The threat came not from the building, but from what lay below.
She hesitated on the corner of the street opposite, nervous hands twirling her parasol. A dozen times she’d thought of doing this, and a dozen times her fear had gotten the better of her. Philosophers might extol the virtue of confronting one’s fears, but Cyma was generally happy to live without that particular virtue. Yet morbid curiosity compelled her, every time she passed near one of these innocuous low buildings, so that she wasted precious minutes of her protected time standing on corners like this one, arguing with herself.
This is your last chance to see. Starting tomorrow, you need never fear it again; but you should face it once before that happens. So you will know.
Gripping her parasol like a weapon, Cyma crossed the busy street and went inside.
The morning rush had ended; only two people stood in the queue ahead of her, and they made their purchases quickly. Far too soon, she reached the counter, and stood blinking at a posted sign full of names and numbers.
“Where are you going?” the fellow behind the counter asked, not bothering to hide his bored annoyance with her delay.
She must look like a country lady come to the city for the first time. Cyma sat on the impulse to tell the rude young man that she’d lived in London longer than his grandfather had been alive, and scanned the list of destinations. “Ah—Mansion House, please.”
“Single or return?”
Flustered, she asked, “What’s the difference?”
He looked as if she’d asked what the difference was between night and day. “Are you coming back to Paddington later today?”
“Oh—no, I only want to go to the City.”
“Single, then. First class? That’ll be a shilling.” He accepted the half-crown she gave him—a real coin for once, not faerie gold—and gave her a shilling and sixpence and a paper ticket in return. “Across the bridge to the opposite platform. First-class carriages are marked by a sign. Thank you.”
She was too unnerved by this entire experience to give him the set-down his rudeness deserved. Clutching her coins and ticket, parasol tucked under her arm, Cyma ventured deeper into the Praed Street station.
No amount of telling herself there was absolutely no danger would erase her fear. Iron, iron, everywhere she looked; iron fixtures for the gaslights, iron railings on the stairs, an iron bridge crossing over the iron tracks below. With tithed bread in her stomach, none of it could harm her directly, not unless she flung herself from the bridge as a train approached. But these were not the ordinary trains that had been around for ages; these ran underground.
These were the trains destroying the Onyx Hall.
She crossed the bridge with her breath held, and descended the stairs on the opposite side without touching the rail. People ranged themselves along the platform, with third-class undesirables at the far end; many read newspapers, hardly attending to their surroundings, as if this were nothing out of the ordinary. Cyma took a deep breath, grimacing at the damp, foul air, and tried to mimic their behavior.
An attempt that failed the moment she heard the rumble of an approaching train. I will hold my ground, Cyma thought, even as the platform began to tremble beneath her feet—but her nerve broke the moment the engine came thundering into the station.
It might have been some terrible black beast out of legend, belching steam and smoke, its wheels screeching along the rails like the cry of a great raptor stooping for the kill. An enormous weight of iron, moving as if it were alive, radiating the heat of Hell itself—Cyma’s hands ached, and she realized she was pressing them flat against the wall, in the arched brick alcove where she’d instinctively retreated. The only thing preventing her from bolting for the stairs was the irrational, inarguable conviction that if she moved, the creature would see her.
“Are you all right, ma’am?”
For an instant, she thought it was Frederic Myers, come to save her from the beast. But no, it was some stranger, a different bearded gentleman from the one she knew; he stood a polite distance away with one hand outstretched in concern. Cyma opened her mouth to answer him, but nothing came out. Frowning, he stepped closer. “Shall I fetch you a doctor?”
“No! No, I—I—”
People were exiting the carriages, and those on the platform taking their places. It all happened in a rush—down at the third-class end some of the men were even shoving each other aside—as if there were no time to lose. The gentleman cast a brief glance over his shoulder, then clearly abandoned his intention to get on the train. “Come, have a seat on this bench, and I will fetch you a drink.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Cyma said, in something like better spirits, though she allowed him to guide her to the bench. “I’m afraid I just came over faint.” She clamped her jaw shut on anything else she might have said when another gust of steam burst from the train. With a ponderous clanking, its wheels began to turn once more, and the carriages rolled with increasing speed into the waiting tunnel.
The noise precluded conversation; the gentleman waited until it was gone, then said, “It is a common affliction, I fear. The Metropolitan Railway Company insists the air here is very healthful, especially for asthmatics, but I cannot imagine it is so. I take it you have not ridden the Underground before?”
Would you ride something that was trying to destroy you? But that was untrue; trying implied will. The terrifying thing about the trains was that they were not beasts. A creature out of legend could be fought, bargained with, controlled; this was mindless. A machine, doing that for which its maker had built it, without thought or desire. The true problem was people: the men of the railway companies, who had designed such a thing, and the millions that thronged London, making the thing itself necessary—none of them with any notion as to the damage wrought by their iron demon. And she had come here to face it of her own free will. For reasons she could not, at this instant, recall.
She hadn’t answered the gentleman. “I have not,” Cyma said. “In truth, I have a—a phobia of such things, which I thought to conquer by coming here.”
“Alone? I cannot think that wise. If you will permit me, I would be more than happy to accompany you to your destination. You may grip my hand if you become frightened, and if at any point you feel you cannot continue, I will guide you out at the next station.”
A wash of gratitude swept over her. Her glamour was of a woman more than old enough to be married, and therefore to venture out without a companion, but it had indeed been foolish to come here alone. She had enough bread to spare a piece for some other faerie—if she could have found one willing to set foot in this place.
It wasn’t long before the next train came. This time Cyma was prepared, and she had her companion to steady her; he guided her into a first-class carriage, and they found a pair of leather-upholstered seats next to one another. Cyma couldn’t help but exclaim in relief when she saw there were gaslights hanging from the polished wooden ceiling, bright enough that a man might read by them. “Yes, they are a necessity,” the gentleman said. He’d introduced himself as Mr. Harding, and she’d given her name as Mrs. Campbell. “No one would travel underground if they were forced to do so in darkness.”
Even in the Onyx Hall, where goblins and other creatures of shadow made their home, that was often true. Cyma held her breath again as the train lurched into motion.