Bones and Ashes Page 18

  She turned back to the mirror. The girl had a ball of fire in her hand. She smiled at Raiden as she walked over to the bed, humming softly. The girl trailed her hand across the bed, setting the covers on fire. Raiden turned to see the covers on her own bed on fire. She watched the flames spreading, unable to move. This was how her mother had died.

  She remembered what Miss Radbone had said; “If she can see you, she can hurt you.” She didn’t rush to the bed; instead she grabbed the cover and threw it over the mirror, cutting the girl off. She pulled the burning covers off the bed and threw them onto the floor. She stamped and beat at the flames until they were all out.

  Coughing from the smoke, she stumbled to the window and fumbled with the latch. She threw it open and gulped in the clean night air. There was a large black scorch mark on the floorboards and black charred bits of fabric floated down to the floor. She had always been afraid of fire, but she wasn’t dead. She was still alive. Her mother hadn’t been so lucky. Raiden closed her eyes. The lady in the mirror had killed her mother. The Duke was connected somehow. He must be. He’d had Matherson’s body destroyed and he had gone to the boarding house. She had always thought once she knew the truth it would make her mother’s death easier to bear, but she didn’t feel any different.

  The imp had disappeared, leaving the key on the floor. With shaking hands, she picked it up and unlocked the door. She slipped into Cassade’s room. Cassade was asleep, snoring softly, oblivious to what had happened in the room next door. Raiden eased herself down next to her and curled up on the edge of the bed, still fully dressed. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself. She lay there awake, to wait until morning.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When the sun finally rose, Raiden slipped from the bed back to her own room, leaving Cassade still sleeping. She had spent the night awake, waiting for dawn, too afraid to sleep. She stepped over the burnt bedspread that lay in a blackened heap on the floor. The air was still thick with the smell of smoke.

  A scratching noise came from beneath her bed. She froze. She knelt down slowly and peered under. A small, familiar green shape crouched there.

  Deg emerged cautiously, watching for her reaction. “Deg baad. Deg cum back. Deg sorrey.”

  Raiden bit her lip to try and hold back the tears that suddenly threatened her. “It’s all right, Deg. I’m glad you came back.”

  She stripped down to her petticoats and went to the bathroom to wash the grime from her face and hands. She didn’t put on the grey day dress that she usually wore to class; instead she pulled on a black hooded dress and tied the pouches of bones and ashes at her waist. She opened Marielle’s pouch and took out the amulet. She hung the chain over her neck and tucked the amulet out of sight in her bodice. She scribbled a note to Cassade explaining she’d had to go out and asking her to tell Mrs Lynch she was ill and then she buttoned up her thick black coat and grabbed her gloves and hat.

  Deg watched her from her dressing table. “I think I might need your help, Deg,” she said. He leapt eagerly down and followed her from the room. She slipped the letter under Cassade’s door as she passed. She would see it when she woke.

  In the sitting room, Peters had brought them up breakfast. Raiden gulped down some tea and forced food into her mouth. She chewed and swallowed, not registering what she was eating. Her grandmother had said not to get involved, but she was tired of being lied to.

  She would find out who the lady in the mirror was, and then she would get to Aren before he went to see Matherson and together, they would take the amulet to Xan. He would know what to do with it. She swallowed the rest of her tea and rose. She picked Deg up and set him on her shoulder.

  Raiden slipped down the stairs, past Blaize’s floor, down the main staircase. The school was quiet; it was just beginning to stir. Outside, the air was grey and thick with fog. A single griffin circled overhead in the bleak sky.

  Tobin waited with her carriage. He opened the door as she came down the steps. She stopped and looked back at the school. It would be so easy to go back inside. She could join Cassade for breakfast. No one would know she had left. She could forget about all of this.

  “Come on, Deg.” She climbed into the carriage.

  ****

  The carriage pulled up outside the British Museum. The outer façade of the museum was built in a classical design, reminiscent of a Greek temple. Thick, once white columns supported a pediment carved with figures.

  “Bring one of them to me,” she said to Peters, who sat across from her.

  He nodded and stepped through the wall of the carriage. Raiden twined the ribbons of her reticule around her fingers as she waited for him to return. Deg sat perched on her shoulder, his tiny hands gripping her coat to keep his balance.

  Peters materialised across from her. He wasn’t alone. His hand was clamped around the wrist of a pale young woman. She wore a cream, high-waisted dress that had been in fashion during the Napoleonic wars. Her brown hair was curled into ringlets and threaded with ribbons. She was pale, but then she would be pale. She was a ghost.

  “What do you want from me?” the ghost asked. Fear filled her voice. The ghost wasn’t forbidden to speak like the ghosts that served Raiden’s family.

  “I need your help,” Raiden said. “Do you know who my family are?”

  The ghost nodded. “You’re a Feralis.” She said the last word in a whisper.

  Raiden didn’t have her bones or ashes. She had no way to control her, and yet the ghost still feared her family.

  “Are you familiar with the museum?” Raiden asked.

  “I’m bound to it. I know every corner of it.”

  “I need access to the records listing the names of the people imprisoned in mirrors by the Inquisition. Do you know where they’re kept?”

