“Who is this man?”
“I am he,” said Mr. Morrison. “The matter has just now been put to a vote, and I have been elected to this position, for which I am unworthy. It is unusual that one as young as myself would be offered this post, but I have an advantage none of the others could claim.”
“And what is that?”
“My friendship with you.”
Lucy could not imagine why that should prove an advantage, but even more shocking was his characterization of what stood between them as friendship.
“What do I …?” Lucy did not know how to finish the question.
“You have the pages,” he said with a half smile. “You had me turn my own pages over to you. Surely you did not think I would not discover your little mesmeric trick, deft though it was. And, again, I do not blame you. You did what you believed right, and now we believe it right as well.”
“I cannot think that your order cares only to save my niece,” said Lucy.
“We care whenever there is an innocent in harm’s way and we are in a position to save him. But our interests are now aligned, I believe. Ludd and Lady Harriett are poised each to destroy the other, but we believe that an absolute victory of the old way or the new need not happen. We believe that a compromise position that will place a check on the new mechanical developments and allow magic to survive is our best option. And we believe you are the key to that approach.”
“In what way?” Lucy asked, not much liking this new burden.
He shook his head. “That is the central mystery, isn’t it? I can tell you that since all of this has begun, Lady Harriett, my order, and”—here he paused—“and Mary Crawford have all understood your centrality. Accordingly, I place myself at your disposal.”
“At my disposal how?” asked Lucy, staring at Mr. Morrison as though he were a stranger she had never seen before, dressed in some curious foreign costume.
“At your disposal to go where you wish and do what you say. I am here to obey your commands, Miss Derrick.”
Lucy continued to stare at him for some minutes, blinking rapidly as she considered his words. “Then let us go to Kent. I believe there is a set of pages in the hands of my sister’s husband, Mr. Buckles.”
“Then we shall go fetch them,” he said.
“There is something else.” Lucy looked out the window as she spoke, unwilling to gaze upon his expression when he heard what she had to say. “Was my father, like you, a Rosicrucian? I would know, if you do not mind, the story of my own life.”
Mr. Morrison sat across from her, slumped forward, his hands dangling between his knees. He appeared utterly defeated by her request. He glanced over at Mr. Blake, and observed that the old engraver sat with the book on his lap, his mouth open, conveniently asleep.
Mr. Morrison spoke in quiet tones. “Your father wished it all kept from you, and after everything that happened, it never seemed the proper moment to reveal those secrets. I suppose it is the right moment now. Yes, your father was a member of the order. He led the order when I joined. He and I were very close. I thought of him as a father.”
Lucy hardly knew how to understand this. “But you chose to corrupt his daughter?”
Mr. Morrison looked away, and then rose, walked to the window, where he adjusted the curtains, and then returned to his seat. “Your father always knew you were special. There were certain card and crystal readings around the time of your birth that alarmed him, and he believed you needed to be sheltered from your own natural talents, which he believed would be too conspicuous. This moment of transition we live in has been long coming, and your father suspected if you were to practice, dark forces would seek you out. That is why he kept you at a distance before Emily died—not because he did not love you, but because he wished to protect you. He wanted that you might live a life free of danger.”
“Then why did you attempt to convince me to run off with you?”
Mr. Morrison let out a long sigh. He shook his head and looked away, and then down. “Your father and I had a disagreement. We received intelligence that there would be an attempt upon your life, but he did not believe it, or he did not believe it was something from which he could not protect you. He was not careless with his daughters—you must never think that—but just the opposite. He was so careful, he believed such wards and spells and precautions that he had taken were impregnable. I was less optimistic. I believed there was danger, particularly to you, for Emily could take care of herself.”
“What do you mean?” asked Lucy, hearing her voice catch.
“You must know what I mean. Emily practiced. She was very skillful. Your father taught her everything he knew, and she was widely regarded as something of a prodigy, though she lacked the raw talent he believed you to possess.”
Lucy could not think of what there was to say. Her father had been a hermeticist, a Rosicrucian, and her sister his apprentice. They had studied magic together, the two of them, locked in his study, as Lucy was later to do—or begin to do. All those books he had her read, the philosophers, the languages, the botany. He had been laying the groundwork for what Lucy would later become. It was all so clear now.
“As the time drew closer,” Mr. Morrison continued, “as the hour of danger approached, I became convinced that you would die if you did not leave. I had to get you away, if only for a little while, until the danger passed.”
Lucy looked at him. His eyes were cast down, his face was red.
“And so you pretended to love me?”
“I needed you to go with me,” he said. “If I told you a tale of magic and spells and curses, you would have laughed at me. I needed you to want to go.”
“Then, what you did—you were not being cruel. All this time I have spent hating you, thinking you horrible, and you said nothing. Why did you say nothing?” Lucy felt herself growing angry again. He had let her hate him when she should have regarded him as her friend. She hardly knew where her anger belonged, but it balled up inside her, threatening to explode.
“Your father never forgave himself for being wrong, but he was, and your sister paid the price for it. The curse meant for you found her, and it killed her.”
Lucy sat still and silent, hearing nothing but the rushing of blood in her ears. It came on her, wave after wave, grief and rage and anger and loathing for herself. “Emily died, when it should have been me.”
“No!” Mr. Morrison jumped to his feet. “No, damn it. Can you not understand? Your father did not want you to know, not because he feared you would blame him. He blamed himself sufficiently that he needed no aid. He never wanted you to know because he feared you would blame yourself. He feared you would see it in that absurd way. You did not know, and you could have done nothing. It should not have been you. It should not have been either of you. She was murdered and it is no one’s fault but the murderer’s.” When Lucy said nothing, he sat down again and took her hands in both of his. “Can you not see that?”
She nodded. “Who was it? Who killed my sister?”
“The leader of the revenants.”
It was Lucy’s turn to rise to her feet. “Lady Harriett killed my sister, and you struck a deal with her?”
He shook his head. “Lady Harriett was not then leader. She took that post after the death of her husband, Sir Reginald. He had led them for centuries before he died. Before I killed him.”
“You?” said Lucy, sitting slowly.
“Out of love for your father, I did what needed doing. They had done the unpardonable, and a message had to be sent. I destroyed him.”