The Unnaturalists

CHAPTER 9

The next day, Father takes pity on me, much to Aunt Minta’s disappointment. Perhaps it’s the asymmetrical bit of lace I present him with over our porridge or the mournful expression that accompanies it, but he relents, saying I may go with him to the Museum every other day so long as I will attend to Aunt Minta’s lessons on the off-days without complaint. Aunt Minta makes the best of the compromise.

Father doesn’t speak as we hurry down the steep streets of Midtown, nor does he say anything as we board the trolley to Chimera Park. I try to keep my expression as neutral as possible, though sometimes I put my face out in the glowing drizzle and grin like a fool.

We wind down Industrial Way, past the entrance to the Night Emporium which spans the length of the Vaunting Bridge over the River. Little humps of land rise here and there like the back of an old sea serpent. Houses climb up and down them and the Empress’s Tower sits like a ragged crown on the tallest one.

It’s said that when Saint Tesla’s Grand Experiment in the London Of Which We Do Not Speak (Old London for short) tore a hole in the Universe, buildings from every era were miraculously transferred here to New London. That, I suppose, accounts for all the different architectural styles and various states of disrepair from the Night Emporium to the Imperial Tower. It’s a bleeding mess, if you ask me.

Some people whisper the Old Londoners called this place Fairyland or Arcadia or Elysium, that Saint Tesla drew our ancestors all through a door that should never have been opened. They say we don’t belong here. But people say lots of things. And whatever is true, it’s a fact that we’re here now and have been for nearly six hundred years. And it’s also a fact that if Old London isn’t just a tale, we can never go back to it. It’s been tried many times and many men have died in the trying.

Still, I do love the swirling colors of the onion domes, and looking up at the ravens wheeling around the Empress’s Tower always gives me a creeping thrill.

We alight at the last stop and make our way around the square to the University grounds. I smile when we pass under the great archway with its ever-watchful statues of Saint Bacon and Saint Newton. A scroll stretched between their stone hands bears our motto in Old Scientific: In Scientia Veritas. In Science there is Truth.

We pass into the domed atrium and I’m surrounded by my own handiwork, all the glimmering wings, the glass-eyed faces, the milkweed-tuft hair. I think of the little sylphid Piskel glaring at me from Pedant Lumin’s pocket, and for the first time shame wars with pride as I look upon my displays.

Father stops by one case and something about his manner keeps me silent. We both stare through the glass. I’m wishing for the key to this display so I can straighten one of the placards near a desert sylphid, when Father says, “I allowed you to come for a reason today, Vee. I’ve an errand that I cannot trust to anyone lightly, and I unfortunately can’t spare Charles.”

I brighten at the thought that Father once again has important work for me to do. Perhaps if I do this well, I can regain his trust and all these silly notions of ladylike behavior and making a good match and so on will be forgotten.

“I’m happy to do it, Father,” I say.

He nods and pulls a thin envelope from the breast pocket of his robes. The neverseal tingles as it passes into my palm. Only the recipient of this letter may open it or else the letter will dissolve in hissing green flames. Yet another necessary, if alarming, invention of the Refineries.

I look at the address. Arthur Rackham’s Antiquities, Rookery Square, Lowtown.

Father is sending me alone to Lowtown? Excitement battles with dread. Though I love adventure, Lowtown is dangerous, especially for an unescorted young lady.

“Don’t tell anyone. Your Aunt would have my head, but there’s no one I trust more than you, Vee.”

He embraces me, resting his chin on the top of my head, while I curl against him. Father is so tall and gangly, it’s like being hugged by a tree. When he releases me, I secure the letter in my pocket. This is a way for me to redeem myself for the failings of the other day, even though Father has never accused me of anything openly. Just how I shall get there and back is another thing entirely.

“Send word of your return, eh?”

“Yes, Father,” I say.

He pats me on the shoulder and hurries off toward his office.

I look back into the case at the sylphids among the dried mosses and stones. There’s a little one I’m particularly proud of that I managed to pose light as a leaf on a branch, but Piskel again has me wondering if I should be proud at all. I push those thoughts out of my mind with trying to think of the best way to Lowtown, as most drivers from this section of Midtown would simply refuse to take a young lady there. The notion of walking down there is even less appealing. Perhaps I should disguise myself as a Scholar. . . .

A shadow slides across the glass. I stiffen, thinking of that mysterious push the other day that sent me through the paralytic field.

