by Lev AC Rosen
“Then maybe you will engage my wager, if the professors won’t,” Ada said, lifting the cover off one of the platters. Steam rose into her face, wavering the wisps of loose hair at her forehead and then blending with the smoke of the room. Her platter held steamed spinach and lemon, and the smell filled the room. “But, instead of money, I will bet something else, whatever you’d like.”
“And what will I bet?” the duke asked, aware that if he backed down, he would lose face in front of the professors. They all liked him, but he was younger than they, and everyone knew his position was inherited, not earned. Keeping their respect and docility was a constant struggle.
“If I win,” Ada said, the professors looking at her, “then I may pick one student for next year’s class. It will give me a chance to bring in a student whom you might not normally recognize as having the potential for true brilliance, such as we were discussing at lunch.”
“That seems a small prize for you, Countess,” the duke said.
“Perhaps. But perhaps I’ll bring in someone unique—someone without all the politeness you always seem to expect from your students.”
“Politeness?” Prism asked.
“Your scientists are often statesmen,” Ada said, placing some spinach on her plate. “They’re all such gentlemen, so refined.”
“That’s quite untrue,” the duke said. The other professors were lifting the lids off the plates and serving themselves. “One of our students this year is the son of a gardener.”
“Really?” Valentine asked. “How horrid.”
“That may be so,” Ada said. “But none of your students are ever rough. They are always charming and polite, even if not always of good birth. Where’s the rough-and-tumble son of a fisherman who swears like a sailor and mixes salt water with wormwood to create an elixir?”
“To be a proper scientist these days,” Prism said, flipping down a lens of his glasses to look over the food, “you need funding, patronage. And for that, you need charm.”
“So teach the charm the way you teach science,” Ada said.
“I don’t know about the others, but I do teach charm,” Valentine said. “By example, anyway.”
“You’ve made your point,” the duke said. “You can choose a student if you win. But what if I win?”
“What do you want?” Ada asked.
“You to come work for me,” the duke said, smiling. “For one year.”
Professor Prism looked up sadly at the duke through his many lenses.
“Don’t worry, Prism, I don’t plan on replacing you. The countess would become my assistant of sorts. She would sit in on all the classes and offer her years of experience to the students. She would perform lectures when I couldn’t. She would be a constant font of wisdom from which the students could drink.”
Ada cocked an eyebrow across the table. “Accepted,” she said.
Valentine applauded, but no one joined in.
“So, if Mr. Adams proves most surprising,” the duke said, “you may choose a student for next year’s class. But if any of the other new students proves more shocking, then you will come work here. These are the terms?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Then it is a bet.”
“Excellent,” said Ada. “Now let’s finish supper and play some cards. And this time, do try to win at least a little, gentlemen. I find myself growing bored.”
The duke and his godmother and the professors feasted and drank and chatted about their plans and expectations for the coming year. The mood dimmed considerably when Bracknell appeared, just in time for dessert, but he seemed so afraid of the countess that, to everyone’s delight, she merely had to glare at him to make him stop speaking. After supper, they smoked more cigars, drank more brandy, and played several hands of bridge. The countess won the majority.
VIII.
LATER that night in the hall of student rooms, the third-year Toby Belch and the second-year Drew Pale were waiting. The initiation of the freshmen had always been run exclusively by the third-years, but Toby was the loudest and most enthusiastic of them, and Drew was his closest friend, so no one minded that Drew was coming along. The other seniors were still unpacking or studying in the lounge, waiting for a signal from Toby that it was time for the festivities to begin. That signal would come when Toby was sure that all the freshmen were asleep.
Toby and Drew spent most of their time in the chemical lab—Toby working on the perfect hangover cure and Drew just enjoying the fumes—so they had turned to Gregory Cheek, the third-year mechanical specialist, for help fashioning a device that would allow them to listen through the dormitory walls to determine when all the first-years were asleep. Gregory had done so happily, and given it to them and explained how to use it hours ago. It looked like a sturdy brass mug with a coil of wire where the handle should be and a small hole in the bottom. It was really a rather lovely piece of work, simple but effective, using the basic properties of sound and enhancing them with a touch of mechanical ingenuity. However, in the past few hours, Toby and Drew had forgotten how to use it.
“You put this end against the wall, and you put your ear against the other end,” Drew said, clanging the device against the wall.
“That’s backwards,” Toby said, taking the device from Drew and reversing it. He pressed his ear against the small tube and the large end against the wall of one of the first-years’ rooms. He heard nothing, and narrowed his eyes. Did this mean the students were asleep, or that he was using the device incorrectly?
“So?” Drew asked.
“I don’t hear anything,” Toby said.
“So they’re asleep,” Drew said, pleased. “Let’s check on the other rooms.”
In the next room, Toby heard snoring through the small tube, and was satisfied that he was using it correctly. Pleased with himself, and gracious, he let Drew listen, as well.
“Which ones are in this room?” Drew asked.
