Engraved: Book Five of The St. Croix Chronicles Read online

  A knock, ponderous and loud, saved me from an answer.

  I stood. “Stay here,” I ordered, all else draining but the sudden caution I’d learned at the business end of the devil-fog I’d once hunted in.

  Maddie Ruth tensed. She did not remain seated, but came to stand by the narrow wall that would keep her hidden from any view of the door.

  By all rights, I should have been the one hiding. I had more to lose for discovery.

  Yet I would not risk Maddie Ruth to whatever vagaries awaited upon my tiny stoop.

  A repeat knock came.

  I did not go unarmed. The knife I had taken—to replace the two I had lost with my collecting corset—had been left for me upon the small stand by the door, and I palmed this, naked blade tucked against my scarred forearm.

  I was a decent enough fighter with both hands. One needed to be, for any number of reasons. Primary among these was that few expected a body to switch hands at the drop of a hat. Or, as was rather more likely, at the opportunity of a weakened guard.

  The hand observable to my guest would appear unarmed. The other would be ready.

  The door featured naught more than a stained bit of smudged glass by way of viewing port, and all I knew was that the figure behind was tall. I positioned myself in such a way that I could open the door just enough to allow for visibility, but utilize it for a shield if I had need.

  “How can I—”

  “It would be best to negate the pleasantries,” interrupted the rich baritone belonging to Ikenna Osoba’s effortless authority.

  My jaw fell open.

  Unlike the apparel worn for the rings, Osoba’s togs did not stand out from those who took to the streets by day. Working attire tended to consist of woolen or fustian trousers, sturdy belts and heavy shirts under patched wool or tweed jackets. He wore no hat—a scandal were he anything but the African prince the leaflets called him, and the fantastical title seemed fitting.

  Unlike any other I’d ever known, Osoba’s hair was severely long, bound into a plethora of tiny plaits streaming down his back. The rich mahogany of his skin would never be softened, nor the eerie way his tawny gaze tended to bore through one’s social armors, but it was the most normal I’d ever seen the so-called prince appear.

  When I made no move, his mouth slanted into a smile that did not reflect in the golden shade of his eyes. He had a stare reminiscent of Hawke’s in intensity.

  And like Hawke, I would never be so careless as to assume Osoba harmless.

  “What do you want here?” I asked, abruptly enough that he tilted his head to one side. His gaze roamed over my woolen shawl, the unstructured shape of the gown, and—with a flicker of laughter—at my boots peeking from beneath the hem, all framed in the narrow gap between door and frame that I allowed.

  When it lifted again to mine, I saw within a steely determination that I had come to recognize in many of them what ran the Menagerie.

  It was not for nothing that they were called whips.

  Osoba made no move to push through the door, though I had little doubt he could—and in so doing, force me into an ill-advised scrap. Instead, he stood upon my stoop as though he had every right, in charge of his immediate surroundings in a manner I had never seen him so confidently display. Not even at the Menagerie.

  He was strong, but Hawke had always been the greater of the two.

  I did not like the parallels I drew between Osoba’s attitude and Hawke’s supreme assurance, especially when I noted the differences in the lion-tamer I had met prior and the one standing before me now. Osoba had always been somewhat particular in his attitude, but always deferential. Or rather, he had in Hawke’s presence. With no Hawke to mind him, his manner suggested that the balance of power had shifted dramatically in my absence, and I did not like what it might mean for me—or for Hawke.

  I blew out a frustrated breath. “I will not invite you in,” I told him. “Get to your business and then you may leave.”

  He obliged me. “I suspected your identity last night.” His gaze touched on my hair, once more its garnet hue. “I am too used to the black.”

  I gritted my teeth.

  “It was a simple matter to follow you to your—” his gaze flicked to the shabby door I braced more closed than not, “—home.” The thinly veiled scorn in the word stung. “You are not as careful as you should be.”

  “That much is made all the more obvious by your attendance upon my stoop,” I replied, each word carved with icy precision. “Shall I engage in a bit of deduction?”

