Rise of the Arcane Fire (The Secret Order) (15 page)

“No,” he answered with a heavy shake of his head. “It’s impossible.”

That’s what I was afraid of.

MY TROUBLES AT THE ACADEMY
were compounded at the memorial for Lord Strompton. I had only had a few dealings with Lucinda’s father myself. The most acute of those memories involved his pistol pointed at my chest. Needless to say, I did not bring a handkerchief to dry my eyes. I hated that I had to stay silent about his murders, but I had caused enough controversy in the Order, and telling everyone what had really happened wouldn’t have brought back the dead. Knowing this didn’t make attending his memorial any more comfortable, though.

As I followed the string of people walking from the country estate dressed in their finest black, I knew the saboteur was likely among them. The line reached down a hill like a monstrous snake, its body undulating through the waving grass until the head reached a rotunda of old Roman ruins on the edge of a vast, sun-soaked lake.

While we all moved forward at an appropriately somber pace, the front of the line never extended beyond the rotunda, and I wondered what awaited me within the ruins.

I didn’t know where Lucinda was. The Strompton estate made the splendor of Oliver’s palace look quaint. The dowager countess was managing to host most of the Amusementists, with the remainder staying at Chadwick Hall. I had only briefly seen Oliver. Having had a week to heal, the skin on the side of his face was still raw and red, though the blisters were mending. He wore a patch over one eye. I tried to speak with him, but he was too busy managing the many guests and couldn’t be bothered.

His reluctance to speak to me only made me feel worse. It was just like with Peter. I couldn’t explain to either of them that I was not at fault. The saboteur had hurt my friends. Now I paid the price with their silence. Unless Peter was the saboteur. . . . Oh, I didn’t know what to think anymore.

I knew it was selfish, but it drove my ire to no end that the whole reason I was here was to give my support to Lucinda and she was nowhere to be found. She had specifically asked me to attend, and yet I could not find her. Though I was certain she was probably busy with the many guests, at least we could have kept one another company in this dreadful parade. It wasn’t as if she were in the mood to mourn her father either.

The sun made the heavy black fabric of my dress unbearable. I felt a trickle of moisture meander down the back of my neck as I walked on.

No one spoke.

I kept glancing at the faces of the men and women around me, but they all seemed deep in thought or in memories of the departed. Meanwhile I struggled to keep my mind from wandering to mundane subjects, like whether the hair of the woman in front of me was hers in truth, or a wig.

I had mourned long enough for people who rightly deserved it, and I refused to do it any longer.

With no other choice but to go along, I kept my head down and followed the line until the shadow of a worn stone column passed over me. My breath caught as I looked around the weathered ruins. At the center of the rotunda there was a small marble building that looked to be nothing more than a crypt with a heavy iron door emblazoned with the Amusementist seal.

I watched the line of mourners slowly disappear into the building, and I pondered what might lie deep within the crypt.

Inside the crypt a servant handed each of us a lit candle. I held mine with a slightly shaking hand as we descended a narrow spiral stair deep into the cool earth.

My legs ached with the effort of climbing down the endless stairs. The air became stuffy, heated with the breath and bodies of so many people holding candles in such a stifling place.

Finally we reached the bottom, and we walked down a long, dark tunnel lined with low-burning torches. Their light flickered in the steady breeze that rushed through the tunnel.

I didn’t know what caused the air to move, and couldn’t discover the source, since there was very little in the tunnel other than dank stone walls and a distant, wavering light up ahead.

The queue of people seemed to move faster, drawn toward the swirling light. We passed beneath an ornate arch defined by a bronze column on either side.

What I saw as I passed through stole every thought from my head, and I realized that nothing I could’ve imagined could equal this.

It was magnificent.

I had entered a great room made of glass, deep within the lake. The clear ceiling arched over me, supported by curving iron beams with enormous rivets whose heads were the size of eggs. It was like standing within a shimmering bubble beneath the surface of the water, held trapped within a dark iron web.

