Rebel Magisters (28 page)

But apparently, my lies weren’t quite as polished as I would have liked. Flora stopped me as we left the dining room after dinner and said, “What are you up to?”

“Whatever do you mean?” I asked, knowing my tone didn’t sound as flippant as I would have liked.

“Do you have some sort of plan to help Henry?”

“What makes you think that I’m the kind of person who could do anything for him?”

“I think that there’s more to your friends than you let on.”

“Such as?”

“Colin—Mr. Flynn—looked very different this time, like he was in disguise, and he and his sister seemed to be in the park looking for you. I noticed that he came up with an excuse to get Olive and me away from you so that you could talk to Miss Flynn. If he’d only wanted to flirt with me, he wouldn’t have included Olive. Then you let us go with him. You know he and I have a very improper attachment, so it would have been your job as chaperone to stay with us.”

“I didn’t think you’d do anything untoward in front of Olive.”

“I wouldn’t do anything untoward anyway. I know better. Are you doing something to help Henry? Because if you are, I want to help. What can I do?”

I studied her face for a long moment. Her eyes were steely and her jaw was firmly set. For once, I could see some family resemblance between her and her uncle. I decided that I had to trust her. She could prove quite useful. “I don’t know yet. We’ll have to act quickly because I hear they’re sending him to England by the end of the week.”

“He really is guilty, isn’t he? I’ve always known he had radical views, but he’s been doing things. He just
acts
like a silly amateur scientist, but I know that’s not what he’s really like. It’s like his secret identity.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“You’re not the only person in this house with a weakness for pulp novels, Miss Newton.”

“Really?”

“Well, I can’t let that sort of thing get out. I have a reputation to uphold.”

“One way you can help me is by taking over Olive’s lessons in the morning. I have to go meet with my contacts and see if the plan is shaping up.”

“I’ll have my maid get me up early. Then you can go visit your ‘sick friend.’”

*

This surprising turn of events made my life easier. The next morning, Flora appeared at breakfast and took care of Olive, so after I dropped Rollo off at school I was able to head directly downtown. My friend intercepted me on the street corner nearest the laundry.

“Oh good, perfect timing!” she said. “I was hoping you would come this morning, and right when I go on break you appear. That is a good omen. Come, we must talk. There are people you should meet.”

She guided me down a set of steps into a basement. The air in there was so warm and damp that I struggled to breathe for a moment. It was a laundry room, where women stirred great vats of steaming water. They glanced at us as we entered, but went back to their work.

My friend took me through the laundry to a small room at the back, where several women waited. One was Chinese, like my friend. Another was a tall, heavyset woman with curling fair hair. The third was dark-skinned and wiry. As was usual in these circumstances, no introductions were made.

“They all work at the fort,” my friend said. “Your friend is there.”

The Chinese girl said something in her language, and my friend translated, “She says they can get you in and out through the laundry.”

“I can get you close to the cells, if you don’t mind pushing a broom,” the dark-skinned woman said. “I’m on the night cleaning crew. No one ever looks at us, so that much should be easy. The trick will be getting the cell open. I don’t know how to get keys.”

I could pick an ordinary lock in a house, but I doubted the lock to a cell would be so easy. I thought for a moment that I might be able to use magic to open the lock, but then I realized that they would have to do something to keep magic from working in order to hold a magister prisoner.

“Do you know anything about the locks?” I asked.

“I haven’t paid much attention. The day crew cleans inside the cells. They aren’t opened for us.”

“The locks are strong,” the blond woman said in a thick German accent. “You cannot break them. There is an iron plate behind them so the prisoners can’t reach them from inside their cells.” That might be what blocked the magic, I thought, which meant they might be opened magically from outside. Even so, I knew I’d better have a backup plan.

“Do you know where they keep the keys?” I asked.

“You will not be able to get to them. They are in the office, where there is always a jailer.”

“So, you can get me in through the laundry, then get me to the cells as a charwoman,” I summarized. “If we can get my friend out of the cell, do you have a way to get him back to the laundry?”

