Ticker

by Lisa Mantchev

  I stood in the doorway, blocking his exit. “And I won’t let you give those papers to that monster.”

  Nic didn’t so much as flicker an eyelid before he charged. I had no time to raise the gun, not that I could have brought myself to use it, and it flew from my hand when he collided with me. Crashing through the set of doors, we stumbled across the hallway and into a storage alcove under the stairs. I landed on a pile of winter boots, and before I could regain my footing, Nic exited and slammed the door shut. As I struggled to right myself and the crazy tangle of skirts billowing about me, I heard the key twist in the lock.

  “You’re going to do as you’re told for once, and stay out of harm’s way!” he shouted. “Do nothing unless I message you otherwise. And tell Violet that I’m sorry.”

  The finality in his voice raised every one of the hairs on my arms. I crawled forward on hands and knees. “Nic, don’t!”

  “Good-bye, Penny.” My brother’s voice went flat, all emotion ironed out of it as though by hot steel plates. Footsteps confirmed his retreat.

  I pounded my fists against the sturdy wood until the key fell out of the lock and pinged against the floor. Putting an eye to the keyhole, I could only watch, helpless, as Nic grasped the satchel with all the medical documents and climbed nimbly out the window.

  “Come back here,” I shouted with impotent rage, “and open this—”

  Without warning, the door obeyed. I fell into the hallway and at the feet of a startled Dreadnaught. The chatelaine brandished the key in one hand and a cast-iron poker in the other.

  “Penny!” she gasped, putting a hand to her chest. “Whatever are you doing in the boot cupboard?”

  Pulse thudding in my ears, I vaulted past her. In the study, I paused at the safe long enough to reach inside and pull out my father’s pocket watch from the false door. Snapping it shut, I stuffed it down my bodice. “Nic’s found the Augmentation files. He’s taking them to Warwick.”

  Dreadnaught used a very naughty word that was altogether out of character for her. “And the gunfight in the street?”

  “Mercenaries after Nic and the papers. Stay inside and away from the windows.” Contradicting my own advice, I scrambled onto the ledge and slid down to the driveway. Nic was nowhere in sight.

  Dreadnaught appeared overhead. “The Vitesse is in the coach house!”

  I dashed to the outbuilding. There was no covert way to turn over the engine, so I gave it a flying start by running the bike down the length of the driveway and jumping on as it shot into the road. The sudden noise startled both the mercenaries and the Ferrum Viriae soldiers who had arrived in the interim. Marcus and the others called to me and signaled I should stop, but there was no time to make explanations or apologies as I rocketed through the worst of the fighting.

  Besides which, I wasn’t sorry. I was petrified. I had to catch up with Nic before anyone else did. Weaving between cars and buggies, I paid scant regard to their mirrors or my limbs in my haste to find my twin. To get just about anywhere in Bazalgate, he’d have to head for the Heart of the Star. As I scanned the crowded avenues for him, cinders from the secondary fires triggered by the courthouse explosion drifted down on me.

  Almost at the roundabout, I caught a lucky glimpse of him hunched inside an open-air cab.

  “Nic!” With one arm raised to wave at him, I was unprepared for the jolt of something slamming into the back of the Vitesse.

  A dilapidated vehicle sped up alongside me, the occupants’ faces contorted as the driver veered at me again. I didn’t know if their plan was to run me off the road or pull me from the seat, and I didn’t care. I swung abruptly into the roundabout behind Nic’s cab and promptly lost control of my cycle.

  My brother yelled something as the Vitesse crossed all eight lanes of traffic. I crashed into the raised stone pavers that encircled the Heart of the Star and took a header over the handlebars. For a split second, everything moved slowly and silently. Then I noted the crack of my elbow and the scrape of my cheek against the rough ground. The shrill blare of a police whistle. My brother shouting at me from a very great distance.

  It was that day at Carteblanche all over again, except when Nic ran toward me, three blurry figures grabbed him. Tossing a sack over his head, they threw him into the back of the Combustible that ran me off the road.

  I clung to consciousness as everything around me softened like ice custard melting in the sun. A scream built up inside me, but “Nic” was all I managed before darkness swallowed the word.

