Phoebe’s words come ringing back to me. Am I supposed to kill him?
This is the best chance I’ll get, and he deserves it. Another blow or two from the marble bust would do it. Or he must have a pistol stowed somewhere in the room.
I look down at the bust and then back at Curram, and my heart beats faster than ever. It would be quick, easy, says a voice in my head. Zachariah Curram, dead and gone forever. I pick up the bust and take a deep breath, holding it above my head. He’s lying right there. I should just do it.
But my hands shake and I put the bust back down. I can’t. I can’t smash it against his skull and run, covered in his blood. I’m not a murderer. I’m a girl who escaped one, who’s trying to get back to the people she loves. That’s all I know how to be. That’s all I want to be.
I slip through the door into the bathroom. The bathtub is empty now, and the room is silent. It’s eerie. One of the wardrobes houses Curram’s own clothes, and the next, frilly things like I’m dressed in. The last holds women’s clothing too practical to have been meant for the girls he buys; I suspect they belong to his wife. I rifle through them and find a plain blue dress that is similar enough in color to what the servants wear to pass as a disguise if necessary. It fits me well enough to be unnerving; I hate to think that his wife and I are similar in size, and I wonder where she is. I tie my hair back into a neat bun and pull on the most sensible shoes to be found, plain brown leather with laces up the top.
Eugenia’s ribbon, I realize with a pang, was taken with my old clothes.
Curram himself has plenty in the way of fine clothing; I force myself to sort through it until I find a coat that I think will fit Des. The corridor is quiet, but I feel in the bottom of my stomach that it will be now, when everything is going well, that I’ll be discovered. I step haltingly toward the stairs, waiting for Boyne to appear, or a pair of guards, or the woman who was sorry but wouldn’t say so.
But I reach the bottom unseen. The sky is fully dark, but it’s still strange to find the house so quiet. Have the servants all gone home, or to their quarters? Perhaps the household staff know to keep to themselves on the nights that Curram is occupied.
My arms are quickly tired out, and I can’t believe how weak I’ve become. But it’s easier than I dared hope to find my way along the corridors I came through before. I pass the library and wonder how long it would take me to read all of the books inside, but it isn’t books I want right now. And it certainly isn’t Curram’s books.
It’s my freedom. It’s reaching the door to the cellar and collecting my friends and stumbling our way out of here, away from this mansion and the vile people who inhabit it.
It’s fresh air and the stars and the smell of summer sunlight in the afternoon, and the feeling of hot cobblestones under my feet.
And more than anything, it’s Tam.
It’s time to find him.
sixteen
I’m certain the corridor is longer this time. Was it only an hour ago that I walked it first? Two? The door at the end is not locked; I assume Robbie is supposed to see to that when he leaves for the night.
But the second after I cross the threshold onto the landing that overlooks our cells, I back against the wall, my breathing ragged. Directly beneath me is the bench where Dunbar and Robbie sat, empty now. Half a dozen feet in front of it, the grating of the first cell is visible. I don’t want to go down. I don’t want to go back to the darkness. The smell of mildew and refuse snake upward and around me, choking me. My body locks up. If I go down, will I ever come up again? Escape through the house sounds better all of a sudden. I need to get back out.
Tam. It’s a step toward Tam, I tell myself. I close my eyes and step onto the first stair. Another shaky step and then another, until I reach the ground. It’s dark down here; Robbie’s lantern is gone, and maybe he is, too. Maybe they did it, beat him and got out. I take a breath and choke on the smell, and suddenly someone jostles into me, making me cry out.
“Oh, is that you?” snaps a sharp voice. Phoebe.
I exhale. “Yes. Don’t—” She steps on my foot, hard. “Careful, Phoebe! What are you trying to do?”
She doesn’t apologize. “I thought I heard someone. The others are just at the door now; they’ve got the lantern. I’ve got Robbie’s knife and the pointy things he was always carving.” She guffaws. “Haven’t had to run anyone through yet. I knocked the hell outta Robbie, though. That was a good time. He’s in Des’s cell now.” I imagine her eyes glowing at the thought of stabbing an intruder.
