She wasn’t home. She wasn’t at Kev’s. She was in a police station; the police had sent for her family.
Her family wanted her back, whatever Dmitri had said. She'd ripped Dmitri’s face for his malice.
She tensed against a flux of savage satisfaction, the memory of Dmitri’s pained shock. She wasn’t like that. She could be caustic; she was never violent.
She pushed up against the fore-poster’s pillows. A few feet away, Charles Stowe sat in a plain wooden chair, one ankle balanced on the opposite knee as he perused a sheaf of papers. She watched him, the light-brown hair, the faint web of lines at the corners of his eyes, the thin mobile mouth.
He glanced up, said, “Ah, Miss St. Clair. Your family is in Rostand—Minister Michaels saw them there a week ago. One of our men, Col Roberts, is on his way to Rostand now.”
Without me.
But then she had to give her deposition. After that, she would send a message to Minister Michaels herself. He would know a society family who could take Aubrey to Rostand or let her stay in their home until someone—Richard probably—was able to collect her. She said, “Did my family give me to Dmitri and Kev?”
Mr. Stowe rearranged his papers, faced her fully, and blinked.
“You’ve cut your hair.”
“Yes.”
“Ah.” He studied her, a faint crease along his brow. “No. I suspect Kev and Dmitri stole you from your family’s residence in Sommerville.”
“For ransom?”
“Not as far as we know. They—your family believed that you, your cat self, ran off.”
“Lord Simon thought the cat that my family had wasn't even me.”
“There was some debate on the subject. Many of the guests at the ball believed you'd gone to the country to recover.”
Mother’s doing. Aubrey could even understand why she would spread such a story. A family ghosted by tragedy would hardly be invited to more festivities. Better to have an ailing daughter in the country than a lost daughter whose absence embarrassed fellow guests.
She said, “But you looked for me, had your police look for me.”
“You weren’t in the country,” Mr. Stowe said and stood up.
He collected his papers, peered behind the folding screen, and looked again at Aubrey, his gaze lingering on her shortened locks. She was struck once more by the tinge of slow amusement in his eyes, the wry twist to his mouth.
“You’re a resourceful young lady,” he said. “We found you a new getup,” pointing towards the screen’s nearest panel where hung a long gray governess dress with buttons from toe to collar.
He jogged down the stairs, and Aubrey crossed to the panel to finger the light, smooth material. She wondered if Mr. Stowe had picked the dress out.
There was a new policeman in the lobby—not Smithy but an older man with a tremendous smile. He beamed at Aubrey as she descended the stairs and steered her into the office.
Mr. Stowe stood by the desk, perusing another stack of papers. Toast with jelly and a cup of tea waited on the chair. Aubrey lifted it and sat. Mr. Stowe came around the desk and half-sat on its edge.
“A statement of your experience will aid our hunt for Dmitri and Kev Marlowe,” he told her. “Are you willing?”
“Yes.”
“Give me all the details you can.”
He took her from Lady Bradford’s ball to her wakening in Kev's house. His questions were like Kev’s but not. Mr. Stowe wanted to know about the taste of the punch, the size of Kev’s parlor, the exact words used by Lord Simon and Kev during their conversation—
“So Lord Simon said, ‘I let you do things the Academy doesn’t approve of’?”
“Something like that.”
“And then, ‘Continue the experiments’?”
“Yes, he definitely said that.”
—the name of the potion shop, its owner, the exact herbs Dmitri had ordered, all the way to her flight to Shops. She wavered when she described her attack on Dmitri’s face, but Mr. Stowe exuded nothing but attentiveness.
Half-way through her testimony, a stocky, broad-shouldered man with a thick beard entered the station and ambled into the office. He gave Aubrey a piercing glare, then settled on the couch.
“Is it true?” he said to Mr. Stowe when she finished. “Is Lord Simon involved?”
Mr. Stowe waved a hand in Aubrey’s direction
She said, “Lord Simon was there. He didn’t transform me.”
“He likely encouraged Kev Marlowe to harm you,” Mr. Stowe said quietly.
She was grateful he said ‘harm’ rather than ‘experimented on.’ She could meet the stocky man’s stare without discomfort.
The stocky man said, “An aristocrat consorting with slum magicians: that should be enough grounds for our waffling ministers.”
“Perhaps.”
