Mirror, page 8
Looks more like a break-out than a break-in, Artemis thought. Like Phoebe’s.
That leaden thought in her chest, they walked into the building and up to the first floor flat.
Phoebe rang the bell and Artemis gave her an encouraging look.
Before long a footman answered the door and escorted them inside.
Lord Quill stood in the drawing room deep in conversation with a police officer Artemis recognized as Sergeant Treadway, an acquaintance of her father’s. A young constable stood to the side as the two men spoke.
Artemis tried to orient herself and determine which window was the one that had been broken. If she remembered properly, it would be to their right. Now, they just had to find a way into that room.
Phoebe told the footman why they’d come. He bowed and asked that they remain in the foyer while he approached Lord Quill.
Under the best of circumstances, Lord Quill was prickly, and now he was an entire bramble bush. Although the footman did no more than linger near the edge of the room, Lord Quill glared at the intrusion.
“Yes, what is it?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, my Lord, but Miss Clifton and Miss Schäfer have come to see her ladyship.”
Lord Quill shifted his piercing gaze to the two of them, and Artemis heard Phoebe gulp nervously next to her. He seemed ready to send them away but then waved his hand dismissively. “Fine, fine. Yes.”
He shifted his attention back to Sergeant Treadway. “More break-ins, you say?”
“At least four in this neighborhood that I know of, sir.”
“This way, ladies,” the footman said, gesturing toward a hallway to the right.
They followed him down the hall to an open doorway where he stopped and rapped sharply on the edge of the open door.
“Miss Clifton and Miss Schäfer, my lady.”
Lady Quill stood lost in thought, watching the workman remove the remains of her shattered window. Pulling her attention away from him, she regarded Artemis and Phoebe with a gentle smile. Gathering herself, she gracefully approached them.
“Thank you, Higgins,” she said, dismissing the footman. As she came closer, her eyes fell on the flowers in Phoebe’s hands.
“My mother heard about what happened and wanted to send these,” Phoebe said. “She sends her deepest regards and hopes you’ll call on her if you need anything at all.”
“Isn’t that thoughtful,” Lady Quill said as she took the flowers. “Thank you.”
Artemis took the opportunity to look around.
“It’s so upsetting to think someone was in this very room,” Lady Quill said.
Other than the gaping hole where the window used to be it didn’t appear too disturbed. It certainly hadn’t been ransacked. Nothing was broken; there was no debris other than the last bit of demolished window frame.
“What did they take?” Phoebe asked.
“That’s the strange thing,” Lady Quill answered, glancing around the room. “They didn’t take anything, at least as near as I can tell. My jewelry, my furs, it’s all still here. Why would someone break in and not take anything?”
“Maybe they were confused and got the wrong flat,” Phoebe suggested. “Thank goodness you weren’t home.”
Artemis drifted further into the room to better inspect it. Nothing seemed amiss. The bed wasn’t mussed, nor were any bits of furniture broken. The lamps on the end tables sat untouched. Even a copy of Through the Looking Glass, And What Alice Found There rested undisturbed on the corner of the bedside table.
Ironic.
The vanity table wasn’t in disarray. A variety of perfume bottles and powder puffs sat undisturbed. And the mirror ….
Artemis walked over to it. It was identical to Phoebe’s, and hers. She quickly searched for sets of watery footprints, but found none.
“This is lovely,” Artemis asked, touching the edge of the frame supporting the cheval glass. “Is it new?”
“Yes, it is,” Lady Quill said. “Why do you ask?”
Artemis struggled to answer.
“My mother said that she’d pay a call tomorrow, if you’d like,” Phoebe said, drawing the topic away from the mirror.
As she did, Artemis felt along the edges and looked behind it. Just like Phoebe’s, there was nothing obviously wrong with it. Despite that, she was certain it was more than mere coincidence.
After a few more minutes the girls left, walking out at the same time as Sergeant Treadway.
“Sergeant?” Artemis inquired, as they descended the front steps.
The burly man touched the brim of his helmet. “Miss Schäfer.”
“This is my friend, Phoebe Clifton,” she said quickly by way of introduction. “Sergeant Treadway and my father are old acquaintances.”
The sergeant touched his helmet again and regarded Phoebe with a polite incline of his head. “Miss.”
“I heard Lord Quill say something about other break-ins,” Artemis said.
“All Hallows’ Eve, brings out the nutters,” the sergeant said.
“Of course. Were they nearby?”
“One over on Thomas Street near Robert,” he said, then puffed out his barrel chest. “Nothing for you to worry about, though, miss. Just some hooligans out for a good time, I’ve no doubt. We’ll catch the buggers before long.”
“I’m sure you will,” Artemis said.
With another touch to his hat, the sergeant departed. She watched him go, turning something over in her mind.
“You’ve got that look,” Phoebe said.
“What look?”
Her friend drew an imaginary circle around her face. “That one. Trouble.”
“Me?” Artemis asked, trying to look offended.
