With Fate Conspire Page 6

  Eliza had never been to Islington before. When evening began to draw close on the afternoon of the second Friday, she took her nearly empty barrow and began walking up Aldersgate Street through Clerkenwell. She asked directions as she went, and eventually was directed to a lane behind a coaching inn, in a busy part of town.

  The building at No. 9 proved to be a house, and a respectable one at that. Eliza stared at it in dismay. The setting of her various fancies had always been vague—a room; chairs; faceless people—she had presumed it would be some kind of public building, like the ones where workers’ combinations sometimes met to plan protests against their masters. Not someone’s house, where it would be impossible to fade into the background.

  “See here now—what are you doing, standing about like that?”

  Biting down on a curse, Eliza turned, and saw a constable eyeing her suspiciously. All at once she became aware of her clothing: two ragged skirts, layered for warmth and because she had nowhere to keep the second but on her body. Men’s boots, their leather cracked and filthy. A shawl that hadn’t seen a good wash since the last time it rained. Her bonnet had once been some respectable lady’s castoff, but that was years ago; the ribbons she used to tie it did not match, and there was a hole in the brim big enough to poke her thumb through.

  And she’d been standing there for several minutes, staring at a housefront as if wondering how to break in.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Eliza glimpsed a bearded gentleman in a bowler hat knocking at the door of No. 9. “Would you like to buy some oysters, sir?” she asked the constable, her attention on the other side of the street. A maid opened the door, and let the gent in.

  “No, I wouldn’t,” the bobby said, nose wrinkling at their old stench. “Get you gone. The sort of people who live here don’t need the likes of you around.”

  The likes of her would never get into that house, either. Eliza ducked her head and mumbled an apology, pushing her barrow past the fellow, carefully not looking at the house as she went.

  He followed her to the nearby High Street; she was able to lose him in the crowds there. Tongue stuck into the gap where her father had knocked out one of her teeth years ago, Eliza considered her options.

  She didn’t have many. But she wasn’t willing to give up, either. If she couldn’t attend the meeting of the London Fairy Society, then at least she could try to see who did.

  Making a halfhearted effort to cry her oysters, she turned left on the next street she found, hoping Islington’s tangle wouldn’t defeat her the way the City’s sometimes did. A few narrow courts gave her no luck, before she found an alley that went through, back to White Lion Street. She gave it a careful look before proceeding, but didn’t see the peeler anywhere.

  Eliza hurried down the pavement, barrow rattling before her. Memory served her well: the house across the street and down one door from No. 9 had shutters drawn and locked across its windows, and the lamp at the door was not lit. Uninhabited, or the residents had gone on a journey. Either way, no one was around to object if she hid in the area at the bottom of their basement steps.

  She waited until no one was nearby, then hefted her barrow down, trying not to spill the remaining oysters everywhere, or trip in the darkness. Then she threw the more ragged of her two skirts over them to mute the smell, and peeped through the iron bars to see what happened on the other side of the street.

  It seemed almost everyone had arrived already, for she only saw one additional person knock at the door. This was a young lady, she thought; it was hard to tell, for the woman made every attempt at secrecy, even tugging her hood forward and darting glances about the street. Eliza shrank back into the shadows, and when she looked out again, the door was closing behind the mysterious girl.

  Then it was seven o’clock, and no one else came. Eliza sat on the cold steps to think some more. Should she go around the back? If there was a garden, she might be able to climb into it, and if the meeting was on the ground or first floor … common sense reasserted itself. More than likely she’d be caught, especially with that peeler around.

  Better to wait for next month. There were a few people in Whitechapel who owed her favors, or were sympathetic to pleas for help; she might be able to get herself clean and respectable enough to knock on the door.

  But that meant a whole month more without Owen. A month closer to possibly losing him forever.

  Eliza dug in her pocket and drew out a battered piece of paper, its corners long since torn off by ill handling. She had to stop herself brushing her thumb across the faces, for fear she’d wear them even more indistinct.

