The Ripper Affair

I do not know enough. Logic, Emma. Imagine Clare is here. What would he say?

Perhaps it was the wrong question. Her body twitched, her will flexing against the bonds. They held fast.

Now she remembered, unwillingly, the last time she had been held fast so completely. Dripping water, her despairing, unconscious sounds of rage and pain, and the choking as Mikal strangled his former Prime, slowly, and the horrid sounds of him tearing flesh asunder, before freeing her from the bonds.

Miles Crawford. The name of her captor. All the rage, all the terror in the world held in those syllables. She had been outplayed by him, and her Shields had paid the price. If not for Mikal’s disobedience—

Remember your purpose. Which is not to relive that moment.

Then why had she done this? Perhaps for no other reason than the one she had given a man who had not listened.

If not for luck, I could have been any one of them. All of them, or more. Or less, as the world would have it.

Perhaps he did not mean to marry the Promethean to his own flesh. And yet, marrying it to hers would be problematic as well. He could not tell, of course, that she had given the second wyrm’s heart to another, or even if she had taken it for herself. The beauty of the Philosopher’s Stone was its ability to pass undetected by even the finest unphysical senses. Just as a wyrm could lay undetected beneath a tower for aeons, as the world turned about it. Would the Stone bar another item’s introduction into the body it protected from harm and decay?

You shall give me the world.

Perhaps…

The connection trembled just out of reach. Something, some symmetry, was escaping her. Just as the nature of the Promethean had—

Wait.

If Llew had created a Promethean, and fed it on unfortunates in Whitchapel… no. That was wrong.

The only certainty was that a Promethean had been created. Perhaps it had chosen its own meat and drink, as it were.

You have more enemies than you know, sparrow-witch.

A Prime always did.

Ætheric force twitched restlessly. Come Tideturn, she might be able to find a crack or a chink in the restraints. They felt supple, slightly elastic, but any pressure against them would make the entire trap harden. Elegant, and just the thing to keep a Prime still and quiet.

If you did not mind said Prime losing her mind from the very fact of being trapped.

She might become just as mad as he was. Except he was not lunatic, really. Simply ambitious. He saw no reason to cap his ambition, any more than Emma did.

The only cap to my ambition is myself. What is the cap to his, I wonder?

The gleaming knife trembled upon the stone, turning on its tip rather like a ballerina en pointe. Its slight scraping would have sent a shiver down her back, if she could move.

She essayed a slight humming noise, deep in her throat. The gag would keep her from shaping Words, true. Much could be done with tone and—

Blackness devoured her vision. Panic, as her nose was stoppered as well as her mouth. Sorcerous training could not control the fear of strangulation, and she went limp. Air returned, as did consciousness.

There was a soft, mocking laugh. She could not see him, and the restraints made the sound echoing and unearthly.

“You think I’d leave you any opening, my darling? No.” He scraped back into sight, moving a little more easily. More damp, splashing sounds.

Emma squeezed her eyelids shut. Hot water trickled between her lashes. Then she let them open just a fraction, disliking the dark.

“I respect you. Not like that magical whore. It took me by surprise, her luring you into the open. I had hoped to bring you out a different way.” A shadow flickered between her and the yellow-rose glow of the lamps. “But here you are. And in such good time, too.”

Think, Emma. Think.

Unfortunately, he straightened, metal and bone clicking as the ruins of his body shook about him. He reached out, and Emma’s eyes opened wide.

His misshapen right hand closed about the knife, and he lifted it free of the stone with a physical and ætheric effort. He turned, and the tenderness on his features was almost worse than the glitter of insane calm in his dark eyes. Thin threads of yellow shone in the muddy irises, a reminder she did not need of Mikal.

Her Shield was most likely frantic by now. How much time had passed? Was it midnight yet? Could Clare find her? They were underground, could Mikal sense her with any accuracy once he was close enough?

Do not worry upon them, Emma. You have more than enough to occupy you here.