Finally, she put on the clean clothing, spread out the pallet-bed, and fell onto it. She felt as if she wanted to weep. All that work—and for nothing! All she had done was to allow herself to be distracted by Reggie and betrayed by her emotions. She hadn't found the Air Master. She was no nearer to freeing herself than she had been this morning.
As for Reggie—if he dared to come looking for her here—Alison would want to know why, and then—
Unbidden, the image of the Wheel of Fortune card rose in her mind. A few hours ago, she had been up, up, up—now the Wheel had turned, and she had tumbled down, down, down—
The Wheel would turn again. She had to believe that. She had to.
Exhaustion, mental and physical overcame her while she was trying to convince herself of that, and she slept.
Only to be jolted awake by the impact of a delicately pointed toe on her own sore ribs.
She started out of sleep, and looked up, dumbly, to find that Alison, her daughters, and the odious Warrick Locke were all gazing down at her with expressions on their faces that made her heart turn to stone. And a scrap of lace and a single rosebud dangled from Alison's fingertips.
"Take care of her," Alison said to Locke, before Eleanor could say a word.
And before she could move, he had swooped down on her like a hawk on a mouse, a rag in one hand that he clamped over her nose and mouth. There was a sickly-sweet smell—
—and then, nothing.
28
August 12, 1917
Broom, Warwickshire
ALISON LOOKED DOWN AT THE unconscious and much-battered form of her stepdaughter, sprawled on top of the heap of ragged blankets that was her bed, and seethed with rage that she carefully kept from her expression. There was no point in letting everyone know how close she was to unleashing that rage. In fact, she was quite sure that it was her control, and not her 'anger, that frightened Locke. "I am very glad you were clever enough to see past her costume at the ball, Lauralee," she said, keeping her voice level. "And gladder still that you kept her from seeing you. She very nearly undid everything we have accomplished so far. Who could have guessed that idiot boy would have been attracted to her?"
Carolyn pouted. "What I want to know is, where did she get that dress?" Her expression, as well as her voice, was raw with envy. That would have been moderately interesting under other circumstances, as her mother would never have guessed she had a passion for pink, lace, and rosebuds. It was an exceedingly misplaced concern, given the situation.
"Light the lamp, Carolyn," was all Alison said. She was not entirely in charity with her younger daughter at the moment. Carolyn continued to pout, but did as she was ordered.
"And how did she get in the door?" Lauralee added, her own voice hard with the same anger her mother was feeling.
"More to the point, how did she get out the door—this door?" Alison retorted, gesturing at the exit from the kitchen. "There are explanations for the rest—she could have found the dress in the attic, for instance, and she could have told the butler that she was with us in order to get into the ball. Didn't you say Reggie had asked about her, Carolyn?"
Carolyn blinked, as if the question caught her by surprise. "Well,"
she admitted reluctantly, "yes, but—"
"So she could easily have been on the guest list, and all she had to do was claim she misplaced her invitation. But how did she manipulate my coercive spells?" Alison glared down at the wretched girl. "That's what I want to know!"
"You have been concentrating on Reggie," Warrick Locke reminded her. "And you've been quite careful about working magic anywhere around Lady Virginia since her ladyship arrived. Between the two, your coercive spells may have weakened. It's just a very good thing for all of us that Lauralee spotted her, and that the rest of us were at the ball too."
"If you hadn't had Warrick along, he wouldn't have been able to shield Lady Virginia from sensing magic," Lauralee reminded her mother. "So you were able to redouble your coercions and force her back here. She didn't fight that, so possibly, as Mr. Locke says, it's only that your binding spells were weakening over time because you haven't been renewing them."
"Or possibly the girl is coming into her powers." Alison gritted her teeth. That was the one possibility that simply hadn't occurred to her up until this moment. And it was the one possibility that made her the angriest. "If that's the case, then there's no time to waste. We'll have to take her out to the nearest mine, the one closest to the Hoar Stones, and dump her there now instead of later. If she is becoming a Fire mage—her powers won't do her any good in there. Not underground, and not when my creatures are finished with her."
Oh, the miserable chit! She was forcing everything—and ruining what she hadn't forced!
"Alison," Locke said, warningly, pulling out his watch, and showing the face to her, "It's nearly five in the morning. We can't take her now. Someone will see us."
For one moment, Alison deeply regretted her rise in social status, because it would have been very relieving of her frustrations to curse like a fishwife right now. Locke was right, of course; none of the motors had anywhere to hide a bundled-up body, and the sun would be up by the time they got everything packed up and into the automobiles. It would have to wait until dark.
"How do you want to keep her unconscious?" Locke continued, now looking nervous. "I hate to advise against more chloroform, because it is dangerous, and there's an equal chance that I'd kill her or she'd come out of it—and you don't want her dead, that will do you no good at all—"
"I have something," Alison interrupted him. "It's a bit more precise."
She went upstairs to her room, and came back down with the morphia kit in both hands. It amused her slightly to see Locke's eyes bulge a little when he realized what it was. She readied the needle, pleased that she had learned to do all of this a long time ago. One of the few benefits of caring for the aged. . . .
"You surprise me," Locke said, finally, as she pulled a measured dose of the fluid into the chamber. "This is not something I would have expected you to possess." The look of shock still on his face made her raise an eyebrow.
"Don't be an idiot, Warrick," Lauralee snapped. "Mother's not an addict. She just believes in being prepared. She got that from our doctor in London ages ago. She told him it was because Eleanor had fits."
"And I pay him well enough to be incurious," Alison said, kneeling down at the girl's side, turning her arm over, and probing for a vein. "He noted it in his records as being for Eleanor, and it cost me a pretty penny, too. But you never know when you're going to need to keep someone quiet." She injected the fluid, and stood up. "There. That should keep her for quite some time. And it has the added benefit that, if she is coming into her powers, it will throw her right out of her body for a while, which should thoroughly disorient her."