Free The Fatal Flame by Lyndsay Faye Page B

stark as we suppose it to be. I dream electric thunderstorm squalls, cataclysms if I’m honest, and somewhere in other worlds I know the tempests exist in truth, because I wake gasping as if running for shelter from howling winds, and my sheets are like ice, and I can taste the sweetness of the lightning still on my tongue. Have you ever felt that way?”
    I wedged a hand over my mouth. Concerned—deeply concerned—about whatever would come out of it next.
    “Hasn’t everyone?” Elena attempted.
    Mercy sighed dreamily. “I thought so. Though what was I just saying? I can’t always recall when I’m tired. And the journey was so long. There were angels, good angels, keeping the monsters clear of the ship this morning. Under the water, of course, their wings covered with the most beautiful fish scales rather than feathers. But it was still quite exhausting. Sea voyages always are, don’t you think?”
    “Yes.” Elena cast me a worried look. “Yes, I do.”
    It bears mentioning that my letters from Mercy had grown . . .
erratic
is too light a word. She’s a poet, always has been, but the imagery had turned wildly abstracted of late. Worse even than in the months immediately after her father died. Sonatas and star systems and demons and birds of painful flaming brilliance rising from charcoal.
    I likewise found it distressingly relevant that—by the end of his life, before he hanged himself—her father was wholesale insane.
    “Why did the inheritance compel you to leave London?” I inquired when I was capable. “You’ve always wanted to live in London.”
    “I did, yes,” Mercy whispered, pulling her fingertip along the tabletop. “But I didn’t want to
die
there. The ground there is too ancient. It was far too old, the ground in London. Already filled with corpses. No one should die there. It would be so
crowded.
You’d never get any rest.”
    She stood up, finishing her drink as she smiled at us once more. “Thank you for the company. I’m . . . too tired to be here, I think. I apologize if I’ve been too tired. Have I been very tired, does it seem to you? I hadn’t quite realized how much the journey taxed me. I’ll get a hansom on Broadway back to my rooms. It was a welcome homecoming, and I’m grateful.”
    Mercy rapidly donned her hat and gloves while we stared, dumbstruck.
    “Should I take you back?” I asked, rising.
    “Oh, no, I’ll be fine—I was raised in New York. Don’t you remember?”
    I did remember. I remembered every detail, from the cherry-printed dress she wore at the dinner celebration her father threw the night she turned eighteen to the exact proportions of her elbow as I’d helped her avoid a noisome patch of Canal Street.
    And I’d loved every second of her. Even the ones that had been hideous for us both.
    “I’ll call again, if you like?” Mercy questioned. Suddenly uncertain.
    “Of course I’d like,” I vowed.
    “Oh, good. Here is my address, should you want to find me. Calling for reasons is much more generally accepted, I think. But I’ve always preferred calling for no reason at all, so you are more than welcome to treat me in kind.”
    Handing me a card with the details of her new lodgings scribbled nearly illegibly upon it, she smiled wistfully once again as she shut the door.
    “What was that?” Elena asked. Sounding as dazed as I felt.
    “I’m not completely certain,” I replied, studying the card. “But I suspect it might have been my worst nightmare.”

5
    If woman under the present system of female servitude can exercise so much influence, what more do they want?
    —
OHIO STATE JOURNAL
, NOVEMBER 19, 1850

    T HE NEXT MORNING only sheer sheets of spring fog beyond my windowpane greeted me, as no one slumbered in the crook of my arm. Lacking Elena there, I found I missed her. But no matter how unattached you are, floating like a kite torn from a kinchin’s hand, introducing the woman you love to the woman you are making love to is a