Copperhead

Jane turned from her preparations. “You did a good thing by setting this up,” she told Helen.

Helen warmed at the praise. She felt almost holy in that moment, filled with doing things right.

“We’re going to get her out of here tonight. And then deal with you-know-who.” Jane and Millicent exchanged a significant glance.

“Good,” said Helen. “Wait, what?”

“Millicent has to get away from this house for good,” said Jane. “As soon as I make her safe from the fey.”

Helen did not like Mr. Grimsby one bit—the Copperhead leader seemed the coldest of any of Alistair’s friends—and heaven knows none of them were worth much; but still, she was shocked. “Leave her husband?”

A small tap on the door, and before the women could react, it opened and a little boy sidled around the splintering doorframe, a jar clutched in his hand.

“Oh dear, Tam,” said Millicent Grimsby, and she sat up and hurried to the small figure at the door. She bent down so he could whisper in her ear, his hand clenched on her dark skirts. In the flicker of candlelight, the contents of the other jar appeared to be moving.

“I’m sorry,” Millicent said, standing up again. “Tam is supposed to be asleep, but he saw Miss Eliot from the staircase and wanted to ask her about her iron. He’s really a sweet child—I’m so sorry, I know it’s quite inappropriate, but you have no idea how stubborn he gets.”

“I can imagine something of it,” said Jane with a rueful smile, and she knelt by the boy, one flickering taper in hand. “My face has iron in it,” she said. “Do you want to touch it?”

Tam put his free hand to Jane’s face, considering. “What does it do?” he said.

Helen saw Jane search for an explanation, not because she was flustered—Jane was much better with small children than Helen was—but because it was complicated to explain. Jane had been an “ironskin,” one of those hit with fey shrapnel during the war who wore iron to cover the grotesque, poisonous scars. Rochart had made her a new, fey-perfect face to replace her disfigurement. Now Jane had thin iron strips set right on top of the fey skin in her face to keep the fey from taking her over. At least Helen could remove her iron mask when she was indoors, but poor Jane would never look normal again.

“The iron helps keep me safe from the fey,” Jane said at last. “Like the iron strips around your door and windows.”

Tam looked up at Mrs. Grimsby, puzzled.

“This house was built post-war,” Millicent said to the boy. “It’s too new to have iron. Your father is working on the problem, but with the fey suddenly everywhere, iron’s gone short again.”

Helen saw Jane roll her eyes at that and she hastened to intervene before Jane could go off on one of her rants about how the city folk didn’t have any sense, building without iron in the first place. “I just realized that’s a bug jar,” said Helen to the small boy. “Are you collecting bugs?”

“For my snake,” he said. “I found a little garden snake. He’s green.”

Helen shuddered in delight. “And you collect live bugs for him? My goodness.”

Tam offered her a shy smile, possibly uncertain whether she was teasing him. “Do you want to feed him one?”

“Not now, Tam.” Millicent Grimsby shook her perfect face and Helen saw again how very young she was, younger than Helen herself, who was barely eighteen and a half. (Though she felt she had aged a lifetime in the last six months; it was a mercy her fey face didn’t show eye bags and wrinkles or she was sure she would have them.)

“After we visit with your mother,” promised Helen.

“Tam is not mine,” Millicent Grimsby said quietly in response. “His mother died in a motorcar accident, poor thing. I’m the second Mrs. Grimsby, you see. Married last winter. My mother thought he was such a catch.…” Her voice trailed off, lost, and Helen overflowed with sympathy again. What kind of mother would tell this poor girl to accept frightening, fanatic Mr. Grimsby, wealthy though he might be?

“Can I stay and play with the birdcages?” said Tam.

“Oh, sweetheart,” said Millicent. She led the boy to the door and whispered something in his ear. He nodded and squeezed her fingers before plodding back down the staircase. Millicent Grimsby stared after the small disappearing form, her fingers knotted together. She wheeled and turned on Jane, her mousy form straightening, filling with iron. “You need to make them all safe, Jane,” said Millicent. She moved into the light. “Make them listen to you.”

Jane pressed Millicent’s small hands. “That’s where Helen comes in,” she said. “She’s going to help win all of The Hundred over to our cause. And soon.”

Warmth flooded a tight knot in her chest. Jane did want her to help. Jane trusted her. Jane saw that Helen was worth something. And deeper, inside—don’t screw up this time.

Millicent turned her big brown eyes on Helen, and even Helen, with her own fey charm, felt the fey allure. “I’m so glad you’re on our side,” Millicent said. “You know what it’s really like to be attacked by the fey. You can be a real leader of the cause.”

Jane was the real leader, thank goodness, but Helen was not about to rile up Millicent before the dangerous surgery. “Of course I will,” she said easily. “But did you say you’re going to run away?” She could see it now, little Millicent and her small frightened boy, in flight, on the run. A dangerous mission, fleeing through the cold winter winds …

“Not run away,” said Jane. “She is her own person and Mr. Grimsby does not own her. We are leaving for her own good.”

Helen waved semantics aside. “And it must be tonight,” she added, seizing onto the new plan. “Mr. Grimsby won’t let Millicent have her iron mask, so she can’t leave on her own. She needs your help.”

Jane nodded. “I must make her safe and then we need to go, now, while we still can. We’ll take Tam with us. You will go downstairs and pretend not to know a thing.”

“I am excellent at that,” said Helen. She turned back and said, “Wait, though. What’s this about convincing The Hundred soon? These things take time, you know.”

Millicent and Jane exchanged a significant glance as Millicent got back into position on the daybed. “There’s movement afoot,” Jane said. “Things are about to come to a head.”

“Things?”

Jane whispered over Millicent’s body. “The fey, Helen. The fey are rising again. Some follower of the dead Fey Queen, we think, has riled up the fey—is planning to infiltrate the city just as the Fey Queen had planned, by taking over the women. We can’t allow this opening for a foothold. We need every one of The Hundred safe as soon as possible.” Jane looked at Millicent for confirmation, who nodded. Jane stretched out a hand and laid it on Helen’s, a reverse of when Helen used to comfort her during times of ironskin stress. “But the walls have ears … and we must hurry to get Millicent and her son out of here. Come to my flat tonight after the meeting and I’ll tell you the rest. You promise?”

Helen was not at all sure how her plan to give Millicent back her face had snowballed into Helen going down to the wharf to find Jane’s flat in the frostbitten November night, but she nodded to quick skip over the part where people wanted her to promise things. Promises were such cold, hard-hearted, rigid things.

Millicent Grimsby lay down. Then she sat up, took Helen’s hands, and squeezed them. “You won’t let him find out you helped me escape, will you?”

“Who, Mr. Huntingdon?” said Helen, startled by the woman’s concern. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

Millicent set her lips and nodded.

“Now just relax,” said Helen.

Millicent Grimsby lay back down, closing her eyes. Her thin hands clenched the sheets, the knuckles white.

Jane carefully took some of the precious fey-infused clay from the water bag inside the carpetbag and smeared a thin layer on her hands, adding to the power she could control. Jane placed one hand on Millicent’s forehead and one hand on her heart, till the woman’s eyes fluttered, and finally stopped. Her breathing and