Who: Una Nicnevin and Arabella Ward What: A rescue is achieved When: ... ends on February 21 1889 Where: ... ends in Hampstead, London Warnings: None, we are respectable ladies here!
Arabella felt as though she had been climbing for hours.
She had not been able to reach Zipporah, though she thought, optimistically, that Zipporah had seen her, had recognized Arabella calling for her. She had been trying to recall the faerie stories given to her by Adrien Green, but all she could think of was Persephone in the Underworld, and though her throat was parched now, she dared not catch any drop of water that fell from the icicles above.
Climbing kept her warm, at least--she did not mind the cold, but she knew it could still kill her if she stopped moving and fell asleep, without her minding it at all. It did not feel cold enough to be dangerous, but then everything might be dangerous, in Faerie.
She had not seen anyone else. Whatever window her blood had opened had closed again, and no other had appeared, nor any door for her to step through and back into the human world.
Arabella did not dwell overlong on the word ‘human’ not applying to her any longer. It would not benefit her in any way to do so.
After a time, she became half-convinced that the stairs went on forever, that she would climb them until she lost hope and hurled herself off, but Arabella was a practical person, and this explanation did not sit well with her. Stairs existed to lead from one place to another. She had started in one place; she would end in another. She only had to reach it.
It was not as easy to find someone in the realms of Winter as it ought to be, or so Una thought. At least she'd met Arabella Ward and thus had a better way to find her than sheer guesses. The results of her divinations had brought her to the Stair and now she was coming down, looking for Miss Ward, and hoping that nothing and no-one unfortunate had found Miss Ward first.
Finally she saw the figure beneath her and redoubled her efforts, physical and magical, to reach the girl. How long had she been climbing to no effect? The stairs did not always go to the right place if you didn't know where you were going, and it wasn't as if you could get back to where you started if you turned round either. Una hadn't realised how worried she was until she felt the relief of seeing Miss Ward.
"Hullo," she called down, in English, not her own language. Many Sidhe could speak some variation on English, but most of them knew it as a second or third or fourth or fifth language (as Una did). They'd not respond as quickly as a native speaker like Miss Ward.
Arabella stopped quite still at the appearance of the woman, who was beautiful in an eerie, frightening way, and wearing something like a nightgown, or a costume from an old medieval painting. She thought she might be in more danger, now, but part of her was also relieved not to be completely alone, even if this new person presented a threat.
Fleeing was not an option--where would she run, down the stairs until she fell, broke her neck, and died? but Arabella didn't know how one addressed one of the fair folk, even if she had just cut her teeth on the unusual Mr Mac. Remembering how nervous and worried Mr Parkinson had been didn't reassure Arabella that any of these beings couldn't snuff her out without a second thought, if they chose. Or if she made an error.
Choosing silence as the wisest course, Arabella edged her feet around on the step as best she could and sunk into a low courtesy, bowing her head, as if she were being presented to the Queen.
For all she knew, she might be.
"Oh, do get up child," Una said impatiently, for all that she not-particularly-secretly enjoyed being bowed and scraped to. "We've met so it's not as if this sort of thing is necessary. You are the one called Arabella Ward and when we met, I was called Una Nicnevin. A mutual acquaintance told me that I needed to come fetch you and take you back to London."
Arabella's eyes went wide with surprise. She knew the name--Una Nicnevin had been a client...
...one who'd responded to an advertisement she'd seen in The Shade, and with an iron allergy. Arabella's certainty in what that meant, for her as well as others, only grew.
"Mr Mac?" Arabella asked, because who else might it have been, besides Mr Parkinson, if he'd been told? Her second question, on the heels of the first, was, "Did you know about me, when we met?"
"I'd been told of you. It's not wise to say more here. Now come along and we'll go back to London and see how long it's been since you left." Una reached out to take Arabella's hand, still rather impatiently. "Nobody expected this, least of all me, so everyone is worried. Including at least one other mutual friend--" and before Arabella could make a fatal mistake, Una added, "--hush, no names!"
Arabella had to make a choice in that moment, to trust or not trust, but in her limited experience, one who offered something without asking anything either meant good or ill, and in this circumstance Arabella was inclined to believe it was good.
She nodded, her lips pressed together, and took the faerie woman's hand.
Arabella had not thought of time passing differently, or if she had, it was to believe her own mind losing track of minutes and hours as she remained underground, in the blue glow of the icy cavern. Now she remembered the stories of those spending a day or a week in Faerie and returning to find themselves grown old or mourned as dead, and she could only hope her father did not believe her lost to him.
What would she tell him, if she returned? Anything at all? Was he faerie too? He must be, or else...
...or else you are a changeling, she heard again in her mind, but if that were true, then she had to wonder what had become of her parents' child, and of her own true parents.
There were places along the Stair where it was safe to pass through and others where it was dangerous. Una led Arabella back up to a landing that she'd passed not so long ago, and from there pushed through: not without resistance, but Una was a strong creature. She could pass through where the lesser kin would simply be blocked, and moreover bring Arabella through with her.
