Page 17 of The Journal of a Thousand Years (The Glass Library #6)

CHAPTER 17

“ N o!” I caught Melville as he crumpled to his knees. “No, no, no!”

“Sylvia!” Gabe’s voice was closer now, but not close enough. I wanted to touch him. He might be physically weak, but he had an inner strength that I needed as I cradled my dying father in my arms.

“So there is a connection between you two,” Thurlow drawled. “Is he your father?” He snorted. “Pathetic. His magic isn’t nearly as strong as yours.”

Melville tried to reach up to me, but his hand fell back to his side. “Daughter.”

“Shhh. Don’t talk.” I cradled his head in my lap, my hand pressing down on his stomach wound. But I couldn’t stem the blood flow. It soaked his clothing and mine, and dampened the pavement. Unlike Gabe, medical help wouldn’t arrive in time. Even if it did, a bullet wound in the stomach couldn’t be fixed.

“The handkerchief.” Melville’s voice came out a whisper that I had to lean closer to hear.

“I know what you did,” I whispered back. “I owe you my life. Thank you.”

Unlike Thurlow, I’d realized Melville had controlled his magic, deliberately keeping the paper’s movements slow and unthreatening. Melville’s actions had lured Thurlow’s attention away from me and onto him. Fast movements would have made Thurlow panic and fire. With the gun pointed at me, I would be shot. But slow movements gave Thurlow time to react less rashly and shoot the man wielding the weapon instead.

Gabe’s bare feet came into my view. He crouched beside me, a hand cupping my face. His thumb stroked my cheek, and I realized I was crying. I never thought I would cry for Melville Hendry. I should hate him. My mother had taught me to hate him. She certainly had, and had feared him, too. Even now, I didn’t doubt that she had a reason to fear him. But I would never learn the specific incidents behind her reason, and a large part of me was glad about that.

I would remember Melville as the man I saw now, his head on my lap as the life bled out of him. He was multi-faceted, as most of us are. He was neither all good nor all bad. He was terribly flawed and deeply troubled. Circumstance had brought the worst out of him, suppressing the best. For some of that, he only had himself to blame, but not all.

“Sylvia…” His voice was so weak I could barely hear it. “Moving spell.” He wanted me to use the handkerchief, the only piece of paper in our possession, to cut Thurlow. But it was useless against a gun.

Even so, I nodded. “I understand.”

His fingers inched toward mine, still covering his wound. I stopped putting pressure on it and took his hand. I raised it to my lips.”

“Father.”

Melville’s lips twitched with a whisper of a smile.

Then it slipped away, as did his life. He was gone.

I lowered his hand and silently looked at the handkerchief. One piece of paper against a gun was useless.

Gabe touched my cheek to get me to look at him. “It’ll be all right.” He was too pale to be out of bed. He crouched at my side and pressed his fingertips into the pavement to act as a crutch for balance. But they wouldn’t hold him up forever. Sweat beaded his forehead with the effort of simply getting out of bed.

“Get back, Glass.” Thurlow was still seated in the vehicle. “Or you’ll be shot, too.”

Gabe didn’t move. I doubted he could. He was too weak.

“Gabe, do as he says and move away!” Ivy cried.

Gabe’s ragged breaths quickened. Exhaustion, fear, or perhaps both, shadowed his eyes. “Sylvia…” he murmured.

Thurlow climbed out of the motorcar and rounded its bonnet. He stepped onto the pavement, his back to the row of houses, so that he could get a clear shot of me without Gabe in the way.

Gabe closed his eyes, squeezing them. Was he in pain? Or was it worry that he was too weak to save me? “Let her go,” Gabe said. “It’s me you want. I’ll perform magic for you. I’ll slow time whenever you want. You can change the odds of a race or get away from the police…you decide. Just let Sylvia go. Ivy, too.”

Ivy sniffed. “Thank you for remembering I exist.”

Thurlow huffed. “Doesn’t it only work when your life is in danger or that of someone you care about?”

Gabe shook his head. “I can alter time at will.”

“Forgive me if I don’t take your word for it. I think I’ll test it first.” He cocked the gun.

“No!” I cried. “You can see he’s ill. His magic might not activate if he’s this weak.”

Thurlow shrugged. “It’s time to find out.”

He pulled the trigger.

I lay on the ground, on my side, not far from where I’d been sitting with Melville’s body. My ear hurt from the impact with the pavement, and Gabe’s body, lying over me, was heavy. But he breathed. I could hear it coming in short, sharp bursts, and feel the rapid beat of his heart. He was alive, but not at all well.

