Copperhead

Chapter 9 THE TROUBLE WITH JANE

Jane turned her perfect face to look at Helen. It was pale in the slanted light of the warehouse. Her green eyes were wide and vacant, and her dark brown hair all in a tumble.

“Oh, thank goodness,” said Helen. “You won’t believe everything I’ve been trying to do in your name. I swear I’m making a hash of things. I know I thought I could help you, but honestly I am so ready to give this whole ridiculous The Hundred project back to you, and sweep it under the rug, and take you out for tea and cakes. It’s been a nightmare.” Helen slowed as she approached her sister. Was Jane listening? Helen repeated her sister’s name again, but now slower, wondering. “Jane?”

Jane blinked several times. “Helen?” she said finally.

“Yes, silly,” said Helen. “I’ve found you and will get you home. But where have you been? Did you come here on your own? And aren’t you cold?”

Jane looked down, holding the funnel with its attached hose in one hand like a bouquet. She was still wearing the dress she had worn to the meeting—it was silky and misty grey, and still she had no coat, for Helen had that. “Perhaps I am cold,” Jane said, as if testing out the idea.

“Well, I’ll get you your coat. Or—no, I’ll get you a better coat. That ridiculous old thing you had; it’s not even worth giving as a hand-me-down. I’d feel terrible if I saw Mary walking out in that coat. I have an allowance, and there are some new ones in fashion that would very much suit—wide shoulders, belted to a narrow waist; all these gorgeous slashing lines.”

“Slashing lines…,” said Jane, fingering her cheek. Up close the filtered daylight revealed raw pink lines crossing the white face. The lines where the iron had been.

Helen’s heart seized. Jane was so vulnerable. Jane had always been the strong one, when they had been together. And when Jane fled to the city she was defined by her absence. I cannot ask Jane about medicine for Mother, I cannot let Jane make the decision about the cow. Helen wanted Jane to be the strong one again. “What happened to you?” Helen said again, but gently.

“I was working with Millicent when the room went blue,” Jane said slowly. “Everything felt strummed and tense, like when your hair stands on end. Like a lightning storm. And then … I felt I saw you standing up there in the attic. And there were people around you, but you were shouting to me. I felt as if I was being pulled in two. It hurt—not physically, exactly, but if you could be pulled in two without it hurting, then that’s what it felt like. I saw you and a tangle of copper, and then I saw Millicent and the attic. Both on top of each other. It was too much. I couldn’t take being pulled apart. I felt like there was someone behind me? Someone grabbed me? I think I blacked out. And then…” Jane looked around at the warehouse as if seeing it for the first time. “I don’t know exactly. I woke up here, and my iron was gone—it feels as though I skinned my knee, but on my face.” She put a hand to the pink lines that traced around her features. “But I didn’t really wake up, not all at once. I feel as though I’ve been sleepwalking while I try to put the two halves of me back together.”

Helen did not like the sound of this. And the being pulled in two … “What are you doing with that funnel?” she said sharply. “Does it have chloroform coming out of it or something?” She took the funnel from Jane’s hand and sniffed at it from a good distance, but smelled nothing. “Not that that proves anything,” Helen muttered. She dropped the funnel on the ground and kicked it away. Took Jane’s hand and tugged her sister around the boxes to the copper box with its snaking black tubes. “Does this look familiar to you? Have you touched it?”

“Perhaps I should,” Jane said, reaching for it.

“No,” Helen said sharply, and pulled her sister’s arm away. “It might be dangerous to you.” She was so overwhelmed. Grimsby’s invention had done something to Jane two nights ago, and now here they were in this warehouse with the same device and a confused Jane. “Look, when I touched this I saw a whole bunch of things,” Helen said. “Is that how it felt in the house, with Millicent? Or maybe, your problem is because you were actually in a fey trance at the time, working on Millicent? And then she—” She bit her tongue, sure it would be too much of a shock for Jane to tell her about Millicent. Jane seemed so fragile.