  “No need,” he said over what I’d intended to be mockery and he took as rote. “I am here to speak to you about Menagerie matters. We may do so here where all who pass might hear, or we may do so inside.”

  I closed the door in his face.

  Maddie Ruth was not far. She leaned around the wall she’d tucked herself behind, her freckles all but faded in a white mask of fear.

  I allowed her no time to panic. “Go upstairs, quickly,” I whispered, pointing up. “Wait in my boudoir and do not make a sound.” To her credit—and telling me all I needed to know of her mental state—the girl did not argue with me.

  She had always feared Osoba. Enough so that she would leave me alone with him if it meant escaping his gaze.

  I could not blame her. I would, however, protect her.

  I strapped my weapon quickly just over my knee, where the gown would provide adequate cover. The leather abraded my softer flesh there, but I had little choice. I had not dressed for a confrontation.

  Maddie Ruth took the stairs quietly enough, and given no other choice, I waited until I heard my door close softly behind the frightened girl before opening the only barrier keeping the lion prince from invading my domain.

  Shabby as it was.

  He possessed more faith in my amicability than I would have. I could not tell if my abrupt departure had offended him, but he had not left my stoop. I studied the set of his shoulders as he surveyed the lane beyond the rowhouses we sought refuge in. This unimpressive little street was not so busy as those nearest the markets and stores, but more than a passing cart trundled by with occupant possessing a good enough set of eyes and flapping lips for my comfort. The pedestrians looking for coin or for a further destination were not few, and say what one might about Osoba, he drew every eye.

  “Out of the cold, then,” I snapped, and left the door open.

  I did not have to see it to know he smiled. “Your kindness is matched only by your charm.”

  A slim enough compliment that I gave it no acknowledgement at all.

  Osoba passed me, waited patiently while I closed and locked the door in his wake, then followed me to the sitting room, which bore no real items of personal investment. For all he was aware, I lived here alone—or, rather more likely assumed, with the escort he’d seen accompany me within.

  Osoba’s apparent cleverness amounted to little more than a foolish oversight on my part. I should have been more careful about my route.

  Fortunately, I had no reason to believe him aware of Ashmore’s identity. Few in Society had ever met him, much less bothered with the absent guardian responsible for the curious wart that I was. There was little enough to link Ashmore with Osoba’s world.

  I did not sit.

  He, on the other hand, folded his lengthy body into the sofa. It amused me, in some petty way, that his knees came up quite a bit higher than the furniture was meant to allow. Seated, he appeared more of an overly long puppet than a prince.

  I could not allow this man to sit here all day. I had no understanding of Ashmore’s schedule. If he returned now, all hell could break loose.

  Irritated at the need, I took the bait of his lingering silence. “Speak,” I ordered, as lofty as the countess I had no desire to be.

  “The Veil still searches for you.” As preamble, I’d heard fewer with more threat. He did not allow me the courtesy of a reply. “I assume you returned to speak with Hawke.”

  “Is Hawke well?” />
  “No.” A simple fact; one that felt as though he’d slapped me with it. I took in a slow breath before I forgot entirely to breathe. “Tell me, Miss...” A glance at my hair, and his tone turned wry as he finished, “...Black. Is it your intent to trouble him?”

  I would not tell him my name. He like as not already knew it, but it seemed something of a loss if I allowed him the opportunity to use it.

  I braced one hand atop the armchair Ashmore favored and said nothing.

  His was a question to which I had not yet developed a complete answer. Of course I intended to save him, if he was willing, but that in itself was liable to mean trouble for him. He likely wouldn’t even allow me the saving.

  Hawke had always been a Menagerie creature, and to suggest that he would be grateful for its loss struck me as arrogant.

  Then again, there was much I endeavored that could be called the same.

  Osoba somehow sensed the uncertainties I held in regards to Hawke. Whatever intentions I maintained towards him, the lion prince plucked with ease. Either he was more perceptive than I dared credit him, or I revealed too much. He reached behind his head to sweep the heavy fall of beaded braids over his shoulder, and the clatter the wooden balls picked up filled the silence like rain.

