Strange and Ever After (Something Strange and Deadly #3)(8)

But I would not speak of that with Joseph. Instead, I shuffled across the room and rested my hand on the doorknob. “Do you know how to stop the compulsion spell on Jie?”

He shrugged, another movement so out of character. “We must kill the necromancer who cast it. That is the only cure I have ever read.”

“So we kill Marcus, then?”

“Wi.”

“Good.” My lips slid up. “I am glad we are agreed upon that.”

For a moment Joseph only watched me. Then a grin spread over his own lips. “I do not think there was ever any disagreement. Marcus died years ago, and it is time he returned to the realm in which he belongs.” Joseph rapped his knuckles against the door as if deciding this was a good note on which to end our talk . . . but then his eyebrows curved down. “Your friend Miss Wilcox,” he added, leveling me with a stare, “has been sitting in the galley since we departed Paris. I do not know what to do with her, but she must be dealt with before we reach Marseille in an hour.”

“Miss . . . Wilcox,” I repeated. Even though speaking to her was the last thing I wanted to do, Joseph was right. Allison needed to be out of our way.

Joseph shifted his weight. “I realize you are upset, Eleanor, but Miss Wilcox has traveled a great distance to see you. Bad tidings or no, do not dismiss such a gesture, non? We have few enough friends in this life, and even fewer true friends.”

I stayed silent as he drifted into the cabin next door. He was right—yet again—and I knew he was. Nonetheless, the thought of speaking to Allison . . . of discussing Philadelphia or why Allison had come . . .

It made my insides knot up.

But with a steeling breath, I forced myself to enter the hall. Each of the doors save one was closed. The galley, I assumed, so I crept left to it . . . then poked my head inside.

On the right was a wall of cabinets, while against the left wall stood a squat, round table with stools tucked below it. The fourth stool was beside the porthole, and Allison Wilcox sat stiffly upon it.

I gave a low cough, slinking inside. “Allison . . .” I hesitated, for what should I say? At last, though, I managed a pathetic “Would you like something to eat?”

She did not look away from the porthole. “You,” she said coolly, “are the first person to acknowledge my presence since we left Paris four hours ago. Everyone else pretends I do not exist.”

“I am . . . sorry?” The apology came out as a question, and to cover the clear lack of pity in my tone, I hurried to the nearest cabinet and swung the door wide. Inside was jug upon jug of water. I moved to the next cabinet, which was filled with lumpy sacks of apples. I withdrew a bruised, red fruit, but when I turned to offer it to Allison, I found her still staring out the window.

“Two weeks, I traveled,” she said. “Over the ocean and through France, but for what?” She swiveled toward me. “So that you could abandon me immediately.”

I wet my lips as guilt—always the guilt—wriggled into my lungs. “I did not ask you to board this airship, Allison. Nor did I ask you to cross an ocean.”

“Oh?” Her eyebrows shot up. “So should I have written a letter about your mother’s death? Your maid—Mary or Marie or whatever her name is—intended to do just that. But I know from personal experience that death is not the sort of news one should drop upon another person.”

My fingers tightened around the apple. “Is that a comment on my own behavior, Allison? When I told you Elijah killed Clarence, are you implying that I dropped that news on you?”

“Of course you did!” She shoved to her feet. “You left Philadelphia only moments later—”

“Because I was being hunted.”

“I realize! But all the same, I wanted to do what you wouldn’t do for me. Besides, I have nothing left for me in Philadelphia, Eleanor! I thought if I came to France, I could join you. In your travels. We could . . .” She wet her lips, and her shoulders sank. As quickly as her temper had grown, it now deflated. “I thought we could . . . mourn together, Eleanor.”

“But what of your mother? You should stay with her.” For you never know when she might be gone.

Allison shook her head. “Mother’s only interest now is in marrying me off.” She leaned expectantly toward me, knowing I related to her predicament.

“I understand you don’t want to get married,” I admitted, “but the fact is that it makes no difference in the end. You cannot stay with us, Allison. You must return to Philadelphia. There’s no place for you here.”

“No place for me here,” she said sharply. “Of course there isn’t. You are Eleanor Fitt. You do not want me now, just as you never wanted my company before.”

“That has nothing to do with it.” I opened my hands, inwardly ordering my temper to stay cool. “The Spirit-Hunters and I almost lost our lives fighting a demon in Paris, Allison. Now we go to Marseille to fight her master. It is not safe.”

Allison wilted back slightly. “A . . . demon? But I thought you were fleeing that necromancer. What happened to him?”

“Marcus,” I said softly. I spun around and shuffled to the table to set down the apple. But then my hands felt too empty. I plucked it back up again and stared at the speckled peel. “The necromancer who died . . . and then returned to life. His name is Marcus.”