His smile disappeared. “Then, you run.”
“If you think I’m leaving you to the mercy of Warwick’s mercenaries, you can just think again—”
“You’ll light the powder-flashes, throw them, and run like your shoes are on fire.” He put his arms around my waist and drew me against his chest. The soft tribute that followed was no more than the brush of a Butterfly’s wing against my mouth.
If my Ticker were going to stop forever, I almost wished it would be now, in this quiet moment, the two of us together. But it beat on, knowing we had yet more work to do.
“I don’t like this worse-case-scenario thing,” I whispered, my arms slipping up to encircle his neck. “It feels very ominous.”
“An ounce of prevention,” Marcus said as he bent to kiss me again.
“And large quantities of black powder,” I finished the old saying for him just before his lips met mine.
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.
&nb
sp; “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.”