Here he found the word aether, both underlined and circled.
Aether. Myers straightened up, staggering as his legs protested; he did not know how long he’d been crouched by that pile, but it hardly mattered. He unlocked a drawer in his desk and pulled out the books Fjothar had given him. Aether, according to An Explanation of Alchemical Principles, was the defining characteristic of faerie spaces; it was the fifth of their elements, after the classical four.
Fascinating material—and he did not remember writing a single word of it.
Nebulous dread tightened his throat. This was no mere absentmindedness; it was an entire branch of research he had undertaken—on the topic of faeries!—and yet he’d forgotten it completely. Were it not for Sidgwick’s comments at that séance, he might even believe these notes had come from someone else’s pen, and dismissed the similarity of handwriting as mere coincidence.
Eveleen would not like him going back to London so soon, but he had to ask the Goodemeades what this meant. Myers was accustomed to wondering if he was going mad—he feared he had for a short time, after Annie died—but this was unlike anything he’d felt before, a growing, clawing fear, as if someone had stolen part of his mind while he wasn’t looking. Eveleen could not help him with that. Everything he needed lay in London, and he could not endure the thought of delay.
Cromwell Road, South Kensington: August 13, 1884
Louisa began to suspect she had been rather too liberal in her use of charms upon Frederic Myers when he showed up at Cromwell Road, the day before the Kittering family was due to leave.
Or rather, two members of the Kittering family, and a selection of their servants. She had not the faintest intention of going with them. There had been entertainment in spurning every potential suitor Mrs. Kittering brought forward, but now those revels had ended; it would be the countryside after this, tedium without end, and that held no interest for Louisa. Her plan was to part company with them at the train station tomorrow, in such fashion as to ensure they didn’t notice her absence until they arrived in Bath. That would give her plenty of time in which to vanish for good.
What she would do after that, she had not decided; and then Frederic Myers showed up at her door.
Mr. Warren did not want to let him in; the argument echoed down the corridor and into the morning room where Louisa sat with her toast. She went out, saw Myers, and swept forward to intervene. Distracting the butler, she dragged Myers into the unoccupied dining room, where the chairs and table had already been covered with sheets against dust. “What are you doing?” she whispered, a seed of alarm taking shape beneath her delighted surprise at seeing him. “A married man cannot call upon an unmarried lady, Mr. Myers, not in such a manner—”
“Louisa,” he said, and she nearly jumped from her skin. A married man should certainly not call an unmarried lady by her given name—not in that tone of voice. “I have discovered the strangest thing—”
What had been a mere seed of alarm grew, within seconds, to become a strangling vine, cutting off her air. The problem of his affection for her paled into insignificance next to this: that Myers had discovered the gap in his memories, the ideas Nadrett had stolen from him.
How could she have forgotten it herself? She had known, ever since that séance back in April; and she had known then that she ought to stay away from Frederic Myers. But then she’d taken on this name, this life, and then…
Horror had drowned out the words coming from his mouth, until she heard him say “Goodemeades.” Louisa came back to herself with a jolt. “They have another society, you see,” he was telling her, the words tumbling over one another. “I should not tell you too much of it—I should ask their permission before I do—but I suspect they may know something of these ideas, and be able to help me—”
“You aren’t going to tell them!” she said, panic clutching her tight.
He blinked at her in confusion. “I am on my way there right now, only I had to stop and see you.”
Out in the entrance hall, she could hear Mrs. Kittering’s strident voice. Moving swiftly, Louisa wedged a chair under the dining room door so it would not open. Then she turned back to Myers, and took him by the arms.
She was no prophet, but she could see this future clearly enough. If he went to the Goodemeades and told them of the notebook, they would investigate, and that would draw Nadrett’s attention. He would not like anyone looking into his secrets. What he would do to the brownies, she couldn’t say—they had survived plenty of danger in the past—but the mortal man standing before her was all too fragile. Nadrett would either claim him once more… or dispose of him entirely.
And she could not let that happen.
The doorknob rattled, and Mrs. Kittering, thinking it locked, demanded the key from Mr. Warren. There was no time for subtlety, such as she had employed in the past—or thought she had; Louisa rose onto her toes and kissed Frederic Myers hard on the lips, willing him to love her.
As she loved him back.
Pulling back just far enough to look him in the eyes, she said, “Frederic, you must listen to me. What you have there is dangerous; you must not tell anyone of it. Do you understand? Your only safety lies in fleeing. We will go together, my love; I cannot be parted from you. Do not go to Islington, and do not go back to Cambridge; they will find you there. I will meet you in Hyde Park tonight, by the Serpentine, where we walked before. At midnight. We will hide until we can go away together, and find some place we can be happy. Please, my love, promise me—”
My love. Words she had spoken many times, as Annie Marshall, as the countless other women she pretended to be, through the long ages of toying with humans. She had never meant them before. Fae did not love, not unless they chose to—not as humans did. Passion could not sweep them away; devotion could not creep into their hearts unnoticed. And so the new Louisa Kittering had told herself that what she felt for Frederic Myers was only a rebirth of her early fascination.
She had not realized that a changeling’s heart did not lie wholly under her control.
Now he loved her back, as fully as she did him. Frederic wrapped his arms about her and crushed her mouth to his own, kissing her with all the blind passion faerie enchantment could create, until Mr. Warren managed to force the door open, and they were dragged apart. Then there was shouting and crying, accusations and threats of arrest, and too many people for Louisa to charm into cooperative indifference—but they could not hold her, not if she was determined to get away. Tonight she would go to Frederic, and together they would find a way to escape Nadrett forever.
East End, London: August 14, 1884