CHARLOTTE WALKED AWAY FROM the lodging house briskly, in the hope that leaving that place behind faster would make what she’d seen less real. Unsteady, she stumbled on the uneven cobbles enough times to make her ankles ache, but she didn’t slow down.
Ghosts? She didn’t believe in ghosts. Nobody did. At least, nobody sane.
A boy crashed into her on the way to the cottage, snapping her mind back into her body again. He pressed a note into her hand before running off.
You are being followed. Take the next right and immediate left. Get to the far end of the alley as quick as you can.
It was from Hopkins! Charlotte set off again, even faster, even though it felt as if the shivering and fluttering panic riddling her body could shake it apart. She followed the directions, found the alley and ran through it, seeing a black Clarence carriage at the far end. The door opened as she approached, and the steps were kicked down. A gloved hand with a burgundy cuff reached down and pulled her up. By the time she was seated, the steps had been pulled back in, the door slammed and the command given to drive on.
Seeing Hopkins, blond curls free of a top hat and looking so divine in such a beautifully appointed carriage, made Charlotte feel like little more than a smudge on the corner of his page. She was shaking so violently that her teeth chattered. She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling like she had to physically hold herself together.
His usually placid demeanour faded quickly as he took in the sight of her. “Miss Gunn,” he said, leaning forwards. “My goodness, are you quite well?”
“Do you believe in ghosts, Magus Hopkins?” Her voice wobbled as she spoke, as if she’d been standing outside in December without a coat, despite the warmth of the evening.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because I have just had a conversation with one.” She laughed. It sounded so ridiculous. She clamped her hand over her mouth. She must appear quite mad.
His brow descended into a frown. “Miss Gunn, I think I should take you to my hotel. I think you need rest and a good meal.”
“No, Ben is waiting for me. He’ll be worried as it is.” Not to mention the fact that going to his hotel room seemed desperately inappropriate, no matter how much she craved comfort and a warm bath. She mirrored his frown. “You don’t believe me? Do you think I’m just tired and hungry?”
“No, I just think that being tired and hungry may be contributing to your distress. Tell me what happened.”
She told him about Betty, about how she’d seen her the first night, about the conversation earlier and the sounds coming from the mill. As she described it all, Hopkins listened in attentive silence, and she could tell he believed her. And what was more, he was most concerned.
“It must have been very frightening,” he said softly when she was done.
Tearful, Charlotte nodded, wishing that he would just gather her into his arms and steady her somehow. No, not him—George, of course. But he was so far away. “It’s been the most beastly two days. How did you find me?”
“I followed you from the station. Please forgive me. I had to be sure you were safe. It was quite a shock to see you leave that cottage dressed as a mill girl.”
“You must have watched us for hours!”
“Not every moment, my dear. I took tea when you did, I ate when you did, and I moved between locations a little way behind. I was otherwise quite absorbed in my reading materials. I had hoped to send you a note yesterday, to ensure your well-being, but I was invited to the most appalling play at the Theatre Royal by the head of my college here. I couldn’t refuse. I’ve been quite worried about you, Miss Gunn, and it seems I was right to be.”
She didn’t have the energy to be irritated by the way he’d followed her—besides, how many times had she wished for him to appear? She had no right to be both disappointed in his absence during the past two days and irked by his nosiness. As she looked at him now, at the worry in his eyes, she realised he hadn’t been nosy at all. He’d wanted to watch over her. His angelic guardianship made her burst into tears. “Oh, Magus Hopkins, it’s so awful! So awful!”
Sobbing, Charlotte poured out everything that had happened, from the shock of the terrible working conditions to the blackmail, even confessing how hard it had been to rein herself back in after destroying the loom. Throughout, she feared she was telling him too much, but she was far too tired and upset to judge. It was all too tangled to separate out into the acceptable and the inadmissible and besides, she needed to tell someone who would understand.
He pulled a blanket from a box under the seat, moved across to sit next to her and draped it around her shoulders as she confided in him. She didn’t think about how he stayed by her side, nor how he pulled off his gloves to rest his hand over hers as they clutched the blanket. When she finally stopped, everything confessed, she realised his hand was still there. His face was so close, she dared not turn to face him, lest their lips touch.
