Mirror, page 22
Her father hmm’d in reply and the glum little trio made their way into the study.
It was cold in the room and he knelt to start a fire.
“Well, at least we learned a few things,” Miss Ashcroft offered hopefully.
“That he’s more powerful than ever and might summon a demon from Hell to do his bidding?” Artemis flopped down into her father’s desk chair. “Hooray for us.”
Miss Ashcroft gave a delicate snort. “It’s not all that bad. We know more than we did yesterday. There must be some way to narrow things down.”
Her optimism was met with only silence. The sound of a match striking and flaring to life punctuated the quiet.
“Well,” Miss Ashcroft said, taking a seat in one of the large wingbacks, “we’re not beaten yet.”
Artemis wasn’t sure when Miss Ashcroft became part of their “we”. And she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about it.
Her father gave Miss Ashcroft a brief smile before poking at the growing fire.
Definitely not sure how she felt.
Artemis hated being idle. She wanted to do something. But what?
She spun herself back and forth slightly in the chair, turning in one direction and then back again. The rhythm of it helped her think. What did they know about Leroux?
He had a powerful scepter and quite probably a Gehenna Stone. He likely still had the witch, Cailleach, working for him and some sort of nefarious plan to bring something to life. But why? And what?
Mrs. Perry appeared in the doorway to the study, a tea tray in her hands. “I’ve put out some Ratafia biscuits and few Queen’s Drops. I know how you both like them.”
She glanced curiously at Miss Ashcroft. “Would you like me to pour?”
“No, thank you. I’ll do it.”
Mrs. Perry put the tray down and lingered for a moment, clearly intrigued by Miss Ashcroft’s presence.
Her father, who’d been standing by the mantel, realized his error. “I’m sorry. Miss Ashcroft, may I present Mrs. Perry.”
Mrs. Perry gave a small curtsy. “Pleased to meet you, miss.”
If Miss Ashcroft thought it odd to be introduced to a servant she gave no sign of it. “Very nice to meet you.”
Mrs. Perry looked pleased at her reception and offered Artemis’s father a look that said she approved then wiped her hands on her apron. “I’ll just be in the kitchen then.”
Once she left, Miss Ashcroft set about pouring the tea. “How do you take yours, Artemis?”
“Cream and two sugars, please.”
“Sweet tooth, eh? Doctor?”
He seemed almost embarrassed. “The same.”
She barely fought down her smile as she served tea.
Artemis got up to retrieve hers and carried it back over toward the desk.
“Don’t spill over there,” her father warned her as if she were six years old. “I have important papers.”
Artemis gave him a petulant look and scooped the closest pile up to move them aside. As she did, a thought began to inch its way into her consciousness. It was just a vague tickle of an idea at first, and she froze mid-movement so as not to distract.
“Artemis?”
She ignored him and tried to focus on the fragile thread she’d nearly had a grasp of now. The last time she sat in this chair she’d found the invitation from—
“Liam!” she exclaimed, putting the papers aside.
Nearly falling out of her chair, she reached down into the wastepaper basket.
“Are you quite all right?” her father asked, coming toward the desk.
She snatched the envelope out of the bin.
“Artemis?” He was looking at her like she’d gone mad.
She bubbled with excitement at the possibility of being able to do something other than worry.
“We don’t know what Leroux’s going to do,” she said.
His look of concern and confusion didn’t abate. “Yes, I think we’ve established that.”
“But we know what he wants.”
His gaze drifted the envelope her in her hand and then back to her face, understanding dawning. “Helen Quill.”
“She’s been keeping to herself, hasn’t she?” Miss Ashcroft asked, joining them at the desk.
“Except for tonight,” her father said. “Tonight she’s going out.”
Artemis held up the envelope. “And so are we.”
Her father’s smile matched her own now.
“I don’t understand,” Miss Ashcroft said.
“Lady Quill will be going to the Guy Fawkes celebration at Parliament tonight. And thanks to a certain … acquaintance of Artemis’s,” he said carefully, “we were also invited.”
“That doesn’t sound like a likely venue for an attack,” Miss Ashcroft offered.
“Or is it the perfect one?” he countered. “If all he wanted to do was hurt Lady Quill, he could have done it himself or sent his golem to do it. He didn’t. He chose something complicated and dramatic. And what could be more dramatic than attacking Parliament on Guy Fawkes Night?”
It is perfect, Artemis thought. There was no way he could resist that.
That meant they were going to a party hosted by the House of Lords. Her elation was short-lived as a sinking feeling came.
“There’s just one problem,” Artemis said, looking at her father quite seriously. “I don’t have anything to wear.”
He snorted.
Miss Ashcroft understood, though. “Surely, you have something.”
“My last fancy dress died a premature death.” Cut to blood-soaked ribbons by a shade’s iron chain, to be precise.
Miss Ashcroft looked to Artemis's father for clarification, but all he did was shrug and nod.
“Well, perhaps I can help you with that,” she said.
Artemis looked at him hopefully.
He tugged on his ear. “I suppose I’ll have to polish my shoes then.”
