Mr. Pratt scrambled back to his feet, ready to fight the both of us. I didn’t know whether the two of us, this wounded, could manage it. Fortunately, I didn’t have to find out.
A heavy wind blew Mr. Pratt back, and a bolt of lightning struck the ground between us, propelling him into a wooden stable house door. Thunder rumbled, and he looked up over our heads in fear. The mews filled with twenty copies of him, and they all scattered and ran away as more lightning crashed down upon them.
Miss Chen and I climbed back up to our feet and turned to find a goddess floating down toward us.
Or at least that’s how my dazed mind took in Radhika Rao, her bright skirts and shawl fluttering as she landed, fog growing and swirling around her.
“I … Miss Rao … how did you know we were here?” I managed to ask.
“I did not, healer,” she said, hurrying past us into a clear path through her fog. “This way.”
I slung Miss Chen’s arm over my shoulder and found her expression matching my own as she stared openmouthed at the formidable woman. We hurried and stumbled after her, toward the busier Knightsbridge Road. As we passed under a gaslight, I could see Miss Rao looked tired, her arms and face covered in patches and bruises. Her right arm was wrapped in a makeshift sling.
“You’re hurt,” I said.
“I am aware,” Miss Rao said. “That’s why I saved you. Heal me.”
“About that…” I said. “Captain Goode just took my power away.”
Thunder rumbled as she stared at me. “Very well. I’ll wait with you.”
I felt relief fill me, knowing she wouldn’t be leaving us here. Soon enough, a hansom pulled over to pick us up. Miss Rao and Miss Chen stayed in the shadows, hiding their injuries, while I gave the driver our address. The three of us squeezed into the cramped space and the carriage rattled forward. Fog filled the streets behind us to cover our escape.
“How did you get injured?” I asked.
“Which time?” she asked back.
“I … all of them?”
She pointed to a patch on her leg. “A man shot at me when I was destroying ships coming from the East.” She pointed to some of the bruises and cuts peppering her skin. “These are from the guards at the India office.” She pointed to her black eye. “Colonial office.” She held up her arm in the sling. “Your Society sent children to catch me and one caught my arm.”
I gaped at her, recalling Oliver’s story from before the Belgrave Ball. When he and his friends had been sent after her. “You’ve had a … you did all of that … with a broken arm?”
“My other arm was well enough,” she said, nodding to the one in my grasp.
“You were the one who killed Lord Bell at the Colonial office?” Miss Chen asked.
“I did,” Miss Rao said.
“And tonight was…?”
“The India Secretary,” Miss Rao said.
I felt my stomach twist. “I thought you didn’t kill people.”
“Your Society changed my mind.”
“But … that … isn’t going to get Britain out of India,” I said, reluctant to anger the most terrifying person I knew.
“What is it you were trying to do?” she asked.
“That’s … different,” I said. “Captain Goode killed my family and friends and a hundred others. And there’s going to be more.”
“You are right. That is different,” Miss Rao said, thunder rumbling as she looked out the window. “Far more people are dying in my country. Your reasoning is nothing in comparison.”
I shook my head. “No, that’s not what—I just mean, if you kill the Secretary, they will find someone to replace him.”
“Then I will kill him, too.”
“And when does it end?”
“When everyone in this country is too scared to hold that position,” Miss Rao said simply.
The carriage creaked to a stop down the street from our lodgings. We climbed out, and Miss Chen gave me the money to pay the driver. As I helped her up the stairs and searched for my key, I felt a lump in my throat, wondering how I was going to explain this to everyone. At least I had a couple of hours until they woke up. To them, it’d almost be like I never even le—
The door opened.
Catherine, Rose, and Mr. Kent were at the entrance, red-eyed and not at all happy to see me.
Chapter Thirteen
“OW. OW. OW.”
Rose’s needle was apparently dipped in some kind of terrible fire-liquid. Every stitch stung, the pain clear and bright without any numbness or excitement from the fight left to stave it off.
“And this is what happens when you act recklessly,” Catherine continued. She was pacing Rose’s and my bedroom, what little length there was, her hair unbound and riotous, her tone as sharp as a schoolmarm’s, even as she endeavored not to wake the rest of the house.
“Look at poor Miss Chen. Now she will have to wait for that leg to heal until your powers come back in three days’ time. It will be extremely painful! Wounds like that could fester and—”
“Please discuss the pain and festering in another room,” Miss Chen groaned from her place on Rose’s bed. She and Miss Rao had already been administered to, as I was deemed both the least injured and the least deserving of nursing.
I closed my eyes, trying to summon the warmth and raise my power. Memories of my Society healing missions flashed through my head, reminding me of the confidence, the peacefulness, and the sheer invincibility I felt at the time. None of which I had now. Shivers ran through me, as if a window had been left open inside my gut, a cold draught rushing in.
I opened my eyes to find Miss Chen sighing. “Any hint of your powers returning?” I asked.
“Nothing.” Lines of tension feathered out from her mouth, held in a tight grimace. As she maneuvered to face me, her hands clenched the thin sheet, a wave of pain rolling over her body. “What about you?”
“I’m sorry,” I said for possibly the thousandth time. I bit down as Rose continued stitching my cut closed, the black thread slowly laddering up through my raw, red skin.
“I simply don’t understand what you were thinking!” Catherine was going to make a very good parent someday; she wielded the tone of disappointment perfectly, like a weapon.
“I was also there—” Miss Chen tried.
“I know an Evelyn plan when I see one,” Rose muttered.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, feeling faintly frustrated. Even though Captain Goode deliberately revealed his address, there was still a part of me that thought it a good plan. Was it a little … rash? Yes. I regretted my impetuousness, but I did not particularly enjoy this lecture, not when Captain Goode got lucky with the timing of our attack. I couldn’t imagine his plan was to keep all those people waiting there for days to ambush us.
“We did learn something new about the powers, though.…” I said.
“Yes—the only healer in the world is astonishingly irresponsible and selfish,” Catherine replied.
“And Mr. Adeoti will find something on Captain Goode’s glove.”
“Which was worth losing Mr. Jarsdel?” Catherine asked. “After all the hard work Rose and Mr. Kent did to persuade him to work with us?”
“I’m not one to call anyone selfish.” Mr. Kent was lounging against the doorway, his arms crossed lazily in front of him. “But it was not your best idea.”
That Mr. Kent should say such a thing stung almost as much as Rose’s needle. I was tired and feeling irritated and probably a little feverish, so it shouldn’t be any wonder that I snapped back at him.
“Really? This is coming from someone who finds every excuse to leave while the rest of us try to actually fix things?”
He pierced me with a long look and slowly slipped out of the room, his usually warm eyes dulled with a sadness that told me how beneath me the comment was.
That was unfair. Mr. Kent had been brave and gallant, staying with the group even after I had told him there would never be anything between us. He could have left London with his sister at any time. He had been anything but selfish.
My sister jerked the thread a little harder than was necessary and I winced. She did not even react.