The Doomsday Vault

Chapter Fourteen

In moments, Alice found herself on a horse behind Simon, clutching his waist as they galloped through the streets of London. She nearly let loose with a little whoop. Perhaps this was how Queen Boadicea felt, though the ancient warrior queen probably hadn’t ridden sidesaddle on the back of someone else’s mount. Still, it was much more fun than drinking tea in a parlor.

Alice had no idea how Simon managed to negotiate traffic, but in very little time they arrived at the park. Hovering above it was the same little airship that had brought Alice and Gavin to Ward headquarters all those months ago. A short climb up a rope ladder brought her and Simon to the tiny bridge. Alice wasn’t surprised in the least to find Gavin at the helm. Her heart did a little skip at seeing him there, his strong hands on the wheel and his black leathers contrasting sharply with his white-blond hair. His blue eyes held hers for a moment.

“Miss Michaels,” he said.

“Mr. Ennock.” No, she told herself firmly. She was eloping with Norbert, and that was that.

“I’m here, too,” Glenda spoke up. Alice hadn’t even noticed her. “Simon, cast off. We’re out of time.”

The propellers whirred madly, and the airship swung round to the east. Below, people went about their business. Airships over London were nothing special. Alice did wonder what was going to happen to Simon’s horse.

“I don’t understand any of this,” Alice said aloud. “All my windup automatons ran off, including Click, and now you tell me that you received a. . a ‘tip’ about it?”

“An anonymous telegram.” Glenda opened a hatchway and started pulling equipment from the little hold below. She handed bits to Simon, who assembled the pieces. “We decided to act as if the information were good. So far, it has been. The telegram mentioned the war machine-that’s been a secret until now-and it mentioned your automatons getting involved.”

“How is that possible?”

Glenda shook her head. She was wearing trousers that clashed terribly with her woman’s white blouse. “We don’t know yet.”

The blocky city slid past below them, and the dirty gray scales of the Thames twisted across the landscape. Gavin was following its course. Up here, the air smelled cleaner, with no hint of coal smoke or manure. A flock of ravens tore through the air under the ship with their harsh caws and croaks. Perhaps two miles ahead glided a much larger dirigible, gray and slow as a pregnant whale.

“That’s our transport,” Glenda said, pointing. “They’re only lightly armed-weapons draw attention, and this was supposed to be a secret mission. We’re right over Greenwich, so if our informant has it right, the attack will come at any minute.”

“Why are we the only ones out here?” Alice demanded. “Where’s the rest of the Ward?”

“More agents are on the way,” Simon said, “but it takes a while to get from London to Greenwich on horseback, and this was the only dirigible available. Gavin, can’t this ship go any faster?”

“We’re too heavy,” he said. “I’ve been working on a ship design of my own, but-”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Glenda lifted a harness with folded batlike wings attached to it. “You’ll need to put this on, Alice.”

“Miss Michaels, please.” She eyed it dubiously. “What is it?”

“A glider.” Glenda spun Alice around and started buckling. The harness was heavy, but the weight was distributed well, so it also felt strangely light. “Think of a giant kite. When you lean left, you’ll turn left. Lean right to turn right. Raise your torso to climb. Lean forward to dive. Watch out for downdrafts. The bottle of compressed air on your back provides thrust. When the light on your control bar turns red, you’re nearly out, so come back immediately or you’ll be dependent on whatever the wind decides to do with you. It won’t be hard for someone of your intelligence to master it all.”

“But what am I supposed to do?” Alice nearly wailed.

“You know your windup machines better than anyone else.” Simon was shrugging into a glider harness of his own. “Stop them, defeat them, destroy them. Don’t you have a special code or switch to shut them down?”

“Each one has a switch, yes,” Alice said. “But they’re all custom-made, and each machine’s switch is in a different place, so-”

“Exactly why we need you,” Simon said.

“How many machines have you?” Glenda was now buckling Simon in.

“Twenty,” she said instantly. “Twenty-one, counting Click. But I can’t imagine Click would disobey me.”