Though Una had less control than usual of where she landed, which proved to be, with a thump, the springs of Tyburn. At least it was night here, or so the dark sky showed. They were in water up to their ankles. At least it was pleasantly chilly. "Are you quite all right, Miss Ward? That was a difficult transition, moreso than usual." She would have to tell Mac about it; pulling Arabella through had been harder work than she'd expected, even with the thickened veils.
Arabella stared around herself, feeling not afraid, but somehow distanced, as if she could no longer rationally process and record her experiences, no longer trust her own senses. She began to shiver, but didn't feel cold, only disoriented.
It hadn't been night when she'd gone. It must be hours later now.
She hoped it was only hours.
Arabella had never thought to walk through a wall, although she had touched the cavern walls, and the stairs, so perhaps it would have made no difference if she had tried. She still couldn't properly describe, even to herself, how they had passed through.
Arabella realized that her corset was still broken, and that water was climbing rapidly up her skirts and would soak her through in minutes if she didn't move, but Mrs Nicnevin had asked her a question, so she said only, "I wasn't harmed." It seemed a more honest answer than being well, or fine. Arabella closed her hand around the sting and throb in her palm, and clarified, "Not badly." She turned her hand over to examine the cut from the lava rock, now smeared dully with dried, flaking blood.
She wasn't certain she was allowed to ask questions yet--for all she knew, they might not be fully away--but since Mrs Nicnevin seemed more at ease than she had been, Arabella risked asking, "How did you know where to find me? Where was I?"
"You were on the Stair in the Winter Court, and I knew you were in the Courts because Conall--your Mr Mac--told me you had gone. And I found you on the Stair on my own," Una answered. She stepped carefully out of the spring. "And we arrived here because the veils are thick. I should have preferred to arrive in my own home. One of them. You'll stay under my care tonight and we'll contact your father tomorrow once we have a better idea of the situation. Tell me, what do you see when you look at me now?"
Mrs Nicnevin looked the same, to Arabella's eyes--but not, she realized, as she had appeared before. There was nothing of the plain, middle-aged housewife about her now...though neither was there the same frightening radiance Arabella had seen in the cavern, and her dress had changed.
"You've changed," Arabella answered. "You're...not the same as you were before, either time." No, she realized in sudden dawning epiphany, but the woman before her did look familiar, still. It wasn't even her face that Arabella recognized--it was all of her, somehow, an overall impression like a seal impressed on wax. "You're Balmore," she said aloud, dazed anew by the connection. "Fortuna. From the masquerade."
Arabella had many more questions to ask, but the mention of her father overrode them all. "I can't be away overnight without word--my father will be frantic, he'll call Scotland Yard. My reputation..." Arabella could well imagine a woman like Balmore sniffing at such a concern, but if Arabella were gone overnight without word and a search called in, it would be in the papers, and all her father's associates would hear of it, and - most critical of all - her father would worry. Arabella could not in good conscience cause him such fear.
"It has already happened or not. You may have been gone weeks already, in which case he has already contacted Scotland Yard. And if the Countess Ravensworth says you have been in the Courts, none will gainsay me. But," she added, seeing that Arabella was truly worried, "if it has not yet been so long, we can send word."
Una hoped it had been more than one night, and that she did not have to tell Arabella's father where she had been. Someone had put Arabella in the man's care; Una did not know who or why just yet. And under the circumstances, she had trouble thinking good of whoever had done it.
"Yes, of course," Arabella murmured, feeling dazed again at the prospect of being so displaced. Did Zipporah know she was missing? Was she missing at all, yet?
Arabella pulled herself together and out of the water, which had reached her waist during the time she'd stood there unmoving, and now sloshed around her legs and poured off the hem of her dress as she emerged.
"Countess Ravensworth," Arabella echoed a moment later, wondering. "How many people are you?"
"Many, and so are you, even though you don't know them yet. You are of the Winter Court, and a Sidhe lady. And the names I use in this place are legion, but they are all tied to me: Una Nicnevin, Baroness Balmore, more recently by marriage Una Corbet, Countess Ravensworth. But I have been Una Nicnevin among mortals for centuries, though that is not the only name I've used, and I've held title to Balmore from the Kings of Scotland for--" she paused, thoughtful "--five or six hundred years, I think? I lose track after a while, and anyhow that is how I am generally called. And I am glad your Sight has been restored to you. I cannot glamour you dry so easily, though Mac could if he were here; but you will take no discomfort from the water and nobody will notice that you are wet. Or that I am."
Arabella mistrusted the word 'lady'; it was a world she was not entirely divorced from, given her father's work and class, but it was still far beyond her reach. As far beyond her reach as Mrs Nicnevin - Countess Ravensworth - Balmore - casually speaking of holding a title for six hundred years.
Arabella was a practical person. She was rarely afraid; she made no fuss as it would not serve any useful purpose. Her father said she'd been nearly silent, as a baby.
