The Iron Thorn

2 The School of Engines

WE REACHED THE head of Dunwich Lane and turned onto Storm Avenue before I realized I was still shaking. The gates of the Academy weren’t far, but I stopped and leaned against a lamppost.

Cal tilted his head. “Aoife, you hurt?” He fumbled in his satchel. “I’ve got my first-aid kit somewhere in here … had a valve-fitting lab earlier today.”

“I … I …” I wrapped my arms around myself, even though I had on a peacoat and my uniform jumper beneath it. I was freezing. It felt like death had put a hand on my cheek, put the chill inside me down to my bones, even though the Rationalists taught there was no death, only an end. A period on a sentence, and a blank page.

“I just want to go inside,” I said, unable to take Cal’s anxious expression. Cal was an advanced worrywart. In the two years I’d known him, he never got any less skittish.

“All right,” Cal said. He offered his elbow and I took it, just grateful to hide my shaking legs. I’d never seen a viral creature so close. Madwomen like my mother were one thing, merely infected. A thing fully mutated by the necrovirus from a person with a consciousness and a face into an inhuman nightjar was quite another. The smell of it lingered, like I’d fallen asleep in a nightmare garden.

The gates of the Academy loomed up from the low river fog, and we passed underneath the gear and the rule, the insignia of the Master Builder. The ever-present sign that watched us everywhere, from the stonework of our dormitories and the badges on our uniforms to the arch of the Rationalist chapel at the edge of the grounds. The sign of reason, a ward against the necrovirus and the heretics, that all rational citizens of Lovecraft who followed the Master Builder’s tenets adhered to.

Cal looked at the dining hall, still lit, and sighed. “I guess it’s useless to try and pretend we’re just late.”

Mrs. Fortune proved him right by flying out the hall’s double doors, her long wool skirt and cape flapping behind her. “Aoife! Aoife Grayson, where on Galileo’s round earth have you been?”

Mr. Hesse was hard on her heels. “Daulton, front and center. You know you’re past curfew.” Mr. Hesse was as sharp as Mrs. Fortune was round, and they stood like an odd couple in the lights of the dining hall.

“Aoife, you’re filthy and you stink like a whore’s perfume,” Mrs. Fortune said. I was still chilled but I felt my cheeks heat in humiliation—and in relief that she hadn’t pried at me further. “Go to your room and wash up,” she continued. “You’ll get no supper as punishment.”

No supper might as well have been a warm embrace. If Mrs. Fortune found out I’d been in Old Town and had contact with a viral creature, I could be expelled.

Mr. Hesse cleared his throat loudly, and Fortune favored him with a raised eyebrow. Mrs. Fortune had climbed mountains and trekked Africa as a girl, before she’d landed here. Few crossed her. “What is it, Herbert?” she demanded. I waited. Hesse was notorious for handing out canings and detentions. He was also far more suspicious that we were all misbehaving at all times than Mrs. Fortune. I drew a breath, held it.

“Well?” Mrs. Fortune asked him.

“The girl was wandering the city after six bells, doing stone knows what, and you’re merely withholding a meal?” Hesse said. To punctuate his opinion of my punishment he snapped, “Daulton, the quadrangle. Now. Stand at attention until I come for you.” Standing in formation on the quad didn’t seem unpleasant, on the surface, until you’d be standing at attention, perfectly still, for hours in the cold. Marcos Langostrian had lost a small toe last year from frostbite after he’d been outside all night. He’d deserved it, the little worm, but I felt a pang for Cal as Mr. Hesse glared at him.

Cal heaved a sigh. “See you tomorrow, Aoife. And thank you for … er … before. You’re pretty great.” He set off at a jog for the quad. Hesse peered at me through his glasses. The thick Bakelite frames were too big for his face and made him look even mousier.

“What was he thanking you for, Grayson? Did you lift your skirt for him on the way home? I know you city wards and how you operate, especially the ones with mothers in a—”

“Mister Hesse,” Mrs. Fortune said in a voice that could have stripped gears. “Thank you for your assistance. Aoife, go on to your room. Don’t you and the unfortunate Mr. Daulton have an exam tomorrow?”

“Yes,” I said, glad it was mostly dark and Hesse couldn’t see that he’d made me turn colors. I’d learned a long time ago that shouting and fighting over my mother or my reputation just made things worse, and talking sass to a Head of House, well … it didn’t bear thinking about after the trouble I was already in.

