“Not the professor’s house, is it,” she murmured.
“This is how most of the empire’s citizens live,” Mirriam said. “Many not even this well.”
Karigan nodded, and was immediately sorry she did so when it sent the room spinning around her. She closed her eyes and held herself steady in the doorway. She did not tell Mirriam that this type of privy was what she’d been accustomed to before coming to the professor’s.
She was able to do what she needed without assistance or falling down the hole or taking a nap, though she was powerfully drawn toward sleep. Afterward, Mirriam helped her back to the bed. The blurred vision not only made her balance unwieldy, but also disturbed her stomach, so when Mirriam offered her a simple porridge, she wanted only to decline and curl up in bed.
“If you do not eat,” Mirriam told her, “you will only weaken further. Also, I will not tell you how you came to be here, or anything else that may be of interest to you.”
Karigan gamely took the bowl of porridge. If it came spewing back up, Mirriam would have only herself to blame.
Mirriam pulled a stool over and waited to ensure Karigan had eaten at least two spoonfuls of porridge before she started.
“I was wondering where to begin,” she said, “but I guess beginning at the beginning makes sense. At some point last night—we guess around eleven hour—Arhys snuck out of the house and went to the Inspectors.”
Karigan dropped her spoon into the bowl with a clatter. “She what?”
“Oh, that spoiled girl. I warned the professor many times he was turning her into a little monster, I did, but he wouldn’t listen. He was too soft-hearted, treating her like one of those porcelain dolls he was always giving her. She was apparently so upset at him for her punishment after the atlas incident that she went to the Inspectors and told them the professor had secrets, and secret places into which he could disappear.”
“Mirriam . . .” There was no way to ask the housekeeper without being direct, even if it led to revealing some of those very secrets. “How much do you know?”
“A good deal and quite a bit more since I’ve spoken with Mr. Harlowe.”
“Do you know why the professor took a special interest in Arhys?”
“Yes. I suspected something of the kind, and Mr. Harlowe confirmed it. He felt he needed to confide in Mr. Booth and me if we were to risk ourselves helping the two of you. Frankly, I was already in deep enough to be hanged without a trial.”
“Which opposition group were you, er, involved in?”
“Mr. Harlowe’s, of course. Child, the professor’s group would not pay me a whit of attention. I am a housekeeper so far beneath their notice that I’m not even on par with being a flea on one of their pedigreed dogs. But the professor trusted me with a few of his secrets. I was something of a confidant. He needed someone in the house he could trust totally.”
So, like Cade, she’d been playing both sides. “Did he or Mr. Harlowe tell you about me?” Karigan asked.
Mirriam snorted. “I knew you were no Goodgrave, or any relation of the professor’s from the start. I knew he was sheltering you, but I had no idea why. Just another foundling he took in maybe, and you were peculiar enough that I thought you might have actually been from a madhouse.”
Karigan raised an eyebrow.
“What Mr. Harlowe told me about you explained the peculiarities, though it has not been so easy an explanation to accept. Yes, I know what the brooch you are wearing means, and that you are from . . . the past.”
Karigan’s hand flew to her brooch. She’d forgotten it was there. It was comforting to touch its familiar contours.
“Your porridge, Miss Goodgrave,” Mirriam reminded her. “It will get cold, and I will tell you no more unless you eat.”
Karigan dipped her spoon into the porridge, trying to keep as still as possible to avoid upsetting her stomach even more. She did not know why Mirriam continued to call her Miss Goodgrave when she knew it to be incorrect, but perhaps it was difficult to change old habits.
Mirriam told her how Inspectors had raided the professor’s house after Arhys had gone to them.
“Poor old Grott,” she said. “You and the professor had already disappeared into the mill, and he would not permit the Inspectors in without the professor’s leave. They took him outside and beat him. Beat him horribly. He was an old man, but they had to punish him for standing up to them.”
“Is he—?”
Mirriam looked weary and haunted. “They just let him die there in the yard. They would not let us help him.”
Karigan set her bowl aside. She hadn’t eaten but a few spoonfuls. How could she eat while Mirriam told her such dreadful things? Mirriam did not scold her or stop telling her story. She related how the Inspectors started searching the house, tearing it apart, giving special attention to the library and questioning the staff.
“They took Lorine away.”
“Lorine? Why?” Karigan instantly feared for the former slave. What terrible interrogations might the Inspectors put her through?
“They informed us they planned to send Arhys to Gossham,” Mirriam replied. “We—Mr. Harlowe and I—don’t know why, except that it is possible they somehow learned of her lineage. If that is the case, we don’t know how. At any rate, they took Lorine to be her governess, someone familiar to care for her and handle her. No doubt those Inspectors found Arhys to be, shall we say, trying.” At this last she emitted a dark chuckle then added, “They were about to question me when the fire started.”