“Perhaps? ‘Magicians are experimenters, not manipulators. Spells don’t last more than a few minutes. Potions are harmless.’ Blah, blah, blah. It’s over, Charles. The Academy will have to submit to regulation.”
“The Academy has strong supporters, Perry.”
“Old nobles who are dying out—like Lord Simon. The ministers will see sense.”
“There's still aristocratic leftovers and wishful thinkers.”
“The military lost interest years ago. Temporary invisibility won't stop the enemy bombarding the hell out of a camp.”
“And if permanency is possible?”
“Is that Lord Simon’s interest?”
“I think,” Aubrey said, “he’s more interested in a person’s susceptibility to spells.”
Mr. Stowe’s eyes flicked over her hands (claws sheathed) and then to her mouth (fangs withdrawn).
He said, “Hopefully, he’s lost interest.”
She heard the warning. Mac knew about her claws as did Mr. Stowe, but he didn’t seem inclined to inform this man, Perry. She nodded and curled her hands in her lap; debutantes had practice pretending to be demure.
She saw Mr. Stowe’s smile deepen as he finished writing notes on a third sheet of paper. He handed the three sheets to Aubrey.
“Correct any mistakes,” he said, “then sign.”
She began to read while Perry discoursed on government intransigence, Mr. Stowe “Uh-huhhing” in response.
Deposition: Aubrey St. Clair, Shops Police Station, Kingston, May 13, 1863.
Miss St. Clair was transformed into a cat August 6, 1862 at Lady Bradford’s Ball. Transformation occurred immediately after Miss St. Clair drank from punch spiked with an Academy-concocted philter . . .He included her memory of Richard’s rescue, of being crammed into a bag, yet referenced Kev’s experiments in only a single line. He did not mentioned Aubrey’s scars although she had seen them when she changed that morning; Mr. Stowe must have seen them when she was wearing the shorter dress.
He did list every detail that Aubrey remembered of Kev’s house, the streets outside, Max’s shop, and the herbs he’d sold Dmitri. He quoted her statements about Lord Simon verbatim. If someone was going to debate Lord Simon’s presence in Kev’s house, it would no longer be the police.
Of course, the police had an agenda: regulate magicians, perhaps even arrest them, certainly get authority to question them.
Is that why they didn’t send me home?
The outside door banged open; Mac entered the office.
“Minister Michaels told Sir James about Miss St. Clair,” he announced without preamble.
The men stilled while Mac frowned at nothing or everything, and Aubrey clutched her pen, unnerved more by their silence than by the information.
Sir James was on the Academy’s Board of Directors; Aubrey had met him at garden parties—a large, phlegmatic man—and labeled him inconsequential. Respectable. Boring. An obsequious talker.
Still, he was someone Aubrey knew. One of Mother's contacts. He could help her.
“He’s coming here,” Mac said. “He wants to talk to her.”
Good.
“He’ll take me home,” Aubrey said.
She glanced at Mr. Stowe, but he was studying the desk, head bent.
They don’t want me to leave.
Of course not. Perry, Mac, Mr. Duclaire—they all saw her appearance as an opportunity to discredit the Academy. Even Mr. Stowe's recording of her deposition focused on Kev's possible Academy connections.
A windfall, indeed.
She supposed she could see the police's perspective. But Dmitri and Kev had mocked Academy magicians; Lord Simon had called the Academy officious. And the philter in the punch had been merely a prank.
The Academy might be the police's enemy; that didn't mean it was hers.
“Why don’t you go upstairs, Miss St. Clair?” Mr. Stowe said.
Aubrey glared at his bent head. She wanted to scream, You can’t stop me going with Sir James.
But debutantes didn’t scream, and she was a debutante now. No longer a cat, just Aubrey who wanted to go home.
She went out and paused on the bottom step.
From the office, she heard, “—force her to stay” from Perry.
“No.”
“Sequestered?” Mac suggested. “A witness for trial?”
“Whose trial?”
“Surely you don’t trust the Academy?”
“I don’t trust its connections.”
“Then—?”
“Miss St. Clair cannot be held against her will.”
“You could find a legal justification, Charles.”
Aubrey finished her climb to the second floor. The friendly policeman or someone had been upstairs since she left; her cut hair was gone; more clothes lay over the screen, including a man’s night-shirt. A few books and an oil lamp sat on the windowsill nearest the bed. The police obviously planned to keep her longer.