  EIGHT

  In Which the Language of Flowers Speaks Volumes

  I was dead. That was the only explanation for the flowers that greeted me upon waking: flame-colored dahlias and jewel-toned chrysanthemums crowded next to dainty offerings of lavender asters and deeply purple pansies. Death wouldn’t necessarily explain the candy, though. Striped boxes of caramel creams and apricot jellies were tied up with bows and set between the bouquets. A stuffed bear stood silent guard over a jar of Well-Wishes that brimmed over with calling cards.

  Reaching out a trembling finger, I touched the coverlet and realized I was alive. But I didn’t need a doctor to tell me I hadn’t much time left. That was something I could feel, the way another person might intuit they’d broken a bone or twisted a ligament. The header over the Vitesse’s handlebars had inflicted the last bit of damage the Ticker could take. With my eyes closed, breathing shallow and labored, I could travel in my mind’s eye to the clockwork heart of me, see the mainsprings uncoiled, the wheels slightly off-balance. Instead of the precise cadence of marching soldiers, the device wobbled and faltered. A clockmaker would have stopped its hands. Put it out of its misery.

  Voices in the corridor proved a welcome distraction, descending in volume as their owners went down the stairs.

  “Thank you, Doctor Carmody. I appreciate you checking in on her.” That one belonged to Dreadnaught.

  The second was unfamiliar but somber. “I just wish the damage weren’t so extensive. As it is, I’m not qualified to do any repairs to the ventriculator.” The front door opened, and I could barely make out the next bit. “There’s still the possibility of a concussion . . . keep an eye on her . . . any change in her condition, send for an ambulance.”

  With great effort, I pushed off the blankets and lifted myself from the heap of pillows. My head felt like a silk balloon, impossibly light, drifting with the wind. If I fell, I’d land with a gentle bump and then deflate, I was sure of it. No harm in getting up.

  It took a single step to prove that notion wrong. Crossing the room might as well have been an excursion to Glacia via ice floe. The smallest of movements shot cold arrows of pain up my legs and down my arms. Arriving at the mirror, I took inventory of the rest of my injuries: stitches on my forehead, a purple-blue bruise on my jaw, and more scrapes than I could count with a tabulating machine. My skin felt raw, as though the barest of whispers would strip it from my bones.

  But I was more ghost than skeleton, and even ghosts want company.

  I forced one foot in front of the other, continuing the painful trek across the room, through the door, down the hall. I passed Nic’s chamber, trailing my scraped hand over the wood paneling. Though there was no one to deny me entry, I still tiptoed inside Dimitria’s room.

  Everything was just as she’d left it. A soft blue brocade quilt and a dozen tasseled pillows decorated the bed. Her desk was as neat as mine was messy: her fountain pen sat in the tray on the inkwell; a clear space was left for the stack of accounting ledgers she’d always brought home with her from the factory. Organized, punctual, and poised to work alongside Ambrose Farnsworth as factory supervisor, she had been a far more capable manager than I could ever hope to be.

  As though drawn by invisible strings, I drifted to her Cylindrella. Hundreds of recordings occupied an adjacent cabinet. One yet sat on the turntable. The few rotations of the winding arm I could manage caused flares of pain in my shoulders, but that was nothing compared to the ache in my Ticker
as music filled the room.

  “Come to me, child of mine, rest your weary head,” sang a soprano over faint hisses and pops. “No harm will come to you, child of mine, so long as I watch over you . . .”

  I sat upon my sister’s bed, already lost to the memories. She’d been getting ready for her eighteenth birthday party, humming happily as she dressed. A stunning bouquet of bloodred roses sat on her dressing table, richly glowing. We chattered about everything and nothing at all while I pulled on my stockings and adjusted my many ribbons. She laughed, stepped out of her dressing gown, and reached for her party frock.

  That was the moment I’d seen it: the white-fire glint of diamanté.

  I leapt at her, reaching for the chain hanging about her neck. “Demy, what is that?”

  Blue eyes widening, she pulled away from me and clasped her robe to her throat as though hiding some terrible secret. “Oh, Tuppence!”

