No Proper Lady Read online

  It helped that Simon wasn’t armed. Another difference, one she almost couldn’t process just then.

  She walked over to one of the cerberi. “They were summoned,” she told him. “People can do that.”

  “I know.”

  Joan blinked. “Most people don’t know, though. Right?”

  Simon laughed humorlessly. “Most people would think the idea mad. I’ve some experience with magic.”

  “Huh,” said Joan.

  She knelt by the cerberus and opened its neck with one flick of her knife. Steam rose up. Joan held her breath against the smell. Using the knife blade, she pushed the dark-purple muscle back until she could see the bone. It was marked with a dark sigil at the base of the skull. “Like I thought. It’s somebody’s pet.”

  “I hope you don’t mean that literally,” he said, clearly trying not to breathe too much.

  “Probably not. Not here and now. Mostly, they’re hunters.”

  “Hunting…me.” He didn’t sound as shocked as Joan had thought he would. Surprised, sure. Dismayed, definitely. But it was as if once he knew about the cerberi, learning he was the target was just confirming something he’d dreaded all along.

  “Probably.”

  “Do you have enemies here?”

  “If anyone sent these things after me,” she said, trying to keep her voice level, “they’ve got more and weirder power than I’ve ever heard of. And we’re totally screwed.”

  He was silent for a second. Then he asked, “We?”

  “The world.”

  Joan wiped her hands on the grass. She hated to do it because the grass was so damn green, at least where the cerberi and their bits hadn’t landed, but it was better than on her pants. She was trying to get the last of the gunk off when Simon stepped forward.

  “Here.” He held out a square of cloth. White cloth. Totally unstained.

  Joan shook her head. “That’s—linen?” It was hard to be sure. She’d seen linen at dedications, but it had been yellow with age. “You can’t get this stuff out.”

  “It’s a handkerchief.” You crazy woman, his tone of voice added. “I’ve dozens more at home. Possibly hundreds.”

  “Oh.”

  “If you don’t take it,” Simon said, “I’ll drop it out of a carriage window. I’ll wait for a particularly muddy day too.”

  Joan laughed dizzily and took the square of cloth. “Thanks.” Wincing again, she began to wipe off her fingers. “So. Somebody summoned these on purpose. We’re not on anyone’s territory, are we?”

  “No. It’s my family’s land. And magical claims tend to be more static.” Simon took a deep breath. “Someone sent them after me, didn’t they?”

  Joan nodded. “Cerberi—”

  “As in Cerberus?”

  “Yeah. Plural. They need something to trace. Blood’s best and then other fluids, but hair or nails work too. Even something you use.”

  Simon was staring at her. His eyes were blue and very bright. That probably didn’t mean much here. At home, he’d have been trained as a precog or maybe a clairvoyant. “My God, anyone could—it’s not as if I keep watch over my hair or my nails, and everyone loses gloves. A servant could have dropped something. Anyone could have—

  “Well,” she said, “who’d want to?”

  She knew the look on his face from times when the leg would have to come off or the men were beyond rescue. Pain. Resignation. And more than a hint of anger.

  “Reynell.”

  Simon didn’t speak loudly. It was a breath of a word, a suggestion. It damn near knocked Joan on her ass.

  “Reynell?” she repeated, and the sound of her voice speaking that word was loud and terrible. She flinched from it.

  “Alexander Reynell. We were—” Simon stopped and looked at Joan.

  She was aware again of how luxurious his clothing was and how well he filled it out, and again she had to stop her hand from falling to her knife.

  His voice turned cold and careful. “What do you know about him?”

  “What makes you think I know anything?”

  “I’m not blind.”

  Reynell had sent the cerberi, she thought. Simon clearly hated him, she thought, but she had no proof and no way to get proof. “It’s not personal,” she said. “I have…things I have to do. I don’t know that I can—”

  “—trust me? I assure you, the feeling is mutual.”

  For a moment, they stood in silence. Joan heard the noise from the treetops for the first time: birds, of course, but more than she’d ever heard in one place before. It’s so alive here!

  She almost looked up. In that second, Simon’s face softened again.

  “It’s…bad, isn’t it?” he asked. “Wherever it is you’re from?”

  “You can’t imagine.”

  “Alex Reynell and I learned magic together, for the most part,” Simon said. “Until perhaps a year ago, we were the best of friends. Then he developed habits that I couldn’t overlook. When I confronted him, he apologized and promised to reform. I chose to believe him—until a few weeks ago.”

  “What happened then?”

  “He made my younger sister the host for a demon.” Simon’s voice was flat.

  Ah, hell. Joan remembered the Red Room: the darkness and the priests’ steady, hopeless chanting. “Is she—”

  “One of her friends warned me in time. I managed an exorcism.” He laughed curtly. “Perhaps the shoddiest that’s ever been done, but it worked. Mostly. She’s…taking some time to recover.”

  “If she’s sane after that, you’re both lucky,” Joan said. “Not many people come back from possession.”

  In her time, you got two weeks in the Red Room, tied up well so you couldn’t gouge your flesh. Two weeks and then someone with a knife. It was the kindest way, and it didn’t waste ammunition.

