The lad held up his hand for me to brake, and once I had he handed me some gogs for my eyes. “You take care, miss,” he yelled over the sound of the old motor.
I wanted to climb out and hug him, but settled for strapping on the eyewear and giving a fond wave.
The carri puttered along steadily as I drove it to the Silken Dream. From Bridget’s storefront I could see the houses on the Hill still burning out of control, and the long line of carris and heavily laden carts clogging up the roads down. If anyone survived this night, it would likely be the rich, as they had all the cops dancing attendance on them.
I knew Bridget kept a spare keylace in one of the lilac-filled planters flanking the front door, which I used to let myself in. The dresses on the forms in the front were all ball gowns, which would be impossible to put on without a maid, so I went to the back storeroom. There hung a selection of day and evening frocks on long racks, and I searched through them looking for something simple I could pull over my head.
“Thieving bitch. Get your filthy hands off my clothes.”
I whirled round to see Bridget standing behind me, a pistol in her fist. “Bridget, it’s me.” I pulled up the gogs to show her my face.
“Kit?” She lifted the lantern in her other hand and peered, and then lowered the gun. “What in nine hells are you doing here?”
“I needed something to wear.” I gestured at my stained, torn skirts. “Something a bit cleaner.”
She set down the lantern. “Rumsen’s been attacked, there are Talians out there torching the ton and slitting the throats of disbelievers, and not a cop to be had away from the Hill.” Her voice climbed to a piercing octave. “And you’ve come to borrow a dress?”
I nodded. “If you wouldn’t mind lending me another one that will end up fit only for a ragbag.”
“Blind me.” Bridget flung her hand about. “Take whatever you want. I don’t care. Take it all.”
“Only need one, but thanks.” I pulled a pretty light green silk from one of the hangers. “Why are you still here in the city?”
“Charlie got wind of this yesterday,” she said as she came over to help me. “I told him to take the kids and go south. We’ve a place down in Zhuma, on the coast, where they can wait it out. They’ll be safe there.”
I knew her husband to be an extremely practical man who would naturally protect his family first. “He wouldn’t leave you behind.”
“He thinks me and my parents are following him by train. Lift your arms.” As I did, she pulled my skirts over my head and tossed them aside. Wrecker’s knives, which I had forgotten, fell to the floor. Gingerly she retrieved them. “Why are you carrying kneecapper blades?”
“Because a cannon’s a bit too bulky.” I watched her set them on a pin table. “Why aren’t you and your parents on a train now?”
“You know Da; he won’t leave the mill to burn, not with all the goods still on the looms. Mum won’t leave him, so I had to stay to look after them. I only chanced coming to the shop to see if any of the gels were using it as a hidey-hole.” She stripped off my petticoats. “God, you reek. Don’t you ever bathe?”
“Not of late.” I wriggled as the first fresh petticoat went over my head, and withstood another atop that before I protested. “That’s enough. Any more and I won’t be able to run.”
“These are silk, not cotton. You can fly in them.” Bridget eased the dress over my head and worked it down, straightening the full skirt and adjusting the sewn-in waister. “I’m going to the mill when I leave here, and that’s where I’ll stay until it’s finished. You should come with me, love. Mum and Da have laid in enough supplies to last us to Doomsday, and Charlie left five of the stablemen behind as my guards. They’re proper bruisers, all of them.”
I shook my head. “When you get to the mill, take down all the wardlings your Da has about the place. “I picked up a thin hairpin from a dressing table and tucked it inside my mouth. “Then toss them in the gin.”
“What?” She stopped buttoning me up. “That’ll mash ’em to pieces.”
“Exactly.” I told her what Mr. Jasper had said, and added, “You don’t have to believe it. Just do it for me. Please.”
“No, I believe you.” She backed away from me and pulled out the pistol. “What I’d like to know is, how did a stupid little twit like you find out?”
My heart almost stopped. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m not jesting.” She didn’t take her eyes off me as she called out, “She’s ready to go now, boys.”
It didn’t seem real until two of Walsh’s footmen came in. Even then I didn’t want to believe it. “You can’t be part of this, Bridge. Not you.”
“Why not me? You still think I’m a loomgel at heart? I haven’t been, Kit, not for years.” Her face changed as she put on one of her haughty Madam looks. “I am Madam Duluc, wife to one of the richest men in Toriana and France. Why should I care about the likes of you?”
