Ticker

by Mantchev, Lisa

  “What happened to the metal cuff you were wearing?” I demanded. “The one you used to disable the Beetles.”

  “I haven’t the foggiest notion what you’re talking about, love.” In a show of bravado, the captive started measuring out tobacco. He tucked a mean, skinny cigarette into his mouth and winked at me. “Give us a light.”

  I wanted to slap it from his ugly mouth, but I very much doubted that was proper interrogation technique. “Though you don’t look it, you must have been smart enough to get rid of the device. Tossed it in a rubbish bin. Threw it in the river.”

  “What device is this?” Marcus asked, his notebook in his hand.

  “He was wearing it in the Bibliothèca,” I explained as Sebastian produced a gold lighter and passed it across the table. “It emitted a noise that deactivated the mechanical surveillance. Just the sort of thing Calvin Warwick could build.” I twisted back to confront the thief. “How long have you been working for him?”

  Just taking a puff off his cigarette, the prisoner choked and sputtered. “The mad butcher what’s been in all the papers? I never!”

  “Just so you understand the situation, I have three of your comrades-in-arms in custody.” Marcus stood just behind me. “Only the first to speak will be considered useful to us. Only the first to speak will receive any sort of immunity from prosecution.”

  “I don’t have any comrades-in-arms,” our captive said, slippery as a bar of greased soap. “Everyone hired for the Bibliothèca job was freelance.”

  “Hired by Calvin Warwick.” Marcus leaned past me, putting his hands on the table. I wanted to glance over at him, but I kept my eyes trained upon the prisoner, noting every twitch of his facial muscles, every flicker of his eyelids. The smallest reactions were oftentimes the most telling.

  The captive licked his lips with the dart of a very nervous garden snake. “It weren’t him. Not in person, anyway. The money, the details of the job, everything came via message cylinder.”

  “Where did you receive the cylinder?” Violet asked. Still angry with Nic, the edge to her voice suggested she could have the prisoner’s arms twisted behind his back and his pants filled with leeches if he didn’t start cooperating soon.

  “It was delivered to me aboard the Palmipède.” He plucked his cigarette from his mouth and knocked off the ash.

  I shifted my gaze to Sebastian, who was standing against the wall as though determined to hold it up at all costs. He didn’t so much as blink, but I knew that if anyone had frequented the waterborne gambling vessel, it was he. Rumored to sail constantly on the River Aire to avoid raids, the paddleboat was renowned for its illegal gambling tables. Official reports from city council meetings always detailed plans to shut it down due to tax evasion and inadequate licensing, but every attempt to locate the Palmipède had come to naught. The broadsheets conjectured it was because too many of the city’s notables enjoyed its vices, so they never let a raid come to fruition. All of this had to be a thumb in Marcus’s eye.

  The Legatus must have been thinking something similar, because he made an exasperated noise. “I should have known that den of iniquity would play into this somehow. Could you pick your contact out of a lineup?”

  Our captive shook his head. “He wore a mask and used a Vocal Distorter.”

  “None of this is very helpful,” Sebastian murmured to Marcus, perfectly pitched to be overheard. “Perhaps Gannet Penitentiary is the appropriate place for our friend here.”

  Another puff off his cigarette, another nervous cloud of smoke. “I’m not that sort of criminal. Thief, maybe, but murderer? No, sir.”

  “I beg to differ,” Violet jumped in with another well-timed flash of temper. “You and your co-conspirators killed innocent civilians today. You are, in fact, a murderer. One who has declared war on the city.”

  “And a kidnapper,” I threw in for good measure.

  “What? No!” The captive looked to Marcus for clemency. “Whatever is she on about?”

  “Two citizens were taken from their home this morning,” he clarified, tapping a pen against his notebook.

  “I didn’t have a thing to do with that, but I can give you names of men in that line of work,” our prisoner hastened to assure us. “Addresses. Just give me your pen and a piece of paper.”

  Marcus handed him the requested items. “A full confession as well, if you please.”

