13

Louise's lips curled in a smirk. "At last, the tardy scullery maid reports for work. We do need someone to clean up around here. It's terribly dirty and I could just kill for a cup of tea."

For the thousandth time, I cursed the tired action that turned Louise from a thorn in my side to an undead thorn shoved under my fingernail. Or was she? Garden variety vermin weren’t usually chatty.

Ignoring her dangling insult, I narrowed my gaze. "What are you, exactly? You don't look like one of Elizabeth's mindless minions."

Had she Turned from Elizabeth's bite, or had one of the vermin subsequently scratched her? It was hard to tell if her heart had stopped beating when I wasn't so sure she had one to being with. She seemed too … well, alive.

There were obvious changes from the Louise of old. This version was no longer groomed and coiffured. She wore a black shirt underneath the strange coat that looked like it once belonged to a man. Her legs were clad in trousers with stripes made of dirt smears, and scuffed black boots encased her feet. The whites of her eyes were either bloodshot or had changed to red. I couldn't tell which, but the effect made me shudder. Her hair was tangled and wild, but I couldn't deny the predatory intelligence peering out from her bloody gaze.

Louise tilted her head as she stared at me. The action reminded me of a crow that watched a mouse and waited for the right moment to swoop down and break its back with its beak or claws. "I am more than I used to be. Mother's bite created something new within me. I am unique, yet still eternal. I am the right hand of our queen."

Unique was something I bet the army scientists would love to get their hands on. One of the Turned, but suspended between life and their undead state. The daughter of their queen in every way. Louise was vermin, but had retained her intelligence. We would need to coin a new name just for her. Pariah? Rodent? There were so many epithets that I could attach to her new condition.

"Louise, wish I could say it's a pleasure, but it's not. You're looking terrible, does Giselle no longer do house calls?" Seth had the aristocratic ability to ask a painfully polite question while disembowelling you verbally. Giselle was a French hairdresser who was famous in our region for her styling. Something Louise was in desperate need of, given her tangled and matted locks.

My step-sister squinted and her mouth opened, but no words came out. She always was a bit slow to catch a barb and sling it back. "I am at the forefront of an entirely new style. Magazines will be devoted to my look."

"Gardening magazines, perhaps," Seth murmured. "You look worthy of a double page spread about things dug up behind the privy."

I snorted and bit the inside of my mouth. Fortunately, Louise hadn't heard. There was no need to antagonise her too much, for she did hold Alice. We could stand around and snipe at each other, or continue on our rescue mission.

"Still retain your aspirations to grandeur, I see," Seth said in a louder tone.

Louise cackled, a dry sound like breaking twigs. "I once dreamed of being your duchess, but now I am royalty. My mother commands legions, and soon all of England will bow to her rule. On that day, I can have whatever hairdresser I want and my pick of couture gowns."

Somehow I doubted the House of Worth would rush to dress vermin. Clothes didn't hang well on skeletons; they would look like bags of bones wrapped in tea towels. But hopefully her delusions meant she had given up on recruiting Seth for their undead family. Mrs Linton had whispered that they needed more. Now we had it confirmed, Elizabeth sought to be the vermin Queen of England. We should have known. She always aspired for more. If she succeeded in toppling King Edward, would she stop at England's border or seek to style herself vermin empress of the world?

Frank pushed to the front. "I always told Seth to steer clear of you, that you were a mad bint. You're certainly touched in the head if you think you will win this war. Now where's Alice?"

Louise's gaze narrowed as she swung her head to Frank. "Ah. Another bastard servant. I don't normally talk to those so far beneath me, but I do so want the games to begin. The kitchen maid is waiting for her chum to rescue her. In our garden."

She stepped to one side and gestured with her hand to the island, surrounded by the silvery water. I squinted in the low light at what Louise called their garden. There seemed to be a narrow walkway from the main cavern across to the island. The small isle was a mad landscape of twisted trees and monstrous hedges. The entire mass appeared impenetrable; there was certainly no sight of Alice.

"Right then." Frank stepped toward the tangled island.

"Not you. Only Eleanor steps on the island." Louise held her hand higher and a low hiss rumbled from the cavern. Shapes slid from the nooks and crannies dotted along the sides of the cave. Shadows slunk over the ground and flowed toward us. Highlighted from above by the glow worms, vermin scuttled to Louise's command like kicked dogs crawling on their bellies.

"We should have bought more supplies." I reached for Seth's hand. We were grossly outnumbered, and I wished we had brought his flamethrowers loaded up with Greek fire. I had changed my mind about his quiet approach; burning this lot to the ground first now seemed preferable. If only I could walk backwards and rewind time and convince him otherwise.

"Do you plan to kill us all, then?" Seth asked my nemesis.

I stared at him, willing him to be quiet with my mind. Why did he have to give her ideas?

Louise laughed, and the vermin at her feet chortled in answer. They still didn't stand, but crouched or sat behind her. Waiting.

"You make it sound so callous. It wouldn't be killing you. Think of it as liberation from mortal concerns, or a transformation to a higher state. But he is not required." She waved a hand at Frank and the mass behind her slithered closer. Then a lump broke off and undulated along the ground to encircle us.

At that point, I realised we were a man down. Jake should have been standing next to Frank. But he wasn't. I glanced around but couldn't spot his form in the blue-lit gloom. I bit my tongue, no point in calling attention to the fact the private was on the loose.

