The Clockwork Three (26 page)

“My cataloging is finished,” the clockwork man said. “Can I assist you?”

“No.” The pressure seemed to squeeze the air from Frederick’s lungs. “I can’t …” Frederick tugged on his hair. “I can’t bear it.”

“Let us analyze your problem.”

“There’re too many.”

“Let us order your problems. Which is most concerning to you?”

“Giuseppe,” Frederick said.

“Then let us assist Giuseppe. After that, we will address your next problem.”

The clockwork man approached him, and Frederick looked up at the bronze face. It appeared blank, placid, and strong.

Frederick heard a rap on the shop door upstairs.

“Hannah,” he said, and jumped up.

The clockwork man moved to follow him.

“Wait here,” Frederick said, and rushed up to the shop. Hannah was pecking on the windowpane as Frederick unbolted the front door and opened it. She stepped through, ashen and wringing her hands.

“The police were there,” she said.

“Where?”

“At my apartment! Miss Wool lied to me.”

“Lied about what?”

Hannah proceeded to tell him all that had happened in Mister Stroop’s suite, of the will and Hannah’s deception, and Miss Wool’s threat.

“You think she realized you made up the will?”

“She must have. Oh, Frederick, what am I going to do? They’ll arrest me!”

“No, they won’t,” Frederick said. “We won’t let that happen.”

“How?”

“As soon as we’ve helped Giuseppe, the three of us will go up to Mister Twine’s mansion, just as we planned. He can stop Miss Wool. We’ll explain everything to him, and it will all work out. You’ll see.”

Hannah took a deep breath. “I hope you’re right.”

With Hannah there to sharpen his purpose, Frederick found he was able to ease out from under the weight bearing down on him to plan their next step. They went down to the cellar where the clockwork man waited, patient as a mantelpiece.

Frederick leaned forward, his hands on the worktable. “Crosby Street is the roughest neighborhood in the city. And from Giuseppe’s description, Stephano’s lair is at the back end. But I don’t think it’s safe for us to go into Crosby Street through the main entrance. We’ll have to use an alley off the Cottonway.”

They cloaked the clockwork man and ventured out into the street. For the length of their journey across the city, the automaton remained silent, almost grim. Frederick wondered along the way about clockwork emotion, and whether there could be such a thing. Could mankind’s most ephemeral, most varied expressions be tamed within the predictable turning of gears? The regularity and constancy of clockwork seemed fundamentally at odds with human feeling. But in spite of that, there were fleeting moments when the clockwork man appeared to be expressing something like an emotion. Perhaps imitation had been built into the design.

They made good time to the Cottonway. Crosby Street butted up against it at a perpendicular, with buildings separating the two roads. They found an alley, a narrow break in the brick expanse. The sound of metal scraping followed them down its length as the clockwork man
found it more difficult than Hannah and Frederick to squeeze through. They paused when they reached the end.

“What now?” Hannah asked.

“Let’s watch,” Frederick said.

Garbage piles and crates cluttered the street. From farther down the road they heard men shouting and women cackling. There were buildings on either side, with no way to tell which might be Stephano’s lair. But within a few moments, a couple of boys approached a three-story house on the left. One of them, a very stout boy who looked to be Giuseppe’s age, carried an accordion. As they reached the front door they slowed and even hesitated before going in, like they were afraid.

“That must be it,” Frederick said.

“Giuseppe’s in there?”

“He must be.”

The clockwork man began to rattle again and Frederick turned around. The automaton stuck out its arms and strained against the buildings to either side like it was trying to keep them apart. “There is something different,” it said.

“Are you all right?” Hannah asked.

“Uncertain. Allow me to go in to find your friend.”

“By yourself?” Frederick asked.

The clockwork man’s quaking worsened. “Yes. You will be safer here.”

“But how will you —?”

The clockwork man marched toward them.

“Hey —” Frederick said. The automaton pushed them both out of the alley into Crosby Street.

“Wait here,” it said.

“Hold on,” Frederick said, but the clockwork man had already covered half the distance to the building in long, smooth strides.

“What’s it going to do?” Hannah asked.

