Red Hand,
Gold-Colored Eye

It was almost 2 a.m. by the time the carriage conveying Emily and Rose arrived at the safe location of Stanton’s promising. When Emily saw where she was being sent, she felt like climbing out of the carriage, turning tail, and taking her chances on a bench in Central Park.

“Oh, how elegant!” Rose breathed as the carriage came to a stop before the Stanton family brownstone on Thirty-fourth Street. “How sophisticated! Of course Mr. Stanton would have grown up in a place like this. Like a prince in a castle!”

Emily let out a long breath through clenched teeth. A prince with frogs for parents. That certainly was a new twist on the old stories.

At least the Senator actively ignored her. But Stanton’s mother … Oh, she was going to just love having her son’s malingering fiancée turn up on her doorstep, unannounced, at two in the morning. This was going to be a night to remember, though Emily doubted that she’d wish to.

Emily and Rose climbed the high narrow stairs to the heavy oak door. No light showed through the leaded glass window. Rose seized the handle of the bell and gave it three insistent pulls. There was a long wait, but finally the light of a lamp bobbed up the hallway and Broward came to the door, silver-templed and forbidding. His face was a mask of unpleasantness—unpleasantness that tempered itself only slightly when he saw that it was Emily who waited on the doorstep.

“Miss Edwards!” he said. He looked at Rose. “What can I do for you at this hour?”

“Mr. Stanton has sent a note,” Rose said, briskly offering an envelope. Broward took it between two reluctant fingers, as if he were taking a soiled handkerchief. Then he opened the door and ushered them into the entryway, which was tall and decorated with classical urns.

“If you’ll wait here, I’ll go wake the Senator and Mrs. Stanton,” he said.

Emily and Rose sat on a pair of chairs upholstered in slippery horsehair. Rose was beside herself at the honor of being admitted into the Stanton family home. She kept looking around herself like a child at an amusement park.

“How refined!” she chattered to herself. “Such excellent taste! Do you know the Stantons were one of the first families in New York? Mr. Stanton’s grandfather was a general in the War of 1812, and Mr. Stanton’s great-great-grandfather was the state’s first attorney general.” Rose paused, giggling as if catching herself being silly. “But of course you know that! You’re going to marry him, after all.”

Emily said nothing. She hadn’t known any of it. It hadn’t occurred to her to research Stanton’s family tree, but she certainly wasn’t going to admit that to Rose.

“Yes, the Stantons are very distinguished,” was all she said.

After a long time, Broward came back down.

“Mrs. Stanton is in the library. Follow me, please.”

Mrs. Stanton was sitting in a carved walnut chair, her back perfectly straight. She was immaculately turned out, having obviously taken the time to dress with great care. Or maybe she just never got undressed to begin with. Maybe she didn’t sleep at all, just wrapped herself in brocade and hung upside down from a rafter.

As they entered the room, the old woman eyed Emily keenly, waiting until Emily and Rose had come to a complete stop in front of her chair before rising to greet them.

“Miss Edwards,” she said coolly, leaning forward. She let her lips hang over Emily’s cheek, not touching it in the slightest, and offered her an embrace that was remarkable only for how far she was able to remain from Emily and still have it seem an embrace. She hissed in Emily’s ear: “You missed my lunch.”

Emily bent her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. She looked up at Mrs. Stanton. “I’m feeling much better now.”

“Yes, it seems you recovered from the plague with astonishing alacrity.” Mrs. Stanton pulled back, stared at Rose up and down, lip curling involuntarily. “I fear I have not been introduced to your … companion.”

“Miss Rose Hibble, of Reno, Nevada.” Rose smiled, extending a friendly hand. “It’s an honor, Mrs. Stanton, to meet the woman who gave Mr. Dreadnought Stanton to the world.”

Mrs. Stanton accepted Rose’s hand limply. Emily saw her try to draw her hand away, but Rose continued pumping it enthusiastically.

“Your son is the greatest man of the nineteenth century,” she said breathlessly. “How proud you must be!”

“Yes, quite proud,” Mrs. Stanton said, finally reclaiming her hand with a little jerk. “Won’t you both have a seat?”

“Such a grand room!” Rose said, looking around the library. “So many books! Did Mr. Stanton read them all?”

“I feel certain he read a great number of them,” Mrs. Stanton said, then turned her gaze to Emily. Emily took a very mean comfort in the look, which indicated that whatever her own failings, she at least compared favorably to Rose.

There was a long silence as Mrs. Stanton withdrew her son’s note from the pocket of her dress. She made a great show of unfolding it. She lifted a small pair of silver spectacles to her eyes and reread the letter slowly. There was a look of amazement on her face that seemed quite carefully cultivated. Finally, she folded the letter back into its envelope and regarded Emily with gimlet eyes.

“Miss Edwards, this letter from my son requests … well, perhaps requests is not the appropriate word … rather, demands that you shelter here for a few nights. Perhaps you can elaborate on the astonishingly scanty explanation he offered in support of this … scheme?”

“She’s in danger, Mrs. Stanton!” Rose blurted. “Terrible danger, from all types of—”

“I believe I addressed Miss Edwards,” Mrs. Stanton said to Rose. Her eyes were as green as her son’s, but colder than the deepest part of the coldest ocean. Even Rose—whose buoyancy was typically sufficient to lift her above even the most pointed dismissals—could not escape the crushing weight of the old woman’s disdain. She curled back in her chair and turned red.

Mrs. Stanton turned her cool green eyes back to Emily. “Is this true, Miss Edwards? Are you in danger?”

“Yes,” Emily said. “Mr. Stanton felt that I would be safest here. But I don’t want to be any trouble. Maybe I should go to a hotel.”

Say yes, Emily prayed, during the woman’s long silence. Please say yes.

“No,” Mrs. Stanton said finally. “Of course you must stay here. My son’s note indicates that he will come for breakfast in the morning and explain everything.” She paused. “What kind of danger are you in, precisely?”

Emily pressed her lips together and cursed Rose for her prattling nature.

“Things are unsettled at Mr. Stanton’s Institute,” Emily said carefully. Mrs. Stanton waited for more, but Emily did not offer it. Mrs. Stanton turned to Rose.

“Perhaps you can elaborate, Miss Hibble,” Mrs. Stanton said. “You appear to be intimately acquainted with the circumstances.”

Being invited to speak, especially after the sharp rebuke she’d received previously, worked like a tonic on Rose. Her cheeks flushed eagerly.

“They want to hurt her because she’s Mr. Stanton’s fiancée, of course! They will do anything to get to him.”

“They?” Mrs. Stanton said.

“Rex Fortissimus and his thugs,” Rose said, her voice dropping low. “He’s a despicable cad. There’s no depth to which he will not stoop. Of course it’s all lies … that awful garish red color … you know, they say red is the most grabbing of the colors. That’s why Fortissimus used it, of course—”

“Used what?” Emily broke in, looking between Rose and Mrs. Stanton. “What are you talking about?”

Clumsy guard stole into Rose’s gaze.

“Oh, you haven’t seen it?” When neither Emily nor Mrs. Stanton gave any sign of understanding what she was referring to, she looked uncomfortable and shifted in her chair. “Well, never mind then. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“Rose, if it’s something about Mr. Stanton, you have to tell me.” Emily said this too fiercely, forgetting Mrs. Stanton and the need for propriety. She did, to her credit, restrain herself from taking Rose by the shoulders and giving her a shake.

“It’s nothing, honest.” Rose hastened for safer subjects. “Poor Mr. Stanton! He’s bearing up as well as he can, of course, but I must remind him to eat. He’s a shadow, an absolute shadow—”

“Why on earth are you concerned with my son’s appetite?” Mrs. Stanton asked, arching an eyebrow.

“I am helping him as his secretary,” Rose said proudly. “He needs people around him he can trust. He can’t trust any of those magisters of his, I can tell you that. They’re a rebellious, treasonous lot. Half of them have thrown in with Fortissimus, but it’s finding out which half that’s presenting the problem …”

Emily listened with more interest, and even Mrs. Stanton seemed to have lowered her customary shield slightly. Rose, sensing her audience’s focused attention, leaned forward and continued in a conspiratorial tone.