“Millicent?” said Jane. “I met a Millicent, long ago. She was all in white with a green sash, and she was dancing.…”

Helen’s fingers clutched tightly on Jane’s arm. “Jane—,” she said, but then there was a rustle from the other end of the warehouse, a muffled thump, footsteps.…

Helen’s fingers tightened all the way and pulled Jane through the tangle of crates and cages and machinery, back to the open window. Up on the rickety table, teetering, and now the lock on the front door was rattling.

“Out you go,” Helen said, and locked her hands under Jane’s heel, lifting her up. Jane might not have gone as quickly as Helen would have liked, but she did pull herself through the window, and out, and Helen heard her jump to the piles of slag below.

The lock clicked as Helen pulled herself up after Jane. It was hard without the heel boost she had given Jane. Helen had not climbed anything since she lived in the country. She felt the seams of her skirt start to go and she hoisted the material higher, painfully aware that Frye’s slacks would be better for this sort of thing. Men had it so much easier—even unfit Alistair could have managed this window more efficiently, because he would have had better clothes for it. A most unusual idea occurred to her for the first time, which was that perhaps it was all too convenient for men like Alistair that women like Helen stayed in dresses that you couldn’t run or climb in.

The door opened with an audible creak just as she got her elbows through the window and pushed herself through the last little bit. Helen desperately wanted to know who was coming in, but she even more desperately did not want to get caught. This was all Jane’s problem. Jane could worry about who was doing what. Helen could step down and return to her original plan of merely running interference for Jane on The Hundred, sending women her way. Away from danger and decisions.

Helen slid to the trash containers and then to the ground, tumbling onto the muddy cobblestones. She kept going till she was standing again, trying not to mind her poor ruined skirt. The cut on her palm felt as though it had opened up from the strain; she peeled that lilac glove carefully free of the bandage and stuffed it in her pocket before it could be ruined. Her good hand closed on Jane’s arm, Jane who was staring up at the sky with a vaguely curious expression, completely ignoring the goose bumps raising all the hairs on her arm from the November wind.

Helen took off her coat and laid it over her sister’s shoulders. “Let’s get out of here,” Helen said. “Frye will know what to do.”

Frye’s door was opened by the gorgeous woman in orange from the party, Alberta—though tonight she was wearing bright yellow, with a drift of poppies floating down from one shoulder. Her black hair was twisted up on her head and decorated with another gauzy poppy. Perhaps she had just come from a gig with Sturm und Drang. “Come for a nightcap?” Alberta said. “Frye’s still at her show, but you can join the party.”

“Wasn’t there a party last night?” said Helen. She tugged at her split skirt seam, vainly pushing the edges back together.

“Oh, that party,” said Alberta. “Sure. But a few folks dropped by tonight after early gigs finished. Some people never really go home. Frye’s too kind to boot them out.”

Alberta turned and led the way down the hall, gold T-straps clicking on the floor. Helen twisted back to point out the show posters and memorabilia to Jane, but Jane was drifting blankly along. “Do they just stay for weeks?” Helen said. The thought of jumping ship on her life came back again. She could crash on Frye’s floor like the other bohemians. Perhaps she would have to learn how to go onstage. She rather liked the idea of having a hundred people watch her sing a torch song while twenty backup men danced in top hats behind her. Except she couldn’t sing. Still, why should that matter in a daydream?

“Sometimes they’re here awhile,” agreed Alberta. “Folks between gigs, in the off-seasons. Waiting for that next big role. Course, sometimes she gets tired of us, all at once, and kicks everyone out for a week and hibernates. But right now we’re in the other part of the cycle.”

Alberta led them up the circular staircase to the second floor. It was not the wild party of the night before, but there were a handful of people crowded around a low table at the landing, playing some sort of game that involved much jumping up and reciting, or bursting into song. Rook was not among them.

Helen turned to Alberta. “Honestly I was wondering if we could stay over,” she said. “Jane needs to sleep, and she can’t go back to my house. But Frye’s not here to ask, and also I wanted her advice.…”

Alberta shrugged, the organza poppies rippling on her dress. “Frye would tell you to stay if she were here,” she said. “She always does. My sax and I have the spare room, but the attic has several cots, if you don’t mind that some actor might stumble up and crash there, too.”

