by A. W. Exley
“You take being head boy too seriously, McLaren.”
Allie took the measure of the boy. He liked to throw insults but she suspected he had no real skill with a weapon. She bet herself he would never openly challenge Jared, whose ability with a blade she had already tested.
Approaching feet interrupted the confrontation, cut short any retort and defused the hanging tension. Three soldiers rounded the corner. The solid black of their uniforms was relieved only by the strip of blue and green tartan running down the side of their pants, signalling they came from the King’s Royal Aeronautical Corp. Their highly polished boots rapped on the slate in unison as they approached.
“McLaren,” the leader called out in recognition.
Jared’s head swung in their direction. “Lieutenant Harris,” he said with a familiar tone.
The red headed lieutenant bowed his head. “Could you tell us where to find Lord Lithgow? He is not in his laboratory.” His gaze roamed over the group. The other boys, sensing their sport well and truly over for the afternoon, slunk away.
No longer the centre of male attention, Madeline chose to disappear with them, leaving Allie alone with Jared and the soldiers.
“Try the Alchemy lab,” she said. “He’s working on an experiment this afternoon.”
Lieutenant Harris moved his gaze to her. His eyes narrowed as he looked at her more fully, a quizzical expression on his face for a fleeting moment.
“That way.” She gestured, pointing down the hall.
“I’ll walk with you.” Jared nodded to Allie, then turned and walked down the hallway with the soldiers.
Allie took the opposite arm of the corridor, toward the girls’ dormitory. Once she could no longer hear their boots clicking, she let out a breath and steadied her pounding heart. She never expected to see Christian Harris again, let alone in these hallways. Given the way his gaze lingered over her, she wondered if he recognised her?
full day of pretending indifference to the casually slung barbs of the noble girls completely sapped Allie’s energy and drained her mental armour. She sought refuge in the forest-painted bedroom. Peace and quiet washed over her as she lay on the bed and stared at the night sky. The constellations were different to the velvet sky that blanketed her for the last three years, yet another reminder of how far away her home lay. Dragging her eyes from the ceiling, she rolled onto her stomach and drew a textbook close. She flipped open the pages and tried to interest herself in Roman politics.
Instead of Cicero’s rousing oratory, she kept hearing snippets of conversation circling in her head. Throughout the day, gossip-hungry girls whispered and variously described her as a thief, barely house-broken, and feral.
The last one made her laugh. After three years of running wild in Egypt, her father demanded she return to England to civilise her. He became concerned at reports of her wandering barefoot through the Cairo streets with a group of youths. Not unlike the roaming packs of feral desert dogs, scouring the streets for food and fighting over scraps.
Allie suspected a deeper motive drove the decision to move her to York, one yet to be unearthed.
Eloise bounced into their room clutching her satchel to her chest. Once the door snipped shut behind her, she reached in and withdrew a frog and a companion rat. Both freshly dead by the looks of them.
“How was the alchemy experiment?” Allie flipped the textbook shut and tried to ignore the frog and rat doing a jig across the room as they danced in Eloise’s grip.
“Fine, until those soldiers turned up. They ruined everything by dragging Zeb off to his lab. So I went hunting instead.”
Curiosity simmered in the back of Allie’s brain, wondering about the military interest in the talented student. “What did they want?”
Eloise shrugged her shoulders and deposited the creatures on her desk. “I don’t know, they were all pretty tight-lipped about it. We couldn’t finish the experiment, so I thought I’d work on these.” Her eyes shone with the lure of the pending experiment. “I want to see which reanimates the most readily, amphibian or mammal.”
Allie sat up. “I’ll leave you to it. I’m going to go down to the library.”
She grabbed a book from her nightstand and slipped out the door. Her stomach gave a growl in the silent corridor and gave her another reason to seek solace in the library; her grandfather would have secreted food somewhere around his desk. Usually engrossed in his studies, he had the habit of keeping something handy for when hunger struck. She couldn’t contemplate braving the dining hall for dinner unless she wanted to serve herself up, to be sliced next to the roast beef; she decided to take her chances with what she could forage.
