My heartbeat is still quick, and underneath my clothes I imagine I can still feel Alec’s touch, his kiss. I close my hand around the silver locket that belonged to his mother, then put it in my pocket for safekeeping. This is the one thing I can keep forever.
Tonight I know I’ll cry myself to sleep. Then there will be one more day of the voyage to endure. I’ll ask Myriam to walk with me on deck. Go to a dance in the third-class hall. Maybe talk a bit more with Ned and say a better farewell to him, when he’s off duty in the evenings. It won’t be so bad.
Back on F deck, I walk past the squash court—empty now—down the silent hallway. It must be quite late now. What does it matter? Tomorrow I can sleep late if I like—something I haven’t been able to do once in all the years I’ve worked for the Lisles. I unlock and step through the door between first and third class almost absentmindedly. Just as I start to shut it behind me, a hand slips through and grabs me about the waist, pulling me backward. Too startled even to scream, I look behind me and see Mikhail.
His smile is a scimitar blade within his dark beard. “You can’t have thought I was done with you.”
Chapter 24
THE DOOR TO THIRD CLASS SWINGS SHUT, TRAPPING me alone with Mikhail. I twist out of his grip, and for a moment I feel relief—but then I realize that he let me go. He has me cornered, and he enjoys it.
“You told Mr. Marlowe you would leave me alone,” I say.
He holds up one finger, close to my lips, as though he would silence me, or kiss me, whichever I’d hate more. “I made one solemn promise—for your sister’s safety, not yours. I owe Mr. Marlowe nothing. Only the Brotherhood holds my loyalty; only the Brotherhood deserves it. Alexander Marlowe will understand this, given time.”
I want to tell Mikhail what he can do with the Brotherhood, that they will never own Alec, but I hold my tongue. They mustn’t guess what he did with the silver, that he has a chance to obey his own will instead of theirs.
He studies my face, clearly liking what he sees. “Tearstains. How poignant. Has Alec already finished with you?” I turn my head from him. Mikhail chuckles. “It’s already begun, then. His understanding that mere humans—especially women—are beneath the notice of gods.”
It stings. Though I know in my heart the truth between me and Alec, Mikhail’s version of events is too close to Daisy’s story and to my own worst fears: that rich men use poor girls and throw them away. Even if that’s not what happened to me, I hate that Mikhail can even think such a thing—and that I have to let him believe it.
That doesn’t mean I have to play along with everything that man says.
“You’re no god,” I retort. “You walk on all fours and you smell like a dog. That’s not what I worship in church.”
“You’re so ignorant that you don’t even know what a god is.” Mikhail steps closer to me, his heavily muscled frame making him like another kind of wall I can’t get through. I glance from side to side, hoping someone will emerge and force him to back off, but this area of first class has no cabins, only luxuries like the squash court. “You only see the form of the wolf. You don’t know the reality of it. The agony of the change, and the glory of knowing that your body and your mind are capable of becoming other than human. More than human. We defy death. We defy the prisons of our mortal bodies. We defy everything that governs pathetic humanity like you.”
“But you’ve got nothing better to do with your time than harass us, do you?” I fold my arms. Though I’m terrified of him, I’ll be damned if I’ll let him see it. “Go back to ruling the universe from Mount Olympus or whatever else it is you mongrels do. You’ve got nothing to gain from hurting me and everything to lose.”
I feel very good about this defiance until Mikhail coolly replies, “I have one very important thing to gain. The other Initiation Blade.”
“Alec—he threw it overboard—”
“I’m not surprised a stupid little girl like you thinks I would believe such a ridiculous tale. Now, Alec should have known better.”
Damn. He knows. What leverage the Blade can give me has to be used now. “I gave the Blade to Alec. That’s all I know, beyond what he’s said. But if he’s still got it, and you kill me—he’ll toss it overboard for sure.”
Mikhail doesn’t back off. He doesn’t even stop smiling. “No doubt young Mr. Marlowe would react poorly if I were to kill you. But I don’t mean to kill you. I mean to hurt you. That can last so much longer.”
