"Eee-viee~!"
From tone of Jacob's voice and the way he called her name, Evie Frye knew in an instant that her brother had gotten himself into trouble (again) and needed her help to get out of it (again).
She groaned inwardly, rolled her eyes and closed the book she had been, up to that point, peacefully reading. Just when I thought I was having a perfect Sunday afternoon, she thought.
"What is it now, Jacob," she called back, as her twin entered her train car with a look of pure distress on his face.
"It's your little friend, Miss O'Dea," Jacob muttered, irritation in his voice. "She's been following me around all day, and when I confronted her about it, she avoided the matter the whole time, only to give me this and run off!"
At 'this', he thrust a sprig of fresh red tulips, tied with a ribbon, right under Evie's nose. "What does it mean? Did you have anything to do with this, Evie?"
She stared at the tiny bouquet for a split second, before she broke out into peals of hysterical laughter.
Jacob's brows furrowed in confusion. "What is it," he demanded, "what's so funny?"
Unable to stop laughing, Evie simply slid Henry's book on the Language of Flowers towards Jacob, and tapped the cover as she covered her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle her laughter.
Jacob picked up the book. He flipped the pages quickly until he came to the entry he was looking for. "Red tulips," he muttered, "means a Declaration of Love."
He stared up in slowly-dawning horror at Evie's smug, smiling face.
"Looks like someone is clearly smitten with you," Evie said, in gloating amusement, though she raised an eyebrow a second later. "And I thought Clara was an intelligent girl. There's really no accounting for people's tastes, these days."
No wonder Clara asked to borrow that book last week, she thought, but decided to keep that information to herself.
Jacob groaned. "Normally I'd be flattered by the attention," he admitted, throwing himself unceremoniously onto Evie's well-made bed and scattering cushions everywhere, "but she must have failed to notice I'm considerably past the age of hobby-horses and toy soldiers. Not to mention her little spies are all over the city. I won't be able to carry out missions if brats followed me all over London to pass me bloody flowers."
Evie felt a giggle building at the back of her throat again, and Jacob threw her a warning glare. "Don't," he said. "Please, Evie – she's closer to you, she think of you as a friend. Ask her to stop."
"You got yourself into this mess, Jacob Frye, you get yourself out of it," Evie said unsympathetically, returning to her book.
"But I didn't do anything!" Jacob said with a pout, which would have been endearing to everyone besides his own sister. He buried his face in a pillow. "This time it really isn't my fault."
Evie rolled her eyes, picked up a stray cushion and smacked the back of Jacob's head with it. "I'm not cleaning up after you anymore, that was the bargain," she growled, "now get off my bed and go take Miss O'Dea on a picnic, or something, it's a nice day out."
"That will only encourage her!" Jacob protested as he crawled off the bed. He was silent for a moment, before saying, "D'you think you and Greenie could bring her to India with you?"
"Jacob Frye!" Evie shouted, and Jacob exited the train carriage without another word, recognizing the tone in his sister's voice meant he wasn't getting any help from her today.
Evie sighed and turned back to her book. But she couldn't help but smile to herself, still sadistically amused by her twin's little predicament.
Past events had not yet taught her, however, that Jacob's predicaments usually became her own, sooner or later.
Evie Frye entered her darkened train carriage, completely exhausted.
She had just spent the greater part of the evening hunting down a Blighter leader with a bounty on his head for Frederick Aberline, and the chase led her through at least three different boroughs, involved hijacking a horse carriage, and required the teamwork of several Rooks to track down the madman and finally bring him to Scotland Yard. She was absolutely worn out and was looking forward to a hot cup of tea and several hours of deep sleep.
She was so tired, however, she did not notice at first that her train carriage was otherwise occupied.
A shadow moved out of the corner of Evie's eye, and out of pure instinct, she unsheathed a throwing knife and was ready to hurl it forward – before she noticed Clara O'Dea standing in front of her desk, looking surprised.
"Miss Frye," Clara said, staring up at Evie, "I did not expect you to get back so early."
Evie re-sheathed her throwing knife. "Clara," she said in relief, "Is something the matter?"
Clara blushed, and seemed to struggle for an answer.
