by Lev AC Rosen
That new role was to be the lover of Drew Pale, heir to Pale Perfumes. He was an ideal audience for many reasons. He was rich; she found him genuinely attractive, and he her; and he wasn’t so complex that she would need to be constantly tweaking her performance. He was excited, or he was asleep, Violet said. If he was asleep, then she was not keeping him entertained; therefore, she needed only to keep him awake. From what she understood, Drew was kept awake by sparkling lights, noises, and smells. Like a baby. Fiona smiled at that idea.
Thursday, at nine o’clock, Fiona walked into the Well-Seasoned Pig dressed for her new part. Glass jewels sparkled down the front of her chest and over her very low neckline. Her fingers and earlobes glittered. She had her hair up in an ornate style she called the Fancy Pork Belly, of the kind usually seen only on Wagnerian sopranos. Her dress was a shining purple, and tight down to her feet, and she was wearing a combination of three different perfumes, which caused her to sneeze occasionally because they didn’t mix particularly well. She paused for a moment in the doorway of the pub, because as an actress, she knew that the audience would need a few moments to take in her entrance. Then, spotting Violet, Drew, and the rest of them, she glided purposefully toward their table.
“Well, ’ello,” she said, smiling her broadest smile and posing with one hand on her waist and the other bent up as though she were holding a serving tray. She had calculated that this position showed off her jewels to their best possible effect without taking her clothes off. Everyone looked up at her. Violet’s eyes widened slightly, and the rest of them looked confused. But it was Drew on whom she was focused, and it was Drew who stared at her as if transfixed, his eyes flashing from her face to her ears to her wrists to her bosom and then starting over again. “’Ello, Drew,” she said, leaning toward him so that her necklace fell away from her chest and hung in the open air, swaying back and forth, “care ta buy me a drink?”
“Oh, yes,” Drew said, looking confused at having been addressed. He stood and offered her his chair, then went and got another of his own and sat down next to her. She laid her braceleted hand on his knee. He stared at it. The others watched this interaction with expressions between fascination and shock, not speaking.
“I’m Fiona,” she said to them. “We met the other night. I was in the pony show.”
“Of course,” said the dark-looking woman Fiona had not been introduced to. “I’m Miriam. This is Toby. We weren’t introduced, because you were dancing most of the time.”
“Oh, aye,” Fiona said, “I do fancy a bit of dancing.” Fiona sneezed, then shook her head and stared at the table. There was a piece of paper laid out on it, and everyone had been careful not to put their drinks too close to it. It had lines running all around. As she looked closer, she thought maybe it was a map, but not of London, or any part of it she knew. “What are ye workin’ on?” she asked.
“Just a project,” Violet said in her ridiculous man voice, rolling up the map.
“Ah,” Fiona said. She ran her fingers up and down Drew’s leg, and felt it shudder slightly under her nails.
“You smell most extraordinary,” Drew said to her.
“Aye,” Fiona responded, “I like ta … experiment with scents.” She smiled at him, then sneezed.
“It’s wonderful,” he said.
“You’ll have ta excuse me,” she said, sniffling. “I seem to ’ave a bit of a cold.”
“Oh,” he said, taking a handkerchief out of his pocket, “please.”
“Thankee,” she said as she took the handkerchief and dabbed at her nose. The handkerchief smelled heavily of sweat, but she tried not to react.
She started to hand it back to him, but he shook his head. “Keep it,” he said, closing his hand around hers, which held the used and sweaty handkerchief. She felt it squish in her hand.
“You’re too kind,” she said, batting her eyelashes.
“Perhaps … since you already experiment with perfume … you’d be willing to let me test some of my own perfumes on you. I’m a scientist, but I’m also of the Pale family.”
“Pale Perfumes?” Fiona asked with perfect shock on her face—she’d played perfect shock on at least seventeen different occasions and felt sure she was good at it. “Why, I love your products! When I can afford them.”