“That’s fine,” said Helen, who was more concerned with getting Jane to rest than complete propriety. She looked back at Jane, who was watching the wallpaper with a good deal of interest. How could she hand her problems off, if no one was able to take them on? “Actually I will take that nightcap,” Helen said.

“I believe there are martinis in the pitcher,” said Alberta, pointing at the side table. “Door to the attic through there, lamp to the right at the top. Sheets and towels in the trunk.” She folded her arms, watching Helen with her perfect face. Helen dearly wanted to ask if her words from the night before had had an effect, but she knew perfectly well that if she asked point-blank Alberta would tell her no, and retreat. So Helen merely nodded, and poured a martini for herself and a tumbler of water for Jane, and pushed Jane before her up the steep narrow stairs to the attic.

A chill crept up her spine as she went up the stairs, but she told herself firmly to stop it. This was not the Grimsbys’ attic. She found the oil lamp where Alberta had indicated, turned the key, and then found with relief that this attic didn’t remind her of the Grimsbys’ in the slightest. It had a lot of stuff, true—didn’t all attics?—but there the resemblance ended. This attic was a long rectangle with steeply sloped rafters—you could really only stand up in the middle. And the stuff here was more theatre things—costumes, mostly—hanging on loops of wire nailed to the rafters. Dresses, slacks, blouses, feathered hats and boas, all different styles and decades, separated one cot from the next and afforded a bit of privacy. Trunks and hat boxes were wedged between the cots, but a big black trunk nearest the door had LINENS painted on it in theatrical red and gold. Helen went quietly down the narrow aisle to make sure they were alone, then took Jane and sat her down on the very last cot, where Jane would have to pass her if she tried to go wandering in the night.

“First some water,” Helen said, and handed the water glass to her sister, setting her own glass down on a trunk by the cot. Jane obediently downed the whole glass. “Now a swallow of this will help you sleep,” Helen said, and handed Jane her martini. Jane began to drink it, too, as though it were water, and Helen cried, “Stop, stop,” and snatched the glass away again. “That should knock you out,” she said. “Maybe you’ll sleep it off.”

“Sleep it off,” Jane said dreamily as Helen made up the cot and tucked her into it. She closed her eyes and rolled over.

Helen began making up her own cot, pondering what to do next. She had found Jane, but now what? Jane could not fix The Hundred in this state—nor could she restore poor Millicent Grimsby, even if they knew where to find her. Jane could not even simply be Jane. Helen would have to figure out how to restore her sister to herself, if a good night’s sleep didn’t do the trick. She peeked around the row of costumes. Jane appeared to be sound asleep.

Helen eased off her heels and sank to the cot. She carefully pried up the bandage on her palm to check the cut. It seemed to be doing well enough, though she thought she should see if Frye had some fresh gauze and tape. It was a shame that she’d done all that warehouse-climbing in that skirt—the seam was ripped open, her shirt was smudged, and mud had smeared across her side and rear. The seam she could fix, but the skirt would need careful soaking and reshaping. Yet that was all she had to wear tomorrow, unless Frye’s generosity extended to letting Helen borrow one of the dresses up here. Curious despite the problems pressing on her shoulders, Helen looked through the clothes that separated her cot from Jane’s, automatically cataloging what period each dress was, and what sort of person would wear it. Lavender sachets hung thickly between the dresses, perfuming the room whenever she touched them. There were plenty of regular Frye clothes in the mix as well—caftans and slacks, neither of which she was sure she wanted to try, even if they would fit. Frye was much taller and more broad-shouldered than Helen. Still, that peacock blue knit dress there could be cinched with the belt she had on and look rather nice. With a few more minutes and a needle she could put a couple of darts in, raise the hem, and have something rather chic.…

Thought became action, and Helen slid off her ruined clothes and slipped into the knit dress, adjusting it to get it to hang correctly. She crouched under the steep rafters to take the belt from her skirt on the floor, and stopped as something fell from her skirt pocket.

