A Study in Silks

get to find out how the case ends.”

They were both silent.

“I’m serious. In his own way, Magnus tried to catch me like I caught you, and I didn’t like it. I don’t want to do that to anyone else.”

Bird hopped from the train case to the desk, feet skidding on the smooth surface. We’ll let you know. Which seemed to say complaining was more fun than actually getting their way.

Evelina could feel another presence prodding her consciousness. The cube reminded her of a cat wanting to be stroked, the gentle tap-tapping of a paw to get her attention.

She’d hidden the cube at the back of her wardrobe, but brought it out when she was sitting in her room. It seemed to like the company, even though the other devas couldn’t understand it any better than she could. No amount of scrubbing had made the thing attractive. It was still a rusty mass of partially melted gears and wheels, but the intelligence inside it was so much more.

It perched on the corner of the desk. Mouse had climbed it, and was cleaning its whiskers of metal polish. She touched the cube’s surface with her fingertips, feeling the pitted roughness of the cool metal. In return, it reached out to her mind, gentle and almost adoring. There was something feminine about it, almost maternal.

“What are you?” Evelina whispered. “What do you need?”

An answer came, the voice clear and firm in her head, but it was in no language she knew. She’d never thought about the fact that nature spirits spoke different tongues—or perhaps there was another reason they couldn’t understand one another. Devas spoke to those of the Blood, but Gran Cooper said that in the old days there were many different tribes, and each had different talents and an affinity for different types of deva. That seemed to make sense. Over the years, Evelina had talked to one or two air spirits, but hundreds of devas of earth and plant and tree.

Of course, none of that helped her now. “I don’t understand.”

The voice came again, husky and sweet but vibrant with urgency. It pulled at her heartstrings. It wanted her to understand—something. Tired as she was, tears of frustration pricked Evelina’s eyes.

“I wish I could help.”

Helen.

Evelina started. “What did you call me?”

Helen? The second time sounded hopeful. It wasn’t much, but it was a speck of real communication. It was also the same name that Dr. Magnus had used at the ball.

And he had told her about Athena’s Casket at the ball, and hinted that it combined magic and machine. She stared at the cube, wondering who had tossed it among the junk in the warehouse. Someone with no ability to hear devas talk. A careless worker? Definitely someone who was blind to anything that did not glitter. If the cube were shiny and gold, I would wonder if this was the object everyone was hunting for. But if I’m right, and some of Keating’s treasures were stolen and melted down, the story might be quite different. Is this all that remains of the casket?

The idea was staggering. She grabbed the edge of her desk, as if contact with the hard edges would keep her from floating off into wild speculation. I must go slowly here, and not jump to conclusions!

A knock on her bedroom door shattered her thoughts.

Evelina grabbed Bird and stuffed it into the pocket of her skirt, stifling its indignant peeps. She dropped Mouse into the train case, slammed the lid, and picked up the watch she was pretending to repair. As an afterthought, she tossed a doily onto the cube. The effect was odd, but the best she could do at a moment’s notice.

“Come in!” she called out, turning around so that her back was to her desk.

Imogen put her head around the corner of the door. “Your uncle has arrived.”

“It’s about time.” Evelina shook out her skirts and hurried after her friend.

Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, stood in the front hall of Hilliard House, somehow occupying every square inch of the space without moving a muscle. Tall and wiry, he looked enviably at ease in a light summer coat, as if he had just happened by after a stroll.

Evelina’s step hitched. Though he was impeccably turned out, dark circles bagged under his eyes, as if he’d been up for the past three weeks. What had he been working on? Something to do with Bohemia?

“Lord Bancroft is not at home, sir,” Bigelow intoned.

“I did not ask to see Lord Bancroft,” Holmes said evenly. “I came to inquire after my niece.”

“Here I am, Uncle.” Evelina stopped and dropped a slight curtsy. If it had been Dr. Watson, there would have been hugs and smiles, but Sherlock Holmes wasn’t the type of man one automatically embraced.

“I stopped to see your grandmother on the way back from the Continent.” Holmes doffed his tall hat. “She is much better. I believe news of your success at the palace was the best tonic available.” He said it dryly, but not unkindly. “During the course of the conversation, I established that she knows every dress regulation and step of the procedure by rote.”

They exchanged a wry smile, sharing volumes of commiseration without speaking a word. “It’s a fine day. Shall we take a stroll?” he asked. “I believe there is much of interest to review.”

Five minutes later, Evelina walked down the street, hurrying to match Holmes’s long stride. They were making a circuit of the round garden that graced the middle of Beaulieu Square. “I stopped by here specifically because Lestrade wrote me a letter,” he said. “I understand three of Lord Bancroft’s servants have been murdered. I vacillated between utter confidence that you could manage anything and anxiety that a knife-wielding maniac was stalking the halls. Then I wondered why no one else had bothered to inform me.” He awarded her a sour look.

Evelina swallowed. It had taken him under a minute to begin the conversation she least wanted to have. “What would you have done had you known? You were out of the country.”

“A necessity. My case proved to have unexpected dimensions.”

“No doubt you found that of interest.”

He flushed slightly, as if those dimensions might have been personal. A woman? No, not possible. “Not a pleasant sort of interest, I’m afraid. I cannot go into a great amount of detail, so let us just say that a few months ago, there was a scandal of sorts involving an actress and a member of the Bohemian aristocracy. It was averted and, as far as anyone could foresee, the matter was put to rest.”

“And?”

“The steam barons have interests in several countries abroad, Bohemia among them. They found this actress, Irene Adler, and attempted to coerce her into advancing the barons’ interests with Bohemia by every means at her disposal. She knew that if she agreed, none of the parties involved would come out of it unscathed.”

Evelina was intrigued. She’d heard oblique mentions of Irene Adler before, and her uncle fell silent every time Dr. Watson mentioned the name. “What happened?”

“She requested my help. I gave it.”

“And the steam barons?”

Holmes swung his walking stick almost jauntily. “I had best stay well away from the Scarlet King for some time to come. He accused me of belonging to something called the Baskerville conspiracy. Imagine that.”

It wasn’t easy, because Holmes rarely worked well with others—which was usually what a conspiracy required. Nevertheless, Evelina filed the name in her mind. Knowing her uncle, he might have let the name slip for a reason. One never knew, but it would be useless to pepper him with questions until he was ready to talk.

They walked a moment in silence, letting a few chugging steam cycles pass. On the skyline, hydrogen balloons bobbed like colorful birds in the late afternoon light. Keating Industries was experimenting with aboveground telegraph, stringing wires through the sky in anticipation of skyborne dirigible communication stations. But so far, birds and weather were proving a nuisance.

She cast a quick glance at her uncle. He sometimes stirred up chaos in his wake the way a maid stirred dust kittens with her broom, but people turned to him to bring order, to restore society to its norm. For once, she wondered at what cost that order came. As she’d notice before, he looked wrung out, the bones of his face stark