  It was the silliest of nicknames, left over from our days in the nursery, but I wasn’t about to be shoved back into pinafores. Not when there were secrets in the air. “When did all this happen?”

  “A few months ago,” she said after a moment, “at the lantern-light party. Do you remember the one?”

  I did. The ice on the river had been all the colors of the aurora borealis. Warwick had been adorably awkward on his skates. Sebastian and Nic had bought bag after bag of hot chestnuts for us to warm our hands. Violet’s nose had been redder than a cherry, and Dimitria had had snow in her eyelashes.

  “Calvin kissed me behind the oak tree,” she confessed.

  There were certain things that sisters were obliged to discuss at great length, one of them being the exchange of affections, proper or improper. So, while I ought to have asked her how it came to pass and whether she enjoyed it, my unguarded response was “Ew!”

  With a soft sigh, Dimitria sat upon the bed next to me. “Don’t say that. It was lovely!”

  She was embarking on a grand adventure, leaving me behind once again. “What’s it like? Falling in love, I mean.”

  Dimitria slipped her hand into mine, and it was colder than expected though color splashed her cheeks. “Like my heart was an anchor dropped from the side of a boat. He’s a very dear man. I knew that from the first day he came here and started tending to you. But he’s so much more than the sum of his work—”

  “I hope he at least asked your permission before he kissed you.” When she started to answer, I tugged my hand away and plugged my fingers deep within my ears. “Never mind. I don’t want to know any more of the sordid details!”

  “Oh, I think you do.” She lowered her dressing gown by inches until I could see that the glitter-glint I’d spotted earlier was no mere pendant, but a diamanté ring.

  That could mean only one thing. “You’re engaged?”

  “We’re going to tell everyone tonight at the party,” she said, the radiant look on her face all the answer I needed. “At midnight, just after we have cake. Calvin is so nervous, but I bought him a pocket watch and set it according to the Carillon Bell Tower. He’ll know the very second it’s time to announce the news.”

  After that, there had been a flurry of hugging, a few tears shed, and much smothered nervous laughter as we finished dressing and hurried downstairs to the party. Mama had outdone herself with the decorations, and the dining room looked like a sort of fairyland. There were blue and gold banners with ribbon streamers, beeswax candles, bowls of fruit and flowers. I placed a tinsel crown on Dimitria’s head. Nic escorted her to the birthday throne. The butler and ten liveried men delivered course after course to the dining room, each received with applause and appreciative appetites.

  By the time we had reached the dessert course, I thought I might burst from all the food, but such qualms were stifled by the arrival of the SugarWerks Carry-Away Box. I caught Warwick surreptitiously glancing at his pocket watch and knew that in a few seconds, Dimitria would make her big announcement. I prepared myself for another round of hugging and happy tears.

  “Happy be long years before you, skies a-gleam with sunshine o’er you,” we sang as Mama set the box down before my sister with a smile. “The greatest of things have yet to be seen!”

  The clock on the mantelpiece had ticked down to midnight. Dimitria and I exchanged a short, knowing look, and then her gaze shifted to Warwick. He smiled back at her with wonder and light in his eyes, and I felt like a trespasser upon their happiness.

  “Ten . . . nine . . .”

  Unseen gears within the Carry-Away Box whirred to life.

  “Eight . . . seven . . . six . . .”

  The vibration shuddered through the table.

  “Five . . . four . . .”

  The lid to the box slid back.

  “Three . . . two . . . one.”

  The clocks around the house had begun to sound the first of twelve chimes. Sparklers ignited as they grated across the pyrolant rails inside the box. The cake spiraled up, spitting embers of gold and silver. The towering confection came to a standstill, and there was a hushed silence.

  Mama pressed a kiss to Dimitria’s cheek. “Make a wish, darling.”

  The greatest of things have yet to be seen.

  In the midst of the cheers and clapping, Dimitria had turned very white. I saw the look upon her face. Felt it burn into my memory.

  “Mama.” My own heart seemed to block my throat, strangling the word. “Warwick . . .”

  Before I could say anything more, my sister had slumped back in her chair and everything descended into chaos. Screaming. The table shoved aside, the cake forgotten, the gold pocket watch dropped on the rug. The servants scattered. I pressed myself against the far wall, watching Warwick trying to revive her with chest compressions and smelling salts.