“You do?” Drew asked, excited. “Well, if you let me test my perfumes on you, I’ll name the one you like best after you, and you will have it for life.”
“That would be so very kind of you,” Fiona said, squeezing Drew’s thigh.
He squealed slightly, and sighed with contentment. “No,” he said, “it would be an honor.”
Miriam cleared her throat loudly. Fiona looked up, saw everyone at the table looking at them, and realized she had begun to lean in, almost predatorially, toward Drew. She drew back and smiled. “So tell me,” she said to the group. “Was that a map I saw? What is it ye all are planning?”
“We’re mapping the basement of Illyria,” Drew said, eager to please her. Fiona noticed the others glaring at him, as if he had disclosed a secret.
“The basement?” Fiona asked.
“Yes,” Violet said with a sigh.
“That sounds messy,” Fiona said.
“It is,” Jack said. He was grinning, as if terribly amused by something.
“Well, don’t mind me,” Fiona said. “Just keep on mapping away. I’ll just drink a little and be on my way.”
“Oh, you musn’t go so soon,” Drew said.
“I have a show tomorrow,” Fiona said with an excellently formed look of regret. “Otherwise, I’d stay with you all night.”
“Where are you staying?” Drew asked, and then, in a slightly quieter voice, “I can deliver your perfumes myself, and put them on you, if you’d like. Some oils need to be smelled just as they touch the skin.”
Fiona rasied an eyebrow. He was more debonair than she thought. She gave him the address of her boarding house, finished her drink, and kissed him lightly but lingeringly on the cheek while stroking his thigh. Then she left, looking back once from the doorway. Drew was staring at her, while the others pored over their map. She winked at Drew and left.
She hadn’t stayed more than half an hour, but had done a very effective job, she thought. He’d be thinking about her for quite a while, and with any luck, would keep his promise to deliver her oils and soaps. Which was a start. Not quite a private set of apartments and unlimited income, but free soap was better than no soap. She’d need to know a bit more about him, though. So once she was home, she wrote a letter to Violet at her address in town, requesting additional information on Drew’s appetites, particularly those in the bedroom, and sent it off. She’d be prepared for him by the weekend. Having taken off her fake jewels and tight bodice, she changed into her old ragged nightshirt and lay down on the straw mattress the boarding house provided. She put her hands under her head and gazed up at the ceiling. Drew was a very nice boy. And he had very nice thighs. Fiona knew her acting came from her ability to forget herself in a role. Was she forgetting herself so quickly, smiling at the thought of settling down and taking care of the boy with the nice thighs and pretty, nervous lips? She didn’t know. But it was a role she could play. Fiona breathed in deeply and shut her ice blue eyes to the night, hoping that this show would be her last.
XXVI.
THEY kept mapping the basement for the next few nights. The map was developing nicely, though they still had yet to rediscover the train or the mysterious automata and the door they guarded. Miriam had been leading the group on this endeavor, and Violet had been impressed. She had been encouraging and energetic, the romantic figure of the lady privateer that one usually found only in books, hair windswept, skirts worn and rippling with movement. And they had mapped a lot. It seemed the basement did have a few levels, though there were no stairs, only sloping halls, so it was hard to tell if they were one level below the ground or two, unless they were looking at the map. Every night, Violet came back to the room and, after b
athing, translated her rough charcoal map into a more elegant one of ink and parchment, which she kept rolled up in the closet, so Oscar wouldn’t eat it.
Something had been bothering Violet. Since seeing the rusted gears in the basement and remembering their purpose, it had been like a feather tickling the ear of her memory. She lay in bed, flipping through her books on Illyria, trying to find the section on the basement. Finally, in the third book she tried, she found it, several pages into the description of the college’s creation: “… construction of the basement was overseen by the engineer Adam Volio, an old school chum of the duke’s…” She leapt up off the bed.
“Fuck!” Oscar, alarmed by the sudden movement, hopped off Jack’s bed and under it.