“What’s worse, Fortissimus has been recruiting students away right and left, offering them apprenticeships at his Agency. And some of the professors have left, too. But of course, there are many who are loyal to Mr. Stanton. And Mr. Stanton is doing everything he can.” She paused. “I swear, I don’t know why he doesn’t send Fortissimus packing like he did the Dark Sorcerer of Trieste!”

“I don’t think he has enough power to do that yet,” Emily said.

Rose looked at her with a mixture of sympathy and dismay. “Not enough power? What a thing to say! And to hear it from you, Miss Emily—well, never mind! We shall stick by Mr. Stanton until the very end. We shall not believe any of the lies Fortissimus puts out about him!”

“What lies?” Mrs. Stanton said.

Rose pressed her lips together again, adjusted the intricate flounces of her dress. It was clear that she knew something that no force on earth could induce her to reveal. The naked cherubs on the mantel chimed three times. Rose stood quickly.

“Oh, is that the time?” she said. “I must be getting back. And don’t worry, I’m sure Mr. Stanton will make everything all right. You must believe in him.”

Emily said nothing as she watched Rose go. There was a long silence in the room, unbroken until Mrs. Stanton finally spoke.

“I’ll have Broward show you to the guest room, then,” she said.

Emily wouldn’t have rushed downstairs the next morning if she hadn’t been expecting to see Stanton at the breakfast table. But the only Stantons she found seated around the table were the ones she didn’t want to see—the impassive Senator and his sour wife, and Euphemia (munching on a triangle of dry toast) and Ophidia (sipping weak milk tea). Hortense appeared to be missing in action. Just her luck, Emily thought; Hortense was the only other member of the family who didn’t seem to despise her.

“I’ve saved you the morning papers, Miss Edwards.” Mrs. Stanton pushed them toward her. “You seem to follow the news so fanatically.”

Emily glanced down at the headlines. She intended just to scan them for the sake of politeness, but she was shocked to see that the news of the disasters on the Pacific Coast had been supplemented by accounts of similar horrors in other parts of the country—Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky—and even other parts of the world.

“Warlock Experts Surmise Ongoing Problems Are Due to Expanding Earth, with Black Exunge Being Released at Rip Zones,” read a headline in The New York Times.

As Emily read, she was aware of Mrs. Stanton’s pointedly consulting a small gold watch on a chain. After an extended scrutiny of the timepiece, the old woman clucked disapprovingly and snapped it shut.

“One can only assume my son has decided not to join us for breakfast,” Mrs. Stanton observed with astringent crispness. “How very like him.”

Emily did not look up from her papers.

“He said he’d be here,” she said softly. “And he will.”

And indeed, at that moment, Broward leaned in beside her, her reticule in his hand. A soft noise came from within it.

“Excuse me, miss,” he said. “But your bag has been bleating.”

Emily withdrew the slate eagerly, holding it in her lap to evade scrutiny. Her excitement dimmed as she scanned the words Stanton had written: IMPOSSIBLE TO GET AWAY … CAN’T EXPLAIN … FORGIVE ME …

“I do hope that is some kind of magical gimcrack,” Mrs. Stanton said, interrupting Emily’s furtive examination of the slate. “We haven’t room here in town for livestock.”

Emily gave her a glimpse of the slate—long enough for the old woman to note the leaping lambs but not long enough to read the message written on it. She’d be damned if she’d give the old battle-ax the satisfaction.

“It’s just a toy,” she said. “It lets us send notes.”

Mrs. Stanton knitted her brow, as if the idea of lambs—or perhaps toys—pained her. She inclined her head toward her husband.

“How utterly puerile,” she murmured, her voice carrying like an opera singer’s.

The Senator, obviously accustomed to ignoring his wife completely, did not comment. Emily lifted her chin.

“He’ll be here tomorrow morning without fail,” she said brightly. But no amount of brightness was sufficient to mask the dark worry she felt. He’d looked so completely lost in that crumbling office, surrounded by the hallmarks of failure. And there was nothing she could do about it except sit here in this house, surrounded by people who didn’t want her, and pray that he would have the strength to prevail.

Using her napkin, she quickly wiped the slate clean, then laid it in her lap, where prying eyes couldn’t read the words she wrote on it. ALL IS WELL. HAVE CHALLENGED YOUR MOTHER TO A GAME OF HORSESHOES. WILL INFORM OF RESULTS. Then, slowly and with care, she added the words I LOVE YOU. She stared at the slate with a low heart. The sentiment looked so small and uninspired when written.

She was surprised when the words vanished from the slate, as if erased by an unseen hand. The slate baaed softly as new words appeared on it.

I LOVE YOU, TOO, Stanton’s handwriting read. BE CAREFUL. MOTHER CHEATS.

With a secret smile, Emily tucked the pencil away and returned the slate to her reticule. Now, speaking of horseshoes—what the hell was she supposed to do here all day?

As if reading the question in Emily’s face, Mrs. Stanton lifted a teacup to her lips.

“Do you sew, Miss Edwards?”

Emily contemplated the question. Certainly she sewed. She used to sew patches in Pap’s overalls. But she didn’t figure that was the kind of sewing Mrs. Stanton was referring to. She lifted her right hand, the one of ivory, regretfully.

“I’m afraid not,” Emily said.

“Oh,” said Mrs. Stanton with a frown. Emily wasn’t sure if the frown was because she didn’t sew, or because she’d lost her hand, or because she was so badly bred as to admit both of these things. “But I suppose you read?”

Emily flushed hot under her collar; Mrs. Stanton had already asked her that question once, and knew the answer full well. But she nodded anyway.

“How extravagantly fortunate,” Mrs. Stanton said. “Perhaps we could have some more Wordsworth after breakfast.”

Emily cringed. She hardly knew the words were on her lips before she said, “I’m sorry, but I must … go out.”

“Go out?”

“I have an appointment downtown,” Emily lied. She wasn’t sure where the lie came from, but it was a blunt and convulsive response to the thought of having to read Wordsworth to Mrs. Stanton all morning.

“Certainly someone should accompany you,” Mrs. Stanton said, giving Euphemia a pointed look that Euphemia did her best to avoid by scrutinizing a crumb on her napkin. “Being that your life hangs in the balance under the Damoclean sword of some kind of unspecified danger.”

Silently, Emily cursed Rose once again.

“Rose may have overstated the case a bit,” Emily said. “I’m sure it’s perfectly safe, and I’d hate to be any trouble—” Then she had a flash of inspiration. She lowered her voice. “It’s a banking matter.”

Ever since she’d earned twenty thousand dollars from Professor Mirabilis, Emily had learned that money was a ready excuse for any occasion. Whenever she spoke of it, people shuffled their feet and looked away, as if she’d spoken about her drawers. She knew that banking matters were private, and that no one would interfere with her if she had to go out to attend to one.

“Farley can take you,” the Senator said gruffly, not looking up from behind his paper. Farley, Emily assumed, was the name of some ancient Stanton family retainer, a grizzle-pated old man with his back bent from bowing and the custom of twisting his hat around in his hands.

After breakfast, Emily went upstairs. She hadn’t really had a plan in mind when she’d made her excuse for an escape—her only thought had been to avoid Wordsworth and all those semicolons and larks. But now, as she thought about it, a plan formed in her mind. She needed to find out about those hair sticks. Miss Jesczenka said that there were Faery Readers near someplace called Chatham Square. So that’s where she was going.

Tucking the hair sticks into her black silk reticule, she hurried downstairs to where Farley was waiting. Far from being a bent old graybeard, Farley was actually a nice-looking young man with bright red hair. He wore a ridiculous green livery that made him look like an overgrown leprechaun. He touched his cap and gave her a smile.

“Where to, miss?” he asked, as he handed her into the carriage.

Emily cast a glance back to the Stanton house, so solid and respectable. She gave him the address of the bank where she had her money on deposit. She didn’t know New York well enough yet to know if the bank was anywhere near Chatham Square, but at least it would take her away from here.

They drove through the bright morning streets, beneath tall stone edifices and past old wooden buildings that hinted at the city’s long history. Within a few minutes they arrived before the bank’s sober facade of white marble. Farley unfolded the step and extended a hand to help her down. When she did not descend, he looked at her quizzically.

