TWELVE
In Which Our Heroine Hits the Ground Running
It took a significant amount of scrubbing and soap, but I got the brown dye out of my hair by the appointed hour the next morning. With help, grander plans for my appearance at the Dedication Ceremony unfolded as rapidly as an opera fan in a socialite’s practiced hand.
Once upon a time, I might have preened a bit.
Once upon a time seemed like a very long time ago.
Assuming the most professional manner possible, I rapped twice at the door of Marcus’s office. His “Come in” might have sounded distracted, but as I entered, I knew I commanded the whole of his attention.
“Legatus.” I paused to enjoy the moment.
“That,” he said with careful consideration, “is some heavy artillery.”
“Philomena sent out for it.” I turned to afford him a better view of the gargantuan bustle and train of coquelicot-colored silk brocade. The crimson skirts were particularly appropriate to my role as a red herring, soon to be crisscrossing the hunting trails to draw the hounds to me. “I must tell you, this ensemble borders on cumbersome.”
Marcus let an appraising gaze drift over the gold embroidery on every pouf, puff, and pleat. Heavy Aígyptian-style bangles clinked against my iron bracelets. “You look like a dragon going in for the kill.”
I glided forward, accompanied by the gentle sway of the colossal wire hoops supporting the weight of my skirts. They also concealed a pair of highly practical trousers. “Stop teasing and tell me what you really think.”
“I think it’s a good thing I commissioned a hat worthy of such a dress,” he said, producing a box stamped “Exemplar Millinery” in gold lettering. “If you’re wearing this, I’ll be able to spot you in the crowd.”
The item he withdrew from the tissue paper elicited a gasp, which was all I could manage with my tight lacing. “That, sir, is no more a hat than you are a footman.”
He held it just out of my reach. “Does that mean you approve?”
“That means your taste is both extravagant and ridiculous, and I commend you for it.” Grasping my prize, I went to the nearest mirror, eager to perch it atop my ginger ringlets. The brim dipped low over my forehead, a bloodred rose blooming just at the center. On the left side, a diamanté chrysanthemum anchored a cockade of cream-and-black-striped pheasant plumage. It was, perhaps, the most expensive thing I’d ever worn, and I was only half joking when I said, “This almost makes endangering my life worthwhile.”
He handed me a diminutive umbrella. “The finishing touch, Tesseraria.”
“I won’t be able to raise it over the hat,” I protested. “It would hardly help in a downpour, anyway.”
“Allow me to demonstrate its practicality.” Marcus held out his hand, and I returned the precious bumbershoot with my eyebrows already raised. When he depressed two flanges and pulled the curved ebony handle, a short sword emerged. “Are you suitably impressed now?”
“Perhaps just the slightest bit.” I took back the weapon and demonstrated that I could extract it without injuring myself. “I think I can do some damage with this.”
“With luck, you won’t have to. You’re going up in the SkyBox.”
Held aloft by eight Montgolfière balloons, the air gondola was luxuriously appointed, fully staffed, and used for occasions of state as well as the annual Eight Bells Steeplechase. It also meant that I was going to be far from the action.
“So I’m dressed within an inch of my life only to be wholly useless?”
“Not necessarily.” Marcus completed my arsenal by handing me two powder-flashes. I tucked them into my reticule as he slid two MAGs into their holsters and reached for his uniform cap. “But even you cannot argue with a thousand feet between your boots and the ground, Tesseraria.”
The parasol became an immediate weather vane of my mood. Walking out to the landing platform, I lifted it up to jauntily ride my shoulder, hoping to charm Marcus into changing his mind about my priority seating arrangement. When he wouldn’t hear a word of my argument, I let the parasol droop. By the time we arrived at the Bazalgate airfield, I employed it as a machete with which to chop at the hedge.
Part of my unease could be traced back to Violet. Still conducting a citywide manhunt for Sebastian, she’d taken a secondary unit of guards to investigate his properties. The search proved fruitless as yet, but she promised to apprise us of her progress and her continued safety. Except now she was three minutes late checking in, and I was ready to send the cavalry after her.
