Lucy did not doubt it. “And our own nation sides with them,” she said, thinking of her conversation with the prime minister.
“It does, because the men who make these decisions do not understand the bargain they make,” said Mary. “They believe an era of machines will bring prosperity and security, but they don’t understand what so cold a world would look like. They don’t understand that the revenants want to usher in this era of machines because it will, necessarily, put all but an end to the age of magic. In standing against Ludd, these men do not do evil knowingly, but they do evil just the same. Once the ways of magic are stifled, the revenants will have nothing to fear. There can be no threat of alchemy to unmake them, and they will be safe in their eternal flesh. They care only for their security. Their dark minds will not be disquieted while machine replaces man, while craftsmen are turned into beasts of burden, while children starve and beg. They see not how the world they usher in will be a kind of hell. Their lungs will be choked by the soot and ash of production; their minds themselves will be lost to indolence and laziness. I was willing to risk myself, my life, to try to stop this nightmare they would bring upon mankind, and so yes, I summoned Ludd.”
“But why does all of this involve me?”
Mary shook her head. “I don’t know, and I am sorry for it. I know only that all roads on this journey begin and end with Lucy Derrick. You are everything in this. You do not want to be, and I cannot blame you, but you are. And if you wish for your niece to return in safety, you must defeat Lady Harriett.”
“By finding the Mutus Liber.”
“Yes. You have already done a great deal by stealing pages out from under her nose.”
Lucy thought about the pages. “She said her house was warded, and magic would not work there, and yet it did work. Was that because of the Mutus Liber?”
“In part, yes. The pages called to you, did they not?”
Lucy nodded.
“You’ve already discovered that they come in groups, and each of those groups conveys an important component of the whole of the book’s teachings. But each page is separately enchanted, drawn to the others, and drawn to the person who possesses them. Twelve pages and twelve enchantments. Simply to hold them in your hand and to know what they are will make you both powerful and dangerous. Possessing only some of them is less desirable than possessing the whole, but you will still benefit from these enchantments. You will have more power and more luck.”
“Would not Lady Harriett know that?” asked Lucy. “Would she not make every effort to protect herself accordingly?”
“As old as she is,” said Mary, “she still does not understand magic. Not really. Lucy, when you were a child, did you know someone who was a very fast runner?”
“Of course,” she said. “We had a friend, Eliza, who would always win when we raced.”
“Always? Did she never lose?”
“Well, sometimes, of course. What has this to do with the wards?”
“Eliza may have been fastest,” said Mary, “and she may have been reliably so, but that did not mean she would always win. You might depend on her to win against one of your friends, or even a stranger, and most of the time she would. But sometimes someone could be faster, or perhaps her legs would be tired or she would be hungry.”
“Wards get tired?”
“They grow strained and frayed, like old rope, or stronger and weaker, like winds. Her wards will work most of the time, but they did not work this time, because you are powerful and she is old. She is strong, Lucy. Very strong. She is stronger than you can imagine, but not as strong as she thinks, and that is our only advantage.”
“The journey continues,” said Lucy as she looked out the window. Suddenly, she felt a sharp terror. “Where are we? I do not recognize this road. Is this the way to London?”
“No,” said Mary. “We are returning to Nottinghamshire.”
Lucy gripped the side of her seat in panic. “No! Did you not hear me? I must return to London. If I am not back by sunset, I will be discovered missing. They will know how long I have been gone. Why have you tricked me?”
“Because I knew you would not listen,” said Mary. “I knew you would still go because you care too much for what the world thinks of you.”
“You speak more like Byron than you would credit.”
“You will not say that to me,” she snapped. Her anger was sudden and terrible. She was like a jungle cat, crouched as it readied itself to pounce. Her face flushed dark and her eyes widened and her pupils narrowed. Teeth showed through parted lips. “I am nothing like him, and you will never say such a thing to me, nor even speak his name to me if you can avoid it. I will—” She then began to weep, and she pulled Lucy to her breast. “Forgive me. Your comment was innocent, and my anger unjust.”
Lucy pulled away. “You may not wish to be likened to him, but you are as careless with my name and reputation as he is. Who are you to decide if they are worth preserving? My reputation is mine, Mary. I do not wish to let it go so lightly. I have no means, I have no name, I have no station. I cannot live as a whore in the eyes of the world. I am not so foolish that I don’t understand that the world’s thinking it so shall make it truth in the end. I may try to resist it, but I must have bread, and in the end, I will become what they say.”
“There is no fate that can be thrust upon you but what you permit,” said Mary, beaming like a proud parent.
“I thank you for your confidence, but I must go to London. Turn us around while there is still time.”
“You cannot go to London,” said Mary. “Things are going to happen, and they will be beyond even your control. London will soon become a city of chaos.”
“My friends are in London,” Lucy said.
“Many people are in London, but there is no helping that,” Mary answered. “It is time for the change to begin. It has to happen in some way, and revolution can never be quiet or peaceful or easy. I wish that it could be, but it cannot. Revolutions must be bloody. You may condemn me for a monster, but the men who have allied with the revenants are willing to endure suffering for their cause, and so there is no other way. I have set things in motion, and we are now powerless to stop what we have begun. We have no choice but to flee from its destruction.”
How much of this was metaphor or speculation or sheer nonsense? Lucy did not know. Mary did not lie to her—she believed that—but she withheld much when it was convenient, and Lucy was tired of being manipulated and moved about like a game piece. It was time to make her own decisions.
With hardly a thought of what it would mean, Lucy leapt up, hurled open the door of the coach, and threw herself out onto the grass. She landed more violently than she would have expected, and she felt the sharp scrape of something cut against her cheek. Her arm struck something hard, and she heard herself cry out in pain as she rolled, and then she rolled again. The world passed by in a nauseous blur of grass and tree and rock, and Lucy understood that she had jumped out upon the top of a hill. From some unfathomable distance she heard Mary shouting and then horses crying out their complaints, but Lucy was tumbling—tumbling fast and hard and with terrifying speed; the gray of the sky rolled past her eyes as she gained momentum and a strange calm came through her. She thought she was at the center of things and that all roads began and ended with her, and yet here she was, about to have her head broken open by a rock and a tree.
And that was when she landed into the nearly frozen stream of water. She opened her mouth to cry out, but water filled her lungs. She thrashed, hardly knowing which was up or down, but managed, owing to the shallowness of the stream and nothing else, to lift out her head and find cold, welcome air. She cried out in relief and confusion, only to realize her head lay only inches from a horse’s hoof.