My whole body goes cold.
“What might Alec do to save you from pain?” Mikhail tilts his head, narrows his eyes. I see the wolf in him so strongly now, more strongly than I did when he had fur and fangs. “Handing over the Initiation Blade would be only the beginning.”
That’s the moment when I become so afraid that I go beyond fear. Within the space of one blink, I’m suddenly consumed by white-hot rage. Mikhail wants to hurt me? I’ll show him hurt.
I slam my hand into his face as hard as I can, so hard the bones of my arm ache. In that first instant, surprise is on my side, and Mikhail’s only able to stumble backward. I use that moment to go after his eyes with my fingernails. He shouts out in pain, and it’s the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.
But then my advantage is lost. Mikhail recovers and grabs my arm, twisting it savagely behind me until I’m afraid the bone will break. I scream again and again, but there’s no one to hear. Mikhail’s other hand claps across my mouth anyway, less to silence me and more as if to smother me.
He pulls me against him, his chest to my back. Surely he can feel the terrified pounding of my heart. “You’ll pay for that,” he mutters into my ear, his voice silky. This one enjoys fear—drinks it the way others do champagne.
His hand tightens against my face, and I think he might forget his plans for manipulating Alec and kill me just for the fun of it. But that’s when the ship begins to shake.
It’s the strangest sound—like a thousand marbles being spilled across a stone floor, though deeper and larger than that. The vibration of it ripples up through our feet, and there’s another kind of motion too. A shudder. As though the ship herself were as afraid as I am. And it’s so close. . . .
We stand still for a moment, Mikhail as startled as I am. Perhaps he’s trying to figure out what happened. I’ve got more immediate concerns.
I drive my elbow backward into his gut hard enough to make him retch. His grip loosens enough for me to pull free. I run away from him as fast as I can, but not fast enough—Mikhail’s inhuman speed means he’s on me again in a second. He slams into me, driving us both down to the floor. His fists clutch my hair, and I cry out in pain. Though I try to roll over and free myself, I can’t. If only I had that Initiation Blade now, I’d stab him through the heart—but I think of something better.
With my one free hand, I reach into my pocket and close my fingers around Alec’s mother’s locket. Her silver locket.
With the locket in my palm, I smack my hand against the side of Mikhail’s face, and there’s no sweeter sound than his howl of pain. As he recoils, clutching his injured cheek, I roll over and get myself free. Stumbling to my feet, I start running for the door to third class. People will be there, friends and strangers alike. Surely Mikhail wouldn’t hurt me in front of a crowd of witnesses.
Just as I grab the doorknob, though, Mikhail clutches me by the waist and pulls me backward so hard I lose my balance. My sweaty fingers lose their grip on the locket, and I shriek as it falls to the floor. Then he slings me over his shoulder as though I were a rolled-up carpet.
“You’ll pay for all of that,” he says through gritted teeth as I pound helplessly against his back. “You have no idea how much you’ll pay. Before I’m done, Alec will have to beg for your scraps.”
He pulls open a door—the squash court, I think—and drags me inside. When he flings me down, I stumble backward, and I expect to see him turn into the wolf at any moment.
Instead, he just stands there. Mikhail’s not even looking at me. He?
??s staring at the far corner of the room.
Slowly I turn my head in that direction, and that’s when I see the water.
One corner of the room is bubbling with dark water. It’s like the spring near the duck pond on the Moorcliffe grounds, almost silent but constant. The puddle in the corner broadens by the second, doubling in size within the time it takes me to recognize what it is. Did a pipe burst? Is the swimming pool overflowing? I don’t understand why the squash court would be flooding in the dead of night.
“Bozhe moy,” Mikhail says. “We’re taking on water.”
“You mean—the ship?” That sound we heard—the shudder that passed through the entire Titanic—it led to this?
Mikhail doesn’t answer me. It’s as if the mere sight of the water has all but erased me from his mind. I wonder if I could slip out the door; maybe he wouldn’t even notice.
