Ironskin

“But your hands…”

 

And they fell to his lap, trembling, even as Poule ran to his worktable for cloth and gauze and scalpel, and he said, “You were always too good for me, Jane. The Queen never really let me go—just sneaked into me after she returned me, manipulating me—and I refused to believe it. She ruined that poor village girl. And now I have not even a home to offer you, for not only do I have no talent, I no longer have any skill at all. For who knows when these shall mend, if ever.” The amber eyes were delirious with pain; he stared past her, half-blinded by it. “Now I am quite dependent on your goodwill and stubborn nature, you see?”

 

Quite helplessly, she laughed, a short distraught cry. “Of course, sir. You always were, you know.”

 

“No, no.” Heavy sigh. “I will not take your pity, Jane. You are too kind to leave if I do not make you. But you must.”

 

But the cold words didn’t fool her any longer.

 

Because she could feel his emotions behind the words, and now it was warmth alone—the chill gone. The fear of what his past could do to her was over, for it had done it, and there was no other way he could hurt her. All that was left was his own fear that she would leave him again, and he would be quite alone in that house, helpless and dependent on Poule and Cook to feed him and dress him and never leave him alone with his crippling despair.

 

She knew all this and he knew none of it, and she did not know how to convince him that she truly loved him.

 

But she knew how to provoke.

 

So she said, cruelly, “You are glad of an excuse to be rid of me, then.”

 

Poule straightened one of his bones at that moment, and that might have been what caused the cry.

 

She pressed on: “You are glad of such a convenient excuse to be rid of me. It’s more believable than an invented dying aunt.”

 

“Wicked Jane!” he said. “And wicked Poule, you are both murdering me together.”

 

“The splinters better come out sooner than later,” said Poule.

 

“I know the future, you see,” said Jane, pressing her advantage. “A return to public life, a long affair with each of your pretty ladies, starting with the clever and charming Prime Minister’s wife—”

 

“So help me, if I had to spend any more time with those silly women, I’d jump from that blasted window this instant,” he said, glaring at her.

 

She laughed joyfully at his reaction. Then gasped, suddenly dizzy, and he reached out to her, worry sharp on his features.

 

“Jane, my Jane, you’re bleeding—”

 

Her fingers touched her temple and came away wet.

 

“You’re crooked,” Poule said critically. “And you’re still leaking around the temple, because you’re more concerned about provoking this poor man you’re besotted with than your own face. Lie down and let Dorie finish. And you, Edward, stop grinning so foolishly, because this next bit is going to hurt.”

 

Jane obeyed, though crooked scarcely mattered now. She would always be this Jane and it would always be plain on her face. This Jane who had fought the fey and survived, this Jane who was taking their power for herself.

 

And the first thing she would do was restore human faces to all those pretty ladies, make them safe against the fey.

 

For on the wall above, those rows of masks still leered. A hundred faces, and each one a human, somewhere. A race between Jane and the dead Queen’s followers.

 

It was a mission. It was her purpose.

 

This Jane was meant to fight.

 

The red blood splattered the floor like drops of paint. Dorie’s fingers crept around, smoothing the ironskin mask of her face. Jane closed her eyes and let the girl adjust her eyelids, felt the cold iron, hard and comforting against the bone.

 

Her hand crept to her left just as Edward’s foot found hers. Her fingers touched his elbow, his ankle her ankle, as Poule and Dorie worked above them, deft and sure.

 

Soon, soon, she would be whole again.

 

 

 

 

 

Acknowledgments

 

Where to begin with this enormous pile of thanks? I feel very fortunate to have received so much help and advice and (constructive) criticism over the years, and I hope to continue to pay that forward.

 

A big thank-you to my treasured and overworked second readers, K. Bird Lincoln and Caroline M. Yoachim, who have each read nearly everything ever, including novels that will continue to live in a drawer.

 

Tina Connolly's books