Our surroundings didn’t exactly promote tranquility of the mind, either. Despite the fact that crews worked around the clock to clear the main square, heaps of rubble still decorated the perimeter. Half the columns spanning the front of the courthouse had crumpled in the explosion, taking the portico with them. They had carted the worst of the damage away, but the memories of the eleven dead lingered, and it was easy to imagine their blood decorating the stones. Uniformed officers milled about the grounds. Explosives-sniffing hounds searched Combustibles, carts, and conveyances. Dressed in a realistic variety of aristocratic satins and workaday cottons, the soldiers gathered on the stairs could easily be mistaken for Bazalgate civilians.
“This is ludicrous,” I told Marcus. “I should stay with you.”
“You’re too easy a target on the ground, Penny. I won’t risk it. Not after what happened to Nic.” He signaled to an approaching motorcar, waving it into the restricted area.
Philomena descended from the vehicle, decidedly out of uniform in a butter-yellow frock. At least a dozen amber beaded necklaces dangled about her neck, and a heavily fringed cape striped in honey and black fluttered over her shoulders. Rather than a hat, she’d chosen to wear her countless braids twisted about her head. The enormous knot at the back was fixed with mechanical Bumblebees kept on short gold chains.
“Perfect,” Marcus said. “There will be no overlooking either of you.”
“That was precisely the idea, wasn’t it?” With the brightness of my own dress doubled against the yellow of Philomena’s attire, I suddenly felt very conspicuous, which was discomfiting for a girl who didn’t give a second thought to ripping about Bazalgate on a motorized cycle. “Thank you for the escort, Legatus. We’ll see ourselves in.”
Marcus bowed to Philomena, but the kiss he placed against my gloved hand sent an arc of electricity through me. Turning on his heel, he went to join the chancellor.
Philomena leaned close, one of her bee adornments bumbling into my head. “Chin up,” she said. “You don’t want whoever may be watching to think they have you at a disadvantage.”
“They don’t have me at a disadvantage.” I put up my parasol with a decisive snap! “And I have the umbrella to prove it.” Walking up the ramp to the SkyBox, I realized there was something I ought to have said much sooner. “Miss de Mesmer, I owe you an apology for my behavior the day we met, and for my cynicism.”
“An apology isn’t necessary,” she said. “Plenty of people are skeptical of my abilities. Might I ask what changed your mind?”
Despite the brilliant sunshine slanting over us, I shivered as we stepped into the octagonal gondola. The painted silk envelopes swayed overhead, restless in the gentle breeze that swept over the dedication site. “Yesterday, when the generators malfunctioned, I found myself in an in-between place. I spoke with my sister. Dimitria mentioned you, said she’d been trying to pass messages whenever you approached the veil.”
Sensing I wouldn’t want any part of our conversation overheard, Philomena inclined her head toward me. “And what did your in-between place look like, if you don’t mind my professional curiosity?”
“The dining room at Glasshouse.” Closing my eyes for a moment, it seemed only the thinnest of curtains separated me from that place. “It’s where she died.”
“That makes sense.” After a pause, Philomena added, “Was the little one there as well? I only ever caught the merest suggestion of her.”
“Cygna was there. Or rather, there was a cradle rocking on its own.” My stomach twisted at the memory; I thought I might be sick, and we’d yet to leave the ground. A servitor passed trays of nibbles and drinks, and I reluctantly accepted a flute of Effervescence. Philomena chose instead a cup of the notorious Luminiferous Re-Animator. When I accidentally inhaled the fumes wafting from the etched-crystal glass, I decided that those revived by the mixture had most likely been killed by it in the first place. “What’s in that?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea.” The end of Philomena’s nose turned faintly pink. “Perhaps you should have one as well, to steady your nerves.”
“It’s hazardous to allow people to imbibe such a drink when we’ll soon be aloft,” I said. “Take care not to fall out, because I won’t jump after you.”
“You cut me to the quick, Miss Farthing.” When she chuckled, it set the Bumblebees buzzing again.
We both reached for the railing when the ropes were loosened and the ground fell away. With space at a premium, uniformed guards trained to operate the blast valves manned the air gondola. A few brave notables had volunteered to be tucked away in our little jewel cask, including members of Parliament, scientists of note, and a patent holder worth millions. The chancellor remained on the ground with Marcus, wearing a nervous smile and wielding a pair of gold scissors. From our growing vantage point, the red ribbon that spanned the square looked like a blood trail.
A trumpeted fanfare interrupted my observations and signaled the start of the Dedication Ceremony. Everyone leaned over the sides of the gondola to peer through binoculars. Tinny speakers broadcast the chancellor’s speech into the SkyBox.