“The little one and the tall one,” Toby answered. Which meant that the last room was the first-year who had somehow managed to reserve himself a private chamber. The private rooms were supposed to be for third-years only. Usually a first- and second-year ended up living together due to the odd number of students in each year, but this year the duke had sent letters to all the third-years asking if they wouldn’t mind sharing with a second year. Toby had written back to say that it wouldn’t be a problem as long as he could share a room with Drew. He didn’t mind, if it got him in the duke’s good graces, but when he found out that it was for some self-important first-year who had refused to share a room, he practically threw the brat’s luggage out the window into the Thames.
Drew pushed his ear against the wall of the final first-year room, not using the device. “I can’t hear anything,” he said. “This is where His Highness is staying, is it?”
“Yes,” Toby said, pressing the device against the wall, and hearing nothing. “He’s out like a little lamb, he is. I hope he changed into his nightshirt before bed.” He snickered.
“Let’s wake the others, then,” he said.
The four other third-years had all been relaxing and catching up with their classmates in the lounge at the end of the dormitory hall, having quickly settled back into university life. When Toby and Drew walked in, a small bronze sparrow flew by their heads, nearly hitting them.
“It’s been flying for over ten minutes,” Alexander said, though the device was clearly not his, as he spent most of his time working with the analytical engines. Gregory, who Toby felt sure had created the sparrow that, even at that moment, seemed to be diving for his head, smiled sheepishly. Toby dodged the mechanical bird again, but Drew was not so lucky. It hit him full on the side of the head.
“Oh dear,” Tim said from his seat by the window.
“Where’s Ivan?” Drew asked.
“Probably in his room, moping,” Alexander said. Ivan was from the East, Russia specifically, and consequently had no sense of humor. Toby was glad to be rid of him
. In fact, he could have done without the rest of the students, too: Gregory never spoke, and when he did, was impossible to understand through his Welsh accent. Tim had a perpetually glazed look in his eyes and was so tall and thin he made Toby uneasy. He could have kept Alex, he supposed, though Alex had a tendency to be overwhelmingly optimistic at times, and was constantly feeling sorry for everyone. Even now he was frowning and dabbing at the cut on Drew’s head with a handkerchief. Drew did not look entirely comfortable.
“Let’s go on without him, then,” Toby said.
“Are they asleep?” Alex asked.
“Yes,” Toby said, grinning. “Remember, when you burst in, be as scary as possible, grab ’em, and throw them out into the hall. Drew here’ll blindfold them all, and then we can take them downstairs.” Gregory nodded. Alex bit his lip but nodded as well. Toby suspected that Alex would let the first-years grab whatever they’d like if they asked nicely enough. He’d send him into the room with the fat one, who looked like he could use some sympathy.
“Great,” Toby said. “Then let’s go.”
Toby had been correct in assuming Alex would have pity on the first-years. He shook them quietly awake, with whispers of “Up now, up now, it’s time to prove yourselves!” and let Merriman put on his glasses before leaving his room. Lane and Merriman had heeded Toby’s warning and slept in their pants, shirts, and shoes, but hadn’t thought to actually bring anything.
Toby was pleased to find Roger Fairfax, Earl of Cheshireford, the ponce who felt he was too good for a roommate, soundly asleep in his nightshirt, stocking feet, and even a pointed sleeping hat. With all his energy, he screamed Roger awake and then pushed him, still groggy-eyed and confused, out into the hall, where Drew quickly snapped a black cloth around his eyes.
“What is going on?” Fairfax shrieked.
“Oh, relax,” Jack said as Drew tightened the blindfold over his eyes. He and Violet hadn’t been asleep at all, but had happily hopped out of bed fully dressed when Tim and Gregory had come into the room, their pockets overflowing with tools they thought might be useful. Gregory and Tim hadn’t said anything, just pointed at the open door, which, Jack had thought, was a good deal more frightening than screaming and shouting.
With pleasure, Toby poked and prodded the blindfolded first-years, leading them down the halls with which they were not yet familiar and into the mechanical lift, then pulling the lever and letting it fall perhaps too quickly to the lower basement. There, Toby and the others led the first-years to a large dimly lit room with four archways leading off it and gave each of them a good spin.
No one was really sure why there was a labyrinth in the basement of Illyria. Toby and Drew had explored parts of it and suspected it was a safety measure, a way of keeping the more dangerous inventions from being stumbled upon by a layman who might accidentally destroy London with them. Toby and Drew hadn’t found anything down here that they thought could destroy London, but they suspected that was only because they hadn’t looked hard enough.
With a wave of Toby’s hand, the third-years quietly dispersed, leaving the first-years alone in the darkness.
* * *
VIOLET had no idea where they were, but was terribly excited. Still blindfolded and dizzy, she walked forward a few paces to see if anyone would stop her. Her footsteps were stiff on the stone beneath them.
“Anyone there?” she called.
“Hullo, Ashton,” came Jack’s friendly reply. Violet took off her blindfold. The room they were in was dark, with one small gas lamp flickering on the wall. Lane, Merriman, and Fairfax all stood there, shivering in the dark. Violet smirked to see Fairfax in a long shapeless white nightshirt.