It didn’t mean that the thought didn’t spring to mind, to wipe Mr. Hesse’s superior smirk from his mouth. He thought he knew me. The entire Academy thought they had the blueprint of Aoife Grayson, city ward and madwoman’s daughter.

They didn’t know a thing.

“Off you go, then. You’ve been dismissed.” Fortune made a shooing motion with her hands. I trudged to the girls’ dormitory, mounting the four flights of stairs to the second-year floor, tucked beneath the garrets of the old place. The Lovecraft Academy of Arts and Engines was built from several stately homes and their assorted outbuildings, and the girl’s dorm had been a stable. In the summer you could still smell hay and horses up under the eaves. It reminded me of a ghost, a tiny connection to a past that had no necrovirus, no madhouses and no Aoife Grayson, charity student.

My small desk, with its whirlwind of blueprint paper, engineering textbooks and class notes, should have been my destination, but instead I curled up on my bed. Studying wasn’t something that would happen tonight, not after what had transpired with my mother, and with Cal. The iron bedsprings groaned, but I ignored them and rolled on my side, facing the low wall where the ceiling joined. My roommate, Cecelia, was at choir practice for the Hallows’ Eve recital, and aside from the gentle hiss of the aether lamp I was alone.

I wadded up my jacket and tossed it into the far corner, trying to erase the smell of Dunwich Lane, and then I got out a pencil and an exercise book from under my pillow and started doing math problems for Structural Engineering. Far from busywork, numbers are solid and steady. Numbers keep the mind orderly. An orderly mind can’t fall into madness, become consumed by its dreams, get sick on the fantastic and improbable nations that only the mad can visit.

At least, I’d been telling myself that since my mother was committed. Since I was eight years old. Eight years is a long time to lie, even to yourself.

Interrupted by a scratching at the door, I snapped my head up. The chronometer on my desk, with its whirring gears and swinging weights, read half-nine. I’d fallen into a fugue over the page. “Celia, did you forget your key again?” I called. Cecelia was famous for losing everything from sheet music to hairpins.

Instead of an answer, the mellowed corner of a vellum envelope appeared under the door, and a quick clattering of feet ran away down the corridor. I plucked up the letter, saw the address in proper square handwriting:

Miss Aoife Grayson, School of Engines, Lovecraft, Massachusetts

The envelope was charred at one edge, smeared and shiny with dirt, the ink blotted like a bloodstain. It looked like something that had come a long way.

My heart froze. I ripped the door open and looked out into the corridor, my blood roaring.

There was no one. Dusty and dim as always, the dormitory was silent save for snatches of a variety show coming from down the hall. The studio audience laughed over the aether when the host asked, “What’s the difference between a nightjar and my girlfriend?”

Just as quickly, I shut the door and bolted it behind me. The letter lay on the bed, poisonous as a widow spider. The handwriting was as unmistakable as it was unremarkable.

Before I could open the envelope, the door rattled again. “Aoife? Aoife, open this door at once.”

Mrs. Fortune. Of all the rotten times. I shoved the letter under my pillow. Mrs. Fortune was as kind and understanding as any house head could be, but seeing that letter would stretch even her goodwill.

“Aoife!” The bolt rattled again. “If you’re smoking cigarettes or drinking liquor in there …”

I quickly shed my school tie, undid a few collar buttons and turned the taps in the corner sink on full. I didn’t need to muss my hair—the dark unruly strands stood out and frizzed up on their own. I unbolted the door. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Fortune. I was washing up.”

Her face relaxed, and she stepped inside. “That’s all right, dear. I’ll keep this brief. I was going to tell you at supper, but …”

I lowered my head and hoped I looked appropriately guilty. Really, I was just praying Don’t look at the bed.

“Aoife, there’s no easy way to tell you this,” Mrs. Fortune said, crossing her broad arms under her equally broad bosom. “The Headmaster requires your presence on Tuesday, after supper, for a meeting about your future here.”

I kept my expression blank, though inside everything lurched. If you want a course on keeping your face composed, become a city ward and go through a few strict homes where the nuns smack your hand or mouth for the slightest snicker or frown. “I don’t understand,” I said, though I did. I was keeping up the order, the routine and sameness that kept truth at bay. Mostly. Not now, with the letter burning a hole in my mattress.

“Aoife, you’re not unintelligent,” said Mrs. Fortune. “For a girl to be accepted into the School of Engines at all is a feat. Don’t disgrace yourself by playing dumb.”

