Corroded

unfashionably bold hair held tightly as if she were little more than a creature of flesh and sensation bound by a garnet leash.

I would wager none of those poisonous Society salons had experienced what I had. Screamed as I had.

Begged for more.

As I had.

My knees wobbled. I sat upon Maddie Ruth’s abandoned stool before I found myself greeting the floor. I stared sightlessly at the device upon the table, a lantern of some make whose base was fitted with working cogs of some design. Much of it still scattered around the heavy iron frame, leaving me at a loss as to what she intended.

My mind would not focus on anything but the pain in my body and the wide, empty chasm yawning beyond my feet.

Until my gaze lit on a torn half of parchment tucked to one side on the table. The oval drawn upon it caught my attention.

I reached over, plucked it from under a large magnifying glass just as Maddie Ruth stepped from behind the curtain. She saw the paper in hand and nodded easily. “That’s what I wanted to show you.”

I recognized the drawn face on the oval, done to rather neat precision. Maddie Ruth had a deft hand and clear eye.

That this pretty piece of gold had once housed one of the most dangerous alchemical compounds I’d ever dreamed of did not make its facing any less pretty to look at. If anything, it made a surreal kind of sense. The science behind the foolish dreams of old men searching for immortality and unending wealth was often wrapped in the pretty words of superstitious nonsense. Yet as I’d learned, it was also something to be reckoned with.

Alchemy I would allow. Magic?

Worthless fantasy.

There was no evidence to the contrary.

Whereas evidence of alchemy’s viability was mounting all around me. My father’s dabbling, my mother’s own interest in the subject—as displayed by the book she’d given the marchioness long before I was born. The same book I’d had no choice but to abandon when the marchioness attempted to have me imprisoned within my own home.

Damn and blast. I’d all but forgotten about that book until now.

“What do you think?”

I looked up from the paper I’d been staring at, blinked to find Maddie Ruth beaming at me.

“One moment,” I muttered, glaring again at the precise handwriting with effort. There was little to find confusing. “It seems a simple enough mechanism.”

“It’s the small size of the mechanism that makes it delicate work,” she said. “Eat this.” She held out a ball of brown tar with the other. Opium, darker resin than what I’d finished already. Enough for another day or two, at least.

My eyes locked on it. My throat ached. “I don’t need it,” I said. It rasped.

“Sure you do,” she said, not unkindly. “Take it. I save it for medicinal purposes.” Unlike mine, her excuse did not ring patently false. “I insist. You’ll need it soon enough.”

I was not capable of so much pride—not for this.

I snatched it from her hand. “Thank you.” Even that much seemed torn from me.

I did not like the sympathy upon her face as she set another bit of tin upon the table between us.

“What is that?” I asked, hoping to distract her.

I should not have. “Salve,” she told me.

“For?”

Now, she hesitated, and I was reminded of the girl who’d attempted to entice my help with tea and jam. Gingerly, she cleared her throat. “For, ah... For tenderness. In areas...?”

Unlike me, Maddie Ruth did not blush. Her round cheeks remained clear of shame or embarrassment, though she seemed to be making an effort of delicacy for my sake.

I desperately wanted the ground to swallow me. “Thank you,” I said again, even if it did come out more a strangled whisper.

Did everybody know what I’d done the night before? Did I write it upon my forehead with indelible ink?

I pocketed both.

“Just rub it.” A vague gesture. “Around.”

“I am familiar with the application,” I snapped.

“Well, then.” Maddie Ruth cleared her throat rather unnecessarily. “There was a tiny bit of the stuff left in the cameo.” She frowned, apologetic. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do with it, so I put it here between glass.” She reached across the table, slid out a small clear square from a mix of other bits of stray items. Wire and gears and some twisted tubing.

“That’s good,” I said, accepting the square. I raised it to the light, peering at the faint pink shimmer trapped between two thin layers of glass. “Mayhap I can use this.”

“Really?” Delight colored her tone, and I looked to find her smiling quite happily. “I’m so glad. I was afraid there’d be nothing to find.”

I hadn’t considered residue, myself. This frustrated me. As a woman of scientific hypothesis, I should have considered it. I knew better.

How far astray had I gone of late?

Too far, obviously. I had made too many mistakes, glossed when I should have investigated. How long had this been going on?

I struggled to recall all the times I might have let facts go untested, or been reminded of clues I missed, but I could pluck nothing from the mess my memory had become. Blissful ignorance was all well and good in the dark of the night, but it could not last. As soon as I was able, I would rectify this. I was too intelligent a creature to allow this wayward meandering any further.

To know this as truth, as it turned out, was far easier than what it would cost me to fix the problem at the root.

I wrapped the bit of glass inside a black cloth for safekeeping, then pocketed it with the tin and opium ball. “Fine work. Now, where’s the cameo?”

“Ah...” A hesitation, terribly obvious. “There was...” Another, and I raised my eyebrows as her round cheeks finally turned red. “It’s still in pieces,” she confessed, looking down at the table. “I haven’t yet put it back together.”

For a moment, I was sure she lied. Something of the way she shifted, avoiding my gaze. Something of the way she tapped her fists together.

“If I had more time?” she suggested.

Then I remembered. Had it only been a day since I asked her help? A day, and she’d already worked out designs, given me the residue. “My apologies,” I said, easing my frown. “You’ll have all the time you require, but may I take the facing?”

I’m not wholly sure why I asked. It wasn’t as if I knew my mother, or even much about her save the comparisons Society ladies had often thrown in my face. She was intelligent, versed in alchemical theory, and much more beautiful than I. I knew my father had loved her to distraction—and far into madness.

Yet still, I wanted that keepsake.

Maddie Ruth flinched. “I—I’m so sorry, but it’s...” Her eyes darted away. “Oh, Lord have mercy.” That a groan, and I stared at her in mounting bewilderment.

“Maddie Ruth, what is the matter with you?”

“I broke the face,” she blurted. “Trying to prise the casing off.”

“Well.” I wish that I’d felt something besides resignation, but I did not. I searched, plumbed myself for a feeling of dismay, of anger, even of relief, but I felt only empty.

I’d asked for a memento of my mother, and there was nothing.

At least there would be no way the Veil would ever get his hands on it now.

“You’re sure this is the last of the residue within?” I asked, tapping the pouch at my hip.