The telegram Mary had handed her that afternoon, just before Alistair walked in. Helen’s heart raced as she ripped open the seal. What would Mr. Rochart say about what she had told him? And now, Jane was back, and she would need to inform him of the new situation.…

“PER FOREST, SELF-STYLED BLUE KING IN CITY. MOVING FAST,” it read. “TAKING NEXT TRAIN FOR JANE. ROCHART.”

Her face paled as she deciphered the cryptic sentences. Blue King—the Fey King, that meant. Confirmation of what Niklas had said—a fey who called himself the Fey King was here, in the city. Rochart had learned it from his strange, dangerous excursion into the forest with Dorie. They must have just returned.

Helen stood, in a frenzy of what to do. She paced—no, there was no room to pace here, and things everywhere she turned— Energy sent her down the attic steps. The small party had drifted downstairs—they could be heard at the piano. Frye was still not there, nor was she in any of the other public rooms. Helen went back up the stairs and paced the second-floor landing, wanting desperately to talk to someone, to unburden herself, when Alberta stuck her head out to see what the noise was. Her hairdo was still intact, but she was in a pair of men’s blue-and-white-striped pyjamas, smelling of a clean citrusy soap.

“A telegram fell out of my pocket,” Helen said incoherently. “And things are happening fast, and if Mr. Rochart’s coming to find Jane, where is he going to go? Alistair’s, and I’m not there.…”

“Did you have too much gin?” said Alberta.

“None yet,” said Helen.

Alberta sighed. “Come to my room and tell me everything.” She turned and padded to the guest room, Helen behind her. The small guest room had a double bed, layered with several quilts, a dresser shellacked in shiny black, and hooks randomly spaced around the walls, two of which held a bright yellow and a bright orange dress. Under the window stood a battered metal music stand and an open case with a silver sax in it. Alberta plonked down cross-legged on the bed and passed Helen a silver flask. “That’s actually decent stuff,” she said, “and if you drink it all you owe me a bottle.”

Helen took a cautious sip and found that it was, indeed, a decent scotch. “Two nights ago Jane and I almost killed someone,” she said.

“That’s an opening,” said Alberta. She began taking down her hairdo with its silk poppy. “Go on.”

Another sip to loosen the tongue and it all came out, all Helen’s worries and fears and questions. “And I thought once Jane turned up I could go back to being her helper—let her make the big decisions. Except I don’t know if she was drugged or what but she’s definitely not deciding anything tonight. So now the question is should I go back to Alistair’s right now and try to meet up with her fiancé or not,” she finished up. “I mean, if he’s there, he could take over. But even if I do go, I can’t take Jane with me. This is really good scotch.”

“Okay, back up,” said Alberta. “Now firstly, this fiancé guy is a rich man. He’s not going to go straight from the train to your husband’s house, even if he is worried about Jane. He’ll get a hotel. Secondly, if he has the sense given to little green apples, he’ll know things might be touchy at your place. He’ll send a message ’round to you for how to reach him.”

“And Alistair will intercept that,” said Helen. “No, wait, Alistair has changed.” She took another drink.

“It’ll be coded,” put in Alberta. “Haven’t you ever had to be dodgy before?”

“Ppffft. Only when I was trying to get away from that doctor. And the creditors. And those men who would follow me around the dance hall and just watch, you know?” Helen waved a hand dramatically. “Just watch…”

“I’ll take that, thank you,” said Alberta, and she plucked the silver flask back from Helen, peered inside. “You owe me.”

Helen studied the pretty face sitting across from her on the bed. It was in fact very pleasant to feel warmed all over, and as though you could just say anything you wanted, without running through all those damn machinations of thought. “So are you going to change back?” Helen said. And the calculating part of her brain thought, well, maybe now is in fact the only time you could get away with asking Alberta that question.

Alberta ran her fingers over the patterned silver flask. “I don’t know,” she said, and there was a connection, an honesty to the words. “It seems to me I’m completely justified in staying this way.”

