Wayfarer

“You’re…”

“Hullo, Nan,” Julian said, his voice painfully light. “Gave me a bit of hell trying to track you down in this mess.”

Her mouth moved, but it was a long while before words emerged.

“I thought I might be…I thought I might have passed. But…you’re not you, not from before—?”

Etta wasn’t sure what she was asking, exactly. Julian just responded with one of his infuriating shrugs.

“Before I supposedly plummeted to my untimely death? It’s all right. It was only a bit of play. I never did go splat. You know how I love my games.”

Even in her condition, the woman, a guardian, knew to be wary of revealing his fate to a traveler—however false a fate it might have been. She blinked almost owlishly at him.

“I thought…I thought so. You’ve the look of a man now. You’ve grown so well.” As if the whole scene wasn’t awful enough, the woman began to cry. Etta began the slow process of backing away without being noticed. “I’d always hoped to see you…one last time…that you’d come to visit me when I was older, so I could see you…smile again.”

Etta’s heart stretched to the point of ripping at the unbridled emotion in the old woman’s voice.

“A fair bet, that. You’ve always known, Nan, there’s no getting rid of me,” Julian told her. “What did you say? Luck of the devil, lives of a cat? I’m only sorry I didn’t come sooner.”

The eyebrows had been singed from her face, but Etta imagined them lifting at that, just by the way her eyes took on a sudden glint. “Thank the good Lord you didn’t. Or else you’d…be…”

Dead. Dying. Incinerated.

Gone.

Etta’s stomach turned, and she looked away, toward the heavy, dark curtain covering the shattered window. The movement must have finally caught the old woman’s attention, because Etta felt the pressure of her gaze like a chain jerking her head back up.

“My God—Rose—”

Etta jumped at the viciousness of the woman’s tone, less amused now to see yet another person all but cross themselves at a reminder of her mother.

“No, Nan,” Julian said, pressing her gently down onto the bed. “This is her daughter. Etta, this is the great Octavia Ironwood.”

This didn’t seem to improve the woman’s opinion in the slightest. Her breathing had become labored, to the point where even Julian shot a panicked look at a nearby oxygen tank. Etta took another step back, wondering if she should leave—Julian’s old nanny was so fragile right now, any sort of disturbance seemed capable of shattering what strength she had left.

“I never thought…I’d see you with the likes of a Linden, and her daughter, no less,” the woman coughed, hacking up something wet from her lungs. Julian’s face softened; he reached for a rag and a bowl of warm water from the nearby stand and dabbed the blood from the corner of her lips.

“Don’t…bother yourself….”

“It’s no bother at all,” he told her. “Just returning the favor for all the times you did it for me as a little prat.”

“You were never a prat,” Octavia told him, her voice severe despite the whistle of air in and out of her chest. “You were trying. You tested. But you were never”—she cut her eyes at Etta—“stupid.”

That one stung, Etta had to admit. Initially, hearing things like that had made Etta think of her mother like one of the paintings Rose restored at the Met—its true image obscured by layers of age and grime. Now, she wore the truth like a badge of shame. “You tried your best raising me,” Julian was saying, “but you know me—all style, no sense. I was bound to run with a rougher set sooner or later.”

The burned half of the woman’s face pulled into an agonizing smile. Etta couldn’t tell the difference between her choking and laughter.

“You’re a little love,” she informed him. “I might like you…even better…if you could find me a drink of the good stuff.”

“I’ll bring you a whole bottle of Scotch,” he vowed, “if I have to go to Scotland and bring it back, still cold from the distillery.”

“Tell me what’s…what’s happened,” she said. “This wasn’t what was meant to be.”

Julian began to explain what had happened, quietly, quickly.

“There’s a lot to be said about Cyrus Ironwood,” Octavia began. “There’s…much to be ashamed of. How he treats—how he treats his own family, for one. He was so hard on you…for not being what he meant you to be. For not fixing…your father.”

Etta’s hands curled around her biceps, squeezing the muscles. Nicholas and Julian’s father, Augustus, had been a vile piece of work; Etta had to wonder if he was what Cyrus had “meant for” Julian to be.

The shadow that passed over Julian’s face lifted again as the woman’s eyes flickered over to him, then to the room’s other sleeping occupants. She spoke so softly, Etta had to move closer to her bed to hear. “There is…madness in him. Oh, don’t look so surprised. Those of us…those of us closest to him have watched him step closer…closer…to the fire. But he did create a world better than what had…come before. None of this…none of this should have happened. But Rose Linden—she and her outcasts could never accept it.”