  Mrs. Darragh, her arms spread wide to embrace the children before her. Little Maggie. Eliza, her black hair unruly even after Mrs. Darragh’s efforts to tame it. And Owen, a knock-kneed boy of twelve. It was the only picture of him, taken in celebration of Maggie’s first communion.

  She had to preserve it. Without the photo, Eliza feared she would forget what he looked like.

  Shivering, she crossed her arms on her bent knees and laid her forehead against them. He’s dead, you stupid fool, Maggie had said. Eliza had proof to the contrary, of a sort, though she didn’t dare admit it.

  The girl might have guessed, if she ever bothered to think about it. Eliza and Owen had never told Maggie about the faeries, but she knew perfectly well about the ghosts. She’d been there when Eliza saw her mother, a full year after the woman had died. And she knew Eliza had summoned others, or tried to—though not why.

  It had been a foolish dream, for the likes of her. Most of the women earning fame, and sometimes money, as mediums or spiritualists were of the middling sort: bored solicitors’ wives, ladies too respectable to work for a living, but not rich enough to enjoy their idleness. Not Irish hoydens. And it would hardly have gone over well in Whitechapel, where speaking to ghosts was likely to brand her a witch. But if it had worked …

  The ghost part worked well enough. But before she could try and make money at it, Owen had disappeared. The only ghost she’d tried to summon since then was his, every All Hallows’ Eve.

  Five years she’d tried, calling for her lost friend, trying to manifest him in the air before her, or at least feel the comfort of his presence in her mind. Five years of failure, and then she’d given up, because she no longer wanted to know. If he came, she would know he was dead. If she didn’t try, she could tell herself he was still alive, and ignore the possibility that perhaps she just wasn’t strong enough to raise him.

  It didn’t make sense, but there it was.

  To her surprise, she heard the bell of a nearby church tolling eight. Lifting her head once more, Eliza felt the imprint of folded cloth on her forehead. She’d fallen asleep. Bloody lucky, you were, not to be caught by the peeler. Silently calling herself nine kinds of idiot, Eliza stood and looked through the bars again.

  Lights still burned in the house across the street, and before long the front door opened. A maidservant emerged, trotting off toward High Street; shortly after she returned, a hansom cab arrived, followed by someone’s brougham. People began to depart—Eliza counted seven, ranging from the gentleman she’d seen before to a matronly woman in the gaudiest bonnet she’d ever laid eyes on. The only one missing was the furtive young woman, and just when Eliza was about to give up waiting, she appeared on the steps.

  Followed almost immediately by another woman. “Miss Kittering!”

  The first one paused, hands on the edge of her hood, ready to pull it up. The light above the steps of No. 9 showed her to be quite a wealthy young woman indeed; she had obviously taken care to choose plain clothing, but her pert little cap had some very expensive feathers in it. The hair beneath was a glossy yellow, twisted into an elegant knot. Eliza caught only the briefest glimpse of her face, though, before the young woman turned to see who had hailed her.

  The other woman was remarkable in her very lack of remarkability. Medium-brown hair; medium-age features; medium-quality clothing that could have belonged to the wi
fe of a middling professional man, perhaps a solicitor or a clergyman with a good living. As she hurried down the steps to join Miss Kittering, though, a strange intensity came into her manner, that gave the lie to her drab appearance. “Will you spare me a moment?”

  Miss Kittering glanced behind her, to where one last carriage waited. “I must get back—”

  “I understand. Would you perhaps let me ride with you? I have a very particular proposition, you see, that I did not want to make before the others—it is for you only, Miss Kittering, because I can see that you are a more … visionary spirit than the others. I suspect you could accept, even embrace, truths the others are not yet ready for.”

  Miss Kittering’s interest sharpened visibly. Eliza curled her hands around the bars, as if they were the only things holding her in place. Otherwise she might fly up the steps and accost this stranger on the spot.

  “What truths?” the young lady asked, curiosity clear in her voice.

  The other woman hesitated, then stepped closer. Her reply was so quiet that Eliza could only barely make it out. “That the materialistic views which bind so many in this scientific age are not the whole of the story. I know more of faeries than I have admitted publicly, Miss Kittering. And I tell you this: You are in a position to do a great favor to one of them, and receive a favor in return.”