“Miss?”

“Mr. Farley, this is going to be a great shock to you, but I have no banking to do.”

“No banking, miss?”

“No. I have another errand. One I would prefer the Stantons not know of.” She knew that she was skating on thin ice. She remembered stories from Ladies’ Repository in which women had been blackmailed by carriage drivers who’d been entrusted with secrets, but she didn’t quite know what other choice she had. Give the man the slip and hire a different carriage? He’d gossip about that, too, if gossip he would. There seemed little alternative.

“You need to go somewhere else, miss?” His voice was low and conspiratorial, but with a friendly cast to it. “I can take you wherever you require.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Emily said. “I don’t really know where I’m going.” She leaned forward. “I need to find someone called a Faery Reader. I’ve been told that I might find one around Chatham Square.”

Farley whistled. “That’s the rough end of the Bowery. I’d catch hell for taking you there, excuse my saying so.”

“And I’d catch hell for going,” Emily said. “But neither one of us have to catch anything if we keep our mouths shut, right?”

“Right enough,” he said. “And better someone you can trust taking you down there than one of these rummy b’hoys who’ll leave you to get your throat cut.”

“And I do need to go.” She reached for his hand and pressed a gold piece into it. She felt that she’d gotten quite skilled in the niceties of bribery, and knew that gold usually smoothed over any objections most democratically. “Will you take me?”

“Sure thing, miss!” he said, looking at the gold piece with astonishment before climbing up into his seat and clucking to the horses.

The area surrounding Chatham Square was lively and rowdy, even at that early hour of the morning. Straggling merrymakers from the night before clustered before bars and saloons; newsboys with satchels full of papers darted past penny-cup-rattling veterans in tattered uniforms. Soot-bricked lodging houses shouldered up against museums featuring mermaids and sword swallowers. Advertisements for magical nostrums, boxing matches, politicians, and brands of tobacco had been pasted up on most available surfaces. Everything was designed to be seen by night; by the light of day the colors were brassy and overbright. Above the street, the black, greasy cast-iron framework of the elevated railroad hulked like an Aberrated centipede.

Farley pulled up to a stop at an intersection where a police officer stood directing traffic.

“Hey, Mack!” Farley called down.

“Aye?” The police officer strolled toward the carriage.

“You ever hear of such a thing as a Faery Reader?”

“Faery Reader?” The police officer tilted his hat back with his billy club and tried to peer into the darkened carriage. “Why, ain’t noon of ’em left, save old Pearl.” The officer gestured with his stick. “Block and a half oop on the right. Look fer the sign; red hand, gold-colored eye, ye’ll not miss it.”

The driver tipped his hat to the officer, and clucked to the horses.

Emily sank back in her seat as the carriage lurched forward. Red hand, gold-colored eye. Many Witches and Warlocks in trade used the sign of the open hand with an eye winking from its palm to denote the services they provided; the individual businesses differentiated themselves by changing the color of the hand and the eye color of the orb in the palm. Just driving the block and a half, Emily saw a blue hand with a black eye (that was a curse worker), a black hand with a red heart (love spells, the fool), and, finally, a red hand with a gold-colored eye hanging outside a dilapidated shop. Surrounding the image was flowery script in faded gold letters:

Emily lighted from the carriage, pausing before the front of the shop. The sidewalk before the building was piled high with boxes and furnishings, around and on which a half dozen children of varying ages climbed and swung and played. A plump older woman in a neat white apron came out of the shop, bearing a box that she set with the others. She gave Emily a friendly smile.

“Abner Pearl?” Emily inquired, looking up at the sign.

“Just inside,” the woman said with a pleasant Irish lilt. “Ye’ll have to hurry, though. The movers will be here presently, and then he’ll have no time for ye.”

The door creaked as Emily entered, and somewhere above her was the tinkle of a bell. The shop was high ceilinged but dark nonetheless. It was dusty and smelled of old lacquer, and had a freshly emptied feeling; it was obvious from the bright shadows where pictures had once hung, and the walls where shelves had once rested, that the owners were just packing up shop.

From the back room came the sound of hammering.

“Hello?” Emily called. The hammering stopped and a late-middle-aged man emerged from the back. He wore a black eye patch. The frayed hems of his cuffs showed past his too-short jacket sleeves. He wiped his hands on a dirty-looking cloth as he regarded Emily with his one bright eye.

“Can I help ye, miss?”

“My name is Emily Edwards. I’m looking for a Faery Reader,” Emily said.

The man threw the dirty towel over his shoulder, grinned at her.

“Abner S. Pearl. But if you’re looking for a Faery Reader, I’m afraid you’re a few days late on that score,” he said. “Shop’s closed.”

“Closed?”

“No custom from folks wanting Faery Reading anymore, and too much competition for all the other work. The swells with the money go to the fancy hand-and-eye shops on Broadway. And with times tight like they are, the poor folks in Chatham Square can’t afford such extravagances.” He paused, leaning forward onto the counter. “Family and I are movin’ west, out to California.”

“Why, I’m from California!” Emily said. “What part are you going to?”

“San Francisco,” Pearl said. “You know it?”

“A little,” Emily said. “I’ve been there once or twice. But aren’t you worried about—”

“The earthquakes and Aberrancies?” Pearl waved a hand, made a scoffing sound. “And how do you think we got ourselves a place out there so cheap? I got my rifle and my silver bullets. If I have to dispatch a few of the slimy beasts for a chance at a better life, then that’s just what I’ll do. Mrs. Pearl!” Pearl raised his voice in a shout, and the plump woman ducked her head in the front door. “This lady here’s from California. Knows it right well, she does!”

“You don’t say.” Mrs. Pearl stepped into the shop, hands on her hips. “Well, perhaps ye can answer me a few questions. I’m thinking of starting a dressmaking concern when we get there, but I haven’t the first clue what ladies in that area might like.” She looked Emily up and down, scrutinizing her costume. “Fashion minded, are they?”

“Some are, I’m sure—” Emily began, thinking that the Pearls would probably be better off opening an ammunition supply store, but Mrs. Pearl broke in, eagerly.

“Many dress shops? I’ve heard that it’s all gold miners and horse thieves and crazy men, but then I said to Mr. Pearl, crazy men got to have wives like anyone else, ain’t they?”

“I suppose,” Emily said. She wasn’t quite sure why Mrs. Pearl was staring at her with a such a puzzled expression, until the woman blurted:

“Why, it’s a downright boggler! I could swear I’ve seen you somewhere before, but I just can’t place you. What did you say your name was? Emily Edwards?”

Emily nodded.

“That sounds awful familiar,” Mrs. Pearl said, shaking her head. “Can’t place it, though. You sure we haven’t met?”

“I couldn’t say,” Emily said. “But I doubt it.”

“Hmm.” Mrs Pearl shrugged. “Well, perhaps it will come to me. Mr. Pearl, are you coming out? The movers will be here shortly.”

“Coming, Mrs. Pearl, coming …” He looked at Emily. “Now, if there’s nothing further—”

“But there is!” Emily said. “I came here for Faery Reading services. Is the shop really closed for good?”

“Closed for good,” Pearl said with finality. “I’ve had it up to here with the headaches.”

“Is there anyone else in the neighborhood I could go to?” Emily asked.

Pearl gave a great laugh. “Anyone else in the neighborhood? Sure, there’s no one left in all New York does Faery Reading anymore. No call for it. I’m the last.” Pearl fell silent for a moment. “Makes me feel right-out old, it does. Last of a generation.”

“Enough of yer moonin’, Mr. Pearl,” Mrs. Pearl said. She tilted a confiding head toward Emily. “He does take on about things.”

Two children thundered in the front door, whooping their way through the shop. They leveled fingers at each other and made shooting sounds.

“They’re here! They’re here! Movers are here! Off to California! Hooray!”

Mrs. Pearl laid a hand on her cheek and clucked.

“Oh dear, they’re starting to run wild already. Boys, calm yerselves.” Mrs. Pearl glanced out the front window. A large moving van was parked at the curb, horses stamping and shaking their harnesses. “Mr. Pearl, tell your sons to behave.”