Pedant Lumin’s face appears behind mine. I can see in my reflection that the damp breeze on the trolley has sent my curls springing everywhere, but I refuse to tidy them. At least my gown is still neat and my bootlaces are tied this time!

His eyes meet mine. I see his face clearly, and the shock of his handsomeness initially takes my breath. I had not thought him handsome before; somehow his features have been difficult to discern. But in this moment, it’s as though the sun has come from behind a cloud. I manage to plaster a frown on my face before I turn.

“Miss Nyx,” he says bowing. I peer at him; he’s plain and unobtrusive again, his features indistinct. I recall the Church instructing us in detecting glamours should we ever fall into the clutches of a rogue Architect. But the Church always said that glamours were used to make the warlock exceedingly handsome so that he could seduce young women. Not the other way round. Part of me wants to shout his true identity aloud and have him carted away for heresy. And yet, another part of me is thrilled to know his dangerous secret and even more thrilled to be included. My frown deepens.

“Pedant Lumin.”

Pedant Lumin clears his throat and says, “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation with your father as I was passing. If there is some important errand, I would be happy to escort you, as my lecture isn’t until this afternoon.”

“To Lowtown?” I say, hoping my raised brow looks ironic rather than silly. “Thank you, but I think I can manage, Pedant.”

His expression darkens. “You shouldn’t go alone there, Miss Nyx. It could be quite dangerous for one such as you.”

“One such as me?”

Pedant Lumin nods. “I can protect you as no one else can. Did I not do so the other day?”

I glance toward the Grand Exhibit Hall. The edge of the field that holds the Sphinx captive pulses a vivid blue. I remember the ticking of her claws, how he stood boldly between her and me. If events had transpired in a logical way, I should be dead now. I look back at Pedant Lumin, unsure. His gaze holds mine and, for just a moment, it feels as if the atrium inhales around us, as if some secret breeze stirs the still wings of the sylphids into life. I can imagine them, floating around us in a shimmering column. . . .

A patron tries to squeeze between me and the display case, jolting me back to the now. “Very well,” I say. “I’ll trust you just this once, Pedant Lumin. Let us hope you show yourself equal to the task.”

Pedant Lumin bows again, his expression carefully neutral. “Thank you, miss. You will not have cause to regret it, I assure you.” He looks up at me and grins. For just one moment, I consider running away to my laboratory and locking myself inside, but the nevered letter pulses its slim warning in my pocket.

“Shall we, then?” he asks.

I nod and together we pass through the doors out into New London’s glimmering gloom.

The hansom we hire is cramped, its cushions dusty and threadbare. I find myself picking at the seams, trying to ignore the fact that Pedant Lumin’s knees are nearly touching mine, so close is our confinement.

The curtains are drawn and so his face is mercifully hidden from me. That is, until a tiny, glowing head pops up from his waistcoat pocket.

Piskel floats toward me, lighting the entire hansom cab like a little sun.

“Don’t make any sudden movements,” Pedant Lumin says. “Just let him have a look at you.”

“He won’t bite me again, will he?” I ask, barely breathing.

The sylphid makes a face at me. Then he darts back into Pedant Lumin’s pocket, where he shakes a shining fist before crossing his arms and glaring at me.

“Did he understand what I just said?”

Pedant Lumin laughs. He fishes around in another pocket for more bits of cake, which he feeds to Piskel with soft words. Then he looks up at me. “What do you think?”

In the fey light, his eyes are again so brilliant I’m almost blinded.

“Why do you keep changing?” I ask.

He frowns and I realize it’s the first time I’ve really seen him do so. “I suppose I should have expected that you would see through my attempts at disguise.”

“Why?”

“Because of what you are,” he says. His gaze is mesmerizing, but I can’t tell if that’s because he’s using forbidden magic on me or if it’s something else entirely.

“A witch?” I raise my chin.

“Not so loudly,” he says. “You can still be heard, even in here.” Piskel shakes a finger at me. “But yes. You see through illusion, among other things.”

This time when Pedant Lumin smiles, I see it fully for the first time. It burns me so completely my face reddens. “Other things? What else can witches do?”

He leans forward. “Anything they desire,” he says. The low pulse of his voice makes me clutch the cushion.

He’s close enough to kiss. I’m trying to figure out if I should, if he will, trying not to think about the wrongness of this, when a squeak of protest startles us both. Pedant Lumin sits back so as not to crush Piskel. “Sorry, little man.”

Piskel grumbles and burrows down into his pocket, taking his light with him.