“What?” Jack, who had been feeding him carrots, asked, looking up at her. She thrust the book in his face and pointed at the line. He read it. “Well, now we know how the little bugger got into the school,” he said, “though I don’t see how it helps us.”
“Bugger-balls?” said Oscar cautiously, sticking his head out from under the bed.
“Yes,” Jack said, holding out a carrot. “C’mere.” He wiggled the carrot, and Oscar leapt back onto the bed, took it from his hand, and began nibbling it.
“It helps,” Violet said, “because it means Volio must know the basement—he probably has a map or something. I’d say the automata were his, but they could be his brother’s. Certainly it explains how his brother hid everything when he was a student here. I’ll bet Volio is hiding things down there, too. The automata are his … security or somesuch.”
“That seems like a leap to me,” Jack said, petting Oscar. “I mean, yeah, it would make sense that Volio is the son or grandson of this Volio”—he pointed at the book—“but we can’t prove that. And do you really think there could be a place in Illyria so secret that even the duke didn’t know about it? I mean, his da’ oversaw the construction of the college, too. I don’t think there’s much he doesn’t know.”
“Then maybe he does know. Maybe he’s sanctioning it for some reason.”
“Don’t trust your lover?”
Violet felt herself blush crimson. “He’s not my lover!”
“I’ve seen you reread his letters at least seven times now,” Jack said.
“I was studying them,” Violet said quickly, “so as to argue my points better when answering his questions.”
“Shite,” said Oscar.
“I agree with Oscar,” Jack said, “I don’t see why you need to deny it. Love, my dear Violet, is a beautiful thing.”
“Shite,” repeated Oscar.
“Hush,” Jack said, stroking Oscar’s ears. “Well, whether you love him or you don’t,” he said, “do you really think him capable of assisting Volio? Anyone can see Volio is a blight on Illyria.”
“Maybe he’s being blackmailed,” Violet said. “It seems to be a much more common occurrence than I had once thought.”
Jack shrugged. “It doesn’t explain Curio, and what he’s doing down there,” he said.
“Oh, bugger,” said Oscar.
“I suppose not,” Violet said, sitting back down on her bed. Oscar, done with his carrot, hopped off Jack’s bed and onto Violet’s and nestled against her, burrowing his head into her waist. She reached down and petted his soft, floppy ears.
“But it’s something,” Jack said, trying to be encouraging.
“We’ll see what the others make of it tomorrow.”
Jack nodded. “So, you think Fiona will nab Drew?”
“Probably. I got a letter from her today. She sent it to the house in town, but Ashton sent it along. She wants to know about his … bedroom proclivities.”
Jack laughed and clapped his hands. “She’d be a cad if she were a bloke.”
“How am I supposed to ask Drew about that?”
“I’ll do it,” Jack said. “Hell, he’s already said a few things, and I can guess the rest.”
“He has?”
“Sure. You’re just not listening proper. It’s the way we menfolk talk. When he says he likes a girl with shape to her, it means he likes a large bosom. Which, luckily, Fiona has in spades.”
“Ah,” Violet said. She felt herself blushing slightly, so she looked down at Oscar, who had fallen asleep. “Well, you write it down, then. I certainly don’t want to hear about it.”
“You’re a funny one,” Jack said. “You can swear like a man now, and swagger like one, but when it comes to talking about fucking, you clam up and turn red.”
“I’m a virgin, Jack. The rest of you are not. It’s a different matter for men.”
Jack considered this, then nodded. “I suppose that’s true. I guess you’re so good at the rest of it, that I’m starting to forget you’re just a proper lady underneath it all.” Violet glared at him. “What? You don’t think you are? Wasn’t that you in the lovely gowns caroling with us at Christmas?”
“That was different. I wasn’t always so proper,” Violet said.
“Mm,” Jack said, sounding as if he didn’t quite believe her, pulling the blankets up over himself to go to sleep. Violet rolled her eyes, took the books off her bed, and lay down as well.
