Rise of the Darklings (18 page)

“Don’t stare,” said a voice from behind Emily. “They don’t like it.”

Emily turned quickly to find the girl standing by her side, the one Corrigan said was the young version of Miss LaFleur.

“Don’t stare at what?” she whispered.

In answer, the girl raised her eyes and looked over Emily’s shoulder. Emily slowly turned around.

The walls of the room were filled with shelves. And on these shelves were jars and containers of every conceivable size and color. Large glass jars almost as big as Emily was.
Tiny ones no larger than her hand. Strangely shaped ones that curved and turned in upon themselves.

They all contained glass eyes.

Emily stared around in awe. There were thousands of them, each one different from the last. Green eyes. Blue eyes. Brown and even yellow. Cat’s eyes, dog’s eyes, bird’s eyes, and mice’s eyes. (The last she knew only because of the crude drawings stuck to the containers.)

Emily shivered, suddenly sorry she had chased Corrigan off her shoulder.

“Corrigan?”

“What?”

Emily glanced in the direction of his voice and saw Corrigan sitting on a long table next to the lantern. She slowly walked out from behind the counter.

The eyes followed her movement.

Emily froze, wondering if she had imagined it. Then she took one step forward.

Every single eye in the room swiveled to follow her path. Emily swallowed nervously.

“I told you not to stare,” said the girl, skipping past Emily to once again link hands with Miss LaFleur. Miss LaFleur smiled fondly at her younger version and stroked her cheek.

“Don’t tease the poor child,” the older woman said.

Emily shuffled closer to Corrigan. “What are we doing here?” she whispered.

“Miss LaFleur here is going to help us get into the Royal Society. Well, I say
us
, but I mean
you
.”

“How will she do that?”

Corrigan turned to the tall lady. “You still have someone on the inside?”

“Corrigan, I’ve had someone inside the Royal Society ever since the Invisible Order took up residence there. But you’ll have to wait a moment. I need to test out the Colonel.”

Emily watched as Miss LaFleur cleared a space on the cluttered worktable, sweeping strange instruments and half-finished glass eyes into boxes and jars. Then she pulled aside a dirty sheet covering a round piece of thick green glass, cloudy and covered with chips and imperfections. It stood almost as tall as Emily.

“It’s the eye of a dragon,” said Miss LaFleur as Emily leaned in to inspect it closer. “Used to belong to Merlin. Before I stole it from him, that is.”

Miss LaFleur ran her hands over the glassy surface. A dim white light pulsed from within, spreading sluggishly out from the center until it formed a ring close to the edge of the glass. Another light pulsed, this one red. It grew in strength until it was a solid circle sitting within the first ring.

It took Emily a few seconds to realize what she was
looking at. An eye. The red circle was the pupil. But before she could say anything, Miss LaFleur ran her hands over the crystal once again, and the light faded, only to be replaced a second later by a moving image.

Emily frowned. She saw a pair of feet walking along a cobbled pavement. Then the image shifted again and she saw shops off to the side. A hansom cab trundled by on the right. An elegantly dressed lady was seated by the window. The image turned to fix on the lady for a moment.

“There you go. It works,” said Corrigan. “Hurry up. I need to see the inside of the Society.”

“Not as clear as I’d like,” muttered Miss LaFleur. “But what can you do? It will suffice.”

Emily suddenly realized what was going on. “His eye. You bewitched the colonel’s glass eye so you can see what he sees.”

“Took you long enough,” said Corrigan.

“But that’s not right. How many eyes—?”

Miss LaFleur smiled grimly. “How many glass eyes do I have spying for me? Thousands, I think. I’ve never counted.”

“Do they know that they are spying for you?”

“Of course not! According to my patients, I am simply one of the best makers of glass eyes in the city. People come to me when an accident or disease takes an eye from them. I supply them with a product of exceptional quality, and in return, I occasionally use those eyes to spy for Queen Kelindria.”

“But—”

“What’s the problem?” asked Corrigan. “It doesn’t hurt anyone. Just don’t do anything embarrassing in front of someone with a glass eye.” He smiled wickedly. “Besides, you should be thankful. Miss LaFleur’s collection is going to help you find your way around the Royal Society.”

“I thought you said we were going to look inside the Invisible Order.”

“We are. But the offices of the Order are within the offices of the Royal Society.”

