Ironskin

“Jane…,” he said. Only that, holding his daughter close.

 

“Go,” she said, hollow in her chest. “Lead the way back. You know these woods.” She dropped Dorie’s hand, walked toward him till he had to turn and she could follow, heart constricting in her chest. She retrieved her hat with its torn veil as they followed their path of broken branches and twigs back through the woods. Dorie’s legs hung limply from her father’s arms, jarred back and forth as he strode through the forest. The small limbs seemed as fragile as the porcelain doll’s.

 

Poule was waiting for them at the edge, her lips set in a grim line. Her careful fingers touched Dorie’s cheek, neck, wrists. “I’ll send for a doctor,” Jane heard her tell Mr. Rochart.

 

“Doctors won’t help,” said Mr. Rochart. He continued on toward the house with Dorie as though he didn’t know what to do but get her away.

 

“No, but you’ll feel like you’re doing something,” Poule said. “Let him take her pulse and tell you not to worry.”

 

Jane searched the back lawn until she saw the elder Miss Davenport. When their eyes met, the girl squealed and turned away. Jane swallowed against the sick feeling inside. And yet … she could not return to hiding behind her wall of iron.

 

Poule was issuing instructions about the doctor to the nearest temporary servant. She turned to go, and Jane hurried after, fell in beside her. Before she could change her mind she let the words tumble out. “I need your help,” she said. “Please.”

 

Poule looked up at her, her sharp eyes seeing through Jane’s hastily wrapped veil. “Better bring that book with you to satisfy your last debt. Meet me downstairs in ten minutes.”

 

*

 

Jane slid The Pirate Who Loved Queen Maud across the green glass tabletop to Poule. The dwarf’s eyes gleamed as she ran her fingers lovingly over the remains of the dust jacket—she could still make out the pirate’s grin as he valiantly fought a busty mermaid riding a sea serpent. With a show of great restraint Poule tenderly tucked the book inside her dressing gown without even cracking it open.

 

“How much for this help?” said Jane. The hollow feeling was not going away. The fey had returned. The fey had harmed Dorie, had attacked Jane. Jane had attacked Miss Davenport. She cared too much for everybody, and everything was broken.

 

“Provided I can, then it’s an even exchange for information about what you saw in the forest,” said Poule. “What help do you think I can give?”

 

Jane rubbed her eyes behind the veil. But everything was broken meant start somewhere. Be the Jane who had come to Silver Birch to make things right.

 

Fix one thing at a time.

 

“You said you had tales of a dwarf cursed by rage, who started a war,” Jane said. “Moum.”

 

Poule raised her eyebrows. “Three wars. But you’re not that bad.”

 

“But what you said before that. You said ‘I’ve felt worse.’ Not ‘I’ve heard of worse.’ And before that, the first time we were talking about water imagery, and practicing controlling your emotions. You said you’d had a lot of practice.”

 

Poule let out a breath. “Ah.” Her short fingers touched the book at her heart, fell to the glass tabletop.

 

“Please,” Jane said gently. “You knew someone who was cursed. Didn’t you?”

 

Poule stared at her fingers on the table. “My father,” she said. “On an ordinary trade mission.”

 

“I thought dwarves didn’t use fey technology.”

 

Anger lit Poule’s face. “We shouldn’t,” she said. “We mostly don’t. But dwarves are bloody arse-faced mules, and we don’t all agree on anything, no matter how crackbrained, how costly, how—” She breathed. “Pappa worked for the Steel Conglomerate, going back and forth between cave and sky. Things went wrong—it doesn’t matter how. He came home wounded in the chest.”

 

“Was it also rage?”

 

“Yes—no. Violence. Not just anger—brutality.” She rubbed her silver-grey head, and Jane thought that this must have been a long time ago. “There weren’t many curses back in those days, you know. I researched every rumor of a cure, pored through old books.… Well. During the Great War, I heard about ironskin and tried it on Pappa, though by then he was old and sick. It was just one more thing to try, I thought. But covering his curse with iron just made him sicker.” Her shoulders slumped inside her old suit coat. “I know he didn’t have much time left anyway, but…”

 

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