Ticker (25 page)

It’s no wonder parents lie to their children.

How many times did Mama put on a brave face for my sake? Probably once for every star in the night sky. The urge to bury my face in Cora’s dress and hold on with my remaining strength nearly overwhelmed me, but thankfully Marcus circled about one of the white watchtowers and set us down at the Flying Fortress.

Only when we were moving through the corridors at a brisk pace did I realize just how heavy a burden I carried. With Cora’s arms about my neck and her legs clasped firmly about my waist, it was akin to jogging with the proverbial millstone tied to me.

“Let me take her,” Marcus said as soon as there was a pause in the stream of information from the soldiers who’d met us at the landing platform.

I hitched her up and tried to ignore the ache in my shoulder blades. “I can manage.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t.” His steadying hand found my waist. “I just want to help. You won’t be of use to anyone if your Ticker gives out and you drop.”

I took a breath, savoring this moment when everything was amicable and easy between us. “True enough.” I whispered to Cora, “Do you mind going to the Legatus for a moment?”

For an answer, she held her arms out to him. Physical burden relieved, I stretched out my back and moved with far greater speed. Philomena de Mesmer emerged from a side hallway, flanked by two other members of the psychic unit. I knew whatever information she needed to convey wasn’t suitable for little ears.

Hoping Marcus would follow my lead, I tipped my head sideways to address Cora, now hanging from his arms upside down. “Perhaps you’d like a slice of cake and some milk?”

When she began to nod with great enthusiasm, Marcus pulled a thoughtful face. “Ah, no, that’s a terrible idea. Whatever can you be thinking, Penny? Children hate cake!”

I clapped my hand to my forehead in the most dramatic fashion possible. “A plate of stewed prunes instead?”

“Creamed spinach,” Marcus countered.

“Blancmange,” I said, twisting my mouth up at the memory.

“Chicken livers on toast,” Marcus said, unable to restrain the puff of laughter that followed.

“I like chicken livers,” Cora said with a breathless giggle.

“Is that so?” Marcus pulled her upright and set her on her feet. “I can do one better than that. How about some roast chicken, vegetables or not, bread and butter, and a piece of cake the size of your head to follow?”

“Chocolate cake,” Cora bargained.

“Done.” They shook solemn hands on it, and Marcus waved over the nearest soldier. “Captain Hunter, take our guest here to the commissary and see to the menu.”

“Of course.” He passed a small box to Marcus before he offered Cora a gloved hand, which she accepted as gracefully as a debutante at her first dinner dance.

“Hunter won’t let anything happen to her,” Marcus said under his breath as we watched them go. Opening the box, he retrieved his bracelets and snapped them on in quick succession. When Cora paused halfway down the hall to look back at us, Marcus was ready to deliver a reassuring wave.

My own wrists felt decidedly bare when I raised my hand as well, trying to mirror his cavalier expression. “If you wish to set my mind at rest, Kingsley, you’re doing a very bad job of it.”

“No one’s ever dared attack the Flying Fortress,” he said. The instant Cora rounded the corner with Captain Hunter, he added, “Not even during the Great Revolution.”

“If the last few days have taught me anything,” I said, “it’s that there’s a first time for everything, and that’s usually when you least expect it.”

“True words, Tesseraria,” Philomena said, her expression wan and lines cutting deep around her mouth. It looked as though years had passed since last we’d seen her, not a scant hour. “I need you in the laboratory immediately, Legatus. Despite everything, I think we’ve managed to lift the veil.” She turned to me. “Your mother’s machine is working for now.”

Marcus’s abrupt “This way” was for my benefit as the two of them took off at a run. Doing my best to keep up, I realized that life couldn’t sustain this frantic pace without fracturing. Even now, I felt hairline cracks radiating out from my clockwork heart and down my limbs. Hit me hard, just once, and I was sure to shatter.

With my family gone, who will pick up the pieces?

With impeccable timing, Marcus turned around and held his hand out to me.

“In here, Tesseraria.” He used his bracelets to unlock a reinforced metal door set with huge rivets and threatening signs. “This is the generator room,” he had to shout over the upsurge of noise. “Careful where you put your feet.”