  The man hastened to comply, tongue darting about his mouth as he struggled to put down the words. Marcus ushered us back into the hallway, though I could see Violet would have cheerfully remained to box the captive’s ears every time he paused in his transcription.

  “That was well done,” Marcus said. “We certainly got more out of him than I expected.”

  “Not enough,” I said with a shake of my head. “He didn’t know anything about my parents.”

  “Names,” Nic reminded me. “He said he could give names.”

  “Names are well and good, but I think we need to go straight to the source for information.” Stepping over to Sebastian, I slipped my arm through his before he could make polite excuses and disappear in a puff of gentlemanly smoke. “If anyone knows where a fog-chasing, illicit-gambling riverboat is to be found, it’s you, my dear Mister Stirling. My guess is you’ve been on board dozens of times.”

  “I have,” Sebastian admitted. Though he automatically reached down to pat my hand, I could tell by the way he eyed the nearby doors that he was contemplating exit strategies. “But I don’t think you should go anywhere near her. It’s a rough sort of place, for all its crystal chandeliers and Effervescence fountains.”

  “You’d have to bind my hands and stuff me in the coalhole to leave me behind,” I fired back.

  “I never said we were going,” he replied, though the sigh that followed meant I’d already won. “I’d argue, but we both know that if I thwarted you, I’d get a broken nose for my troubles. I’m inordinately fond of my nose just as it is.”

  In no mood for his palaver, I pinched the appendage in question with enough firmness to suggest a very real threat. “Then there’s nothing for you to do but say ‘Yes, Penny, shall we adjourn to the gaming tables?’ ”

  Airway constricted, Sebastian’s voice sounded a tad less dignified than usual. “Very well, I’ll do my best to gain the group’s admittance.” The moment I let go of his nose, he dropped his arm around my waist.

  Full up with worry for my parents, I didn’t swat him away. “There’s still the small matter of locating Warwick’s papers.”

  Walking under the harsh light of the wall sconces, Violet shrank into herself; even with a dozen tattoos and piercings, she looked small and lost. “I suppose we ought to check the Eidolachometer cards now.”

  “I’ll have them sent to a room for you,” Marcus said.

  Nic sidled closer to Violet, but she gave him a freezing glare and marched ahead, stomping her boots more loudly than usual. Nic followed in her wake, hands stuffed in his pockets.

  “Signal the boat now, Sebastian,” I demanded. “The sooner we locate the man making all the arrangements, the sooner we find my parents.”

  Instead of reaching for his RiPA, Sebastian attempted to lighten the mood. Grasping me by the hand, he forced me into a waltzing trouble step with a turn at the end. “I don’t doubt you could dance the night away, my lovely, but there are rules. It’s past time for setting up a rendezvous. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow night.”

  We passed Marcus and Violet with a gay promenade. When next Sebastian whirled me around, I could see that the good Legatus didn’t like to see his hallway turned into a ballroom.

  However, all he said was, “It’s a complicated matter, arranging the pickups?”

  “Ah, ah, ah,” Sebastian said, wagging a finger at him. “Unlike my charming dance partner, I received no jewelry, so I’ve no information to trade with you yet.”

  I made the mistake of catching Marcus’s eye on the next turn. There was something desolate about his posture, somethin
g about the way he quietly excluded himself from our group that cut me to the core.

  Extracting myself from Sebastian’s grip, I moved alongside Marcus. “Another question for you, Legatus.”

  To his credit, he didn’t sigh at me. “Yes?”

  “We never got around to discussing just what sort of machine my mother is engineering for you.”

  “That’s true. We were a bit distracted by the explosion, if I recall correctly.” His pace picked up when he admitted, “It’s a device that will allow us to lift the veil.”

  “Lift the veil?” I hurried to keep up with him, both mentally and physically. “You mean a machine that speaks with the dead?”

  “The original prototype was built by Malachi Baynard,” he explained. “We discovered it in an overseas vault, but it’s too antiquated to be of much use once a corpse has gone cold.”

  “Corpse . . . meaning you actually use the machine on the dead?” Trying to rid myself of the mental image was like trying to stamp out a wildfire with my boots.