Phoebe looked ready to push further, but dropped it and changed the subject as she walked toward their carriage. “Do you think this all has something to do with the mirrors?”
She did, and there was one way to make certain.
The driver held the door for them, but just as Artemis was climbing in she said, “Oh, we have one more stop.”
Phoebe glared at her, but Artemis ignored it.
“Thomas and Robert Street, please.”
“Yes, miss.”
She climbed into the cab, sitting next to Phoebe.
“Artemis,” her friend said, “I promised we’d come right back.”
“I didn’t.”
“Quel bordel!”
Alain Leroux slammed the door behind him as he stalked into his laboratory. He was fuming. His beautiful, lyrical plan had failed. He’d gone to watch the aftermath, to savor in the misery, but there had been none to enjoy.
First, he’d seen him—salaud!—her husband. Even the mere word brought bile to his throat. He’d stood in the window surveying the damage when she came to his side.
Rage boiled anew in Leroux’s breast with a fire so fierce he thought it would burn through his chest.
He slammed his hand down on the workbench, the throbbing pain in his palm a welcome friend.
He squeezed his eyes shut against the memory, but it was all he could see. The two of them there, together, and very much alive. For a moment, he let himself see only her, his beautiful Helen. He loved her more than any man should, more than any other could. Her skin like porcelain, her hair the color of fire. Her heart as black as pitch.
He turned, as if his physical movement could free himself of the images in his mind.
His balled fists pressed against his temples, trying to crush the memory of them together, but it would not fade. Every moment she was with that man was a betrayal, a knife in his back.
She was supposed to be his. His fiancée, so beautiful, so lovely, and so wicked. Her love had been nothing but a lie. Her promises nothing but ash. After the fire, how quickly she discarded him! How hastily she found another.
She would pay for her deception. They would both pay.
He’d waited outside her home, hoping to find madness, destruction, and grief. But all he’d seen were men sweeping up glass and little girls bringing flowers, not of condolence but of hope.
He watched from across the street, waiting to relish in the havoc her nightmare had wrought, but there was none. His chest constricted when he saw her, the pain of her treachery fresh in his soul.
She lived. They both lived.
He paced across the small room, the confines closing in around him.
He had been too clever, that was all. His plan had been too poetic to survive in such a crass world. He’d left too much to chance. Although, he reminded himself, her nightmare still roamed free and might yet find her. The creatures of the Otherworld should be drawn to their creators. Surely, hers would return to her, and if not ….
He glanced over at his is slumbering golem, and considered—not for the first time—using him to achieve his goal. It could snuff them both out, crush their skulls in its thick clay hands. But the thought was not satisfying. It was … prosaic.
And satisfaction, more than anything was what he needed. His plan had been a good one, despite its temporary failure. He would lure the nightmare back and if it did its work, he would be free of her. And if not ….
He would adapt.
Perhaps he’d cast his net too wide before; he would not make that mistake again. Nor would he settle for a less than poetic end.
He was a skilled alchemist, an artist. If need be, he would design a new plan. Perhaps one that allowed him to watch this time, to see the fear in their eyes, to hear her words of regret, her pleas for mercy before her soul was torn from her body.
He closed his eyes and savored the thought. There was no scent as captivating as fear.
Chapter Eight
“We have a problem.”
Victor looked up at his daughter as she came into the house, closing the door behind her with more force than necessary causing him to startle. The open book he cradled in the crook of his arm slipped, and he spilled some of his fresh cup of tea as he tried vainly to catch it.
He bent down to retrieve the book. “You’ll need to be more specific.”
They had no shortage of problems. Not only hadn’t he found a shred of helpful information in these damnable books—Smudgehorn was a hack—but his conversation with Arthur Darvill had been distressing, and Miss Ashcroft still had not returned his call. He pushed aside that niggling worry and focused on the much larger, living and breathing one standing before him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“The mirrors. It’s the mirrors!”
As if that made perfect sense, which it did not, Artemis moved past him and headed for the stairs.
“What on are you on about?” he asked, putting down his tea and book and hurrying after her.
“I went to the Quills’,” she said as he followed her up the stairs.
“The Quills’? Why would you ….” An all-too-familiar feeling of dread settled in his stomach. “What have you been up to?”
She marched straight into her room and walked over to her mirror.
“This is how they got in,” she said staring at her new mirror.
“Who got in?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please, Artemis, it has been a long day, and—”
“The goblins, I think. And other things.”
The dread in his stomach grew. “What other things?”
She quickly told him about what she’d seen in Phoebe’s room and her discovery of the same mirror in Lady Quill’s bedroom.
“That’s curious, to be sure, but hardly evidence—”
“And there was one in the Smiths’ house, too.”
He was almost afraid to ask. “Who are the Smiths?”
“They had a break-in, too. Sergeant Treadway said—”
He nearly choked. “You spoke to the police?”
“Just the sergeant,” she said casually. “He was at the Quills’ taking a report. He mentioned, quite off-hand—you can stop having apoplexy—that there had been other break-ins.”