“Of course not.” Glenda turned. “Simon, buckle me in. Miss Michaels, use those clips to fasten your skirts round your ankles and preserve your modesty while you’re in the air. Next time, I suggest trousers. And you’ll want these goggles to protect your eyes.”

Alice drew on the proffered eyewear. “Next time?”

The big ship was already looming large, perhaps two hundred yards away.

“Off we go, Simon.” Glenda caught up a fat pistol and leapt over the side. Alice gasped in automatic fear for her, but there was a hiss as the bottle on Glenda’s back came to life and the batlike wings snapped fully open with a whump. She caught the wind and glided away. Simon snatched a large pistol of his own and jumped after her to glide toward the larger ship, leaving Alice alone with Gavin on the tiny deck.

“Aren’t you coming, G-Mr. Ennock?” Alice asked.

Gavin’s mouth was set, and his fingers tightened on the helm. “I don’t fly that way. Pirates do. Come back if you need an air refill.”

She nodded in understanding. “Wish me luck, then.”

“Good luck, miss,” he said stonily.

His stiffness slapped her hard. “Are you angry at me, Mr. Ennock?”

“Nope. You’d better fly.”

“You are angry at me.”

“You made your choice. I’m happy for you. Marry him. Be well.”

Alice’s mouth fell open. “Does everyone know about that?”

“Anonymous telegram from someone named ‘L.’ ”

“I’ll murder her,” Alice muttered. “Listen, Mr. Ennock, I-”

“You’d better go,” Gavin said. “Look!”

A glittering line of tiny brass machines rushed toward the ship. Even at this distance, Alice recognized them as her own little automatons. Her jaw tightened in anger. These little ones belonged to her, and someone had stolen them. Yet she also wanted to talk to Gavin. He was correct in that she had made her choice, but she didn’t feel right in leaving him like this.

“I’ll be back,” she promised. She peered over the side at the dizzying drop to the Thames and the buildings lining it far below. What if the harness didn’t work? Then she saw the line of brass machines-her machines. Determination won out over fear, and she jumped.

There was a terrifying, sickening drop, and then the harness wings snapped open. Alice swooped upward. The bottle hissed on her back. She was flying! The sensation quite took her breath away. She leaned left and right, working out hand and foot motions that made her turn and dip just as Glenda said. It was easier than she’d thought. Bright air flowed all around her body, and even though she was supported by the harness and a bar, she felt like part of the sky. Her hair came free and streamed behind her. Queen Boadicea had nothing on this! It was freedom. It was independence. It was life. She whooped aloud, not caring who might hear, and sped toward the larger ship.

More than half her machines were whirligigs that could fly, and they were carrying spiders that couldn’t. On the deck of the large ship, the crewmen were watching, but were unable to do anything; their weapons weren’t accurate enough to hit such small targets. Simon and Glenda chased the whirligigs, but even laden with spiders, the little machines were far more agile than the gliders; the Ward agents had no more hope of catching them than hawks had of catching hummingbirds. Alice hung back, observing, trying to understand what the machines were attempting. Where was Click?

One of the whirligigs dashed up to the dirigible. Like most airships, it consisted of an enormous cigar-shaped envelope of hydrogen gas. The ship part was suspended from a rope rigging beneath it. The whirligig dropped a spider onto part of the rigging between the envelope and the main ship, and the spider extruded a blade. The rope snapped with a discordant twang. Then the spider leapt to another rope and cut that one. Another whirligig deposited its spider on another rope. Twang! The rope parted. Alice’s skin went cold as she realized what was going on. They would drop the ship and crack it open, freeing the war machine inside.

Crewmen clad in airman white were already swarming into the ropes, climbing agile as monkeys up to the attacking machines. One of them reached a spider, but a whirligig dived in and crashed into his face. He lost his grip and fell screaming into the Thames far below. More spiders attacked the ropes.

Alice set her mouth and dived toward them. She knew every one of the machines like another woman might know her lapdogs. A whirligig popped up in front of her, but she grabbed it, twisted its arm upward, and depressed the switch underneath it. The switch released all the tension in the winding spring at once, and the whirligig went limp. With regret, Alice let it go-she had no way to carry it-and the little automaton dropped into the river. By now, she was within arm’s reach of the large ship’s rigging, and she managed to pluck a spider from its work as she passed by and deactivate it. This one she tossed down to the deck.