Evie merely smiled, and sat the edge of her bed. "Is this about Jacob?" she asked, and Clara's blush deepened.
"I – I was just wondering if I could find out more about him," Clara said with a small embarrassed smile, "you know, things he likes, what sort of colours he likes to wear, how he takes his favourite tea –"
"Brawling and card games even though he'd only good at one of those; red and purple even though he looks terrible in them; and Darjeeling black with sugar, no milk," Evie said in quick succession, counting them off her fingers. "Go on, ask me anything."
Clara absolutely glowed with excitement with these answers. "Oh, you didn't mention any of these things in your diary!" she cried.
Evie's smile quickly fell. "My ... diary?" she asked quietly.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Clara said, looking abashed, "Please don't be cross with me, Miss Frye. I ... I just saw this book on your desk and since it had entries marked and dated in your handwriting, I thought it was your diary."
Evie glanced to her desk and saw her notebook – with all her notes on the Assassins, the Templars, and the Pieces of Eden – lying where she had placed it earlier that evening. Of all the days I forget to lock it up, she groaned inwardly.
"How – how much did you read, Clara," Evie said testily, concealing the anxiety in her voice, dreading perhaps all the secrets of the Assassins' Brotherhood now lay within the head of a 12 year-old girl.
"Not much," Clara admitted, "I skimmed past most of it – I only paid attention to the bits that mentioned Jacob. It sounded like you were angry with him most of the time."
Evie blinked, only slightly relieved. She picked up her notebook, placed it on a higher shelf, and patted Clara gently on the shoulder. "Listen," she said kindly, "why don't you head along home for tonight. Maybe we'll have tea tomorrow, and I'll tell you all sorts of things about Jacob? Where he likes spending his weekends, and what sort of present he'd like for his birthday?"
"Oh yes, I'd like that very much!" Clara said excitedly. She hugged Evie. "Thank you so much, Miss Frye! I knew you'd help me! I'm really sorry I peeked into your diary."
"It's quite alright, Clara. Run along now," and Evie waved the girl off as she skipped off into the gathering London twilight.
Evie sighed. She stepped out, and climbed to the roof of the train carriage, where Jacob was lying on his back, watching the sky.
"I thought she'd never leave," Jacob sulked, looking as if he'd been there for a while. Evie sat next to him.
"Why didn't you stop her from reading my notebook?" said Evie. "We could have compromised all the secrets of the Brotherhood to a precocious twelve year-old."
Jacob looked at her, genuinely surprised. "She was reading your notebook? Don't you always keep that thing locked up?"
"Yes, my fault this time," Evie muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose. "We might have to take control of things before they get out of hand, brother."
"You don't say," Jacob sighed. He sat up, and turned to his sister expectantly. "You're the one with the big plans ... think you might have something up your sleeve now, Master Assassin?"
Evie was silent. She placed her chin in her cupped hand, her eyes distant, already formulating a plan. "You know," she said softly, "I just might."
It was a crisp and sunny spring afternoon when Evie met with Clara at one of the more fashionable tea-houses of Westminster. They didn't usually go to these sort of establishments, but Evie knew the location was key in carrying out her little 'plan'.
The tea-house served its patrons on a whitewashed balcony overlooking a scenic garden below, where the music of fountains and fiddle-players would drift up and delight the dining patrons. The air was clean and fresh and perfumed with flowers in bloom, and the well-dressed upper-class of Westminster strolled down neat gravel paths, enjoying the sunshine.
Evie, in one of the rare moments of her life, dressed up for the occasion in an actual dress-and-bustle ensemble, her neat hair curled under a stylish hat. She greeted Clara at the tea-house's gate and they both were escorted to their table.
So far so good, Evie thought, glancing out at the garden. In her trained Assassin's eye, she caught sight of Jacob, together with their associates Henry Green and Alexander Graham Bell in their designated positions, waiting for her to give the signal.
"So," Evie said congenially, after the initial pleasantries, "what would you like to find out today, Clara?"
Clara bit her lip. "Oh, I'm not sure where to begin," she said. "I thought of asking everyday things, like how does Jacob prefer his breakfast and if he has any hidden talents," she admitted. "But then I realized I didn't really know too much about his past. I was just wondering if you could just share stories from while you were growing up – childhood stories."