  The ghost hesitated. “They’re not kept in the reading rooms. They’re in a separate room that’s kept locked. I don’t have a key. Only the principle librarian has one.”

  “I don’t need a key. I just need you to show me where they’re kept.”

  A look of terror filled the ghost’s eyes. “I can’t. What if the Inquisition find out?”

  “You’re a ghost. They can’t harm you.”

  The ghost wrung her hands together. “Ghosts have been disappearing. No one knows what happened to them. There are rumours the Inquisition has found a way to hurt us.”

  Aren had said ghosts had been disappearing as well, while Miss Rudge had said the Inquisition had been experimenting with the effect of electricity on the dead. She wondered if the two were connected. “You don’t have to stay. I just need you to show me where the records are kept, and then you can leave.”

  “You’re a Feralis. I don’t have a choice.” The ghost smiled bitterly. “We do as you command. The Inquisition will find out what I’ve done and they will punish me, but it doesn’t matter. I will obey. You will tell the Grey Lady I did as you asked?”

  “I’ll tell her,” Raiden said.

  The ghost nodded. “Meet me inside.” She faded away.

  Peters watched the scene, his lips pressed together. She didn’t need him to speak to know he disapproved of what she was about to do. “You can wait here,” she said to him. She reached across and squeezed his hand before she got out of the carriage. She went up the steps into the museum. Deg was a reassuring weight on her shoulder.

  The ghost waited for her inside. Raiden followed her through a maze of rooms filled with statues and artifacts from the great demon empires. A crowd was gathered around the Rosetta stone. The stone had allowed Demonic to finally be deciphered.

  Eventually, the ghost stopped before a door. “It’s through there,” she said in a whisper.

  Raiden set Deg down on the floor. He disappeared. There was a click on the other side and the door opened. She quickly stepped inside and shut it behind her.

  Bookcases rose to the ceiling. Stacks of musty documents were piled up on tables that lined the room. The heavy velvet curtains were half closed to pro
tect the fragile documents from the sunlight. Above the fireplace was a portrait of a group of eight skeletons, all wearing red robes, gathered around a table. The date 1558 had been painted in the corner. One of the skeletons made her pause. It had glass blue eyes in its eye sockets. All skeletons looked alike, but she was sure it was Xan.

  “Quickly,” the ghost said. “There isn’t much time.” She pulled out two huge books from a shelf and carried them to a reading table. “What you’re looking for should be in here.” The ghost set the heavy books down with a thud. She opened the first. “This book lists all the mirrors. There are pictures so you can identify them. The list of their occupants is in the second book.”

  The ghost left her. Raiden stripped off her gloves and carefully opened the first book. On each page was the silhouette of a mirror and a number. Every mirror was slightly different; some were tall and narrow, others small and round. They were numbered from one to one hundred and fifty. The mirror at Matherson’s house had curved outwards in the middle before narrowing. She found the shape of Miss Radbone’s mirror, but there was no time to look up her crime. Mirror number seventy one matched the shape of the broken mirror. She quickly opened the second book and leafed through until she came to the page listing the occupants. Number seventy one was listed as unoccupied. Its last occupant had been in the 1820’s. This couldn’t be right. Only the Inquisition could imprison someone within a mirror and these were their official records. Unless her imprisonment wasn’t official. The lady in the mirror had never been tried for her crime.

  She heard voices approaching. She slid the heavy books back onto the shelf. There was no time to get out. She crawled under a reading table and pressed herself into the corner. Deg crouched next to her. The voices became louder as a door opened.

  “Bryce is sending back his finds from the dig. There are several items that may be of interest to us.” She had a brief glimpse of two pairs of shoes as two men walked passed. Raiden risked peeking out to get a better look. They weren’t men; they were both skeletons. One wore the black robes of an interrogator, but the other wore red robes like the skeletons in the painting above the fireplace. Red robes were worn by the most senior members of the Inquisition. He wasn’t an interrogator; he was an inquisitor.

  Raiden closed her eyes, too afraid to breathe in case she was caught. The Inquisition were against the dead, and yet some of their members were dead themselves. She risked stealing another glance. As she looked out, the red robed skeleton seemed to stare at the very spot where she was hidden, although with no eyes it was difficult to tell exactly where he was looking. She clenched her hands together - her bare hands. She realised what he was staring at. She had left her gloves on the table.

  The door opened and shut and their voices faded away. Raiden waited for several minutes and then crawled out. She pulled on her gloves as she hurried to the door. Deg clung to her shoulder like a monkey. She opened the door. The red robed skeleton stood outside. He appeared to have been waiting for her. Raiden backed away as he entered the room.

  “I wasn’t aware anyone had access to these rooms,” he said.

  “The door was ajar, so I came in. I didn’t realise it was out of bounds.” She tried to keep the fear out of her voice as she spoke.

  “I see.” He peered down at Deg perched on her shoulder. “You do know imps are forbidden. A licence is needed to keep them.”

  “Go home, Deg,” she whispered. Deg immediately vanished.

  The skeleton strode to the bookcase and pulled out the book she had been reading. He flicked through it, somehow coming to the exact page she had been looking at. “Why would you be interested in magic mirrors?” She jumped as he snapped the book shut.

