“You broke into my chambers, Dead Rick. Quite aside from my feelings on that matter, Nadrett will expect to hear you were punished for it.” Aspell ran the tip of his tongue over his lips, considering. “You did not make it very far, I suppose. A simple beating should suffice.”
It could have been worse. Dead Rick nodded, and at some unseen cue the door opened, revealing Greymalkin on the far side. She was a slender thing, but wiry, and her claws were wickedly sharp. Could ’ave been worse—could ’ave been Orlegg—but this won’t be good.
“Take him outside first,” Aspell instructed the waiting faerie. “I don’t want blood on my carpet.”
Cromwell Road, South Kensington: May 27, 1884
In the aftermath of Lucy’s sacking, Ann Wick quit, and Eliza was promoted to the position of upper-housemaid, with her pay increased to a full five shillings a week. She spent most of the additional money on coffee: Mrs. Kittering could not find a lady’s maid who satisfied her, relying instead on Eliza’s clumsy hands, while the new under-housemaid, Mary Banning, was lazy and slow and drank Cook’s sherry when she thought no one would notice. Which meant that Eliza was worked so hard, she could scarcely drag herself out of bed in the mornings. Exhaustion rendered her nerves uncertain; one harsh word from Mrs. Fowler could make her angry enough to murder the housekeeper, or put her on the brink of tears.
The thought of confronting the faerie—even with trickery—terrified her nearly into paralysis. Once taken, such a step could not be called back; the faerie would know that she knew, and what little safety Eliza had would be gone. Then there would be only two paths before her: get Louisa Kittering back, or flee. And it might be that neither one would save her from the faerie’s revenge.
Failure wasn’t the most frightening thought, though. The prospect of success was far, far worse.
Say it tells you what you want to know, Eliza thought, while changing the linens on Mrs. Kittering’s bed one afternoon. Say it confesses, Yes, we steal humans away, and tells you where to find them. Miss Kittering, and Owen, and even Eliza Carter of West Ham, whose sister told you she was so afraid of “them” before she vanished. Then what?
For seven years she’d dreamt of rescuing Owen. With the moment possibly at hand, though, Eliza was learning how little of a hero she was.
It had been easy to pretend, before. When it was a matter of spying on people, and skulking about, and lying. Now the time had come to act directly, though, and the fear gripping her heart made her wonder: Was it really true that she couldn’t act before? All these months since Charing Cross, when she’d had the courage to throw a bomb out the back of a train, but not to catch the creatures who put it there. The six long years before that, when she gave up on searching, telling herself she didn’t know what to do. Keeping herself safe, at every turn.
And all the while, Owen paid the price of her cowardice.
In the middle of opening the curtains in Louisa Kittering’s bedroom the next morning, Eliza’s nerve broke. She looked out onto Queensberry Place, and for an instant she could feel the cobblestones beneath her feet, pounding against her heels as she fled back to Whitechapel. Not to safety, but the relief of failure, of giving up and trying no more.
Under her breath, she snarled, “No.”
Eliza spun, putting the street at her back, and looked toward the bed. The changeling slept there, innocent and false, one hand dangling over the mattress’s edge. Vulnerable—but one cry would bring the other servants running. Instead Eliza took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and picked up a chair.
She didn’t attempt to be quiet. Mary Banning would be dawdling over the grates in the morning room still, and Mrs. Fowler discussing the plans for dinner with Cook; Louisa’s bedroom was three floors up from where any other servants were likely to be. The only person Eliza was likely to wake was the changeling, and that was exactly what she wanted.
It took less than a minute for the creature to stir and sit up in bed. Where a human might have yawned or rubbed blearily at her eyes, the faerie looked perfectly alert—and then perfectly confused. “What are you doing?”
“Dancing your furniture,” Eliza said. Her breath came in short pants, and her arms were already tiring; Louisa’s chairs, like everything else in the house, were the pinnacle of conventional fashion, which meant heavy and well upholstered. “I’m sorry for waking you—please don’t tell Mrs. Fowler—should have done this yesterday. Has to be done every month, you see.”
The changeling stared as she completed one last, lurching turn and set the chair down. Casting about for something lighter, Eliza decided on a small table, and shifted a potted plant off it into the washbasin.
“Dancing… my furniture,” the faerie repeated, watching her maid begin a second bad waltz about the room.
“Yes!” Whelan’s half-remembered story had involved the mother cooking something strange, but the changeling would never have reason to come down to the kitchen. Eliza had thought of several possibilities; this had been the most immediate to hand.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the faerie’s mouth open and close, and her head wag slightly in denial. Say it, Eliza thought, barely keeping the growl behind her teeth. Tell me how old you are, what strange things you’ve seen, but this the strangest of all. Admit what you are. Say it!
“Are you drunk?”
Eliza stumbled, lost her balance, nearly fell into the wall. “What?”
The young woman’s mouth pressed tight. The way she drew her shoulders back was a perfect echo of Mrs. Kittering in a ferment of disdain. “Put that table down this instant, back where it belongs—and then get out. We do not tolerate drunken servants in this house.”
“But—”
She didn’t even know what would have followed that protest. It hardly mattered, though, for the girl smacked one hand against the bedclothes, cutting her off. “Did you not hear me? I said get out!”
Hands cold and shaking, Eliza did as she was told. Table replaced, and the potted plant atop it; then she curtsied like some streetside entertainer’s clockwork automaton and slipped from the room, closing the door behind her. After one frozen instant of staring into the hallway mirror, she fled to the refuge of the servants’ staircase.
She made it halfway up the narrow steps before sinking into a trembling heap. Saints preserve me…
I failed.
Because her effort hadn’t been good enough? Or because she was wrong—and there was no faerie?
The plain, white-painted boards of the wall swam in Eliza’s vision. What evidence had she, that the young woman in that bed was not Louisa Kittering?
Changes in her behavior. An interest in unladylike things. And that brief flinch, weeks ago, when Eliza spoke of the Blessed Virgin.
A flinch only. Shouldn’t there have been more, if the creature truly was a faerie? And the other things could be explained away; after all, Miss Kittering had always had unladylike interests. She might simply be kicking harder than ever against her mother’s control.
The rest could be explained by Eliza’s own fears.
And what of Owen…?
Eliza slammed her fist down onto the step, hard enough to bruise. No. That was no trick of her imagination. Whatever Maggie Darragh thought, that faerie was real; Eliza had seen him often enough to know.