The Better to See

Chapter 9: Vermeille

She and Lucas stared at each other for a moment, and then they were hurrying forward. Vermeille forgot her weariness, forgot her father, forgot everything that had happened, in favor of running toward the fire. And home.

They rounded the last corner together and ground to a halt. Rustless Red's was burning. There were flames licking through the windows of the shop on the bottom floor. The red glow in the upper windows grew brighter, and soon the fire was in her rooms upstairs as well.

Dazed, Vermeille considered the buildings to either side. They would go up soon as well. There were probably people in some of them. "We should get them out," she heard herself suggest.

"Yes," Lucas agreed, and they ran again.

The next several hours were a haze of smoke and panic. Vermeille pounded on doors, and when that wasn't enough, threw herself against them. She broke at least one window. She dragged her neighbors from their beds and rushed them to the street. At some point, she saw Jamie the Butcher furiously wrenching at one of the old hydrants and pointing others with buckets toward the edges of the flames. It might at least slow things down.

When the fire had died down, Vermeille realized that nearly half the block was smoldering. Her neighbors stood in clusters on the walk, red-eyed and coughing. Jamie and her slapdash crew of firefighters sat wearily staring at the remains of the buildings they'd tried to save.

For a moment, Vermeille couldn't find Lucas, and she panicked. Had he been inside when the fire came for one of the buildings?

"Vermeille."

She almost didn't recognize his voice, it was so harsh with smoke. He was standing in front of the Earring, staring down at the sidewalk.

"Vermeille, come here," he rasped.

She went to where he stood. In the dim light she could make out dark writing on the ground. With growing dread, she read it out loud. "The better to... the better to what?"

"There's no more words," said Lucas. He held up a closed hand. "But this was sitting right there at the end."

She held out her hand and he dropped something into her palm. It was a necklace of some kind. She squinted at it. A silver locket.

Her mother's.

With one fingernail she pried it open. The picture inside, of herself and her mother together at her matriculation from Jane Marston's, was gone. In its place was a tiny piece of paper that said in exquisite caligraphy, eat.

What remained of the Vermeille that was only a gearist vanished in a cold flood down her body.

"This was wrapped around it," Lucas said, handing her a plain white handkerchief. It was a little singed around the edges.

The old Vermeille would have been incapacitated by shock and grief. She could feel the corner of her mind where that part of her would have been quivering, but it was empty. The new Vermeille, who had taken the knife and killed the Frenchman, and who was not going to let them take her mother, was thinking.

"We'll need to go to her apartment," Vermeille said. "There might be something there. Maybe Andrew saw something, although I hate to rely on him. Lucas, does the Earring happen to have a welding torch?"

Lucas frowned. "A torch?"

"Or a soldering iron would do, in a pinch. You have a hand generator, don't you?"

"Yes, and probably a soldering iron, why?"

Vermeille turned the handkerchief over in her hands. "Let's get a little cleaned up in the Earring, and we can grab a few things. Thank you, Jamie. Can we use your butcher shop?"