“Have you been shot?” I asked, thinking that perhaps his magic had engaged, but been too slow to ensure we both missed the bullet.

“I’m fine,” he said, rolling off me.

Thurlow stood over us, his face blending with the gray clouds in the sky above. “Remarkable. I didn’t realize time stopped for even a moment. I’m now convinced. Ivy, your mother would be pleased to know she was right. Smug bitch.”

I couldn’t see Ivy, but I could hear her crying. It sounded like she was still in the motorcar.

All I could see from where I lay was Thurlow, the sky, and the top floors of the houses. The curtains fluttered with the breeze. No, not the breeze, and not all of the curtains, just half a dozen at number sixteen.

How strange.

I registered the fluttering curtains, the appearance of Gabe’s servants’ faces at the windows, and the gun now pointed at Gabe, gripped by Thurlow.

“You were strong enough for your magic to save her,” Thurlow said. “Are you strong enough for it save yourself, too?”

Before anyone could respond, he fired.

The next moment, the gun was nowhere in sight and Thurlow was holding his arm. Gabe was on his feet, bent over with his hands on his knees, his body heaving as he sucked in each breath. His magic had engaged again, but he wasn’t strong enough to attack Thurlow. He’d only managed to knock the gun out of Thurlow’s hand as he dodged the bullet. There was a small hole in the wall of the house behind Gabe.

I spotted the gun at the base of the steps of number sixteen. Gabe could never reach it before Thurlow did. He was too weak. It was up to me.

But before I could even get to my feet, Gabe fell to his knees, clutching his upper arm. The glint of a blade flashed in Thurlow’s hand. He could have struck the knife at Gabe again, but he didn’t. He simply watched him, smiling, as blood seeped from between Gabe’s fingers.

I jumped to my feet. “Gabe!”

“Get back.” Thurlow pointed the knife at me. “I’m in the middle of an experiment, my pet. You see, there might be a flaw with the magic. It activates to save him in an instant, but what if his death is slow? We’ll know the answer soon enough. Either his magic will activate when he is still able to get medical help to stop the bleeding, or it won’t, and he will bleed to death here. I can’t wait to see the results of my experiment. Isn’t science riveting?”

“He has already suffered a terrible loss of blood. This will be too much.”

Ivy tried to rush past Thurlow to reach Gabe, but he grabbed her arm and hauled her back.

She screamed in frustration. “Let me go! You madman!”

Her timing was perfect. Her screeching covered the fluttering sound of loose papers being thrown out of several windows. It wasn’t until the first sheets floated into his view that Thurlow realized what had happened. By then it was too late. I’d already spoken the spell in my mind. I almost cast a glance at Melville’s body, since I’d only learned the trick of spell casting in silence while we’d waited for the taxi, but I didn’t dare take my gaze off the papers and Thurlow. All my concentration was required now if I was going to control the direction of my weapons.

Dozens upon dozens of weapons.

They sliced through the air, swooping and dipping before rising again, just as they had done at the house where I’d been held captive. But this time, they surrounded Thurlow, and Ivy too, since she was with him. This time, I concentrated on just the two of them until I saw them, and only them. It was as if they stood on a theatrical stage beneath a spotlight while their surroundings remained in the dark.

Ivy screamed in terror.

Thurlow shouted. He swatted at the paper, but for every one he batted away, ten more attacked. Soon, the paper circling them completely hid them from view.

The knife clattered onto the pavement.

Murray ducked low and grabbed it. I hadn’t seen him emerge from the house. In his other hand, he held Thurlow’s gun. “You can stop it now, Miss Ashe. I’ll take over from here until the police arrive.”

I stopped my silent chants and the paper gently fluttered to the pavement, no more dangerous than feathers, revealing Thurlow and Ivy crouching, arms over their heads for protection. Scratches striped the backs of their hands, and their clothing had been slashed.

When he realized the danger had passed, Thurlow tried to get up, but Murray ordered him onto his knees. “Don’t do anything rash, or I’ll shoot you.”

Thurlow obliged, but let out a string of expletives that would have made even Willie blush. Murray ordered him to be quiet, but Thurlow ignored him.

So Murray pistol-whipped him. “Don’t speak like that in front of the ladies.”

“Thank you,” Ivy said. She’d rallied now that the paper storm had ended. No doubt she was thinking of a way to get out of her predicament using legal arguments.

“I didn’t mean you, Miss Hobson.”

“Excuse me? What did I do to you?”

“You and your parents were rude to the staff, as well as to Mr. Bailey and Miss Ashe. Not to mention your involvement in her abduction.” His lips puckered in thought. “Maybe I should just shoot you to save the government paying for your prison accommodation.”

