“Here now! Unhand me at once!” he insists, but he’s a bit too groggy to struggle.
“Thomas,” I say, removing my gloves, “this will hurt you far more than it will hurt me.”
“What?” he says.
I give him a good, clean punch to the mouth, and Tom is unconscious.
“You’re a hard one,” Fowlson says to me, propping my brother up in the carriage.
I settle my skirts over my legs properly and pull my glove neatly over my aching hand. “You’ve never taken a carriage ride with my brother when he is in such a state, Mr. Fowlson. Trust me, you will thank me for it.”
When Tom has recovered his senses—what sense he has, that is—we sit near the embankment. The streetlamps cast pools of light onto the Thames; they run like wet paint. Tom’s a mess: His collar sticks out like a broken bone, and the front of his shirt is spotted with his blood. He holds a wet handkerchief to his bruised face while stealing glances at me. Each time I meet his gaze, he looks quickly away. I could call on my magic to help me here, to blot all traces of this evening and my powers from his mind, but I decide against it. I’m tired of running. Of hiding who I am to make others happy. Let him know the truth of me, and if it’s too much, at least I shall know.
Tom moves his jaw gingerly. “Ow.”
“Is it broken?” I ask.
“Nuh, jus huhts,” he says, putting the handkerchief to his bloody bottom lip and wincing.
“Don’t you want to talk about it?” I ask.
“Tal’ abou’ wha’?” He glances at me like a frightened animal.
“What just happened.”
He removes the handkerchief. “What is there to discuss? I was given ether, taken to a secret hideaway, bound, and threatened with death. Then my sister, the debutante, who is supposedly away at school learning to curtsy and embroider and order mussels in French, unleashed a force the likes of which I’ve never seen and which cannot be explained by any rational mind or laws of science. I shall commit myself come morning.” He stares out at the murky river that snakes through the heart of London. “It was real, all of it. Wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I say.