Winterspell (5 page)

“You said you were close.” Clara put a hand on his shoulder. “Close to . . . what, exactly?”

Godfather turned to smile at her, his wry, unnerving smile. “To undoing it, my Clara.”

“Undoing
what
?”

For a moment he looked close to telling her. Then he shook his head and backed away. “Soon enough,” she thought she heard him mutter. “She'll know soon enough.”

Clara glanced at his wall of clocks. A hundred hands, approaching five. “But what does any of this have to do with Mother?”

A darkness flickered across Godfather's face. His hair, too long to be in fashion, had come loose from its ribbon.

“I think—I think they are—” But then it was as though something inside him switched off. He shook his head and moved about the
workshop, lighting lamps. “I think,” he said gaily, though to Clara it seemed strained, “that it's time we have a nice spar.”

“But, Godfather,” Clara insisted, watching in frustration as he threw off his greatcoat and rolled up his sleeves, revealing forearms as finely chiseled as the creations he crafted, “you haven't answered my questions.”

“I've answered
some
of your questions. Not all, but some.”

“All but one.”

“Don't insist, Clara.” He cleared a space for them on the floor, gestured for her to strip off her gown. “Don't insist I answer what I cannot answer.”

“And don't insist I give up on an answer I must have.” She hurried to him and caught his arms. “Godfather, please. What do you know? Are you telling me stories to amuse yourself? Or do you actually know what's going on with these markings, these killings? These
beasts
?”

At that, Godfather stilled. “Beasts?”

“The word fills the reports I found, from detectives investigating the murder.”

“Beasts,” he whispered. “Yes. Yes, I remember them.”

Clara held her breath; she was close. Godfather's eyes were wide and distant, searching—through memory, through his own lunacy? Either way he would soon tell her, and maybe it would be nonsense, but at least it would be something, and she could mull it over in her bedroom that night.

But then, as quickly as the quiet had overtaken him, it was gone, and he gestured impatiently at her. “Well? Get on with it. Unless you're too tired from your many covert exertions.”

Clara bit back her protests. Long ago she had learned it was better to indulge his moods, for a happy Godfather was a more generous Godfather. Perhaps if she wore him out thoroughly enough, he would be more likely to talk.

So, with a few flicks of her wrist, she stripped off her skirt and
petticoats. Months ago Godfather had started ripping apart her dresses and fashioning them to be easily removable; it would not do to become entangled in one's own underthings during combat, if such a misfortune should befall her on the city streets. Clara therefore brought every fine new gown to him for dismemberment, and found immense pleasure in watching him remake them as more useful versions of themselves. Sometimes she found herself wishing he could do the same for her.

In her chemise, corset, breeches, and boots, Clara circled toward him with her fingers curled, her arms poised and steady. If this was what it would take to pry information out of him . . . well, there were worse sacrifices to make.

“Come, Godfather.” She made herself sound playful, even though she felt far from it.
Indulge him, indulge him.
“Hit me.”

He laughed, eye dancing, and lunged at her.

Clara met him halfway, throwing up her right arm to block his left jab. He grabbed her wrist and twisted, but he himself had taught Clara not to fight the attack but to move with it and turn it against itself.
Become one with the shadows when you sneak, my Clara. Become one with the blow when you fight.

So she gritted her teeth as he jerked her arm around, pulling her into a tight hold, and then she elbowed him hard in the stomach. Gasping, he staggered back. Clara pulled free and whirled on her heel, smacking him hard on his right ear. Disoriented, furious, he let fly a sloppy left hook.

Clara dodged it with ease, grinning, enjoying this despite herself, for this—these moments flying about Godfather's shop, the spiced air hissing past her bare arms, her skin stinging from Godfather's strikes—was when she felt most unlike her usual self. She felt invincible, unencumbered by both fabric and anxiety. Bold. Brazen. Each blow she gave sent fire shooting up her arms; each blow she received, each stab of pain, stoked a strange pleasure within her. She was not
nervous, fearful Clara here; she was shadow, fists and sweat and burning muscle.

Still fumbling for her to his right, Godfather leapt forward, but Clara had already moved right, kicking out with her left leg. His own legs would catch, and he would fall, and Clara would win.
So quick a match,
she thought, disappointed, but Godfather grabbed her booted foot and gave it a vicious turn.

