Prelude (Underworld Lucian Fanfiction)

52 - Chapter LII: The Scent of Fear

Back in the London Den. 23rd of April 1900.

When she woke, Reinette could feel the last moments of her dream fading from her mind. Snow, ice and water bearing her across the sky. The wind rushing against her palm and before her, a ship sweeping across the harbour. She had been a creature of the sea. Her wings fashioned of oak and iron, bearing her aloft until she fell from a great height. Pain burning into her side as the eyes of a great storm struck her down with fury.

She raised her neck. Her eyes adjusting to a familiar darkness. Her muscles aching as though she had been dragged across rocks and sand during her sleep. She hesitated and then reached her hand out, drawing the edge of the bed-curtain and looking beyond it to her surroundings, feeling her way with sight before touch.

She was back.

The room just as she remembered it. The rosewood desk by the boarded-up window, the mahogany wardrobe in the corner, the low-backed chairs fit for a lady of the times. Someone had removed the travelling box, but she could see the edges where it had sat upon the carpet. Even the carpet was familiar to her. Green with a pattern of tulips and lilies. Her books stacked on the desk and beside them, a more ominous leaving: a single blanket and a pair of woolen breeches folded over a matching shirt. All of it worn and grey, showing the holes from when she had crawled upon the ground. Clothing suited to a poverty-stricken miner, a creature of the earth.

Reluctantly, she looked down at her chest, the soft linen that she wore, and then pushed the blankets back, touching her toes to the thick carpet and walking to the wardrobe. Pulling the doors open and staring at the clothing within. The skirts and dresses, the long coat they had given her in Vienna...

She had been allowed to wear it all during the truce; but it had felt wrong to wear the newest one. The one Allegra had been working on in the two weeks before he sent her to the catacombs. The blood-red silk embroidered up to the neck, the black threads keeping her modesty, while letting the tailoring to do its work. Giving her the appearance of an upper-class woman whose path had never strayed. A lady of wealth, one whose friends were powerful and whose worries were few.

She touched the fabric and then closed the wardrobe, resting her back against the doors. Touching her fingers to her hair and holding the silver strands in front of her. Trying to remember why she hated him. Why she feared her own future; the fate that might occur if she stayed in this place.

For a moment, longing for the drug that he had given her on his ship. The ease with which she had been able to make her decision. Stubbornness now telling her to ready herself for the catacombs. Ready herself to spend the rest of the year surrounded by rocks and rats. Reinette of the rock crawling about in the dark. Soon to be dead, soon to be burned or caught or eaten. Such an obvious choice and yet she could not make it.

Fool, she thought.

Half expecting to feel another dream-like slap of propriety from her Mentor—and then, by chance, bearing witness to something entirely real. Not a slap. But the sight of a folded piece of paper being slipped under her door followed by the tiny pitter-patter of feet running away. So soft that within seconds they were inaudible. Like a ghost touching its toes to the ground for the briefest of seconds before fading into the corridor.

A note.

She circled the paper, hesitating to pick it up. Remembering the stolen pendant and the thief without a scent. For it was not like Sabine to behave in this manner. Her brief meetings with the child enough to expect a bold announcement rather than a written message. Her memories of the Norseman's warning making her wary. Was something about to happen? Was someone trying to warn her?