“I can’t believe it was so easy,” I say, my voice trembling. The razor, the blood, his weight on top of me, the heavy, insistent despair that it was all over. Easy is relative. But I know it could have been so much worse.
The blackness becomes total as we go on. My arms are still full, so I have no means of feeling my way along the corridor as I follow Phoebe toward the others. Finally we turn and I see a pinprick of light ahead of us. “Valentina? It’s safe!” Phoebe calls softly, and the glow explodes into brightness as a lantern is uncovered. I see the five other girls huddled together at the bottom of a worn set of stairs, Des crumpled up on the bottom step, and, beside him, Val with a lantern in her lap. Her face lights up when she sees us; she lurches to her feet and throws her arms around me, the lantern’s light bouncing here and there as it swings in her hand.
My achy body protests, but there’s something wonderful about being held. “What happened?” Valentina asks. Some of the others stand and we form a little group.
Phoebe crosses her arms over her chest. “Is the bastard dead, then?”
I shake my head, and she starts to protest. “I’ll explain it all once we’re out, all right?” I say. “It’s complicated.” Her mouth closes quickly, and I see her eyes flicking back the way we came, as if she’ll go back and slit his throat herself.
“Let’s leave this place,” says one of the girls, Marion, I think. I meet her eyes, dark and serious, and nod as we move toward the stairs. Jewel and Val carry Des between them, his arms wrapped about their shoulders. He seems only half conscious, and his back is still dark with dried blood.
Phoebe goes ahead with Robbie’s keys. At the top of the stairs, she fiddles with the lock. I’m tempted to sit on the ground while we wait, but I force myself to stand, to push my thoughts ahead of the situation. What if we’re caught now, so close to the end? What if someone finds Curram? How long does he usually spend with a girl? When will Boyne return for me? Finally the right key turns in the lock, the handle moves, and the door swings gently open. We all spill out the door, into the darkness, and for a second I forget to worry.
The dense, delicious air of summer nighttime surrounds and fills me. I’ve never tasted anything so wonderful, or seen anything as beautiful as the sky above me, rich and endless, full of too many stars to count. I’m vaguely aware of the other girls filing out behind me, of Val covering the lantern with something, of Phoebe standing beside me. We’re at the edge of the courtyard, in plain view if anyone happens to look.
But for a reckless moment I hardly care.
I tip my head back and turn around and around, trying to memorize the stars and count the number of crickets that are chirping, and wishing my lungs could take in more air. Did I take this all for granted, lying on my rooftop with Tam, laughing and thinking nothing of the sky except to sometimes search for constellations? He could never see them, no matter how many times I traced them with my fingers.
“How can you tell one from another?” he always asked with a scowl. And when I tried to explain that they were in patterns and some were brighter than others and that they told stories, he’d stare at me and then laugh in a bewildered sort of way and tell me I wasn’t like other girls.
I close my eyes and imagine that I’m stargazing now, with Tam; it’s easier t
o pretend he’s beside me when I’m not in a dungeon, with the threat of Zachariah Curram looming over me at every breath. The cobblestones are cold now, but I imagine how they were hot from the summer sun all day, just like the roof’s shingles were the last time I saw Tam. Was that only weeks ago?
“Isla,” says a voice, and it’s not Tam’s, and I have to wake up. All about me, the faces of my friends are ghostly in the moonlight. I remind myself that we could still lose our lives if we don’t make it out of the courtyard, and I feel foolish. “Are we going to climb the wall?” Phoebe asks quietly. I look about us, and my hopes fall. The wall reaches too high for us to climb, I think, and it’s too sheer. Phoebe continues. “Maybe we could steal a wagon and just ride out?”
Marion looks between us. “And tell them what, that we enjoyed our stay but we’d like to go now? He must have guards posted.”
“Just one.” Des’s voice comes out sounding strained. “I can do the talking.” I steal a worried glance at Phoebe, but she looks excited.