  “And then he sent demons after you.”

  Simon nodded. “I suppose he wanted revenge. I probably wounded his pride when I spoke to him at first, and I wounded more than that when I found him and Eleanor.” He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “Two days ago, Eleanor’s friend died. In his sleep, they say.”

  “Young man?”

  “Not yet five and twenty. The room was locked.”

  “Wouldn’t make much difference to a grue or a succubus.”

  The wind picked up, gusting around them. In the distance Joan heard thunder. Simon blinked, shaken out of his thoughts, and sighed. “We’d better start back toward the house,” he said, “though we’re likely to get soaked in any case.”

  “Are there people there?” Joan asked.

  “Yes, of course. Servants, mostly, but—oh.” Simon looked at her clothes.

  Joan chuckled. “Don’t worry. I did come prepared.” She shrugged off her battered leather knapsack, opened it, and drew out the dress.

  It had taken forever to find—her height didn’t help—and the people back home had packaged it as carefully as they could in layers of plastic wrap that Joan peeled off carefully as Simon stared. When she finally held it up for inspection, he stared even harder and made a choked noise deep in his throat. It could have been laughter. Or horror.

  “Not what girls wear here, huh?” They’d known so little. When one of the teams had found the dress in a shop, everyone had felt amazingly lucky.

  True, it had faded a bit. The black dots weren’t as dark as they’d probably been, and the fabric around them had once been a much brighter turquoise. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. The dress was long and had bows, one on the waist and one at each shoulder, and that was what everyone said women had worn back then. Plus, it was satin.

  “If I put my coat around you and we move very fast, it might do. For now.”

  “Great.” Joan started undoing her vest. Simon hastily turned around.

  Right. Nudity, taboo. She shucked her clothes and belt quickly, and then reluctantly stripped the knives from her wrists and dumped everything into her backpack.

  The dress fell
over Joan with a light grace she’d never felt before, and she couldn’t resist one barefoot spin to see the skirt swirl out around her. Hot damn. Did they wear this all the time back then? Not really practical, but then it wouldn’t have had to be, would it?

  She shoved her boots back on and turned to face Simon. “So?”

  “The less said the better.” He held out his coat. Joan slipped it on. It was thick and warm, and she winced when her sticky hair hit the fabric. So did Simon.

  “Sorry,” Joan said. “Thanks.”

  “Quite all right.”

  Neither of them spoke again until they’d been walking for a while, Simon probably because he was looking for the path and Joan because she kept getting distracted. There was so much here that there hadn’t been at home: the sharp smell of pine, the lush green of the trees around them, and the sudden small movements and sounds of animals. It was nothing like her world.

  When they stepped onto a broader path, Simon relaxed and then looked over at her. “Now,” he said, “I’m afraid I must insist on knowing more—your connection with Reynell, and where you’re from, and why you’re here.”

  “What year is it?” Joan asked.

  “Eighteen hundred and eighty-eight,” he said slowly. “What year was it when you left?”

  “Hard to tell,” Joan said, not really surprised that he’d caught on. “About two hundred years from now, we think. A hundred years after Alex Reynell breaks the world.”

  Chapter 3

  Simon felt as if the lightning flickering in the distance had struck next to him.

  “He lives that long?” He was almost stunned to hear his own voice.

  That wasn’t one of the questions that really mattered. He’d wanted to ask how birdsong and grass had ended up so rare, as well as how she could shrug off demons and look at linen as if it were gold. He’d wanted to ask what Reynell had done.

  Mostly, he’d wanted to ask if Joan was sure.

  He couldn’t manage any of those questions. There was too much to get his mind around. He’d nibbled off a corner and was glad he’d managed that much.

  “Not so far as we know,” Joan said. “But there’s a lot we don’t know—a lot that got lost. We know about the book, though.”

  “The book?” Simon made himself start walking again.

  “The one that Reynell writes, everything you never needed to know about…” She glanced around uneasily. “There are places outside the world, and there are Things that live there. You know what I mean?”

  “I have some idea.” He’d read rumors in books and seen glimpses of places when he was scrying. All hope abandon, ye who enter here.

  “He wrote it. Probably with…help. Then someone used it.”

  “Used it?” Simon asked, though he knew what she meant. “Who would—”

  “Nobody knows. Some people say it started in Tokyo. There’s a song—code, we think—that talks about America. Maybe it was the military. Maybe it was a cult. Maybe it was just some guy whose girlfriend dumped him.” Joan shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Things happen. It was a hundred years ago.”

  A hundred years in the future, then. Like almost every man of his acquaintance, Simon had speculated about what might happen in that time, what wonderful new advances mankind would make. Now he knew.

  “The spells in the book opened a doorway,” Joan said, “and the Dark Ones came through. Not just the little ones, the cerberi and their friends, but the big boys.”

  “The Lords of the Places Beyond,” said Simon, remembering the title of a book he hadn’t wanted to read.

  “Yeah,” said Joan. “Them.”

  The thunder sounded very loud. “But people survived,” Simon said. “People must have survived.”

