A Clockwork Fairytale

by Helen Scott Taylor

  Grabbing a breath, he stood and opened her bedchamber door. She was staring at herself in the mirror. She swung around with a soft swish of silk and held out her arms at her sides. “What do you think?” she asked with a tentative smile.

  For a few seconds Turk forgot to breathe. He’d chosen the blue silk to match her eyes and the effect was stunning. Her mother had been a celebrated beauty and Melba resembled the pictures of the queen. Up till now, he’d thought of Mel as neither male nor female, but simply a project. He would never make that mistake again. With her soft golden curls, female curves, and delicate beauty, she was undeniably a young lady.

  Her grin faded and he realized he hadn’t responded to her question. “You look very… nice,” he said, his normally sharp wits struggling to find an appropriate adjective.

  She turned and presented her back to him. “You gonna do me up then?”

  “Of course.” He placed the beauty box on her dressing table and stared at the slice of milk-white skin and silky chemise visible through the gaping back of her dress. His fingers felt hot and clumsy as he flexed them. Nothing he’d experienced had prepared him to perform this simple task. During his time in the cloistered community of the Shining Brotherhood, females were barely mentioned. Even now that he worked as a spy in society, he still honored his vow of celibacy and didn’t consort with women.

  “Come on,” Melba said. “I thought you was in a hurry.”

  He was. Except he could hardly think past drawing his next breath. Turk cleared his throat and fumbled with the bottom hook in the small of her back. The dress was not tight, so he managed to fasten most of the hooks without touching her undergarment. A hot tingling sensation ran around his body and his skin prickled with sweat. He paused to run his finger around his neck beneath his cravat.

  Melba glanced over her shoulder. “What’s in the box, sir?”

  Sir… How ludicrous she should call him sir when he felt as ignorant and out of his depth as a child. He doubled his effort not to touch her where the dress closed over her bare neck. His breath hissed out with relief as he fastened the last hook and stepped back. “The box contains preparations for beautification as used by young ladies of Court, Melba. You’ll have to examine the contents and experiment. Some gentlemen wear gliss, but I prefer a plain look and have no knowledge of its application.”

  As she turned the tiny brass key in the box’s lock and opened the lid, he checked his pocket watch and gathered his scattered wits. “I really should be going, Melba,” he said backing toward the door. But despite his eagerness to escape, he found himself unable to leave until he’d seen her reaction to the box’s contents.

  Eyes wide with wonder, Melba lifted the nine square crystal bottles out and lined them up on the dressing table. “There’s so many. What’re they all for?”

  Without intending to, he found himself stepping back to her side. “Red lip balm and pink lip balm,” he said pointing to the engraved silver labels on the first two bottles. “Surely those are self-explanatory.”

  “Silver gliss and gold gliss.” Melba picked up the next two bottles. “What’s gliss?”

  “The shiny powder the nobs wear.”

  “Oh!” She squealed with excitement—a girly sound he’d never expected to hear spring from Melba’s lips. She unstoppered a bottle, detached the application brush from inside the box lid, and dipped it in the gold gliss.

  “I suggest you start with a small amount,” he said, wondering how long it would take her to coat the whole room in gold powder.

  She cast him a mischievous sideways glance as she feathered the brush across her cheeks, and giggled. “It’s tickly.”

  “I don’t think that’s the p—” Before he could finish, she swiped the brush across his cheek. He jumped back, a shocked laugh bursting from his mouth. She came after him, attacking him with the brush. He tried to bat her hand away, but he didn’t want to hurt her so she had the advantage. Giggling, she scattered gold powder on him. He found himself laughing, her excitement infectious.

  Everything about her assailed his senses; her soft rose fragrance filled his nose while the silky fabric of her dress and her warm skin set his fingertips alight. Unfamiliar pleasure left him lightheaded like a shot of strong spirits. For a few minutes he forgot who he was and why Melba was here, forgot his vows and his duty to the Shining Brotherhood. Finally, when she jabbed the brush in his ear, he managed to grip her wrist and put a stop to her sport. She laughed up at him, her face glowing. “I love making you laugh,” she said breathlessly.

