Copperhead

said. It was as tactful as she could manage around the frostbitten fingers and the tangled knots of worry.

“You’ve got it all wrong,” the woman said. “I’m dying to have my old face back. Let’s rip it off.”

“Really?” said Helen. “Most women have been very resistant. So far only—,” but she thought belatedly that perhaps she shouldn’t mention poor Mrs. Grimsby.

“Well, I don’t care what anyone else thinks,” the woman said decidedly. “I wouldn’t have done it except it seemed good for my career. But then the visions!”

“Did you have nightmares, too?” said Helen.

“Oh, my goodness. Did you have dreams where a bunch of beautifully creepy men and women stood around you in a circle and then it turned out they were all wearing your face?”

“Um. No,” said Helen.

The woman paced around the overturned chairs, setting them up straight for something to do. Her face went in and out of the shadows flung by the oil lamp. “I’m an actor, you see. But I always got the odd roles. The wacky maiden aunt. The cryptic fortune-teller. And then I heard about this man who would make you beautiful, and I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to be the ingenue for once?” Her brusque voice momentarily went wistful. “You see what I mean, don’t you?” She pulled off her iron mask to reveal an exquisitely strong, purposeful face. Striking and glamorous with the fey, and yet Helen could imagine the face as it must have been before—the sort of woman you might call handsome if you wanted a way to describe how her face made you feel—a woman with purpose and character in spades, but not a beauty.

“But it turned out you were the same inside as you were before,” Helen murmured.

The woman heard her and laughed, a strong laugh like a ship breaking through the sea. It displayed a nice white set of teeth, even except for a gap in front. “Well, I expected that, you know. I’m no fool. But I didn’t expect the voices in my head. The wallpaper swimming in. And that is not worth it in the slightest, and I’m ready to take my old face back and enjoy being the wacky maiden aunt again. Besides, between you and me, being the ingenue isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Drippy girls pining over young men who aren’t worth it. I had my fun—my rabid fans, my scandalous love affairs. Sat as an artist’s model for the bronze outside the ballet, you know the one—?”

“Intimately,” said Helen dryly.

The woman laughed again and put out a hand, strong and bold like a man’s. “I like you,” she said. “There’s more in you than one would suspect.”

Helen thought that might be sort of an insult, but it was said so forthrightly she couldn’t possibly take offense. She shook the woman’s hand heartily in her own. “Helen Huntingdon,” she said.

“Eglantine Frye,” the woman said. “But please, call me Frye.”

“All right,” said Helen. She had never met someone like this; she knew how to make bright and brittle small talk with men and women of all sorts but not hold a real conversation with this strong-willed woman in slacks who stood in her sister’s destroyed flat, joking about ripping off her face. “Frye it is.”

“Great,” said Frye. “So tell me. How soon can you replace my face?”

Helen looked at the woman in shock.

“I’m serious,” said Frye. “Jane’s not here but you are. She wanted to do me last week. I shouldn’t have beat around the metaphorical bush, but I wanted one last good carouse before going back to my old life. So here I am, high on courage and gin and no Jane.”

“You don’t want me to do that,” said Helen.

“I don’t want this face anymore,” Frye said adamantly. “I’m in danger with it.”

“You’re in danger if I try,” said Helen. “Beyond the fact that I don’t know how—that’s how Jane disappeared tonight. She was doing a facelift and something went wrong. Besides, you wouldn’t want me even if I thought I could do it. I’m…” I’m silly, she wanted to say. I’m not sensible. And when I make big decisions, like marrying Alistair, I think maybe I ruin everything. How could you trust me to do something big like this, something important? “I’m not Jane,” she finished lamely.

“Hold everything,” Frye said. “You’re saying Jane actually disappeared?” She whistled like a boy as she surveyed the wrecked flat. “This is looking grimmer by the moment.” Frye seemed to do nothing by economy. She swung back around to look at Helen and her whole frame followed the motion of her glance. “But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To find Jane. No! To find clues—to track her down. She must have gone underground, gone into hiding. Say no more. I’ll help you search.”

Frye fell to with a will, sorting the small room to rights. Helen fell in beside her, sorting through the shadows. Gone into hiding, she thought. Yes. That’s all. Jane has gone into hiding—I have my own plans—and Helen would find a clue here to where that hiding place was. She was not sure exactly what that clue would be, but surely something would turn up if she just kept standing up chairs and hanging up clothes. Not that there were many clothes to hang up. Two dresses, both dark—and probably only that many so Jane wouldn’t have to stand in her slip and wash her only change of clothes in the communal sink. None of the pretty things she had given Jane. No, this was sensible Jane from head to toe, and Helen thought again how useful she could have been—would still be—to Jane in her quest. Those women didn’t want their savior to be sensible and plain. Nobody trusted sensible and plain. They trusted smart. Turned out. Fashionable.

“Whoever wrecked this was looking for something,” mused Frye, her penciled eyebrows knitting together. “But what could you hide in a room this small?”

“Or maybe they wanted to disguise whatever it was they were doing,” said Helen.

“Mmm, like in The Ruby Dagger of Deidre,” said Frye. “You come back after the second act to find the heroine’s place ransacked—but it was all so the bad guy could plant the murder weapon on her.”

“And if the murder weapon’s a face?” Helen said. There were lots of meanings to that, and Frye didn’t even know about Millicent, but she laughed anyway.

“Yes, I like your style,” Frye said. “You can work on my face. I’ll be your first victim.”

“You don’t know a thing about me,” protested Helen as she tried to wedge a broken chair leg back in place.

Frye shrugged. “I’m a good judge of character. And my mind’s made up. Even Jane had to start somewhere. You have all her stuff, don’t you?” She pointed dramatically at the carpetbag. “I always saw her carrying that.”

Helen nodded. “But I couldn’t possibly make the fey power work. Jane studied all summer to learn how to do it. And … she’s just good at that kind of thing.”

Frye swung around and stood there casually studying her, hands slouched in pockets as if they were discussing where to eat lunch and not how to replace her face. “Jane said you were cleverer than you knew,” she said.

Helen felt suddenly, strangely, lighter. Buoyed up. “I … I could try,” she said at last. “I make no promises. But I could put the clay on my hands and see how it feels. If I think I could do what she could.”

“Excellent,” said Frye. “Shall we find a bed then?” She gestured at Jane’s slashed cot.

“Gah, no!” said Helen. More calmly: “I mean, no. Not tonight. I have to rest.” And the memory of that botched operation was so fresh, so cutting. What was this woman thinking, trying to entrust this to her?

“Tomorrow, then. You can come to my place.”

“I can’t,” said Helen. “I’m not supposed to—”

Frye looked at her curiously.

“I mean. It’s dangerous on the streets for us without the masks. And I’ve … misplaced mine. You’ll have to come to me. Some early morning would be the best time to sneak in.”

“Fine,” said Frye, who was apparently willing to let Helen win some of the arguments, as long as she got the main point she wanted. “Next Monday, perhaps—no shows on Monday. Can I wear slacks? Or is your neighborhood too stuffy?”

“Well…,” said Helen.

“Your face says it all,” said Frye. “I have a dress, don’t worry. I’m an actor, darling. I’ll blend in so I can sneak in.” She paused, studying Helen curiously. “Why are we sneaking me in?”

“Well,” said Helen, again, but this woman threw her off balance. “That is. My husband doesn’t know I’m carrying on Jane’s work.” The words, slipping out, startled her. She was carrying on Jane’s work. She was going to convince The Hundred. She was.