But then he backhands me so roughly that my head slams into the wall. Everything goes dim—not black but gray—and I swoon so that I almost can’t stand. Then I feel his hands on my shoulders as he bodily throws me across the room.
I know that I fall, though I can’t feel the impact. I hear the door slam shut, and the turning of a lock, but I don’t care.
Everything fades away, like a photograph that’s been left near the sun too long. It would be restful if my head hurt less. Sometimes the pain stops, but then, time stops too. Although I am here, I’m not here. I wonder if this is the place between life and death. It doesn’t matter to me if it is.
Nothing matters to me at all—until the moment cold water touches my hand.
Chapter 25
APRIL 15, 1912
The frigid touch of water wakes me from my stupor. Groggily, I shove myself up on my elbows, forcing myself to remember what just happened as I scoot back from the cold damp. My head is thick with dull, deafening hurt. Only when I really see what’s happening do I return to myself.
Dark, freezing-cold water is rushing into the squash court. Already it stretches the entire length of the room and nearly halfway to the door; on the far wall, where it began flooding first, it’s already more than two feet deep.
Once again I remember the terrible sound that shook the entire Titanic. Though it seems impossible that anything could go wrong on a ship this new and splendid, there’s no denying the evidence in front of my eyes. I can’t imagine what could happen to a transatlantic steamer this far out in the ocean—we couldn’t run aground, not out here. But whatever it is, it’s happened, and it’s bad. This room looks like it might be worst of all.
Bruised head swimming, I run to the door, but it’s locked. Mikhail made sure of that before he left. And he was frightened enough of whatever happened to the ship to forget all about me, Alec, and the Initiation Blade. That’s almost as scary as the dark water rising behind me—but not quite.
I throw my weight against the door once, twice, again. My shoulder aches, but the door doesn’t budge. “Can anyone hear me?” I shout. My throat is sore from screaming, and yelling makes my head hurt worse. “Someone, anyone! Help!”
There’s no telling if anyone answers me or not. It’s getting hard to hear over the gurgling of the water, which is becoming louder as the water gets deeper. If anything, it’s rushing in faster now.
My stomach drops as I realize that this entire room with its high ceilings could fill with water, and soon—and if I’m still locked inside, I’ll drown in the squash court.
I need something to break open the door. Floating atop the water are a few pieces of abandoned athletic equipment—squash racquets, obviously. They’re better than nothing. I hoist up my dark red skirts and wade into the water —
—and scream.
My God, the cold. It feels like being on fire. My flesh seems to freeze instantly, and my bones ache; the water is chilling my marrow. I leap back and try to fish one of the racquets out with my hand, and I snag the net, but the water hurts my fingers just as much. My hands are nearly numb by the time I get the racquet, and it’s hard to hold on to the handle. But I smash it against the door as hard as I can, as many times as I can, because the water’s nearly covering the floor now. I don’t want to feel that terrible cold again, but within moments it will have me.
I slam the racquet against the door one more time, and it swings open. In that first instant, I stupidly think I’ve knocked it loose from the hinges—but there’s a steward standing there, one of a small group. Though they look surprised to see me, nobody asks what I’m doing in the squash court; they’re too horrified at seeing the water.
“Bloody hell,” says one of them.
“What’s happened?” I ask.
“We hit a berg,” another man says, and I realize he must mean an iceberg. “Tell the captain she’s taking on water fast!”
I push my way into the hallway, and the stewards and I are instantly running from the seeping water. My numb feet make me clumsy, and I nearly tumble before catching myself against the wall. Something shimmers on the ground: Alec’s mother’s locket. With trembling fingers I grab it, then begin running again. At first I hardly know where I’m going—just away from there—but then I make myself think.
The stewards knew about the accident with the iceberg.
They were inspecting the ship for damage.
They were very alarmed by the damage they found, enough to run back to the captain.
No matter how bad I thought this was before, it’s worse.
