The Crimson Shard (22 page)

She measured and pinned and snipped. An old hat of Henry’s was called into service. Amelia tacked a black drape inside it that would hang down to cover Blaise’s head and chest.

“I shall have to line this hat with stuffing,” she announced. “Even with your bandage, my brother’s head is still fatter than yours.”

When Sunni and Blaise were dressed up to her satisfaction, Amelia made them remove their masks long enough to eat a three-course lunch. It was mid-afternoon by the time she let her brother know that everything was ready. At his orders, the footmen streamed out of the mansion, combing the gardens, stables, and fields for spies. The maidservants peered from the upper and lower windows, then scoured every passageway and room till they were certain no one was secreted in the house.

One of the footmen brought the carriage around and held its door open for the strange parade of cloaked figures that floated toward it. Once they were inside, all that could be seen through the carriage windows were two rows of stiff white masks. The carriage rolled away toward London like a spectral hearse.

T
hey made their way through villages on the outskirts of London.

“We are not far from Wheatley’s home in Chelsea,” said Henry. “The footman shall drop us there and take the carriage to a nearby inn. Keep your masks on at all times.”

“Yes, sir,” said Blaise. “And thank you. I don’t know what we’d have done without you and Miss Featherstone.”

“Do not thank us yet,” Henry said. “There is still the small matter of transferring you into the hands of your next protector.”

At last the carriage came to a halt in a quiet street. Sunni and Blaise struggled out of the narrow door in their long capes and special-occasion shoes and gazed through their mask holes at Wheatley’s house. Unlike the others in the street, all its shutters were closed. Sunni had never seen a house that said “go away” more than this one.

“Oh, dear,” said Amelia. “Has Mr. Wheatley left? His house looks abandoned.”

“No,” said Henry, sighing. “His house always looks this way.” He waved to the footman, and the carriage tottered away.

When, after Henry’s repeated knocking, a servant pulled open the door, he jumped back at the sight of the four cloaked, masked figures.

“Mr. Wheatley is expecting us,” said Henry, his voice muffled.

“Who may I say is calling?”

“You are new to this establishment, are you not? I have not seen you before.”

The servant frowned. “Yes, sir. May I have your name?”

“By heaven, is Wheatley expecting such a string of visitors that I must give my name?” Henry pushed past, pulling Sunni and Amelia with him. The surprised servant backed away when Blaise stepped in and shut the door behind him.

Sunni examined the dark hall, swiveling her head around to see through the mask’s eyeholes. Books were stacked against the walls in crooked towers. A dusty mirror hung slanted on one wall, catching the light of the single candle illuminating the narrow space. But the thing that she noticed most was the smell: a faint odor of rotten eggs.

“Now,” said Henry. “Will you let your employer know that Mr. Featherstone and his party have arrived?”

“If you had only said so, sir,” the servant muttered sourly. “He is expecting you.” He flung open the door to the shuttered front room, where a round table was set with a cold meal. He lit a few candles against the gloom. “He is occupied and begs you to take refreshment while you are waiting.”

“Occupied!”

“Yes, Mr. Featherstone. Please wait in here. He will see you when he is able.”

“Is able!” Henry raised his mask like a visor on a helmet, revealing his deep scowl.

The footman scurried away. “I will bring tea, sir.”

They filed into the dingy dining parlor and hesitantly took seats around the table. Once Henry had taken off his hat and mask, the others followed. Sunni and Blaise swung their satchels into their laps.

“Why are all the shutters closed in daytime?” Blaise murmured to Sunni.

“And why does it smell so rotten?” she whispered back.

Amelia wrinkled her nose as she ran a finger through dust on the tabletop. “The edges of these meats are curling up, they have sat out so long. Is that what I smell?”

Henry said, “Knowing Wheatley, it is sulfur.”

“Why has he got sulfur in his home?”

“The man is a natural philosopher, Sister, and takes an interest in chemistry. He investigates the workings of nature and the universe as a matter of course.”