“How good does he look in a dress and apron?” the dark-skinned woman asked with a grin.

“He’s rather tall, I’m afraid. People would notice a woman that tall. But perhaps he could crouch under a long skirt. Then how do we get him out through the laundry?”

The Chinese girl said something, and my friend, who’d been relaying the conversation to her all along, translated for us, “No one counts the number of laundresses who go in and out. We wait for a shift change. But we will not have very long before his absence is noticed.”

“I might be able to do something to keep the escape from being noticed, and I have ways of getting him quickly out of the area,” I said. At least, I hoped I did. “When will we be able to do this? Time is of the essence.”

“How about tonight?” the German woman asked. “You will come in with us when we start work at eight. You should wait before going to the cells because there isn’t another shift change until four.”

“Tonight? That doesn’t give me much time to have everything else in place, but I can do it.” I had to do it.

We finalized the details about when and where I would meet them, and my mind was already racing ahead to everything else I needed to set up. I needed to get the Mechanics ready to get Henry out of the city, and I felt like I’d need some other help. The biggest gaps in the plan were how to get Henry out of his cell and how to get him to the subway that could take him almost to the edge of the city. There were far too many blocks between the fort at the lower tip of Manhattan and the lowest station.

I didn’t actually know where Lizzie spent her days, but I headed to her boardinghouse to look for her. Her landlady directed me to the theater. “They’re in rehearsals,” she said with a wink.

Nat was watching the door at the theater and let me inside. The place was still set up as a theater, with no sign of Mechanics activity, but I heard Colin’s voice coming from the balcony. I hurried up the stairs, remembering the night not so long ago when Henry and I had come to warn them about the raid. I hoped the Mechanics remembered that night as vividly as I did.

I found that Lizzie was also there, along with Alec and some of the others. “I’ll be getting Henry out of the fort at four in the morning,” I said without preamble. “I’ll need help getting him out of the city soon afterward. Are you going to help me?”

“You sound very certain that you can get him out,” Alec said, frowning.

“I am. I have a plan, and I have help.”

“If you can get him out of the city to the airship hangar, we can get him to safety. But that’s about all we can do.”

“But what about the subway? Wouldn’t that be safer?”

“I’m not sure the subway would be of much use because by the time you get him there, the alert may already have gone up and he won’t make it across the bridge. That’s a long way from the fort.”

“I know,” I said.

“And there will be a manhunt,” he added. “They’ve been patrolling more heavily since we escaped.”

“I
know
. Don’t you think I know?” I snapped. “Do you think I shouldn’t try?”

“I didn’t say that,” Alec said.

“But you’re thinking it. What’s one more magister to you? Even if I free him, he’s
no use
to you anymore. He won’t have access to his money or to his friends. But he’s been there for me, and he’s been there for you. He’s the one who took the risk to get the information that may bring down the government and kick off your precious revolution. We all owe him, even if he’s no good to us anymore.”

“We’ll help,” Lizzie said, standing up and shooting the men a glare. “But there’s not a lot we can do right now aside from moving him out of the city and giving him sanctuary.”

“You can create a diversion,” I said. “Perhaps another midnight riot? Something big enough to draw troops away from the fort.”

“We don’t have our machines to really make a fuss, but I suppose we could come up with something. Did you have a particular place in mind?” Colin asked.

“The neighborhood near the fort would be good. And maybe somewhere else on the island, earlier in the evening.”

“We’re very good at making noise,” he assured me, grinning in a way that told me plans were already brewing in his head.

“Is there anything else you want from us?” Alec asked. I thought I detected a trace of sarcasm in his voice, but I ignored it.

“Can you teach me to pick locks?” I asked, abruptly coming up with an idea.

“Pick locks?” Alec asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I have a plan for getting the cell open, but I want a backup plan. I know how to pick easy locks—I can open just about any door in a house with a hairpin—but I suspect a cell door might be an entirely different story and would require more specialized tools.”

