“Yes,” he breathed. “Yes. For Marigold.”
George extinguished the oil lamp before he peeled apart the curtains and gazed at the street. Now the only light in the house was from the streetlamp outside.
“The cab is waiting for us at the end of Gower Street. Remember,” George said, “when we arrive, we must resist the sounds of the forest. Everything there is a siren call.” He faced Isaac with a weary smile, a smile that promised an end to their suffering. His eyes were forget-me-not blue, so unlike hers. “By dawn, Marigold will be back in your arms. Imagine how much more she’ll love you.”
George always filled him with such surety. Isaac glanced at the glass one more time, feeling a streamlet of warmth in his blood. His sword was at his side, and he wore a simple black coat over his clothing, the better to disguise himself in the shadows of the forest. He had turned eighteen in April, but for the first time in his life, it seemed to him that a man was looking back.
Princess Alice had disappeared from a forest in Scotland, where the royal family had been staying at the time, but the Erl-queen’s territory was in all forests. It was what had been agreed to when the first railway had been built, when the Erl-queen began to steal the girls in revenge for the destruction of the natural world, for the vapors and the blackened trees and the scars of industry. The elves preferred to dwell in savage ignorance than embrace the nineteenth century. It was said that their queen felt every footstep in every forest in the country, as closely as a man felt the heartbeat in his chest.
“Tell me,” Isaac ventured, once they were safely ensconced in the hansom cab, “is it true what Princess Alice said when she returned?”
George sighed. “The child is a fool. The Erl-queen’s feasts must have rotted her mind.”
“But it is true.”
His friend looked through the window. All was quiet on the streets of London.
“So a servant told me,” he finally said. “The princess was weeping when she returned. She made it perfectly clear to her mother that she did not want to be back with her family. That she wanted to stay with ‘the other queen of England.’ ”
Isaac shivered. “Why do you suppose the child would have wanted to stay with the elves?”
“Why, I just told you, Ise. The Erl-queen’s feasts. She lures the children with crumbs of seedcake, and once they eat, they are bewitched. That’s why she only takes girls, you see.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“A boy is far less likely to be tempted by cake. Boys think. Present a female child with something pretty or sweet, and she’ll take it without question.” He shook his head pityingly. “Did you notice that the Erl-queen always sends her son to make her bargains? She knows that sons can’t be so easily tricked.”
It must be true if George believed it, though Isaac had been fond of seedcake himself as a child and would probably have followed a trail of it anywhere. He had no sisters to measure himself against, but his mother adored purposeless knickknacks, and it was true that a boy had never been taken by the Erl-queen, and it had always been easy to soothe Marigold with little trinkets . . . When she had been most fretful, afraid that she would be ruined if he left her, a pendant or a comb would ease her mind. Girls, it seemed, were just like magpies.
Had the Erl-queen’s son offered her more than a comb—some treasure of the forest?
No, he must not think of Marigold with that beast.
“Still,” Isaac said, if only to divert his mind, “for the princess to say to her own mother—”
“Her Majesty was aghast, naturally, and has hardly looked at Alice since. Nobody dares speak of the Erl-queen in her presence, not even Prince Albert.” George chuckled. “If she remains as ill-disposed toward the elves as she is now, you might emerge from this with a knighthood.”
Other young men might have gloried in the thought, but for Isaac, it was painful. A knighthood would make it even more difficult for him to see Marigold. Every one of their trysts had been dangerous, both to his public dignity and to her reputation. George, who always kept watch outside, had protected them both.
“So might you,” Isaac said, affecting a jocular tone. “You introduced me to Marigold. Neither of us would be in this cab if not for you, George Beath.”
He allowed himself, briefly, to savor the memory of when George had brought her out from the Sinnetts’ house. How she had looked at him with such awe and uncertainty, her eyes ignited by the moon. He had whispered her name and looked into those eyes—such eyes, all darkness, promising a thousand secrets. He still dreamed of that first night they had spent together.
“Oh, all I did was put you in touch,” George said gently. “I would have been a poor brother if I had watched her waste away. All she wanted, from the moment she laid eyes on you, was to be your wife.”
This made Isaac rather warm under the collar. The only thing he had never given Marigold was a proposal.
It was not to be. It never could be. She was too far below him: an orphaned scullery maid, born to an officer of the East India Company and his Indian mistress. George was all that was left of her English family, and he was so poor now that he could not support her. Only the compassion of people he had helped had kept him off the streets. All he could afford was some squalid garret on Earlham Street. How unjust that such a kind fellow should live in such a wretched state.
Isaac rested his brow against the window. His mother wanted him to marry Anne Crowley, who came with a large dowry and a respectable name, but even if he married her, he knew he would not be able to let go of Marigold. She was all gentleness and innocence, and she knew when to be silent. Anne was handsome, but too cold and too forthright.
If only the Erl-queen had taken her instead.
The cab stopped when the woods were in sight. George banged on the roof.
“Drive on, man. What’s the matter?”
“I shan’t go any farther, sir,” the driver said. “The Erl-queen will see us.”
“Oh, the devil take you.” George clicked his tongue. “Come along, Ise. No time to lose.”
They took leave of the cab. Isaac paid the driver a pound, over twice what he was owed. He could earn far more if he sold the story of the eligible Isaac Fairfax breaking the law, but they would have to hope that he was a half-wit.
The woods were clad in bonfire gold and red, yet the colors were somehow cold—hollow and illusory, like rich clothes left to rot on corpses. Isaac had the sense that looking at them was what it must be like to be lost in opium, seeing things that were not quite there.
“Isaac,” George said, “remember what I told you. Don’t follow the music. Ignore any peculiar lights or sounds.” He placed a hand on the pistol at his side. “The Erl-queen steals little girls. She won’t be ready for men, now, will she?”
Isaac nodded. “God be with us, George.”