  “It only works in conjunction with Philomena de Mesmer. She’s the actual conduit.”

  Such a project certainly would have captured my mother’s interest. “Mama never said a word about it to anyone.”

  “She couldn’t, not without breaking the confidentiality agreements she signed.” Marcus glanced at me. “The larger version of the machine—the Grand Design—isn’t finished. Your mother had the schematics with her when she disappeared.”

  “I understand your concern,” I said, biting my lip.

  “Duty comes before anything I might want for myself, Tesseraria, and the blueprints are the least of my worries now that your mother’s absence is a matter of national security.” Before I could remark on such a sacrifice, he straightened his shoulders, shifted his gaze away from my face, and tapped out a message on his RiPA. “I’ll arrange for supper and a change of clothes for everyone.”

  “You don’t mean we ought to stay here for the night?” I asked.

  Violet’s half-closed eyes flew open. “I need to go home. My family will be sick with worry, and I’m in desperate need of a bath.” She considered the grubby state of her arms and my dress with regret. “Again.”

  “You can message your families and tell them where you are.” Marcus’s words walked the fine line between offer and order. “I’ll put you in the guest barracks.”

  “This is all your fault, Tesseraria Farthing,” Nic muttered. When our escort arrived, my brother and Sebastian followed the newcomer as Marcus excused himself with a curt nod.

  Violet looped her arm through mine so neither of us had to walk alone; it seemed she’d forgiven me for our earlier spat, even if she had yet to do the same for my brother. “At least we know that Marcus is on our side,” she said.

  “Small comfort,” I lied, thinking of his hands on my wrists. I could only hope that the iron bracelets I now wore wouldn’t reveal themselves to be shackles.

  SEVEN

  In Which Midnight Feasts Do Not Go Unpunished

  Nic and I had only Dreadnaught to contact, Sebastian no one at all, given that his parents were out of the country at the moment. But Violet had to send almost twenty messages before she could get her siblings to calm down and agree to cover her work shifts. It took the rest of the afternoon to inventory and catalog the Eidolachometer cards, but eventually all were accounted for, and none contained the information we needed to ransom my parents. Over supper, little was eaten and even less was said. With Nic and Violet refusing to converse with each other, it was a relief to retreat to a hot bath in the most new-fashioned lavatory this side of the Exhibition Hall of Modern Conveniences. Only the chill of the water could have driven me from the tub to dry off and accept my military-issued flannel nightgown.

  Perhaps if everyone had been on good speaking terms, we would have found the accommodations in the guest barracks something of a pleasant surprise. Spare without being sparse, the narrow beds boasted thick gray-and-white striped coverlets and down pillows. The rug was a splash of crimson against the stone floor, and the fire in the hearth radiated enough heat to make a palatable piece of toast. Indeed, the best amenity by far was the tray of thick-sliced bread, accompanied by jam, butter, and chocolate nut spread.

  Violet marched past the offering as though it, too, had offended her. Taking one of the top bunks, she curled up like a Meridian shrimp and turned her back to us. Sebastian quickly gave up being charming and fell asleep in a chair, head lolling and mouth hanging ajar. The occasional snore punctuated the half-dark as I turned down the gas globes and joined Nic.

  Agitation had driven him to fiddling, so he’d extracted the Pixii from my messenger bag and neatly disemboweled it upon the rug. Adjustments made to his satisfaction, he returned each switch and screw to its proper place.

  “Our destiny has altered over the course of this day,” he said, careful to keep his voice low as he snapped one of the brass faceplates back on, “but our guiding star still points to breadstuffs and jam pots.”

  After all that had happened, it was incredibly surreal to sit there with him, fed, warm, and safe. Hard to have a normal conversation, though, with Mama and Papa missing. I forced myself to breathe, to remember the trick of a toasting fork, to hold another piece of bread over the flames. “This is like being back in the nursery.”

  “That seems like a very long time ago.” With a wayward lock of hair hanging in his eyes, Nic reminded me of the boy who’d played romp and tussle games upon the hearth rug despite our nanny’s strictest orders, the brother who’d walked three miles to the nearest shop to fetch me a bag of sweets when I was confined to bed.