The other man who’d been sitting silently during this discussion grinned. “I can teach you,” he said in a brogue heavier than Colin’s. “I can’t guarantee you’ll be an expert with one lesson, but if you already know the basics, it could be possible.” He rose from his seat and gestured for me to follow him.

We went down to a basement workroom, where he got out a set of tools and some heavy padlocks. “These should be about the same size as you’ll find in a cell door. They’re a different kind of lock, but the principle is the same.”

I spent the next hour working on my lock-picking skills. Real locks were trickier than the simple latch of a bedroom door. It took me several minutes to do what my teacher managed in seconds, but I thought that if I also used magic, that might help. He gave me the tools I’d need and a padlock to practice on.

By the time I returned home just after lunchtime, I’d fleshed out my plan. Flora met me on the stairs and gave me a pointed look before pulling me into the library. “So?” she demanded.

“I have something arranged for tonight, but I’ll need your help.”

“Anything.”

“We need to pay some calls this afternoon.”

“Pay calls at a time like this? Will we even be admitted?”

“Nothing has made the newspapers, so I don’t know who knows about it. But the brothers of a couple of your friends are part of Henry’s group, and I’ll need their help. If you visit your friends, I’ll have a chance to talk to these men.”

“Then calls it is!” I was impressed with—and a little alarmed by—her enthusiasm.

*

Later that afternoon, we set out, first to Lady Charity’s home. Flora gave me a meaningful glance as she pointedly left me alone in the foyer. Soon afterward, Philip appeared and gestured for me to join him under the stairs. “Is there news of Henry?” he asked.

“He’s being held at the West Battery fort, and they’re planning to transport him to England.” Before he could get indignant, I hurried to add, “But I’ve got a plan to get him out tonight. I’ll need your help. Your whole gang’s help. Do you remember the night you robbed the payroll delivery at the fort?”

“You know about that?”

“I helped. We’ll need a similar getaway. Can you get a boat near there? A fast one? I’m not sure we’ll be able to rely on stealth or even subterfuge. The drunken party gambit won’t work this time.”

“I can arrange something, I’m sure. What time?”

“By four in the morning. That’s when we’re most likely to be able to slip away. You’ll want to be west of the fort. Things are likely to be unpleasant to the east at that time.”

“Unpleasant?”

“Diversion.”

“I was going to suggest that.”

“I have the Mechanics on that. I was worried that if the Masked Bandits were up to something while Henry was escaping, it might tie it all together, and so far, no one seems to be aware of the banditry. All they’re accusing Henry of is organizing a rebel movement.” I laughed at that, realizing how absurd it was that treason on that level was the least of Henry’s crimes.

“I’ll let the others know,” he said, “but only the inner circle I’m sure I can trust. Mostly because we all have too much dirt on each other.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “I say, you really are rather extraordinary for a governess. Have you considered banditry?”

“That’s not nearly exciting enough for me,” I said with a smile.

We arranged details for a meeting place, and he said Henry would know the right signals. I returned to my spot in the foyer, and Philip ran up the stairs. Flora and Charity came out of the parlor, and as soon as we were in the carriage, Flora whispered, “Well?”

“Everything is set.”

“I want to help.”

“You have.”

“I want to do more than pay a call.”

“You can cover for me when I go out. I’ll need to leave before dinner.”

“Your sick friend has taken a turn for the worse, and you’re going to sit with her through the night?”

“Of course.”

“What else can I do?”

“Do you have any money—any cash on hand? Or do you know if Lord Henry has any? He’ll need money, and possibly some clothes and other things while he’s on the run.”

“I’ll talk to Matthews. He’ll get the things Henry is likely to need.”

“Is there a way you could arrange to get those to Mr. Spencer or Viscount Hayes?”

“Leave it to me,” she said confidently. Her eyes grew bright with tears and she reached across the carriage to take my hand. “You are going to save him, aren’t you?”

“I’m doing everything I can. But you know, he won’t be able to come home. He’ll be a fugitive, probably for the rest of his life.”