Chain of Iron

Even at this early hour, there was traffic on the bridge—clerks hurrying to work, costermonger carts on the way to the morning market at Covent Garden, milk vans rattling with bottles—but as Ariadne and Anna were glamoured, no one stopped to stare.

I have been running away from you for two years. Why should I stop now? Anna thought. Though if she had to admit it to herself, she’d been doing a poor job of running these past few weeks.

She gave a little mocking half bow but stayed where she was; in a few moments, Ariadne had caught up with her, and they made their way across the bridge together. The sky was beginning to turn copper-blue in the east. The wind tugged at Ariadne’s dark hair. Anna had always thought that when it was unbound, it looked like a storm cloud.

“It’s odd,” Ariadne said. “Now that we have this information about Jesse Blackthorn, what do we do with it?”

“Nothing at the moment,” said Anna. “Lucie wants to tell Grace first.”

It was the last thing Lucie had said, an urgent request as she’d swung into a hansom cab, saying she desperately needed to get back to the Institute before Aunt Cecily noticed she was gone. Anna and Ariadne still had to finish their patrol; they were headed back to the Institute now, Anna determined to see if anything new had developed with Thomas.

“I’m rather surprised they’re friends,” said Ariadne. “I’ve never known Grace to have a plan to meet anyone, or a friend to visit at the house. She’s a sort of ghost when Charles isn’t about.”

Anna was not entirely sure Lucie and Grace were friends. It was not in Lucie’s nature to befriend someone who’d caused her brother grief. On the other hand, Lucie was always telling herself stories in which she was the heroine of grand adventures. Investigating the slightly romantic mystery of a boy’s death certainly fell into that category.

They had reached the Victoria Embankment, which ran along the north side of the Thames. The wind off the river was bitter here, and Anna shivered. “Hopefully Grace won’t be troubling you for too much longer,” she said. “Eventually Charles will have to return from Paris and marry her.”

Ariadne laughed softly. “Everyone thinks I should scorn Grace. For the insult of taking up with my former betrothed. But it was actually my idea to take her in.”

“It was?” Anna was curious despite herself.

Ariadne shrugged. “I didn’t want to marry Charles, you know. You would know. Better than anyone.”

Anna didn’t reply. Perhaps you didn’t want to, she thought. But you agreed to marry him, knowing it would break my heart. Knowing you would never love him. I would never have done such a thing.

“When I woke up from being ill and found out that he had left me for Grace, I was more relieved than anything else,” said Ariadne. “I was grateful to Grace, I think. I thought if we invited her to live with us, it would show the Enclave that I bear her no ill will.”

After turning onto Carmelite Street, they passed a brick building with mullioned windows. The spire of the Institute loomed close above the nearby buildings, the warren of familiar streets around the cathedral welcoming them in. “Well, that’s quite a sacrifice to make for the Enclave,” Anna said.

“It wasn’t just for the Enclave. I wanted to get to know Grace better, because of our shared experience.”

Anna laughed shortly. “How are your lives at all alike, Ari?”

Ariadne gave her a steady look. “We’re both adopted.”

It was not something that had occurred to Anna. After a pause, she said, “I have not always seen eye to eye with your parents. But they love you. I think it is doubtful whether Tatiana has any gentle feelings toward Grace.”

“My parents do love me,” Ariadne conceded. “But they never acknowledge my past—the fact that I came here from India when I was seven—nor even that I had a different name when I was born.” Ariadne faltered, seeming to search for the right words. “I feel as though I am always between worlds. As if I am glad to be their daughter, but I am someone else, too.”

Anna heard a rumble in the distance, like the sound of a tram. “What was your name when you were born?”

They had almost reached the gates of the Institute. Ariadne hesitated. “Kamala,” she said. “Kamala Joshi.”

Kamala. A name like a flower.

“And there was no other family—no one who could help?” Anna said.

“An aunt and uncle, but there had been bad blood between them and my parents. They refused to take me in. I could have been raised at the Bombay Institute, but I—I wanted a mother and father. A proper family. And perhaps, to be far from those who had rejected me.” Ariadne’s lovely deep eyes with their flecks of gold were fixed on Anna’s face. It was unnerving, being looked at like that—it made Anna feel seen in a way she rarely did. “Anna. Will you ever forgive me?”

Anna tensed, caught off guard by the question. “Ariadne—”

Lightning cracked through the sky. Anna spun in surprise. There had been no sign of storm, the dawn sky untroubled. But now …

“What is that?” Ariadne whispered.

A huge dark cloud had gathered over the Institute—but only over the Institute. It was massive, inky black, and billowing above the church as though propelled by internal gusts. All around it the sky spread dark blue and untroubled to the horizon.

Thunder rumbled as Anna stared around in perplexity. A mundane man in workman’s clothes walked past, whistling to himself; it was clear that the storm was invisible to him.

Anna pushed open the gates, and she and Ariadne ducked into the courtyard. It was deep in shadow, the cloud billowing overhead. Lightning crackled around the Institute’s spire.

Ariadne had a khanda—a double-edged blade—already in her hand. Unfastening her whip from her belt, Anna turned in a slow circle, every sense on alert. Her eye caught a flicker of movement—something dark, like a spill of ink or blood, was moving in the center of the courtyard.

She took a step toward it—just as it surged up and outward: it wasn’t a spill after all, but something slick and black and moving and alive. Anna leaped back, thrusting Ariadne behind her, as it smashed upward through the earth, sending cracks zigzagging through the flagstones. Water rushed up through the cracks, filling the courtyard with the stench of hot salt and brine. Even as Anna spun, lashing out at the darkness with her whip, she couldn’t help but wonder: How on earth was the Institute’s courtyard possibly filling with seawater?

 

Though initially reluctant to venture out of his warm stall and into the icy weather, Balios gained his energy back quickly, delivering Lucie to Chiswick House in the dark small hours. She dismounted and patted the horse’s muzzle before tying him to a post near the gates with a blanket draped over his withers.

She moved cautiously over the ruined, winter-burned grounds. As always, Chiswick House seemed abandoned, only the whistle of the winter wind through the trees to accompany her. But she was determined to take no chances. If her guess about Jesse was even remotely close to the truth, then she had to be very careful indeed. She crossed the ruined garden, with the wry thought that she was becoming as familiar with the paths of the Chiswick grounds as she was with the streets of her own neighborhood. She wended her way past broken statuary and overgrown shrubbery until she arrived at the old garden shed.