  I could not abide the overly emphatic quiet. “Why are you here?”

  “I am extending to you an opportunity to visit him,” Osoba said. “One offer only, do not think I’ll offer again.”

  I frowned. “Why?”

  “Because unlike some,” he replied readily, “I consider Cage something of a friend.”

  That surprised me. I narrowed my eyes at him, but read nothing beyond a thinly concealed distaste for either me or my surroundings, and that bleeding amusement that so shaped him.

  If he were truly a lion-tamer, as the leaflets suggested, then it made him one of the most dangerous men in the circus. It all depended, naturally, on whether or not the Menagerie cowed their animals first. I suspected the Veil would not hold with beating them until docile, as was often the practice.

  Whatever powers of persuasion this man possessed, it allowed him to escape the rings unscathed night after night.

  Not a small endeavor. Only the knife-thrower’s apprentice could be lauded for the same courage.

  And now this dangerous man sat upon my sofa—borrowed though it may be—extending a metaphorical hand to me.

  What would he do if I bit him?

  “I’ve a question,” I said, watching him for any sign of emotion or missed control. He seemed wholly at ease, which bothered me—bothered my pride, no less. Despite my many and varied accomplishments in a collector’s role, he did not fear me in the slightest. He should have. I intended to ensure he one day did.

  He inclined his head. “I may answer.”

  I softened no edges. “When did the Menagerie start peddling children?”

  There. A twitch, a flicker of an eyelid and a subtle tightening about his mouth. “After your departure.”

  The answer was obvious, but it did not require prying; it was no white flag of surrender, but the cautious regard of a truce that he offered me. He did not lie or deflect, and allowed me a glimpse of his distaste for the subject matter.

  As a proper whip, he’d like as not be unaware of further details, anyhow. He had never acquired new flesh for the sweets, to my knowledge.

  Now was not the time to seek revenge. As much as I disliked Osoba, as dearly as I wanted to make him suffer for what he’d done to Black Lily during that aborted uprising against his Veil masters, he might very well be the only one who could facilitate a meeting between myself and Hawke.

  Without dealing with the Veil’s new ringmaster, anyhow. I was unprepared for such a face-to-face meeting. I wasn’t certain that I’d ever be ready for such a reunion.

  I lifted my chin. “Tell me of Marceaux.”

  Osoba’s nostrils flared, like one of the large felines he was reputed to tame. “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we are not, nor will we ever be friends.”

  “Poor excuse,” I replied flatly.

  “Find your sources elsewhere,” Osoba returned without batting a thick black eyelash. Exotic in his ringside costumes, he was something only barely civilized in everyday garments. No amount of cloth would strip him of that nature that simmered just under the surface.

  “How will you bring me to Hawke?” I asked.

  “By the most direct method,” he replied.

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “You should not,” he returned easily, leaning back in the sofa. The brocade indented beneath his lean shoulders. He watched me as closely as I watched him; two opponents in a pugilists’ ring. “Shall I tell you a story?”

  I crossed my arms, bracing my elbows upon the back of Ashmore’s chair. This position would provide little enough protection should Osoba wish to come at me, but all I needed was a little warning. I was not the helpless lamb he thought to treat me. I raised my chin. “Is that how you tame your lions? By story?”

  Only one corner of his mouth curled up, and a black eyebrow lifted in tandem. “Perhaps.”

  Curiosity had always been something of a weakness. I sighed, just so that he might know how much of a trial he was to me. “Tell me.”

  He spoke with a powerful current in his deep voice, a quality reminiscent of a gifted storyteller. “Hawke was seventeen years of age when he first stepped foot in Limehouse.”

  Two years older than I at my first visit, and while I did not know Hawke’s age to the year, I knew him older than me by several. “Was he a free man then?”

  “There are none free,” Osoba replied, and left it at that. It told me nothing but that the storyteller had a gift for the philosophic. “Much of the East End was overrun. The gangs you know now were not the same then, and blood flowed in the streets as easily as the fog that chokes the life from this miserable city.” A venomous edge.

