Lena shoved to her feet, fierce anger blazing in her eyes. Leo caught her before she leaped for the duchess, her fingers curled into fists. “Someone threatened me,” Lena hissed. “Told me to destroy the prince consort’s alliance with the Scandinavian verwulfen clans or they’d hurt my brother Charlie. Someone in the Ivory Tower, a humanist who was also a blue blood. It was you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” The duchess stilled. “Although I made a farce of supporting the Scandinavian alliance, it was deemed dangerous to the cause. We didn’t wish the prince consort to have an alliance with anyone. We were trying to cut his political opportunities out from under him.”

Tears gleamed in Lena’s eyes. “You bitch.”

“I never intended to hurt the boy,” Mina said softly, looking up at Leo. “It was…a gambit. I needed her cooperation for just a little longer…”

“I believe you,” he said, catching Lena against his chest. “Lena, we don’t have time to hold grudges.” He stroked her cheek. “I trust the duchess. I have to.”

“Thank you,” Mina murmured.

“Don’t think you’re forgiven.” Lena glared.

“If she gets us out o’ this mess,” Blade said, “then she’ll ’ave earned me forgiveness.” He looked up. “But not before it.”

Mina picked the cat up again and curled her face into the top of Puss’s head, seeking refuge with her one ally in the room. Leo settled Lena back into her chair. She had been verwulfen for only a year. Trying to adjust to the changes in her body was difficult at times, particularly controlling the fierce emotions that a verwulfen was prone to suffer.

“Sun’s goin’ to come up soon and Morioch’s gonna ’it us with everythin’ ’e ’as,” Blade continued. “I’m more interested in the part where you show us ’ow to defeat ’im.”

“She means the Cyclops automatons,” Lena said. “The ones Mercury wanted me to create last year.”

“Thought you said there weren’t enough of ’em,” Blade said. “That Mercury ceased her activities with only a little over a ’undred or so.”

“There aren’t enough,” Mina interrupted. “Not in Mercury’s quadrant, but Mercury—or Rosalind Lynch, rather—was not the only one creating them for me. We needed a figurehead, someone to rouse the people, and so the legend of Mercury was created. In secret we had other humanist cells quietly at work in other quadrants of the city. Mercury was not aware of them.”

“So why ain’t you attacked yet?” Blade asked.

“We have the Cyclops, but we don’t have the men to handle them,” she replied. “Rosalind’s decision to ‘retire’ from the position of Mercury, following her marriage to Lynch, has been a recent setback. Mercury drew men to the humanist banner and gave the masses something to cheer for.” Mina took a deep breath, meeting Leo’s eyes. “We were planning to be at full strength within the next two years, but I’m taking a risk here. You have men”—this at Blade—“and the Nighthawks if we can free them. You also have a figurehead. Every human man, woman, and child knows the name of the Devil of Whitechapel. All you’d need to do is rise up against the prince consort and they’d follow you. The mob has always been something the prince consort fears.”

“And in return?” Blade asked. “What do you get?”

“Precisely what we want. The prince consort overthrown, preferably dead, and the queen on the throne, ruling as she was always meant to rule.”

“The people like her, but support’s been waning the last few years,” Leo pointed out quietly. “Over some of the decisions she’s made.”

“They were never her decisions,” Mina shot back fiercely. “If the Devil of Whitechapel storms into the Ivory Tower and then bends knee before her…they’ll yield. And she can earn their trust the hard way.”

“Is she strong enough to do it? All of us at court know she dabbles with laudanum.”

Mina’s cheeks flushed. “She will give it up. It simply…it eases her burden at times. You don’t know what he’s like behind closed doors.” This time she included the whole room in her glance. “He takes out every slight and challenge he receives on her. When Blade defeated Vickers because she gave him the chance…there were so many bruises. I will never atone for that. For leaving her there to face that. For telling her not to defy him. For not killing him when I have had the chance.” Head bowing, she whispered, “How could I ask her to give up the one thing that gives her relief when there is no end in sight?”

This was not simply an alliance between two powerless women, Leo realized. “You love her.”

“More than anything. She is my dearest friend, my only friend. The sister that I never had.”

Those shining eyes told him everything about her reasons.

“If I send you off with a bunch o’ the lads, you think you can use the Cyclops to defeat Morioch?” Blade asked.

“Can you hold the rookery until we return?” she asked.

Blade narrowed his eyes. “I’ll ’ave to, won’t I?”

Tension thickened in the air. Leo turned to Lena. “In aid of that, I have a question for you.”

“Yes?” his sister asked.

“What do you know about frequencies?”

Twenty-one

Twilight settled over the city, smoky-edged and restless. The sun was a molten ball in the sky as it sank, casting the west into a dirty orange smudge through the haze. If Mina looked hard enough, she could just make out the needlelike spire of the Ivory Tower. All of the fires in the city had been put out during the day, except for the one near the Nighthawks’ guild headquarters. The fires were signs of rebellions crushed and dampened in other parts of the city, no doubt.

Hold on, she whispered to herself. Just hold on, Alexa. I’m coming to get you.

“Your body armor’s ready,” a smooth voice murmured behind her.

Just the sound of it sent a shiver across her skin. Mina turned, seeking Barrons out in the shadows of the room. Once a prison, now it seemed a haven of sorts. It was easier to let down her guard here when there were just the two of them. Especially now that she’d revealed everything. It created an intimate little silence between them, the vague beginnings of trust she’d thought long gone.