Frederick felt helpless. “I don’t know. But we need to get off the street.” He guided Hannah back into the alleyway, pushing her a little when she turned back to look.

By the time they were hidden, the automaton had reached the door, appearing from that distance as a large man wearing a cloak. It paused a moment, opened the door, and charged inside.

Within a moment cries of alarm issued from the building, mostly younger voices, boys. Then a clamor, splitting wood and angry shouts.

Hannah gripped Frederick’s arm.

Frederick thought of the delicate gears in the Magnus head, and the clockwork of his own design. How easy it would be to damage it, in spite of the clockwork man’s strength. Frederick thought about going in after the automaton to help it, and pulled against Hannah’s hands.

“Don’t you even think about going in there,” she said.

Frederick clenched his fists, unblinking eyes drying out.

The commotion in Stephano’s lair faded, as if receding into the building, but then rose to a crescendo. The front door burst open, and the clockwork man barreled out of the house carrying two figures, one under each arm. The hood of his cloak flapped behind him, sliced in half, his bronze head glinting in the night. He ran toward the alley.

Behind him, two older buskers leaped into the street, wielding clubs and knives.

“Run,” Frederick said to Hannah, and gave her a push.

They fled back down the alley, the clockwork man’s steps thundering behind them, along with the patter of smaller feet. Frederick chanced a
look back and saw Giuseppe carrying a violin case, and another boy behind him, while the clockwork man brought up the rear. Behind the automaton, the two buskers closed the distance.

“I see you found your clockwork friend!” Giuseppe said behind him.

“We must go faster.” The clockwork man’s voice reverberated in the alley.

There was a shout from farther back, and then a sharp clang. Frederick flinched but kept running, listening for the heavy sound of metal boots.

“Faster,” the clockwork man said.

They reached the end of the alley and poured onto the Cottonway, one after the other. But as Frederick turned around to look behind him for their pursuers, someone grabbed him.

“Aha! We’ve been following you thieves!” Mister Diamond breathed into Frederick’s face. “Now where is the Magnus head?”

Frederick saw Mister Clod and Mister Slag sweeping their great ape arms toward Hannah and Giuseppe, easily catching them both. The little boy with Giuseppe looked paralyzed with fear, shaking in the middle of the street.

The two buskers chasing them tore out of the alley and launched themselves at the clockwork man, their clubs banging away on the Magnus head and the tin chest plate, oblivious to the three men from the museum.

“Help,” the automaton said.

Mister Diamond looked up and shrieked. “What on earth? No!” He let go of Frederick and pointed at the clockwork man. “Clod! Slag! Save the Magnus head!”

The brutes took a moment to register the command before releasing the squirming Hannah and Giuseppe. Then they turned toward the buskers. Mister Clod snorted, and they descended like an avalanche.

One of the buskers saw and shouted a warning, but not in time. Before either of the boys could react, Mister Clod and Mister Slag fell on them, and in a flash each had one of the buskers up over their head, ready to snap them in two. The boys screamed.

Mister Diamond rushed toward his henchmen. “Don’t kill them!”

“Come on,” Hannah said. “While they’re distracted.”

The clockwork man stumbled toward Frederick, teetering, dents visible all over its body beneath the shredded cloak.

“Help me,” Frederick said, and he and Giuseppe rushed to the automaton’s sides.

Giuseppe guided them across the street to another alley. “This way. Pietro, come on!”

Hannah and the little boy followed Giuseppe and Frederick down a few sharp turns and byways, the sounds of the frightened buskers and the rumble of Diamond’s thugs growing fainter.

The weight of the automaton dug into Frederick’s shoulder. “Can we lose them?” Frederick asked.

Giuseppe spoke through clenched teeth.
“Non so,”
he said, which Frederick did not understand.

Their flight was dizzying and confounding to Frederick, down streets he had never seen, over forgotten courtyards with weeds sprouting between the cobblestones, through blind alleys where no gaslight or moonlight penetrated. It was like a different city, or a city behind the city Frederick knew. And then they turned a corner and he saw the sign to Mister Hamilton’s tailor shop, which confused him until his disorientation settled like a spinning top come to rest, and he realized they were now on Sycamore Street. Farther on he saw Master Branch’s shop.

