Twenty-nine
Muscles Victoria wasn’t even aware she had ached. Even at the smallest crevices on her back, her thighs, her calves. Everywhere.
She blinked to find herself studying not the exposed metal framework of the Aviatory’s ceiling from within the darker, velvet curtains surrounding her bed, but the gauzy white canopy draping over her bed at home. Her uncle stood there among the curtains, and she gasped, drawing the blankets to her chin.
“You’re awake now, are you?” he said gruffly. Every one of Uncle Jarvis’s stern features seemed to glare at her. She’d never noticed how long his sideburns were.
The events of the previous night crashed back into her memory. Her Naut training had given her a false sense of confidence, she realized. How stupid they were. And now Rosalind could be dead because of it.
Guilt twisted her stomach. “Is Rosalind all right?” Victoria asked. “And Graham—is he here?” And the Kreak, had they accomplished anything at all? How foolish we were. Of course the Kreak would notice our movement on the water and attack.
“Rosalind is partially blind. It seems while she was being held by the creature, it managed to breathe some fumes in her direction. Not enough to kill her, but sometimes death isn’t the worst thing that can befall a person.”
“Good heavens,” Victoria said in complete shock. Her thoughts rehashed every horrifying detail. Rosalind wasn’t even meant to come. Why, why had she come?
Victoria attempted to rise against her pillows. She winced and slumped back.
Victoria had been sure she’d died, if not from the fumes, then by falling from such a height to the sand. But blindness? That was awful.
“I hope you’re pleased with yourselves.” Uncle Jarvis loomed over Victoria’s bed. “Your snooping has incurred unnecessary wrath from our enemy. Now who knows what that creature will do? Mr. Birkley damaged it—he gave me the pieces he was able to extract, but they tell us nothing. Nothing! Did I not tell you our methods were fine? Did I not warn you to leave well enough alone?”
Fear pulsed through her at the rage in his eyes. “Yes, Uncle,” she forced herself to say. “I’m sorry for what happened. To Rosalind, and for all of it.” She pressed her chin to her chest, the words too overwhelming.
Jarvis bent to yell in her face. “A watcher lost his life last night, are you aware of that? He lost his life because of you!”
Victoria let the words sink in. Harry Fenstermaker.
Harry was dead, and it was her fault. She’d been the one to come up with this plan. She’d been the one to invite Dahlia along for the sole purpose of distracting Harry. If he’d been able to do his job, he’d still be alive.
“And Dahlia Covington has gone missing. Because you—”
“What?” Victoria succeeded at pushing herself up this time.
She scrambled to understand. Dahlia was her best friend. A tingling was taking over her chest, making it harder to breathe. Where had she gone?
“What do you mean she’s gone missing? What is being done to find her? Are the constables searching for her?”
“Of course they are!” he snapped. “But they wouldn’t have to if you hadn’t decided to defy my orders again last night!”
Uncle Jarvis backed away from her, pounding a fist against her bedpost.
Tears pricked Victoria’s eyes. Dahlia, missing. What had become of her? Had she been taken captive by the creature when it killed Harry?
Grief washed anew at the thought. Harry wasn’t much older than she. How could this have happened?
Part of what he said was true enough, but the injustice of it all spiked her blood. She could not claim all the blame. She fidgeted, her muscles screaming in protest. Oh, how she wished she could stand instead of having to sit there in her bed and endure him towering over her.
“Perhaps if you had decided to help us,” she said softly, “something more could have been accomplished. We cannot go on with the way things are. Surely you must know that.”
Jarvis’s nostrils flared. He said nothing for a long while. They stared at one another in glaring silence until he finally moved, turning his back to her.
“Whatever the case, Mayor Goshawk has returned, and he will be addressing you four in front of the Town Council this afternoon. Rosalind and Oscar, I’m sure, will both be punished by their parents, as will you. And needless to say, Mr. Birkley is no longer welcome in our house.”
The Town Hall was crowded by the time Victoria and her mother arrived. Victoria stared at the masses congregating in the one-roomed building, filling rows and rows of pews that lined the open space before a small stage. Two sets of staircases, one on either side, led to a balcony above.
A constable was stationed at either staircase, and Victoria shuddered. She’d been to the jail cells on the far end of the town only once, with her father long ago. They were dark and dank, and prisoners were often taken with illness soon after their incarceration. She did not want to go there.
Rosalind sat beside her father in the pew nearest to the stage. Lord Baxter stared ahead, solemn, never once looking over at his daughter or the white bandage wrapped around her eyes. That didn’t stop others from staring, however. Several ladies spoke behind their hands, noses sniffing and chins raised in the Baxters’ direction. Lord Baxter’s eyes dared them to ask what happened to his daughter.
It was mortifying that her friend was on display like a freak show. It was like a flag signaling their failure. That was probably the reason Victoria’s uncle had arranged for this trial.
A riot of emotions tumbled through her. Shame and guilt took precedence among them, tingeing like bad wine on her tongue. What had they done? And what were they going to do about it?
She glanced and found the Covingtons sitting in their pew. Dahlia’s mother’s face was shrouded by a black veil, and she intermittently snuck a handkerchief beneath it to dab at her eyes.
Victoria’s heart stung at the sight. Dahlia’s disappearance was her fault too. Where could her friend have gone? And why? Victoria shuddered to think that Dahlia might have been killed as well. She wished she could sit with Graham, that she could ask if he had any theories about Dahlia’s disappearance. Where was he?