“My sons?” Pearl lifted his hands with good-natured incredulity. “Heavens, woman! My sons when they run about like wild creatures?” He gave Emily a kind smile. “I’m sorry, miss. I wish I could help you, really I do. But I’ll have to bid ye good day now.”

Emily caught his sleeve as he began walking past her.

“Mr. Pearl, please. I know you’re busy, but—”

“Careful with the china now, that was me Gran’s!” Mr. Pearl shouted past Emily, at the movers who were already beginning to load boxes under Mrs. Pearl’s efficient direction.

“Mr. Pearl—”

“It’s out of the question,” Pearl said. “Me and me whole family, we’re on the ten a.m. train tomorrow morning. And anyway, all my tools are packed up. Nothing to be done.”

“I’ll pay you well,” Emily said, but Pearl just shrugged.

“Got all the money I need for the trip,” he said. He was still watching the movers, wincing as he heard a box rattle when they lifted it. “Have a care, now!” He shouted past her again. “I’d better get out there, or they’ll smash me things to bits—”

“Wait.” Emily’s voice was vibrant with urgency; it made Pearl stop and look at her. Quickly, Emily dug in her black silk reticule for the hair sticks. She showed them to him in the palm of her hand. They gleamed in the low, dusty light. “There’s something written on them, I know there is. Something my father wrote. I never knew my father, and this is the only way I’ll ever be able to find out anything about him. Please, Mr. Pearl. If you’re really the only one who can read them … Please help me.”

Pearl looked at the hair sticks, and then at Emily. For the first time, he seemed to see her. Gently, he took the hair sticks from her hand and examined them, holding them up to the light and peering at them closely.

“Well, if there’s writing on these, there’s not much,” Pearl said, examining each long side of the square-sectioned, tapered sticks. He tapped his finger on the widest, thickest end of one of them. “And see all this engraving near the top. Ye can’t write anything over engraving. But there’s a smooth bit just below it, I suppose there could be something …” He paused, stroking his chin. Then he smiled at her again. “Well, I must say. I know about fathers, and I know about secrets. It’s a shame when one gets tangled up with th’ other …”

He shook his head sharply, then handed her back the hair sticks decisively. “No. I’m sorry, but no. I’ve promised the kids that I’ll take them out for ice cream. One last bit of fun before we leave New York forever. I can’t disappoint ’em. I promised. I’m sorry, Miss Edwards. Good day to you.”

Emily was turning to go, bitter disappointment burning under her breastbone, when Mrs. Pearl reappeared in the doorway. She was goggling at Emily.

“Emily Edwards!” she breathed, pressing her hands against her red cheeks. “Why, that’s who you are! Miss Emily Edwards, in my shop! And me going to California in the morning, or I’d have the whole neighborhood in to see. Of course I know you; your picture is in the window right next door!”

Emily stared at the babbling woman.

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“Why, your picture’s on sale at the photographer’s shop right next door, up there with all the pictures of last season’s debutantes! Mr. Pearl, this is Emily Edwards, the girl who’s to marry Mr. Stanton of the credomancers’ Institute! Surely you’ve heard of her?”

“Why, sure,” Pearl said. “The papers say the Investment didn’t go too well, though.”

“Well, never mind that!” Mrs. Pearl waved a hand. “All any man needs is a good woman to straighten him out. Are you to be married soon? What will you wear? Do you have a dressmaker yet? Oh, what am I saying, I’m off to California in the morning … Mercy! To think that you’re in my very shop!”

Emily was suddenly struck by an idea.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she said, looking at Mrs. Pearl. “If they know about me here, they’ll surely know about me in San Francisco. If I buy one of those pictures you say they’re selling next door and sign it … sign it ‘To my most esteemed dressmaker in New York’ ”—Emily turned to Pearl—“will you read my hair sticks?”

“Why, that would be a boost for business,” Mrs. Pearl said, looking at Mr. Pearl. “Having a famous customer would be as good as money in the bank!”

Emily looked at Mr. Pearl. “Furthermore, if anyone writes me for a reference I will write them back on Institute stationery, and assert that Mrs. Abner S. Pearl is the most talented dressmaker in New York, and that her moving to San Francisco is a loss from which I have yet to recover.”

“Oh, Abner, please!” Mrs. Pearl said.

Pearl sighed. He reached up one finger to scratch the skin under his black eye patch. He thought for a long time.

“I promised the children,” he said. “Ice cream, remember?”

“I’ll take them,” Mrs. Pearl countered swiftly. “Please, Abner. Please!”

“You know I can’t say no when you call me Abner,” Mr. Pearl said, reddening and smiling at the same time. He shrugged. “Well, then, get along, Mrs. Pearl, and tell the movers not to pack the green box. I guess I’ll be needing it.”

The green packing crate was retrieved from the sidewalk and carried into the big, empty backroom. Pearl picked up a hammer and started prying up the wooden lid. Iron and pine squeaked. When he’d gotten the lid off he set it to one side. He took off his jacket and rolled his sleeves, holding them up with black elastic garters. He reached into the box and pulled out a black velvet charm cap, decorated with cheap decorations of stamped and gilt pot metal. He adjusted this on his head. Then he reached into the box and pulled out newspaper-wrapped pieces of brass. These he assembled swiftly, slotting and tightening wing nuts. Assembled, the brass pieces made up a kind of stand, like the kind a jeweler might use. Two clamps stood ready to hold a piece for examination, and on the sides were two lamps with shades to focus their light down on the work. Pearl set this apparatus up on a swept-clean worktable, then returned to the green box. From it he pulled a large metal case, enameled with black and girdled with a pencil-thin gold pinstripe. It had a lock on the front. He unlocked it with a key that he wore around his throat. As he opened it, a faint glow escaped from beneath the lid.

All of this was done with an air of quiet solemnness that was abruptly shattered when two boys, both with black hair and blue eyes, thundered in and seized their father’s elbow.

“Everything’s loaded up, Dad!”

“The boxes have gone down to the station!”

“You promised to take us for ice cream!”

“Hold on!” Pearl bellowed at the boys. He held down the lid of the box, obviously nervous of spilling any of the contents. He gave the boys a fierce look. “You hooligans will upset the whole works! Off with ye. Go find yer mother—”

“Their mother’s right here.” Mrs. Pearl stood by the doorway, hands on her hips. “Boys, don’t annoy your father. Go on upstairs and tell yer sisters to get cleaned up. I’m taking the lot of you over to the ice cream parlor.” This news set the boys whooping up the stairs. Mrs. Pearl gave her husband a conspiratorial smile, and he smiled back gratefully. He gestured her over, gave her a fond peck on the lips.

“Wife, yer a marvel,” he said.

“One good turn deserves another,” she said, winking to Emily as she followed the boys upstairs.

Once silence had returned to the room, Pearl lifted the lid of the black enameled box. Inside were many small brushes and glass pots of powders in variously glowing colors. Oranges and pinks and blues, shimmering like gold at the bottom of a stream.

Pearl took one of the hair sticks and fastened it into a clamp on the brass apparatus. Then he lifted his hands to both of the lamps and muttered the words lux ingens.

Emily had to shade her eyes against the violent brightness that flared from the lamps. While most of the glare was directed downward, toward the scrutinized object, it still was bright enough to make her eyes water. The light was perfectly clear and white. The hair stick shimmered under the brilliant illumination, and Emily fancied she could already begin to see something more on it than the simple surface engraving.

Pearl lifted three of the pots of glowing powder from the black-enameled box. He unscrewed the top of two of the pots, then selected a pair of brushes—a large one and a smaller one. Then he pulled out a long, soft leather case. From this, he withdrew a long loupe, about nine inches long, wider at one end and narrowing to the size of a dime at the small end. Emily watched with fascination as he fastened the loupe over his head with a strange kind of head harness. He did not drop the loupe over his good eye, though; instead, he lifted his eye patch and gave Emily a wink. She stifled a gasp.

She had assumed that he wore an eyepatch because he’d lost an eye, but this was not the case at all. The eye beneath the patch was not destroyed. In fact, it was perfectly normal. But where his right eye was blue and correctly proportioned, his left eye was gold-colored, much larger, wider, and fringed with red lashes. It was an eye that did not belong in his face.