“Pretend to be drunk,” she whispers. “You know what to say to get through?”
I see a hint of a smile on his face. “Certainly.”
“Bring him somewhere dark,” I tell Caddy and Jewel, motioning to a corner that’s even more deeply shadowed than the rest of the courtyard. I pass the satchel I took from Curram’s room to Val, and the coat I found to Marion. “Put this on him. Phoebe and I will see about a wagon.”
They slip into the darkness, and the two of us creep along the courtyard wall, our footsteps as soft as possible. When we reach the next wall, we pause, and I hold my breath. I don’t feel very free, crouched in the shadows with baited breath. I can make out the gate just down the wall from us, and the chair where the guard is sitting. Behind us are the double doors of the garage, standing open just enough for us to squeeze inside one at a time.
While most people in the city travel on foot or by way of the cable trams, Curram has vehicles of every sort in his garage: a cart, a barouche, and even a pair of motorcars like I’ve seen in the newspapers. Pa told me that Nicholas Carr had been commissioning his own versions for years, though the man at the library desk said they couldn’t last the journey from one city to another. No one could tell me anything about how they worked.
I trail my fingers along the smooth metal side of one motorcar, pulling back the tarp and wishing I had time to study the machines and their mysteries for hours. If only this were another time, another place. If only they didn’t belong to Zachariah Curram.
“Looks like the stable is through there. You get the others, I’ll find a horse,” Phoebe says when we settle on a cart that will be large enough to hold all of us. It might be the same one in which we arrived.
I slip back outside and inch my way along the wall until I reach Valentina. We move in a slow line back to the garage, being especially careful with Des, who can hardly keep his head up.
When we’re all inside the garage, a few of us help Des onto the driver’s bench while Marion shows Phoebe how to harness the horse she found. The crates in the cart are empty, no doubt for show so Curram’s men can bring their special cargo in without too many questions. We arrange the crates randomly, more toward the front, and drape tarps over them as casually as we can manage, with enough space between that we’ll be able to hide beneath.
I’m anxious to move, afraid that we’re wasting seconds. When the horse is ready, I usher the other girls under the tarps. One by one we crawl into the tiny spaces, curling up to make room for each other. I quiet my breathing, pulling myself into a corner so that Caddy can press against me. Des sets the lantern on the bench next to him and Phoebe hauls open one of the garage doors before racing back to climb in with the rest of us.
Don’t let Boyne hear us, I pray silently as the cart rolls forward.
I’m jostled against the other girls, sweaty arms and legs pressed together like the first horrible night we were brought here. But this time we’re leaving. After a moment, I hear a confused-sounding voice asking what Des’s business is, leaving at such a time.
“Boyne—sorry, Mister Boyne,” Des drawls, while I imagine his head lolling to one side, “said I’m to head to the checkpoint”—he hiccups convincingly—“and wait for the next group. S’posed ta teach me a lesson, I’ll bet, since he says I’ve bin drinking, but”—another hiccup—“he’s full of shit, I’m sober as a straight … a straight…”
“Line,” finishes the guard, sounding irritated. “He sure he wants you seen like this?”
“Don’t know. Why don’t ya ask ’im yerself?”
“You turn that cart over on the side of the street and it’s not my fault,” says the guard. I hear the gate opening. Don’t let Boyne hear us, don’t let Boyne hear us. The thought falls into a rhythm with my breathing. “Just be careful with that horse, ya hear?”
“Course,” grunts Des as the cart begins to move again. Sweat clings to my forehead, sticks behind my ears. I don’t move. It feels so familiar, lying cramped in the bottom of this cart, even with half as many of us now. This time we stay quiet of our own accord, a different kind of fight to stay alive.
The clopping of the horse’s hooves on the cobblestone road seems slow beside my racing heart. I hear the gate shut behind us, but I can’t relax. Are we really free? Safe?
Someone will come, I’m sure. Boyne will sound the alarm just now, and guards will pour through the entryway and stop us. The sentry will suddenly recognize Des and realize his mistake. At any moment, everything will fall apart. Panic pushes at my insides.