  I watched his eyes carefully, studied his hands when he leaned forward and braced interlinked fingers beneath his chin. “What altered the course of it?”

  “Hawke did.”

  I blinked. “By himself?”

  “You fail to understand the fundamental nature of the man,” Osoba said, grim amusement once more firmly in place. “It is not for nothing that he is the Veil’s own wūshì. He came to London already bearing the curse of a tainted blood. The Veil taught him what it was to harness it long before they brought him here.”

  “A curse?” I scoffed. “Poor breeding, more like.” He wouldn’t have been the first of muddled blood to claim the mantle of wise man or sorcerer, such as the Veil called him in their Chinese tongue.

  “Perhaps.” My guest scrutinized me, and what he saw made clear he bore no liking for it. “There was some doubt as to which beast would rise above the other.”

  “Was there ever a risk of Hawke biting his master’s hand?” I asked dryly.

  This time, there was no humor to soften the edge. “Yes,” Osoba replied. “Teach a tiger the taste of blood, and he will learn to crave it.”

  “Does he crave it?”

  He canted his head to a side. A wash of dark black plaits fanned over his shoulder, clicking softly. “What will you do if he does?”

  “What would you do?” I asked, earning a lifted eyebrow in what I thought might be surprise, but he was as difficult to read as most whips must be.

  “You have a remarkable gift for questions,” Osoba told me.

  I had no need for such observations. “If I may strip some of the mystique from your tale,” I said instead. Osoba tipped his chin in acknowledgement, as if I required permission. I repressed an urge to snort. Maddie Ruth was a terrible influence. “You claim that Hawke was already gifted in sorcerous arts when he arrived, and through less than judicious use, single-handedly broke the back of the gangs that warred through Limehouse.”

  “Close enough so as not to matter.”

  “And the Veil allowed this?”

/>   Osoba straightened, reached high over his head as though in need of a stretch, and then stood with simple strength and fluidity. “What does one do with a beast that no longer chooses to be tamed?” he asked me.

  I frowned. “You’re the lion-tamer. What do you do with a reluctant lion? Beat him?”

  “That is not my way,” he replied, lines biting harshly into the corners of his downturned mouth. “But then, Hawke is not mine to tame.”

  The words were a statement of fact, but the meaning much more profound. Whip though he was, lion-tamer in the rings, it was not him that held Hawke’s leash.

  Only one had ever been powerful enough to dare. “Why does the Veil take such a personal interest in Hawke? He’s not even Oriental.”

  “Why, indeed?” He looked up at the ceiling. Then, thoughtfully, he allowed, “The Chinese believe that only a tiger can challenge a dragon.”

  “Myth?”

  “Lore,” he replied.

  “Close enough so as to make no difference,” I scoffed, throwing the words back at him.

  He smiled faintly, in a manner that left me feeling as though he thought me very sad indeed. “You are remarkably narrow-minded.”

  I had been accused of this before. I scuffed the toes of my boot against the floor, but said nothing.

  A dragon. Feh. It did not surprise me in the least that the Karakash Veil considered itself something of a mythical creature with godlike power. Allegory, all of it.

  Yet even allegory had a thread of truth. Hawke had earned the moniker of tiger long before I’d met him, and certainly the Veil bore its love for pageantry without shame.

  I wanted to ask which beast won over the other in the old stories Osoba referred to, but assumed I would gain no answer for my efforts. He was almost as ornery as his fellow whip.

  “Is the Veil mistreating Hawke?” A direct question; one that did not receive an answer quick as I’d like. My fingers curled over the back of the chair, bit hard enough that a nail bent. A small pain in a greater wash. “Tell me the truth. Is he hurt?”

  He looped his fingers behind his back and levied upon me a stare that revealed nothing. No spark, no anger. No blame. Whatever I chose to feel, he would not be gracious enough to allow me his own actions to pin it on. “Yes,” he said flatly.