The Unnaturalists

CHAPTER 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 mythwork 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 mythwork 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 mythwork 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.

She grabs my hand again and pulls me onward, as if we’ve been fast friends forever. I don’t know her at all, except what little gossip I hear in the Museum halls and at the dinner table. I recall Aunt Minta saying once that Mistress Virulen was on the hunt for the perfect match, that the Virulen Estate isn’t as prosperous as it once was. But if her gown and hat are any indication, her family is prospering quite well.

I sigh in relief to find that the body is already covered with a white sheet, though blood slicks the cobbles, the front of the wheels. I can see from the depressions in the quickly staining sheet that the body has been cleaved in two, and I’m torn between fascination and horror.

Mistress Virulen has a strangely fervid expression. I’d almost say she finds this exciting, but it would be wrong for a lady of quality to be anything but grieved by death.

“Ladies,” Father says, “perhaps you should step over to the café there, out of view of this tragedy. We shall join you momentarily.”

A swift look passes between Hal and me, but Father picks up on it. He glares at Hal.

Mistress Virulen reluctantly allows me to draw her to the café across the road. Room is made among the crowding patrons for us to have a seat by the window, and I am glad to be surrounded by the smell of coffee grown deep in the Eastern wildlands rather than the death and smoke outside.

Mistress Virulen is restless, staring out the window. She smiles at me when our coffee comes, her full attention finally bent on me.

“Miss Nyx,” she says, “I have a proposition that may interest you.” She looks at me over her teacup. Her teeth are whiter than the bone china.

“Oh?” I say. I take a long sip.

“How would you like to be my Companion?”

I splutter and then do my best to recover my dignity by hiding behind my napkin. When I’ve swallowed my incredulity along with the scalding coffee, I say, “Come again, my lady?”

She laughs. “You silly bird! You know what I said!”

“But, my lady, I’m hardly qualified for such an honor. And you barely know me.”

“That is precisely why I would rather have you!” she says. “Any girl who is brave enough to try to stop a trolley to save me certainly deserves a reward.”

It’s as if the cold outside seeps into my veins instead of the warmth I seek from my coffee. I gulp it hurriedly, trying to steel myself, and nearly sear my tongue off in the process.

“I’ve no idea what you mean,” I manage to say.

She laughs at me again. “Oh, don’t be coy. Of course you do! I saw you through my carriage window before everything turned upside down. You were practically glowing with”—she leans closer, the feathers on her hat nodding toward me—“magic.”

My face is hotter than the dregs of coffee in my cup. If she saw, then everyone must have seen. And with the incident at the Museum with the Sphinx, it’s a wonder newspapermen aren’t beating down our townhouse doors to get answers. Or that the Raven Guard haven’t come to lock me away. I wonder if she saw Hal, too, and if she will try to blackmail him. Perhaps he’s better at hiding it than I am. He must be, if he hasn’t been caught yet.

“We could be of much use to each other, you and I,” she says.

“And what if I’d rather not?” I try to sound arch, but I come off more like a petulant child.

“I suspect you’d find your life a deal more uncomfortable than you already do.” She leans even closer, so that the topmost feather on her hat almost tickles my nose. “You should understand, Miss Nyx, that I always get my way.”

I force a smile, but it is more truthfully a grimace.

Father and Hal wade through the crowd. Aunt Minta comes behind them.

“We’ve a hansom for you, Mistress Virulen,” Father says. His eyes wander between us. “That is . . . if the two of you are finished?”

She stands, her skirts hissing against the table. I stand with her. “I believe we are, Pedant Nyx,” she says, holding my gaze. That wicked smile curves her lips again.

She takes my hand. “I shall send the formal invitation to you as soon as I return home. I’ll look forward to your acceptance.”

I nod. Under better circumstances, Father’s quizzical gaze would make me laugh. Hal looks between us, his expression completely unreadable.

Mistress Virulen is off in a whisper of exotic perfume and puff of nodding feathers.

“Invitation?” Father asks.

“She wants me to be her Companion,” I say.

Realization dawns on his face just before he embraces me. He knows what this means—that I will be exposed to more connections in higher places than he and Aunt Minta could ever reach. Such a position almost guarantees me a match far beyond his wildest dreams.

As long as I don’t botch it up. And as long as Mistress Virulen keeps her knowledge to herself. Therein lies the bargain.

I rest my cheek against his robes, breathing in the damp, scholarly smell and loving it more fiercely than ever. My eyes meet Hal’s over Father’s shoulder. I think he knows what this means too. No more Museum for me. And perhaps no more magic, if I am to survive. His gaze is hard, his eyes almost too brilliant to bear.

“I’m so proud of you, Vee! Today has truly been a red-letter day,” Aunt Minta says, as she arrives. The news apparently is already being whispered about; my indiscretion in racing from the carriage is already forgotten.

I think of the scarlet letter on Athena’s robes at her execution and can only agree.