Evie stared for a while at the young girl in front of her, wondering how children could sometimes sound so grown-up all of a sudden.
"You know, Clara," Evie asked, quite earnestly, "I never got around to asking you what brought about this sudden attraction – I thought you couldn't stand Jacob. He's oafish and reckless and brash." Not to mention considerably older than you, she added to herself.
Clara grinned bashfully - a glimpse of a sweet and charming side to the normally fiesty and quick-witted leader of the London street urchins. Oh, if only you were a decade older I would marry you off to my brother already, Evie thought, though I would say he doesn't deserve you.
"Well," Clara began, "it wasn't so sudden, really! I also thought he was quite thick-headed, for a grown-up." Evie could feel the sting of the comment on Jacob's behalf, but smiled despite it.
"I was so confused at first," Clara continued. "He seemed like such an idiot, on the surface. He rushes headlong into things and just expects everything to work in his favour. I thought that was all there was to him – just chaos and reckless behaviour and drunken bar fights.
"But my opinion slowly began to change, around the time the both of you began freeing London from the hold of the Blighters. I heard from one of the younger boys that Jacob ran into a burning building to rescue some children from perishing in the fire – at great personal risk."
Yes, I heard of that, Evie recalled darkly. She also knew it was Jacob who planted the dynamite in the first place, under orders from the Blighter leader Maxwell Roth, but kept silent.
"And I began to watch him. He has his quiet moments ... he likes to walk in the rain. He stops on his errands to play with cats. He likes rowdy drinking songs. He treats the children to ice-cream. He buys new hats and thinks you wouldn't notice."
That Jacob, Evie thought, gritting her teeth silently, so that's where the train money went!
"And ... little by little, he grew on me. He's quite funny, Miss Evie. And he cares very much about his Rooks. I saw him cry, once, when one of his men died in a fight. I think he attended the funeral, too."
Evie just stared and stared. Jacob really had that effect on people – even her. He would just be so monumentally stupid and make her so angry, but in the end, the size of his heart and the way he just cared so much about things would make her eventually forgive him for anything. She had no idea it happened to other people, too.
"He also has a rather roguish smile," Clara admitted with a blush, and Evie knew she had heard enough.
"Oh my," she commented, lifting a napkin off the table, made a great show of dropping it off the balcony into the garden below. "My napkin."
That was the signal. She saw Jacob move swiftly into position.
"Clara, look –" Evie exclaimed, "speak of the Devil! Isn't that Jacob?"
Clara immediately stiffened, and turned to where Evie was pointing.
Jacob sauntered through the garden, looking quite dapper with a cane and his hair swept back under a black top-hat. He tipped his hat at a lady selling flowers by the path, then made an exaggerated gesture of noticing Aleck sitting by himself, reading on a garden bench.
"Shall we go down and say hello?" Evie proposed, already taking Clara by the hand, and dragging her down the steps that led to the garden.
"Wait – but Miss Evie – wait –!"
But when they reached to where Jacob and Aleck were sitting together, Jacob had his arm around poor Aleck, cupping his chin with his hand and staring intensely into his eyes in what was entirely a suggestive manner.
"Jacob Frye ... I – I – I'm flattered, but I – cannot –" Aleck stammered, trying unsuccessfully to pull away.
The flower-seller was already watching them, blushing furiously and unable to look away, and a small crowd of curious onlookers seemed to have gathered around them.
"Jacob, Aleck, hello," Evie said, boldly bursting into the scene. "Fancy bumping into you two here."
"Oh yes, fancy that," Jacob replied, entirely unruffled. "And good day to you too, Miss O'Dea."
Clara merely made a shy curtsy, clinging to Evie's skirts and looking up to the older woman for direction.
Henry Green suddenly appeared. "Oh my, Jacob, Miss Frye," he said loudly, and Evie's heart somersaulted between dread and amusement – you have many virtues, my dear Mr. Green, but you really cannot act.
"Jacob – what are you doing with Aleck?!"
"Oh sorry, Greenie – I thought you knew about us," Jacob said, all too smoothly and naturally. Evie was beginning to suspect her brother had experience with this sort of situation before.