“And so . . .” he said between dramatic pauses filled with hiss-and-crackle feedback, “we will heal our great city . . . by dedicating this site to the repairs of . . . the courthouse . . . which will serve as a reminder . . . of Industria’s justice, strength, and bravery.”
Watching through my binoculars, I had to give the chancellor credit for his own strength and bravery. Despite the beads of sweat standing out on his brow, the man wasn’t turning tail to run. He stood front and center on that staircase, trusting that the Ferrum Viriae would keep him safe. Shifting the glasses, I took in Marcus just to his left, the row of soldiers behind him, the plainclothes extras gathered beyond the stage . . .
And my brother, wending a slow and careful path through the crowd.
The surprise was a blow to my midsection, and I sucked in a breath. The very next moment, the speakers cut out with a screeching whine. The other occupants of the SkyBox murmured to one another, frowns spreading like smallpox as I adjusted my binoculars to home in on my twin. Though Nic wore the gray livery of a soldier and a hat drawn far down over his forehead, there was no mistaking him. I whirled about, nearly felling Philomena.
“My brother is down there!” Hitching up my bustle skirt, I tapped out a message to Marcus on the new RiPA he’d assigned me that morning:
NIC IS BEHIND YOU - STOP - HE ESCAPED - STOP - HE WILL KNOW WHERE WARWICK IS - STOP
But I didn’t get a response.
“Here, I’ll try.” Philomena tapped out a message, but the silence endured.
Glancing from the speakers overhead to our communications devices, I was the one having a premonition. “Something is jamming the signals. I have to get Marcus’s attention another way.”
“Follow protocol,” one of the officers announced. They immediately opened the blast valves to take the gondola higher.
“Protocol?” I grasped the nearest of the soldiers by his uniform-clad arm. “I need you to put us down this second.”
“Apologies, Tesseraria,” he said, not sounding at all contrite, “but I don’t take orders from you. The Legatus said that in case of emergency, we’re to remain aloft until the area is secured.”
Distant screams drew our attention. I raised my binoculars in time to see black iridescent water pouring down the sides of the buildings adjacent to the courthouse.
“By all the Bells, what is that?” Bringing the picture into focus, I realized that the metallic waves were actually hundreds of mechanical Spiders skittering down bricks, over cobblestones. The tiny creatures clambered up the legs of the soldiers and into their ears; within seconds, most of the victims stood as though paralyzed, rendered catatonic.
At the top of the stairs, Marcus and the chancellor retreated, only seconds ahead of the arachnids. Blasts from Marcus’s Superconductive Slingshot bought him precious moments, but Nic still headed for them at a dead run. Marcus pulled out the first of his powder-flashes and lit it. The brilliant explosion that followed knocked my twin back several feet.
“We have to get down there,” I said, this time to Philomena.
“How far up are we, would you guess?” she asked with great practicality, wrestling open the nearest wicker bench. Stowed within were a dozen parachutes, just as Marcus had promised when we rode in his SkyDart.
“You can’t mean to jump.”
“Not me. You.”
I stared at her for a long moment. “If I die, I’ll haunt you this lifetime and the next.” Off went my skirts with a desperate rip and yank. The glorious hat landed atop the silken heap. I wished I had my goggles, but was thankful beyond measure for my trousers.
“Looks like you expected some mayhem,” Philomena said with approval as she helped me sort out the straps and buckles. The Ferrum Viriae aboard were busy trying to keep the basket level. With all the passengers heaving about, they’d yet to take any notice of our actions; otherwise, they surely would have tackled me.
“Just read me the instructions.”
“According to the pamphlet, you clear the side of the gondola, count to two, and pull this ring. These toggles control the steering lines and will let you guide the parachute down, though you’re going to get a crash course in directional wind.”
“As long as it’s not a crash course in equipment failure.” I climbed up on the ledge, clinging to the ropes tethering the balloons to the basket. One of the guards caught sight of me and shouted a warning, but I fixed my gaze upon the staircase below, held my breath, and jumped.
