Chapter 31

C HAPTER 31

"It almost worked," said Hester.

"But it didn't work," said Imogene.

Cordelia said nothing. The sound of Falada's eerie, whining laughter still rang inside her skull, going on and on, long after they had left the circle. She hunched her shoulders against the memory of the sound.

Willard had dropped his jacket over her as they went inside. The smell of camphor and starch clung to it, but it was warm and Cordelia hadn't realized that she was cold until he did. Then she realized that her gown was torn and dirty and that both her gown and her skin were crusted with drying blood, and then everything began to seem like too much.

She didn't quite swoon, but she had no real memory of coming inside the house, or of entering the parlor, or of anything until a mug of tea was thrust into her hands. She wrapped her fingers around it and let the heat leach into her skin.

Willard and Lord Evermore and the stablehands were still outside. Killing Falada, she thought, and then amended it to Trying to kill Falada.

"Hang it all," said Hester. "I could feel it working. Why didn't it take?"

"Because Richard wasn't the right person," said Imogene. "It's in the damn book, except the author didn't feel obligated to do something useful, like underline it in red ink a few times. Let he who invokes the reagent be he who is best suited to the task, water to water, wine to wine, salt to salt. "

"That's ridiculous," Hester said. "We're people, not elements. It's not like if you cut me, I'll bleed water. It doesn't make any sense."

Imogene unscrewed her flask and dumped a glug of something into her tea. "It doesn't have to make normal sense, it just has to make magic sense. And it does, sort of. We got two out of the three elements right, but Richard wasn't supposed to be wine. Couldn't you feel it?"

Hester pressed her lips together. "I felt something, " she admitted. "Everything seemed to vibrate. But then it fell apart."

"I got a bit more than that. Cordelia?" Imogene nudged her shoulder. "Did you feel it too?"

Cordelia nodded. "I did," she croaked. Her throat was dry and she took a swallow of tea and nearly burned the roof of her mouth. "It was working, until Lord Evermore joined. And then it felt like the wrong note."

"He had the wine," said Hester obstinately.

Imogene rolled her eyes. "Nobody's saying it was your precious Richard's fault. You or I couldn't have done it either. We needed a different person for that reagent."

Hester grunted. After a minute she said, "Would it work, do you think? If we got someone who was actually like wine, whatever that means?"

"I think it might," said Cordelia. There was a buzzing in her head, but she couldn't quite focus on it. "Whatever we were doing, Falada was scared of it. At least at first."

"That damned horse," muttered Hester. "Or whatever it is."

The parlor door opened. Evermore and Willard came in, both exhausted. "It's dead," Evermore said. "They're burying it now." He paused, looking both triumphant and slightly sheepish. "I don't know if it was necessary, but we burned the head. It seemed… wise."

Cordelia felt something in her chest unknot. "Thank you," she whispered. Falada was dead. Relief crashed over her, so deep and sweet that she thought she was probably crying, but she didn't care. He was dead and he would never lie to her again. " Thank you. "

She climbed to her feet and stood, swaying slightly. "I think," she said, "that I am very tired."

"You were amazing out there," said Evermore. "You saved Bernard's life. The doctor's with him now. If you hadn't jumped in…" He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. "I'm in your debt," he said. "Really and truly in your debt."

Cordelia could not think of any response to that, so she smiled vaguely, and let Willard take her arm and lead her up the stairs. "Alice is waiting for you," he said. "I took the liberty of ordering a bath sent up for you as well."

She squeezed his arm. A few minutes later, Alice opened the door and said, "Mary's tits, what happened to you?," and Cordelia heard Willard say something over her head, but she couldn't focus on it. Whatever it was, Alice asked her no more questions.

She must have taken the bath because when she slid into bed, she was distantly aware that her hair was damp, but that was the last thing she knew until morning.

Cordelia? Cordelia, can you hear me?

The voice was loud and insistent and Cordelia was so very tired. The inside of her skull felt tender and raw. She rolled over in bed.

Cordelia! Am I doing this right? Oh blast, maybe I've forgotten how…

Her eyes snapped open. She knew that voice. "Penelope?"

Yes! Oh, thank god. I tried to talk to you last night—I think it was last night?—but you couldn't seem to hear me.

The odd buzzing in her skull the night before suddenly made sense. Penelope had been trying to talk to her, and she'd been too exhausted to understand it.

"You came here!" Cordelia whispered. "I thought you were afraid you'd get lost!"

Yes, and with good reason. I did get lost . A cinnamon smell of distress filled Cordelia's sinuses. I thought I could follow the horse again, if I stayed far back. He shines like anything. But that woman was on his back, and after—Lord, I don't know how long—suddenly there were these strings coming out of her, wrapping around poor Samuel, and it was horrible. I got too close. I was trying to think if I could get the strings off him. But then it was like the church again, and she could see me, and I had to run away.

"She must have been ensorcelling him," said Cordelia glumly. "Of course she doesn't have to worry now, they're already married, so there won't be more water, wine, and salt."

Seems likely. But once I bolted, I lost sight of the horse. Everything was just darkness, and sometimes little blobs, but they ran away when I came near. Animals, maybe.

