Aubrey mounted the stone steps and contemplated the door knocker. The door itself was slightly ajar; she could hear men talking somewhere beyond the building’s foyer. She nudged the door gently, and it swung inwards.
“Abercombie case—re-examine the paperwork—”
“Hullo,” Aubrey called softly.
“—don’t understand why the prosecutors insist on witnesses to signed confessions.”
“Keeps us honest,” said a low, amused voice that rode up Aubrey’s spine.
“But if they think a confession is coerced, a witness’s signature won’t make it less so.”
“But the witness could be called to give testimony of the verbal statement. Precautions never hurt us, Mac.”
“Hullo,” Aubrey called again, forcing herself not to whisper.
There was no point in coming to the police if she didn’t intend to see them.
“Hullo,” said a voice directly above her. “Oh, sorry” as Aubrey jumped back. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
She stared up at an enormous policeman, a hand to her breast; for once, she was the image of the innocent debutante. He looked back, his affable face creased by a large smile.
“Miss St. Clair,” he said. “How nice to see you again!”
One question answered.
“Hullo,” Aubrey said and moved forward to take the last step into the building.
The huge policeman helped, a large square hand beneath her arm, so she was almost lifted into the station’s foyer.
“Thank you,” she said rather breathlessly and looked beyond him to where two men stood in another doorway.
One was a thin man with spectacles; the other, a compact man in his late twenties. He was over half a head taller than she, almost extraordinarily ordinary except for his pearl-gray eyes.
I know him.
“Hullo, Miss St. Clair,” he said in that low-pitched voice, and she clenched her teeth against an exclamation.
“You all know me,” she said, trying to breath evenly, to not be the innocent, flustered debutante but, rather, someone harder, tougher, someone who could ask questions.
“Yes. I’m sorry. This behemoth is Smithy. Mac. I’m Mr. Charles Stowe.”
“Head of the Police.”
“Yes.”
“Good,” Aubrey said. “I have questions. That is, I was hoping you could answer some of my questions.”
“I can try,” he said and smiled at her.
She wanted to smile back, but she was too aware of Mac and Smithy’s curious stares. Mr. Stowe seemed to sense her unease because he came forward, lightly touched her arm.
“If you wish to speak privately—”
“Yes.”
“There’s—if you don’t mind—” the barest hesitation now. “You have no chaperone, Miss St. Clair—”
She knew that was a problem, but she hadn’t come to the station expecting to boost her reputation.
“I don’t mind,” she said.
“We can talk in the lounge,” Mr. Stowe said and indicated the doorway across from the one he stood in.
Mac coughed. Mr. Stowe threw him what Aubrey could swear was a sheepish glance.
He added, “If you feel threatened, just shout, and Mac will save you.”
She liked the faint humor behind his words, the way his thick cropped hair lay against his head. She proceeded him without misgivings into a rectangular room filled with frayed couches and deep armchairs. Broadsheets and dime novels littered the seats. Cards lay scattered across a table. Mr. Stowe pulled a chair away from the wall while Aubrey sat on the edge of a couch.
She said, “Did I attack someone—when I was bespelled?”
She hadn’t meant to ask that question first; she had betters ones. But it seemed relevant—how else would she have met the police?
He sat slowly and leaned forward, hands clasped.
“He deserved it.”
Not the answer she expected, and she gaped.
“His name was Dmitri—you don’t know that name?” Aubrey shook her head. “He and his uncle kidnapped you.”
“So I wasn’t just missing.”
“Is that what you’ve been told?” There was an edge of something—anger?—in his voice, and he continued, “You were kidnapped and misused. You escaped. Nobody rescued you. Dmitri—we caught. He’s been deported. We haven’t located Kev yet.”
That mattered to him; the entire problem mattered to him. But Aubrey could only focus on one declaration:
Nobody rescued you. You escaped.
Relief washed through her mind, bearing away her vague guilt that she wasn’t being grateful enough, happy enough; she should let the unpleasant interlude of last year drop, return thankfully to being a normal girl.
Mr. Stowe said, “Kev was at Lord Simon’s, but he bolted before I could take him into custody. I’m sorry about that. If he’s heard you’re back in Kingston, he might—he was rather obsessed with you, and we’ve no assurance he believes the spell was truly removed.”
“Who removed it?”
“They didn’t tell you that?” and now she heard anger—for her, on her behalf.
She felt another flood of relief. It left behind empty space, like being able to breath easily after an illness. She wasn’t wrong to want answers, to think there were answers.
“Lord Simon removed the spell—or said he did. That’s why you forgot. I never—” Mr. Stowe frowned down at his hands and changed the sentence. “The spell’s removal was a safeguard. I didn’t—I don’t know if it was the best decision. Lord Simon made the issue moot, but I don’t know. Perhaps, I should have argued with you—”
“I wanted to forget?”
