“Then I’ll go and be with him.” I brought down the pocket watch as hard as I could, smashing it into the stone. The watch’s crystal shattered, and a piece banged into my chin, cutting me.
Harry let out a long breath. “Thank the Gods.”
Blood dripped from my face onto the nightstone as I lifted the ruined watch a second time. “Goddamn you, Lucien, come out of there.”
The second time I hit the nightstone I felt it crack. Purple-black light poured across my face, freezing my skin and blinding me. I fell back, feeling as if the dock had begun spinning like a top, and rubbed at my eyes until they cleared.
“You are the most stubborn, idiotic, mule-headed mortal female it has ever been my misfortune to know,” I heard Harry say as the sky blurred and the Talian ship began to turn transparent.
“What? Wait.” I looked over at Dredmore’s body, but it and the tarp were gone. “Harry? Where is Lucien? What have I done?”
“Made your father happy at last, I expect.” He sat down beside me, as solid as I was, and put an arm round my shoulders. “Close your eyes now or you’ll get very dizzy.”
I couldn’t even blink; the world had gone mad. Night turned to day as the sun rose in the west and climbed backward through the sky. The tide rushed in and out. Great clouds of black smoke funneled down into the city, dwindling to thin streams before disappearing altogether. Cargo handlers working faster than could be followed dragged crates out to load them on ships that raised anchors and sails and moved against the wind out to sea.
“I don’t believe it.” I thought my eyes might pop out of their sockets. “Everything is going in reverse.” I raised a hand to cover my gaping mouth, only to see it growing as transparent as Harry. “Am I dying?”
“No, my dear. You’ve worked the only magic you can. Your father’s science.” My grandfather made a rude sound. “That wasn’t a pocket watch. It was another of his blasted mechs.”
I glanced down at the ruins of the watch. “What did it do before I smashed it?”
“Doesn’t matter now; you’ve bonded his mech and her magic with your blood, and the watch’s power has been released.” His voice grew distant. “I’m afraid you’ve turned time on its head, Charm.”
I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn’t work. “When will it stop?”
He was only a faint outline in the air now. “When you’ve returned to the beginning of it all, of course. Assuming you survive the journey.”
Harry vanished, and then, so did I.
“Charmian.”
I floated through the darkness, seeking the voice calling my name. Only after some time did I realize it came from inside me, and was enough like my own for me to believe I’d spoken.
Until it came again, and scolded me. “I did not raise you to be ignorant, or a coward, and you have conducted yourself as a clever and resourceful woman. Since we were parted, you have made me and your father very proud of you.”
I lifted my head and searched for a Harry-like presence, but no spirit appeared. “Mum?”
“I don’t trifle with the passages between worlds as my father does,” my mother said. “I am quite content here. Or I was, until this moment.”
It had to be my mother; no one else could make me feel such guilt. “But you’re dead.”
“There is the death of the body, which comes to every person in the mortal world,” my mother said primly. “It cannot be stopped or avoided; it must be accepted as inevitable. But that which animates us, that which is the essence of us; that never truly dies.” A comforting warmth welled up inside me, as if I were being hugged all over. “This is not your time to leave this world, my dear. Or his.”
“But he’s dead, too.” I should know, I’d murdered him. “Mum, I don’t think I can go on without him.”
“You won’t have to now, Charmian.” Something tugged at me, pushing me through the darkness. “You must return now, and put things to rights. When you wake, you will know what is to be done.”
I felt the warmth receding. “Don’t leave me, Mum.”
In my mind she whispered,
As my eyes cleared so did the darkness, and I found myself looking across my desk at Lady Diana Walsh.
Chapter Thirteen
“Are you unwell, Miss Kittredge?” Lady Diana asked, taking a lacy handkerchief from her reticule and touching it to the dark circles under her pretty eyes. “Is that why you refuse to help me?”
“I’m not sick, milady.” The burning sensation in my stomach had vanished. So had all my aches and pains and the soot blackening my skin. My mind began to reel as I glanced down at the little calendar I kept on my desk and saw the date. The date that was a fortnight past. The day I’d met Lady Diana Walsh for the first time.
Time. Harry had said something about it. It took a moment before I remembered what it was.
“The attacks on your person are not the result of a spell, nor are the words cut into your flesh actual wounds,” I told Lady Diana. “You are the victim of cruelty and contempt, not magic.”
“How could you—?” She stopped and rose to her feet. “I should have known better than to come here. Good day, Miss Kittredge.”
“Proof. Of course, you’ll want that before you believe me.” I took a flask from my drawer, went round the desk, seized one of her wrists, and pulled off the glove. “Here, hold still.” As I poured the brandy over her hand she uttered a shrill sound that I ignored as I picked at the edge of the letter
Lady Walsh stopped protesting and stared. “How in the world . . . ?” She went to work and in a few seconds had carefully peeled all the paste off her unmarked flesh. Her wide eyes shifted to my face. “You knew how this was done to me? Without ever meeting me? Who—?”
“I’m afraid this time I do have an urgent appointment across town,” I told her as I reached for my walking cloak. “Perhaps we could meet later, at your home?”
“You are not invited to my home. Nor can you tell me such things and then walk out.” Her voice grew shrill. “I must know who did this to me.”
“In a few hours, you will. Or we’ll all be dead. I’m not quite sure how it will go.” Once I fastened my cloak I grabbed my keylace from the wall hook. “Oh, and you should know that the only reason your husband married you was to get another heir. Your stepson is diseased and barren. Good day, milady.”
I ran past her footman for the stairs, praying that my assumptions about my own circumstances were just as correct. Puzzling that out made me forget about Fourth, who intercepted me on the stairs halfway to the first floor landing.
“Good morning, Mr. Gremley.” Hoping to squeeze past him I moved to one side, but he did the same. “I do beg your pardon, but I’m in something of a hurry.”
The clerk bent from the waist in one of his overdone bows. “Miss Kittredge, I’d hoped to—”
“—run into me today,” I finished for him. “I regret to say that I cannot be your escort to the opening of the opera on Thursday next, excuse me, Friday next, as I will be away on business. Mr. Skolnik’s unmarried daughter, Maritza, will make a fine substitute. She speaks no English, so your dear mother will be unable to grill her.”
By this point Fourth’s nonexistent chin had dropped to his reedy chest. “Miss Kittredge, you have anticipated my every thought. How in heaven’s name—?”
“It’s magic. I was wrong. It does exist.” I patted his shoulder. “Must fly. Do enjoy the opera.”
He didn’t try to stop me as I darted round him and made it to the basement access door on the first-floor landing.
