“Why this place?”
Arthur shrugged. “Don’t know ’ow it started. Maybe’s more comfortable drinkin’ with your kind?”
“Everyone keeps it quiet, though. You gotta look extra close. See that barmaid?” William asked, nodding toward our server. “Beer comes out warm, but watch ’er hands.”
The bartender poured our glasses as he had done mine earlier, but when the barmaid fetched them, she took an extra moment to wrap her hand around each base. Within seconds, each glass fogged up, chilled to its core. After she delivered them to our table, I couldn’t help but scrape the frost in amazement.
“Of course,” I sighed. “Mr. Braddock doesn’t tell me about this place, either.”
“That there—wait.” William eyed me in a terribly uncomfortable way—it felt as if he were slowly peeling off layers of my skin. “He don’t know you’re ’ere?”
“He doesn’t tell me anything and then goes off searching without me,” I complained, my exasperation not particularly well disguised.
“ ’Haps he’s tryin’ ta protect you.”
“An’ we ain’t ’elping by keepin’ you ’ere. You should return ’ome. We’ll keep watch. Better suited for it anyways.” William spoke in the soothing tone one uses with an irrational child. Of course, the effect on a rational adult was anything but soothing.
“No. I need to find my sister, and all this ‘protection’ does is slow the search!” I said, the table rattling as my fist banged down.
A couple of sleeping drunkards at the tables around us jerked their heads up, bewildered. Neither Arthur nor William flinched at my outburst, though. Arthur just gave me a look of pity, which felt rather insulting, considering our pathetic surroundings. “He’s got ’is own reasons.”
“What on earth is his hold over you? Did he threaten you? Beat you up? You know, I could help if he injured you—”
“Dearie, we owe ’im our lives.”
I gaped at them, certain I was mishearing. Perhaps they owed him their wives? Knives? “I’m sorry, what exactly do you mean?”
“He’s the reason we ain’t dead. Freed us from Dr. Beck,” Arthur said. William nodded along enthusiastically.
“I see . . . and this was when he was not testing his power on innocent subjects?” I was rather viciously pleased to see their abashed reactions.
“It’s true—’e did that,” William said ruefully.
“Yeah but ’e dinnit wanta, did ’e?” Arthur turned back to me, earnest. “Tore ’im right up that ’e couldn’t control his power, but he didn’t hav’a choice—he was locked up. Dr. Beck’ll do anything for his research. It starts out real friendly-like, but then one day ’e locked us up, and ’e would’a cut us open if Braddock hadn’t helped us ’scape.”
“And if Mr. Braddock hadn’t let Dr. Beck go,” I said, “you or my sister wouldn’t have been locked up in the first place.”
They both frowned and exhaled. “That’s a messy business, dearie,” Arthur said. “You’re right ’bout your sister, but Beck ’ad us in another laboratory.”
“If Braddock had killed ’em instead of followed ’em, we’d’a never been found.”
I stared into my cloudy glass, watching the whirling liquid settle into stillness. So Mr. Braddock had told me the truth. He really hadn’t had a choice. And he’d saved Arthur’s and William’s lives. But the two images—of Mr. Braddock killing an innocent and showing mercy to Dr. Beck—proved impossible to banish with Rose still out there.
The duo seemed to silently communicate again with glances before Arthur cleared his throat, speaking low. “Even if ’e don’t tell ya everything, you can trust ’im to ’ave a good reason for it.”
“Did he tell you Dr. Beck has an unknown power of his own?” I took a heavy gulp of the ale.
When I set down the glass, I was faced with identical expressions of confusion. “Dr. Beck’s special-like?”
“We only learned of it yesterday. We’re quite sure he has a power—we just don’t know what it may be.”
Nauseated, William pushed aside his drink, while Arthur drained half the glass, foam collecting on his beard. Neither reaction was entirely reassuring.
“Then I gather you don’t have ideas of what it might be?” I asked. “Did you ever see anything out of the ordinary with him? Anything at all?”
Arthur closed his eyes a little and touched his ears, wincing in pain at my strained tone. “Dinnit think ’e could get scarier, didja, Willy? But that ’bout makes me wanna run ta ’nother country,” he said miserably.
“Sorry, can’t say I noticed anything,” William put in. “Cunning bastard iffin you’ll pardon me for sayin’ so. Always planned well. Never let it slip. He musta known ’ow to hide the power. Nuthin’ ever seemed strangelike.” He nodded in his short-necked way.
I took a final sip of the beer. The bitter taste was a bit more tolerable this time, but it was nothing I’d miss. “And do you still mean to keep watch here for Mr. Braddock? You still trust him?”