There was a crack. Below and to Alice’s left, Glenda fired her pistol at a whirligig. A small bolt of lightning hit it dead-on. The whirligig popped and crackled and fell like a stone. Simon had circled around to the other side of the ship, out of sight, but there were still half a dozen spiders in the rigging now, all snipping at the ropes. Fully a third of them had already snapped, and the bow was dipping downward. Shouts and cries rose from the deck. The ship was losing altitude, and Alice didn’t know whether she was crashing or just trying to land. Alice swooped upward, snatched at a spider, and missed. Another rope twanged, and the parting strands slashed across her arm, opening up a biting cut. Alice gritted her teeth and leaned away, trying to decide what to do. Glenda fired at another whirligig, but the shot went wide and vanished into the distance. Another whirligig was converging on her. More ropes snapped on the airship.

Alice’s mouth was dry. What was going on? Her automatons weren’t very intelligent. They could obey fairly simple commands and maintain themselves within limits, but they had no imagination or drive. The idea that they could adapt to new conditions-like the Third Ward showing up in gliders-was laughable. Someone was giving them fresh orders. But who? And where was the person hiding? On the ship itself? That didn’t seem likely. Not when the whole point was to make it crash. The ground? No. Too difficult to see. So where? The answer had to be here somewhere, but her inability to see it itched at her.

Alice swooped past the rigging again and grabbed for another spider, but a whirligig popped up to interfere. Alice snatched it, deactivated it, dropped it. Then Simon popped up from nowhere, nearly hitting Alice’s left wing, and grabbed the spider she had missed. He pried it from the ropes and flung it away, but a whirligig swooped down to rescue it. There were only four spiders left in the rigging now. The humans might be able to win this and let the ship limp to home field. Alice’s heart pounded at the thought of victory. They could solve the mystery later if they just got the ship safely home. She guided her glider toward another snipping spider.

“Help!” Glenda’s thin cry came across the open air. She was struggling with two whirligigs that had landed on her pistol arm. Alice instantly brought her hissing harness around and dived toward the other woman, but even as Alice watched, the two whirligigs managed to pull Glenda’s arm round with aching slowness. Alice tried to speed up, but she was still too far off. Glenda fought the whirligigs, sweat beading on her face, but her treacherous hand was forced to aim the fat pistol at the ship, and a whirligig wrapped its strong metallic fingers around hers.

“No!” Alice screamed. She reached out, even though she was still several yards away.

The pistol fired. A lightning bolt cracked from the barrel and struck the hydrogen envelope full in the center.

The explosion started in the middle and worked outward, like a demon unfurling its wings. It consumed the envelope in fire, and the internal skeleton glowed red. A series of concussions thudded against Alice’s bones, and wave after wave of hot air shoved and tossed her glider about. She fought with fists and feet to keep it steady. Black ash and debris blew in all directions. The last of the airship’s ropes snapped, and the main ship, three stories tall, dropped two hundred feet straight down. It crashed into a warehouse on the Thames and demolished it. Alice grimly fought to keep her glider aloft and was vaguely aware that both Simon and Glenda were in the same predicament. The two whirligigs, their terrible job done, had abandoned Glenda. Below, the dust and ash and bits of flame rose from the wreckage, and fire continued to rain down from above as the remains of the envelope burned away and died. From her position above, Alice got an all-too-excellent view of the wreckage. The ship had cracked open from bow to stern, revealing a glimpse of the giant brass mechanical everyone was so worried about. Alice also caught sight of some of the crewmen’s bodies, their white leathers awash in scarlet. They would never fly again, or kiss their wives or embrace their children, and her machines had done this to them. Black guilt washed over her. Her gorge rose, and she vomited up the remains of her afternoon tea.

“Damn it!” Simon shouted. He was gliding beside her. “Gesu e Maria!”

Glenda, her face pale, swooped over to join them, and they circled tightly over the wreckage like ravens over a battlefield.

“This must have been the thief’s plan from the beginning,” Glenda said. “Destroy the ship so he could get to the war machine. We have to land and guard it before the clockworker can get to it.”