They had made it.

“There is something … different,” the clockwork man said.

“Let’s get it inside,” Frederick said.

They made more noise than he would have liked, bumping the door open and ringing the bell. But they managed to ease the clockwork man into the back room and down the cellar stairs. The automaton let them lay it down on the workbench, and Frederick felt suddenly like a doctor with a patient in critical condition.

They pulled the cloak open, revealing the extent of the damage.

“Oh, no.” Hannah covered her mouth.

Giuseppe shook his head. Then he walked over to the little boy and put his arm around his shoulder. “You all right?”

“Yes,” the boy named Pietro said, and pointed at the clockwork man. “What is that?”

Giuseppe looked at Frederick. “A friend.”

Frederick surveyed the work done by club and knife, running his fingertips over the gouges and the dents in the metal. Most of the damage seemed centered on the chest and the Magnus head. One of the eyes had been smashed in, the other was spinning more slowly than before. Frederick’s throat tightened as though someone had their hands at it, squeezing.

The destruction was beyond his ability to repair. He needed help. And Master Branch was the only one who could offer it. But asking for help would mean revealing everything to the old man. In trusting Master Branch, Frederick risked the loss of everything he had worked for. But if he did not go for help, the clockwork man would die.

Frederick stared at the chest plate. “I’m going for help.”

“From who?” Giuseppe asked.

“Master Branch!” someone shouted upstairs. The voice of Mister Diamond.

Hannah and Giuseppe looked up at the ceiling, then at Frederick.

“Wait here,” he said, and went for the stairs.

As Frederick emerged into the shop, Master Branch came down from his apartment, tying on his dressing gown. Mister Diamond stood in the open doorway to the shop, Mister Clod and Mister Slag completely blocking the view of the street behind him.

Master Branch gave Frederick a worried glance, and turned to Mister Diamond. “What can I do for you, sir, at such an ill-seasoned hour?”

“You can turn your apprentice over to me! I will see him to the proper authorities.”

Frederick went cold from the inside out, ice in his stomach.

Master Branch swallowed. “On what charge?”

“Theft, Master Clockmaker. Theft of the Magnus head.”

It was over. Frederick surrendered to the fact that he would be arrested. The future he had designed, the plans he had executed were slipping away like gears scattered from his workbench, down drains and under closed doors.

“Have we not been over this?” Master Branch swept his hand over the store. “You searched my shop yourself and found nothing.”

Mister Diamond raised a hand and pointed at Frederick. “I just now saw him! He had the Magnus head on some monstrous body he’s made. It is here!”

“I must insist that you calm yourself, sir.” Master Branch eyed the behemoths brooding over Mister Diamond’s shoulders. “Your guards are roaming far from home tonight.”

“Extraordinary measures for extraordinary crimes.”

“Well, I shall tell you now that no matter what you believe my apprentice to have done he shall not be leaving with you tonight, nor shall you be entering my shop.”

“I demand —!”

“You are in a position to demand nothing, sir.” Master Branch walked right up to the door to block Mister Diamond from entering. The old man looked so thin and frail, as if one blow from Mister Clod or Mister Slag would shatter him. But there was an authority in his voice, and a force of will emanating from him. Frederick walked up to his master’s side and stood with him.

Mister Diamond twitched, and then his voice eased into a lilt. “Master Branch, I am certain that you would not risk the consequences to your guild by protecting a thief.”

“Not at all,” Master Branch said. “Just as I am certain you would not risk the reputation of the Archer Museum with an unlawful invasion of my property.” He looked past Mister Diamond. “Or unlawful use of your servants.”

Silence followed. The two men faced each other over the threshold, Mister Diamond’s eyes raging against the unflappable smile Master Branch presented like a wall.

“This is not over,” Mister Diamond finally said, and actually spat on the shop floor. He turned like a dust devil and churned down the street, Mister Clod and Mister Slag trailing behind.

Master Branch closed the shop door, locked it, and let out a long breath. He leaned his forehead against the door and began to tremble.

Frederick cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

Master Branch did not look at him. “Do not thank me.”