  Miss Kittering’s laugh was much louder, and half disbelieving—but only half. “Me? I don’t see how—”

  “This is not the place,” her companion said, a tilt of her head toward No. 9 making her meaning clear. “If I may ride with you, though…”

  “Yes, of course—I am quite intrigued. And I mustn’t delay here any longer; Mama expects me home. Come, and we’ll talk along the way.” Together they went toward the carriage. Desperate, Eliza risked coming up the steps, as if she’d just emerged from the house’s cellar; she was rewarded by hearing Miss Kittering tell the coachman, “South Kensington, please.” Then they were inside, and the coachman mounted his box once more; with a flap of the reins they were away.

  Leaving Eliza standing in the middle of White Lion Street in a daze. Was she lying?

  It might be like the fraudulent spiritualists who claimed to summon ghosts, only their manifestations were nothing more than a conjuror’s tricks. Whitechapel had its share of confidence men—and women, too—swindling the gullible, and Miss Kittering was both young and wealthy enough to be a tempting target.

  Or that woman might have been telling the truth.

  If only Eliza had gotten her name! But—her feet paused on the pavement—she did have Miss Kittering’s name. And a district, too: South Kensington. Should the woman’s claims prove true, Miss Kittering would have her own connection to the faeries.

  Which Eliza could make use of. If she found a way to get close. And for Owen’s sake, she would find a way.

  She almost forgot her barrow in her haste. Eliza dragged her second skirt back on, hauled the barrow up the steps, not caring if she spilled oysters now. Miss Kittering. South Kensington. With that, I won’t have to wait another month.

  Owen—I’m coming.

  The Goblin Market, Onyx Hall: March 19, 1884

  “Dreams, good and bad! Loved ones back from the dead, very cheap right now, or demons chasing you for just a little bit more … morning there, my canine friend. I ’ear you’re doing well these days.”

  Dead Rick scowled at Broddy Bobbin, waving for him to lower his voice. “You think I want that shouted all over the Market, man? Just because I’ve got enough to keep people from breaking my fingers, don’t mean I’m ready to go around flashing my bread like some rich toff.”

  The crate Bobbin stood on only brought him to Dead Rick’s height; like most hobs, he was barely child-size. Any child that ugly, though, risked being drowned in a river. He smiled at Dead Rick, but it was a hideous thing, bad enough for a goblin’s face. “So you do ’ave bread. In that case, let me show you—”

  The skriker rolled his eyes. “I told you, I’m paying off my debts. Even if I wanted your grubby little second’and dreams, I wouldn’t ’ave anything to spare for ’em. I’m just looking for Cyma.”

  Bobbin pouted, but his wounded look was even worse than his smile, and he knew it. Giving Dead Rick up as a lost cause, he jerked one knobby thumb farther down the chamber. “She were talking with Charcoal Eddie a little while ago. You tell that bastard ’e’d better steal some worthwhile dreams next time. That last lot was pure rubbish.”

  They were always rubbish these days. Stealing dreams properly took time and effort; the goblins and pucks who did that sort of thing could no longer afford either. Mostly the Goblin Market made do with what it already had, everyone buying and selling the same trinkets and scraps over and over, like a leech feeding on itself. And the wares got more broken and worn out with every exchange.

  That didn’t stop them from trying, though. This, the largest of the Market’s actual markets, was full of noise and movement. No mortals—those were sold elsewhere, in a flesh market of squalling babies and people in cages—but a thousand kinds of things, from captive dreams to scratched phonograph cylinders. Fae of all kinds and nations came here, to buy or to sell; the majority might be English, but there were Scots and Irish and Welsh, Germans and Spaniards and French, creatures from so far afield they might be a different sort of being entirely. One pen held an enormous three-headed snake, which the alf standing in front proclaimed was a naga from distant India; it watched the passersby with drugged and unfriendly eyes.

  Dead Rick found Cyma standing in front of a cracked mirror, holding a dress of printed cotton against her body. It was a strange-looking thing, with a tiny bodice that went no lower than the breasts, and a narrow skirt falling loose from there. “Where in Faerie did that come from?”

