A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(95)

We need the final sacrifice, he heard, finally, and it was not his imagination, the voice was much subdued. We must have the final sacrifice, so that We may come fully into this world. There will be reward for you. Much reward. You will be a Great Master, greater than those in your mind. But to do that We must have the last pure one, or we will not have the power.

Well now, that was more like it. “I’ll get the sacrifices, but to do so without risk will take several days,” he said, stiffly. “You’ll have to wait. It shouldn’t take the full seven days, but it simply cannot be now. It’s not possible.”

He could sense that the thing was not happy, that it was very angry, in fact, but it had to accept what he had told it. Very well, it said. And the pillar collapsed down into the floor again.

“Oi’m orf,” said Alf from the top of the stairs. And Alexandre was left to go back up to his room, where he lay in bed, eyes wide open, until Alf returned. Only then could he manage to close his eyes and try to sleep.

But his dreams were not pleasant.



Nan and Amelia were in Memsa’b’s office, with Neville sitting on the back of Nan’s chair. It was . . . surreal, actually. She was completely aware of that whole other world, separated from her own by what seemed like the thinnest of veils. She knew that at any moment, with little to no warning, that world could break in on hers, with a terrible, potentially very powerful enemy pouring through that break to try and turn London into a copy of that world. She had fought off the denizens of that world herself; one of her best friends lay wounded and had nearly died.

And yet, here she was, with Holmes, sitting in Memsa’b’s study, drinking tea and nibbling cakes with Amelia—who was describing in more detail what it was like to have her visions, quite as if those visions were merely frightening and unpleasant, rather than the harbingers of potential doom. She could hardly believe Amelia’s calm; the girl was almost a different person from the one she had first met.

“It’s like a door, opening and shutting again,” Amelia explained. “Now that I have . . . some experience at this, I can tell you that I can feel when it is about to open, and ready myself. It’s not immediate, the vision doesn’t immediately follow the sensation. The vision comes perhaps ten minutes later, but no more than that.”

Holmes looked to Nan, who shrugged. “I would think, given what I have watched John and Mary do, that opening the portal into this world takes some preparation. That might be what Amelia is sensing.”

Sherlock nodded, and Amelia continued. “Memsa’b and I have been taking notes, and I have been drawing pictures. They aren’t very good,” she added shyly, handing them to Holmes who examined them closely, then passed them to Nan.

“You are too modest,” Holmes said. “They are quite good. And they are certainly identical to that place in which we found ourselves last night.”

Though she had only used a pencil, Nan thought that Amelia had caught the essence of the place perfectly. The dead trees, like skeletal hands clawing at the sky, the broken buildings like piles of empty-eyed skulls. There were hints of creatures lurking in the ruins, but nothing easy to identify.

“Yes, I thought that was you in the first vision I had last night,” Amelia said, matter-of-factly. “I recognized everyone except you, Mr. Holmes. I actually had two visions last night. The one where you entered that strange world while a wonderful creature with a glowing staff kept the entrance open for you, and another, later.” She bit her lip, and paled. “I saw you enter, and arm yourselves, then I saw that poor old man run to you and die. Then you all went further into that world, and I couldn’t follow. I can’t seem to move past that entry-point in my visions. I was in the vision until you all returned, supporting poor Selim, and then after you came back through, the vision ended.”

“You said you had a second vision, later?” Holmes prompted.

Amelia nodded. “Not very much later, either. I had just awakened from the first and was about to call for Memsa’b when the second began. It did not last very long, but by the time it happened, something had already carried the body of the old man off. Other than that, it was quiet. When it ended, and I awakened again, there was a great deal of bustle going on outside my room. I opened the door, learned from one of the ayahs coming by in the hall that Selim had been hurt, and decided to wait to tell Memsa’b about the visions until things settled down again. So I took notes and drew some pictures and went back to sleep.” She settled the pile of pencil drawings carefully back inside a portfolio and looked expectantly at Holmes.

Yes, Amelia was certainly a very different young woman than the one who had been in that hospital, Nan reflected. Now that she knew she wasn’t going mad—that, in fact, what she was seeing was important—she was showing a great deal of composure and even bravery in the face of having to endure those horrific visions of hers. Nan wasn’t at all sure she would be able to sit here and speak calmly if her nights were interrupted without warning by visions of that terrible world into which they had thrust themselves a night ago.

A very great deal had happened in less than twenty-four hours. Much more than Nan would have ever dreamed could happen.

Sherlock had spoken with his brother, and Watson with Lord Alderscroft. It was Alderscroft who had gone to the director of the hospital and arranged to move the soulless girls to a concert hall. Nan marveled that the place even had such a thing in it, but then the patients were, for the most part, of the sort of class that was used to being entertained. And, she supposed, it made the lives of those who had been incarcerated against their will there a little more bearable.