They are just like Kev.
Mr. Stowe did send for my family.
He also sent for a reporter who agrees with his agenda.
She sat on the bed’s edge. Down below, Mac’s voice rose followed by more of Perry’s swears. She could hear Mr. Stowe’s silence.
I should run, get to Rostand on my own.
Only—
Dmitri is out there.
And what did she know about traveling from Kingston to any of Roasia’s smaller towns? Every year, her family moved from a rented house in Kingston to lodgings in Rostand to furnished apartments in Sommerville. They occasionally hired conveyances; more often, Mother purloined seats in someone else’s carriage.
Her family knew people, made friends of friends of friends. That's how they survived.
Sir James was a friend of a friend.
Never trust a nobleman just because he’s a nobleman.
Should I trust the police then? Who didn’t send me to Rostand?
The Academy might be ill-regulated. Kev was worse. Even Mr. Stowe would admit that Kev was far, far worse.
The outside door opened and shut. Aubrey went to the top of the stairs in time to hear Sir James’s spongy voice say, “Ah, Mr. Stowe. I hear you have Miss Aubrey St. Clair in custody.”
“We’re waiting to hear from her family.”
“The Academy can deliver Miss St. Clair to their safekeeping.”
“Academy students transformed her in the first place.”
“There was some question whether she changed at all—”
“She changed. Her deposition makes that clear.”
“All the more reason for the Academy to get involved. If Academy students created this debacle—”
“They should be rewarded?” Mac said.
“They should learn how to avoid such injurious pranks in the future.”
“Government regulation would solve that problem,” Perry said.
Sir James harrumphed. “The Academy regulates itself quite efficiently using internal checks.”
A heavy silence of complete disbelief.
“We do have ministerial approval, gentlemen. They want this matter cleared up as much as you. You wouldn’t want to offend them.”
“You could question her here.”
“No, Mr. Stowe. The Academy is not an extension of the police—as you would agree. Come, now, I have a letter from Minister Michaels himself—”
Mr. Stowe interrupted: “Will Lord Simon be at this interrogation?”
“Of course not. You know he’s not welcome at the Academy these days. We are a reputable community.”
Perry snorted.
Mr. Stowe said, “We know he still holds patents for most of the Academy’s philters.”
“Plus extra formulas that he refuses to share. The man is not welcome in our company.”
“You give your word Lord Simon will not be present?”
“My word of honor. Aubrey St. Clair will be questioned by Academy alumni with a female chaperone present, then returned to her family in Rostand.”
That was enough for Aubrey; she went the rest of the way down the stairs to the door of the office.
Let’s finish this already.
“Miss St. Clair.” Sir James pivoted towards her in relief. “What a pleasure to see you again.”
She nodded, keeping her eyes on Sir James’s blue globular ones.
“We at the Academy are eager to learn more about your adventure.”
“Lord Simon won’t be there?”
“He’s not an alumni.”
“Just a benefactor,” Perry muttered.
“And then you’ll take me home?”
“Absolutely.”
She couldn’t help it: she glanced at Mr. Stowe; he was studying his shoes, arms folded.
He doesn’t believe Sir James.
But it was up to Aubrey to decide who to believe now. She turned away from Mr. Stowe's bent head and went out the front door.
Sir James said, “Ah, the lady makes the decision,” while Aubrey stood frozen on the front step.
She’d forgotten, just for a moment, that Dmitri or Kev might be outside the building. She scanned the pavement and saw only gentlemen and ladies strolling towards the park. Dmitri’s slim form was nowhere in sight. Kev—but Kev would stalk her from shadows.
She shivered.
“Now, now, Miss St. Clair,” boomed Sir James behind her, and his large hand propelled her across the pavement to an elegant two-horse carriage.
She got in.
“Miss St. Clair will get the best care, Mr. Stowe,” Sir James said—so he had followed them outside—the carriage lurching sideways as he also got in. “Drive on,” he called to the whip, and the carriage rumbled away from the station.
Aubrey didn’t look back. This was just one more stage in her journey home, one more step back to normality. She had only to answer some questions. She ought to be used to that by now.
Continued in Chapter 6 "Scraps" on September 20, 2013 . . .
©
Katherine Woodbury