Helen nodded. “In fact that’s true,” she said. “Keep your iron and don’t mind me.”

“Why haven’t you changed back yet?”

“So I can convince people against their will,” Helen said. She suddenly grinned. “And so I can stay prettiest the longest.”

It was the first real smile she’d gotten from Alberta. “Wait,” she said, and she got off the bed, and padded in her blue-and-white pyjamas to the open saxophone case. From a velvet pocket she took out a cheap battered locket and passed it to Helen.

Even tipsy, Helen had a guess what was in it. “Is this you?” she said. Alberta said nothing, just waited while Helen teased open the locket to reveal two pictures inside. They were faded, the old blue-and-white photos of the pre-war fey tech. One was of an attractive, smiling, dark-skinned girl of about eighteen. The other was a woman a generation older.

“That one’s me,” said Alberta, and there was a lurching moment where Helen thought she meant the older woman, but then Alberta said, “and that’s my mother.”

“You look so much alike,” Helen said, and immediately modified, “Looked.” She glanced up into Alberta’s beautiful face and realized then what was hard for her, what had been hard all along. “Is she gone?”

“It’s an old story, isn’t it?” said Alberta. Her hand closed on the locket, snapping it shut. “The war, you know.”

“I know,” said Helen, and she covered Alberta’s hand with her own. “I know.”

Helen woke to find Jane standing at the end of her bed, staring at her. It made her sit up straight, which made her crack her head on the steep rafters. “Goodness, Jane, what on earth?” It was morning, and light filtered in through porthole windows on each end of the attic.

“I know you like dresses and all,” said Jane. “But what on earth are we doing in this giant wardrobe?”

“Jane!” crowed Helen. “You’re feeling better!”

“If having one’s head inside a vise is feeling better, then yes,” Jane said dryly. “Honestly, where are we?”

“The garret at Frye’s. You know Frye.”

“Of course,” said Jane, and turned to walk toward the door, then suddenly turned white and crumpled to the ground in a heap.

“Jane!” shrieked Helen, and ran to help her up.

“I’m sorry.…,” Jane said faintly. “Sort of … dizzy.…” Her face was dead white.

“When did you last eat?”

“I don’t remember?” Jane looked even whiter, if possible. “I … don’t remember much, actually. We were at the Grimsbys’?”

“Oh dear,” said Helen. “That was three days ago. Do you think you’ve eaten anything since then?”

“It’s all sort of a blur,” Jane confessed. “I remember a warehouse … seeing you there.…” She grimaced. “I don’t remember it having much in the way of eggs and toast.”

“Let’s go downstairs,” said Helen. She smoothed out Frye’s dress, which she apparently had slept in—well, she remembered doing so perfectly well, it wasn’t as though she had drunk that much—it was more that it was odd in the morning to discover what had seemed like a good idea the night before. She shoved her feet into her heels and helped Jane down the stairs.

The landing was empty, but clinking sounds emanated from the kitchen, along with a low voice chanting, “Hangover cure, hangover cure…,” until a sharper voice made it stop.

The kitchen was one of those modern compact efficiency stations. It would be rather dreary, except that Frye had knocked out a wall to meet the small dining room, and painted the remaining studs deep plum. The long-legged piano player from the other night was cheerfully mixing drinks for a small clump of less-cheery-looking revelers. Helen did not think anyone had come up to the attic, so she could only assume they had collapsed in a heap on the parlor divans. Through the gap between the purple studs Helen could see the other piano player, the rumpled brownish one, still looking rumpled in loud plaid trousers and frying up slices of bacon.

“Morning,” she said, and there was a muffled chorus of grunts in response.

Alberta looked up from the china cup she was cradling in her hands. Her face was friendly but wary, as if admitting they had had a moment last night, but not particularly sure she was ready to extend that into friendship. “Hangover cure?” she said. “The Professor’s frying up greasy things and Stephen’s making Dead Dwarves.”

Jane raised her eyebrows.