I stared, awestruck at the beauty of the shafts of light penetrating the gloom of the lake and reaching through the glass panes. The other Amusementists continued to file into the room, but it easily held the entire assembly. The light of the candles held by the mourners flickered, reflected in the glass dome like shimmering stars within the depths.

Something moved through the murky waters, and I gasped. Others noticed it too, because they stopped and pointed. Transfixed by the sight, I watched in wonder as an automaton mermaid swam lazily past. At first I was so captivated, I simply watched it swim, but it didn’t take long for me to notice that a dark chain tethered the mermaid to a track. I had seen that mechanism used before in another lake to disastrous effect.

Now my mind pieced together the various joints and connectors of the mermaid’s tail and undulating body. A bit of pride filled my heart, along with a certain sadness. I felt I could see behind the magician’s cloak and now knew how the trick had been done.

The watery light glinted off her corroded scales, and lake weed streamed from her wire hair, making her look both ghostly and horrifically beautiful at once. In spite of knowing the mechanics, I could still appreciate her haunting beauty.

Soon others joined her, swimming in and out of view as they moved along their preordained paths. Their glass eyes had grown foggy, and their elegant tails hitched slightly with every hypnotic sweep through the dark water.

The murmurs around me turned hushed and reverent. People spoke of the time when the mermaids had been new and shining as they’d swum in and out of the elusive light.

I tried to imagine it, but with the streaming plants and the corroded metal, to me they seemed real, alive and not at all like machines. Or perhaps the illusion of life came from their likeness to death.

“My dear friends.” The voice of the dowager countess echoed in the cavernous glass room. Those around me hushed and turned to where she stood on a platform. “It is with great sorrow that I invite you here to honor the legacy of my dearly beloved husband. In our darkest hour, when the loss of so many of our finest and most well-connected members nearly drove us to despair, he in his great wisdom and bravery stood up to the evil that had tormented our Order and sacrificed his life to save us all. . . .”

Her voice trailed off as the dark mass of spectators parted for a single hooded figure. The person, draped from head to toe in a long and heavy black cloak, walked slowly to the center of the room. At first a sharp jolt of fear shook me, and I tucked myself behind a rather portly Amusementist. Then I realized the figure in the cape was too small and too slight to be the man in the clockwork mask.

Oh, dear Lord.

Realizing who it was, I jumped forward, jostling the man in front of me. What was she thinking? I had to get to her before she made a fool of—

Lucinda whipped the cape from her shoulders with a flourish, standing tall, with her chin held high, in a flaming red dress. Her hair flowed loose over her shoulders and back, wild and uninhibited. She glowed like an ember in the sea of black, her fury and defiance burning brightly beneath the water.

Several people gasped, and one woman near the back fainted.

“Yes, Mother. Let’s celebrate him.” Lucinda didn’t look at anything but her mother’s heavy veil.

The veil slowly lifted as the dowager countess pulled it back. She had sharp and striking features that might once have been considered beautiful, but the look on her face now could have turned half the assembly to stone.

“How dare you?” The countess glared at her daughter. “You have no cause to ever speak ill of such a great man.”

Lucinda laughed. “How dare I? How dare
you
, Mother? We all know whom this charade of a funeral is for. You couldn’t resist a chance to flaunt your wealth in front of the Order. The rest of this is nothing but a farce. There has never been love here except for money and power.”

“You are in no position!”

Lucinda tossed her hair back with a fierce shake of her head. “No. I am in the perfect position to tell everyone the kind of man Alastair Harrington really was.”

I couldn’t move. I felt as if I were watching some horrible drama play out on a stage, and I was merely a voiceless witness in the audience. I was one of the few who knew how deep the depravity of the old earl had reached, but he was dead and gone. The only person Lucinda could hurt with the truth was her mother. And she seemed fixed on doing it.

Then David stepped forward.

I felt my heart jump to my throat as Lucinda’s composure cracked for the first time. The fist she’d held before her loosened, and her eyes darted from her younger brother back to the glare of the countess, as if whatever devil had possessed her had now suddenly fled.