Clara fell hard, turning to land on her arm and backside to save her knees. The stone floor jarred her, rattling her head. There would be yet another bruise on her body, which she would treasure; each purpling spot made her stronger, a talisman of pain and pride.

Thinking of this, she sprang up more quickly than Godfather had anticipated, with a roundhouse kick to his back that sent him stumbling into his workbench, tools flying. He rebounded quickly, coming back at her with sharp jabs to her arm, neck, belly. She blocked them—elbow, forearm. She dodged him—left, right. He was fast, and she was faster; she was leaving the world far below her, flying high, knuckles stinging, lungs burning.

Euphoric, she laughed and missed blocking the jab at her belly. Doubling over, she fell against the wall. Godfather followed with a body shot to her side, but Clara moved at the last second, and he clipped the stones.

“Damn,” he gasped, clutching his hand, and Clara stopped. Hands were important to an artisan of his skill. She reached for his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“Ha!” He spun around to grab her neck, but Clara had seen this trick before. She flung up her arm in time to catch his. They stood for a moment, panting, glaring at each other. Clara could smell the blood on Godfather's scraped knuckles, though he had thrust the wounded hand into his pocket.

“Very good,” he breathed.

She smiled at him, and for a moment the worry in her heart
vanished; there were no gruesome photographs, no vile markings. There was only her, and Godfather, and the statue watching from the corner.

Then the door flew open.

It careened into the wall, sending Godfather's birds into a frenzy.

And Clara knew, before he even spoke, before turning around, who would be standing at the door.

“Why, Clara, here you are. Mrs. Hancock was beside herself when she realized you hadn't come home after your . . . Where did you tell her you would be? An outing in the park?” He scoffed, hardly more than an exhalation. “And all this time you were . . . Well. My, my. Clara, you appear to have lost your clothes.”

Clara's horror was an arrow to the heart, swift and deadly; the elation of fighting vanished. She had taken too long getting home, and now—after a year of these sparring sessions with Godfather, a glorious year of successfully keeping their secret—he had found them:

Dr. Victor.

H
e stood at the shop's entrance, a tall, pale-haired whip of a man—leanly muscled, sharp eyed, with a smile of ice and eyes to match. In the sudden silence one of Godfather's crows ruffled its feathers and cawed.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Victor. We were . . .” But Clara's terror overwhelmed her, choking away any hope of excuses or lies. Dr. Victor was
here
, and she was dressed like . . .

“I can see that.” Dr. Victor's gaze crawled over her body, lingering on the skin she was normally so careful to conceal.

Clara flinched, the sudden onslaught of shame a physical blow. She wished she were not breathing so hard, that she were not sweating and had not stripped off her clothes, come to Godfather for answers, or even broken into Rivington Hall. She should have gone home right after the ceremony, contented herself with reading or listening to Felicity natter on about a new gown freshly arrived from Paris. Mere seconds ago Clara had made Godfather bleed; now she was merely a girl, stupid, half-naked, and trembling, and she could not tell Dr. Victor to stop looking at her so greedily. The thought of what he could do in retaliation if Clara were to tell him what she truly thought of him, what he could make Concordia do to her family, kept her silent.

And besides, it was her fault, wasn't it, that he gazed at her so? She could have gone home; she could have stayed dressed. Instead here she
stood, obscene, indecent, and as she stared at the floor, flushing miserably, she knew whatever Dr. Victor might do was what she deserved. A tiny spark of outrage cried out in protest, deep inside her, but she did not listen to it.

“Civilized people,” Godfather began, tugging on his rumpled shirt, “knock on locked doors instead of kicking them in.”

“A lunatic who has shut himself up with a young girl and proceeded to attack her,” Dr. Victor said smoothly, “is in no place to make such statements. I'd watch yourself, old man. It would distress Clara so, were anything to happen to you. Come, Clara.” He beckoned for her, a handsome devil in his immaculate vest and coat, pressed trousers, and gleaming boots. “I'll escort you home.”