That silenced her.

I turned away from them and knelt beside Gabe, who was lying on his back. On his other side, Mrs. Bristow tied a tourniquet around his upper arm above the wound while Mrs. Ling pressed down on it.

“Gabe,” I said, my voice trembling. “Gabe, can you hear me?”

His eyes cracked open. “Sylvia. Well done.”

I smiled, not because of his praise but because he sounded stronger than I expected. He must be taxed to his physical limit, yet he wasn’t going to die. I stroked his hair back and kissed his brow. “And you,” I managed to say through my tight throat.

Bristow gave orders to carry Gabe inside. He took over holding the gun so that Dodson and Murray could help Gabe. I worried about leaving a frail man in charge of the prisoners, but he looked more than capable. The butler’s hands had never been steadier, his gaze never fiercer than now, with the gun pointed at Thurlow.

Thurlow and Ivy knelt side by side, their hands on their heads. Ivy sobbed, declaring her innocence and blaming Thurlow and her mother. Bristow ignored her. It was Thurlow who told her to shut up.

“Bloody women,” he snarled.

I wanted to follow Gabe inside, but I couldn’t leave the body of Melville lying there on the pavement. So, I knelt beside it and plucked off a piece of paper that had fallen against his face. I blinked at it, not quite believing what I saw. It was a blank letterhead with my name on it. The paper held magic in it. Peterson magic, if I wasn’t mistaken. It would be strong, then. No wonder Ivy and Thurlow sported even more cuts now than they had before. Some looked quite deep. They’d leave scars.

Sally approached carrying a bedsheet. She gave Melville’s body a wide berth, and handed the sheet to me. “Mrs. Bristow says to cover him with this so you can come inside to be with Mr. Glass.”

I laid the sheet over Melville. Before I lowered it over his face, I touched his cheek. He looked peaceful and rather ageless, as if all his cares disappeared at the moment of death. It was the way I wanted to remember him. “Goodbye,” I whispered. Then I covered him completely and went inside.

I found Gabe in his bedroom, Mrs. Bristow fussing around him. She made him drink a glass of water then settle back into the pillows. His face was ashen again, but the smile he gave her was robust.

“Thank you, Mrs. Bristow. I’ll be all right now. Sylvia is here.”

She patted his hand and turned away. She looked close to tears, so I embraced her. Since I was still feeling quite fragile, I began to cry. Her arms tightened around me.

“There, now, Miss Ashe, he’ll be all right. He just needs to rest. The doctor is on his way to check him, but I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

I wiped my damp cheeks and sat on the bed. Before I knew it, Gabe drew me into an embrace. We clung to one another. Neither of us spoke. No words were necessary. The silence meant I could hear his breathing, more regular now, and the throb of his pulse. They were the best sounds I’d ever heard.

When I drew away, I was surprised to see Mrs. Bristow still in the room. “How did you know about the paper?” I asked her.

“When Mr. Hendry came to the door to ask my husband to fetch Mr. Glass, he also told him to gather as much paper as we could find and to throw it out of the windows when the time was right, and you could use your magic on it. We all gathered up a stack and took a position by a window. Murray signaled for us to throw out our stacks when Miss Hobson screamed. It worked well, didn’t it?”

“Very well,” I said.

“Perfectly,” Gabe added.

Mrs. Bristow’s eyes crinkled at the corners with her cheeky smile. She turned to go, only to stop and address us again. “He did an admirable thing today, did Mr. Hendry. I was here all those years ago, when he attacked Mrs. Glass, as she was still called then, before she became Lady Rycroft. I wouldn’t say I knew him at all, but looking back, I remember a vacancy in his eyes. It was as if he wasn’t there, inside the shell of his body.” She gave me a flat smile. “He wasn’t a nice man then, but he wasn’t born mean. The world in general and Lord Coyle in particular made him like that. If he was born mean, he couldn’t have fathered such a wonderful and kind young woman.” She bobbed a brief curtsy, turned away quickly, and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

I lay down beside Gabe and rested my head on his chest.

He removed the pins and combs from my hair and stroked his fingers through it. If it wasn’t for the languid motion of his fingers, I’d have thought he’d fallen asleep. His breathing finally steadied, and his body relaxed against mine.

“Sylvia,” he murmured.

“Hmmm?”

“I love you.”

I pushed myself up on my elbow to see him better. There was a little more color in his cheeks, thankfully, and his eyes were alert as they searched my face. I smiled. “I love you, too.”