Sunni eyed a pot of cheese and wondered what chemical changes it was undergoing as it sat there. Blaise prodded a piece of ham with his knife, and a small army of ants scattered.

Sunni squeezed her eyes shut. Between the sight of the ants and the eggy smell, her big lunch was in danger of moving upward and out.

Amelia scanned the table with horror. “Mr. Wheatley does not seem used to providing hospitality.”

“I cannot help that.” Henry crossed his arms over his chest, looking slightly uncomfortable.

The servant backed into the parlor with a tray containing a tarnished teapot and stained cups, deposited it on the table, and disappeared without a word.

Amelia poured several cups out and wrinkled her nose again. “This tea is fishy.”

“Leave it, then!” said Henry, getting up and pacing around the parlor.

No one spoke. Sunni fidgeted in her seat, trying to keep her stays from digging into her, while Blaise sat rigid in his chair, looking as if he were scarcely breathing.

Henry kept checking his pocket watch. “We have been here for over half an hour. What is occupying him?”

As if on cue, the servant put his nose around the door. “Follow me, if you please.”

Late afternoon sun filtered in through the small windows in the stairwell, highlighting floating dust motes in the air as they climbed. The rotten-egg smell grew stronger and was tinged with other unidentified but equally unpleasant odors.

On the second floor, the servant opened a door and bowed, before ducking away with a strange look on his face.

“Come!” Wheatley growled from within.

The room was a darkened pit of heat and stench. Wheatley was slumped in a wooden chair, dressed in a loose dressing gown, with a striped cloth wound around his wigless, and seemingly hairless, head. His gaunt cheeks were shaded with dark stubble.

There was no furniture, other than a few tables covered in opened books, papers, skulls, broken clockworks, and a large hourglass. Stuffed reptiles and snakes were suspended from the ceiling on ropes, like prey waiting for a giant spider to consume them. Several small, glowing furnaces stood in and around the hearth, their outflow pipes hooked into the chimney to take smoke and fumes up and away. Fearsome iron hooks, tongs, and bellows were scattered about.

A number of graceful but oddly shaped glass vessels balanced on stands and tripods. Some were like the head of an elephant, with a long, tapering trunklike appendage on one side and a small spout on top. There was a dark substance smoldering at the base of one vessel.

“By heaven, Wheatley, do you intend to poison yourself and everyone else?” Henry cried, shaking his friend by the shoulder. “Is this why you cannot keep a servant for long?”

Wheatley’s eyes were wide and bloodshot. “Good day, Featherstone . . . Miss Featherstone. And the two runaways . . . Ah, you are costumed for the masquerade.” He got up, teetered slightly, and came to greet them. “Welcome to my laboratory.”

“More like the Devil’s inferno.” Henry fanned the air with his mask. “Explain why you summoned us. Quickly, man, before we are overcome by fumes.”

“I have been working since I last saw you,” said Wheatley. “It is going well.”

“Working at what?”

“You shall see.”

Sunni thought she would vomit if they didn’t get out of there soon. “Mr. Wheatley, have you spoken to the magicians?”

“No.” Wheatley shrugged. “The magicians I know of are not capable of solving this.”

Blaise held his nose. “What do you mean, sir?”

Wheatley sidled over to one of the furnaces and checked inside. He slammed the doors shut and turned back to them. “A question. Does the painted door grow its handle out before one’s eyes? Like a plant bursting from soil?”

“It’s more instant than that,” said Sunni. “The handle just appears.”

“And then retracts when a person has passed through? Returning to its flat, painted state?”

Sunni and Blaise both nodded.

“That sounds to me like the work of astral magic. If we were in Venice during the 1580s, we could perhaps call upon certain artists there who were said to have mastered celestial forces to bring their paintings to life.” Wheatley darted about, picking papers off the floor and peering at them. “But their magical abilities died with them. I know of no one who can work with such powers now.”