“Have to keep it covered up, or Mrs. Pearl gets after me.” He brought the loupe up over this strange eye. “Gives her a turn. She never liked the idea of me having someone else’s eye.”

“Then it’s not … yours?”

“Sure, it’s mine! I paid enough for it. See, me own eyesight wasn’t never that good, and you have to have good eyesight to be a Faery Reader. In one eye, at least.” He fussed with the loupe until he’d gotten it just as he liked it. “So back in the Old Country, before I come over, I bought it off a young man with the consumption. He’d always had the best eyesight in the village.”

“How interesting,” Emily said, if by interesting one meant gruesome and queer.

“Well, his family had hit a rough patch, and he wanted to feel that he could be some use to ’em.”

“Did he die?” Emily asked.

“Well, eventually, I suppose he did. But not from me buying his eye.” Pearl lifted a hand. “That was strictly a money transaction, fair and square. I meant him no harm. We had an old Celt Witch do the honors for us. He woke up five pounds richer, and I woke up with one eye that could see for miles without strainin’. Didn’t do much for my fine appearance, but somehow I managed to convince Mrs. Pearl to take me anyway.”

Pearl took the larger brush and dipped it into one of the opened pots, which contained powder that glowed white. He carefully tapped the end of the brush over the pot and conveyed a minute amount of the white glowing dust to the hair stick in his hand.

“Ye don’t want to be breathing too much of this powder,” he commented quietly. “Faery Readers have gone mad from years and years of inhalin’ this infernal stuff. Not as mad as the Faery Writers, of course, but that’s why you never had one who was th’ other.”

“How do you mean?” Emily asked, watching as he gently brushed one side of the hair stick with the brush. His movements were clean and precise. “You mean that Faery Writing and Faery Reading aren’t the same profession?”

“Completely different,” Pearl said. “Faery Writing’s about the most maddening magical occupation a man could undertake,” Pearl said. “That’s why no one does it anymore. There’s better ways to hide secrets now. Cryptocrystalography, Otherwhere Encoding …” He paused, squinted closer at the hair stick. “Gar, look at that, will you! It’s there all right. And bless me if it ain’t in violet scale!” He turned to look at Emily, and it was as if his strange golden eye peered at her through the tiny end of his long loupe.

“Violet scale?” Emily prompted him.

“Why, I haven’t seen violet scale since … well, ever! No one writes violet scale. No one in their right mind, that is.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There are a variety of scales at which Faery Writing can be executed,” Pearl said. “Red scale, that’s the largest. Most Faery Writers, back in the day, they worked in the red scale. Most any Warlock with a pot of red reading could decipher it. The scales got smaller after that … orange scale, yellow scale, green scale, blue scale … You saw yellow scale sometimes, and blue scale almost never. But violet scale …” He shook his head. He opened a specially fitted compartment in the black enamel box and pulled out a very tiny vial of glowing purple powder. He paused, showing her the vial.

“In all my years, ever since I put this kit together, I’ve never had call to open this vial even once,” he said. “And here it is, my last day in this city after ten years, and you come along. It’s like fate, don’t you think?”

“Oh, certainly,” Emily said.

“The only folks who used violet scale much at all were the Russians. It was a particular favorite of Peter the Great’s secret service. Maybe you got some old invasion plans for the coast of Malta scribbled on here.”

Pearl lifted out the tiny vial of glowing purple powder and placed it carefully onto his workbench. He opened the vial and brushed it on the hair stick. Infinitely tiny writing appeared. Pearl peered at it for a long time.

“Oh, I’ll have a headache for days from reading this,” he said ruefully. “I’ve never seen tinier.” He paused again, squinting harder. “Wait, I can just make out a name … Aleksei Morozovich. Just as I guessed. Russian!”

Aleksei Morozovich. She knew that name. Where had she heard it? She turned it over and over in her mind, trying to remember.

“Yes, I can decipher this,” Pearl said after peering at the stick for a little longer. “It’ll be tedious line-by-line business, and I’ll have to stay up all night working on it, but I believe I can have it ready for you first thing in the morning, with a transcription written in my own fine hand. But I won’t do it for a penny under two hundred.” Pearl’s tone was slightly apologetic, but firm. “That’s the price of the headache I’ll have once I’m done.”

Emily licked her lips. Even though she was sure Pearl expected her to haggle, it sounded like a fair deal, and the thought of haggling over her dead father’s memory was repugnant to her.

“All right,” Emily said firmly, extending her good hand. They shook on it. “But I am sorry you’ll have to stay up all night.”

“Oh, I’ll sleep on the train.” Pearl waved a hand. “And I wouldn’t have slept tonight anyway; all the beds have been packed up and we’re camping out on blankets. The kids are all aflutter about it. Kids love adventures.” He put a finger aside his nose. “Grown up folks, too, sometimes.”

Emily smiled at him.

“Tomorrow morning, then?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Pearl said, bending back over his work.

*   *   *

When she got outside, Farley was nowhere to be seen. Emily had been in the shop for quite a while, though, so it was to be expected that he’d found someplace to park the carriage and was waiting nearby. The traffic had picked up considerably as morning marched toward noon; the street hummed with flower sellers and fruit vendors and drayage wagons and light carts.

She went next door to the shop Mrs. Pearl had directed her to. And, indeed, there it was in the window—a large, full-length picture of her in the extravagant white ballgown she’d worn the night of the Investment, posed with her glittering ringed hand resting on her shoulder. It scarcely looked like her, the picture had been so carefully retouched and softened. She looked like an angel.

When she went into the shop, she was hardly surprised that the clerk did not recognize her. In the picture she was all white and glowing and sparkling and delicate. In real life, by contrast, she was grimy from spending two hours in Abner S. Pearl’s back room and the feather on her hat was drooping limply from the already oppressive heat.

“Can I help you, miss?”

“I’m interested in obtaining a copy of the photo in the window … the photo of Miss Emily Edwards.”

“Nice picture, isn’t it?” he asked. “What size did you want? Cabinet or portrait?” He showed her both, and she selected the one that seemed small enough to pack but still large enough for Mrs. Pearl to show off in her store.

“So you sell these?” Emily asked. “But they have the name of another studio on them.”

“Oh, we didn’t take the picture,” the man said. “We just sell copies. Pictures of well-known folks are sold all over town. I imagine you could find this photo in a hundred stores from the Battery up to Harlem. It’s our most popular print.”

“You have to be kidding me,” Emily said.

“Well, especially after all the brouhaha that’s been going on at the Institute. Everyone knows about Dreadnought Stanton, but no one knows about this mysterious beauty he’s marrying. I hear she’s some kind of cattle baron’s daughter. Rich as Croesus, I’ll wager. She’s awful pretty, don’t you think?”

Emily blushed, but didn’t answer.

“That Dreadnought Stanton, I’m sure he’s a fine man,” the clerk continued. “Son of a Senator, he comes from good stock. But a man needs a good woman to stand behind him. To help him keep his feet on the ground.” The clerk looked at the photo, and Emily saw something in his eyes—a mix of wistfulness and desire. It startled her. And it was so terribly odd, this man staring at her image so longingly while the real her was standing right in front of him, in flesh and blood, and he didn’t even make the connection. The clerk was transfixed by the Emily Edwards in the photo, but he didn’t give the real Emily Edwards a second glance.

After a long moment staring at the picture, the clerk looked up at her, gave her a cheerful smile.

“Let me wrap this up for you, then.”

After Emily purchased the photo, she returned briefly to Pearl’s shop to deliver it. Mrs. Pearl had gotten the children cleaned up for the promised trip to the ice cream parlor, and they waited in a neat—if somewhat disorderly—line as Emily used a steel-nibbed fountain pen to carefully write the promised accolades. Mrs. Pearl smiled at the inscription as she waited for the ink to dry.

“As good as money in the bank, an endorsement from the beauty queen of New York City!” the woman said gleefully. She looked at Emily. “Don’t you worry about a thing, Miss Edwards. I’ll keep my man working on those items for you all night, if required. And thank you … Thank you!”