“It’ll be hard.” Simon pointed downward. Ash continued to rain from the sky. “Crowds are gathering, and police. The clockworker could be any one of them.”

“No,” Alice said. “Something’s off. How could he know exactly where the ship would crash-land? What if it had landed in the Thames and he lost the mechanical? And that machine is enormous. What is it-three stories tall? How would he manage to spirit it away without being seen?”

“Clockworkers are insane,” Glenda said. A wind was rising, and they were nearly shouting now.

“This was too carefully planned for someone who’s lost touch,” Alice said. “Look, there’s no way for your anonymous clockworker to actually steal the machine. Not with this plan.”

“So you’re saying the thief doesn’t want the machine at all,” Simon shouted over the wind. “Why do all this, then?”

“A distraction,” Glenda hazarded.

Realization slammed Alice like a rock hammer. “Where’s Gavin?”

She turned back for the little airship without waiting for an answer. Her heart lurched as she scanned the sky. Already the smaller airship had turned away and was flying steadily off, and just visible on the deck were two figures, not one, and the taller figure wore a familiar top hat. Alice’s hands went cold. No, no, no, no. What did the grinning clockworker want with Gavin? Revenge for foiling his attack on the bank? Or something entirely more sinister? She clenched her teeth. The time to ask would be when she had her hands around the lunatic’s throat. But even as the thought crossed her mind, a red indicator light on her left wing’s control bar flashed. Her air bottle was running out. With the airship now so far away, Alice had no hope of catching up. Her heart sank, and she felt sick. She was losing Gavin again, both metaphorically and physically. She would never-

No. Damn it, no. Not this time. Alice turned and dived for the ground.

“What are you doing?” yelled Glenda behind and above her. “Alice!”

But Alice ignored her. The glider shot downward with stomach-dropping speed toward the wreckage. The flames had gone out-hydrogen fires always ended quickly-but the crowd around the massive ruin remained uncertain, giving the area a wide berth. Alice brought the glider lower and, averting her eyes from a gory mess on the splintered deck, managed her first landing without losing her feet. She smelled burned wood and flesh. With shaking hands, she unbuckled the harness, flung the wings aside, and ran toward the gaping fissure that rent the deck from bow to stern. Simon landed a little ways from her.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“No time.” Alice dropped into the dim hold and landed on the chest of the brass war machine, her shoes scrabbling on the metal. It was a mechanical, somewhat similar to the one Patrick Barton had used, but much larger and more human-shaped. It had a head instead of a bubble, with vestigial eyes and even a mouth, but the top was clear glass, with a place for the controller to sit and direct it. Alice’s skilled, practiced eye ran over it, gathering instant details. In seconds, she found the switch that popped the dome open, and she lowered herself into the seat therein. Because the giant was lying on its back, Alice was consequently lying on her own back. She pulled the dome shut and looked around at the switches, dials, and pulleys. There was always a logic to this sort of thing, and her talent, the one that allowed her to understand and assemble clockworker inventions, let her see exactly how it all fit together. She pulled a lever and spun a dial. Steam hissed, and somewhere deep inside the machine’s chest, a boiler roared to life. Power boomed through the pistons, and Alice made the machine sit up. It cranked upright, shouldering aside debris with easy power.

Alice was panting with fear and worry. Every moment it took to work this out meant the clockworker was getting farther and farther away with Gavin. Under Alice’s direction, the mechanical got to its feet. Bitter-smelling coal smoke leaked from the joints, and she found herself three stories above the wreckage. Below, Simon looked up at her from the ruined deck in openmouthed surprise. Glenda swooped in for a landing of her own. Alice didn’t stop for explanations. The little airship was already dwindling in the distance, following the Thames. Alice moved her feet, and the metal giant walked. The crowd screamed and scattered. Treading carefully, Alice stepped clear of the ruins and onto the thoroughfare that went alongside the river. Then, her mouth a grim line, she started to run.