“My apologies, Miss Gunn,” he said, hurriedly moving across the gap to return to his seat. “You were shivering.”
She wiped her cheeks with her hand before accepting his handkerchief, passed across without comment. “I’m so terribly sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I’m not in the habit of falling apart, especially in company.”
“My dear Miss Gunn.” Hopkins sighed. “There is no need to apologise. The only individual upon whom that obligation rests is your brother. What was he thinking, putting you in this position, knowing of your talents?”
“He was thinking about transportation, and avoiding it at all costs.” Charlotte sniffed. “And I still want to help him. But I’m frightened. I don’t want to go back to that place. Am I going mad, Magus Hopkins?”
“No,” he said, unable to maintain his steady gaze. He reached for his gloves, lining them up to rest them on his knee and smooth them flat.
“What are you afraid to say to me?”
“You’re not going mad,” he said. “But I fear you are turning wild.”
She bit her lower lip to stop it from trembling. “But I controlled myself. It was hard, I confess, but I did it.”
“That’s only part of turning wild.” He leaned back, raking a hand through his curls, the most uncomfortable she’d ever seen him. Only now did she appreciate how studied his usual composure was. His eyes, so pale in the interior shade of the Clarence, looked deeper, somehow. Distressed. She clutched the blanket more tightly.
After silent deliberation, Hopkins knocked on the roof and consulted the driver briefly. “We’re going to the edge of the city,” he said to her.
“No, we can’t. Ben is waiting for me, I told you!”
“It isn’t far. We need to speak somewhere safe and there is no such place in the city. Besides,” he added, “your brother deserves to worry. Putting you in this situation . . .” He shook his head as he fell silent, although she had the impression he could have spoken far more on the subject.
Hopkins was angry with Ben, and it made a spark flare in her breast. He was angry on her behalf. He cared about her. His glances, the pinched skin between his eyes, all confirmed it as the carriage raced along. She closed her eyes, trying to centre herself again and find the core of calm that she relied upon when her mother was getting hysterical. She thought of George, consciously trying to push the presence of Hopkins away from her mind and utterly failing to do so. She wanted him to come back over to the same seat as her, wrap his arms around her, hold her until she felt safe again.
She was a wicked woman and she didn’t deserve George. Charlotte wiped away a new tear and wished that the blinds at the carriage windows were open so she had something to look at other than Hopkins.
“All will be well,” he said, misinterpreting her fretful face. “You’ve had a terrible fright, off the back of two very trying days. You’re coping magnificently. We’ll talk this through, I’ll look at those symbols you mentioned and we will make a plan. You are not alone in this.”
His kindness made that spark burn all the more brightly. “Magus Hopkins?” she said hesitantly.
“Yes, Miss Gunn?”
“I think you . . .” She suppressed the words that rose to follow. “. . . are very kind and I thank you.”
The road had become horribly bumpy all of a sudden and soon the carriage drew to a stop. He peeped out from behind the blind first and then, satisfied, opened the door, flipped down the steps and descended to help her out.
They were out in the open countryside. It was so disorienting after being in the city. It felt like she’d been in Manchester far longer than two days. The carriage had pulled off the main road, then down a small track to pull into a passing place so they wouldn’t obstruct any carts returning to farms from the city.
Hopkins pulled a second blanket from the carriage and climbed over a gate into a nearby field. He found a spot free of sheep dung, spread the blanket out and sat down upon it. He patted a space on the blanket next to him and Charlotte sat down, feeling rather odd. It was like the preamble to a romantic picnic, only without the hamper. And the right man.
“This is going to be a difficult conversation,” he said, pulling a long stalk of grass from its root to let it play between his fingers. He was nervous.
She reached into her dress and pulled out the piece of paper, but when she held it out to him, he pushed it back gently. “We’ll come to that. Miss Gunn, I cannot think of a way to tell you this without causing distress, but seeing the ghost this evening is proof that you are turning wild.”