Emily looked blank. The Queen had said something similar when she was telling her about Christopher Wren, but Emily didn’t have any idea what the Royal Society was. Corrigan clicked his tongue in irritation. “It’s very simple, girl. The Royal Society was created in sixteen sixty as a cover to hide the goings-on of the Invisible Order. The Order had been going for centuries before that, but they needed someplace to gather. So Christopher Wren and a few of his mates created the Royal Society as a cover. Course, since then, the Society’s become a proper institution for scientists and mathematicians and the like. But the reason it was created was to hide the activities of the Invisible Order. And it’s filled with iron. The cursed stuff is everywhere. That’s why none of us have ever been able to get inside. All clear now?” He turned to Miss LaFleur. “Is this going to take long?”

“Hold on.”

The young girl crossed the room and stopped before a bookshelf crammed full of ledgers.

“It should be number twenty-four,” said Miss LaFleur. “No—twenty-five.”

The girl took out a ledger and brought it to the table. Miss LaFleur blew the dust away. The spine creaked with disuse when she opened it. She ran her long finger down the pages, muttering to herself. At last, she looked up. “Here we go. We have three in Somerset House. The caretaker is on duty now.”

“Wait,” said Emily. “Do you mean there are three people with glass eyes working there? Isn’t that a bit of a coincidence?”

Corrigan looked uncomfortable. “It was deemed necessary to always have a way of seeing what was going on with the Invisible Order.”

It took a while for Emily to understand. “You mean you
caused
them to lose one of their eyes?”

“Not really. They had … accidents. Remember the Dark Man? He … arranged things.”

“But that’s horrid!”

“It was necessary,” said Miss LaFleur. She checked something on the ledger, then spoke softly. The image on the crystal faded, then slowly coalesced into a red-carpeted
corridor lined with wood paneling. A hand was industriously polishing the wood.

“Right.” Miss LaFleur unfolded a large sheet of paper that she took from the ledger. “This is what we know so far of the layout of the Royal Society. It goes underground as well, but we haven’t managed to get anyone down there.” She frowned at the crystal. “Our spy is … here.” She tapped the paper. Emily leaned forward and saw that it was a map drawn in ink. But the map was incomplete. Vast sections were simply blank spaces. “Perhaps you can help us fill in some of these gaps. But for the meantime, we watch.”

Emily spent the next hour watching through the eyes of the caretaker as he went about his duties at the Royal Society. It was boring and tedious, and she soon developed a headache, but she had to admit, she did have a clearer picture of where she would have to go to steal the stone. Corrigan even pointed out the door she had to go through to get to the Invisible Order’s offices. The caretaker didn’t go into the office, but Emily had its position locked in her head.

She began to think her task might not be so hard after all.

But then she remembered. She still needed help to get
into
the Royal Society.

And the only person she knew who could offer her that help was Jack.

That meant she would have to tell him what was going on. She wouldn’t lie to him. Not if he was going to help her do something potentially dangerous.

“Come on,” she said to Corrigan. “I want you to meet someone.”

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

I
still don’t see why I have to give your boyfriend the second sight,” complained Corrigan as they hurried through the early-evening streets, the drizzle soaking them to their skin. “Just spin him a story.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” snapped Emily. “And that might be how
you
do things, Corrigan, but not me. I won’t lie to him. We need Jack if we want to get into Somerset House, so we tell him the truth. And if there’s even the remotest chance of him believing me, he needs to be able to see the fey. It’s as simple as that.”

“But I could get into trouble,” whined the piskie. “The Queen doesn’t like us showing ourselves to your lot.”

“No, not unless it suits your own needs,” said Emily, walking on.

There was only one place Jack would spend a miserable afternoon like today: Mr. Miller’s coffeehouse. Jack liked to sip the bitter drink and pretend he was all grown up, even though he had once told Emily he didn’t like the taste. He said he did it because he had to act older than his gang, even though they all were the same age. He said if he didn’t act like a grown-up, they wouldn’t follow his instructions, and they’d all be in Newgate prison by now.

Emily found Jack seated by the front window of the coffeehouse, surrounded by his gang of thieves. He took a sip from a small cup, and Emily saw the tiny flicker of distaste dance across his features. Emily hurried across the street, pausing while a horse pulling a rickety-looking carriage clattered past. She stopped just beyond the window. Jack, seated closest to the glass, saw her immediately. His eyes widened and he started to say something, but Emily put her finger to her lips, beckoning him outside.