  “Remember smuggling the bread upstairs?” I said after taking a sip of tea. “I hid it under my pinafore while you carried off a pot of marmalade in your trouser pocket.”

  “We thought we were so stealthy.” He shook his head at the memory of our exploits, and his hand slid into mine, just like when we were little and scared of something. Thunderstorms, the imagined creatures under the beds . . .

  Death.

  Because it was the best way to distract him, I switched the subject to science. “What do you remember from our lessons about Malachi Baynard?”

  Nic squinted at me. “One of Industria’s founding scientists Malachi Baynard?”

  “No, random passerby Malachi Baynard. Yes, dummy, him.”

  “He was the one obsessed with the occult. He thought that life and death were merely multiple planes of the same existence.” A suspicious note crept into Nic’s voice. “Why?”

  That left me to explain about Mama’s work with Marcus and the Grand Design. By the end of it, Nic had taken off his glasses and cleaned the lenses with his handkerchief at least twice.

  “Malachi was brilliant but had enough near-death engineering experiences to turn every hair on his head white,” he said. “He was actually pronounced dead twice and resuscitated. He designed and built that machine to try to communicate with the Great Beyond.”

  “A place he actually thought he’d been,” I said. “What did he say it was like? Stars and comets and fluffy white clouds?”

  “That was the really odd part,” Nic admitted. “All he wrote about it in a journal entry was that it was like ‘going home.’ ” When I opened my mouth to ask another question, he shook his hand at me. “Seriously, Penny, that’s all I remember.”

  “Allow me to change the subject then.” I jerked my thumb at the bunk where Violet was a lump under the coverlet. “Don’t you think you should apologize?”

  Nic flushed up to the tips of his ears, pulled away from me, and sent a furtive glance in Violet’s direction. “It takes two to argue,” he said, “and I’ll thank you to keep your nose out of that particular book.”

  I thought about all the times this past year that he’d spoken his mind or expressed his concern for me. Now was the time to return the favor. “You can’t try to control the people you care about, not even to keep them safe. You’ll only push her away.”


  “Like I’ve pushed you.” Worry filled his eyes, and the barely healed scratches on his face looked somehow worse by firelight: darker, deeper, with the promise of blood and bone beneath them. “How are you feeling?”

  I left the toast upon my fork to scorch as I contemplated the pattern on the rug, pretending to find it very interesting. “Fine. Why do you ask?”

  “Don’t play that game with me, Penny,” he cautioned. “Your Ticker stopped today and you nearly died. Again.”

  “I’m still here,” I said, trying to reassure both of us. “Still breathing. That’s enough for now, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not, no.” Though his voice was low, urgency roughened up the words. “You know what needs to be done, don’t you?”

  Pulling the charred bit of bread off the fork, I flung it to the flames and reached for another slice. “I won’t lie abed like some invalid.”

  “That’s what our parents would have you do,” Nic said with impatience. “You need to see Warwick.”

  The very idea was preposterous. “The man is a criminal. A murderer.”

  My twin bent closer in his eagerness to explain. “He’s also the only one who can save you. Papa and I have worked with the surgeons since his arrest, trying to perfect the new implant, but they’re no match for him. And he wants to help.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” The words came very slowly, because I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.

  The silence spun out between us like cooked sugar from Violet’s fairy-floss machine and then broke. “Because he told me when I went to see him.”

  “By all the Bells, Nic, have you lost your mind?” I abandoned the toast completely, dropping the fork on the hearth. Disturbed by the clatter, Violet and Sebastian shifted and resettled, so I lowered my voice. “You went to the prison? When?”

  “Months ago.” It seemed Nic didn’t have a look to spare for me now, and perhaps that was just as well. “That weekend you thought I went with Sebastian to Carteblanche.”

  “Mama and Papa—”

  “Didn’t know. Not until afterward.” My brother scowled with the memory of it. “In this matter, our parents are acting the fools.”