Charlotte put the piece of paper on the blanket between them, drawing her legs up beneath her skirts so she could hug her knees. She took a deep breath, trying to soothe the panic that threatened to bubble up again. “But the Royal Society says there’s no such thing as ghosts. I don’t understand.”
“As far as the masses are concerned, they don’t exist. Only those that are turning wild see them. The Royal Society has pushed the idea that any ghostly activities can be explained by uncontrolled Latents, so that if someone reports seeing ghosts, they can be flagged up more easily for the Enforcers. It’s illegal now, but before you and I were born, there used to be people who would earn a living from claims that they could communicate with the dead. No doubt many were charlatans, but the fact that they used to advertise such services tells you how much influence the Royal Society has now. The masses have been successfully convinced that ghosts are simply the province of fanciful storytelling and that anyone trying to profit from such is a criminal.”
“Have you seen a ghost?”
He shook his head. “My ability was identified very early, Miss Gunn, and I was delivered to the Royal Society at a young age, long before there was any possibility of my turning. It’s only those left unchecked who see them. It’s why the Royal Society makes regular checks upon Bedlam and other such institutions. Poor souls considered to be going mad because they talk to people whom no one else can see may simply be manifesting atypically. They may not have set anything on fire, or destroyed anything by accident, but they are still Latents.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
He snorted. “Do you think it would have helped? It would have made you jump at every shadow.” He looked away, gazing over the rolling hills. “And I confess I had hoped I could spare you the experience. I have been an arrogant fool, and I beg your forgiveness.”
“There is nothing to forgive! You’ve been helping me.”
When he looked back at her, the sadness in his eyes made her feel shaky and afraid again. “But I fear I misled you—not intentionally, you must understand that. But in my arrogance, I wanted to believe I could give you freedom from the Royal Society. I fear I cannot.”
Charlotte gripped her legs tighter. “Are you abandoning your efforts? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“No!” He scrabbled onto his knees to face her, his earnest expression making him all the more beautiful. “I have no intention of doing that. But I cannot in good conscience allow you to believe that my efforts are guaranteed to be sufficient. No one else has ever done this, to my knowledge. I can teach you the techniques to stay calm and focused, but the Royal Society does more to Latents when they join, to stop them from turning wild, and I simply don’t know what that is.”
“How can you not know? Wasn’t it done to you?”
His eyes were shadowed by his brow, darkening. “Something was done to me, Miss Gunn, but I do not understand it sufficiently to do the same to you.”
The way he said it chilled her. “Is that what you are trying to protect me from?”
“In part.” He looked up at the evening sky, sighing heavily. “I want to keep you from their clutches so that we can act independently. And safely. But if you’ve seen a ghost . . . I don’t know if that is even possible, let alone wise. As much as it pains me to say this, Miss Gunn, submitting to the Royal Society may be the only sensible option for you. For both of us.”
“And what if I refuse?”
He closed his eyes, cutting off their light from her briefly, before he looked at her again. “I will help you as long as I can. But if you become a danger to yourself and others, I will have no choice but to report you myself.”
She turned away from him, staring instead at the cornflowers bobbing near the hedgerow. First Ben, now Hopkins. Was there no hope for her? “I want to keep trying.”
“Then you have my ardent support, Miss Gunn. But we will have to work harder and see each other more regularly. And that increases the risk.”
She wondered if he was considering the same risks as she was. “I’m willing to take it, if you are.”
“I am.”
“But you must explain why you want to do this. There’s something you’re not telling me, Magus Hopkins. And given the conversation we find ourselves having now, I feel you should be open with me, so that I might fully understand all the risks involved.”
He nodded. “That is entirely fair. I have kept you at arm’s length, it’s true. You have placed me in your confidence and I will do the same.” He paused, shifting into a more comfortable position leaning to the side. His frock coat slid from his hip, revealing the top of his trousers and more of his waistcoat. Charlotte looked away, lest she stared too much. “I’ve suspected the Royal Society has been acting dishonourably for some time. I’m not willing to give details. Ignorance will protect you, should you be forced to submit. It isn’t that I don’t trust you. It’s more that I wouldn’t want to put you in an impossible position.” He flicked a curl from his eyes and she could see he was finding it difficult. “I had a friend, in the Society, a fellow magus. She was . . . astonishing.”
