Strange and Ever After (Something Strange and Deadly #3)(25)

CHAPTER SIX

The gondola hatch slammed shut, and all sound abruptly vanished. It was as if my senses were blanked out—no roaring wind in my ears, no sting in my eyes, and no gulping for the next breath. I just lay there, shivering and wet and blessedly, blessedly safe.

My last sight after Oliver had pulled me into the cargo hold had been one of blue Mediterranean waves with whitecaps hundreds of feet below. No land. No ships.

It had felt like hours of climbing to ascend the airship ladder. Daniel had refused to move ahead—or even release me—so every rung had been a trial. Yet now we were here, my eyes locked on Daniel’s.

“Thank you,” I tried to say, but the words wouldn’t come. I wanted to ask him about the kiss in the street. About how he knew to come back for me. But I could summon no voice before Joseph shouted, “Daniel! I have lost sight of land!”

Daniel hauled himself to his feet, threw me a final, anxious glance, and then hurried into the hall.

I twisted my gaze to Oliver, kneeling beside me. His eyes roved over me. Checking for injuries, but it was not the outside of me that ached. I felt . . . torn apart. Something inside me had shifted. Something had been pushed too far—like a muscle too often unused.

“Where’s Jie?” I asked, trying to rise onto my elbows.

“She’s with your friend.”

“Allison?” My eyes widened, and I jerked farther upright . . . but instantly swayed.

“Should I heal you?” Oliver asked.

“No.” I shook my head. “But are you all right?”

He eased a breath through his teeth. Then he dropped his gaze. “I’m sorry. I thought you were right behind me. Back there.” He jerked his shoulder in what I could only assume was the direction of Marseille. “I would never have left you like that.” His gaze climbed back to mine. “Never, El.”

“I know.”

“Good.” He stood and offered me his hands. “For once I’m grateful to your inventor.” With a grunt, he hefted me to my unsteady feet. “You need dry clothes.”

“Jie” was my only response, so Oliver guided me into the hall. At the galley, gold flashed in my eyes and skirts rustled.

Jie stood in the middle of the room, rainwater pooling beneath her. Blood trickled down both sides of her neck—though one cut was already clotting.

“Jie.” I pulled free from Oliver and lurched inside. “Are you all right?”

She blinked and met my eyes, but it was as if she didn’t even know me. She stayed perfectly still. Perfectly flat.

Until Oliver leaned into the room. Then a shudder exploded through her. “Demon,” she breathed. “Demon.” Her gaze fell and locked on her dress. “Oh God. Get it off me.” With frantic movements, she yanked at her bodice. “Get it off me!”

I darted to her, grasping her arms. “Settle down—”

“Get it off!” Her fingers grabbed fistfuls of skirt, and she yanked. I flung a glance at the door—but Oliver was already gone. So I simply moved behind Jie and set to ripping off the hundreds of buttons that closed the gold silk. She stayed silent, but her fingers were flexed taut and quivering—as if she feared to touch anything. Minutes later I had the gown mostly off her.

Heels clacked and Allison strode in, a metal case in her hands. At my harsh stare she halted and held up the tin. “A first aid kit. To bind Miss Chen’s wounds.”

“No. The cut must be left to bleed.”

“Why?”

“If the wound heals, the compulsion spell will take control again—and do not ask why,” I hastened to add as Allison’s mouth opened. “I do not know. All I know is that it’s necromancy, and as long as Marcus is still alive, the compulsion spell still exists.”

“Seventy-three days,” Jie mumbled. “It’ll last seventy-three days—one for each of Marcus’s victims in Paris.”

A knot swelled in my throat. “Was it the hair clasp?” I asked quietly. “The one Madame Marineaux gave you. Was it an amulet?”

“I . . . I guess.” Jie lifted her shoulder almost imperceptibly. “I don’t remember everything. I just know he was proud of the length of the spell. He bragged about all the people he’d killed to make it.” She inhaled a shaking breath, and it sent her shoulders almost to her ears. Her whalebone corset had cinched her waist so tight that her chest overflowed from the top. I grabbed for the first lace.

“Wait,” Allison said. She fumbled in the case and withdrew scissors. Then, after a frightened glance at Jie’s face, she offered them to me.

With each snip the laces snapped free—and Jie’s ribs slowly shuddered back into their natural form. But even when the final pieces of the corset tumbled to the floor, her breaths remained too shallow and her skin too pale from lack of blood.

And all I could seem to think of was Marcus. Of destroying him for this. I wanted to know how he had beaten us to Marseille. How he had gotten that newspaper article printed.

But above all, I needed to know what he had planned next.

“What else do you remember?” I asked as gently as I could.

“Too much,” Jie whispered. “Boarding a train. Leaving a train. Being . . . being stuck while he raised all the Dead. While he . . . put me in this dress.”