I wandered like that for ages. How long has it been?

"A little over a week."

That's not so bad. Penelope laughed. I was afraid I'd be like one of those people who go to sleep in a fairy hill or under the waves and when they come back out, a hundred years have passed.

"Did you stumble in here by accident, then?"

No. I saw the… the ritual? The water, wine, and salt. It was so much louder than the one at the church. It blazed up like a burning city, and I saw it and went toward it. Another uneasy laugh. I was afraid to get too close to it, but it didn't work, did it? Something went wrong. One of the notes was missing.

"The wine-note." Cordelia tried to explain what she'd felt and what Imogene had said. "She thought—we thought—that Lord Evermore wasn't able to do it. He was the wrong sort of person. But we don't know who the right sort is."

Of course he isn't. If you need someone with wine in their soul, he'd be exactly wrong. He's good and decent and reliable and if you told him that fun had been made illegal, he would bow his head and avoid ever having it again.

Cordelia choked on that description. "We need to find someone," she whispered. She could hear Alice moving in the next room, and suspected that she was about to lose her chance to talk privately. "Can you see if anyone here is able to do it? Is that something you can tell?"

I don't know, the ghost admitted. You all look like blobs to me. I suppose I could wander around and see if any of you are wine-flavored blobs, though.

"Do that," Cordelia begged, and then the door opened and she had to turn it into a cough so Alice wouldn't think she was talking to someone who wasn't there. She suddenly missed the water closet enormously.

"You're awake!" said Alice happily. "It's nearly noon, miss—not that anyone is expecting you anywhere, not after what you did last night."

What you did last night was a phrase that would strike terror into the heart of stronger mortals than Cordelia. She took a step back. "Last n-night?"

"You saving the old stablemaster!" Alice beamed. "It's all anyone's talking about belowstairs!"

"Um," said Cordelia. "What… what are they saying?"

"That horse went mad and went for Old Bernard and tore him up good, and you threw yourself over him until the lads could pull the horse off!" She grinned, the grin of someone whose social currency has shot up remarkably in the last twelve hours. "You're a hero, miss!"

"Oh god no," said Cordelia.

"Oh yes." Alice tackled her scalp with the hairbrush. "And here was me thinking last night that you'd been running through the woods and rolled through the mud. You might've said!"

"It wasn't like that," Cordelia protested. "I knew the horse, that was all. It wasn't… I didn't…" She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Is Old Bernard all right?"

"Oh, they say he's made out of wire and rawhide. He looks a sight, but Charlotte, who's stepping out with the second groom, she says the doctor stitched him up and as long as he doesn't get lockjaw, he'll just be short an ear."

Lockjaw. Could a familiar transmit lockjaw? Cordelia had no idea. It didn't seem like they should be able to.

By the time she was dressed and had a moment of privacy on the stairs, the ghost no longer answered her whispers. Cordelia went down to breakfast, trying to figure out the best way to explain to the others about Penelope.

"Your dead friend has been talking to me and I'm very sorry I didn't mention it before now" seemed somehow tactless, but she wasn't certain how else to phrase it. Maybe I could… err… say that I only now heard her? Then it wouldn't look like I had been hiding it? Because I didn't mean to hide it, it was just that I didn't think anyone would believe me, and then everything was very… very… She let that thought trail off because she wasn't certain how to describe the last few weeks, even in her head.

Dammit, she hated to lie to her friends. And it was probably just a bad idea. No, she should try to explain, and if they were angry that she hadn't told them sooner (and how could they not be?) she'd bear up to it. She deserved it.

She picked at breakfast. Only Hester and Imogene were down yet, although Willard joined them a moment later. Her stomach churned and she told herself sternly that she would not wait another day, these were her friends and she had already waited too long and dammit, they must want to talk to Penelope, of course they would, it was selfish to hold off just because she was scared.

She set down her napkin and opened her mouth and the door to the breakfast room slammed open.

Hester stopped in the middle of buttering a roll as Richard flung open the door. He never gets that particular crease in his forehead unless there's a problem, and he never slams doors unless it's a big problem.

"Something wrong?" asked Imogene. "You look like you've just drawn the queen of spades in a game of Bluebeard."

"I think you had better see this for yourself," said Richard. "All of you." He took Hester's arm and helped her to her feet. She might have protested that she could do it herself, but a look at his face made her think that they had bigger problems right now.

He led them around the back of the mews, to the pits where garbage was burned. "This is where they buried Falada," he said grimly. "I saw it myself yesterday morning."

He pointed.

Hester followed the line of his finger. She heard Cordelia make a soft sound of horror, but for a moment, she could not think why. The grave had to be around here somewhere, perhaps beyond that cattle wallow…

The presentiment of doom, which had been so quiet since she had acknowledged Lady Evangeline's presence, suddenly poured cold water into the chambers of Hester's heart.

It wasn't a cattle wallow. It had the same look to it, a wreckage of earth churned up by hooves, but far narrower and sloping downward. The far end emerged from freshly disturbed dirt, edged by a semicircle of grass. A few stray feathers lay scattered through the dirt, and Hester didn't need to look closely to know they came from geese.

"Hell and damnation," said Imogene. "He dug himself out."