Clara ducked her head and began to dress. The shop around her had never been more silent, despite the chorus of ticking clocks and tinkling toy carousel chimes, the soft whir of machinery from the back room. As she reassembled her petticoats, Clara began to cry. She did not let the tears fall, for she guessed that would delight Dr. Victor, but her throat burned with them. A hard knot lodged itself in her chest, eclipsing all other sensation, leaving her feeling . . . shriveled. Raked open.

“Please, Dr. Victor,” Clara said, hating the tremor in her voice but unable to steady it, “it was only a bit of fun. There's no need for alarm.”

“I will decide what there is need for, Clara.” The softer Dr. Victor's voice became, the greater stormed the fury underneath. Since her father's rise to the mayorship, Clara had heard this ominous softening many times. She shuddered from the lash of what he left unsaid, and from the horrible fear of when that buried malicious intent might erupt.

Godfather retrieved his cane from the floor. “The shop is closed, if you hadn't noticed. You are not welcome here.”

“How long have you been doing this?” Dr. Victor whispered to Clara, ignoring him.

Clara couldn't meet his eyes. “I—I don't know.”

“Your father has tolerated your coming here for too long, I see. I thought you'd have better judgment than this. Fighting like a heathen.” He shifted where he stood. “Dressed like a whore.”

Godfather was fuming. “You will not speak to my Clara like that, you—”

“
Your
Clara?” Dr. Victor said, the softest yet. “This ‘Godfather' business has gone on far too long. You aren't her family. You'd be on the streets were it not for the gracious Mrs. Stole.” He smiled; such handsome, practiced piety. “God rest her soul.”

“How dare you speak of Hope!” Godfather shouted, surging forward, his cane raised.

Clara caught him by the arm. “No, Godfather!”

“Clara, I will not stand by and let him treat you this way.”

“It's all right.” She smiled at him. One word from Dr. Victor and he could ruin them—turn Godfather out onto the streets, or even have him killed, and unleash the Concordia dogs upon her father at last.

It was better, then, to smile. Better to lie and relent. And Godfather knew it as well as she did. She could see the resignation and fury warring on his face.

“Really. Don't worry.” She almost embraced him—to reassure him, to reassure herself—but his arms around her might have destroyed her resolve. Instead she went to Dr. Victor's side and took his offered arm, letting the rough metal fingers of his glove—the mark of a Concordia gentleman—tuck her into place beside him. When he smirked at her, she granted him a demure smile; when he peered down her bodice, she ignored him.

“Clara,” Godfather said, his voice rough. The earlier darkness shadowed his face, the darkness that had accompanied talk of her mother. “It will not always be like this. I swear to you, it won't.”

“I don't know what you mean.” She tried to sound careless, but
she was sweating and trembling. Surely Dr. Victor could feel it.

Surely he was enjoying it.

He led her outside, his grip on her possessive. His perpetual perfume of medicine and chemicals and rot poisoned her breath.
What horrors has he committed at Harrod House today?
The thought filled Clara's mind with terrible images. She had heard rumors of the poor sick girls kept at Harrod House for Wayward Girls, and of Dr. Victor's highly experimental “cures.”

As they stepped out into the dimming light, fresh snow crunching under their boots, Clara heard glass smash and birds screech, and Godfather roaring in fury.

* * *

“That will never do,” Dr. Victor said later that evening, in the second-floor salon of the mayor's mansion. “Next.”

The grand, twenty-room house at Fifth Avenue and Sixty-Sixth Street had not felt like home to Clara since her mother's murder, especially for the past few months. Dr. Victor had grown too comfortable, coming and going more frequently to keep an eye on her father, and also, Clara suspected, to keep an eye on her.

She was free of Dr. Victor almost nowhere and never now. After making her debut this past season, which John Stole had permitted to occur earlier than he would have liked because of Clara's frequent pleas, she had hoped to find more time
away
from Dr. Victor, if she were out dancing and being courted most nights of the week. But, no. He often insisted upon chaperoning her about town himself, whenever he could bear to leave the girls at Harrod House. Who, after all, would ever think anything of it? Dr. Victor was such a dear family friend. How nice, Clara supposed people thought—or pretended to think—for Dr. Victor to spend so much time with John Stole's motherless debutante daughter. How lovely, how perfectly convenient for her to snag such a man—established, handsome, wealthy enough to provide for her and her beleaguered family.