Seth stepped close to Louise, as though he would embrace her. "Nobody touches my man."

Louise laughed. "My mother's army outnumbers you a hundred to one. And what does it matter anyway? He will soon be one of us. I only need you and the scullery maid to keep me entertained. You cannot stop us."

Seth pulled something from his pocket. "I beg to differ, old girl."

"What's that?" She squinted in the false twilight.

"Grenade, old thing. If any of your filthy undead bite, scratch, or otherwise touch Frank, I'm going to pull the pin, shove this in your chest cavity, and send you straight to Hell. Do we understand each other?" He held up the green apple and caressed the silver pin with one finger.

Any man who tells Louise he is going to replace her heart with a live grenade can most certainly have mine.

Louise took a step back, her wary gaze locked on the grenade. "There's no need for such extreme actions, Seth. We were practically engaged after all. But if the servant means so much to you, then very well, you may keep him. For now."

For now. There was a reminder I didn't want to hear. We knew we were walking into a trap, but I had hoped to rescue Alice before we were drowned under a tide of vermin. When would they surge forward and attack us? I wished I had moved things along faster with Seth if I was going to die here. He still owed me an explosive night.

"Eleanor, what about Alice?" Frank bounced on the balls of his feet. If he had to wait any longer, he was going to throw himself into Louise's vermin ocean and try to swim to the island.

"I thought you wanted to play a game, Louise? Does Elizabeth instruct you to end us so soon? I wonder why she bothered with the note." My words were a risk, but years of being tormented by these women had taught me they liked to see me suffer, and they’d prolong it however they could.

Alive, dead, or undead, it seemed Elizabeth still very much controlled her daughter's actions. Louise's back straightened and one eye twitched. A line of black crept from the side of her head, slid through the red iris and disappeared toward the bridge of her nose. "She will go. Mother does so want to see her struggle and fail. Again. You two will stay with me." Louise overcame her fear of the grenade and reached out and stroked Seth's cheek.

My hand itched for my blade; I wanted to sever her arm for touching him. All she had to do was nick his skin and my boyfriend would be her undead plaything. I wondered why she didn't. What held her back?

"Mother wants to talk to you about your future. Every queen needs a consort, and your blood makes you the perfect candidate," her tone lowered as though she shared a lover's confidence with Seth.

Seth held his position but arched one eyebrow. "Lady Jeffrey is a little old for my taste, but thanks for thinking of me, old girl."

Louise laughed. "Not for mother, oh no. We have such grand plans, and you are woven into them."

"Remember Alice," Frank hissed between clenched teeth. "We need to get to Alice."

"Her and no one else. This is a solo game." Louise pointed to me.

"Ella is not going on her own," Frank said. He couldn't help himself and he pulled his machete free of the scabbard on his back.

"Oh yes, she is." The mass encircling Louise rose as the vermin struggled to their feet. They were slow and cumbersome, but there were only three of us and at least a hundred of them.

Seth seemed unconcerned, but he must have noticed Jake was absent. I prayed a vermin hadn't grabbed him from behind. I squinted into the half-light but couldn't see his familiar shape within range. I couldn't really shout out to Seth, Hey, where's our other soldier gone?

Frank swore under his breath and he rocked on the balls of his feet. Seth put a hand out to restrain his half-brother. "Have faith in Ella. We have our own mission to complete."

Seth wrapped one arm around my waist and buried his other hand in my hair. Then he kissed me hard. A rough tangling of our lips and a scrape of our teeth, as though we were parting forever. The vermin's sibilant hiss started with Louise and rolled around us.

He pulled back and touched his forehead to mine. "Be safe, Ella. I love you."

"I—" I really meant to say it back to him. A thousand times in my head, I had admitted my feelings for Seth, but those blasted words wouldn't make it over my twisted tongue.

A sad smile touched his lips. "Tell me later, if you are so inclined."

So inclined? I loved him—truly, madly, deeply. I just couldn't articulate that under pressure.

"How touching. You do take your philanthropic work so seriously, your grace," Louise spat out as her minions likewise made the noise of a colony of cats spitting up hairballs.

Philanthropic work? I was no charity. Jealous woman wouldn't know true love if it speared her through the chest. Which gave me an idea, perhaps I could stab a few holes in Louise to see what happened, and then go rescue Alice.

"Hurry, Eleanor. Alice is ever so lonely and vulnerable over there." Louise laughed and then took Seth by the arm, as though they headed through to dinner.

As Frank walked past me, he whispered, "Hard to say those words, isn't it, when you realise how much they mean and how important someone is."

This time I was the one left swallowing air like a goldfish; no retort would spring to my tongue because he was right. He didn't need to rub it in, though. I let out a sigh, touched my sword hilt for luck, and refocused my mind after the turmoil Seth's words had created.

I've taken a lot of difficult walks. Turning my back on my mother's grave after her funeral. The one from the local policeman's cell to the smithy to dispose of those first few vermin. The walk from the kitchen to the stables the night of the ball.

Taking one last look at Seth and stepping into a vermin ocean was another long walk to add to my tally. They parted before me, as though Moses had raised his staff. They reformed behind me with slithers and groans, closing me in. I could only move forward, not back.

Getting back out with Alice would be problematic. Not to mention I might also have to now rescue Seth and Frank. I hoped Jake was using his connection to his brother to send an emergency message. We needed Lieutenant Bain to charge down the tunnel with reinforcements before it was too late.