Our kiss was achingly soft. It was tinged with the relief we felt to be alive after coming so close to death. I’d suffered a loss today, but Gabe’s kiss reassured me that he would be by my side while I digested that loss. He wasn’t going anywhere. I hoped he understood that I would always be there for him, too, from the way I kissed him back.

When I was once again snuggled into his side, his good arm circling me, I teased the hairs on his bare chest. “Why did you have so much letterhead with my name on it?”

He laughed softly. “I ordered it from the Petersons after I learned you were a paper magician. I was going to gift it to you for your birthday. The surprise is ruined now.”

“Nevertheless, it’s much appreciated.” I kissed him lightly. “You know me well.”

He put a finger to his lips in mock thought. “Hmmm, so gifts of paper in some form or other for the next fifty birthdays. Noted.”

“Fifty?”

“Hopefully more.” His heated gaze met mine. “Many more.”

The doctor came and stitched Gabe’s wound, then Tilda arrived. She told us that Mrs. Bristow had telephoned her and asked her to come. After checking the stitching, she said she’d return later.

“You may stay with him, Sylvia, but he must rest.”

I didn’t think I was tired, but I fell asleep in Gabe’s arms as he slept. We both awoke some time later to Willie demanding to be let in. While her tone was hushed, it was still loud enough to be heard through the door. I couldn’t hear the response, or who gave it, but Willie’s next words had me climbing off the bed in a hurry.

“If you don’t let me in to see him, then you and me are finished, Tilda.”

I had to let her in before she ruined a perfectly good relationship.

I opened the door to see Tilda sitting on a chair, her back to me, blocking the doorway. Willie stood in front of her, arms over her chest, a fierce glare in place. The glare vanished when I invited her inside.

Tilda moved the chair and entered after Willie. “Don’t crush him,” she chided as Willie threw herself on Gabe.

Alex must have been hovering nearby because he entered, too. He drew me into a hug. “The servants told us everything. Are you all right?”

“Thank you, yes. Gabe is, too. Like last time, he just needs rest.”

Alex squeezed my hands. “Your father did a noble thing.”

I nodded. It was all I could manage, otherwise the tears would spill again, and I didn’t want to cry anymore.

Alex joined Willie at Gabe’s side. “You’ve got to stop worrying us like this,” he said. “Willie’s nerves can’t take it, and my nerves can’t take any more of her fretting.” He grinned and shook Gabe’s hand warmly.

Willie poked Alex in the chest. “I don’t fret.”

“Have you been back long?” I asked, glancing at the clock. It was ten minutes past three.

“We arrived a few minutes ago,” Willie said.

“When no one turned up at the meeting place in Epping Forest, we knew something was wrong,” Alex added. “We drove back as fast as we could.”

Willie humphed . “We missed it all. Even the police have gone, although Cyclops waited until we got back before he left for Scotland Yard.”

“He’s going to interrogate Ivy and Thurlow immediately,” Alex said. “There were many witnesses, so there’s no way Thurlow can weasel his way out of it in court this time.”

“And Ivy?” Gabe asked.

“She’s saying she was coerced by her mother and Thurlow, but Thurlow is claiming she was willing and even contributed ideas of her own to ensure you suffered. Given Thurlow’s reputation, it’s likely the jury will believe her over him. Or they might tar her with the same brush used to tar the Hobson and Son company once their fraud is made public. She didn’t murder anyone, unlike Thurlow, so she won’t hang if found guilty of aiding and abetting.”

Willie looked smug. “So, either she’ll spend a very long and uncomfortable time in prison, or she’ll endure a humiliating trial at the end of which none of her former friends will speak to her. She’ll be ruined.” She wagged a finger at Gabe. “Don’t you dare feel sorry for her.”

He took my hand in his. “I stopped feeling a sense of responsibility for Ivy altogether when she helped Thurlow kidnap Sylvia.”

I rubbed my thumb over his knuckles. “What about Mrs. Hobson?” I asked Alex. “Ivy says she’s dead.”

“My father sent men to the house where Ivy claimed they’d been hiding these last few days. The sergeant telephoned to say he’d found Mrs. Hobson’s body. She’d been shot, most likely this morning.”

I spared a thought for the woman who’d been set against me from the moment we met. It was as if she’d known even then that I would be the catalyst for Gabe ending his relationship with Ivy. She had also blamed me for Gabe refusing to use his family’s reputation to support the Hobsons when they tried to claim all the boots made for the army held magic. That was entirely Gabe’s decision, however. I hadn’t bewitched him on that score, nor did I believe I’d been the entire reason he’d stepped away from Ivy. While my presence may have sped things along, he would have seen her for what she truly was eventually. All he’d needed was time for her true colors to reveal themselves, and his parents had given him that by leaving for America. Their absence meant he kept putting the wedding off.

