A Cold Legacy by Megan Shepherd Page A

for me, and she’d taken me to Whitechapel and pointed out the vagrants with frostbitten toes. It was the first time I understood what wealth meant, and how devastating it would be if we ever lost it.
    I stared at Montgomery, transfixed, our earlier argument forgotten. “Do you really think I could take after her instead of my father?” I couldn’t keep the hope from my voice. It was a possibility that had never occurred to me before. I flexed my cold fingers, feeling warmth flooding into them for the first time in what felt like years.
    His expression softened. “You already do take after her. You just can’t see it.”
    I looked down at my hands’ slender tapering and pale color. Why hadn’t I noticed before how identical they were to my mother’s? How much of me besides that was like her, that I’d ignored all this time? Father’s shadow stretched so long that it had hidden any other paths I might have in life.
    â€œJuliet, promise me you’ll think more about being like her. Especially in light of what we’ve seen tonight. It worries me, you being in a house full of experimentation.”
    My mother had her faults, but she’d loved me. She’dtaken care of me. She’d obeyed Scripture and visited orphans and knit socks for prisoners and never once crossed the line into immoral science.
    I took a deep breath. Yes, my mother’s blood was also in my veins. She would help ground me as we faced whatever Elizabeth was doing in that tower laboratory.
    â€œI promise.”

TEN
    E LIZABETH REMAINED LOCKED IN the tower with Hensley all that night and into the next day. Montgomery and I waited for her to emerge, watching from the window at the far end of the hallway as the sun came up and then started to sink again. I couldn’t stop thinking about my mother and the possibility of following her path instead of Father’s. Memories of her filled the hours while we waited: Mother helping me decorate the Christmas tree, giving me my first pair of dancing slippers, reading me stories at night.
    At last, the door creaked open.
    I jumped up, brushing the hair out of my eyes. Elizabeth stood in the doorway, wiping her hands on a towel. She wore the green dress from the night before, but without the grand fur cloak she looked less like Queen of the Fairies and more like a worried mother.
    â€œI expected you’d want some answers,” she said. McKenna appeared in the doorway behind her, a basket of bloody clothes in her arms, and started down the stairs.She paused when she reached me.
    â€œKeep an open mind, little mouse,” she said. “This is a peaceful house. None of us, the mistress included, have a cruel bone in our bodies.” She looked at the floor and hurried down the hallway.
    The line of electric lights winding up the stone stairs flickered.
    â€œHow is Hensley?” I asked quietly.
    Elizabeth smiled. “He’ll be causing trouble again in a few days, no doubt.”
    Montgomery folded his arms across his chest. “We need to know the truth about him.”
    â€œYes—well, it seems you shall have it, whether I wish to tell you or not.” She sighed, coming down the stairs. “Let’s talk in the observatory. I’m exhausted, and the stars always have a way of putting me to sleep. Come.”
    I didn’t bother to mention that dusk was only now falling, and the stars weren’t out yet. She led us down the stairs and through winding hallways that all looked the same, then back up another set of stairs with a new runner and freshly polished brass sconces. The observatory was a tall room with a glass ceiling in the northern tower. The collection of astronomical equipment was impressive: heavy silver sextants, a telescope, a library full of star charts. Elizabeth walked over to a globe of the constellations and swung it open to reveal a hidden compartment.
    She took out a bottle of Les Étoiles gin and