“Yes.”
Aubrey laughed shortly. “And now I want to remember. That doesn’t surprise you—” in response to his resigned expression.
“You’re a combatant, Aubrey. Belligerent. But it seemed—fair for you to put those months behind you, get back the life you should have had. It seemed . . . poetic.”
“Except people can’t go back.”
“No. Age is age, as Lord Simon said.”
“I feel like I've aged more than a few months—like I'm looking back, objectively, on something years past.”
He smiled, his mouth edged with wryness.
“Events change us, even forgetfulness, I suppose.”
And Aubrey made a decision.
“I didn’t lose everything,” she said and flicked her claws open.
Maybe it wasn’t wise to show him. Maybe he couldn’t be trusted. He hunched forward, a soft expostulation on his lips, but he didn’t call to the other men, so maybe he could be.
His right hand rose beneath her left until the off-white talons pressed gently into the flesh beneath his thumb. A single prick. Blood. He raised his hand to his mouth, tongued the blood away.
“And fangs?” he said quietly.
“Yes.”
“Do you feel like you could change? Transform?”
“I don’t think so. It was only one time, wasn’t it?”
“You transformed into a cat twice. The second time, you were under threat. It’s possible you could control it. If you practiced—”
“The Academy—”
“No,” Mr. Stowe said. “No, Miss St. Clair, I don’t think you should go to the Academy. They weren’t your friends, not even Sir James.”
“Sir James? Who took me to Rostand? The man’s a political opportunist.”
Mr. Stowe’s mouth titled upwards at one corner. The lines around his eyes creased.
“He isn’t as pointless as he may appear.”
Aubrey studied her claws—in, out, in.
She said, “The Academy didn’t ask permission to change me.”
“No.”
“Idiots.”
He snorted agreement, no criticism of her non-sweet behavior.
“Still, if they bespelled me, they ought to know how to help me.”
“They borrowed the philter’s recipe from Lord Simon. Do not approach him, Aubrey.”
She didn’t react to the second use of her given name. She needed Mr. Stowe relaxed, easy, talking. She didn’t want him to remember that she was “Miss St. Clair.”
Maybe he realized his faux pas; there was a wry wrinkle at the corner of his mouth.
But he only said, “Lord Simon is a dangerous man. He made you forget, and apparently that worked, but he was also supposed to remove the effects of the spell. Whatever he did to you, I think he did purposefully.”
If Aubrey could talk to anyone, it seemed Lord Simon was that person. But she didn’t doubt Charles’s sincerity or the reality of danger attached to Lord Simon. The whispering ladies at Merviole’s had mentioned him, and they were not the first. Aubrey had heard Lord Simon's name whispered at garden parties and assemblies: Lord Simon, a rake, a man of deep depravity, merited the softest of whispers denoting the most scandalous of conduct.
Mr. Stowe leaned forward and raised Aubrey’s hands, claws sheathed this time.
“Lord Simon seemed to think that the spell would deteriorate on its own. These remnants may disappear over-time. Do you want that?”
“I don’t know.” She ran her tongue over her teeth—she could feel the fangs’ faint protuberances. “I want to know why I have them, why the potion affected me like this.”
“These people: if they think you have claws and fangs again, they will never leave you alone.”
“So I can’t trust anyone?”
Other than you, she didn’t say. She wondered if he thought it.
“Not Sir James. Not someone who would inform Lord Simon or the ministers.”
“Richard might know someone.”
“He’s government now.”
“Survey office. I don’t think he cares much for politics.”
“Probably why it took him so long to get a position,” Mr. Stowe said.
“I think—because of me, people have been helping my family.”
“They didn’t look for you.”
The edge of anger was back, aimed at her family or the Academy, Aubrey assumed, except he went on:
“I should have tracked down Kev’s lodgings—we had Max’s name. I should have questioned him—”
Aubrey said, “If I find someone I can talk to about these . . . remnants, will you go with me?”
“After I try to talk you out of it?” He grinned. “Yes, of course.”
She took that ‘yes’ with her as she left the lounge. She had an ally, someone who saw the world as she did: an array of inflexible personages who must be outmaneuvered.
She turned at the outside door. He stood watching her, hands in pockets. He was wearing shirt sleeves, a vest, and a light indoor jacket.
She said, “I have your coat,” and was pleased when her guess brought a faint flush to his cheeks.
“I’ll collect it someday,” he said and Aubrey took that promise with her into the brisk fall day.
Continued in Chapter 12 "Mnemonic" on November 1, 2013 . . .
© Katherine Woodbury