Parents should protect their families to the best of their abilities. My mother had, and so had my father, in the end. Their methods were very different, with my mother avoiding conflict by running away while Melville thought it best to bring it to a head. Neither method was completely right or wrong. In their own ways, they’d loved James and me, and that’s what mattered.

Gabe must have sensed the direction of my thoughts. He squeezed my hand to get my attention and arched his brows in question.

I nodded and offered a smile. I still felt somewhat on edge, but with Thurlow and the Hobsons out of our lives, the future was looking easier. As long as Cyclops found Stanley, all would be well.

Willie clicked her fingers. “How did the prophecy in the Hendry family journal go, Sylv?”

“‘A magician from the line of Hendreau will save time,’” I recited.

She pointed at Gabe. “Time.” She pointed at me. “A member of the Hendreau family. You saved Gabe’s life by creating the paper storm.”

Alex, Tilda and I all looked at Gabe.

He rolled his eyes. “I am not time. I don’t even know what that means.”

“For the purposes of the prophecy you are time,” Willie shot back.

“Prophecies aren’t real.”

Alex agreed. “They’re deliberately vague to fit the agenda of any moron who believes them.”

Willie bristled. “You calling me a moron?”

Alex merely smiled, which annoyed Willie more.

Tilda put an arm around Willie’s waist and drew her to her side. “You are many things, but a moron isn’t one of them. Now, we need to let the Master of Time get his rest.”

Gabe groaned, but Willie giggled rather girlishly before pecking Tilda’s cheek. “I might be a moron, but I’m your moron.”

Alex snorted as he followed them out of the room. “That’s not the sweet talk you think it is.”

I placed my hands on the pillow on either side of Gabe’s head then kissed him lightly. “I’ll keep your circus quiet while you rest.”

The following morning, I was in the middle of showing Gabe the advertisement Huon had placed in The Times praising the graphite magic in Petra’s pencils when Bristow entered the sitting room and handed Gabe a sealed envelope.

“I paid the lad who delivered it,” Bristow said. “He says the man who gave it to him pressed upon him the need for urgency.”

Willie sprang to her feet and approached Gabe. I thought she’d snatch it out of his hand, but she waited for him to open it, albeit impatiently. Without Tilda there to keep her calm, Willie had been anxious all morning, biting her fingernails to the quick. Like the rest of us, she expected Stanley to make a move.

She was right.

“He wants to meet me,” Gabe read.

“No,” Willie snapped. “Absolutely not.”

I agreed with her. I didn’t want him to go anywhere near Stanley.

“What else does he say?” Alex asked.

Gabe passed the note to him. “He apologizes for placing me in danger by taking too much of my blood.”

Willie grunted. “Apology not accepted.”

“He then goes on to say he now believes my magic is triggered only when I need to save myself and those I care about.” His gaze met mine. “And he doubts I love him like I used to after what he did. In wartime, we were brothers-in-arms, and depended on one another for our mental and physical well-being. He knows he destroyed that relationship with his act of ‘selfish desperation’ as he calls it. He claims he only wanted to learn more about my magic so he could recreate it, not kill me.”

“‘Meet me at midday,’” Alex read, “‘and I will right my wrongs by ensuring the world never discovers your magic secret so you can live in peace, without fear of others coming for you to study your magic in the future.’” Alex lowered the letter. “How can he manage that?”

Willie took the note. “We ain’t going to find out. It’s a trick. Stanley proved he can’t be trusted. I’m going to telephone Cyclops so he can send men to…” She checked the note. “…to Farringdon Street at midday and arrest him.” She went to leave, but Alex blocked her path.

“It’s Gabe’s decision.” He looked to Gabe.

Gabe looked to me.

I stayed perfectly still. This was his decision to make, not mine. Besides, I was torn. I didn’t trust Stanley, but I didn’t know him as well as Gabe did. If Stanley spoke the truth and he knew of a way to end the speculation about Gabe’s magic, then it was worth pursuing. Gabe was tired of the unwanted attention. He needed to be left alone to live in peace.

But if Stanley knew a way to end the constant speculation in the press, why hadn’t he detailed his plan in his note? It would be easier to convince Gabe if the plan was a sensible one.

Gabe asked Willie for the note, then folded it in two. “I’m going, but you all have to stay here so he doesn’t use you against me.”

Alex scoffed. “Not a chance.”

“Nope,” Willie said.

I shook my head. “I’m coming, Gabe. But I’m going to be prepared.”