The rush of wind in my face was different than the Vitesse, different even than the SkyDart, and decidedly the most thrilling and exhilarating thing I’d ever experienced. A week ago, the free fall would also have been the most terrifying, but it was nothing compared to the number of times I’d nearly died in the last few days. When I pulled the brass ring, the silk parachute deployed. Wind filled it with a series of ruffles and a final snap! as the fabric went taut. Though I struggled with the toggles, I finally wrapped my brain around the subtleties of gliding down, down, down. The winds were in my favor, carrying me all the way to the top of the staircase. My own sudden weight startled me; legs buckled and knees protested, but I didn’t stumble, and I couldn’t stop to reflect on my good fortune. Unclipping the harness, I freed myself of the silk lines and parachute.
Not a hundred yards away, my twin raised his arm and pointed a MAG directly at the fleeing figures of Marcus and the chancellor.
“Nic, no!” I screamed.
A second wave of Ferrum Viriae rushed at Nic, weapons drawn. I followed, thinking that somehow I could prevent a bloodbath, but my brother shot the first soldier to come at him and disarmed the next four, breaking bones as though distributing petits fours at afternoon tea. Even years of sparring at Mettlefield’s Gymnasium couldn’t explain the lightning speed at which he moved or the gold glint in his eyes when a semicircle of groaning soldiers lay on the ground before him. Reaching into his pockets, he disgorged a dozen more Spiders that skitter-scattered over their bodies and straight into their ears.
“Nic!” I choked out, still running toward him.
“With me!” he yelled, and the Spider-afflicted soldiers fell in behind him. Nic turned and fled through the crowd, the turncoats clearing a path for him. Leaping aboard a new-model Vitesse, Nic gunned the engine and roared off down an alley. As though triggered by his passing, an explosion detonated inside the courthouse.
Ducking to the ground, I could do nothing but hold my breath as debris and dust engulfed me. A glancing blow to my arm suggested I’d been hit by a stone or a bit of mortar. Before the worst of the cloud had cleared, the Ferrum Viriae who’d followed my brother were gone. I located a mounted officer who was still responsive.
“Get down! I’m commandeering your mount!”
“Tesseraria?” the soldier said, evidently recognizing me from the Flying Fortress. Bewildered, he obeyed the command.
“Help me up.”
He made a cradle of his palms, sputtering protests. “You’re not trained for this!”
“I beg to differ,” I retorted. “I was born to it.”
At the far side of the square, Marcus shoved the chancellor into an idling Combustible. A third wave of Ferrum Viriae approached at a run.
“The streets are locked down to everything except the Emergency Rescue Squadrons!” one of them shouted at me.
“That’s a good thing,” I said, backing out of the knot of new arrivals. “It means I’m less likely to hit something.”
I dug in my heels. With a metallic whinny, the horse leapt clear of the crowd, metal shoes sparking when she landed. I clutched at the reins as we clattered down the narrow avenue leading to the main road. The steady hoofbeats, the rhythmic twin streams of scorching hot steam issuing from my steed’s copper muzzle, and the distant wail of sirens drowned out everything but the frantic beating of my Ticker.
I caught sight of Nic at the far end of the boulevard; it was easy enough to spot him with the rest of the traffic at a standstill. Vehicles were haphazardly pulled over to the sides of the road, and panicked pedestrians squeezed close to the buildings. Some of the onlookers shouted, gesturing to me with their hats and purses. Jostled by the crowd, a bystander fell into the street, directly in my path. I sucked in my breath, squeezed with my knees, and held on for dear life. A frisson of energy passed over the mechanical horse as it bent its knees and sprang forward, soaring with ease over the woman’s head . . .
We landed, and I kept my seat and my life. I stood up in the stirrups as I’d seen jockeys do at the steeplechases, encouraging my mount to go yet faster. Around corners, past the Heart of the Star, down the First Etoile Road.
“Come on,” I urged. “We have to catch up with Nic!”
The Ticker began to wind down in my chest, and everything slowed to match: the pedestrians, the wind whipping at my bare head, the clatter of hooves. Just ahead of me, Nic wove in and out of traffic with a deftness that belied all the time he had spent snubbing the Vitesse.
The brother I knew didn’t move like a soldier. He didn’t raise arms against a crowd. He hadn’t known they were Ferrum Viriae in disguise; they appeared to be normal citizens of Bazalgate. And there was the traitorous behavior of the afflicted soldiers to consider as well.
The Spiders. The Spiders can be used for mind control.
What has Warwick done to you, Nic? And where are you taking me?
