These Vicious Masks: A Swoon Novel(37)

I resisted the temptation to tell her it wasn’t bloody likely as she disappeared back into the building.

We made our way back to the street, where Mr. Braddock found an open cab and helped me inside. “This will take you back to your lodgings, and I will call on you when I retrieve your sister.”

“What?” I yelped, jumping back out. “No, I am going with you. I need to see her for myself.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“Then we will alert the police first.”

He scoffed at the suggestion. “The police will not believe anything about these powers, and I do not trust them to handle it while we wait elsewhere.”

“Then let me at least fetch Mr. Kent from inside. If it’s dangerous, he will help make it less so.”

Mr. Braddock seemed to be searching for an argument, but he found none. “Very well, fetch him.”

As I spun around to head back to the Argyll Rooms, I felt Mr. Braddock climbing into the cab behind me and realized his trick. I refused to let him leave me behind.

“I don’t trust you to wait,” I said, climbing inside.

He admitted defeat and tapped the roof, the hansom rushing forward with the clatter and clinking of wood, stone, and horseshoes. We traveled westward in silence, past Hyde Park, through Knightsbridge, and into Chelsea, where I lost all sense of direction as the cab careened through narrow streets and pulled to a sharp stop in front of an ugly, small building.

“So this is your plan?” I asked as Mr. Braddock paid the driver. “The two of us will walk in and forcefully retrieve Rose from three men?”

He opened the cab door and climbed out. “Not quite,” he replied, shutting it in my face. “I will do it myself.”





“MR. BRADDOCK, WHAT do you—”

The driver took off down the street with me still inside.

“Wait! Let me go! I’m still here! Stop the cab, sir!” I yelled.

“Sorry, ma’am, fella paid me well,” he shouted back.

As the cab picked up speed, the whole of Mr. Braddock disappeared, shadowy as his stupid past. Damn it all.

I grasped for excuses. “He’s mad! You must turn around! He’s a thief who stole from me!”

“Then—then I say we best get as far as we can!”

A frustrated scream grew within me, climbing through my chest, crawling up my throat. I banged on the roof with all my might. The whole cab rattled, but the driver said nothing. He was only going faster and getting farther away.

Dammit. I pushed open the hansom door and watched the dark, painful-looking road rush by below me. A gulp as the cab slowed to make a turn and I leaped out, hitting the ground hard, rolling, tumbling across the pavement, pain bouncing around my body and then filling it as I slowed to a stop.

I pushed myself up to my feet, reminding myself that the damage wasn’t permanent, and limped my way back around the turn and down the road, scanning building numbers and hoping I’d be able to find the house.

Nearing the end of the road, I slowed in front of a building that seemed familiar, and a heavy bang conveniently rang out to confirm it. Movement and shadows in the glowing second-floor window. Images of bloody Roses and broken Mr. Braddocks flashed in my mind. No time for nervousness. The front door was unlocked, the shattered window next to it presumably Mr. Braddock’s subtle work. A strange feeling of familiarity chilled me as I padded up the bare-board stairs to the second-floor landing and rounded the banister. Mr. Braddock had paused at the threshold of a room at the end of the hall.

He looked back over his shoulder, briefly shooting me a grim, frustrated glare as he removed his gloves. But something more important immediately spun his attention back. Before I could reach his side at the doorway, he clutched the jamb and blocked me out.

“I’m here to see what you are—” I said, my harsh whisper cut short by the sight of the towering Claude, whose head nearly grazed the ceiling.

In his gentle voice, Claude spoke with a stilted politeness: “Miss Wyndham.”

“Go back downstairs,” Mr. Braddock breathed, betraying a touch of panic.

I started to protest, but a voice interrupted. “Mr. Braddock and Miss Wyndham! Two pleasant surprises. You need not have broken in. I would have gladly invited you, had I known you were in town.”

At the far corner, a short, lean man in a white coat stood up at his desk and crossed the room to greet us. As he passed glass jars, tubes, microscopes, and all sorts of equipment that stood in perfect ranks throughout the laboratory, I remembered that I had been here before. In my dream two nights ago.

The searing, clean smell of chemicals sharpened the air, growing stronger as the man approached. Large, almost silver eyes stood out in a waxen face. A normal man, unremarkable in every way, but for those eyes—watery, intelligent, and too pale. He stopped beside Claude and bowed to us.

“It has been too long,” he said. Was he speaking to me? Or Mr. Braddock?

“Where is my sister?” I demanded, refusing to be frightened by this man.

A glint of unexpected intensity and vexation jumped into those eyes. “I’m sorry?” he asked. And seeing that glint of danger, suddenly I was the one who was sorry.

Still, I refused to let my voice fall. “Rose. Small, fair, beloved sister. You took her, now give her back.”

He peered up at Claude in mock confusion. “I apologize. . . . I believe there has been a mistake,” he replied.