Power stormed through her, and she exulted in it. The war machine was hers now, and she would use it to set things right, to restore order. People saw her coming and scattered long before she arrived, leaving an empty street. Her feet left deep gouges in the cobblestones and gravel, and buildings rumbled in her path. In moments, she caught up to the little airship, which, being slightly above her head, obscured her vision of the deck. Alice reached upward with a hand to grab at it, but her control wasn’t perfect, and she missed. The ship bobbled in the air and tried to gain altitude, but Alice grabbed at it again. This time her fingers caught the keel. It crunched a little, and she eased off, then pulled the ship down like a child taking a model down from a shelf. If the mechanical had been human-sized, the ship would have been the size of a pair of hatboxes, and it was easy to hold. The envelope bobbed up and down like a balloon on a string.

Alice brought the deck down to eye level. Near the stern stood Gavin, his face pale and angry. He was chained by one wrist to the stern railing, and on his right shoulder was Click. The brass cat’s left claws pricked Gavin’s jugular. Click could slash deeper than any knife, and Gavin was being careful not to move. Nearby waited the grinning clockworker in his ragged coat and tall top hat. Alice’s stomach churned with fear for Gavin’s safety and hatred for the clockworker who was endangering him.

“You!” Alice said, and her voice came out through the mechanical’s mouth. “Let him go!”

The clockworker shook his head and gestured for Alice to back away.

“I won’t let you have him,” Alice said.

The clockworker drew a finger across his throat, a deadly gesture enhanced by the skull mask that covered the upper half of his face. Alice’s chest tightened.

“You won’t kill him,” Alice said. “You went through too much trouble to get him, though I have no idea. . no idea why.”

But even as she finished the sentence, Alice did know. The certainty stole over her with the clarity of a puzzle that locked together at last.

“Aunt Edwina,” she said. “You’re Aunt Edwina.”

Gavin went pale. “The Red Velvet Lady.”

The clockworker cocked his-her-head. It all made perfect sense. Only Aunt Edwina, who had built Alice’s automatons, would have a way to take control of them. Only Aunt Edwina had the apparent obsession with Gavin. Only Aunt Edwina was a clockworker who had dropped out of sight at the same time the clockworker in a skull mask had popped up in London. Now that Alice had the chance to look closely, in daylight, when the clockworker wasn’t jumping and moving around, she could see that he-she-was a tall, thin woman rather than a short, slender man. The male clothing, hat, and mask were a simple but effective disguise. People saw a man’s outfit and assumed the wearer was male. Alice herself had benefited from this on the trip back from capturing Patrick Barton. The world spun, and Alice clutched the mechanical’s controls. There would be time for hysterics later. Right now, she had other issues to deal with.

She had intended to tell Edwina to let Gavin go again, but instead she blurted out, “Why, Aunt Edwina? Why kidnap Gavin and fake your death and destroy your house and start these rampages over London? What are you doing?”

The clockworker made a gesture, and Click’s claws moved. Gavin made a noise, and a thin trickle of blood oozed down his neck.

“Stop!” Alice cried. She had forgotten that, aunt or no aunt, clockworkers were still insane. “Aunt Edwina, don’t! I’ll let the ship go. Just don’t hurt Gavin.”

“No!” Gavin croaked. “I won’t be a prisoner again.”

“It’ll be all right, Gavin. But first-Click, give me your left forepaw, please.”

There was a moment, and then Click’s left forepaw dropped away, just as it had when Alice had given the same command in Edwina’s tower. Gavin reacted. He ripped Click off his shoulder and threw him at the clockworker. Caught off guard, Edwina took the brass cat full in the midriff. She stumbled backward, then dived over the gunwale. Gavin yelled. Alice shrieked, her voice amplified by the mechanical. Then the clockworker rose up, supported by four madly spinning whirligigs, so tiny against their giant brother. She snapped her fingers, and three of the whirligigs sang a note, the same notes Alice remembered the clockworker playing at the Bank of England. Edwina snapped her fingers again, and the notes played a second time. Then she touched the brim of her hat and the whirligigs sped her away.

“Why the notes?” Alice said.

“Who cares?” Gavin snarled. “Why does she keep kidnapping me? Is it the way I dress? Do I smell good?”