He led me back to the West Side, past Lucy Reilly’s photography studio. The buildings climbed toward the sky until they blotted out the sun. Broken windows were boarded over like coins on the eyes of the dead. Rooftops sagged against one another, too tired to stay where they should. Brickwork crumbled to dust before my eyes. Under the sad air of neglect was something rancid. Something choking.
Nic rounded a final corner. By the time I did the same, he’d abandoned the cycle and disappeared. I dismounted, my head buzzing and my legs so wobbly they might as well have been made of Dreadnaught’s blancmange.
“Nic?” It was like a deadly game of hide-and-seek. He always triumphed over me, fitting into cupboards, leaping down from wardrobes, grabbing my booted ankle from under the four-poster beds. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
No answer, save the patter of retreating footsteps down the alley to my right. I gave chase as best I could with the Ticker’s terrible irregularity. I pressed a hand to my chest, tearing at the buttons of my bodice, fumbling for the key. Before I could wind my traitorous heart, Nic appeared in front of me like a conjurer. The game was over, and I’d lost. He wore a stranger’s face, cheekbones jutting out in defiance of the pale skin stretched over them. The faint glint of his ocular Augmentation was the only light in his eyes. What was left of the blood in my extremities drained away. I’d abandoned my parasol sword in the SkyBox, but I wouldn’t have had time to draw it anyway.
“I told you to stay put until I messaged you,” my twin said before his fist connected with my jaw.
I collided with the crumbling brick wall, pain spreading eager fingers through my head as I slid to the ground. The street seemed to tilt under my hands. Disoriented, I tried to focus my eyes as Nic heaved me up, tossed me over his shoulder, and carried me a short distance to a waiting carriage.
“Reckless and selfish,” he said. “The family would have healed after Dimitria’s death if it weren’t for you. It was your own fault you fell off Andromeda. You might never have needed the ventriculator if you only listened. Precious, delicate clockwork doll. Wind her up, watch her dance. Watch Mama hover. Watch Papa climb inside a liquor bottle . . .”
With a small grunt, he tossed me inside. I landed on the floor in a tangle of limbs, the ache in my head still blurring my vision. I could just make out when he leapt in after me and took my reticule containing Pixii, RiPA, and the two powder-flashes. When he rapped on the roof, the mechanical horses jerked forward and the conveyance moved down the street. Blinking hard, I looked up at my twin and then over at my host.
Calvin Warwick had aged terribly during the year he’d been absent. Resembling the island prison where he’d been incarcerated, his forehead was now a sheer cliff. Silver strands crept through his brown hair like tendrils of fog. His dark eyes haunted his poet’s face, and though I scrambled back as far as I could, I couldn’t escape his disconcerting gaze.
Reaching down, the surgeon helped me achieve the seat opposite him. I couldn’t count the number of times those cool, slim hands had checked my pulse. If he pressed his fingers to the hollow of my throat now, he would know that my Ticker raced faster than any hummingbird’s heart. I flinched away from his touch as though it burned. In an instant, Warwick’s hopeful expression crumbled into lines of disappointment. He squeezed my hands until my bones ground together.
“I’m afraid we’re going to have a difficult time of it at first,” he said. “Once you understand what I’ve been doing for you, you’ll relent.”
I turned back to Nic. His strange new eyes were fixed upon something only he could see. Every muscle under his dark suit was clenched, primed for a fight. The pain in my jaw served as a reminder that he had his orders but no idea what he was actually doing. “Nic, look at me.”
No reaction at all, not even a flicker of his eyelashes.
“Copernicus,” Warwick said gently, “look at your sister, please.”
Nic’s head obediently swiveled in my direction.
“You used the Spiders on him, didn’t you?” I could almost imagine the horrible things skittering behind his golden eyes.
“Yes.” Warwick shifted forward, encouraged by my question if not my tone. “I was an intern at Currey Hospital when several Bibliothèca patients were brought in. Quite by chance, I discovered the Beetles themselves caused the initial paralysis, the ensuing silence prompted by suggestions made by the Unseen. During my incarceration, I revisited my theories, building the first prototypes out of spare parts borrowed from other machines. Then there was the simple matter of one Spider for the guard, several more delivered to Mister Stirling via message cylinder . . .”
Sebastian.
“That’s why he helped you arrange everything.” I tried to lick my lips, but I might as well have rubbed them with sandpaper.