The darkness is a relief. When I speak, I try my best to maintain an even, businesslike tone. “Pedant Lumin, I could have you reported. I should. You are a heretic Architect. The Church and the Empress would reward my family handsomely for one such as you.”

He’s entirely nonplussed by my threats. “But you won’t,” he says.

“What do you mean I won’t?”

“You won’t report me because I’m the only one who can help you.”

“Help me do what?”

“Survive.”

I’m so angry I can feel sparks flying off my fingertips even if I can’t see them. I clench my fists over my knees. “Pedant Lumin, if you’re suggesting—”

He reaches forward, slipping his fingers close enough to touch my fists. Close enough but not quite. Without touching me, somehow he draws off the anger, shapes it, lights it with a single breath. “Hal,” he says softly, holding the energy he’s transformed from me as though it’s a paper lantern. “The name is Hal.”

The rush of emotions is too much. I can’t speak.

“Tell me this,” he says. “How long have you known you were different? Has anyone else ever noticed?”

I’m about to answer but his gaze encourages me to examine his questions. It’s there at the root of me—the inner wisdom he’s seeking. I always knew I wasn’t meant for the Seminary. I thought it was just because I wanted knowledge they didn’t possess. It was that, but . . . there’s more.

A dim memory surfaces of looking with Father at a display of sylphids. Remarkably, they’d been kept alive. We walked through a tunnel engineered to allow us into their enclosure, my small hand clasped in Father’s. But something happened when we reached the middle of the tunnel. The protective field dropped. Suddenly, the sylphids were all around me and I laughed and let them play in my hair and sing to me, even though I couldn’t understand their words. Father didn’t laugh. Refiners came and turned the sylphids into glittering dust. And I wept because I knew they would never have harmed me. And then there was the kobold who bowed to me before he left Miss Marmalade’s . . .

Could it really be true? Everything I’ve been taught, everything I’ve hoped for goes against it. If anyone finds out . . .

“It can’t be,” I whisper. My words are harsh with rising tears. “It just can’t.”

“Why not?” he says gently.

“Because . . .” My voice cracks. Because if I am, there is no future. If I am, then even the dream I dare not speak is lost to me. If I am, then I am a heretic and damned to an eternity of sand. . . . It is all I can do not to break down sobbing.

“Miss Nyx . . .” His hand brushes mine. “It is not so horrible as you might imagine. Your fate is still your own if you have the courage to see beyond your fear.”

That straightens my spine a bit. I find voice enough to ask: “But how did it happen? And what do I do?”

“You act as if being a witch is completely unnatural. Nothing could be further from the truth. Wielding magic is normal. What is not normal is how the Empress hoards all of the magic herself, turning it to her own evil designs and persecuting anyone who tries to use it for good. What you do about it is up to you. You can try to hide or you can fight, as we Architects have chosen to do.”

I digest this in silence. Then I freeze.

He senses the change in my demeanor. “What?”

“I think someone pushed me through the field the other day. I think they wanted to see what would happen to me.” I think again of Charles’s horrid smirk and shudder.

“Someone was trying to test you.”

“But why would it matter? What could they gain? And how could they have done it when no one but a fussy woman was standing next to me?”

“The answer to all those questions is simply this: magic. And if you are still unschooled, as I’m quite sure you are, you’re vulnerable. Your power is therefore accessible to any warlock or witch unscrupulous enough to seize it.”

I shrink against the seat. Accessible? Unscrupulous? “But I thought—”

“What? That we are all dead or exiled beyond the walls of this fair City? That only Architects are heretics, as you call us?” A bitter smile thins his lips. “I think you can see that is not the case. Forbidden as it may be, there are still some few of us who practice. And even fewer still who practice for the greater good.”

There’s an edge to his voice, a hidden dagger behind his words. Something wounds him. I can’t help it. “Who are you, really?” I ask.

There’s a breath, a tightening of his expression. How many glamours can one warlock possess?

“Who you see before you,” he says carefully.

“Pedant Lumin.”

He scowls. “Who I am does not matter. What you are, though—that is everything.”

“Why?” I whisper. Why should I matter so much? I am no one. My father is important, perhaps, to Men of Science. I think about my desire to be the first successful female Pedant and nearly laugh out loud. That especially will now be denied me.

“Because you are the catalyst. With your power, all kinds of things are possible. That frightens people, makes them greedy, all sorts of things.”

“But I don’t know how to use it. I don’t know what it means.”

He smiles. “We shall have to remedy that, Miss Nyx.”