Still, the horse’s hooves clack on.
“Val, Isla,” Des moans as the cart slows to a stop. I push the tarp off my head and see him slumped in the seat. Valentina and I climb forward to help him, pulling him up by either arm.
“You need to lie down,” she says. “I can’t believe you’ve made it this far.” I glance over my shoulder as we heft Des into the back of the cart, but I can’t see Curram’s manor. I never have to see it again.
When we’ve got Des laid out on top of the tarp, I strip off my shoes and jump to the ground, my toes curling against the cool stones of the street. The sky seems blacker, and the buildings that rise on both sides of the street where we’ve stopped stretch up to touch it, every window dark.
I’m really free. I want to believe it, but I still feel as if I’m surrounded by fog.
Phoebe stands beside me, staring at the sky, at the houses, at the ground. “I never want to stop moving again,” she says with a sigh, and I meet her gaze. Her eyes hold the same restlessness I feel. Without speaking, we agree, and then we’re running.
Bare feet slapping, pounding the cool ground, laughter tearing from our throats, though we know we should be quiet. My heart swells, my lungs stretch to bursting; we run, and we run, always at the same pace, so close our shoulders almost brush.
At the end of the block of houses, we stop, turn around, and glance at each other. And then she laughs and we surge forward again, and this time it’s like I’m flying. I could leave the ground behind; I could spread my arms and lift off. I’m running toward Tam, away from Curram. Toward freedom and independence and an exciting unknown. My ribs are as tight as a corset and my knees shake like jelly. But I’m alive.
I reach the place where the others stand by the cart and this time Phoebe is a moment behind me. When she stops and looks me over, her eyes are wide: surprised but approving. I can’t even choke out a word; my heart thunders against my ribs and my back is slick with sweat. I just laugh, a distorted, breathless sound, spinning around with my eyes on the stars above.
“You want to get us all killed?” Des groans from the cart, but he’s smiling.
Around me, everyone takes it in: Caddy clutches Jewel’s hand and Valentina cries giddy, happy tears of disbelief. Hanna sits in the back of the cart watching us all, beaming. Whatever little she knows of our speech, she understands freedom.
“I can find home,” she says in a thick, determined accent, sliding to
the ground. “Home is here, I can find.”
“You live in this city?” I ask, and she nods. “And you can find your way?” She seems smaller than ever, standing on the cobblestones in the little lace dress that still looks white in the deceptive moonlight.
“Will you be all right?” Valentina looks worried, but Hanna shrugs.
“Yes. Now I go home, I go to work. Not far.” She takes a step backward, looking between us and settling on me. “Thank you,” she says as she continues to walk backward. “Thank you for saving.” Finally she turns and disappears into the darkness. Is there anywhere safe in the city? I can’t trust anything anymore.
“Does anyone else want to go now?” I ask.
“But where are we going?” Marion looks between us. “No one’s said.”
Everyone is quiet a moment.
“Where are you planning to go?” Val asks me.
“I have to find someone. A soldier, he’s with the army. And I told Des I’d help him find his sister.” I sigh. “I had hoped something in his study would be helpful, but it’s mostly lists of arms deals that Curram made with someone called Alistair Swain. Doesn’t sound like anything that—”
“Alistair Swain?” Marion interrupts. In the dimness, her skin is so dark and smooth that it almost blends into the shadows. Her lacy blouse makes a stark contrast to the brown of her shoulders and throat, forming a pattern like an optical illusion from a magazine. “Are you sure? Curram sells weapons to Alistair Swain?”
“I don’t know who that is, but yes.”
She sits up straighter, her eyes wide. “But that’s where I’m going. To Eisendrath. That’s the rebellion.”
seventeen
“Rebellion?” several of us say at once. Des stirs.
“Have none of you heard?” Marion looks around at us. “Well, I guess that makes sense. I don’t know how much you know about Nicholas, but it all starts with him.”