(She chose not to think of that now.)
To say that in this moment, sopping wet and pulled through a wall and with hunger having carved out a pit in her stomach and thirst cracking her lips, Arabella Ward felt she might become hysterical, was not so distant an idea as anyone who knew her might have suspected.
"I am ready to go," she said instead, as calmly as she could manage, and found herself grateful that they would not be returning to her father and their disapproving housekeeper, where she would have to account for herself and explain matters and not have a moment alone.
"La, then let us." Una gestured to Arabella to walk with her, and as Arabella moved closer, she glamoured the girl so that she appeared to be fresh and dry, and that anyone not of a special nature would not notice them at all. And if anyone did, well, Una would just commandeer their coach and they would get home a little faster. It was going to take more than an hour by foot, and Miss Ward would want a hot bath afterwards.
Una would want a cold one, and a cold dinner. but a hearty one.
Arabella tried to order the questions in her mind somewhat, and settled on one that was not so important, but seemed a prelude to others, and perhaps enlightening. "Did you know me, when you met me?" She caught sight of her hands as she lifted her sodden skirts and stared at her fingers, which seemed bone-pale, too long, too thin, and another question came to her. "Do I look as you do?"
"Somewhat, yes, though nobody will notice that just now. Someone set a human glamour on you and it is now broken," Una explained. She still carried herself like a queen even if she was walking through Hampstead in what appeared to be a damp nightgown in the evening. "Your own features are what they are, but no longer mortal. Less of clay and rock and more of wind and ice." Those terms were not metaphorical.
"And yes," Una added, "I knew what you were when I met you. I would have revealed myself then, but your father prevented it, accidentally. Although knowing what I know now, I suspect you would not have believed me then." Now, Una thought, Arabella could not deny it.
"My father never said," Arabella explained, though it was a weak argument. "Surely he must have known. Or my mother...?"
A mother who had not been able to pass on what she knew to her daughter, and so it was Balmore...her faerie godmother, Arabella thought somewhat dizzily, looking out for her from afar, blinking in and out of her life. Rescuing her from an underwater cavern filled with ice.
"Did you know my mother?" Arabella asked, while Balmore still seemed to have patience for her questions. It would fit; one parent lost, and a relative gained. "You said you believed we were related, once."
"Because you are of the Winter Court, which makes us kin at some distance. I do not know your parents--your parents in the Court. Nor do I know why you were given up, or taken, nor how you ended up with Mr Ward, who has fostered you. I do not," Una added, "think he is the one who sired you, though he has done you a father's office."
That silenced Arabella--even knowing that she wasn't human hadn't taken her father from her, not as casually as Balmore just had. Everything she was, she owed to him; to his support and teaching and guidance.
"Do you believe he knows?" That would be the only betrayal she thought might undo her, that her father might have watched her quest after a metal intolerance while knowing already what plagued her. She could still believe he might have reasons for keeping the truth from her, ones she might even understand, but she hoped it was not the case.
Una, whose familial relationships were distant by necessity, had to stop and think about that. "I cannot say absolutely, but it seems likely that you were meant to be concealed from all mortals. And if that is true, he would not have known. I don't think he disturbed us deliberately; his interference there appears to have been an accident." That the mortal, like the child, could have been glamoured or more to force behaviours out of him was not a point Una wanted to elaborate on with Arabella just now. That was a discussion reserved for others until Una had considered her own sense of the matter.
Arabella nodded, and lapsed into silence for a time as they walked, until she decided to ask one question more. It was a needy question, so she did not like it, but it was one whose answer might inform her when she found herself at loose ends.
"What do I do now?"
Una turned to look at her. "What do you want to do?"
Arabella considered that. The variables had changed, but she had more information now than before, a foundation on which to build, even if it was in a new direction.
"What I was already doing," Arabella decided. "My work. My experiments. Learning about my...magic."
She would need to talk with Zipporah. Zipporah knew far more than Arabella did about this world she'd stumbled into; Zipporah would be able to advise her.
That wasn't really what Arabella had meant when she'd asked, though. The idea of being taken from somewhere wasn't a pleasant one, but Balmore had spoken as if Arabella was already like her, made up of glamours and titles and faces. As if she belonged. Her real question, then, was, "Should I be doing something else?"
"You'll need to learn about the intricacies of the Courts if you hope to go there on your own in the future," Una said, "but I reside in the mortal realms, and am not alone in that choice. So you ought to at some point, but you have time." Una smiled at the girl, not unkindly. "Also at some point we ought to work out the story of your origins, but that will not be a simple task. You may wish to have more experience of life and power before you seek out your sire and dam."
Arabella nodded at the wisdom of that, the practicality she found so reassuring. There were things to worry about now, and things to worry about later. The story of her origins, as Balmore so tactfully put it, could wait a while yet. For now, she would put one foot in front of the other as she had been on the long, unending staircase; and at the end of her journey, she would sleep.