It felt like someone had punctured Charlotte’s heart. He loved her. It was so obvious. Just thinking of her made his eyes shine. She swallowed down the lump in her throat. “Is she a Fine Kinetics magus, too?”
“She was,” he said softly, and she realised with horror that she’d misunderstood. It wasn’t their friendship that had ended. “One of the most talented I’ve ever met. You remind me of her, sometimes.”
The slight twitch of a smile threatened to break her heart. Charlotte wanted to ask when and how, but even she wasn’t so selfish. “What happened to her?”
“We became suspicious of certain . . . practices within the Society and we decided to investigate. The more we learned, the angrier she became. She wanted to blast through it like a storm, clear out the worst and force the Society to rebuild. I was the more cautious one. I held her back, constantly. In more ways than one. Then one day she lost her temper and threatened to expose someone very high up in the Society.”
He stopped, leaving Charlotte hanging for his next words. “What happened?” she prompted.
“They killed her.”
With him facing away from her, she couldn’t see whether he was weeping, but his voice sounded strained.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “And they let you live?”
“Oh, they had no idea I was involved. We made sure of that. Neither one of us ever acted in a way that could incriminate the other. It was her care that saved me. And ever since I’ve been left with such knowledge that would be enough to make any man rage into the wind, and yet I am utterly powerless to do anything about it.”
“Because they’d kill you?” She frowned at his nod. “But why would it be any different for me?”
“Because if we can keep you outside the Royal Society, Miss Gunn, they can’t kill you the way they killed her.”
“I don’t understand.”
He plucked another blade of grass. She wondered if he needed something else to focus upon, to make the conversation easier. “They do something to us, to stop us from turning wild. Whatever that is, it enables them to kill us. They don’t even have to send someone to do it. They don’t have to be in the same room or even the same city. One moment she was talking to me and the next . . .” He tossed the blade of grass away. “. . . she was dead.”
“Are you sure it was them if—” His glare cut her off. “I’m sorry, of course you’re certain.”
His regard softened. “I will do everything I can to keep you free of their power, Miss Gunn. But the one thing I will not do is stand by and do nothing if you fully turn wild. I’ve seen what it does and I could not bear to witness you suffering like that.”
“I’ll try harder,” Charlotte said. “I’ll fight it.”
She wasn’t sure if he was convinced, but he gave her an encouraging smile at least. “I know you will. And there’s hope yet. This has only just happened. Unless this isn’t the first time you’ve seen a ghost?”
A memory of the room the debtor’s cage was in, the first time she saw it, returned to her. There had been a man standing in there who’d ignored her when she’d tapped on the window. Could he have been a ghost? “Would it make a difference if I’ve been seeing them for a long time?”
“I’d be more concerned. Have you?”
His worry was so touching. “No,” she said, pushing the memory away. “But I will tell you if it happens again.” She held the piece of paper out to him again. “Please may we talk about this, and what I’m to do? I can’t bear the thought of Ben waiting for me. And that awful blackmailer will be expecting me at eleven bells, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Well,” Hopkins said as he took the torn out page, “I think the easiest way to deal with that cad is to never go back there again. He doesn’t know your real name and there’s little chance of him seeing you again.”
“But I have to help Ben.”
Hopkins didn’t respond, distracted by the symbols on the paper. “Good lord,” he said, eyes widening. “These were on every machine?”
“All the ones I could check. I assume it’s on all of them. What do they mean? Some of them reminded me of that cage mechanism.”
Pressing his fist against his lips, Hopkins nodded. “Miss Gunn, did you find yourself more tired today after working the looms for the whole shift?” When she nodded, he waved the paper. “These symbols are the cause, not just the heat. As you worked the loom, a portion of your . . . spiritual energy, for want of a better phrase, was stolen by magic worked into the device.”
“Stolen? I don’t understand.”
“These ones here, at the side, they were embossed into the drive belt, yes? They send that energy up to the line shaft. I’d wager there are sigils on the line shaft to carry it to the final destination. Imagine it’s like tiny parts of your soul being actively pulled from you and sent up the line shaft in small, regular amounts.” He tapped his fist against his lips. “It seems an honest day’s labour is not enough for the Dynamics magi.”