She needed to keep moving. Whatever happened, she needed to keep moving. If she stopped, the hysterics would take over. Alice extended the mechanical’s free arm to the deck and checked the controls. Certain the mechanical would stay frozen in place and hold the airship steady, she released herself from the chair and made her way carefully along the arm until she was able to swing herself onto the deck. Click limped over to greet her, freed of whatever influence Edwina had put on him. Alice patted his head, took up his missing paw, and popped the claws out. One of them had a lockpick on it. She used it to work at the cuff chaining Gavin’s wrist to the rail without meeting his eye, though she felt his body heat and smelled sweat and leather. He didn’t comment, either, but his breath came in her ear. At last the lock came free. He rubbed his wrist as Alice replaced Click’s paw.

“Thanks,” he said. “I think we’re gathering a crowd down below.”

She straightened, Click at her feet. “No doubt.”

“So.” Gavin shifted his weight. “Your aunt Edwina.”

“Yes.”

They stood in silence, looking at each other high above the ground. A sudden exhilaration swept Alice. It came to her that she had defeated a genius, a clockworker, and more than once. Up here, with Gavin and the Third Ward, all that mattered was what she could do, not who she was. Up here, she was free.

And then Gavin was kissing her. His strong arms were around her, and he was kissing her. Her heart took up her entire chest and her breath fled and he was kissing her.

“I’m sorry I was angry at you,” he murmured against her lips.

“My heart stopped when I saw you leaving,” she murmured back. “I don’t want to go through that again.”

Movement caught her eye, and they broke apart. Glenda and Simon, with fresh bottles powering their gliders, dropped to the little deck. Explanations came fast and furious, though Alice never strayed far from Gavin’s side.

“I’m only unhappy that I didn’t figure out who she was earlier,” Alice said. “I think the little automatons have been reporting back to Aunt Edwina about me since I was a girl. She must have left some bit of program within their memory wheels that let her take control of them for spying and now for this. It was how she knew I was attending the Greenfellow ball.”

“Ah,” Glenda said. “She was able to extrapolate the most likely route you would take home and time the zombie attack so you would run straight into it.”

“Yes. She also ‘happened’ to be present at the solicitor’s office with that paper bomb because she knew I’d be there to discuss an inheritance she herself left me. She even knew I would hear Gavin play in Hyde Park because Click or the other automatons told her Norbert and I took drives there.”

“I’ve never seen this kind of careful planning in a clockworker before,” Simon said. “They’re usually fantastic with the inventions but not so grand with long-range plans. This woman is a new breed, and I don’t mind telling you, she scares the heavens out of me. We have to find her, and quickly-before she kills someone else.”

“No chance of that today,” Gavin muttered, staring off into the sky.

“A recovery team will be here soon to handle the mechanical,” Glenda said, “unless you want to walk it back to headquarters, Miss Michaels.”

“Oh, I don’t imagine she’ll want that.” Simon grinned. “What if her Norbert hears of it?”

At the mention of Norbert’s name, Alice’s exhilaration faded. “Norbert,” she said. “Yes. I need to talk to him.”

Gavin caught her hand. “What are you going to say?”

“Oh, Gavin.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t know. I need to think. I’m all mixed-up. In one day, I lost my automatons, watched an airship explode, stole a giant war machine, and learned my long-lost aunt is actually still alive and controlling zombies in London.”

“What do you think of all that?” Gavin countered.

Alice paused. “I loved it,” she burst out. “Damn it all, I loved it!”

Gavin laughed. So did Glenda. Simon grimaced slightly, and Alice wondered why.

“Unbelievable! Simply unbelievable!” Norbert plucked his cup of chocolate from the breakfast tray and sipped as he read the Times. It was the morning after Alice had returned from her adventure with Gavin and the giant mechanical. “The East India Company gives the Punjabis gainful employment, and they repay the Empire by rising up against it.”

Alice nibbled at a piece of toast. The newspaper’s front page headline screamed MAD MECHANICAL MANGLES GREENWICH, with a smaller headline that announced DIRIGIBLE DETONATES and DOZENS FEARED DEAD, but Norbert was pointedly, carefully, and scrupulously ignoring all that for international news, and Alice had to scramble to keep up.