She pushed through the double doors into the enveloping silence of the stacks. The interior was softly lit at regular intervals by hanging iron lights, and the air was heavy with the scent of paper and old undisturbed dust. The rows of floor to ceiling books were oddly comforting. Books didn’t judge or make snide remarks. They didn’t comment about what place was assigned to you in the world based solely on the accident of your birth.
Allie headed down the central spine to the ornate oversized desk. She spotted an apple sitting on the blotter pad and a quick rummage in the drawers yielded a cheese sandwich and much to her glee, a small stash of Turkish Delight.
Scavenged meal in hand, she tossed up where to eat. She eyed up the nook with its comfy leather sofas and gargoyle-wrought fireplace but Zeb had already staked a claim. With several textbooks spread out on the low table, he appeared to be doing a comparative study. He muttered to himself as he flipped from book to book and scribbled notes on a pad, balanced on his knee. A deep frown ploughed his forehead.
Obviously finished with the soldiers.
“Problem?” she asked.
He glanced up on hearing her. She wandered closer and gestured to the books spread over every available surface in the cosy corner. Formulas covered his pad, as indecipherable to Allie as the hieroglyphics on tomb walls.
“Yes,” he replied a frown plastered to his face. “One that keeps exploding when it shouldn’t.”
“Sounds like a military problem, rather than an academic one.”
The frown never budged. “Yes, and they do get rather impatient.” He dropped one book and picked up another. “But I require an academic application to solve the pressure problem, not brute military force.”
Allie suspected his meeting did not end well. “Did they suggest hitting it?”
He flashed a quick smile. “Why is that always their first suggestion?”
Because they are boys. “Standard military operating procedure in the face of a problem, you either shoot it, hit it, or blow it up. I’ll leave you to solve your problem.”
Allie found the nook too secluded, tucked around the corner; but from the desk, she could keep one wary eye on the door. She dropped herself into the black leather chair and propped her feet up. She ate her grandfather’s snack while reading Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein. The choice of novel was inspired by her roommate.
Time passed in silence except for the crunch of apple, turn of page, or random muttered comment from Zeb. After nearly an hour, boot heels trod the hardwood floor. Allie’s gaze rose above her novel to see Jared stride down the central aisle. He had followed her for most of the day and feigned nonchalance every time her gaze met his, which was often since he wasn’t particularly good at following someone.
Never send a noble to do guild work.
A slight nod and he veered off to the corner and sank into a sofa opposite his friend. Quiet conversation rose and fell between the two youths. Allie tried to return to Victor Frankenstein and his hilltop laboratory but she kept thinking of Eloise and the dead frog and rat, no doubt jerking and twitching in their bedroom by now.
I need to find a laboratory for Eloise, somewhere she can keep her frogs and electrodes.
The voices from the corner became louder. Papers rustled and a book thumped to the ground, followed by a scraping noise of sofa fe
et sliding on the floor. Allie looked up to see Zeb peering under the sofa while Jared held up one end.
“It’s not there.” He sat back on his knees and Jared dropped the sofa to its original position.
Curiosity aroused, she left the desk and headed to the nook. “Another problem, Zeb?”
“Yes.” Jared flicked his pale gaze to her, an easy smile on his face. “A small mechanical one, if you have spare time to help us look for it.”
She arched an eyebrow and waited for Jared to elaborate. Zeb cast around as he stood, spinning on his heel as his gaze scanned the mouldings and floor.
“Zeb has misplaced an experiment.”
“In the library?” The soldiers flitted through her mind and she wondered how closely they monitored Zeb’s experiments; and then she hoped the one lost in the library wasn’t his exploding problem.
The youth looked sheepish and gestured to a worn and battered satchel lying on the sofa. “It climbed out while I was working. It was supposed to be deactivated but I must have bumped it and set it off. I must find it, before it chews something.”