  For long moments, he held her wrist, winded as if he had been running the skyways, and stared into the sparkling blue of her mischievous eyes. Melba touched a place inside him he hadn’t even known existed before she came into his life.

  In the hall outside, the grandfather clock chimed the hour and reality hit Turk like a splash of cold water. For the first time in his life, he was late for an appointment with his master. What would Gregorio think when he read his memories and realized he’d been detained by frivolity? Turk released Melba and stepped back. He must remember that transforming her into a young lady was a job. His success was important to the fate of Malverne Isle and to the Shining Brotherhood. He brushed the gliss off his jacket as he made his way to the door. “I must be off. I’ve work to do.”

  Acting as Melba’s lady’s maid was a mistake that would not happen again. He must guard against his instinct to please her lest he forget his duty. He wiped his face and dusted the rest of the gold powder from his jacket with a handkerchief. As he descended the stairs, he whispered a prayer to the Great Earth Jinn and his heartbeat calmed. All would be well. This was simply one more challenge he must overcome in pursuit of his duty.

  Then he heard Melba’s bedchamber door open and she shouted down, “Don’t be late back, sir. I’ll need you to undo me dress at bedtime.”

  Chapter Six

  Earth gives and Earth takes away.

  —Master Turk

  Just walking along the mucky street in the third circle made Vittorio feel dirty. He’d only endured his time as a ship’s captain working with the scum who unloaded the ships in the outer circle because he knew he didn’t belong among them. As Royal Victualler, he was within reach of his goal. Just because his father Gregorio had abdicated the throne and failed to acknowledge him as his son, did not mean he would give up his rightful claim to succession. In a few more months, his plan to regain his birthright would come to fruition and he would never have to set foot in the outer circles again.

  He hugged the shadows, pausing in an alley a few doors down from the baker’s shop where fourteen years ago he’d left the baby princess.

  The shop was closed at this late hour, but the yeasty smell of bread still hung in the air. The yellow light of an oil lantern lit the small grubby upstairs window while the flickering light from a candle penetrated the crack between the shutters downstairs.

  A faint footfall warned that someone was stalking him under cover of darkness. Just let the blighter try something. Vittorio enjoyed turning the tables on the scum when he had the chance. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a blade glint in the moonlight. “You lost your way, sir?” the man asked with a sly chuckle.

  Palming his dagger, Vittorio swung around to face the man. He slipped his other hand in his jacket pocket to find the tiny ice-cold tin beetle containing a Foul Jinn. “No. But you’re about to lose your sanity.”

  The small tin doodad was a gift for Master Maddox, but Vittorio could spare a taste of terror for the would-be attacker if necessary. The ruffian must have had a trace of latent power, because the whites of his eyes flashed in the moonlight as he sensed the malevolence of the Jinn. With a scuffle of boots, the man fled into the darkness.

  Vittorio resheathed his dagger and returned his attention to the baker’s shop. Once the night was quiet again, he made his way across the dirty, rutted alley to the front door. He thumped with the side of his fist, rattling the wood in its frame.

  Met
al grated on the other side of the door as the bolts were drawn back. With a creak of hinges, the door cracked open and a dirty face with a bent nose and two missing teeth appeared in the gap. Vittorio winced and prayed to the Great Earth Jinn that this was not the princess he intended to marry. He threw his weight against the door and barged into the unlit room. The ragamuffin cried out and stumbled back to huddle with two others in a doorway. One of them had to be Princess Melbaline.

  Vittorio grabbed the nearest by the scruff and went to the adjoining storeroom where a lone candle burned on a small scarred table among stacks of boxes and heaps of sacks. He thrust the tyke’s face close to the glow, only to release him the moment he noticed his dark hair. The princess had been blonde like her mother. He lunged and grabbed the other two, lifting them off the ground, one in each hand. They were so light he could have shaken them and broken their necks as a terrier kills rats. The one who’d answered the door was also dark haired so he shoved him away and concentrated on dragging the third close to the candle. This boy had more spirit, kicking and cursing him. From the voice, Vittorio was nearly certain he held a boy, and a quick scan of the tyke’s face confirmed this wasn’t the princess either.