Charlotte thought of the other workers and how exhausted they were by the end of the day. It enraged her. “It’s disgusting. No wonder everyone is so weak and unwell. But where is it being sent? What is it being used for?”
“I would imagine it’s being stored—it must be, given the number of workers there. Some of it is probably used by the . . .” He trailed off, and Charlotte finished the sentence in her mind.
Used by the magi working the line shaft. Ben had looked so strong, so well, and she’d thought it was simply that he was finally happy and had a direction at last. Purpose. She shook her head. “Ben can’t possibly know. He’d never support something as barbaric as this.”
“I thought he looked very well,” Hopkins said. “Did he explain his improvement in health?”
Charlotte didn’t like Hopkins’s tone. “He didn’t need to. He simply got better. He’s happy, that’s all.” She stood up. “You need to take me back to Manchester. He’s waited long enough.”
Hopkins stood, pocketing the paper so he could roll up the blanket. “We need to discuss our next steps.”
“Well, I have to tell Ben. He needs to know what’s happening there so he can put a stop to it.”
“That’s out of the question! How can you explain your knowledge to him? It would endanger both of us.”
“But he needs to understand how awful the mill is before he fully commits to running it!”
“Miss Gunn, there’s every chance that this is something done in all of Ledbetter’s factories. How loyal to him is your brother?”
That gave her pause. “My brother is a good man,” she said firmly. “I have every faith in him condemning this as strongly as we do.”
She started off for the carriage, Hopkins falling into step alongside her. “Miss Gunn, I think you need to consider this more carefully. If you tell him, and he is loyal to Ledbetter, you’re forcing him to choose whether to obey his master or respect his sister. Which do you think he is more likely to do?”
Doubting Ben was simply too much to bear. So she said nothing.
“Miss Gunn. Charlotte.” His hand caught her arm and she stopped, her breath seized by his contact. “You need to face the possibility that he will side with Ledbetter, and if that happens, you will be in danger.”
“Do you have such little faith in my brother?”
“Perhaps it’s overwhelmed by a surfeit of care for you.”
She blushed. Damn her ridiculous face! She was certain there was something she planned to say, but it escaped her. Fumbling for some words, her gaze fell upon the paper poking from his pocket. “Would you be willing to explain those symbols to me?”
“If you give me your word that you won’t break into Ledbetter’s estate and carve them into his furniture.”
Was he joking or making a suggestion? The slow arching of his eyebrow made her laugh.
“Good lord, you actually considered it!” he said, and the blush deepened. “I’ll show you in the carriage. But I beg you to not reveal your knowledge to your brother. Will you promise me that?”
She nodded. They climbed back inside and he was true to his word. It was all quite simple once he’d explained it, and her mind raced, fuelled by the new knowledge. “That cage . . . that’s how it killed people, wasn’t it? That mechanism sucked the life out of them all in one go, whereas the looms take a tiny amount each day.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“But how do you know this?”
He twisted the ring on his right hand. “It’s something I’ve been investigating for some time.”
She made the connection. “That’s what you and your . . . friend were . . .” A brief nod was all she got, but it was enough. “That’s why you hate Ledbetter so much.”
“Oh, there are many reasons for that, my dear.”
They shared a smile. She went back to studying the symbols. “If the looms take a tiny bit of someone’s life, and that one there makes sure it can’t be more than just a tiny bit, what would happen if someone died whilst they were working a loom?”
“An interesting question, Miss Gunn. Do you think there’s a connection between this and the ghosts in the factory?”
Nodding, she leaned back. The motion of the carriage, coupled with staring at the paper, had made her feel nauseous. “I saw a wisp above the loom when it was being destroyed. Is it too much of a leap to connect the two? Can ghosts move objects? Smash things?”
“I have no idea. But it’s an interesting theory. Remind me of what that ghost lady said about the ones in the mill.”