“What is this thing we are looking for?”
Zeb spread his hands a span apart. “It’s kind of this big with teeth, claws, and shiny.”
Sounds like Eloise’s rat with electrodes. Allie watched the random hand gestures and raised her gaze to Jared. “Is he always this vague?”
“Yes,” Jared replied, laughter shining in his eyes. “Frustrating, isn’t it?”
Allie arched a black eyebrow and gave Jared a steady gaze. “Try having a roommate who reanimates frogs on your desk. Twitching limbs keep me awake at night.”
Zeb looked up, interest flared in his eyes. “Reanimating small amphibians? Fascinating, I never realised Eloise was so advanced in her work. Do you think she would show me?”
“I’m sure she would show you anything, if you ask her nicely.” Allie tried not to laugh.
Jared shook his head. “You think frogs are bad? Zeb built a wardrobe security system, which shot me when I opened the door.” He threw out his entry for the game of who had the weirdest roommate.
Zeb looked up, a frown on his face. “That was a necessity. Our wardrobe needed defending from all the girls hiding in it.”
Allie struggled to control her growing laughter. “Do tell, do you suffer many girls hiding in your furniture?”
Jared shot his friend a look under dark brows. “I think we should find Zeb’s critter, don’t you? Zeb, check around the nook and under the furniture, we’ll check down the aisles.”
Jared headed down a back row while Allie trailed behind, her gaze sweeping back and forth, looking for the glint of a mechanical creature.
Halfway down the deserted stack, Jared stopped and spun, his gaze focused on her. “Give me something and I’ll stop following you around.” With all trace of laughter gone, his voice held a serious note.
A shiver shot down her spine. Predator sounded in her brain whenever she met his pale eyes.
“Have you considered I might prefer you behind me? If you have my back, I can keep my eyes to the front.”
He took a step closer, his hand brushing the row of books to his left as he closed the gap between them.
“Who are you aligned to?”
So close she could smell sunshine, something earthy, and the faint tang of oil used to care for his blades. Her brain urged her to close her eyes and imagine sun-warmed heather in the Scottish Highlands.
“That’s a very rude question to ask a guild person, some would answer with a blade between your ribs.”
He gave a sigh and blew his fringe to one side as piercing grey pinned her in place. “I need to know if someone at school is in danger. Please, give me that much.”
If she held the assignment Jared grasped at, answering would violate guild code and result in her own death. Marshall picked all summer with quiet questions. It became a game between them. He knew she was guild and she knew that he knew, but neither of them mentioned it directly. Jared had yet to learn his master’s finesse.
“Why should I trust you with such information?”
“Because I beat you this morning and let you go. You owe me one.”
The smile returned to his face and set her heart racing as she remembered his tight hold, his arms wrapped around her. He’s not bad with a blade either.
“I’m no threat to anyone here, unless I’m threatened first.” She raised the spectre of the confrontation in the corridor.
He reached out a hand and grazed his fingers over her palm. “Thank you.”
She closed her eyes at the contact, a spider web of electricity brushed up her arm. Don’t do this, her brain warned but her body didn’t want to listen, drinking in the touch like the parched desert welcomes the rain.
Opening her eyes, a flash of light caught her attention. Something small whizzed from under one row of books and disappeared under another.
“I saw it,” she cried, breaking contact with Jared. Kneeling, she tried to peer into the darkness, the creature hiding under the back row with the wall behind it and nowhere further for it to run. Two red dots blinked at her, then vanished. She heard a high-pitched cough and a tiny cog rolled out across the floor. Her gaze tracked the miniature part until it disappeared under another stack. “What is it?”
“Weasel,” Zeb answered, drawn by her cry.
“It’s a weasel?” Allie kept her gaze on the dark space under the row of books.
“No. I call it Weasel. The closest approximation would be feline, with a bit of reptile.”
“I’ll never understand you science types.” Allie peered under the stack. “Come on Weasel,” she whispered. “Out you come. No one is going to hurt you.”