“Cartridge papers are soaked in pork and beef tallow,” she replied. “The cow is sacred to Indians, and Muslims say pigs are unclean. Is it any wonder Punjabi soldiers refused to tear them open with their teeth? The natives over there were already restless, and their commander only made it worse when he sentenced all those soldiers to hard labor over a foolish technicality-one that he could have avoided by allowing them to use fingers instead of teeth.”

“Military discipline must be maintained. Now they have to pay the consequences, and that’s the end of it.” Norbert set the paper down and drained his little cup. His voice was a bit too loud, his gestures a bit too expansive. “But this and the fighting in China have made me especially anxious to open that new munitions factory. Need to provide for my new wife after this week.”

Alice gave a small smile. “Of course, darling, of course.”

“The papers are ready, and I’ll come home early on Friday so we can sneak down to the church.” He rubbed his hands together with overly precise movements. “So exciting!”

“Indeed.”

“And then we’ll have to get back to the appointments,” Norbert continued, his excitement over. “It’ll be so convenient with you not having to go back to that silly flat every evening.”

Alice said, “Absolutely.” Good God, he was dull. Compared to the deadly machinations of Aunt Edwina, Norbert’s mechanicals seemed insignificant and banal. How had she ever found him shocking? Her own little automatons were far more dangerous than anything Norbert could dream up.

“Are the machines in good working order?”

For a moment, Alice thought he meant her little automatons. Most of them had come slinking back a few minutes after Alice herself had arrived at Norbert’s house with Click. As a precaution, Alice had deactivated all of them, including Kemp and Click. It had hurt more than she had anticipated.

“Yes,” she said aloud. “Your friends should be. . entertained.”

“Perfect.” Norbert rubbed his hands together again with the same precise movements. It was the same excitement he had shown about their upcoming nuptials. She wondered what he would be like in the bedroom and gave an inward shudder. “I’ll be late. You’re beautiful.” He kissed her on the cheek, and departed.

Alice left the breakfast tray for the mechanical maid to clean up and went down the hall to her father’s room. The automaton assigned to his needs stood in the corner, its eyes never leaving Father’s chest as it rose and fell, paused, then rose and fell. He’d been sleeping since she returned. His hair was gone, and his face was shrunken and shriveled. His body barely made a dent in the soft mattress. A heavy, stale smell hung in the overly warm air. His curtains were pushed back, revealing another day crushed by yellow mist. Alice touched his cold hand, but it remained motionless. Father’s breath paused, then resumed.

In the many hours since she had returned with the memory of Gavin’s touch on her body, she had nearly left a number of times. Each time, this particular chain had pulled her back. She imagined men coming into the house and throwing her father into the street. Two men-Norbert and Gavin-had different sets of hooks in her, and they pulled her in two different directions.

“I thought I had decided,” she whispered. “And then it all went topsy-turvy again. What should I do, Father?” But he didn’t answer. She sighed. He didn’t need to. This man, the third one with hooks in her, had sacrificed everything to give her a proper future, and she knew what she needed to do. It was why she hadn’t said anything to Norbert about canceling their elopement-she had long known what the right decision was. Continued to be. A tear slid down her cheek as she held her father’s hand and mentally said good-bye to Gavin and the Third Ward.

After a while, she left the room to wander the house’s empty halls. Spiders and other automatons continued their work with little input from Alice. She had asked, even begged, Norbert to hire some human servants so the house would feel less empty, but he had remained adamant.

A door shut behind her, and she realized she had automatically entered her workroom. The long table with its array of tools stretched across the back wall. Kemp stood frozen near the table, and Click lay on his side amid the debris. She expected the cat to turn his phosphorescent eyes on her when she walked in, but he didn’t move because she had shut him down last night. Suddenly the thought was horrendous, as if she had shut down a part of herself.

“Oh, Click.” She opened a small panel on the back of his neck and extracted a brass winding key. His brass skin felt chilly and rigid, as if he had died. “How could I do this to you?”

She wound the key, but Click was no child’s toy. It took considerable winding to undo the loss, and her wrists became sore with the effort. To pass the time, she hummed a soft melody under her breath.

