With Fate Conspire (48 page)

The excitement in his voice made Dead Rick sour. Putting down the stereograph, he said, “It weren’t no illusion they did to me.”

Yvoir sobered quickly. “No, of course not. But the point is that the stereoscopic image has
depth,
in a way that a flat photograph does not. I suspect this is the key to your memories being
taken
from you. If we were to use Chrennois’s techniques, but with only one lens, we would make only a copy—of a memory, or a thought; perhaps even a soul.” He looked thoughtful. “Or perhaps not. Souls are more complicated. The stereoscopic camera may be a necessity for that. But had Nadrett wished only to copy your memories, he could have done so, I think.”

It lent credence to the idea that Nadrett had wanted to destroy them completely. Or at least a specific one. “You know about this passage to Faerie business?” Dead Rick asked. Yvoir nodded. “’Ow could that fit in with this?”

The thoughtful look deepened to a frown. “I do not know. Stereography creates depth; I could imagine that being useful if one wishes to make a path that leads somewhere else. But photographs to make a path?”

“Photographs of ghosts and souls,” Dead Rick reminded him.

Yvoir nodded acknowledgment of his point. “If I were to do this, I would be photographing faerie minds, not mortals. Gather different notions of Faerie, perhaps—copies only—from those with clear memories of it, and then set them side by side. It would create something that is a combination of the two, and more than a flat image. But I still do not see how that makes a path
through
to Faerie, even with depth.”

Neither did Dead Rick. Maybe Hodge was right, and the answers lay in his own glass plates. “Well, put my memories back in my ’ead, and I’ll tell you if the answer’s in there somewhere.”

The faerie put up an apologetic hand. “I cannot—not yet.”

The skriker’s mood was an unstable thing these days, swinging easily from hope to rage. He almost put his fist into Yvoir’s face. “What do you mean, you can’t? Why call me ’ere, then? All this bloody lecturing about things what don’t matter, but when it comes to the only thing that does, you’re bloody useless!”

He knew he was angry; he didn’t realize how much until Yvoir flinched back. “
Soit patient s’il te plaît!
I mean, I know
how
to do it—I believe so, at least—but it cannot be done
yet
. You must be patient.”

The fear in Yvoir’s voice reminded Dead Rick, yet again, that he was no longer in the Goblin Market. The differences kept taking him by surprise. Hodge’s mercy, Irrith’s gentle teasing, and now Yvoir’s fear, because to these people he was scary. They had not lived with the likes of Nadrett or Lacca.

Or am I that much scarier than I used to be?

There was no need to cringe or scrape here, to show throat and beg for mercy. For the first time in ages, Dead Rick felt strong. Only for a moment, though: then his eyes went to the fragile glass of his memory, and he remembered how easily strength could be taken from him.

He took a slow breath and made himself think about what Yvoir had just said. “What are you waiting for, then?”

“Are you familiar with absinthe?”

A surprised snort puffed out of him. “That green stuff the mortals drink?”

Yvoir looked contemptuous. “What they drink is a pale imitation of the real thing. In Faerie, wormwood is an herb of the moon; the mortals know this, for they call it
Artemisia absinthium,
after the Greek goddess. And it will assist in visions, which is what we need. I have written to France, to obtain some. As soon as it arrives, we will try.”

Something in the way he said it made Dead Rick apprehensive. “And the bit you ain’t telling me is…”

“I said what they drink is a pale imitation. True absinthe—the Green Faerie itself—is much more powerful. You may find its effects … distressing.”

The anger was still there. It had always been there, every moment he lived under Nadrett’s heel, only now he could admit it without fear of dying. Dead Rick stalked toward Yvoir, who abruptly went rigid and did not move, and growled very quietly into the other faerie’s face, “More
distressing
than ’aving everything of who I was—every bit of me that ain’t Nadrett’s dog—stuck in glass?”

A tiny, tremulous shake of Yvoir’s head was his only answer.

Dead Rick’s lip curled in a mockery of a smile. “Let me know when you gets your wormwood. I’ll be more than ready.”

St. Anne’s Church, Whitechapel: August 22, 1884

Eliza had grown accustomed to having her heart in her mouth every time she went to Whitechapel. Usually it was because of Special Branch, but this time, her fears were of another sort entirely.