“Tomato juice and vodka,” explained Helen to her sister, glad to see a familiar disapproving look on Jane’s face. “And an egg.” Because the egg made it all right or something. Oh, whatever. Now everyone’s looking at you. Hurry up and move past it. “I’d take tea if you have it,” Helen said.

Alberta nodded at the brown stoneware teapot next to a pile of mismatched cups and mugs. “How’s that bacon coming, Professor?”

“On in five,” said the man frying bacon.

Helen found an empty seat. There was a scarlet blanket draped over one of the chairs and she tugged it off and wrapped it around Jane, who looked as though she might faint or be ill at any moment. She provided her sister with toast, and water, and toast again, and then Jane said, “I’d better lie down right now,” so Helen helped her to the nearest divan. After that she finally sat down herself, cradling a cup of precious hot tea in her hands.

“I’m pretty sure Frye’s up,” said Alberta, but just then Frye swept in in crimson silk pyjama pants, holding a newspaper, her color high.

Her gaze swept the room, taking in the two sisters. “You found Jane!” she said to Helen. Helen nodded and started to explain, but Frye held up a finger and forestalled her. “Tell me everything in just a minute. This is first.” She brandished the newspaper and proclaimed to the room, “You are all staying here until further notice.”

“I’m not,” said Stephen, “I play rehearsal piano at the Pine Theatre at noon. Dead Dwarf?”

“You may go,” said Frye, with a dramatic sweep of her arm, simultaneously taking the tumbler he offered, “because you are a man.”

“Excuse me?” said Alberta.

Frye plonked down the newspaper on the table. “Curfew Announced,” it read in big letters, and then below it, a raft of tiny details. “Curfew starts at sundown—which, I might add, is six o’clock this time of year—and it is for all women.”

“What?”

“Let me see.”

“Not just all women with fey faces,” said Frye, indicating herself and Alberta. “All women.”

Stephen vaulted the chair and looked more closely at the paper in front of Frye. “Not just all women,” he said. “All dwarvven, too.”

“And probably anyone even remotely different after that,” Alberta said soberly. She exchanged a look with Stephen. The rumpled man frying eggs had come in to watch, and he stood over Stephen’s shoulder, not noticing as grease dripped onto the table from his spatula.

“This is madness,” said one of the other women, a blonde in wrinkled sea green silk. “How will the shows run? You can’t have The Lady Was Willing without the lady.” She patted her hair.

“I thought you were playing the best friend,” said a trim, plain-faced brunette.

“I never said I wasn’t. And the point is the same.”

“There’s a dozen of us in the Winter Wonderland panto chorus that opens Friday,” said the brunette. “I mean, forget all the leads for a moment. We play the snowflakes and singing skiers and everything else. You take out the chorus and you’d have a pretty sorry-looking show.”

“The stage will be all men again,” rumbled the Professor. “I can finally play Lady MacDeath.”

“If you’re quite done thinking only of yourself,” said Alberta.

“Let me see that,” said Helen, cutting through the chorus of moans. She picked up the newspaper and saw that Frye had not been exaggerating. The notice was couched in a lot of doublespeak about safety and welfare that reminded her uncomfortably of Alistair’s words upon taking her mask, as if he had been a mouthpiece parroting Grimsby. Perhaps even more disturbing was that at the very bottom it said, “By order of Parliament and Copperhead.”

“Things must be bad if they’re getting their name on official legislation,” Stephen said soberly.

“Things as in the fey?” said Frye. “Or things as in the state of the men in this country trying to make us all frightened, using the fey as an excuse so they can run things?”

“Both,” said Stephen.

“Whose side are you on?” put in the Professor. “Don’t tar all men with this, it’s a class problem.…”

The argument rose and the room blurred in her sights as Helen thought: Yes, Stephen is right that things are bad. It is like poor Millicent with the perfect face and the iron mask. It would be a real danger to go out, but that did not mean Grimsby had the right to make her a prisoner in her own house. Who is this Grimsby, that my indolent husband has turned to him? That this country gives him the right to tell half of us when we can leave our house, where we can and can’t work? She spread her fingers on the tablecloth, smoothing linen wrinkles out to her saucer.