I see the moon, the moon sees me,

It turns all the forest soft and silvery.

The moon picked you from all the rest

For I loved you-

She bit her lip and stopped singing. At last, Click was finished. Alice replaced the key and pressed a switch. For a moment nothing happened. Then Click shuddered hard, and his eyes cranked open. He gave a metallic mew, trembled again, and gave Alice a reproachful look.

“I’m sorry, Click.” She gathered him into her arms, where he made a cool, heavy weight. “So very sorry. I promise it’ll never happen again.”

Click remained miffed awhile longer, then pressed his chilly nose into the crook of her elbow. Alice stroked him for a moment. Her eye fell on the storage box into which she had set the automatons that had survived yesterday’s adventure. With her free hand, she opened it. The little automatons lay in a jumbled pile of wings and segmented legs, dead as dried spiders. She ran a finger over several, remembering every plane and contour. One of them jerked slightly, using up a tiny vestige of windup energy, and went still again. Alice felt heavy.

Fog still hung its damp curtain against the windows. It seemed to hem her in, closing around the house just as her dress closed around her body. Outside, everything looked smooth and perfect. But it was only a shell, a soft illusion.

She wanted to fly. She wanted to learn. She wanted to fix machines that did something interesting, machines that would change the world. And she wanted to do it with Gavin.

Click looked up at her, his joints creaking softly, his eyes green and steady. She could almost hear him speak. Then what, he asked, are you waiting for?

Alice looked at her dead automatons and then at the fog. Fog might hem her in, but it couldn’t push her back. Not unless she let it.

Suddenly, the idea of spending one more hour in the house became utterly intolerable. With Click in her arms, she fled from the room. She fled down the hall. And then, before she could stop herself, she fled toward the stairs. She was doing it. She was leaving.

Her heart pounded with both fear and excitement. She would do it. She would do it today. Now. This minute. She would join the Third Ward, and she would see Gavin every day, and maybe something bad would come of it, but oh! Wasn’t it equally possible that something good would happen?

She needed nothing, wanted nothing from Norbert’s house. She would leave right now and never come back. With a laugh that made her giddy, she clattered down the hall and made it halfway down the grand staircase near the front door when she abruptly remembered: Father. She couldn’t leave him.

But her momentum was too great. The avalanche that had been building inside her propelled her on, and speed lent clarity. She hadn’t been worried about Father-not really. She had only been foolish and afraid, and had used Father as an excuse. His health was no obstacle! She could join the Third Ward on the condition that they move Father to their headquarters. If they wanted to take his care out of her salary, so be it. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? And the debts? They couldn’t imprison a baroness for debts, and that was what she would become, all too soon. Everything she wanted was within her grasp. She had just been too afraid to take it.

Heartened, she ran farther down the stairs and halted again. What about Kemp and her little automatons? If she left now, she’d never get them back, and she couldn’t leave Kemp to rust and tarnish, or-this thought brought a shudder-allow Norbert to melt him down in a fit of pique.

At the bottom of the stairs, Alice changed course. Scurrying past the soulless eyes of the footman, she entered the library and took out ink and writing paper. Click sat in her lap at the writing desk and watched as, with shaking hands, she wrote a quick paragraph. After a moment’s hesitation, she recklessly added another sentence and signed it. There were still four deliveries left before the Royal Mail halted for the night, meaning Phipps would have plenty of time to respond to the letter by tomorrow, perhaps even by this evening. Meanwhile, Alice would finish repairing Kemp and prepare Father to be moved.

The weight left her, and she felt as if she could jump off the top floor and fly. Why on earth-no, why the hell-had she waited so long? Folding the paper into an envelope, she scribbled Lt. Susan Phipps, The Third Ward, v2 on the front and rushed to the front door, where she dashed out into the clearing fog without pausing for a wrap, or even a hat.

“Would the lady like me to arrange for a cab?” the footman called after her.

Alice ignored it. The Royal Mail had an office only a few hundred yards down the street, and she ran toward it, skirts bunched in her hands. People on the sidewalk turned to stare at her, a hatless woman rushing in an unladylike sprint up the sidewalk, but Alice found she didn’t care in the least.