“And,” Miss Ashcroft added, a little less certain, “I’d like to help you with the rest of it. I’d like to go with you.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but—”
“You might need me. He has a witch,” she said with a small smile, “and it might be wise for you to have one, too.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Artemis said. “But I’m going alone.”
Her father laughed suddenly. “Like Hell you are.” He dipped his head in contrition toward Miss Ashcroft. “Pardon me. But no.”
Artemis stood firm. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
“Artemis—”
She moved away from his comforting touch. She’d been thinking a lot about this for the last few weeks. It was her duty, not his. She was the one with the powers, not him. He was so … vulnerable. They all were.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” she said, finally.
“Artemis. I appreciate that, but—”
“I brought Tommy along and he got hurt. I brought Phoebe along and she almost got hurt. I nearly stabbed you.”
Miss Ashcroft’s eyebrows rose so high into her forehead they nearly disappeared.
Her father was not put off, though, and took a few steps toward Artemis.
“I understand your concern.”
“Both you and Mr. Darvill were hurt at the museum. What if it had been worse?”
The truth of that suddenly struck her so hard the air left her body. “What if you’d been killed?”
He closed the distance between them, gently taking hold of her shoulders. “It’s always a risk, but one I’ll gladly take for you. Don’t you think I feel the same way every time you fight?”
She knew he did, but that didn’t make risking him any easier.
“I’ve told you before—we’re in this together, right?” he said.
She wanted to tell him that they weren’t, that she was the Blaze, but part of her didn’t want to do it alone. It was selfish, but true.
“And while there will be times when you must go it alone,” he added, clearly pained to admit that, “there are others when you must be ready to accept assistance, or even ask for it, Heaven forbid,” he said with a smile. “Knowing the difference between those is something that only comes with experience.”
When will I ever have enough of that?
He was right, though. Sometimes she did need help. She shouldn’t have brought Phoebe with her, but without Phoebe, she wouldn’t have known how to kill the Jabberwock. And it was same with Mr. Darvill. If he hadn’t told her about the paper inside the golem’s mouth, how could she possibly have defeated it?
“I think I understand,” she said.
“Besides,” he said, “I think an unaccompanied young girl might draw some attention, don’t you?”
True. Artemis might be able to get away with it at the park and only garner a few stares, but at a party with a heap of lords bustling about? Not likely.
“All right,” she said. “You can come.”
Her father was about to remind her who the parent was and who the child was when he saw the smile tugging at her lips.
“And me?” Miss Ashcroft asked.
She’d almost forgotten about her. “What does experience tell you?” she asked her father, turning his words back upon him, which clearly annoyed him, but he knew she was right.
“It tells me that we will need all the help we can get.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Are you sure?” Artemis asked. Again.
“Yes, you look lovely in it,” Miss Ashcroft said patiently. “Far better than I ever did.”
That was a bald-faced lie, but Artemis was too polite to say so. Besides, she was too pleased with the dress to argue and admired it once more.
Miss Ashcroft had taken one of her own dresses and magically altered it to fit Artemis. It was a pale gold satin gown overlaid with darker gold dotted-Swiss tulle, which was in turn decorated with Alençon lace. The elbow length tulle sleeves were ruched, peeping out from under a deeply scooped shawl collar. Within the U of the collar rested a bodice sewn of expensive Venetian lace. She claimed she never wore it anymore, but if Artemis owned it, she’d wear it down to breakfast, out to lunch, and positively everywhere she went.
As their carriage drove through the early evening, she was glad of the small wrap she’d lent her as well. It would be cold out on the terrace. Of course, if Leroux, or whatever he was summoning crashed the party, cold shoulders would be the last thing on her mind. But as it was, as they approached the Palace at Westminster, all Artemis could think about was a certain someone else in attendance.
This would be the first she’d see of Liam Parker since he took her heart out for a good stomping. She was determined not to let it show. He didn’t deserve the satisfaction of knowing how much he’d hurt her.
Tommy pulled the carriage to a stop in front of the palace. She’d been here before; well, she’d been by here before; she’d never actually set foot inside. And now that she was here, she was oddly intimidated. It was, after all, a royal residence.
She wasn’t sure if it was the imposing Gothic architecture with all of its pinnacles and spires and buttresses flying all over the place, or because it was the seat of practical power in England, power over the people; power over her. Or perhaps because it was full of crusty old lords like Lord Quill. Whatever the reason, she was apprehensive as she disembarked the large barouche carriage they’d rented to accommodate Miss Ashcroft.
It’s just a building, she told herself, and they are just men.
Surely, she could handle that. As if sensing her inner turmoil, Miss Ashcroft smiled encouragingly.
Right. She was the Blaze, after all. She could handle them and Liam Parker to boot!
“Stay nearby,” her father told Tommy as he cautiously looked around the old palace yard and across the dark street toward the Benedictine monastery of Westminster Abbey.
Artemis didn’t see anything particularly unusual other than an old dowager being virtually wedged out of her carriage by two footmen.
“Right you are,” Tommy said, giving the night the same watchful look her father had before pulling away to find somewhere to wait.