  “Where’s the other one?” Vittorio demanded, slipping his dagger from his wrist sheath and brandishing it to encourage honesty. He knew she’d survived childhood because he’d had his spies watching her.

  “Mel’s gone,” the feisty boy shouted. Then he called Maddox. Vittorio let him shout for his master. If Melbaline wasn’t here, the old baker had some questions to answer.

  Vittorio strode back to the main shop. When the boys tried to follow, he shoved them in the storeroom and jammed a metal spoon through the door handle to lock them in. If he had to release the Foul Jinn to torment Maddox, there was no point in frightening the people in the third circle by killing the boys as well. The lads had seen his face, but he’d used a glamour so they would not recognize him again. He rested a hip against the bakery counter and braced a hand on the wooden surface, waiting for the wheezing old man to stumble down the steps at the back of the shop. Squinting, Maddox appeared and raised a flickering oil lamp.

  “Good evening to you, baker. Do you remember me?” Vittorio asked.

  “Great Earth Jinn, save me!” Maddox’s eyes widened and he recoiled, bumping a flour barrel and raising a cloud of dust.

  “I’ve come for the girl.”

  “She ain’t here no more. She ain’t here. You must go.”

  Vittorio’s anger spiked. She’d been here the last time his spies had checked two months ago. Why did she have to disappear just when he needed her? The king would soon return to the Earth and Vittorio must be ready to claim his inheritance. “Where is she?”

  “Don’t rightly know, sir.” The oil lamp in the old man’s hand trembled, sending shadows jumping around the walls. “I packed her off with a message one night and she ain’t never come back.”

  Vittorio didn’t believe a word of it. He stalked up beside Maddox and pressed the dagger above the man’s jumping Adam’s apple. “Have you forgotten my threat, old man? I have a Foul Jinn in my pocket, or maybe you’d prefer to taste my blade.”

  Maddox cringed like a woman. Vittorio snatched the lamp from his hand and set it down to keep him from dropping it and incinerating the bakery and half the third circle. “Speak up, man, or I’ll make you talk.”

  “She ain’t here,” Maddox whimpered.

  “I’m in full possession of my senses, baker. Do not state the obvious. Where is she?”

  “I can’t tell you, sir. I can’t tell you.”

  Vittorio couldn’t believe his ears. He had a blade pressed against Maddox’s throat and the blighter refused to answer. There was only one explanation: someone else had put the frighteners on him. “Defy me, Maddox, and I will hurt you more grievously than the other man who’s threatened you. Now answer my question.”

  “He’ll know, sir. He made me pledge to him.”

  Fear and anger sparked along Vittorio’s nerves. Had someone else identified Princess Melbaline and decided to marry her to gain the throne? Vittorio bundled the baker into a straight-backed chair, ripped the stained neck cloth from the man’s throat, and used it to tie his hands behind his back.

  He kicked the chair leg and the old man cried out. “Tell me who has the girl,” Vittorio demanded.

  Maddox screwed his eyes closed and his wrinkled face collapsed in on itself like a crumpled glove. “He’s a spymaster, sir.”

  “A spymaster! Does this blaggard have a name?”

  Maddox squirmed and groaned as though he were in pain. “Master Turk, sir.”

  “Turk!” Vittorio paced, flexing his fingers on the handle of his dagger. Master Turk had sprung from nowhere a few years ago. Nowadays his name was on everyone’s lips. Spymaster Turk had risen to prominence quickly. He must be ambitious. Until now, Vittorio had not had a reason to cross swords with Master Turk. That had just changed.

  He crouched in front of Maddox and stared up into his terrified face. “What does Turk want with the girl?”

  Maddox stared at his lap. “Don’t rightly know, sir.”

  Vittorio flipped his dagger and jabbed the tip into the old man’s thigh.