The warning was warranted. Extending hundreds of feet above and below us, gargantuan crankshafts operated with military precision. In place of coal-powered boilers, enormous glowing containers hovered every few feet, radiating blinding white-light with only the merest suggestion of a prism visible through the glare. I expected heat, but instead they exuded a chill so powerful that I shuddered. Frost slicked the surface of the railings that marked off either side of a narrow, grate-floored bridge. Snowflakes drifted past us, dusting our hair and shoulders, clinging to my eyelashes.

“Where did these crystals come from?” I shouted into the din.

Marcus caught hold of my hand before I could reach out to touch the power source. “Viktor and my father discovered them while on an expedition to Glacia ten years back. We’ve been mining them out of the ice, learning to harness their energy. They keep the Flying Fortress aloft.”

Marcus didn’t release me until we reached the next doorway and he passed us through. In contrast, the room beyond was blessedly quiet, all noise muffled by the thick marble blocks that composed the walls. The same brilliant light was in evidence, but silver fixtures dispensed more judicious amounts. The air held the faintest scents of ambergris and orrisroot. Homely Bhaskarian-rubber mats were laid out on the floor like mosaic tiles, and insulated cables ran from the body of Lucy Reilly to the generators occupying the nearest wall.

“That’s your mother’s machine,” Marcus said as electricity arced between exposed metal coils.

Even with panels out of place and mechanical guts spilling onto the floor, Mama’s version of the Grand Design put every invention I’d ever seen to shame. A thousand parts awaited fine-tuning, as though her hands had merely paused in making the necessary adjustments. “What’s the problem with it, exactly?”

“We can’t feed enough energy into it without getting a kickback that blows all the circuitry,” Marcus said. “That’s why we set up the laboratory so close to the source of the white-light. The more time that passes after death, the more power required to make contact.”

It made sense now. “My father is the one who handled that sort of thing.”

“So your mother said.” Marcus was careful not to look at me when he continued, “Apparently he didn’t care to work on a project of this scale.”

Which meant either Papa thought it a ridiculous waste of time, or he’d chosen the bottle.

Then again, maybe Mama never asked for his help.

Philomena saved me from that line of thought by handing Marcus a typewritten transcript. “I would have gotten more, but we had a power surge that broke the connection.”

Marcus pulled me to the side, near a second bank of machines. Needle gauges jumped and danced on various screens while a transcription unit thrummed. “Let’s try it again,” he said.

Philomena crossed to Lucy’s body, which was positioned upon a sturdy table in the center of the room. Someone had taken the time to wash the dead woman’s face and hands, to brush her hair and braid it out of her face, but even clean and neat with her hands resting gently at her sides, Lucy was no more at rest than I. There was enough tension in her limbs, at the base of her throat, and just
about the eyes to make me wonder if she could be shocked back to life.

Settling into an adjacent chair, Philomena placed a band of metal-studded leather on her own head and matching cuffs around her wrists. Slowly, almost painfully, the assistants turned up the dials on the generators. An answering whine filled the room with crackling feedback.

The vibration threatened to jar my bones through my skin, and my teeth hummed in my jaw. Looking down, I noticed the scorch marks scarring the floor. “Are you certain this is safe?”

“We’ve got a connection,” the lead assistant said before Marcus could respond.

The medium spoke again with Lucy’s voice. “Moving. He’s moving. Moving. Moving. Pictures. Get the pictures. Moving. Pictures. Catch him, he’s moving.” Machines spewed out readings that Marcus hastened to read over, even as Philomena continued to mutter. “Going. Going. Catch him.”

“Do you think she’s talking about Warwick?” I asked, trying to keep my voice low.

He paused, three sets of paperwork in hand. “Let’s hope so. I’d rather go prepared into our next battle with him. We’ll have to see what kind of useful information she can relay, though.”

“Can’t you ask her questions?” I glanced back at Philomena. “You interrogated Lucy back at the studio.”

Marcus shook his head. “Philomena can’t hear anything we say when she’s hooked up to the Grand Design. Her body is here, but her mind travels far beyond our reach.”

Either the machines were getting louder or Marcus’s voice was fading. With ambient electricity crackling over my skin, I struggled not only to pay attention to what he was saying, but to
remain conscious. “I wouldn’t have believed any of this was possible yesterday.”

