Mist, Metal, and Ash
Page 29
“I can’t in good conscience swear that I won’t. I am not of this world, and I never agreed to behave in accordance with your rules.”
“While you may not be of this world, what you do here has consequences for those of us who are.” She paused. “I am sorry, but Righi’s arrest order still stands. Take her.”
The security bots whirred to life from their quiet idling and began closing in. Revan and Leo reached for weapons to ward them off, and Skandar launched from Faraz’s shoulder. The bots responded with guns unfolding from compartments in their forearms, and Elsa could all too easily envision how the situation would escalate.
She threw her hands out. “Wait! Stop! Nobody needs to get hurt, I’ll surrender myself peacefully.”
“Elsa—!” Leo protested.
She turned to him and rested a hand on his cheek. “There’s been enough death today.”
Something shifted in the amber depths of his eyes, and he leaned closer. Elsa pressed her lips to his, and they shared a kiss that felt like a sharing of strength, where paradoxically they both came away with more than they’d had before.
Then there were metal hands around Elsa’s arms, pulling her back, their grip tight enough to make her wince. As the security bots dragged her away, she could hear Porzia yelling, “Elsa! I’ll get you out, I swear it!”
The security bots brought her down into the basement, into a jail cell with thick iron bars, and they took from her all her tools and gadgets and books. But Elsa wasn’t worried, because she still had something better than a portal device, better even than an editbook: she had her friends.
And together there was nothing they couldn’t do.
EPILOGUE
Feeling incandescent with rage, Porzia burst through the doors into the council chamber in a neatly choreographed dramatic entrance, which had the desired effect of drawing all eyes to her.
The Order’s council members—what remained of them—were gathered around the far end of the long table, poring over her worldbook.
“It’s blank!” Porzia gasped mockingly. “How terribly inconvenient.”
It was her own father who said, “Porzia, what is the meaning of this? Have you done something to the editbook?”
“Oh, that’s not the editbook.” She took off her gloves—gloves she’d donned specifically for the purpose of now removing them—and tossed herself down in the chair at the opposite end of the table, as if she’d purchased the room and were planning to move in. “That is the lockbox I put the editbook inside of.”
At this pronouncement, everyone started talking at once. Porzia examined her nails while waiting for the din of protestation, disbelief, and outrage to calm down.
Signora Veratti called for quiet. “Explain yourself, Signorina Pisano.”
“We designed safeguards to guarantee that no single person can gain control of the editbook, while still leaving it accessible in the event of an emergency,” she said. “Well … accessible to us, anyway.”
Veratti said, “When you say ‘we,’ who do you mean exactly?”
Porzia gave her a steady look. “I should think that obvious: myself and Elsa di Jumi da Veldana.”
Elsa’s name sent up another wave of protestations, like a gundog flushing a nest of pheasants. But Veratti put a hand in the air, demanding silence, and silence came. She was a highly respected alchemist and had been Righi’s predecessor before she retired from the position. “Why have you done this?” she asked.
Porzia carefully avoided her father’s gaze. She did not want to know if there was betrayal in his eyes. “It is our belief, now that the editbook has been used to alter the real world, that it cannot be destroyed without risking unpredictable consequences for Earth.”
Filippo quietly added, “Unpredictable and potentially catastrophic.” His voice drew her attention, almost against her will. Her father’s gaze was not without respect, but still he looked at her as if she were a stranger, and that cut so deep her throat tightened. Filippo continued, “Which is why the Order must have control of the editbook.”
Alek de Vries rose from his chair. “Now, now—while I’m sure the Order would prefer sole ownership of the book, there is arguable benefit to forging a permanent alliance with the Veldanese.”
Porzia said, “Oh good, Signor de Vries is with us. Would you like to tell him the truth, Father, or shall I?” She paused just long enough to see a spark of panic light in Filippo’s eyes. “Alek: Zio Massimo is alive, and you have been lied to. He was textualized, and rather than air our shame for all to see, my family hid him away in Corniglia and told everyone he’d died. Even you, the person most deserving of the truth.”
“What?” Alek stared. He could not have looked more shocked if she’d pulled out a revolver and shot him in the chest.
A little flower of guilt bloomed in her heart at his reaction … though was there really a good way to break such news? Anyway, her anger held fast and carried her through—anger for Simo’s exile, anger for Elsa’s imprisonment, anger for the terrible choice Garibaldi forced upon Leo. And yes, anger for herself and the narrow road the older generation expected her to walk down.
She turned her focus back to Signora Veratti. “If you want to ever so much as see the editbook, you’ll need one Pisano scriptologist and one Veldanese scriptologist—and the rest of the details I’ll leave vague for now. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting to need this bargaining chip quite so soon, but here we are nonetheless.
Porzia allowed herself a moment to take in their indignant looks, and she saw the truth reflected in their eyes: the dutiful daughter was gone. This new Porzia Pisano was someone else, and for the first time in her life, it was entirely up to her to discover who that might be.
“So.” Porzia gave them all a glittering smile. “Would you care to make a deal?”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This novel presents an alternate history of the struggle for Italian unification; while I drew inspiration from historical conflicts and figures, the events described here diverge massively from reality.
First, I must offer apologies to the city of Naples for its total destruction (though it continues to strike me as a terrible idea to have three million people living in the shadow of one of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes). In an odd twist of fate, my maternal grandmother was from Naples, so I have effectively erased myself from Elsa’s timeline.
I have also taken liberties in my portrayal of the Carbonari. The real Carbonari were a secret network of independently operated cells without much in the way of a centralized command structure, and they were most active in the early 1800s. The café where Elsa meets them is based on Caffè Florian in Venice, which actually was used as the headquarters of an insurrection against the Austrian Empire in 1848.
The real Ricciotti Garibaldi was neither an alchemist nor a supervillain, but simply a son of the famous revolutionary general Giuseppe Garibaldi. However, the stories Aris tells of Anita Garibaldi are lifted straight from real life. Anita was the original badass woman—a pants-wearing, horse-riding, gun-toting freedom fighter—and she is indeed still a folk hero and symbol of liberty in her native country of Brazil.
Augusto Righi was a real professor from Bologna who made significant contributions to the study of electromagnetism, though as far as I know, he did not lead any secret societies, and he lived until 1920. His fictional successor, Signora Veratti, is perhaps a descendant of physicist Laura Bassi—the first female science professor in the world—and her partner Giuseppe Veratti. Even if none of Laura Bassi’s granddaughters became scientists in real life, I prefer to think that her legacy is still alive.
The joy and the challenge of writing alternate history is envisioning how events could have turned out differently. In reality, the Risorgimento movement succeeded in liberating Italians from foreign rule, but fell short when it came to creating a popular republic. The invention of a unified national identity morphed over time into Italian Fascism, and Italy did not abolish their monarchy in favo
r of democracy until 1946. Perhaps in Elsa’s timeline they can do better.
ALSO BY GWENDOLYN CLARE
INK, IRON, AND GLASS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gwendolyn Clare earned her BA in ecology, BS in geophysics, and a PhD in mycology. She is a New Englander transplanted to North Carolina where she cultivates a vegetable garden, tends a flock of backyard ducks, and practices martial arts. Ink, Iron, and Glass is her debut novel. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Map
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Also by Gwendolyn Clare
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by Gwendolyn Clare
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First hardcover edition, 2019
eBook edition, February 2019
eISBN 9781250112774
The first one who steals this sequel,
Shall lose a possession its equal.
And whoever steals it next Shall find themself scribed in the text.