Jack was already exploring the walls. “There are four passages out,” he said, “near as I can tell.” He looked over at the other three students. “Haven’t you lot taken your blindfolds off yet? Come on, I don’t want to waste too much time on this. I’d like to be well rested for class tomorrow.” Nervously, the other three took off their blindfolds and stared around them, blinking vapidly.
“Where is this?” Merriman asked.
“Basement,” Violet said. “Probably lower basement. We dropped far down in the lift, but we didn’t really walk that far, so it has to be the lower basement. I’d wager we just have to find the lift again, and we can go back to bed.”
“How do we do that?” Lane asked.
“With our incredible scientific ability, of course,” Jack said, skipping back to the group. With a flourish he produced a large jar from one of his jacket pockets. Inside was a thick fluid that glowed white green in the darkness.
“What is that?” Fairfax asked with obvious disgust, lifting his feet off the sticky ground one by one. His stockings were filthy, Violet noted with a smile.
“It’s from jellyfish,” Jack said. “There was a whole jar of them in the bio lab. I knew most of them could glow in the dark, so I extracted some of their fluorescent proteins and put them in a jar. We can paint it on the walls as we travel, so we know where we’ve been.”
“Very clever,” Violet said with some pride.
“Thank you,” Jack said with a bow.
“I didn’t bring anything,” Merriman said, looking nearly ready to cry in the soft green glow of the jellyfish jar.
“I didn’t either,” said Lane.
Violet tried not to roll her eyes. They had been warned, after all.
“This is an outrage,” Fairfax said. “I doubt it’s even safe down here. Why, who knows what odd chemical horrors have come together in the wastes of this place? There could be all sorts of dreadful creations stored here.”
“I’m sure it’s only a little dangerous,” Violet said. “The duke said they’d been doing this initiation for years.”
“The duke?” Fairfax asked.
“You spoke to the duke about this?” Jack asked, cocking an eyebrow and staring at Violet.
“Well, he came down to the lab, and I was showing him an invention, so I only mentioned … that is, I mentioned that some of the third-years had hinted at it, and he said, ‘Oh yes, that’s been happening for quite some time,’ or something like that.” Violet shut her mouth before she could stammer further. She could feel herself blushing, and hoped that it didn’t show in the green light. She didn’t even know why she was stammering like an idiot under Jack’s gaze, but she suddenly felt as though she should have kept her private moment with the duke a secret. “Look!” she said, remembering the device that had prompted the conversation. She held it up and pulled the trigger, causing a bright beam of light to shoot forth.
“Most excellent!” Jack exclaimed.
“Amazing,” Merriman said.
“It’s really not that impressive,” Violet said, knowing her modesty was false. Finally, she was among other bright young minds, and they were impressed with her inventions!
“I couldn’t do anything like that,” Lane said.
“Maybe it’s just not your field,” Jack said. “Ashton here is a mechanical genius.”
“I do feel more at home with chemical experimentation,” Lane confessed. “I synthesized a formula that, though it started as a small amount of paste, would gradually evaporate into breathable air. That’s how I got in.”
“That’s marvelous,” Violet said. “Why, you could use that to breathe underwater.”
“I suppose,” Lane said.
“Why didn’t you bring it?” Violet asked.
“Do you think we’ll be going underwater?” Lane asked. But before Violet could reply, Fairfax let out a horrid screech. She quickly shot a beam of light at him, but could see nothing the matter.
“What is it?” Jack asked.
“Something brushed against me,” Fairfax replied.
“There wasn’t anything there,” Violet said. “There’s nothing around.”
“Probably one of the cats,” Merriman said.
“What?” Jack asked.
“My father works for a family whose son was a student here a while
back, when the school first opened. The son said that the chemical professor back then was working on an invisibility potion, and fed it to some cats and kittens to test it. Apparently it worked on most of them—but then he couldn’t find them to change them back, so now invisible cats roam the college.”
“How marvelous!” Jack said.
“Your father is a servant?” Fairfax asked with palpable condescension in his voice.
“He’s a gardener,” Merriman said softly. Fairfax scoffed. Jack clenched his jaw.
“I think it’s best we try to get out of here, rather than stand about talking,” Violet said before Jack could hit Fairfax. “Fairfax, you can stay here if you don’t feel dignified traveling with a gardener’s son or, for that matter, an estate manager’s son. We’ll send someone down for you if we remember.” Fairfax sneered, but followed as Violet started walking, Jack painting the walls with jellyfish protein as they went. She didn’t care where they went, as long as they went somewhere.
They walked in silence for a while, the group following Violet, who chose which twists and turns to follow at random, not pausing to let anyone else speak for fear it would result in an argument. The labyrinthine basement seemed to be used mainly for storage. Blank, unassuming doors lined some of the walls. Violet used her skeleton key device on a few of them, but after only finding boxes of salt and jars of ether, decided they were all dead ends.
“They just leave the doors open?” Fairfax said, his arms crossed.
“I used this to open them,” Violet explained. “It’s a mechanical skeleton key.”
“I didn’t realize Illyria trained thieves and servants. Perhaps I should have gone to Oxford after all.”
“I’m sure that would have made all of us very happy,” Jack said. Violet laughed and heard others chuckling in the darkness as well, probably Lane and Merriman.