  “Don’t leave me,” he muttered, working furiously. “You can’t.”

  It had seemed to work when Dimitria took the scantest of breaths and whispered something to him. He gathered her up in his arms, tears streaming down his face. I saw her hand reach for his, but it fell slack to the carpet before it found its mark. By the time the ambulance arrived, Dimitria’s lips were blue. Papa pried Warwick away from my sister’s body, but I was the one who dragged him into the hall.

  “She can’t die,” he said again, even as the light faded from his eyes.

  That night had claimed my older sister. Cygna had been torn from us long ago. And this week took Mama, Papa, and Nic from me.

  It seemed as if I might be the only Farthing left.

  Dreadnaught found me in Dimitria’s room, holding one of her pillows to my cheek. Without a word, she carried me back to my own bed.

  “They took Nic, Dreadnaught,” I murmured as she thoroughly tucked me in. “They put a bag over his head and shoved him in a car.” I couldn’t stop seeing it.

  The chatelaine wrung out a compress and pressed it to my sweaty forehead. “The Ferrum Viriae are still looking for him. Mister Kingsley was here, wanting to see you, but he had to leave before you woke up. He said to tell you he has every available unit tracking down the car that ran you off the road.”

  “It won’t do any good.” I averted my face from her sympathetic gaze. “Warwick has been a step ahead of us since the very beginning.”

  Dreadnaught retrieved a steaming cup from my night table. “Ginger tea,” she said, quite unnecessarily as it filled the room with the aroma of spice cookies. Reassured that I could hold it without dousing the bedding, she went to fetch an invalid’s fare: blancmange, softly white and wibbling on its plate. Dreadnaught subscribed to Mrs. Chewitt’s Household Guide, and I could well imagine the chapter headed “For Delicate Stomachs and Those Recovering from Sickness.”

  “Start with that,” she instructed. “If it stays down, we’ll see about something heartier. You’ve only had broth spooned down your throat for the better part of three days.” She hesitated then added, “I hope you’ll forgive the impropriety, Miss Penny, but I also wound your Ticker for you every morning.”

  Three
days. Three days I’d been unconscious. Three days Nic had been missing. Had he found his way to Warwick? Had he seen our parents?

  “There’s absolutely nothing to forgive, Dreadnaught. Thank you for caring for me.” I summoned a smile as wobbly as the pudding. “I’m lucky to have you.”

  The chatelaine gently patted my hand. “If the pain gets to be too much, the doctor left some drops on the side table.” She paused to note the jinglejangle of approaching zippers and buckles.

  Violet appeared at the door to my room, wearing her battered brown leather “stealth” jacket, a miniature top hat, and a worried expression. The strap to a SugarWerks Carry-Away Box was looped over her shoulder. “I showed the guards at the door my clearance from Marcus, and they let me in. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” Dreadnaught trumpeted. “I’m going to recheck all the doors and windows. Make certain she drinks that,” she ordered, pointing at the cup of ginger tea before hastening from the room.

  Divested of coat, gloves, hat, and Carry-Away Box, Violet wrapped my hands about the cup and forced me to take a sip. Only when most of the tea was gone did she speak.

  “They took him, didn’t they?”

  “Yes.” I waited for the usual reassurances, that Nic was a fighter, that the Ferrum Viriae tracked them, even now. “He said . . . he said to tell you that he was sorry.” Violet said nothing. When the silence stretched impossibly thin, I ventured to ask, “You love him, don’t you?”

  Not a moment’s hesitation. “Yes. Are you upset?” A light shone in her eyes more wonderful and awful than tears.

  “Upset? Not remotely.” I sat up as best I could, undoing most of Dreadnaught’s diligent tucking in.

  Violet reached for my hand, the silver rings she wore only marginally colder than her fingers, her expression shifting to one of fierce determination. “We have to get him back, Penny.”

  “We will, Vi.” It was a promise made, one heart to another.

  Dreadnaught returned with a silver tray that held a full tea service and a smaller tray that offered up a crisp, clean calling card. “You have another visitor. The Legatus is back. He’s most anxious to speak with you.”