Emily shook the woman’s hand and left the shop quickly.

From the distance came a rumbling, creaking sound. Emily looked up at the elevated tracks above the street as a huge steam engine thundered overhead. Ashes and soot and sparks filtered down in a fine snowy drift as the train passed; passersby, apparently used to being showered with bits of debris, lifted newspapers or parcels over their heads. Emily darted forward, taking shelter behind a large wagon loaded with boxes of live chickens. The birds chuckled at the beauty queen of New York City as she brushed flakes of ash from her dress.

The sound of a whooping laugh from across the street made Emily look up from her dusting. Her eyes found a bookseller’s shop across the street—a hole-in-the-wall with tomes piled high on rickety tables out front. On one of the tables was a great pile of red books, freshly printed. The color was quite eye-catching.

There were two men standing in front of the shop, laughing with a big man in sleeve garters who appeared to be the proprietor. They were holding up one of the red books, passing it between themselves, reading passages. The recitations, which Emily could not hear, sent the men into gales of impolite laughter that was accompanied with some pointed rib-elbowing. Emily’s eye caught a flash of green; Farley in his leprechaun-hued livery was standing just behind the men. He appeared to be listening to them, but unlike the others, he was grim-faced and unsmiling. He snatched the red book from the hands of one of the men, and with a sour word, handed money to the proprietor.

The proprietor ripped a sheet of brown paper from a roll and began to wrap the book in brown paper and twine. Emily picked her way through traffic, crossing the street at a trot to avoid being flattened by a team of Clydesdales pulling a load of brewery barrels.

As she came closer to the bookshop, she noticed that a much larger group of men was walking briskly toward it as well. It was a gang of young men in brightly colored suits. They moved like schooling fish, swerving as the others swerved, kicking cans and conversing loudly among themselves. Emily had often seen groups of such youths in her clandestine travels through the streets of New York; she’d heard them called b’hoys, rowdies, or soaplocks. They had a rolling gait and surly manner, and Emily had always felt it wise to give them a wide berth. Achieving the safety of the sidewalk, Emily came to a dead stop as she watched the first of the young men—the loudest, the one who seemed to be their leader—come face to face with the bookshop’s proprietor.

The young man planted his hands on his hips, looked over the display of red books with a frown, and began spitting curses in the proprietor’s face—a string, indeed, of the filthiest expletives Emily had ever heard. Within an instant it became too much for the big man in the sleeve garters to bear. He lifted his hands in a pugilistic stance. The young man moved with the quickness of a striking snake. With one hand he grabbed the fabric of the bigger man’s collar; with the other he delivered a vicious uppercut. In a heartbeat, the other b’hoys were throwing themselves on the older man, fists and feet flying. The big man, quickly overwhelmed, crossed his arms before his face and fell to the ground, yelling for help.

There were startled cries from all around. Farley, along with the two men who had been laughing and elbowing each other over the red book, hurried to pull the young men off. And in an instant, the beating became a full-fledged melee. Young men left off kicking the moaning proprietor and launched themselves at the would-be rescuers. Fists flew, women and children ran screaming, men tumbled to the pavement.

Emily watched, horrified, as two of the young men began to pay particular attention to poor Farley in his silly green livery. One of them cracked him hard across the mouth, sending him reeling; the other followed up with a hard sock to his midsection. Farley groaned, stumbled.

“Stop it!” Emily shrieked, running in Farley’s direction. “You … thugs! You rotten dirty hooligans, stop it!”

The sight of a woman rushing them, screaming at the top of her lungs, made the two young men step back, grinning at each other meanly. Emily fell by Farley’s side, putting her arm around his shoulders. She looked up at the pair of young men, who were now laughing at her. “Two on one? Shame on you!”

“Shut your rum-hole, lady, or I’ll shut it for you,” one of them offered, showing her a meaty fist.

“Rackers! Finnegan! Get over here and help me throw these down.” The words came from the young leader who had started the brawl. He had beaten the proprietor into unconsciousness, and was now using his heavy boot to kick over the tables with the red books on them. With a joyful whoop, Rackers and Finnegan came like called dogs, gathering up handfuls of the red books and tearing them in half along the spine, sending ripped pages fluttering down the street in cheap, pulpy drifts.

“Miss Emily,” Farley grunted, trying to rise, “we have to get out of here. The Stantons will have my hide.”

Emily stood, helping him up. He remained half bent, his arms clutched around his belly. As he was rising, Emily saw the brown-paper-wrapped book on the sidewalk, and she snatched it, tucking it under her arm.

“Hey!” the young leader shouted at Emily, striding over toward her. Farley turned, tried to hurry her down the street, but the hooligan clapped a heavy hand on Farley’s shoulder and made a grab for the book under Emily’s arm. “You’re not going anywhere with that. Give it to me!”

For the first time, Emily was able to get a close look at the young man, and to her astonishment, discovered that she recognized him. He had anarchist eyes and an overbite. It was the young man she’d seen in Stanton’s office the day before. Gormley, that was what Stanton had called him. Emily stared at him as Farley put himself between Emily and Gormley’s grabbing hand.

“Don’t you dare touch her!” Farley spat at him, balling a fist. “You rummy bastards should know better than to touch a lady! Shove off or I swear to God I’ll flatten you!”

Without a word, Gormley delivered two lightning-quick punches to Farley’s face before the man in green even knew what hit him. Blood blossomed from Farley’s nose, cascading down his chin; he reeled.

“Mr. Gormley, stop it!” Emily screamed.

At the sound of his name, Gormley disengaged, breathing hard. Rackers and Finnegan closed around him, a threatening phalanx. Gormley glared at Emily for a moment, trying to place her. Once he did, his face transformed from sneering menace to sullen complacency.

“Miss Edwards.” Gormley dragged a dirty fist across his face, wiping some of Farley’s blood from his cheek. He pointed at the brown-wrapped book under her arm. “That’s one of the books, miss. Everything in there about Mr. Stanton … it’s dirty lies!”

“Well, whatever they are, they’re fluttering down every street in the Bowery!” Emily pointed to the drifts of paper blowing down the street. “You’ve scattered them like dandelions! How many more people will get hold of those pages now, eh?”

Gormley clenched his teeth. His eyes burned into her like acid.

“I don’t know anything about that,” he snarled. “All I know is we’re charged with getting rid of all of ’em. All of ’em.”

“What do you mean, charged? Charged to destroy a business? Who charged you?”

“Why, you were in the office same as me when he said it,” Gormley spoke through clenched teeth. “He doesn’t want to hear about it. So he ain’t gonna. He ain’t gonna hear about businesses that sell lies and garbage. He ain’t gonna hear about them getting just what this one got.” He extended his hand, made a curt motion. “Now hand it over.”

“No.” She tucked her arm down tightly. Rackers barked a laugh, balled a fist, began to step toward her. Gormley restrained him with a raised hand. He looked at Emily.

“Give it to me,” he repeated, softly and slowly. From the direction of the bookshop came laughing hoots and screams and the sounds of breaking glass. Emily realized that she was shaking, from the top of her head to the bottoms of her feet.

“No,” Emily said, biting the word. “I won’t.”

Gormley took a step forward, grabbing Emily’s shoulder, pulling her close. Farley grabbed for her, but Rackers and Finnegan swept forward as one, shoving him backward, following him as he stumbled back. Emily stood before Gormley, his head close to hers, his breath smelling of onions and whiskey. His fingers dug into the place where her neck met her shoulder, clasping hard, making her wince. His other hand was on the book, tugging at it, trying to pull it out of her grasp. She held tightly, wrapping her body around it.

“Listen, you stuck-up bitch,” Gormley hissed. “I take my orders from Mr. Stanton, not from you. Just because you’re his—”

The sound of a police whistle shrilled through the street.

“Run for it, Gorm!” Rackers was already sprinting away; Finnegan was not far behind. Spitting a curse in her face, Gormley gave Emily a hard parting shake before taking one step back, then breaking into a run as well. He and the other young men faded into alley and saloon, swiftly and silently as dirty water running down a drain. Emily watched as the police arrived, three of them in dark-blue wool uniforms, running heavily down the sidewalk, whistles blasting.