  Cyma shook her head at him, amused and pitying. “Don’t you remember? They used to wear these, years ago—mortal women did. During the Prince Regent’s reign. I found them delightful. Very Greek, don’t you think?”

  It could have been Chinese for all he cared. Dead Rick sidled closer and muttered, “I can pay you back now. Mostly, anyway—I’m still a bit short. But if you let me keep a bite or two, I can probably get the rest.”

  He’d left Cyma for last because she was kinder than his other creditors. She had been a court lady, rumor said, back when there still was a court beyond the Prince’s few followers, but she didn’t spend her time dallying in the surviving gardens with the scant handful of lords and ladies that remained. She couldn’t: Cyma had her own debts, of a sort that couldn’t be repaid in bread, and Nadrett held them. It gave her more sympathy than most; she might forgive him the extra delay.

  Dead Rick was startled when she smiled and patted him on the cheek. “You’re a sweet one, aren’t you? Paying me back, when I know you’re all but penniless. You needn’t worry. Keep it for yourself; I don’t mind.”

  He stiffened warily. “In exchange for what?”

  Cyma’s eyebrows rose. “Why, nothing. I don’t need it, Dead Rick.”

  The use of his name was as good as a whole message in code. Nobody else used it; almost nobody in the Market knew it. He was just Nadrett’s dog, a nameless slave. Hearing those words on Cyma’s lips told him she wasn’t playing some game, bargaining forgiveness for some favor from him; she meant it. He didn’t owe her.

  Why?

  Even if she was leading some mortal lovers about on a string, the bread would have been valuable; with it, she could buy practically anything she wanted. That dress, and everything else the bored puck behind her had to sell. Everything but freedom from Nadrett. “What did you do, loot a bakery?”

  She laughed. “No, no. Better than that. I’m leaving, Dead Rick. I’ve had enough of all of this.” One hand swept a graceful arc, indicating the tawdry excesses of the Goblin Market around them. “I’m going away.”

  It produced a strange pang in his gut. “You think you can run away from Nadrett?”

  “Not run away, no…” Cyma’s expression
darkened. “I know what Nadrett is like. But I’ve done what he asked of me, and settled my debt, and now—well, I must look to the future, mustn’t I?”

  It echoed Dead Rick’s own thoughts, and made the cramp in his gut worse. “Where?”

  She laid a sly finger alongside her nose. “Wouldn’t you like to know. But I know better than to say anything; I don’t want anyone stealing my place. Keep the bread, Dead Rick, with my compliments. Use it to buy your own way free of that dreadful fellow.”

  The pain was like a spike through his innards. If only I could.

  He mumbled thanks to Cyma for the bread and beat a retreat before his bitterness could overwhelm him. Making his way deeper into the warren of the Goblin Market, he sought out the one thing even scarcer than bread: solitude.

  The corridor he went to had once branched off to the left, but the buckling of that delicate arch had brought the stone crashing in, closing the way to anything bigger than a mouse. There was a hob approaching from the other direction as Dead Rick neared that collapse, a surly Irish fellow who did the occasional odd job for Lacca, another Goblin Market boss. The skriker leaned against the wall perhaps ten feet from the fallen stones and dug through the pockets of his trousers, as if looking for something in their empty depths, until the hob had turned the corner and gone into the room beyond.

  Then Dead Rick leapt for the rockfall.

  It looked solid, and for the most part it was. But an agile fellow could crawl atop one of the larger blocks, and from there it was apparent that the mass behind had left a small gap, just big enough for someone Dead Rick’s size to squirm through. Then he slid on his stomach across a polished bit of marble that had miraculously survived the collapse unmarred, and out into the space beyond.

  It was pitchy black, but his hands knew their business. He dropped a dark cloth over the hole he’d come in by, weighted its bottom edge with a thick piece of wood, then found and opened the box. Out floated a trio of faerie lights. Mindless things, they didn’t object to a bit of confinement, and that was the only way he could keep them from wandering off in his absence—wandering, and betraying his secret refuge.