Cutting the Strings

Excerpt from Shadow Game, by J. G. Arceneaux, still at large

Saturday, May 16th, 1868
Katherine and Ezekiel's Estate
Beyond St. John's Wood, London

I'd accompanied Katherine, Ezekiel, and Beignet to their estate because they had Evie. She was still unconscious from her injuries when we bundled her up into the carriage with us. Katherine and I held her across our laps for the trip home. Katherine cradled her head and shoulders, the better to heal her further should it be needed, and I held onto Evie's legs, lest she tumble to the floor. Seeing her hurt, burnt and bedraggled, was agony. Having no further need to focus on the mission or survival, my mind was free to replay every move, every mistake I made that led to Evie's injury. How could I have let this happen? I was supposed to cover her safety. Had I done my job properly, she wouldn't now be hovering at death's door and Katherine would not now be risking her own life and the life of her unborn twins healing Evie back.

No, it was not a comfortable ride back to the estate, not by any means. My misery was set quite nicely in place by the time they had Evie tucked into a guest room bed. Katherine spent another precious bit of her energy healing Evie before Ezekiel managed to drag her away to tend to herself. I stayed behind to sit by my partner's bedside, not daring to leave until I was certain she would live. I took her unresisting hand and stroked her velvety head, drying now in the warmth of the room. The fire crackled in the hearth in time to my thoughts, quick and darting and elusive.

Beer halls and taverns. Men and women drinking and laughing. Whispered conversations at tables in the corner or out back by the jakes. The frown behind my father's eyes as he gathered information, information he refused to talk about when I asked. That summer I'd spent as his travelling companion was filled with glimpses of things I did not understand, things that refused to come clear despite my ten years working with William. Until now. Watching the rise and fall of Evie's chest as she breathed, seeing her pulse flutter at her neck, I realized what it was like to fear for another's life, to know that I was responsible for putting Evie in this position. It must have been what my father dreaded for me, that summer long ago as he put the puzzle pieces together and discovered a picture with my possible death in it.

Unlike my father, I had no convenient troupe of performers to take Evie in. I had no way to send her off somewhere for her safety. And in truth, even if I had, Evie would never have stood for it. She would have run away at first chance and come home to rip my head off for the insult. And there lay the conflict. In asking her to be my partner I had to assume responsibility for the consequences of asking, and yet I had to give her the freedom to get into and out of situations as she saw fit. One could not run an agent tied to one's apron strings and Evie had never been suited to them. It was what caught my eye when I first met her, that inner nudge that made me look past her surface, to make my offer that foggy morning in the tea shop. I had known even then I would be risking her life by bringing her into mine. It had been an academic exercise until tonight. Nothing could have prepared me for the bone-deep dread I suffered now. Nothing. I wondered how my father bore it. I wondered if I could.

Stick to the plan, Jo. You know what to do. Those were the last words my father spoke to me before he disappeared. And therein lay my answer. He trusted me. He trusted me to use my talents and my common sense to keep me safe, to get myself out of trouble should the need arise. So the matter was not if I could bear it, but if I trusted Evie to take care of herself. I stroked her cheek and knew deep down in my heart that I did. When she rose from the bed to take on the world, I would not stop her but let her go. But until then, I would hold her hand and stand watch. So it was that Katherine found me some hours later, asleep in my chair still holding Evie's hand, there to roust me to a separate room and a separate bed with the promise to wake me when there was news.

You are reading Josephine's journal. Since any campaign is a collaborative effort, Journal and RP entries by our other players can be read here.

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