“Shall we?” her father asked, gesturing toward the entrance to the immense palace.
They showed their invitation at the door and were allowed inside. They climbed up a long set of broad steps into the lobby where signs directed them toward St. Stephen’s Hall.
The room was long and narrow with chandeliers hanging from the high arched ceiling at regular intervals above them. Statues of what Artemis guessed were famous parliamentarians stood between enormous mosaics that lined panels along each wall. Their footsteps echoed through the chamber as they headed for the central lobby.
It was a magnificent old building. Even if Artemis didn’t always appreciate everything that went on there, she could appreciate that. In many ways it represented the old way of doing things that she wanted so badly to change, but change came slowly in England. Sometimes glacially so. But she had faith that one day a woman would walk these halls, and not just as a visitor or as a guest, but as a member. She only hoped she lived long enough to see it.
Some sort of footman or something met them in the lobby and guided them through the maze of the palace, and down more long corridors and finally out onto the riverside terrace.
She had only seen it before from the bridge, and once from the river when she and her father had taken a boat up the Thames. It was very different up close. It was bigger than it had appeared from far away, and far more elegant. The outside terrace was a long broad promenade that ran nearly the length of Parliament. The party took up nearly half the length, with the rest blocked off. The terrace was currently adorned with decorations for Guy Fawkes Night. Although, what most of them had to do with the Gunpowder Plot, she wasn’t sure.
Just being here was enough, though. She knew what every English child knew about the thwarted attempt to blow up Parliament. Remember, remember! The Fifth of November ….
On this very night, almost three hundred years ago, Fawkes and a dozen other conspirators planted barrels of gunpowder beneath Parliament in a plan to assassinate King James I and kill most of the Protestant aristocracy of the time. Luckily, the plot was discovered—just in the nick of time— and the violence avoided. And ever since then the day had been commemorated with bonfires and fireworks, and even the burning of Fawkes in effigy. It was originally a very anti-Catholic sentiment, as provincial Catholics were behind the plan. But like nearly every other holiday, Halloween included, the religious nature of the event faded for most and it merely became an excuse to throw a rousing good party. And that, it seemed, was at the heart of where she currently stood.
There were only a few nods to the history of it all; the main purpose was the usual—to see and be seen. As one would expect from a party given by a bunch of lords, no expense was spared.
There were dozens of white linen-covered tables with elegant centerpieces, and several areas offered punch and other refreshments while waiters weaved their way through the growing crowd with trays of champagne. Along the long balustrade that separated the terrace from the river, tall torches burned in the night air, one of the few nods to the actual meaning of the day. There would be fireworks and bonfires all over the city. From the vantage point of the riverfront they would have the perfect view of it all. Unless, of course, Leroux planned to crash the party. In which case, there would be a different sort of fireworks.
Speaking of which … Artemis scanned the crowd for Lady Quill.
“Do you see her?” she asked.
Her father surveyed the guests. “Why don’t we walk through?”
The crowd was stretched out along the terrace and it was impossible to see everyone from where they stood at the southern end.
“Maybe they haven’t arrived yet,” Artemis suggested. “Perhaps I should wait here and see if they do.”
Her father hesitated only momentarily before turning to Miss Ashcroft. “Shall we?”
She inclined her head in acceptance and the two set off to wind their way through the crowd toward the far end of the terrace.
Artemis positioned herself along the balustrade near the entrance and waited. A steady stream of guests arrived, all dressed to the nines, but none of them were the Quills. As a couple passed, smiling at her as if she belonged, she was again grateful for Miss Ashcroft’s offer of a dress. If she’d worn anything she owned, the looks would have gone from “How lovely to see you” to “Shouldn’t you be in the scullery?”
She’d never wanted to fit in, but all in all it wasn’t the worst feeling in the world.
After the stream of arrivals slowed, she allowed herself to turn toward the river and admire the view briefly. It really was a lovely city. The night was surprisingly comfortable for November and the sky was as clear as she could remember. She’d not traveled much, but she couldn’t imagine anything as wonderful.
“Beautiful.”
She startled at the voice and then counted to three before turning around. The fact that Liam Parker looked as handsome as ever, perhaps even more so, was bothersome.
And the way he looked at her—his green eyes softening just around the edges, the corners of his mouth curving in a slight smile—made her think for a moment that his compliment was directed at her. But then his eyes moved to admire the skyline.
“London, I mean.”
Her hopes were dashed, and she remembered that she was angry with him.
“Yes,” she said tightly. If he noticed her icy tone he didn’t show it, and he looked up and down the river and across toward the embankment. Boats of all sizes lazily drifted up and down the river, settling in for the evening’s entertainment.
“Paris may be quaint and New York full of intensity, but London is both things and more, don’t you think?”
“I suppose,” Artemis murmured, putting a concerted effort into sounding as disinterested as possible.
They stood in silence for a moment before Liam spoke again. His voice was so soft she almost didn’t hear him.
“I’m glad you came.”
She looked at him with doubt, half questioning, half challenging.
“I wasn’t sure you would, after ….” He looked away again, then added in a stronger voice. “But I’m glad. The invitation was yours.”