A high-pitched growl sounded, followed by a scratch as though it were testing the stone wall as a possible escape route. Something only a living, intelligent creature would do. Allie glanced up at Zeb.
“Is it self-aware?”
His mouth opened and closed, making him resemble a goldfish finding itself outside the comfort of a water-filled bowl.
“That would be illegal,” Jared answered. “Only military and government-approved projects are allowed to create sentient devices.”
Allie arched an eyebrow. “Uh-huh.” Suspicion clawed at the back of her brain, scenting a possible reason for her father’s insistence she attend St Matthews.
“Come on little one, I’ll protect you.” She directed her comment to the hiding creature while questions swirled in her head. A skitter sounded and then a gleaming brass nose poked under the stacks, followed by a triangular silver head. Red eyes turned to Allie, the head moving from side to side as it appeared to scan her, the ears rotating a full one hundred and eighty degrees.
Allie kept still, letting the mechanical creature reach a conclusion about whether she represented a threat.
“Hypothetically, supposing it were sentient, how aware is it?” she asked Zeb in a quiet tone.
“Far more than it should be,” he answered with a puzzled tone. “I deactivate Weasel but it keeps reactivating itself and escaping. Somehow.”
“Maybe it doesn’t enjoy life in your satchel and prefers to roam free.”
The body emerged. In size and shape it resembled a small but skeletal kitten made of burnished steel, with brass cogs acting as hip joints. The stout legs terminated in clawed feet that looked reptilian or dragon-like. Vicious teeth lined its large mouth and the tail looked like a razor sharp whip. It slunk to Allie and sat by her knee. Zeb reached down to pick it up but Weasel rose up on its hind legs. Two inch-long spikes stood erect along its spine and it bared shiny teeth while emitting a low growl.
He stepped away, warned off by his own creation. Only then did the creature drop down and sidle closer to Allie, pressing into the folds of her skirt.
“It seems you have a new friend, Allie,” Jared remarked.
Friday, 22nd July.
nce Zeb accepted his creature wouldn’t let him anywhere near, Weasel took u
p residence in the library. Allie suspected it didn’t want to be shoved in his satchel and squashed by text books, but held her own council. The little critter followed her around the library and growled in warning when it sensed anyone approaching. Her grandfather had raised his bushy eyebrows, given a deep sigh, and pretended to ignore the strange animal, although he issued a dire warning. Should it start chewing on his beloved books, he would flatten it with an encyclopaedia and turn it into a toast rack.
The week dragged and Allie avoided any further confrontation in the corridors by being quick on her feet. Twice Madeline and Hamilton tried to trip her up but with faster reflexes, she skipped over the outstretched limbs.
Once again she occupied her grandfather’s chair to read, while Eloise researched some new biology experiment her hyperactive brain dreamed up. Something involving the hind leg from a dog, killed in a stable accident earlier that morning. Allie managed to convince her friend to leave the limb in the alchemy lab, but doubted it would languish there for long.
This afternoon Weasel lay stretched out across the desk blotter. The small head nestled on its metal front paws, immobile, only the ears rotated every few seconds monitoring its surroundings. There was a pause in movement, and then both ears swivelled toward the library door. A faint growl emitted and then rising, it leapt to the floor to sit by Allie’s chair.
The library door banged and Allie looked up from the alert Weasel to see Jared, Zeb, and Eloise come to a halt in front of the desk where she reclined. Allie paused, mid-bite of her apple. Uh-oh, the aristocracy are mobilising against me.
“Is it time for a room search already?” she quipped. Jared spent the last four days prowling around in her footsteps. Despite his offer to stop following her around, he didn’t appear able to help himself. Allie couldn’t figure out if he suspected she would draw a blade and lunge at a passing student, or if he protected her from them. She only knew Newgate Prison contained more relaxed guards.
“We’re off to the dining hall and you’re coming along,” Jared said, ignoring her jib. “Eloise tells me you haven’t been going and you’re not eating properly.”