“Well, that’s that,” said the brunette. “I’m getting down to the theatre right now to get my cancellation pay before anyone else tries it.”

“Surely there’ll be exceptions for people who are working,” said the blonde.

“No exceptions,” said Alberta, pointing to the notice. “It’s almost like they want us to be stuck at home, unable to earn a living.”

“It’s exactly like that,” said Frye, her face flushed with frustration and anger.

“If Sturm und Drang think they can replace me with a man they have another think coming,” said Alberta.

“Saucy Solstice Spectacular! won’t need a rehearsal pianist if this news holds true,” Stephen said glumly. “You can’t have the story of three leggy dance-hall girls looking for love on the darkest day of the year without the girls.”

“Men,” said the Professor. “Recast it all with men.”

“Ugh,” said Alberta.

One by one they hurried out into the November air, till all that was left was Frye and Jane and Helen and the leftover scent of blackened bacon.

Frye sank to one of the vacated chairs, her lanky frame collapsing. “From one perspective it hardly matters,” she said. “Ticket sales were down down down on Ahoy! This is just the death knell. Those silly actors aren’t even realizing they’ve lost half their audience as well. And how many men would go see an all-male Saucy Solstice Whatnot? Just the Professor and his sort of friends, and you can’t live off of that.” Frye rubbed the heels of her hands over tired eyes, smearing the remnants of olive eyeshadow around. Then she rocked her chair back and gently nudged Jane, who was still flat on the divan. “But I guess it’s finally a good time for me to do the facelift,” she said. “I’m so glad you’ve come home safe.”

“Urggh,” said Jane, eyes still closed.

“She’s not safe yet,” Helen said in a low voice to Frye. It felt odd, speaking for her older sister when she was right there, but Jane was not exactly standing up and taking charge of things, either.

Frye took a closer look at the prone figure on the divan. “What happened?”

“Lack of food, for starters,” said Helen. “I don’t think she’s eaten for three days.” She lowered her voice. “Which begs the question, why doesn’t she remember what happened during those three days.” To her sister she said, “Jane, tell Frye how you felt during the facelift. When the copper machine started.”

“Like I was split in two,” Jane said hoarsely. “Torn right down the center like a paper doll. And no, I don’t remember much about the warehouse, but I can hear you talking about me.” She struggled to sit up. “I think I could try some water again.”

Frye’s penciled eyebrows arched high at the sight of Jane’s bare face with the reddened lines where the iron strips had been. In the daylight the lines looked raised, scarred. Helen wondered if they would ever fade. Frye’s jade-green nails gripped Helen’s sleeve. “Do you think … could you have been taken over by a fey?”

Jane glared. “No.”

Helen shook her head as she gave Jane the water. “I don’t see how it could be. If a fey takes you over it’s stuck there till either you or it dies. It can’t go in and out. When a fey tried to take me over, it immediately started erasing me. In a matter of seconds I would have been gone for good.”

Frye sighed. “It makes me wish I’d done that facelift when you asked,” she said. “But there’s always one more audition, one more show, one last party.…”

“Facelift?” said Jane. She looked sharply at Helen. “You’ve been helping me, haven’t you?”

Helen suddenly beamed, for she had. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve got you three convinced already. More to follow, I’m sure.”

“Three in one day,” said Jane, and there was respect in her voice. “Good.” She clutched the water glass and her eyes grew fierce. “Yet not enough. We have to do all the facelifts. Immediately.”

Helen and Frye looked at each other. “Jane, honey, you’re not well enough,” began Frye.

Jane shook her head. “I will be. I have to. I need the women to go to the warehouse, where their faces are. I need everyone.”

“How are their faces in the warehouse?” said Helen. “It looked as though they were stolen from your apartment.”

“Nonsense; they’re not stolen. They’ve been taken to the warehouse,” said Jane positively. “Rows and rows and rows of them, looking at you with their black blank eyes. Now you must bring them to their faces. All The Hundred women. I need all of them, to match them up.”