  It was raining now. The water ran over Joan’s face, coursing down her cheeks like tears, but her eyes were calm and her voice was steady. “Sure. The old governments built tunnels for war. That’s where I grew up. That’s where everyone lives—everyone except the Dark Ones’ pets. Or livestock.”

  “And you came back? I take it this is more than a sightseeing trip.”

  Joan was silent for several minutes. In the dim light, she looked insubstantial, ghostlike. “We were losing,” she said. “We fought for four generations. We did a good job. We put some marks on the sons of bitches. But there were fewer of us every year and more of them.”

  Looking away from her face, Simon could see a long twisting scar on her upper arm. A rope might make a scar like that. Or a very thin knife. Or a tentacle.

  “About seven years ago,” Joan said, “one of our priests got visions. Very specific ones: a name, a year, and the kind of patterns you need for real power. The kind you need to send someone back and let them change things.”

  Joan’s voice fell when she spoke again, but Simon still heard her clearly. “That’s our only chance now.”

  ***

  Close to the house, the path was broader and Simon didn’t have nearly as many branches to duck under.

  He caught himself looking at the scar on Joan’s arm again. It made the whole thing more real somehow and more appalling. Simon was a progressive man, but this was no Athena, no shining leader like her namesake. The war she fought was neither clean nor glorious, only desperate. “What do you expect to do?”

  Joan turned to look at him, surprised that he’d ask. “My primary objective is to destroy the book. My secondary objective is to kill Reynell.”

  He’d thought as much, and he braced himself. She wasn’t going to react well, but he had to say it. “It doesn’t work that way here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t just…assassinate a man.”

  Joan stopped walking and turned to look at him. “I wasn’t,” she said in an overly patient voice, “just going to walk up and stab him. That doesn’t generally work very well. And I’m not stupid. Besides, I have to find the book first. That’s what ‘primary objective’ means.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Are you serious?” Joan stared at Simon as if he had grown a second head. “He’s killed once. At least. And what he did to your sister…we slit men’s throats back home for that, and we give their bodies to the dogs. It’s worse than rape, and you get killed for that.”

  Eleanor claimed she didn’t remember anything of the physical world between the time she was mesmerized and when she woke. If there’d been any physical violation, she hadn’t told Simon, nor had her servants. And he hadn’t known how to ask, hadn’t been able to put it as frankly as Joan did. Not even in his own mind.

  If the demon hadn’t been there, or if Simon’s punch hadn’t put Alex out, the night might well have ended in murder. Simon realized that he’d spent the last week hiding from that as much as anything else, from the possibilities that he could have killed Alex and that Alex had become someone who deserved death.

  Still, what Joan proposed was different.

  “We hang men,” he said slowly, “but that’s a matter for the law—”

  “The law made by people who wouldn’t know a demon if one bit them in the face? Good luck with that.”

  Simon pressed his lips together for a second, reminding himself that Joan was a stranger to his world and that her mission was an urgent one, and then went on. “Of course I don’t propose telling the law about this, but we should apply the same principles. A man deserves the chance to face his accusers, the chance to know his crimes and their consequences, and to repent, if he will.”

  Joan’s eyebrows shot upward. “Reynell? After what he did?”

  Maybe Alex hadn’t intended things to go so far with Eleanor. Maybe Lieutenant Carter had died naturally. Simon remembered Alex as the boy who’d brought him home for the holidays, knowing he’d dreaded spending Christmas with Aunt Sarah or rattling around at Englefield alone. Had that boy gone completely? Was there still some goodness left in Alex? Simon couldn’t think it likely. But—

  “It doesn’t matter what I think,” he said. “He s
till deserves the chance.”

  “The chance to kill you.” Joan snorted. “Or to run away and continue his work elsewhere. To end the world—or don’t you believe me?”

  It was a struggle not to look away. Her anger was a burning thing, one that might leap from her eyes at any moment like the shots from her strange gun. Simon knew he didn’t want to be in its way, and yet, for a moment, it gave her a fey sort of beauty.

  “I believe you think so,” he said carefully, “but unless you’re concealing something from me, neither of us knows the whole truth. It could be enough to destroy his manuscript. It could even have been enough that you’ve come here.”

  Joan’s face was like stone. “This is why I’m here,” she said. “This is what I have to do,” she went on. “If it’s wrong, if the price is being damned, then I’ll pay it. Gladly. You don’t have to help me, but I won’t let you stand in my way.”

  Simon thought of Lieutenant Carter’s pale and still boyish face, of Eleanor, thin and silent, of the men who’d left the gaming tables ruined because they’d crossed Alex in some way they might not even have known. He thought of a broken world.

  “I’ll help you,” he said, “as much as I can, on this condition: that if Alex must die, you allow me to do it.”

  Joan looked up at him, anger still on her face but with that turning rapidly to confusion.

  “If I fail…well, I’ll likely be dead, and you can do as you please,” Simon said. “But he was my friend, whatever he has or will become. I can give him the chance to die like a man, at least. I want your promise that you’ll let me do that.”

  Through the curtain of water, Joan met his eyes. “Is there any promise you’ll believe?”

  He had told her about Alex in part because she was enough removed from his circle and Eleanor’s to be safe. It hadn’t all been trust. Still—