I chew my lip, looking at the fading magenta lantern in his hand. I make my decision. “Vespa,” I say.

“Vespa.” He says my name as if it’s a spell or a holy charm, something blessed. The lantern dissolves into magenta butterflies which float lazily around the carriage until they disappear.

Saint Darwin and all his apes! What am I doing? I must not let this happen!

Just then, the carriage lurches to a halt and the driver cries out that we’ve arrived.

Hal opens the door onto the choking stench of Lowtown. It stinks of sewage and tanneries and the ever-present odor of burning bone from the nearby Refinery. He climbs out first, making sure the stairs are stable. Then he gives me his hand. “Miss,” he bows, and that rakish grin tricks a smile from me, no matter how much I’d just sworn myself against it.

Arthur Rackham’s is just along the alley, thank the Ineffable Watchmaker. Bells announce us when I open the door. A thin, bewhiskered man sits at the counter, a jeweler’s monocle over one eye. His mouth is pursed like a prune as he wipes blue grease over the guts of a tarnished, compasslike object.

“Whassis?” he says. He swings to look at us, his eye hideously magnified by his monocle. Next to him on the counter squats a small jar with a lid that looks a bit like a grinning mouth. I suppress a shiver of disgust.

“A missive for you, from Pedant Malcolm Nyx, Head of the Museum of Unnatural History and my father,” I say. I’m pleased at how steadily I manage to say it. Hal wanders over to a wall of shelves.

Arthur Rackham nods, grumbling. He puts down the thing he’s working on and fingers a greasy rag before taking the letter. The neverseal sighs as he breaks it open. He unrolls the letter and reads it so slowly that I join Hal.

“Do you see?” he whispers.

I notice that the wall is blurry, rather like his glamour has been at times.

“Look beyond,” he says.

The usual sorts of permissible antiquities are here—soap dishes, soup tureens, tarnished spoons, chamber pots, and moldering portraits. I look beyond them, behind them. The wall of shelves shimmers like silk. Through it, I see vials of things with labels so dusty I can barely read them. I glance at Rackham, but he’s still poring over the letter, sounding out every word in hisses and whispers through his broken teeth.

I reach through the illusion (for so it must be) and smudge one vial with a fingertip. Philtre d’Amour. Thick tomes murmur to themselves. Hexogony. Curses and Charms of the First Order. I touch the spine of the last one, about to pull it off the shelf. A little dark spark jumps from the cover, colder even than the nevered strongbox.

“Careful.” Hal looks as though he wants to grab my hand, but he doesn’t.

“This is a hexshop, isn’t it?”

He nods slightly.

I’ve heard rumors of such places, shops where heretics and the desperate go to obtain forbidden magics. Naturally, I’ve never been to such a place before and I can’t imagine why my father would send me here now. What does my father, a Rational Man of Science, want in a place like this?

Rackham clears his throat and we return to the counter. The strange silver object near Rackham’s hand trembles. One of its delicate arms sweeps toward me, pointing like a compass finding its true north.

The old man stares at the quivering needle and then up at me. His eyes narrow and an ugly grin splits his face. He looks rather like the jacklanterns people still carve for the Carnival of Saints.

“You tell your ole dad that what he’s looking for is right in front of him. If you make it that far.”

“I beg your pardon?” I say.

The letter begins to unravel in a hiss of spitting green sparks between us and I can’t help but jump.

When I look up, Rackham is staring at me. I feel as though I’ve once again opened Father’s office door and the Waste is stirring, stirring in the strongbox on the desk, sand spilled from an hourglass waiting to spell doom.

He reaches forward and grips my wrist. I’d almost swear the dark jar chuckles at me. “You know very well what I mean, witch!” He spits the last word as though it’s a curse.

“Here now,” Hal says. “Unhand her this instant!”

I struggle against the man’s greasy grip. All I can think is that I want to be free, that this man is hurting me and therefore deserves harm himself. Before I realize what’s happening, heat crackles in my wrist. An invisible tentacle of energy snaps and Rackham yelps and releases me.

I cover my surprise with a smirk and we make our way out, only to be confronted by a group of ruffians firmly intent on subduing us. Their faces are hard; their eyes gleaming. I don’t know if they’ve been summoned or simply take us for easy marks. Hal brushes my elbow with his fingertips as they approach. Even through coat and sleeve, his touch is like a divining rod striking a deeply imbedded river far beneath my skin.

I’m in trouble, both from within and without.