I popped open the top. The face was mother-of-pearl, and the hands were black, the numerals painted on in a fine hand and intertwined with vines hiding tiny forest creatures. It was a work of art. Inside the lid was an engraving, almost worn away with age: There is no rule but iron, and no balm but time. The date was 1898.
Pushing a little of my Weird to the forefront of my mind, I let the smallest tendril touch the watch. Here, away from the city and in Valentina’s iron-free house, the whispers and the pain weren’t nearly so bad. I could probably stay here for years before I started to go truly insane.
My Weird responded eagerly, unmuted by iron, and in the space of a heartbeat, the hands began to turn backward, still ticking off time. The dates in the face also turned back, and once I’d ensured they would stay that way as long as I held a bit of the watch in my mind, I handed it back to Archie proudly. “I can do that with anything. Came in handy when we were on the run.”
“Pretty neat,” he told me with a grin, and this time I didn’t hesitate to return it.
“What’s the inscription mean?” I asked.
“It’s the motto of the Brotherhood,” he answered. “Or was, at least. Back when the Brotherhood actually did some good.”
I started to ask what he meant but thought better of it when his smile dropped and the stone-faced expression I recognized returned. He shut the watch and shoved it into his pocket. When he looked up, he was smiling again. “But enough about that. Want to take another crack at breakfast?”
“Sure,” I agreed, and followed him inside. The hundred questions I had about Nerissa, the strange comments about the Brotherhood and my Weird could wait. I did trust my father, and I just hoped that sooner rather than later, he’d be in a mood to give me answers.
The next two days at the Crosley house passed uneventfully. Things with my father were all right when it was just the two of us, but when Valentina was around he got gruff and awkward and had a hard time looking me in the eye. I wasn’t sure how to act either—yes, I was his daughter, but in reality he barely knew me, and the last thing I wanted was a spat with my de facto stepmother over territory she had clearly already claimed.
Valentina wasn’t completely bad, as long as we avoided serious subjects. She showed me how to apply rouge and paint my nails without getting the enamel everywhere. We sipped tea in the sunroom and everyone gathered around the piano to hear her play thunderous classical music that sounded like the ocean had broken down the dunes and come rushing through the music room.
It was a break from running, that was for sure, and there was decent food and a warm bed. Still, every time I looked toward Lovecraft and saw the orange glow against the night sky from still-burning fires, my guts churned with guilt and worry.
On the third morning, I couldn’t take it anymore. My patience caved, and with it went my placid veneer. “Are we going to stay here forever?” I said to Archie. He and I were washing up from breakfast, a task I’d taken away from Bethina by force. She thought as long as she was in Archie’s presence, she had to revert to her old job of maid, but I’d bribed her with some leftover scones and cream and sent her away with a suggestion of taking Cal for a walk along the dunes. She wasn’t a maid any longer, and I wanted her and Cal to be able to relax.
“It’s safe here,” Archie said. He was scrubbing while I dried. “Relatively so, anyway. We’re not behind walls like in New Amsterdam and San Francisco, and there are things roaming out there, but no Fae is going to risk coming within spitting distance of this house and not one but two members of the Brotherhood of Iron.”
“Is the Thorn Land trying to invade us?” I asked bluntly, setting the plates in a pile. They clacked like ghouls’ teeth. I hadn’t asked yet because I didn’t really want the truth, but I couldn’t avoid it any longer. If I’d done more than wake the queens of the Thorn Land, if I’d opened not just a crack but an actual channel for invasion, I needed to know.
“You sure are good at picking the one question I don’t have an answer to,” my father said. He shut off the hot water and dried his hands, wincing. I noticed that his knuckles were cut, like he’d driven his hand into something hard and unforgiving.
“Tremaine said—” I began.
“Tremaine lied to you,” Archie snapped. “That’s what he does. He’s a snake, even among his own kind. He told you exactly what you needed to hear so you’d wake the queens, and then he told you exactly what you needed to hear so you’d stay good and scared and not try to put anything right once you saw what you’d done.”
He had a point—I’d seen the extent of Tremaine’s lies firsthand. But his lies always held a grain of truth, and that terrified me.
“You’re with the Brotherhood of Iron!” I cried in frustration. “You all saved the world when Tesla made the Gates. You’re supposed to know what to do.”
“The Brotherhood is not some magical cavalry that rides out of the smoke and hellfire and saves the poor, innocent humans from the menace of the otherworlds,” Archie said. “No matter how much Grey Draven and his cronies might want to change us into that very thing.”
He gestured me outside to the kitchen steps, and despite my irritation I followed him. He stood quietly for a moment and then furtively drew out one of his cigarettes. “Truth is, Aoife, the best we ever were was a police force that was too small and spread too thin to do all the good we could against encroachment from Thorn, the Mists and wherever the hell else nasty monsters crawled up from. And that was in my grandfather’s day. Now the Brotherhood has … Well. They’ve lost sight of the endgame, to say the very least, and there’s a lot of things the leadership and I don’t agree on.”
I sat next to him, pulling my skirt down over my legs to keep out the cold. I’d wanted the Brotherhood to be the knights, to have the knowledge in their collection of Gateminder’s diaries to fix what I’d done. But the image of squabbling men, and only a handful of men at that, didn’t inspire much hope. “So they can’t help us?” I was only half surprised. Most hope these days died a quick death the moment I got close to it.
“Oh, they’re trying to shut the broken Gates, and keep the Fae and the Mists at bay while they do it,” Archie said. “Avoid Draven and his plans to turn them into his own personal shock troops while they’re at it. But when Tremaine came after me and started this whole mad plan that ended with you, I couldn’t ask the Brotherhood for help.”
“Why not?” I said, confused. I wasn’t naive enough to think the Brotherhood would come and set everything right, but I’d at least thought they could be an ally and that, as members, my father and Valentina counted among their number and were to be aided no matter what.
“Because they’d have negotiated,” Archie said softly. “They’d wheedle and cajole, try to get something for themselves out of the deal and use me like a damn trading chip. The Grayson family has done a lot for the Brotherhood, Aoife, but we are not in charge. Gateminders are guard dogs. Dogs have masters. If you have the idea that you can go and ask them to help you now …” He reached out and squeezed my hand, hard and all at once, with bruising strength. I hissed in pain, flinching under his touch, but he held fast and stared into my eyes.
“Promise me, Aoife. Promise me you will not throw yourself on the mercy of the Brotherhood. They know it was a Grayson who broke the Gates, because it couldn’t be anyone else. I don’t think they’ve figured out which one yet, since they haven’t tried to haul me in for questioning, but listen—they won’t take you in with open arms and they won’t fix anything, because despite acting as if they’re all-knowing, they can’t. Tesla was the only one who really understood how the Gates on our side work, and he’s long gone, along with his research.”
“Dad …,” I began, trying to ease his grip on me and reassure him I wasn’t going to go running off, but he squeezed harder, wringing a droplet of sound from me at the pain. “I can’t promise,” I whispered. “You don’t understand. My mom …”