I hid my bicycle around the corner, shook out my skirts, then spun my windblown hair up and fixed it with the hatpin as I approached the doors. The valets looked at me oddly as I passed, but I was dressed well enough that they offered no protest, despite my flushed cheeks and lack of a hat.
I surveyed the lobby. It was, perhaps, too much to hope that Pretoria would be there at that very moment, in the splendid dining room to one side, or reclining on the many chairs situated between potted trees and orderly carts of luggage. Still, my heart sank a little at the unfamiliarity of the faces all around.
I was exhausted. My nerves were raw. I was also not entirely at peace with my coming here, but between the police, the Guild, and Mr. Wake, I doubted home or Mr. Stoke’s office would provide any respite.
Besides, Pretoria had offered her help to find the artifact. It was about time I accepted.
I strode up to the woman at the counter and cited the false name Pretoria had given me at the museum. “Please inform Victoria Russel I am here.”
A few moments later, I stood before a lavishly carved door on the hotel’s top floor. The bellboy who had accompanied me knocked, then stepped aside with a bow.
There was a moment of quiet beyond the door, then a brush of wood—an eye at the keyhole, I sensed. I gave the little glass orb a pointed look, brow arched, trying to hide my weariness.
The door opened and Pretoria stood before me in a skirt and an exceptionally ruffled blouse.
“Stop staring at my bosom,” she scolded me.
The bellboy went scarlet and promptly dismissed himself.
“That blouse is… voluminous,” I observed. “Trying to make up for something?”
Pretoria grabbed me by the arm and tugged me into the room. “I searched the entire city for you,” she said, locking the door and delivering me an accusing look. “Until I heard the newsboys shouting. You’re in the damned papers, Tillie. ‘Rogue Adept arrested for murder of Harren War Hero’.”
I paled, more at the reminder of Mr. Stoke than the distortion of the truth.
“Then,” Pretoria went on. “I go to break you out of prison and find you taken by the Guild.ThenI go to Golden House, and find you had already been shipped north!”
“I escaped at that juncture,” I said, gesturing at myself and my obvious presence in the room. I furrowed my brows, looking from her to the room itself. There were a jacket and hat on the large bed, set out next to a fine little revolver and a parasol with an oddly shaped handle. There was masculine clothing, too: a tweed waistcoat and jacket cast over the opposite side of the bed, along with a fashionable walking stick and bowler hat.
I heard muffled movement and a splash, and noted a closed door. There was another person here, in the washroom.
My nerves jangled.
“Who is that? Your husband, or a paramour?” I asked, but the inquiry was factual, without judgement or vitriol. I couldn’t summon either.
“My husband.” Pretoria rubbed at her neck, her façade of irritability falling away as she took me in. A haunted quality entered her eyes and, for all her bravery, wit, and gusto, I saw the harried woman beneath. The fretful sister. “Ottilie… I am so sorry. Your Mr. Stoke. Your arrest. Madge…”
I stood poised, so still I began to tremble. Memories of Mr. Stoke assailed me once more, interspersed with flickers of Madge’s face, painting in golden light. Mr. Moran, standing between me and a closed door. Howell, leering across the carriage. Mr. Wake, waiting in the darkness of Stoke’s office.
On sudden, over whelmed impulse, I closed the distance between us and embraced my sister.
There was a certain stiffness to the gesture, an unfamiliarity that faded as she let out a long breath next to my ear and clasped her hands behind my back. She set her forehead on my shoulder and for a lengthy while, we did not speak.
“I escaped,” I reassured her, voice muffled. “Madge could not keep me. They could not.”
“Of course they could not,” she said, but she sounded as though she were reassuring herself.
“But it was horrible,” I confessed. “She is horrible. She is… There is so little of her left, Pretoria.”
She held me tighter and I battled within myself, summoning and casting aside a dozen things I might have said.
“I deponticated one of their thugs,” I offered finally, permitting myself a brush of smugness at the memory. “Right off Pointer’s Bridge.”
“Of course you did,” she said, gave me one last squeeze, and stepped back. She flicked a few stray hairs from her face, took my cheeks in her hands, and kissed my forehead.
Something very painful happened inside my chest. I was saved from her seeing whatever pathetic facial expression accompanied that feeling as she glanced at the bed full of weapons and clothing. “I suppose I won’t be needing these. So long as you are sure you were not followed?”
“I am sure.”
