“No, Mary wouldn’t do that. Not on purpose. She was duped as much as any of us. She’s nothing but sweet and friendly.”
“I’m sure she is,” I said, hurrying to keep up with Spade and my employer. “In fact, I imagine your wife is often social on your behalf, yes? Throwing parties and having tea with important families?”
“Yes! Yes, that is much more her sort of thing. She makes friends so easily.”
“She has been establishing a network of social and political contacts,” Jackaby said. “A spider weaving her web.”
“I beg your pardon—that’s my wife!” Spade said.
“I understand the late Mrs. Beaumont was one of the most influential socialites in the city,” I said. “Mary didn’t, by any chance, meet with the late Mrs. Beaumont before the poor woman’s death, did she?”
“How can you even suggest such a thing! Mary was with me that whole evening! She was devastated when she heard the news. She and Mrs. Beaumont had been so close! Mary even bought the woman a cute little kitty to keep her company after Mr. Beaumont passed away.”
Jackaby and I exchanged glances. “Mrs. Wiggles,” I told him, “is the reason Mrs. Beaumont was killed. She wasn’t really a cat, mayor. She was a dangerous supernatural creature in disguise. One of her brood became the fifty-foot dragon that nearly wiped Gadston off the map. Mrs. Beaumont was silenced before we could trace the thing back to its source.”
Spade huffed in frustration and disbelief. A maid slipped out of a door at the far end of the hall, closing it gently behind her. She was carrying a large empty pitcher. Steam issued out of the ceramic mouth as if it had been only recently emptied.
“She’s in there!” I pointed. Jackaby was a dozen paces ahead of us already.
“Absolutely not!” yelled Spade. “You will not barge in on my wife while she is—”
And then Jackaby threw open the door.
Mary Spade had wrapped a towel around herself and was just testing the steamy water with one hand as her husband, the butler, a completely baffled maid, a wanted fugitive, a mad detective, and I all came to a stop and peered in at her. Mary was a beautiful woman with gentle brown curls framing a face that belonged on the cover of a saccharine dime novel.
“Philip dear?” she said, taking our entrance remarkably well. “What’s going on?”
“It’s over, Morwen,” said Jackaby firmly. “He knows.”
“He damn well does not know!” Spade spluttered. “This is madness! Shut that door!”
“No,” said Jackaby. “That woman is not your wife, Mr. Spade. She’s not really a woman at all, and she’s not called Mary. She’s a creature called a nixie, and she’s been pulling your strings from the moment the two of you met.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It’s really not. She showed us her true face less than an hour ago, and even if you can’t see her as I see her, there can be no question as to her species. Miss Rook had the foresight to equip herself with a silver knife for our outing. Silver is notoriously effective against fairies of the Unseelie Court. The slightest touch burned her hand badly. We saw it happen.”
“Burned?” Mary lifted both hands and turned them around so that everyone could see. Her skin was flawless. “How perfectly ridiculous. My hands are just fine. Now if you don’t mind—”
“Of course they’re fine; you’ve had them in the water. Like mermaids and selkies and water spirits of all sorts, nixies need only return to their element to become rejuvenated. Miss Rook also caught you a cut on your leg with the silver blade before you fled, though. It’s just a nick, but I see you have not had time to attend to that. Had we gotten here two minutes later, you would’ve had time to soak the injury away.”
“This is absurd,” said Spade. “You’re talking nonsense! Now stop looking at my wife’s legs this . . .” he faltered, “. . . this instant.” Mary could not lower the towel to cover any more of her legs without sacrificing modesty, and an angry red cut was just visible beneath the edge of the cloth.
“I have no idea what that man is talking about,” said Mary. She sounded so earnest and innocent—something deep inside of me almost wanted to believe her, but I had landed that cut myself. “Oh, Philip, what’s going on?”
“How did you hurt your leg, Mary?”
“It’s nothing, darling. I had an accident with the washbasin earlier. It just slipped and cracked while I was—and you were . . .” She trailed off.
“Oh, to hell with it.” Mary Spade stood up straight and let go of the towel. It rippled, and before it could fall to the floor it became the same sleeveless blue-green dress the nixie had worn in the Annwyn, right down to the black blade hanging from her belt. Her eyes lost their perfect symmetry, her brown curls softened to a shimmering strawberry blonde, and her face became Morwen’s again. “Let’s just get this over with already.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
The maid dropped the pitcher. It shattered on the floorboards behind us and Mayor Spade staggered back a step. “What have you done with my Mary?” he managed.
“You ignorant little gnat.” Morwen rolled her eyes. “At least Poplin was sharp enough to just demand a bribe. There is no Mary. There’s only ever been me.”
She lifted her knee and plunged her injured leg into the steamy bath. The water climbed her dress, holding itself together like beads of dew on a leaf, collecting and rising upward until it swirled in a coil around her waist. It was mesmerizing, like watching a liquid boa constrictor.
She pulled the leg out again and spun gracefully. Before I knew what was happening, a tunnel of steaming water whipped through the air and slapped into my chest with all the force of a beam of lumber. My feet slid out from under me and I flew back. My head cracked against the hallway wall so hard it made my eyes hurt.
I blinked my vision back in place in time to see Charlie lunge toward the door. Morwen spun in another elegant twirl and the snake of water hammered into him. He was pelted sideways into Bertram, and the two of them toppled to the floor. Jackaby reached for something in his coat, but Morwen did not give him the chance. He was lifted completely off his feet by another blast of living water, tumbling sidelong down the hallway in the opposite direction.
The maid had long since fled, and the rest of us were still picking ourselves up off the ground—all but Spade, who straightened and held his chin up. The mayor looked alone, his eyes full of hurt and pain. “I trusted you,” he said quietly. “I loved you.”
“That was the idea,” said Morwen flatly. “Don’t give me that insufferable look. We’ve just reached the ‘death do us part’ moment in our relationship, honey pie.”
The temperature dropped abruptly. The steaming water that had soaked my shirtwaist suddenly felt like ice. Morwen spun again, channeling the water back up her body, and whipped her arm out toward Spade. He flinched, bracing himself for the blow, but it never came.