“She said they just kept screaming. And that they didn’t listen to her. But she listened to me. I thought she was real, in fact. She didn’t look like a ghost. She looked like a normal person. She just kept repeating herself. That was the only odd thing about her. And the fact that she died a few days ago, of course.”
They shared another smile, this one tinged with a hint of guilt that they could find humour in something so morbid. “I find the difference interesting, if the ghost is to be believed.”
“I heard them screaming. I believe her. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. I’m not going mad, am I?”
“Turning wild can drive you mad, not the other way round,” Hopkins said. “Poor comfort, I know. The wisp you saw, above the loom, did it look like a person?”
“No. It looked like . . . steam from a kettle, but moving with purpose. What if the machines stole the part that keeps them . . . intact? Like the ghost I spoke to. She was intact. And she died in that bed.” Charlotte shuddered at the thought of it. “Oh, I have to sleep in that bed tonight.”
“You most certainly do not,” Hopkins said firmly. “You will stay in a proper hotel. And if your brother does not arrange it, I will. Agreed?”
She nodded, already feeling guilty about the other ladies in her dorm who didn’t have a handsome magus to look after them. “If the symbols were changed, so they took more than just a sliver, couldn’t they absorb the wispy ghosts in the mill?”
“If your theory is correct, yes. Of course, you’d have to destroy the symbols afterwards, so they don’t kill the person who works it the next day. And you’d have to work the loom and somehow trigger an incident.”
Charlotte snapped her fingers. “I know how to do that! Pain. It’s pain that triggers . . .” She thought it through. “Oh. I think I understand. The ghosts there may not be as intact as Betty was, but they’re angry. They sounded tormented . . . I think they’re attacking the looms because they don’t want more people to be hurt and killed like they were. They’re trying to protect their fellow workers.” She clasped her hands together, disturbed.
“But they can’t protect them,” Hopkins said gently. “Only the living can do that. And these ghosts have killed more people by accident. It has to be stopped.”
“Can you write down which symbols I’d need to change and how?”
He pulled a pencil from an inside pocket but didn’t write anything straight away. “Miss Gunn, we need consider this very carefully. If you solve the problem at this mill, there won’t be any pressure upon Ledbetter to improve them. There are people who are trying to achieve that. I spoke to one of them yesterday, in fact.”
“Are you suggesting I don’t do this?”
“I just—”
“Because I must. The people who work there are at risk, and if the incidents don’t stop, that awful Paxton will use them to get my brother transported to Australia. I’m going to fix the problem, and then once Ben’s position is secured, he can put a stop to this foul process.”
Hopkins groaned. “He isn’t going to change anything about the way the mills are run, because that is dictated by Ledbetter and he is the one behind all this! You saw the cage, you’ve seen these symbols! This is what he is, a thief, and one apprentice is not going to change anything.”
Charlotte folded her arms. “We’ll see about that. Please show me how to do it.” When he hesitated again, she said, “Please, Magus Hopkins. I’ve made friends there and I feel bad enough about leaving them behind. I have to make sure that they are safe, as well as my brother, and this is the only way I can.”
He started to draw. Charlotte could hear the city’s thrum outside the carriage again. Ben would be beside himself by now.
Hopkins handed her the piece of paper. “Change this one to that and this one to that and it should do as you say. But remember, it will take any spiritual energy close to the loom, so you must run as quick as you can when you set it off. Once it’s taken the excess energy, destroy the loom with your Dynamics, at a distance.”
“What if I can’t control myself afterwards?”
“I have every faith in you, Miss Gunn. Remember your marque. Here, draw it out whilst you can and look at it just before. I shall be in room twenty-five at the Grand Hotel all evening. If you run into any difficulties, get to me as soon as you can. Even if you fear you’re turning. I will make sure you’re safe. If all is well and your brother does the right thing and puts you in a hotel, send a message to me at the Grand. Say . . . ‘The delivery of your cheeses will be made tomorrow.’”
“Cheeses?”
He shrugged. “It’s the most harmless thing I can think of.”
She folded the paper back up and tucked it into her dress. “Thank you, Magus Hopkins.”
He took her hand and kissed it, his eyes flicking up to look at her as he did so. “Be careful, Miss Gunn.”