“Sister?” David approached her, his usual arrogance gone in the wake of the confusion painted on his face. A young and gangly girl that had to be Lucinda’s younger sister took her brother’s hand. The girl couldn’t have been more than twelve, her visage stricken with love and worry for her sister. David tucked his younger sister behind him and turned his attention back to Lucinda. “I don’t understand. What do you mean by this?”

Lucinda no longer looked up at the countess. She blinked rapidly as she pressed her lips together, then opened them as if to speak, but nothing came out. I knew what she desperately wanted to say. I knew how it must have been killing her inside that no one knew it had been her father who had murdered her beloved husband in cold blood.

I knew that every time someone blithely blamed
poor mad Rathford
for her father’s murderous acts, or her mother flaunted his legacy, she died inside. She had confessed as much to me. I could see in her face how desperately she wanted to speak, but she didn’t. If she did, it would ruin her brother.

Whatever she had been thinking when she’d planned this stunt, I couldn’t begin to fathom. I understood her desire to chastise her mother for defending a monster, but she had clearly forgotten about the other lives at stake. Now she was caught in a trap, and I hated to see her so torn.

Oliver came up behind her, and for the first time since she’d entered the room, I felt my shoulders loosen. He pressed his face to the side of hers and whispered something into her ear. I couldn’t see his expression with his eye covered by the patch, but he took her hand, and her body folded into his in a defeated way as he led her back out the way she’d come.

She had been poised to ruin the Harrington name for all time. I glanced at David. His brow had furrowed, as if deep in thought. A shadow came over him as if the specter of his father had risen. I could almost feel the presence of the old earl hanging over the lot of us.

The chamber erupted with hundreds of voices at once.

I had to escape. I knew too much, and if I weren’t careful, I would ruin the entire Harrington line by blurting out the truth.

I blew out my candle and pushed through the crowd. I needed air. Bits and pieces of conversation struck me as I passed.

“Well, she’s always been that way. Impetuous to a fault and too willing to ruin the reputation of her family, for what? Love?” An older woman with a rather beakish nose and narrow eyes cackled a jarring, crow-like laugh. A younger woman with ash-blond hair and the same unfortunate nose smiled maliciously at me. “Love is for fools and never brought a woman to greatness.”

I slowed my step. I had assumed they were talking about Lucinda, but as the younger girl watched me, I wondered if their words weren’t meant for me.

“Wouldn’t you agree,
Meg
?” the girl asked, her toothy smile widening.

That stopped me in my tracks. For as much as I wanted to insist upon my fellow apprentices calling me by my given name, the girl had said it as if she were addressing her maid. I couldn’t let the insult stand.

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.” My tone was hardly polite. The older woman, most likely the girl’s mother, noticed and turned to us. “And you are?” I asked.

The mother had the sense to feign surprise at my presence. “Why, if it isn’t the little Whitlock girl,” she said in greeting.

A very old matron with a face like carved granite and eyes just as hard turned to us. “Lady Thornby, if you care to spare your fragile ego, take your harpy of a daughter and be gone, before I introduce you to Miss Whitlock properly. I haven’t had occasion to exercise my more colorful vocabulary lately. If you wish to increase your tediousness, please, continue to grace us with your presence.”

The hook-nosed Lady Thornby gave me a simper even as she looked at the old woman with a mix of both terror and bluster. The Thornby woman bore a striking resemblance to a long-necked bird. A goose. Definitely a goose. “Lady Chadwick, I apologize. I didn’t see you there. I assure you, I meant no offense. I was honestly surprised by the child, that is all. I’m quite pleased to make her acquaintance. She needs some fine associations among the other women if she wishes to purge the taint of her unfortunate education.”

Of all the nerve.

Lady Chadwick leaned heavily on a cane with a brass eagle head at the top. The fires of battle burned in her eyes, and she smiled with a thin press of her lips. She tipped her head, the tall, jet-black dyed pheasant feathers on her hat twitching slightly as she considered Lady Thornby. So this was Oliver’s formidable grandmother.

“Perhaps,” the dowager duchess said. “But some connections are finer than others. I am sure Miss Whitlock has enough intelligence not to ruin her family’s fortunes, unlike some people here.”