“Okay,” Helen soothed, for she had seen no such rows and rows as Jane described. “I know. They’re not safe, are they?”

“You’re not listening,” said Jane, and she lurched to her feet, steadying herself on Helen’s chair. “They’re not safe, Helen, listen to what I’m saying. They’re not safe.”

“I am listening,” said Helen. “Please sit back down.” She helped her sister back to the divan and said, “Oh, Jane, please be reasonable with yourself. You need food and rest. You don’t even know what happened to Millicent.…” She trailed off, thinking again that the shock would be too much for Jane.

“Who, Mrs. Grimsby?” said Jane. “Oh, Mr. Grimsby has her. He’s taking good care of her. She’ll be right as rain.”

“You mean … is she out of the fey sleep then? But she shouldn’t be with Mr. Grimsby. She was trying to get away from him,” Helen said. “We all were, and now there you were in a warehouse that he must know about, because it had his invention in it.” She rather thought she might like to lie down on a divan herself. “Now look. You said Millicent told you something. About a Fey King, and a plot, yes?”

Jane looked sideways at her, rubbing her forehead. “How much did I tell you?”

“Just that,” Helen said, thinking back. “That another fey might be following through on the dead queen’s plot to infiltrate the city.” Helen worried her fingers together. “Oh, but Jane, you don’t even know. Niklas and Edward both confirmed it. Maybe this fey is planning to invade one of The Hundred. Or already has. We need to get them changed back. But we need their old faces.”

“At the warehouse,” said Jane. “Oh, my head.”

“But why there? It doesn’t sound safe,” said Helen.

Jane sank down into her chair, fingers gouging into her temples. “Don’t be silly, Helen. I know far more about this than you. The warehouse belongs to Mr. Grimsby alone. The rest of Copperhead doesn’t know anything about it. And Mr. Grimsby’s spending all of his days at Parliament now. So all you have to do is bring The Hundred to the warehouse tomorrow at noon. I’ll do them all at once. Safety in numbers.”

Helen looked at Frye. Frye said, “Well, I don’t have a show to go to anymore.…”

“If we get The Hundred,” said Helen to Jane, “will you stay here and sleep? You clearly haven’t recovered from whatever that horrible machine did to you.” She raised eyebrows at Frye in request.

“Of course you can and will stay here,” said Frye. “Fais comme chez toi.”

“Mmm, and I already did,” said Helen, gesturing at the knit dress. “I hardly know you and here I am borrowing your clothes. But I split the seams of my skirt crawling in that warehouse.”

“You should wear trousers,” said Frye.

Helen laughed. “Well. Maybe.” Frye still looked at her, and so she finally said, “I don’t think yours would fit me, though, and even I know I shouldn’t spend today altering slacks.” It would be an interesting problem, she thought; she hadn’t ever attempted to adapt slacks to fit and flatter hips.

Frye waved this aside. “Sometimes I think I’m storing half the theatrical wardrobes in the city,” she said. “I’ll see if I have something. Now Jane, I’m going to tuck you in the attic with toast and broth and a dirty book and then Helen and I will go find your women. I still have my fey face, so that extra charisma should help. I can be quite charming when I try.”

Helen shook her head, slowly, resolutely. If this was going to work there was more to it than this. And sometimes, like fixing Alistair, maybe you just had to step in and start fixing situations, or at least sorting them out. “I can’t,” she said. “Frye, if you’ll let me direct you—?”

“That’s what actors are for.”

“I’ll give you Jane’s journal and explain everything I know about it. Then you’re in charge of getting all the women together. You and your charisma.” Helen looked at her sister dubiously. Jane was staring off into space, fingers delicately tracing the raised pink line on her jaw where the iron had been. “Hopefully Jane can help if anything in the journal needs interpreting.”

“And you?” said Frye.

“I’m going to the dwarvven slums,” Helen said. “And find out what a certain dwarvven spy knows about all this.”