“Catch him, catch him.” The lights in the room flickered, and Philomena’s next words were garbled.

“What’s happening?” Marcus turned to an assistant.

When the power surged again, I pressed myself against the wall. It seemed more than one machine was malfunctioning; even as the technicians rushed to the Grand Design, struggling to make adjustments before Philomena’s connection with the dead broke, my Ticker threatened to send me after her. It was hard to draw a breath. I knew if I closed my eyes, I would most likely faint . . .

I only blinked, but when next I opened my eyes, I sat at the table in Glasshouse’s formal dining room. Or rather, a chamber quite like our formal dining room. Here, the flowers on the brocade wallpaper bloomed in three dimensions instead of two, releasing the fragrant scent of roses in summer. The doors on either side of the hearth were gone, removing any chance of exit. The elaborate stained-glass window had been replaced by a vast crystalline sheet; in front of it, a telescope was focused upon the night sky. The midnight canvas was dark blue. Impossibly blue. Wisps of smoke drifted over silk taffeta, the moon a diamanté brooch, the stars beads of iridescent glass. Black velvet shadows swirled around me, but I was far from alone. When I turned to the table, Dimitria sat on her birthday throne. In the corner, a cradle of polished black walnut rocked itself with haunting creaks.

“Tuppence,” Dimitria said with the faintest of smiles.

Though the fire in the hearth proved that my afterlife was to be pleasantly warm, my teeth started to chatter. “Demy.”

“Thinking of crossing over?” Her voice was as clear and as sweet as violin song.

“I’m not certain that decision is mine any longer.” I reached up to touch my finger to the broken Ticker, but under my shirtwaist, the skin was smooth and unbroken. I thought my heart, my real heart, would stop completely from the shock of it. “Haven’t I died?”

Dimitria shook her head, tossing a cluster of russet ringlets over her shoulder. “Not yet. This is an in-between place.”

Pushing back my chair, I tried to get closer to her, but the room spun around me so that I never left my place at the table. Everything about this room felt disjointed, out of sync, like the music flowing from the broken Cylindrella in the opposite corner.

“Child of mine, child of mine,” the recording crooned between gentle creaks of the cradle.

I swallowed hard. “That’s Cygna, isn’t it?”

Dimitria put a finger to her lips. “Shhh. She’s sleeping.”

I wanted to touch her, to hug her to me, but I was afraid my hands would pass right through her. “I’m so sorry, Demy.”

“Save your sorrows.” My sister’s face paled until it was as white and lovely as the moon. “I’ve been trying to reach you for some time, speaking to the dark-haired woman whenever she comes near the veil.” Her voice faded a bit, a recording winding down, then surged back when she said, “You have to help him.”

“Nic?”

“Warwick. You have to help him. I made him promise me, but he doesn’t realize—”

The crystal chandelier popped and showered me with violet sparks. Electricity wrapped me in painful arms, and I fell to the carpet, jaw clenched and muscles spasming. My flesh-and-blood heart gave a single, final thump, and then it was gone, replaced by searing hot metal and clockwork.

Hands grasped me, half lifting me up. “Penny?” The voice that called to me was urgent. I couldn’t help opening my eyes. Marcus knelt alongside me, his concerned expression echoing that of Nic. Of my parents.

My Ticker and stomach both sank.

Don’t look at me like that. Don’t see me as some frail, useless creature.

Fall in love with
me
, not the idea of rescuing me.

I tried to sit up. “It’s all right. I just . . . fainted.”

Easing me to a sitting position, Marcus ran his hands over my arms and legs, checked the state of my pupils, and took my pulse with grim efficiency. “I’m not altogether certain that’s true. Another power surge blew out three of the coils and broke Philomena’s connection to Lucy. I picked her up off the floor, and when I turned around, you were slumped against one of the broken generators. I think you might have been electrocuted.”

Perhaps that’s what restarted my Ticker, the same as it had when Marcus turned the Pixii on me. If clockwork bits couldn’t save me, maybe electricity could.

Marcus mistook my silence for shock. “You need rest, and we both need brandy,” he said. “I’ll take you back to my office. Put your arms around me.”

“What about Philomena?” I glanced over my shoulder as he heaved me up into his arms, leaving my legs to dangle.