"How dare you – Jacob Frye," Henry carried on in a wooden monotone. He then paused awkwardly, and made a quick glance at the palm of his hand before continuing, "how dare you flirt with someone else! When you knew I was only getting close to Evie so I could get close to you!"
Evie made a big show of gasping and looking scandalized as she glared at Henry, who only threw her a desperate look which silently asked, 'so how did I do?'
Jacob shook his head and sighed. "Oh Henry," he murmured in a seductive low timbre, "I couldn't resist sweet Aleck's charms. That Scottish brogue – I could listen to him wail my name all night."
Clara made a small squeaking sound at the back of her throat, her face turning pale. She clung tighter to Evie's skirts.
Evie clapped her hands instinctively over Clara's ears and threw Jacob a harsh glare: That wasn't part of the script!
I'm improvising, Jacob seemed to say, raising an eyebrow.
Aleck blushed up to his ears as he stared intently at his shoes, but Jacob drew his arm around him and pulled him closer.
"Jacob –" Aleck pleaded.
"Mr Frye –" Henry began.
"Jacob –" Evie volunteered.
But they all fell silent – some stunned, mouths hanging open – as Jacob planted a firm but passionate kiss onto Aleck's mouth.
Evie stared at them. This really isn't at all how we rehearsed it.
The kiss didn't last long, but when it was over, there were outraged cries from the small gathered crowd of onlookers, amid small enthusiastic bursts of applause. This was all broken by the shrill cry of a police whistle.
"Oi you there!" a policeman shouted from behind the crowd, "that's not allowed out in polite society, you hear!?"
Clara burst into distraught tears and ran out into the depths of the park. Evie glanced at her colleagues with a swift nod and said, "Good work, boys - more or less. I'm going to have to comfort Miss O'Dea now, I'll meet you all back on the train." And she hoisted her skirts to her ankles and ran off after Clara.
Jacob leaned back into the bench as the crowd dispersed. "This has to be the strangest mission Evie has ever planned," he said. "One for the history books."
"I wonder if we did the right thing," Henry thought aloud, as stared wistfully into the distance where Evie and Clara ran off to.
But Aleck sat in relative silence, occasionally touching his lips and looking like he had just been struck by lightning.
A few days later, the twins paid a visit to their friend Alexander Graham Bell's shop, to go over some improvements for their voltaic bombs.
"Miss Frye!" Aleck greeted as they stepped into his shop, but when he caught sight of Jacob he immediately dropped his gaze and began awkwardly tinkering with some stray device. "And ... Mr. Frye. Your – your improvised voltaic bombs are in the crates by the door."
"That's it, Aleck?" Jacob asked, stepping closer to the inventor. "You're not going to give us a detailed rundown of the improved qualities of the bombs – their wider radius, their shiny brass finish?"
Aleck made a few stammering attempts at a reply as he backed away, before saying, "Well, ahm – I'm quite busy now, you see –"
"It's quite all right Mr. Bell, we'll take it from here," Evie said. "Jacob, fetch us a carriage, please."
Jacob stepped out of the shop to summon a carriage. As soon as he was out of the door, Aleck turned to Evie. "They do have an increased radius," he said quickly, "and a higher voltage. They're also less likely to malfunction – here, I'll show you my notes –"
But as he said so, he stumbled and knocked over a pile of papers towering on his desk, which then scattered magnificently onto the floor.
Evie stared at several sketches and drawings of her brother, lovingly detailed in pencil and ink. There were also countless scribbles of the name, 'Jacob Frye', over and over – some angrily scratched out, some in stylish cursive and decorated in hearts and flowers.
She wordlessly met Aleck's gaze, and saw he was now near-convulsing from fighting back some massive internal struggle.
Evie sighed. There was a sound of the shop door opening and Jacob announcing that the carriage had arrived, and Evie watched in fascination as Aleck all but collapsed onto the scattered papers, trying in vain to cover them with his body.
"We'll be in touch, Aleck," Evie muttered, and swiftly made her way out of the shop, pushing her protesting brother outside as she did so, and wondering why disaster seemed to follow Jacob Frye wherever he went.