She was acting. She had to be. “You’ve always been my friend.”
“Wait,” Bridget said to the men as they started toward me. “She’ll try to run, this one. Get some rope.” She handed one of the blades Wrecker had given me to the other brute. “Put this in my carri. I want it as a souvenir.”
Once the brutes had left and we were alone, I expected Bridget to lower the pistol and tell me it was all a farce. She didn’t.
“You’re not really going to do this,” I assured her. “You can’t hand me over to them like I’m nothing to you. I was your friend long before you met Charlie.” When she said nothing, I felt my heart clench. “Sweet Mary, Bridget Sullivan. Were you ever mine?”
A mask of real anger settled over her face. “I never met anyone as bloody mule-headed as you, Kit. Told you to stay away from the Hill, didn’t I? But no. You had to go nosing round Walsh and his business. You did this to yourself, dearie.” She strode to me, grabbing me by the hair and jerking me close. In a murmur, she said, “They took Charlie and the kids, and they’re holding them on a ship somewhere. Said I’d only get them back alive if I did this. Sorry, love.” In a louder voice she said, “And I’m done with you.” She slipped her hand into a seam on the side of my skirt that shouldn’t have been open. I understood why it was when I felt the second of Wrecker’s blades being tucked in my garter. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll shut up now, and when they take you to the master, give him exactly what he deserves.”
I had to put on a show for Walsh’s men when they returned, so I struggled and called out to her, begging for her to save me while wanting her to do no such thing at all.
Bridget pretended to be indifferent, although just as they dragged me off she looked sick.
Outside the shop the men used the rope to bind my wrists and ankles, so there was no getting to Wrecker’s blade after they tossed me in the back of their carri. I fell over on my side and stayed there, enduring the jolting as I thought through every possible course of action.
Obviously Zarath wouldn’t be fooled by renewed protestations of my love this time round. I’d count myself a lucky gel to get a word out before he took retribution. As long as I was bound I couldn’t use Wrecker’s knife to defend myself. Anyway, the blade was steel, and would do nothing to hurt the Aramanthan. If I was smart I’d plant it in my own heart as soon as I got a hand free. Zarath couldn’t hurt a corpse.
But the Reapers intended to turn everyone in Rumsen into walking corpses, and I couldn’t allow that, not if there was something I could do to stop them. I’d also promised Dredmore that I would set his spirit free.
I smelled the docks a few seconds before the carri screeched to a stop. I closed my eyes and went limp, keeping up the pretense of a faint until one of them tossed me over his shoulder. From that vantage point I saw (upside down and in snatches, of course) that they were delivering me to a big clipper with black sails and a pitch-covered hull. Up the gangway we went, and I caught a few glimpses of a group of men in bankers’ suits before I was dumped on the deck before them.
“Untie her; she’s not going anywhere. This is the one who attacked the master?” one of the suits asked as the rope was removed from my wrists and ankles.
“Aye. Caught her at the gowner’s.”
Through the slits of my eyes I watched the two footmen retreat before I concentrated on being nothing more than a pile of laundry.
“Very good. I wasn’t anxious to cut the throat of such a valuable pawn as Duluc,” the suit said, his chilly voice closer now. He nudged me over with a careless prod of his shoe. “I know this tart. She hires herself out to dispel magic.” His tone hardened. “Bringing her here was foolish. Even on the Hill she has a reputation for being most effective.”
“She has but a few pathetic tricks,” a new but very familiar voice replied. “None of them will stop us or save her now.” Celestino. So he had survived my stabbing.
I could only cringe on the inside and pray that Zarath would make an appearance before his underling repaid me in kind.
“I know what happened when the master returned to us,” the suit said. “If she is so harmless, then why would Lucien Dredmore surrender his body to protect her?”
“Walsh said the fool was in love with her.”
I dared lifted one eyelid, just enough to see the Talian, his hair hanging in oily rings over his forehead, his arm bound up in a sling tied over his blood-blotched jacket. He walked to me and as he crouched down I closed my eye again. “Why is she like this? Did you beat her into unconsciousness?”
“No, sir,” the footman said. “She fainted.”
“They are so delicate, the ladies of this country.” Celestino stood up. “But this one, she is more like the cockroach. You must crush her under your heel slowly, like a tick.”