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.”