He gritted his teeth to restrain his anger. This girl was going to be the death of him. “And one occurred at the Smiths’, I suppose?”
“So I snuck in—”
“Artemis!”
“Just a little.”
Only a little crime, he thought. Wonderful. His disposition was souring by the minute.
“And,” she pressed on, “what do you think the Smiths had in their bedroom?” Her eyes drifted toward the mirror. “That’s too many to be coincidences.”
He had to admit she was right. Dammit. He’d spent the day searching for answers and she’d flitted about and found them in an hour.
The mirror looked harmless enough, but he’d learned long ago that looks were deceiving. In fact, it seemed rather obvious now. Mirrors had often been used as portals before. He should have realized.
Of course, that didn’t excuse her going off without permission, or breaking into someone’s home. He was about to remind her of those little facts when she asked a question in a voice that brought him up short.
“Do you think something came through mine?”
Good God! I didn’t even consider that. And to think I brought the damn thing into our home.
“Did you notice anything odd? Missing or disturbed?”
“No, nothing,” she said, but didn’t look away from the mirror.
He tried to slow his racing heart. “Perhaps they didn’t all work as intended, or there was some additional factor that caused the breach? I’ll have the wards reset, just in case,” he promised.
He’d gone to see Miss Ashcroft that morning to speak with her about what had happened on Samhain, but her shop was closed. She could have simply had something to do that day, but the timing bothered him.
“I’d feel better if they were,” she said, pulling him back to the problem at hand.
“In the meantime, we need to dispose of this,” he said, gesturing to the mirror.
“Do you think the Veil is still thin? That other things might still be able to come through?”
He looked anxiously at the glass. While it was most probable that the breach was a brief one, active only during that stormy night of Samhain, there was no guarantee.
“It’s doubtful, but ….” Even if there was only a remote possibility, keeping the mirror was foolhardy. “We should destroy it, just in case.”
Artemis frowned intently. “I’ll telephone Phoebe. I don’t know what we can do about the others, though.”
There wasn’t much they could do. It wasn’t as if ….
Her eyes suddenly narrowed in thought, and he knew instantly where her mind had gone.
“No,” he said firmly.
Suddenly, she was the picture of innocence. “What?”
“You can’t break in to every home that has one and destroy them. Even if we knew where they all were—”
She scratched behind her ear and wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I would never.”
“Artemis.”
“All right,” she said reluctantly. “But at least we can get rid of this one. To think I wanted it so badly.” Guilt tugged the corners of her mouth down. “I’m sorry you wasted so much money on it. It was silly to have wanted it at all.”
“Not silly at all. I wish I could give you things like this—well, not quite like this—” he added with a rueful smirk, “all of the time, but I’m not able to.”
It was a painful confession. He would never be rich, never be able to provide her all the luxuries her friends enjoyed. Most of the time, such things didn’t bother him, but when he saw her guilt at the money he’d spent on her, it struck him.
She waved away his apology, as he knew she would.
“We are a pair,” he said, then gave a soft chuckle. “My guilt is bigger than your guilt.”
That won him the smile he’d hoped to coax from her.
“All right. Take the other side, if it’s not too heavy,” he said.
Artemis lifted her side easily and waited for him.
Blasted Blaze strength.
He tried not show his struggle as he lifted his end. Together, they lifted the heavy glass out of its frame and laid it on the floor.
They both looked down at it, sharing an uneasy feeling that something might spring forth from the glass at any moment.
“Are you going to break it?” she asked.
“That was the plan.”
“But won’t that give us seven years bad luck?”
He snorted. “Surely you don’t believe in such nonsense?”
She shrugged, seemingly shy to admit that she might. Although, he supposed that was to be expected, considering what else that had previously seemed absurd was now quite real.
There was nothing to do for it and Victor lifted his foot to smash it into the glass.
“I guess our luck can’t get any worse,” Artemis said, causing him to falter, absurdly wishing she hadn’t said that.
After a pause he brought the heel of his boot down hard onto the glass, watching the cracks grow into a spider’s web across the surface.
“My beautiful mirror,” she lamented as she looked down at the fragmented glass. “What now?”
“Now,” he said, still upset with himself that he’d, even unwittingly, brought this into their home, “we find out who did this.”
The Pantechnicon on Motcomb near Belgrave Square consisted of two huge buildings in classical Greek Revival style with a majestic façade of enormous three-story Doric columns. It sold all sorts of large wares, from carriages to furniture, including mirrors. The enormous bazaar was near closing when Artemis and her father arrived.
They hurried inside just as most of the stalls were shutting down for the night. Artemis followed her father’s lead to the mirror shop near the middle of the south building, but as they neared it she could see that it was closed. He huffed out an annoyed breath and went to have a closer look.
They’d known it was a long shot that they’d be able to find anything out tonight, but neither of them wanted to wait. Now that they knew the mirrors were involved, they had their first real lead to find out who was behind all of this, just what all of this was about.