“Bugger,” Oscar said, waking up, and hopped off the bed. Violet turned out the light and lay down in bed. Jack was already snoring softly.
She fell asleep and dreamt of caroling with the duke and a troupe of musical automata in a snow-filled basement, Ernest smiling at her over the music.
* * *
AT breakfast the next morning, she told Drew and Toby about the Volio link. Toby nodded slowly, eating his toast. “Helps explain why he’s such a prick.”
“Doesn’t it also mean that he’s responsible for the automata in the basement—that they’re his brother’s leftovers from when he marched an army of them out of here?” Violet shuddered to think of the mechanical demons again, and the cold, violent intellect behind them.
“I dunno, Ash,” Toby said. “I mean, it could be that, sure, but this is Illyria. Could be from anything, really. But I do like the idea that Volio is behind it. Then we can get him in trouble. Although,” he continued, rubbing his shoulder where his wound had healed, “I don’t like the idea of his being in control of a bunch of the aforementioned killer automata. What do you think, Drew?”
“Hm?” Drew said. He had not been asleep, but staring dreamily into space.
“He’s thinking about that Fiona again,” Toby said. “Never thought I’d see the day Drew fell for a lady twice his age, but I can say quite certainly that older women are often a good bit of fun. Less squealing, more experience.” He laughed loudly and elbowed Drew, who looked at him, confused.
Violet looked at Drew, a bit baffled by the effect Fiona had had on him. She had been out drinking with them two nights now, she and Drew talking quietly together while the rest of them had planned further expeditions into the basement. Violet didn’t feel quite so guilty for feeding Fiona information anymore—Drew seemed happy, after all. Perhaps it would be best if everyone’s friends told potential mates the best way to please them.
Breakfast ended, and they went off to reckoning, where Professor Prism flipped the many lenses on his glasses back and forth several times while watching the students feed information into the great analytical engines. Violet found the whole class dull. Create a sheet of metal representing the information and the question and give it to a machine to decipher without doing any actual problem solving yourself. It was like looking into a crystal ball, but with none of the mystique and a lot more heat. It made sense to her that Roger Fairfax was so enthusiastic about it, and always finished early, though he never helped his classmates once he finished. After all, it was a lazy sort of science, and Fairfax was a spoiled and lazy man. The creation of the engines, improving on them, and teaching them new ways to solve new, more complex problems—all the realm of Lady Byron—were things that sounded exciting to Violet, but these subjects would not be approached until her second year. If she had a second year.
Lunch was mostly spent mulling over their plans to further inspect the basement that evening. Drew would not be going with them—he and Fiona were going to “test perfumes” at a hotel. Without Miriam, their plans were only halfhearted, and conversation soon turned to teasing Drew about what sort of perfumes he planned to test, and where on Fiona’s body. Violet spent much of the time blushing, laughing occasionally, then blushing some more.
In the mechanical lab, Violet’s creation had become so large that it now sat in the corner covered with a cloth while she worked on additional pieces. It was all coming together smoothly, and she noted with pleasure that Volio would sometimes look up at her creation in the corner and glare at the sheet nervously before going back to his own work, which he always kept out of sight.
Cecily visited and bent over all of Violet’s pieces, inspecting them, while Miriam stood in the corner. “It’s really looking wonderful, Ashton,” Cecily said when she was finished.
“Thank you,” Violet said. “Though I still have loads of work to do. You’re really driving me to work harder since you built the engine.”
“You built the engine.”
“You made the material. We should test this part, though,” Violet said. The part in question was a door mechanism that would cover the driver, shielding her from harm. The doors had been constructed and mounted on a platform, but they needed to close tightly and lock with the press of a button. “Go around and stand on the other side of the doors,” Violet said, “and I’ll stand here and activate them. Tell me if they don’t look right.”
“Okay,” Cecily said, and stood in front of the doors, inspecting them. Violet went through them, then turned to face them as well. Cecily waved, though they were only a few feet apart. Violet grinned, then hit the button.