“Miss Emily!” Farley was at her side. “Miss Emily, are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

“I’m fine, Mr. Farley,” Emily said, her fingers playing along the edge of the brown-paper-wrapped book as she watched the police bend over the still-unconscious proprietor. The destruction wrought by the swarm of young men was awful. Tables and windows were smashed, and everywhere, the tattered remnants of red books fluttered in the wind.

Farley held one hand to his bloody nose as he took Emily’s elbow, hurrying her up the street to where the carriage waited. As he opened the carriage door for her, he held out a bloodied hand.

“Miss … why don’t you give me my book back?” he said.

Emily clutched the parcel tightly. “No.”

“You really should,” Farley said. Emily held it tighter. Farley sighed.

“I wasn’t buying it for me, I just want you to know that. I wouldn’t want you thinking I was a kind of person like that. I was … I was buying it for them. Because they’d want to know. The family has to know. That’s all.”

He closed the carriage door behind her, and she sunk back in her seat, letting out her breath. Her heart was still pounding like a freight train, and her hands were shaking. She felt up to her shoulder, where Gormley had grabbed her. The place still ached. The half-wrapped book lay in her lap, and a bit of bright red peeped from a torn corner.

All at once, fearing to hesitate, Emily tore the brown paper from the book.

It was cheaply printed on bad paper. The title, The Blood-Soaked Crimes of Dreadnought Stanton, was executed in stark gothic lettering.

The full-color engraving on the cover depicted Stanton, his face twisted with evil intent. His hands and feet dripped with blood even more brilliantly red than the book’s cover. In the picture, Stanton held aloft a squirming infant. At his feet writhed a half-clothed woman who looked disturbingly familiar. Black haired, black eyed … She was, Emily realized with a twist of disgust, the very image of Alcmene Blotgate. The woman’s eyes glowed with lust—for Stanton or for the bleeding infant, it was not clear. It was hideous. It was also, Emily noticed, the very same color red as the thing Stanton had hidden in his desk when she’d been in his office last.

Back at the Stanton house, Emily spent the afternoon in her bedroom reading. It was not, as a typical afternoon spent reading, a pleasant occupation. It probably would have been more pleasant to read Wordsworth aloud, all things considered.

Though cheaply and hastily printed, the red book was completely successful in achieving its obvious intent—to make Dreadnought Stanton appear like the most depraved and disgusting individual ever to disgrace the earth’s surface. Worse still, the message was driven home in such a fascinating and absorbing way, Emily could not tear her eyes away. On every page there was something more thrilling, shocking, or scandalous than the last. From a comparatively tame opening scene depicting the wanton defilement of a holy altar, it dragged the reader through a Grand Guignol of orgiastic blood-ceremonies, heartless ritual murder performed upon mercy-begging innocents, and gleefully creative and sadistic torture and mayhem—all peppered with prurient scenes of smut involving objects and animals better left uncoupled, even in the imagination. Emily shuddered. For God’s sake, people didn’t behave like that, even sangrimancers! How could anyone want to read about people behaving like that? Still, Emily turned the pages, even if it was just horror and dismay that kept her doing so.

Emily didn’t mind much about some of the accusations. She was certain she didn’t believe the part where Stanton breakfasted on a litter of newborn kittens. But some of them had the ring of horrible truth. There was the same story General Blotgate had told at the Investment—of Stanton’s using Black Exunge on living creatures, then burning them alive for the amusement of the other cadets. According to the book, it wasn’t just chickens. The descriptions made Emily shudder. And there was the depiction of Mrs. Blotgate (unconvincingly renamed in the book as Mrs. Blackheart) in Stanton’s arms, the adulterous lovers swearing the eternal destruction of everything good and decent in the world …

For the fifteenth time that afternoon, Emily threw the book to the ground, temper flaring. Lies! Filthy, ugly lies designed to further weaken Stanton’s position at the Institute. That’s all it was. But if so, why had Stanton hidden it from her? The ways of credomancy generally bewildered her, but she knew from experience that trying to hide a secret only gave it more power. And what was he trying to hide, really? The lies … or the parcel of truth that lay behind them?

There was a knock at the door. Emily looked up guiltily, her heart jumping into her throat. She snatched the book up from the floor and managed to tuck it behind herself as Mrs. Stanton came into the room. The older woman paused, her hand on the doorknob, and looked toward Emily’s arm, which Emily was holding awkwardly behind her back.

“I’ve been speaking with Farley,” Mrs. Stanton said. “He was quite worried for his job. For good reason, as I have since discharged him.”

Indignation flared up in Emily. “He was only doing as I asked him. It’s not fair to—”

“My son sent you here to be safe, not to tramp around New York City getting yourself involved in street brawls.” She gestured obliquely to Emily’s hand, which was still behind her back. “Farley told me you’d managed to obtain one of those … things. I assume from your ridiculous posture that you’ve been reading it?”

Slowly, Emily pulled her hand out from behind her back and laid the garish red book on the side table. Mrs. Stanton advanced, took the book in between two fingers, lifted it disdainfully, and threw it into the fireplace. The cheap paper flared up quickly, issuing a great quantity of foul-smelling black smoke.

“It is an exceptionally transparent attack,” Mrs. Stanton said, watching the flames and smoke rise together. She turned and looked at Emily. “I certainly hope you’re not silly enough to have let it upset you.”

“Why should it?” Emily said. “If it’s all lies.”

“If?” Mrs. Stanton’s green eyes glittered. “Then you have doubts?”

Emily swallowed, but said nothing. Mrs. Stanton hmphed.

“Most of it, I’ll own, seems rather unlike him. Blood strikes me as a highly unsanitary and disgusting beverage, and I can hardly picture him swilling jeweled goblets full of it. But the rest …” She paused. “Well, perhaps it is best that I refrain from sharing my opinion of my son’s taste in intimate companions.”

“You don’t … you can’t believe any of it?”

Mrs. Stanton lifted an eyebrow. “Dreadnought was a willful and perverse child. There is not a single earthly foolishness that I am unable to imagine him perpetrating. But whether he did any of those outlandish things or he didn’t, it makes no difference. He is my son.”

“Well, I’m sure he didn’t do any of it!” Emily said. “But, for heaven’s sake, if he did … you couldn’t—”

“Of course I could,” Mrs. Stanton said. She came to sit near Emily, in a chair that looked very uncomfortable. The way she sat in it, with her back straight as a poker, made it seem even more so. “And I would. What else would you have me do? Disown him? Denounce him? Ruin my world and my reputation in the service of some idealistic moral fantasy?”

“In the service of … decency.” Emily could hardly choke out the words.

“Your frontier ethics are so rawboned, Miss Edwards, as rough-hewn and clumsy as the log cabin in which you must have been raised.” Mrs. Stanton’s face was like marble as she spoke; only her lips moved with ugly precision. “Decency is striving for perfection in a world in which every other hoglike creature satisfies himself with sloppiness and indulgence. Decency is not in failing to murder someone. It’s in murdering the right person, and sparing your family the indignity of getting caught.”

Emily stared at her. Mrs. Stanton blinked once, slowly.

“The Senator has gone through his share of difficult times over the past twenty years. There have been public scandals—allegations of bribery, graft, kickbacks. And there have been private disappointments. There will always be other women, Miss Edwards. To imagine otherwise is sheerest self-delusion.”

She drew in a deep breath. “However, when my husband looks in the mirror, his reflection shows him an unblemished servant of the people, a faithful spouse, and a wise father. There is no doubt in his mind. He is a clear, unruffled pond. He is perfect in his belief in his own perfection. I have built this in him. I have killed all remorse, all conscience, all compromise within him. Because the strength of our perfection, the strength of our right to rule, is only as strong as our faith in it. Do you understand?”

Emily stared into the older woman’s green eyes, lost in their ocean of implication.

“But what about the truth?” Emily whispered.

“The truth doesn’t matter,” Mrs. Stanton said.

A heavy silence filled the room. Emily moved to the other side of the room, wrapping her arms around herself. She felt dizzy and sick. Of course the truth mattered. It had to matter. What would life be if it didn’t? Bitter self-delusion in the service of power? Despair flooded her. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, pressed it hard against her teeth to keep from screaming something foul.