Warwick pulled his watch from his vest pocket, rubbing his thumb over the gold lid. Such a gesture must have been habit, because he’d burnished off all its decorative engraving; whatever message my sister placed there for him existed only in his mind now. “The Spiders allow me to exert a bit of influence. Mister Stirling’s business acumen, for example, was easily exploited. Once the Spiders were in place, I merely suggested to him via RiPA that a sizable amount of money could be made through Augmentation. The rest was his own doing. Your friend possesses a ruthless streak that spilled over into strategy. I never would have thought to plant explosives at the factory, nor would I have inflicted so much damage at Glasshouse.”
I wasn’t about to let him blame everything on Sebastian. “What about my parents? Was it his idea to kidnap them?”
“Not entirely,” Warwick admitted, toying with the watch. In the flickering light from the carriage window, I realized the fob had become mourning jewelry, with an intricate braid of Dimitria’s hair forming the strap. “Your parents refused to speak with me. I sent letter after letter, but they never responded. Nic and I conversed for a while, and he understood what I wanted . . . needed . . . to do for you.”
“Yes, and look at what you did to him!” Anger overtook every one of my senses, bleeding red around the edges of my consciousness and polluting everything with hot iron. “You turned him into a monster.”
“The monster was inside him all along, Penny.” Winding Dimitria’s hair about his fingers, Warwick tucked the watch back into his pocket. “I didn’t expect his resentment of you to be so strong.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped. “Nic doesn’t resent me.”
“Of course he does.” The surgeon’s tone grew cold, the analysis suddenly clinical and detached. “He was angry, Penny. Tired of shouldering the family’s responsibilities. He was relieved to be brought here, anxious to set down his burdens. The Spiders were hardly in place before he spoke of that day at Carteblanche, how you climbed atop that horse despite his efforts to make you see reason. How you selfishly took the family’s chance to heal and threw it away.”
The words struck harder than Nic’s fist. “He can’t hate me that much,” I whispered.
“If he didn’t, there isn’t anything I could have said to make him behave in such a fashion, I promise you.” Warwick spoke as though delivering grim news to a patient’s family. “You’re a burden he’s longed to set down for some time now.”
It was the truth, every word. If I doubted it, I need only remember the furrows in Mama’s brow, the gray hair at Papa’s temples. Nic had finally had enough of me.
Worse than any slap or shout, Warwick saw the realization in my eyes and returned it with sympathy. “But you won’t be a burden,” he promised. “Not after today.”
I dragged each breath into my lungs as though it might be my last. “Why didn’t you send me a Spider? I could have come to you for my surgery willingly and saved us all a lot of trouble.”
“I couldn’t risk it for the same reason I didn’t use them on your parents,” Warwick said, perturbed by the very idea. “The Spiders most likely would have exploited your familial tendency to rush headlong into danger. You might have killed yourself before that damned faulty Ticker gave out. But I’m going to fix it. I will do the same for you as I’ve done for your brother: correct the imperfections of the flesh and improve upon nature. Shouldn’t that be Man’s greatest aspiration?”
The carriage jerked to a stop.
“Help her out, Copernicus,” Warwick instructed.
“No, thank you,” I said, but like a serpent striking, Nic’s hand flashed out to clamp down on my arm, Augmented strength pouring out of him.
“As much as I have always admired your spirit,” Warwick said, “you don’t have the luxury of refusing my invitation. Resign yourself, Penny, this is going to happen.”
Nic wrestled me to the sidewalk. Before us, columns rose four stories high, supporting a colonnade carved with muses in various attitudes. Nic towed me up the grand staircase of gold-flecked granite, the metallic glints mirrored in the decorative railings. Shuttered windows lent a secretive air, as did the chain and padlock on the front door.
Only then did I remember the words Philomena had uttered, entranced by the corpse of Lucy Reilly. Moving. He’s moving. Moving. Moving. Pictures. Get the pictures. Moving. Pictures. Catch him, he’s moving. The photographer had been trying to tell us where to find Warwick: Sebastian’s moving-picture house. He’d acquired the lot as part of an undeveloped land parcel. I remembered looking at plans for half a dozen restaurants and an open-air shopping boulevard, but all construction was at a standstill. The metal archway leading to the deserted promenade resembled the gates to the underworld, and cranes loomed overhead, colossal birds of prey. There was no telltale hammering, no shouts of the work crew, no one to see Nic carrying me, no one to hear me scream if I’d been able to draw half the necessary breath.