She scanned the surrounding area, desperate for a glimpse of him.
There. In the balcony, Graham sat beside Oscar and his parents. A narrow cut nicked Graham’s cheek. Victoria waited for him to meet her gaze, but his attention was on Oscar. The two boys whispered, glancing down at Rosalind occasionally. Graham shook his head adamantly as if trying to convince Oscar of something. And then, slowly, Graham’s eyes slid to Victoria’s.
The room shrunk at that look. The balcony lowered and offered him to her in an instant. Victoria’s mouth was a desert, her heart a mallet. Graham tipped a finger from his forehead down in a sort of salute, and she nodded back.
She longed to abandon her mother and go to him, but she dutifully sat on a side bench beside Enid Digby. She faced the center of the stage where her uncle and a few of the other town lords sat. The mayor’s seat in the center was still vacant. Victoria wondered at that. Wasn’t it he who had called this meeting?
Movement caught her eye, and she turned to see Bronwyn, Aline, and Emma approaching, arms folded. Bronwyn’s dark eyes narrowed into a glare.
“You should have told us what you were planning,” she said.
A lump formed in Victoria’s throat. She attempted to rise, but Bronwyn shoved her back down by the shoulders.
“We could have had the craft ready. We could have helped you!” she went on in her deep, brassy voice.
“A true leader doesn’t go off on her own and endanger the whole town,” Emma added forcefully, much different from her usual reserved manner.
Victoria could feel eyes penetrating her from all sides, but she forced her gaze to the Nauts. “You’re right,” she said, a sick twisting in her belly.
Aline opened her mouth as if to argue, or as if surprised that Victoria wasn’t defending herself, Victoria wasn’t sure which. She didn’t know Aline well—not the way she did the other girls. Aline had only taken Maizey’s place within the last few weeks. But she felt guilty about that too, at the moment. She was their leader. A squad needed to stick together.
“I just—I wanted you all to be safe,” Victoria added.
“Horseradish,” said Bronwyn with a sneer. “You worried we would rat you out. And now Dahlia is gone.”
Victoria’s eyes closed. There was no question of it now—she would lose her position over this, for good this time. But she hadn’t lost it yet. She was still their leader.
She rose to her feet.
“No one is sorrier than I am about Dahlia. We will find her. But I tell you now, something had to be done. You know as well as I, you would not have been equipped and at the ready.” Bronwyn opened her mouth to argue, but Victoria spoke over her. “You would have balked at me and gone straight to my uncle. You wouldn’t have known that the Kreak would attack any more than we did, so calm down, ladies. It is not your place to question me.”
The three girls sniffed and exchanged glances. Bronwyn straightened her stocky shoulders. “It’s no secret I don’t like you. You’re arrogant, and the only reason you’re the leader is because of your uncle. But as you say, you’re the leader. We would have followed you.”
Victoria gaped at them as the three girls veered off to their pew a few rows back. Was Bronwyn right, and she had underestimated them?
Maybe she was right. Maybe Victoria didn’t deserve her position after all.
Chatter quieted across the crowded room. A baby cried from somewhere near the door. Uncle Jarvis rose to the podium at the stage’s center, and the noise softened, dying out completely.
Victoria’s mother stiffened beside her, and Victoria braced herself, ready for the public reprimand and her jail sentence, though she wasn’t sure anything they said or did could make her feel any worse. She stared at the constables again, the men standing ready to drag her off at a moment’s notice.
“Thank you all for gathering here,” Jarvis began. “As your Town Council, we felt you should know the Kreak attack last night was not sporadic as the others have been. This time the beast was provoked.”
A murmur stirred over the crowd.
Victoria glanced at Rosalind, then back up to Graham and Oscar, to the other Nauts in their designated pew, and finally to the empty space where Dahlia should be.
“We have called you all here to hold the responsible party accountable. Fortunately, our mayor, Dorian Goshawk, is here to address the issue as well.”
At the announcement, a side door opened. The congregation’s attention veered to the old man stepping through in a fitted blue suit with a yellow waistcoat and white cravat.
Unjust, Victoria thought. Uncle Jarvis couldn’t do this. He’d conveniently failed to mention her and the others’ intentions last night. They’d been trying to help, not provoke. At least give us the chance to defend ourselves.
And that wasn’t to mention his refusal to assist them in finding a way to permanently stop the attacks. Her blood thickened, adding anger to the mixture of emotions gushing through her the longer she sat. She struggled to retain her posture.
Mayor Goshawk strode forward, agile for a man of his age. White hair tufted like a cloud around his ears. Victoria remembered him saying something about obtaining help from Wolverton, how that had been the reason for his disappearance the night Mrs. Powell died.
The thought struck her with a chill in the warm room. Wolverton was not there. The mayor claimed to have been somewhere that did not exist.
Unrest stirred in the balcony above. People were muttering and making shushing noises. Someone said something that sounded like, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Not a few people turned to gaze upward at the distraction in the balcony. Victoria glanced as well, to find Graham on his feet with a look of complete disbelief on his face. People continued to shush him. One woman even tried to pull him to sit, but he brushed away her hands.
He caught Victoria’s eye, pointed to the mayor and mouthed something. Victoria shook her head, unable to make it out amid the hubbub.
Finally, Graham returned his attention the mayor now standing at the podium, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted out, “Hey, Starkey!”