glass roof of the Palace of Electricity rose behind the chateau. All the electricity required for the fair was going to be generated right there, inside that one, enormous building. It topped the straight line of the Champs de Mars like the top bar of the letter
T.
The engineers were likely testing the generators, because she could hear the low hum of machinery. There was a subtle electrical charge in the air.

“How are the gloves working?” Vander asked after a beat of silence.

Ingrid held her hands clasped before her as they walked, the soft, buff kid gloves looking as fashionable as those of any of the other ladies strolling the esplanade. Of course, those other ladies would have been hard-pressed to find a pair such as these in any Paris shop. Ingrid doubted they would find the paper-thin metal disks sewn into each fingertip very practical. However, when one wished to contain sparks of electricity erupting from one’s fingertips, those disks came in rather useful.

Ingrid clasped her hands tighter and felt the stiff, unyielding tips of each finger. “Quite well. I haven’t accidentally electrocuted anyone in days,” she replied, winning a laugh from Vander.

They had designed the gloves together after Ingrid had joked about needing to carry around a lightning rod in order to contain
her volatile ability. An idea had lit Vander’s eyes. “A lightning rod at each fingertip,” he had returned.

The little disks absorbed the runoff energy that happened to leak out, but Ingrid was getting much better at controlling her electric impulses.

“Were you wearing them this morning?” he asked.

Ingrid paused as they crossed under the shady base of the tower. He hadn’t mentioned the attack until now. Earlier, when they had met for their stroll at the gigantic Ferris wheel, the Grand Roue de Paris, Vander had said nothing. He’d charged up to her, directly into her dust field, and had cupped her cheeks with his ungloved hands. They’d stood like that for a half a minute or more, just staring at each other, Vander’s warm hands so inappropriately pressed against her skin. Ingrid had been terrified that he might actually kiss her. But he’d let her go and stepped away, Ingrid’s relieved breath shuddering between them.

“Does it matter if I was wearing my gloves?” she answered now. “Vander, it was an Alliance assassin, and yet Hans
still
refuses to admit the Directorate sent him.”

“You shouldn’t have been under that bridge.”

Ingrid bit the inside of her cheek to keep from groaning. She was worn out from listening to everyone tell her how idiotic she’d been. It especially bothered her that they were all correct.

Vander invaded her field of dust once again to take her elbow. He brought her to a halt at one of the tower’s wide pillars. Reluctantly, she met his warm, golden-brown gaze. She despised admitting she was wrong. Thankfully, Vander didn’t allow her the chance.

“I should have listened to you,” he whispered.

Vander stood a full head taller than Ingrid. He tilted his face toward hers. Men and women walked arm in arm all up and down the esplanade, but Ingrid still felt as if she and Vander were standing more intimately than was proper.

“I wanted to believe Carrick had lost his mind when he told
you those things about the Directorate.” Vander sighed, and the quick puff of air caressed her ear.

The Alliance was the only family he had. Ingrid knew he hadn’t wanted to believe they would stoop so low.

“I don’t know whom to trust,” he said, his head still tilted toward hers.

A smile pulled at her lips. “That’s easy. You can trust Nolan and Chelle and Constantine. And don’t forget Marco.” Vander scowled and Ingrid gently nudged him. “You don’t have to
like
him.”

Vander caught her hand against his chest before she could pull it away. Now that she knew what his dust did, she could feel the subtle shift in her own body whenever he stood too close to her: the rise of gooseflesh along her arms and legs and the comforting warmth low in her stomach. He hadn’t risked absorbing this much of her dust in a long while.

Ingrid’s eyes flitted to his mouth. He was going to kiss her. It had happened twice before. Both times, the touch of his lips had weakened her, and then she’d felt guilty when her thoughts had inevitably meandered to Luc. Yet kissing Vander had felt good. So wrongly good.

She forced her hand out from under his and stepped away.

“Ingrid—”

“And me,” she whispered before he could say anything more. “You can trust me as well.”

“I already knew that,” Vander said, accepting her rebuff like a gentleman. He stayed out of her dust, or what was left of it, but the intensity of his stare made Ingrid feel as if she were being drawn back to him. “And I hope you know that if it ever comes down to keeping loyal to the Alliance or protecting you, I’ll choose you.”

It will always be you.
Vander had made this vow to her before. They had been devising a way to rescue her father from the corrupt Daicrypta doyen, Robert Dupuis, and Vander had
brusquely admitted that he didn’t give a damn about Ingrid’s father. He only cared about her. He would choose her. Always.

“I do know,” she said.

Vander Burke loved her. She knew this, even though he hadn’t said the words straight out, the way Luc had. Luc. There he was again, always stepping into every thought, every conversation and meeting she had with Vander.

He was
gone.
Vander was
here.
And he wanted Ingrid.

“The best thing for us to do,” he said, finally resuming their stroll, “is to keep working on the draining machine.”

Carrick Quinn’s secret partnership with the Daicrypta had allowed him access to the designs for a dreadful blood-draining machine Dupuis had planned to hook Ingrid up to. The machine, Dupuis had explained, would draw out Ingrid’s blood, separate whatever inhuman cells it recognized, and then return Ingrid’s pure human blood to her body. The only problem had been that angel and demon blood made up most of Ingrid’s blood cells, and the human blood returned to her would have most likely not been enough to keep her alive. Dupuis hadn’t cared about that, though. All he’d wanted was the angel blood.