“I don’t understand,” I repeated, softly and innocently. My voice broke and I hated myself for it. “My birthday isn’t for another month.”

“Yes, and on that day, if we are to look at things historically, certain … events may occur,” said Mrs. Fortune. “Your mother began to show signs at sixteen, although sadly I understand we don’t know when or how she was exposed. Your family carries a latent infection, this has been proven by her doctors. The Headmaster needs to prepare you with certain truths. That’s all.” Her big face was flushed, red from neck to hair, and she swayed from one side to the other in her hiking boots, like we were on the deck of a ship.

I stayed quiet and listened to my breath hiss in and out through my nostrils. Proven my behind. There was no reliable test for the necrovirus—half the time someone was committed because someone else didn’t like their look. That much, I had learned from Dr. Portnoy and my dealings with the asylum.

Mrs. Fortune clucked when I was quiet. “Do you have anything to say for yourself, Aoife?”

“I’m not my mother,” I snarled, vicious as the nightjar. I was different than Nerissa. I didn’t want to wander lost in dreams. I had iron and engines in my blood.

“No, dear, we’re not saying anything of the sort, but you must admit that Conrad …,” she started. I glared at her, a hard glare made of tempered glass. Mrs. Fortune swallowed her last words.

“I’m not my brother, either,” I ground out. “Is that what the Headmaster will say? We’re mad because my mother didn’t marry our father? Her being easy made us mad? Well, it’s not true and I’m not mad.” Heat rose in my cheeks like too much steam in a feed pipe. The pressure was going to make me explode.

Mrs. Fortune, for her part, looked relieved to be back on familiar footing. “You will not speak to a head of house so, young woman. Now finish your schoolwork and get into your nightclothes. Lights out in one hour.”

“I’m not going to go mad,” I said again, loudly, as she backed out of the room.

“Oh, Aoife.” Mrs. Fortune sighed. “How can anyone possibly know that for sure?” She smiled sadly and shut the door.

The aether hissed. I felt tears spill over my cheeks and I didn’t wipe them away, just let them grow cold on my skin.

I waited for a good while after Fortune’s footsteps moved away, then grabbed the letter from under my pillow and tore it open with my thumbnail. Three other letters had come in the year since my brother Conrad went away, and I kept the envelopes in my footlocker, underneath my blue sweater with the moth hole in the armpit.

The letters in his handwriting always arrived invisibly, never more than a few lines, but they told me that Conrad was still alive. After his escape from the madhouse, where the Proctors sent him after his sixteenth birthday, it was the only sign I had left. Treated with ghost ink, the letters smelled of vinegar and smoke. Ghost ink had been Conrad’s favorite trick—treat the paper and the ink with the patented Invisible Ghosting Liquid, and when you held the missive over heat and set it aflame, innocuous poems turned into full-length letters written in smoke that would disappear when the paper finally burned down to ash.

If the Headmaster or the Proctors in Ravenhouse, dedicated to protecting us from the heretics and viral creatures, found out I was getting letters from a condemned madman, I’d be locked up as quickly as Conrad had been. I unfolded the thick paper, feeling the fibers coarse against my fingertips, expecting something like the last letter:

Winter comes with sharp teeth

Wind to polish my bones

Which, burned, read:

Dear Aoife,

Cold here, and snowing, dreary and dark as the Catacombs in Ravenhouse at home …

Conrad never sounded mad in his letters. Then again, to anyone who didn’t know her, my mother didn’t seem particularly mad at first glance. Until she started talking about lily fields and dead girls. You had to look deep, in the cracks and crevices, to see the madness of the infection eating her insides. Once you really looked, though … there was no question it was there. Just like Conrad’s words in smoke.

This newest letter was crinkled, like it had been shoved in a pocket too quickly, and across the center of the page a single word sprawled.

HELP

I stared at the word, the word in Conrad’s hand, the desperate word glaring at me from the page. I stared for a long time, my mind whirling like a winter storm. It was so unlike him, so brief and terrifying. The Conrad I knew could always organize his thoughts, like a professor laying out a lesson plan. He was the man of our house. Conrad never asked me for my help. With anything.

I didn’t know that Conrad was in danger. I didn’t know that the letter was anything except the deranged mind of a boy driven mad with the necrovirus, spilled on the page.

But I still sat, looking at the letter and wishing I could creep away to burn the real words inside out, until Cecelia came back from her rehearsal and the heads of house dimmed the lamps for sleep.