CHAPTER XVIII
Mr. Jelliby was pretending to be a corpse. He sat on the chair, drowned in shadows, not daring to move, not daring to breathe, waiting for Bartholomew and the rat faery to leave.
A minute later and he knew it had fallen for his trick. He lifted one eyelid. The faery’s voice echoed in the vastness of the warehouse, then was lost in an explosion of mechanical clanks and hisses. Mr. Jelliby opened both eyes wide and stood up. Edging around one of Dr. Harrow’s shoes, the scuffed and muddied tip of which just stuck out from a crack between two crates, Mr. Jelliby stole out of his hiding place.
He had not gone ten paces when a booming noise sounded above him. Dim light flooded the warehouse, as a great portion of the roof slid open, baring the sky and the airship hanging in it. Night was approaching. A gear-work elevator was rising, swinging gently on the anchor cable. The elevator was not closed in, and Mr. Jelliby could still see its two passengers clearly. The rat faery stood, arms and legs and appendages that had no name wrapped around the railing. Next to him, crouched on the floor, was Bartholomew.
Mr. Jelliby darted out from among the crates. He could see the inside of the warehouse clearly now, dank and dripping, the mountains of crates touched with moss, cranes and hooks hanging down over the dark water that lapped at the far end. At the center of the warehouse, a pair of leather shoes sat. They were small-children’s shoes-and blackened. Scorch marks radiated from them like a charred sun. Their soles were nailed to the floor. Close by, the huge heap of the elevator’s cable dwindled away, uncoiling into the sky. The elevator was already thirty feet above Mr. Jelliby, and getting farther away by the second.
Rushing forward, he gripped the cable with both hands.
The cable pulled him into the air. The cold metal bit into his hands. He tried to support himself with his feet, but the tips of his shoes kept slipping and he had to claw with all his might to keep from falling.
Higher and higher he rose, through the open roof and into the sky. The warehouse shrank away beneath him. The wind growled, cold and fierce, swinging the cable. His fingers went from stiff to unfeeling. Above, the elevator whirred, and he caught snatches of the rat faery’s voice jeering at Bartholomew.
He closed his eyes. He didn’t dare look down at the city. But he didn’t dare look up either. If he saw how much longer he had to endure before reaching the safety of the airship, he thought he might give up then and there. He pressed his forehead against the cable, feeling the sharp frost against his skin.
The air became colder still as the dirigible cast its shadow across him. He opened his eyes. The airship was huge, filling everything, a giant black whale swimming in the sky. Mr. Jelliby had taken Ophelia on a pleasure flight in an air balloon once. He remembered how they had both stared at it in wonder as they approached it across Hampstead Heath. Its colors-the colors of a tropical bird-had been poison bright, brighter than the trees and the grass and the blue summer’s day. So bright that it had been impossible to look at anything else. It could have fit inside this one’s cabin.
Mr. Jelliby’s arms felt ready to snap. He could feel every cord in them, every tendon and muscle straining against his bones. The cable pulled him higher, up and up. He could make out the vessel’s name now, picked out in silver filigree on its prow.
His shoulder gave a violent twitch. For a horrible moment he thought his arms would simply give way and he would fall down, down, down into Wapping.
A hatch began to open in the underbelly of the cabin. Mr. Jelliby caught a glimpse of a hall, all aglow with warmth and yellow light. The elevator rose into it and came to a halt. The cable stopped too. Three hundred feet above London, Mr. Jelliby looked around him uncertainly.
“No,” Mr. Jelliby gasped, and his lungs scraped as if coated with ice. “No! Stop!”
But even if someone in the airship had heard him, they were more likely to give the cable a sharp shake than to rescue him.
He began pulling himself upward, inch by inch. The hatch was closing slowly, but it seemed so far away, miles and miles up. He could barely feel the pain in his arms anymore. They just felt dead, solid. .
He struggled on, hands and legs and feet all trying to push him upward. The hatch continued to close. If it shut completely there would be nothing but a small hole where the elevator cable went into the hall. Not nearly large enough for a man.
He would have liked to just lie there. The carpet was soft against his cheek. It smelled of lamp oil and tobacco, and the air was warm. He would have liked to just sleep there for hours and hours, and forget about everything else. But he willed himself to get up, and blowing on his chapped hands, hobbled toward the stairs.
Keeping himself pressed to the wall, he stumbled up them. A corridor was at the top. It was long and brightly lit, strangely familiar. He saw no one and heard nothing but the hum of the engines, and so he crept down it, pausing at each door to listen. He felt sure he had been here before. Sometime not so long ago. He came to the end of the corridor. The last door looked newer than the rest, smoother and more polished. And then he knew. Nonsuch House. The lady in plum flitting down the gaslit corridor. The faery butler’s words when he had caught Mr. Jelliby.
Voices were coming from the other side of the door. The voice of Mr. Lickerish. The voice of Bartholomew, quiet but firm. And then another door began to open some ways up the corridor.
Mr. Jelliby spun, fear welling in his chest. He was trapped.
The room in which he found himself was pitch black. Drapes had been pulled across the window and all he could see was a splinter of red light from the setting sun, bleeding in.
His hand reached for the pistols on his belt, and he cursed silently when he remembered they weren’t there. He pressed his back to the door, fumbling for something to turn on the lights. His fingers found a porcelain dial and he turned it. Lamps flared to life along the walls.
He was in a small sitting room. It held a wardrobe, and a Turkish sofa, and a great many carpets and tasseled pillows strewn across the floor. And there was a girl. Curled up on a cushion of jade-green silk was a changeling. She had a sharp, pointed face. Branches grew from her head. She was asleep.
Mr. Jelliby’s hand fell from the dial. “Hettie?” he whispered, taking a few steps toward her. “Is that your name, little girl? Are you Hettie?”
The child did not stir at his voice. But it was as if she could sense she was being watched, even in her dreams, and after a heartbeat or two she sat up with a start. She looked at Mr. Jelliby with wide black eyes.