Sunni gulped.
Fausto Corvo was a master of astral magic. He had to be one of the artists Wheatley meant.

“Artists had magical abilities?” Blaise asked with a waver in his voice.

“None more than one named
il Corvo
— the Raven. But he vanished under mysterious circumstances, never to be seen again. There was one other I heard of, who might have learned some magical skills.” Wheatley screwed up his face as he thought. “Bellini. Maffeo Bellini.”

Sunni started coughing. She had never expected to hear
that
name again: the rival painter Soranzo had paid to ferret out Corvo’s magical secrets using deception and bribery. Maffeo’s treachery had forced Corvo and his three apprentices to flee Venice, thereby provoking Soranzo’s obsessive hunt for him.

“That is all very well,” said Henry. “But we are in the year 1752.”

Amelia held a handkerchief to her nose. “Can anyone aid Sunniva and Blaise in
this
century, Mr. Wheatley?”

“Miss, I have been working all night toward this goal.” Wheatley’s bulging eyes gleamed. “I believe the painted door’s magic is quite simple. Throgmorton knows how to awaken it and then put it back to sleep, as one lights and extinguishes a candle. But his power goes beyond this simple action.”

“How?” Blaise burst out.

“He opens not only the door, but time itself.”

“Using the symbol he writes on the door?” asked Amelia.

“I have not got to that yet,” said Wheatley. “Though perhaps the number nine identifies him and allows him through.” He suddenly weaved away toward his glass vessels and peered into the one containing the dark substance. “No, there is much more to this than a number.”

“Come, man, explain — or I shall fall dead from this toxic air,” said Henry.

“I am grappling with the question of the red elixir.”

“The red elixir?”

“Alchemists who desire to make gold must seek the red elixir,” Wheatley muttered as if he were talking to himself.

Blaise breathed out. “Alchemists?”

“Throgmorton may have used a cunning version of the alchemical red elixir on the painted door. That is my conclusion.”

“But we don’t know what the red stuff was,” Sunni pointed out.

“They said it was crimson,” said Blaise. “But that’s all.”

Wheatley gave a low snort. “Not crimson. Crimson is extracted from scaly insects. That will hardly open the door of time.” He gazed at the substance in the glass vessel and checked the hole at the top, which was tightly sealed. “It was more likely vermilion, and even then . . .”

“What has alchemy got to do with this?” asked Blaise.

“Alchemists believe that all matter is alive and can be transformed under the right conditions, hence their attempt to transmute base metals into gold. Everything in the universe contains an element called ether, a substance that fills all space, like an invisible glue holding everything together.” Wheatley touched the glass. “I believe that an innovative red elixir, unlike any other, has been used on this painted door. One that can bend ether and dissolve the membranes separating the strands of time.”

Henry raised his eyebrows. “You think Throgmorton makes alchemical pigments?”

“It would require a laboratory with the correct equipment, like mine,” said Wheatley. “And the process is lethal in the wrong hands.”

“There’s no laboratory in the Academy,” Blaise insisted. “The only paint we ever saw was carried inside pigs’ bladders.”

“Then I do not know where he could have obtained such an elixir,” said Wheatley. He pawed through a pile of books and papers and held up a crude manuscript. “There were a few men who openly sought to transmute ether. One was Peregrin, a London alchemist of the distant past. This is one of the only records of his recipe, and I paid dearly for it. Inside that vessel is my first attempt at creating the elixir, but Peregrin’s directions are almost impossibly cryptic, and I may only guess at them.” He nodded at the sealed glass container. “To begin, I have married quicksilver with sulfur. This will produce a vermilion-colored red pigment.”

“Quicksilver is mercury,” said Sunni, covering her nose in alarm. “It’s poisonous.”

Wheatley scrutinized her as closely as he had in the theater. “How do you know this?”

“We learned about it in my t-time,” Sunni stammered.

He raised his eyebrows but said nothing.