  “Aww, please, sir. As the Great Earth Jinn is me witness, ’tis honest I’m being.”

  Pulling back his dagger, Vittorio sprang to his feet. The old man didn’t know anything or he’d have blabbed.

  “Where’s the pledge Master Turk gave you?”

  “In me left trouser pocket, sir.”

  Vittorio eyed the man’s stained breeches with disgust, hesitating for a heartbeat before he plunged his hand in the pocket and pulled out a smooth round stone. He held it up to the lamp. Tiny points of light danced across the stone’s surface while a hint of color shimmered through the crystalline layers. He hadn’t seen a starlight stone since his days with the Shining Brotherhood.

  He pressed the stone to the skin between his eyebrows and sensed its spirit had been activated to form a tiny Jinn. Whoever Master Turk was, he must have magical power. Had the spymaster already sensed Maddox’s distress through the pledge stone? Was he on his way here?

  “What does Master Turk look like?” he demanded.

  Maddox screwed up his face in concentration. “Tall and dark haired.”

  “That describes half the population of the Island, man,” Vittorio retorted.

  “I can’t remember,” Maddox whined.

  Master Turk must have used a glamour to disguise himself from Maddox. It was time to draw this spymaster out and make him reveal himself.

  Vittorio fished out a small box from his pocket. He took out the metal beetle containing the Foul Jinn and chipped the ice off it with his thumbnail. There was a slim chance the old man had seen through his glamour and could identify him, especially as his face would soon be on every coin of the realm. And what better way to catch a magical spymaster than to bait the trap with a Foul Jinn.

  Maddox’s eyes fixed on the smoky emanations coming from the mechanical beetle and his face set rigid with terror. “No, sir, please, sir. I never gave the girl up. Master Turk took her.”

  “I warned you what would happen if you didn’t take care of her, baker.”

  “I did me best,” he choked out. “Honest I did.”

  Vittorio placed the beetle on the flagstones at his feet and with his mind activated the Foul Jinn it contained. He didn’t bother to instruct it where to go; he simply let it find its own way to its victim. The tortured Jinn set off running around in circles, the clicking of its tiny metal feet loud in the nighttime silence. Like the numbskull he was, Maddox screamed, attracting the Jinn with his fear. The beetle homed in on the baker, climbed onto his unlaced boot, and ran up his trouser leg. Maddox shook his leg to dislodge it but the mechanoid’s rough feet were designed to climb and it scuttled on up the old man’s shirt front.

  “No, sir, please, sir. Get it off me. I won’t talk to no one. I promise.” Maddox babbled w
ith fear. As the beetle reached his neck and crept across his cheek, Maddox clamped his mouth shut and closed his eyes, but the beetle burrowed between his lips into his mouth. Maddox coughed and choked as it went down his throat.

  Maddox’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped forward in his chair, his muscles twitching as the Foul Jinn spread from the beetle to invade his body. Maddox wouldn’t remember his own name soon, let alone Vittorio’s face.

  With a smile, Vittorio scraped the edge of his knife against Maddox’s cheek to gather some of the wispy noxious emanations from the Jinn and spread them over the metal box in which he’d carried the beetle. He set the box down on the counter beside the oil lamp. If Master Turk came himself and was careless enough to make contact with the Jinn’s residue, it would make him sick and weaken his power.

  Vittorio dug inside his coat and checked his pocket watch. He would like to wait for Master Turk himself, but he could not risk being seen anywhere near the place now that he’d released the Foul Jinn. He would post men to watch the bakery and to follow Master Turk home. Once he discovered where the spymaster lived, the princess would be his.

  Chapter Seven

  A man cannot use both his heart and his brain at the same time.

  —Gregorio, Primate of the Shining Brotherhood

  Turk kneeled before the Primate of the Shining Brotherhood to have his memory read. His master had forgiven him for arriving late at his chamber, but Turk could not relax. He was worried Gregorio would reprimand him for fastening Melba’s dress. Gregorio’s cool fingers grazed Turk’s temples and the familiar dreamy daze clouded his mind.