“You have to rise above things like this, Miss Edwards,” Mrs. Stanton said to Emily’s back. “My son has explained many things about this ‘credomancy’ he practices. It is a fascinating art, though I can hardly understand why he had to spend a half-decade of intensive study on what seems to me little more than common sense. One of credomancy’s foundational precepts has always struck me as extremely comforting: While false things can be made true with enough belief, true things can also be believed into becoming false.”

Emily heard Mrs. Stanton rise. The woman went over to a carved walnut sideboard. She took a key from the small ring that hung at her waist and unlocked the cabinet. Inside, there was an arrangement of bottles and decanters. Mrs. Stanton selected an unopened bottle of brandy. She set it on a table, along with a cut-crystal tumbler.

“Personally, however, I prefer a more direct brand of comfort.” Was that an attempt at kindness in her voice? If so, it was very difficult to distinguish from contempt. Emily watched as the old woman tore the seal off the bottle, poured herself a brimful glass. She brought the glass to her mouth, drained it slowly and fondly. When she was finished, she set the tumbler down softly, touched a fingertip to each corner of her mouth. She recapped the bottle and left it on the table.

“I’m sure you’re very tired, Miss Edwards,” Mrs. Stanton said. “You’ll want to remain in your room this evening. I’ll have something sent up. We all understand.”

Emily turned violently, glaring at the bottle of brandy, at the old woman who hovered over it. She wanted to kick the table over. But at the moment, Emily did feel tired. Very tired. And the thought of locking herself in a room with a bottle of brandy didn’t seem all that exceptionally bad.

Mrs. Stanton moved toward the door. Her hand was on the doorknob when she paused.

“It is a shame you must feel such heartache, Miss Edwards,” Mrs. Stanton said, not turning. “It is as disappointing to me as it is to you. I did not raise my son to fall in love. I raised him to be like his father.” She paused, and Emily heard her murmur as she closed the door behind her: “If only I knew where I went wrong.”

Emily snatched the bottle of brandy and sat on the edge of the bed. She uncorked the bottle and tipped it down her thoat, forgoing the niceties of the cut-crystal tumbler. She assumed it was good brandy, but even so, it burned like hell going down. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

So. The truth didn’t matter. If there was truth in the red book, she was supposed to ignore it. Forget it. Polish Stanton into a gloss so fine that nothing real or honest could stick to him ever again.

She took another drink, the choking alcohol tickling her nose. Warmth spread through her quickly, tingling and numbing. It would be easy. Drink a little more, go to sleep, smile pretty, and for God’s sake don’t move. Ignore the goblets of blood and sadistic ex-mistresses.

Swim with the current.

“To hell with that!” she growled to herself, dashing the bottle of brandy into the fire. It smashed with a satisfying sound, and blue flames leapt on the hearth. Swim with the current? Let Stanton stand by and get away with murder, if that’s what he’d done … She swallowed hard. Three years at the Erebus Academy. How could she never have thought about what that really meant? Did she think that he’d spent those three years discussing theoretical abstractions? She trembled, wishing suddenly for another mouthful of brandy, wishing Mrs. Stanton hadn’t taken the keys to the liquor cabinet with her.

Even if he hadn’t gone to the diabolical lengths described in the book, he would have killed for blood. He would have tortured his victims to empower the blood. It was what sangrimancers did.

… it’s in murdering the right people, and sparing your family the indignity of getting caught …

She put a hand over her mouth, trembling harder. These people really believed that! That life was worth nothing more than the power that could be bled from it.

And she’d told him it didn’t matter. That it was all in the past.

She leapt to her feet, pacing the room up and down its length. She’d told him it didn’t matter because she’d never really believed it of him. She’d never thought he could have done it. But he could have. She knew it now, with terrible certainty. He could have been that person. His mother’s coldness, his father’s reflective emptiness; the images drifted together, resolving into an image of Stanton, his face cold as marble, his soul uncluttered by doubt, driving needles into the flesh of a struggling victim …

Emily ground the heel of her hand into her eyes, trying to rub the image away.

And what if … what if he was still that person? The kind of person who would send thugs to smash bookstores, beat an innocent man to a bloody crumpled pulp …

She couldn’t marry someone like that.

Using her mouth, she stripped the diamond ring from her finger, teeth raking her skin. She spat the thing into her hand, then slammed it down on a side table with a fierce cry. Then she stood looking down at it, watching it wink and glitter. As she watched it, her anger crumbled, tumbling into little shards of brandy-fueled misery. She thought of the afternoon up at the blockhouse, with Stanton’s warm hand on her sore ankle. That was the man she wanted to marry.

Emily shook her head hard, as if the action would drive the thoughts away. She wasn’t going to think about it anymore. There wasn’t anything left to think about, really. Misery transmuted into bitterness. “Mrs. Blackheart” and the leather bindings imputed to her were not Emily’s true rival. Her true rival was far more abstract and far more demanding. The Institute. The Institute would never relinquish him. It would always be the arms that held him fast, black glass hands tracing blood trails on his smooth flesh …

Emily shook her head. Stupid thoughts, all getting mixed up. She had to think of something else. She sat down and crossed her arms, squeezing her eyes shut tight, making herself small and hard.

Aleksei Morozovich. The name the Faery Reader had found on the hair sticks came back to her, and she pounced on it, eager for the distraction. Aleksei Morozovich. She had heard the name before. But where?

She tried to concentrate on the name, tried to remember where she’d heard it, but all she could see in her mind were young men in plaid suits, tearing up red books. Drifts of paper, white as ash, tumbling down the muddy streets of Chatham Square, balling in gutters …

Stop it! Emily used her good hand to give her own cheeks a smart slap. It didn’t hurt as much as she’d expected it to. She slapped herself again, experimentally.

Aleksei Morozovich.

She remembered the sun shining down through the ivy-covered roof of the blockhouse, Stanton’s warm hands. She was about to slap herself again for letting her mind wander, when she remembered Stanton’s words, the words he’d spoken thoughtfully while his fingers played over her ankle, finding the sore places with perfect accuracy:

… They propose to implement a sort of toxin … a poison, deployed within the Mantic Anastomosis itself, that would make magic toxic to any practitioner channeling it. The idea was put forth by a scientist named Aleksei Morozovich …

Emily blinked.

Aleksei Morozovich. The scientist who’d been working on the poison.

Her father. A member of the Sini Mira. Mrs. Kendall had said he was working on an important project, one that had driven him from Russia. She had said that he’d had a mentor who’d been killed for his research. If his mentor was Morozovich …

She remembered being young and small and cold, her father standing before her with the gleaming sticks of engraved silver in his hands, the sticks she had thought were so pretty …

… There is a secret written on these hair sticks, Emilichka … A dangerous secret …

Emily could not move. Her head felt as if little explosions were going off in it. The poison. The secret of the poison that would make magic unworkable. Volos’ Anodyne, that’s what Zeno had called it. The poison hidden by the God of Oaths. That was what had to be written on her hair sticks, in hyper-tiny violet scale letters. That was what her father had been trying to protect.

She leaned forward, staring at the carpet beneath her feet. It couldn’t be. But it had to. That’s what the Sini Mira wanted from her. They wanted to reclaim Volos’ Anodyne. And now she knew where it was. At least, she thought she did.

She had to suppress the urge to leap to her feet and rush down to the Bowery that very moment. The Faery Reader’s report wouldn’t be ready until morning. She couldn’t make the man work any faster, but the trembling anxiousness inside her was killing her.

She rocked back and forth in her chair, staring at her trunk. Inside, the blue bottle of memories lay half full. The rest of her past was in there. Her past, her father … and maybe the poison that everyone was looking for. Maybe there was an explanation in there, a confirmation, a confession. Maybe there was more he had to tell her.

Falling to her knees, she scrambled across the floor to her trunk, unbuckling it and throwing the heavy lid back with a thump. She dug through fabric until her ivory hand clinked against the glass. She lifted the bottle, looking at it.

Father, she whispered in Russian. Let me see.

She uncapped the Lethe Draught and drank it down to the last dregs. The bitterness of it filled her mouth, tasting of blood and mold and mushrooms …