He snapped his fingers, and the servant hauled Beth up, placing her on the seat opposite Gladstone. The caladrius’s cage was set beside her, and she immediately laid a protective hand on it.
“Make way,” Hippolyta ordered majestically, lifting her skirts so as to enter the compartment. But the servant pushed her back, and she did not even have time to take Jove’s name in vain before the door was slammed shut. The servant yanked the window’s curtain closed and positioned himself before the door, feet apart, arms crossed. One look at his bulging triceps, to say nothing of the pistol strapped to his thigh, and Beth knew she had no hope of escaping. Outside, Hippolyta bashed on the door, hollering furiously, but then apparently decided on a new tactic. Silence fell. The world shrank to one small train compartment filled with the smells of pipe smoke and bird guano.
“Kabelo, run and tell the engineer that his clock is slow,” Gladstone ordered. “We want to be gone before Lockley realizes what’s happened and tries to play hero.”
“I’m the one you should worry about,” Beth said with a fierceness she actually felt.
But Gladstone only laughed. “You talk as if I don’t know you, Pickering. You wouldn’t say boo to a goose.”
“I beg your pardon, but that’s not true. There was a goose in Liberia that I—”
Peep!cried the caladrius at that moment, wings fluttering madly. At once, Beth forgot everything but her concern for it. Lifting the cage, she peered beneath its cover. The bird was clinging to the vertical bars, scraping its beak against them. Its tail fanned out, twitching; its feathers were fluffed up; and wet splotches of guano littered the cage floor. Even as Beth watched, leaf buds began to appear along the wooden perch.
Setting the cage down, Beth gave Gladstone a somber look. “The bird is distressed.”
He shrugged. “It will be fine.”
“Its magic has become unstable, thanks to whatever you’ve been doing to it. I fear that if it doesn’t fly soon, to release the thaumaturgic energy, it will become ill or die. We must set it free in a safe place.”
“Set it free?”Gladstone sputtered, his bushy goatee twitching. “Why would I be so stupid? I will be using my finely honed behavioral training techniques to get it into good performing shape, then touring it around England to demonstrate its healing abilities.”
Beth gasped with shock. “But it’s only a juvenile!”
“Best time for training. I’ve had good success with other thaumaturgic birds thus far, and I anticipate plenty of funding to come my way because of it. But the caladrius will be the star in my crown.”
“It’s not like this is a bird bred for domestication, learning tricks to enliven its existence. You’re depriving a wild bird of its natural self-expression, manipulating its magic for yourpersonal gain, and making it sick in the process. I can’t believe you would do such a thing.”
“You’ve spent too long among field naturalists, my girl, if you don’t believe facts when they’re laid before you. I justtoldyou I was doing it. And you can hardly condemn me. The funding alone will make me moderately well-off, to say nothing of all the free meals I’ll be given on tour!”
Beth shook her head, dismayed. “So this was IOS’s scheme from the start.”
“IOS.” Gladstone hissed a laugh. “They wouldn’t know their beak from their tail. I must say, though, the excitement over the caladrius that this competition has whipped up will be helpful indeed in attracting investors.”
He blew a smoke ring from his pipe. Behind him, patches of green mold were beginning to appear on the seat back.
“I won’t let you succeed!” Beth vowed.
“You have no choice,” Gladstone answered calmly. “You may be clever, but you’re just a girl.”
“I’m a doctor of—”
Gladstone snatched the pipe from his mouth. “You’re agirl. You could never best a man like me. And you might as well give up on Lockley coming to your rescue. He thinks you betrayed him to take Birder of the Year for yourself. He thinks you left him. You know he does.”
Swallowing back a heated reply, Beth forced herself to focus on the spreading mold. Tiny yellow flowers blossomed here and there amid it.Peep peep, the caladrius cried as it emitted a surfeit of erratic magic. From the corner of her eye, she noticed the burly servant turning pale. Gladstone just blew another smoke ring.
She glared at him, wishing she had enough courage toshout that he couldn’t have been more wrong! Devon trusted her. They’d walked together in the sunshine, swinging their hands. They’d kissed (et cetera) in the bird-lit night. And his eyes had lit like burnished copper when she told him that she loved him, revealing a depth of emotion surely no man could counterfeit. He would trust her just as she trusted him. Undoubtedly he was even now searching the crowd on the station platform, desperate to find her. And when he failed to do so, he’d realize that she’d been kidnapped.
Wouldn’t he?
Or would his skeptical heart assume the worst?
As the nasty little fear crept forward, sharp-clawed and sneering, a bitter taste filled Beth’s mouth. She realized she was chewing her gloved thumbnail. Grimacing, she removed it from between her teeth and instead laid her hand on the birdcage, as if doing so might somehow reassure her and the caladrius both. Her palm tingled beneath the glove. Her throat tightened.
No, Devonwouldtrust her. She refused to believe otherwise. After all, what good was love if it failed at the first uncertainty?
Shoving the fear away, she lifted her chin and stared with supercilious disgust at Gladstone (specifically, his shoulder, since her newfound courage was still a little wobbly).
Toot!