Lined up along the wall stood another set of Ferrum Viriae soldiers, among them Frederick Carmichael. My step faltered at the sight of his blank gaze, because this was the secondary unit that should have been guarding Violet. From the end of the row, Sebastian emerged from the long shadows.
“Penny,” he said easily enough, though he leaned upon his walking stick rather than swinging it.
“How’s your knee?” I flashed at him.
Warwick answered on his behalf. “Augmented, thanks to your sharpshooting.”
I kept my gaze trained on Sebastian. “Where’s Violet?” Even staring into his eyes, I could see no trace of the mechanical Spiders controlling him. “Have you any idea your strings are being pulled?”
“Let us go inside, Mister Stirling,” Warwick suggested.
With Sebastian in front, our curious parade bypassed the main door and circled around to a side entrance. Once we were inside, he padlocked the door behind us.
“This way,” Warwick said, assuming the lead. “Mister Stirling, would you please fetch our other guest?”
“What about my parents?” I asked as Sebastian disappeared down a corridor. “When can I see them? And what have you done with Violet?”
“In due time, my dear,” Warwick said. “Have patience.”
That was a commodity in short supply at the moment. Lit by frosted gas globes that didn’t do enough to chase away the shadows, the carpeted passageway seemed to extend forever. Nic barely permitted my feet to touch the floor as we rushed along. Harder to bear than my precarious circumstance was the way he looked at me. Looked through me.
Now I had proof that a girl with a clockwork ventriculator could have a broken heart.
“Just remember your name, Nic. It’s yours. From our father and our grandfather before him. Copernicus. Emery. Farthing.” I punctuated each word with a kick of my boot to his calves as he towed me along. “Nic, you’ve got to remember.”
His only response was the ungentle prying of my fingers from his coat.
“Why would he want to remember that version of himself?” Warwick asked. “He’s stronger now. Faster. Relieved of his weaknesses, the many little faults that break down this flesh, killing us from the inside out, tearing us from the arms of our loved ones.” Zeal built up in his voice until the very walls echoed with his mad passion. “Don’t you see, Penny, how much better off we’ll all be when mere muscle and bone are left by the wayside?”
“Nic.” I wrapped my fingers about my twin’s wrist and squeezed, willing all the shared memories of our youth to transfer from my skin to his: playing in the nursery, capering at the grounds of Carteblanche, carriage rides through Square Park, ice-skating on the pond, countless pranks and midnight feasts. I summoned the bad memories as well, for those were just as powerful: Cygna sitting between us on the chaise, Dimitria’s party, Mama’s tears, Papa’s drinking. Just like I had at the Bibliothèca, I tapped out a message, hoping it would reach my twin wherever his mind wandered.
THIS IS NOT YOU - REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE
I wanted to shake him until the message sank in, but nothing seemed to have an effect on him. Warwick reached another door, and beyond that was utter darkness. My other senses struggled to compensate as I inhaled a whiff of dusty velvet. My outstretched hand caught the hemp graze of rope. Lights flickered on, blinding me for a moment. Pristine muslin draped everything, but I knew we stood on the stage. Overhead, I could just make out the white silk of the projection screen, billowing like a ghost ship sailing into a forgotten sea. More frightening to contemplate were the metal tables, containers, and instruments set out in gleaming rows.
It was unmistakably an operatory.
“I think you’ll marvel at everything we’ve managed under circumstances that are . . . well, perhaps less than ideal. The equipment. The supplies.” Warwick pulled back a sheet of white cotton to reveal an assortment of Augmentation parts that included metal plates, tiny screws, and infinitesimal gears. “I’ve taken great pains in my preparations.”
“I see that.” Struggling to remain calm, I looked over the amassed collection. “Those are from the Gears & Rivets Factory?”
“That’s right,” he said, pleased I pieced that together. “Everything’s ready.”
Sebastian arrived, pushing a bound and gagged Violet ahead of him. Her eyes widened, but the length of cotton wadded up in her mouth muffled whatever she wanted to say.
I leapt forward. Unable to do anything for her bound wrists, red and raw under the ropes, I tugged the rag from her mouth. “Are you all right?”