“I can come to Hôtel Bastian today if you want to draw some more of my blood,” Ingrid offered.

She had been steadily letting Vander draw and store her blood over the last month while Nolan constructed the machinery. So far, they had three pints stored. Robert Dupuis’s invention wasn’t completely evil. If it was used safely and tested appropriately, they could remove the angel blood from Ingrid’s body and then destroy it. And if they could do that, Axia would have no reason to come after her. Neither would the Alliance.

Nolan and Vander planned to test the machine on the stored pints of blood before actually hooking the needles and tubing up to Ingrid herself.

Vander picked up his pace. “Not today,” he said, his eyes on the Château d’Eau straight ahead.

Ingrid waited for him to explain why today wasn’t a good day for a visit, but he stayed quiet.

“Is everything all right?” she asked. Perhaps she had offended him when she’d evaded his kiss after all.

“It’s just … I have to be at the church tonight,” he answered. “I’m being ordained Sunday, remember.”

As if she could have forgotten. Vander Burke: bookseller, demon hunter, budding scientist, and reverend. He truly was amazing.

“Of course I remember. Can I attend?”

He visibly brightened. “Would you?”

“I’d love to. Vander, I think it’s so wonder—”

Ingrid had gone two more strides before she realized he had stopped walking. She turned to look at him, but his eyes weren’t on her. They were trained on the esplanade before them.

“What is it?”

He pushed his round, wire-framed spectacles higher on the straight, strong bridge of his nose.

“Dusters” was all he said.

Ingrid followed the direction of his gaze. The exposition architects and construction teams had left trees and grass between the esplanade and the quickly built plaster buildings, and right now Vander watched a small group of people congregating beneath one such tree. Three young men and a woman, all roughly the same age as Vander and Ingrid.

“All of them?” she whispered.

Vander nodded. If they knew one another, they must have been Constantine’s students. Ingrid had kept her sessions private, though she was never alone. Marco was usually there, or Vander.

“I wonder if they know Léon,” Ingrid murmured as one of the group’s members said something the others found amusing. The arachnae Duster had been the last person with whom Ingrid had seen her brother. Constantine, claiming a duty to protect
student privacy, refused to tell her whether Grayson and Léon were still in contact. A simple no wouldn’t have violated any sort of privacy, which led her to believe the two young men
were.

“There are scores of Dusters in Paris, Ingrid,” Vander said, crossing in front of her.

“And yet it’s a small community,” she countered, stepping aside so she could view the Dusters once again. They were walking as a group toward an arcade that would take them out of the Champs de Mars.

Ingrid slipped around Vander’s shoulder and started after them.

“The likelihood that they know Léon is slim,” Vander said, falling in after her. “Even slimmer that they know Grayson.”

Her brother had shunned lessons with Constantine before, but would he have completely segregated himself from others like him? She didn’t think so. If she could find Léon, she believed she would find her twin as well.

“Wouldn’t you agree that following them is safer than scouring the sewers?” Ingrid asked as she came upon the arcaded exit walkway between two exposition buildings. The group had crossed the street just beyond, and she picked up her speed. Vander easily kept up with her, but she could sense his discontent. She didn’t understand why he was so against approaching some fellow Dusters. All he needed to do was explain that he, like Monsieur Constantine, was able to view demon dust, and then Ingrid would simply ask if they knew another Duster named Léon, or perhaps Grayson.

She and Vander trailed the group across avenue de la Bourdonnais and up rue de Grenelle. They gained on them but couldn’t catch up completely. Unless, of course, Ingrid wanted to break into a sprint—something her cornflower-blue cotton walking dress, coutil corset, and heeled boots simply would not allow.

They had nearly come within shouting distance of the group when one of the young men opened a door set next to a
fromagerie
on rue Amélie. It would lead up to the apartments above the shop, Ingrid knew. The group filed inside, one by one.

Vander snagged Ingrid’s elbow, drawing her to a halt. He instantly let go, however, having consumed too much of her dust already.

“And if they do know Léon? If they
can
lead you to Grayson?” Vander pressed. He let out a pent-up breath as a bicyclist and his attached rickshaw cut by along the narrow street, the tires sliding uneasily along the slushy stones. “He’s part hellhound, Ingrid. He thirsts for blood. That can’t be easy for him to accept. Maybe he just needs more time.”

Did Vander not think she knew this? That she hadn’t considered all this and more, and that it was why she had allowed five weeks to pass without a single inquiry on her part?

“And has anyone—even Grayson—considered that perhaps I need my brother?”

She turned on her heel and approached the door, breathing in the ripe odor of the cheese shop. She needed to make her family whole again. For herself, for Mama, and for Gabby, who waited impatiently in London for news.

Vander didn’t stop her from opening the door, or from taking the first few steps up the stairwell that immediately presented itself. A scream split the air and Ingrid froze. Vander’s hand circled her wrist. A second scream and then a panicked shout sounded from the upper floors. Something heavy crashed, and more thuds and screams followed. The sounds spiraled down the stairwell, straight into Ingrid and Vander.

They rushed up the steps, their feet pounding the worn tile. Vander moved with rapidity and ease, while Ingrid dragged her short train and wheezed for air. Chelle’s trousers made complete sense right then.

The screaming ceased, but Vander and Ingrid continued to wind their way up three flights of stairs, past closed doors, the
apartments likely empty of their residents during this weekday afternoon.

As Ingrid caught up to Vander, he held out his arm. The door at the top of the steps was wide open.