What if it doesn’t work?

The question had no answer. If it didn’t work, then … no. It
had
to work. Had to, because Eliza lacked any alternative, and surely God owed her this much.

Blasphemous thoughts to have in her head as she slipped through the Whitechapel night to church.

With Owen following like a meek and frightened lamb, she avoided the pimps and the whores, the cutpurses and the drunkards staggering through the streets, making her way to a place such sinners rarely frequented. St. Anne’s was a solid, comforting bulk in the darkness, silhouetted against a surprisingly clear sky. Eliza was grateful for the lack of a moon, which would help to conceal what they did here tonight.

Grateful, at least, until a shadow detaching itself from the outer wall of the church made her nearly jump from her skin. “We’ve a problem.”

Eliza pressed one hand over her pounding heart and glared at the Maggie Darragh–shaped shadow. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Maggie, you scared me half to— What do you mean, a problem?”

Owen had scurried to hide behind Eliza, keeping her between him and the sister he didn’t recognize. Or perhaps it was the church he cowered away from, or his mother, who followed her daughter into the street. Maggie gestured at him. “He needs sponsors, doesn’t he? A godmother and a godfather, to answer for him, since he’s no voice. I didn’t think of it until now. Ma can’t, not for her own child. I suppose I might, but shouldn’t there be two?”

Eliza’s heart sank. She hadn’t thought of it, either, but should have. Even when an adult converted, they had sponsors at their side during the baptism, and Owen’s position was more like that of an infant. It might be possible to do it with only one—she could ask Father Tooley—but her instincts rebelled against doing anything that might undermine the sacrament.

But who would they find to be his godfather? Not liking it, but not seeing any other choice, Eliza said, “Fergus—”

Maggie was already shaking her head, as if she’d known Eliza would suggest him. “It would never work; he hasn’t come to church in years. And he—he doesn’t know about my brother, not yet.”

Now wasn’t the time to ask why. Eliza bit her lip. Dónall Whelan had been buried days before, with more faerie silver to pay his way; but he, like Fergus Boyle, had been an unrepentant sinner, not a man in good standing with the church.

Did the second sponsor have to be a man?

Owen was a silent, timid presence at her back. In the days since she’d found him, he’d come to trust her, a little, if not as much as Feidelm and the others he knew better. She’d dared the police and the world under London to find him, and a godmother was supposed to stand between her godson and sin …

If she sponsored him through this baptism, though, they would be family. And they could never marry.

She’d been avoiding the question ever since she went into the Onyx Hall and saw her lost love, caught seven years back in time. Even if Owen regained his wits, he was just a boy. Eliza had spent a third of her life apart from him, growing and changing, not always in good ways. Would he
remember
her? Would he still love who she’d become?

Did she still love who he was now?

Another question with no answer. It
couldn’t
be answered, not until Father Tooley baptized Owen and they saw what good, if any, that did. But Eliza had to make her choice now.

The creak of a door made them all jump. It was just the priest, though, emerging from the church in his robes and violet stole. He cast a quick glance around, then hurried over to join them.

In the few seconds it took for him to reach them, Eliza made her decision.

All that matters is helping Owen. You can’t let anything get in the way of that.

She just hoped the decision wasn’t cowardice, a way of avoiding the questions she couldn’t answer.

“Father Tooley,” Maggie said, “we didn’t arrange for sponsors. I’ll be his godmother, but for the other—”

“I’ll do it,” Eliza said, cutting her off. The declaration came out too loud, and she lowered her voice. “If two godmothers isn’t blasphemy, I’ll be the other.”

Maggie gave her a sharp look, and Father Tooley one so filled with pity and kindness that Eliza flinched away from meeting it. She expected the priest to remind her of what that meant, or say she couldn’t do it, but to her surprise— “I thought of that already, and arranged a godfather for him.”

“Who?” Maggie demanded, before Eliza could find her tongue. For one irrational, bewildered moment, she thought of Dead Rick. But the Goodemeades had already told her that baptism was too dangerous a thing for them to go near, bread or no.

Father Tooley said, “I think that’s him at the corner, there.”