“Penny! By all the Bells, get out of here!”
“That’s hardly polite, Miss Nesselrode,” Warwick said.
“Get stuffed!” Violet shot back at him, impotent fury pouring out of her.
“Why are you doing this to her?” I demanded.
“Your friend stumbled upon us this morning, and we had to forcibly detain her. It would have been easier if we could have used the Spiders on her, but she’s apparently immune to suggestion. I’ll have to address such resistance in the next upgrade.” Warwick reached out, taking me by the arm as though about to stroll through a midnight rose garden. “Come, my dear, it’s time.”
Violet reared back and connected one of her black boots with Sebastian’s unAugmented knee. With an unholy howl, he fell to the floor.
I plowed my elbow into Warwick’s ribs. “Get the key, Violet. It’s in Sebastian’s pocket!”
“Copernicus!” the surgeon called out.
Nic pounced on me like a cat on a mouse. The two of us landed hard on the floorboards, rolling one over the other as we had in our nursery days. But in all the times we’d wrestled imaginary lions and tamed vicious beasts, Nic had never once wrapped his hands about my throat and tried to choke the life from me. And he was strong. So much stronger than I remembered. Dots of color appeared before my eyes.
“This isn’t you,” I tried to tell him.
With her hands still bound, Violet threw herself at Nic. It wasn’t much of an attack, but enough to lessen his grip on me. Sebastian staggered to his feet behind her. Warwick sought out the nearest of the tables, hand closing down on a hypodermic syringe.
“Violet, go!” I cried out.
Hesitating one crucial second, she turned and ran. Nic’s gaze tracked her attempted exit, so I reacted without thinking, jamming both my thumbs into his ocular implants. He fell to his knees, clawing at his face as bits of metal sparked and hissed. I gained my feet and turned to run, but an arm looped about my waist. Something delivered a sharp, stabbing pain in the side of my neck.
No.
Numbness spread down my shoulders and into my arms. Sebastian caught Violet just as she reached the door. She kicked and screamed until he clamped a hand over her mouth. She must have bitten him, because he flinched but didn’t let her go a second time. As my legs failed me, Warwick picked me up and carried me to the largest of the metal tables. Muttering all the while, he strapped down my arms. When I turned my head, I could just make out Nic crouched upon the floor, whimpering like a kicked pup, hands pressed to his face.
“I’ll see to your brother in a moment,” Warwick promised before turning to contemplate the surgical implements, the bits of cotton wadding, the dark glass bottles standing in soldiers’ rows before he finally found what he was looking for: my new clockwork heart. It was a lovely brass gleaming thing, small, compact, far more refined than the device dying by inches in my chest. “First things first.”
My old Ticker was done. I could feel it winding down as it had so many times before, but each beat lingered a bit longer than it should, a vibration of finality in every contraction. The entire mechanism thrummed gently, as though trying to rock me to sleep.
“I’ll fight you with my last breath,” I told him.
“Good.” Warwick’s voice faded, and the improvised operatory stretched out before me like a train tunnel through a mountain pass.
My Ticker gave one last thud.
It seemed only seconds later that pain was a hot coal shovel lodged deep in my chest. I struggled against it, against the flesh that held me captive, against the straps pinning me against cold metal. My eyes flickered open, and I caught sight of Warwick, bloody up to his elbows, bright red splashes fading up his chest to the dull color of rust.
“I brought you out of sedation.” His desperate words belied the grace with which his hands moved as he dripped Quick-Heal into my mouth. “You need to fight. You must. Your survival depends as much upon your own will to live as it does this device. Fight to live. Fight as she couldn’t, damn you!”
I felt pressure on my chest, then heard a wet sucking noise. With a shudder, the new ventriculator began to work, moving pain through my body in spurts of summer lightning. Had I not been strapped down, I would have curled in on myself and whimpered.
“Why?” I could hardly give voice to the word, so faint was the breath leaving my lungs. “Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t you understand? We’ve both had our hearts broken.” Warwick bent down to whisper in my ear. “Death took from me the thing I loved most in this world. Now I am going to cheat it at every turn.”
“Dimitria wouldn’t want you to do any of this,” I said.
“Oh, but she would.” Warwick clamped a white rag over my nose and mouth; instead of chloroform, I smelled only roses. “Her last words to me were ‘Save Penny.’?”