  “I’m not. I chose it randomly.”

  The empty space in his eye sockets were pools of darkness. She wished he had glass eyes like Xan. It would make him seem less sinister. “I will have to make a record about this infringement.” He smiled. “As you are so interested in magic mirrors, perhaps you would like to see inside one?”

  A chill ran down her arms. He wanted to frighten her. “I have to get back to school.”

  “Of course.” He held the door open for her. “Perhaps next time you will be more careful, Lady Feralis.”

  He knew who she was. As she left the room, she kept her pace normal. She didn’t want to show him how badly he had frightened her. She looked back to find the skeleton still watching her. She shuddered and quickened her pace.

  As she emerged from the museum, she trailed to a stop. Tobin wasn’t where she had left him. There was another carriage waiting; it had no windows and it was pulled by four horses that didn’t move. They stood still as if frozen or dead.

  It was the same carriage that had been outside the boarding house.

  The driver was stroking the nose of one of the horses. He wore a shabby brown coat, tied at his waist with a piece of rope. His filthy brown hair was crawling with lice. His left arm was longer and thicker than the other. It was not his original arm. He was a zombie; his left arm had been replaced. He was also missing both his eyes. There was just a hole where they should have been. He let go of the bridle when he saw her and began ambling over.

  He was a zombie, but he didn’t walk like a zombie. Zombies dragged their legs. He must have had his spirit put back in his body like Xan, although his flesh hadn’t been removed.

  He stopped before her. He would have looked at her if he’d had any eyes. “My master wants to speak to you,” he said, his voice raspy. A maggot wriggled out of his eye socket and fell to the ground. He gestured toward the carriage. “He told me to bring you to him.”

  “Who is your master?” Raiden asked. While she was speaking, she loosened the strings of the pouch containing Tobin’s ashes that was tied at her waist, and stirred the ashes inside.

  “He sent the carriage for you.”

  “Who is he? What does he want?” She looked around for Tobin, but he hadn’t appeared. She stirred his ashes again.

  “He said I was to bring you to him.” He ambled toward her. She backed away.

  She tried Peters and Marielle’s remains, but they didn’t materialize either. The strange man was still advancing. She realised they weren’t coming. Her grandmother had warned her she would take her ghosts away if she left the school without her permission. Her ghosts were gone. Raiden turned and ran.

  Chapter Sixteen

  She kept to the road. Tobin wasn’t coming. He had never failed to come to her before. She had to get back to the school somehow, but she had no money to hire a hansom cab and to walk back across London would take all day. Without Tobin, she didn’t even know the way.

  A carriage pulled by four white unicorns came down the street. The unicorns had blue feather plumes on their heads and elaborate silver harnesses with tiny bells. Their manes and tails had been allowed to grow long. They swept the floor and yet somehow they avoided picking up any of the filth. The carriage pulled to a stop. As she walked past, the door opened.

  “Lady Feralis,” came a voice from inside.

  She kept walking. The carriage drew abreast with her, the door still open. The carriage pulled by the zombie horses came round the corner, heading toward her. There was nowhere to hide.

  “Lady Feralis, may I offer you a lift?”

  Inside she could see two empty seats, but she couldn’t see who had spoken. The other carriage was coming closer. She could see the rotting flesh on the dead horses.

  She climbed in.

  The door shut behind her. She looked around, but the carriage was empty; there was no one there. She went to sit down.

  “I offered you a lift. I don’t believe I mentioned anything about sitting on me.”

  She jumped up and spun around. A fairy sat on the seat, his back against the cushions. It was the fairy from the theatre who had been so rude to her. The seat dwarfed his tiny body; no wonder she hadn’t noticed him. Prince Valerian was dressed impeccably in a black suit, one leg casually crossed over the other.
His wings were tinted black and his black hair was slicked down under his top hat. He would have been handsome by human standards were it not for his eerie orange eyes and his long pointed ears that marked him as one of the demon races.

  The carriage began to move. She sat down on the seat facing him. Her grandmother had said to stay away from him. Fairies were dangerous. They wouldn't do something without wanting something in return.

  “Where to?” he asked.

  She hesitated. If he took her back to school would that mean she was indebted to him? He could ask for anything in return. She had once heard a story of a fairy that had helped a farmer. He had fixed a wheel on his cart. In return, the fairy had asked for the farmer’s child. The farmer had refused. He lost everything, including his wife and all his livestock. In the end, he had given the fairy the child.

  “What will it cost me?” she asked.

  He met her gaze. “I want nothing in return.”

  She didn’t believe he didn’t mean to trick her in some way. “Smallpeace, Dawes and Pumprey, the solicitors.”

  He arched a slender black brow, but made no comment about her choice of destination.

  He settled back against the seat. “Something you have is of interest to me.” She looked at him blankly. “The amulet,” he prompted.

  “Amulet?” she said, conscious of the heavy chain around her neck.

  “The amulet is mine. I purchased it from the previous owner, but he died before I could collect it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know you are lying. You cannot lie to my kind.”

  Raiden frowned. “I thought it was you that couldn’t lie.”