She and Maggie both whirled. In the darkness, with a cap on, the man’s face was too deeply shadowed to make out the slightest detail, but Eliza didn’t need it. The left sleeve, knotted at the cuff where a hand should be, made him recognizable at any distance.

She didn’t know she’d cursed until Maggie elbowed her, and for a moment they might have been sisters again. Eliza spun again and glared at Father Tooley. “You’d call my
father
a good Catholic? Good enough for Owen?”

The priest had the grace to look awkward. “In the general sense, no, but—he’s made confession, and done his penance. And he wanted to see you, Eliza.”

By then James O’Malley had drawn close enough to overhear. Eliza snapped her mouth shut, too many emotions warring inside for her to be sure what would pop out. Her father was much as he had been when she visited him in Newgate last year: still a big-boned man, though with less flesh on him than before, and his face scarred by a life harder than Eliza cared to think. She knew what trials he’d been through—and she knew they didn’t excuse his flaws. Other men went through as much without becoming drunkards, or beating their wives and children, or falling into a life of petty crime.

That he should stand as Owen’s godfather was unthinkable.

He said nothing, and the silence grew tighter and tighter, until Eliza finally snapped, “Where the devil have you been, then—other than with the Fenians?”

Maggie drew in her breath sharply. James O’Malley’s jaw hardened. But he didn’t growl back, as she expected; he just said, “That’s something we’ll be speaking of later. For now, I think we’ve other things to do.” He paused, his gaze on Owen. “Christ. Something
has
gone wrong with the boy, hasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Father Tooley said hastily, “and we ought to take care of that before someone notices what we’re about. Eliza, he needs a godfather, and James says he’s willing to stand for it. Will that do?”

She wasn’t at all sure that it would—but she could hardly ignore the priest when he said Owen needed this. Her answer came out unsteady, but it came out all the same. “It will—but pray God this works.”

In all seriousness, Father Tooley said, “I have been. Come, let’s get started.”

It took all Eliza’s coaxing to get Owen to even approach the steps of the church. The closer they got to the door, the more he fought her, face twisting in apprehension, just as it had before; and Mrs. Darragh was no use, making soothing noises that influenced her son not at all. But finally Eliza got him onto the steps, and Maggie said, “Father Tooley, we bring this boy to be baptized.”

The priest waited, then prompted her with a gesture, but the girl only looked confused.
No one calls him by name,
Eliza thought.
Not anymore.
They hadn’t for years—three or four, now that she thought of it. That must have been when Nadrett took it from him.

In a strong voice, she said, “’Tis Owen Darragh they bring.”

Father Tooley accepted that and began.
“Quid petis ab Ecclesia Dei?” What do you ask for from the Church of God?

James answered the questioning on Owen’s behalf, giving the short responses in badly pronounced Latin. Then the priest began to cross Owen, first with breath, then with his thumb. Maggie held her brother by the shoulders; he twitched and gasped at each sign of the cross, and let out a wordless, desperate cry when Father Tooley placed his hands upon the boy’s head and began to pray. Eliza bit down on her lip. If prayer alone hurt him like that, what would the blessed salt do?

Owen fought to avoid it, clamping his mouth shut and twisting his head away; mouth set in a grim line, James pried his jaw open with his one hand, while Maggie held her brother and wept into his hair. When Father Tooley set the salt on his tongue, Owen went completely rigid, and Eliza tasted blood—but as James said the last “Amen,” the boy relaxed, his eyes opening once more and his body going slack.

Eliza’s breath was coming fast, but she met Father Tooley’s questioning gaze and nodded. It seemed to have done some good; Owen was silent through the exorcism, through the repeated signs of the cross and the second imposition of hands, Father Tooley praying in a voice that went no farther than their little group, admitting him into the church building. When the paternoster was done, Eliza beckoned Owen from the door, and he obediently followed Maggie and the rest into the nave.

He shivered as he crossed the threshold, but made no other sound. The solemn exorcism, Father Tooley’s spittle upon his ears and nostrils, the renunciation of Satan, the anointing with oil; the interior of the church was lit only by a few candles, and the entire moment had a dreamlike quality that made Eliza hold her breath. Her entire spirit was bent in wordless prayer, as if she could compel Owen into wholeness just by the force of her hope.