I need answers, but who can tell me? My first thought is of kindly Mr. Andrews, but no doubt he’s busy now, and unlikely to accept a call from the third-class girl who showed up in the middle of the night with a crisis about a dog. My second thought is better: George. If Myriam can find him, she can get more information about what’s really going on. That means I have to find Myriam.
Though I feel weak from the cold and dizzy from the blow to my head, I dash into the third-class area, back toward my cabin. The hallways are more crowded than I’d expect around midnight; several people are up and around, no doubt roused by the sound of the ship hitting the iceberg. But nobody seems to understand the danger—they mostly seem annoyed, muttering in half a dozen languages about being jarred awake so late. Is it possible that this isn’t as serious as it looked to me before?
But when I reach my cabin, I realize it must be that serious or worse. Because I haven’t got to convince Myriam to find George—he’s already here.
“Tess, thank God you’ve come.” Myriam clutches at my arm. “George says we must go on deck and get into the lifeboats.”
“Lifeboats? Are we—we couldn’t be—” The word almost won’t come out. “Are we sinking?”
“I don’t know,” George says. He looks pale and drawn. “We’re still assessing the damage. But Captain Smith has said we should get people on deck and put ladies and children into the boats as a precautionary measure. He’s no alarmist—the most solid captain on the White Star Line. If he says you should board the lifeboats then you should go.” His eyes are locked on Myriam’s. “Just to be on the safe side, my darling.”
“We’ll go.” Myriam turns toward our open cabin door and says to the elderly Norwegian ladies, “Come on! We have to go to the lifeboats!” They stare at her in incomprehension. “Lifeboats!” Myriam yells louder, as though this will suddenly make them able to understand English.
Maybe the ship is sinking, George says. It’s a possibility. Not a certainty. That’s what he told us, and what I think he sincerely believes—honesty shines from his blue eyes. But even though he is an officer on the ship, I know something he doesn’t. I’ve seen that room filling with water. I heard the curses from the seamen who saw the damage and rushed to tell the captain.
All of that tells me—the Titanicis sinking. Not maybe. Def-initely. Now.
Chapter 26
“WHAT ON EARTH HAPPENED TO YOU?” GEORGE takes a hard look at me, and I realize I must be a sight—hair mussed, dress ripped and water-spotted, shoes squelching and creating a puddle on the flo
or.
“I’m all right.” That’s as much as I plan to get into it. My mind is racing. Will Alec know of the danger? Will he and his father be safe?
Then a white life jacket hits me in the side, and I catch it by reflex. “Put it on!” Myriam says. Hers is already around her neck. “If we must take to the ocean in those tiny lifeboats, I want this with me. Come, grandmothers, put yours on as well.” Then she says something in Lebanese, probably the exact same thing, but they know no more of her language than they do English. She pats the white life jacket, trying to encourage the Norwegian ladies, but they just pull the blankets up tighter around them. Surely they understand what a life jacket means?
But they don’t believe the ship is sinking. What could sink the mighty Titanic? I wouldn’t believe it myself if I hadn’t seen the water. Even the third-class passengers who understand English aren’t paying George’s suggestion much mind. They think it’s no more than a drill.
As I put my life jacket on, George says, “If they actually want you to get into the lifeboat, to lower it into the water, promise me you’ll go. I know it’s scary—”
“I will be happy to go,” Myriam says. “I haven’t been comfortable on this ship since learning about the werewolves.”
George frowns. “Beg pardon?” Then he shakes it off, no doubt assuming he misheard. “I must return to duty. I’ll try to find you again.” Quickly he kisses Myriam, then hurries back above decks.
Once he’s gone, Myriam says, “What really happened to you?”
“Mikhail.” No more explanation is necessary. “Myriam, I’ve seen the water in the squash court. It’s rising fast.”
She sucks in a sharp breath but remains calm. “Then let’s get to the lifeboats.” Quickly she glances over her shoulder at our roommates, who refuse to budge. “The others will follow shortly, when they realize the truth. Won’t they?”