Legacy of the Clockwork Key

by Kristin Bailey

  The duke set Lucinda on the bench by the table then used the pump to wet a rag. “I apologize for the current state of my hospitality, but the entire household is in London with my mother. No one knows I’m here. I’ve made myself out to be the groundskeeper.”

  He knelt and reached for Lucinda’s foot, but she shooed his hand away then took the rag from him before he could touch the hem of her skirt. She removed her boot, and modestly tied the cold rag on her swollen ankle.

  “Why the deception?” I asked as Will settled on the bench opposite, near the cupboard. “Isn’t your mother pleased that you’ve returned?”

  “She doesn’t know I’m here. No one does.” The duke hung his head as he took a small kettle off the fire. Whatever was brewing in the pot smelled potent and earthy.

  Will gathered some cups from behind him. Oliver poured us all a good helping of the black liquid. I grimaced. Whatever was in the pot, it wasn’t tea.

  Oliver placed the kettle back over the fire, then returned to the table and nodded to me as if I should try it.

  He took a long swig and closed his eyes, savoring it. Will sniffed his suspiciously. I delicately lifted the cup to my lips and took a sip.

  Scorching liquid that tasted like burned wood poured over my tongue. I nearly spit it back out on the table.

  Choking back my violent reaction to the bitter concoction, I did my best to look polite. Who would drink this?

  Oliver finished his off with a quick swallow. “My mother believes my father died of natural causes.”

  I put the cup down and pushed it away from my person.

  Lucinda looked stricken. “What happened?”

  “My father was murdered,” Oliver stated. My attention snapped to him. My heart ached so suddenly. I didn’t wish to hear of another victim of this foul plot. Oliver placed his cup very carefully on the table, as if fighting the urge to throw it into the basin.

  “How?” I asked. I felt for him, knowing the sickening feeling of having parents stolen from life too quickly.

  “Poisoned.” He rubbed his hair in the front then crossed his arms with a scowl.

  He said it with such certainty. Still, poison was a difficult thing to prove. “How do you know it was poison, Your Gra—”

  He held his hand out to stop me. “Oliver, please,” he insisted. “My title was a trick of luck at birth. It’s completely useless. We’re all equals here.”

  Will snorted softly.

  Frankly, there were more important things to discuss than the propriety of using one’s title, so I returned to the question at hand. “How do you know it was poison?”

  He shook his head. “All the rumors said he fell ill. But his dog . . .” He became more animated, moving closer to Lucinda. “His fat little pug, Percy, died that night as well.” He placed a hand on Lucinda’s shoulder and sat next to us on the bench. “He always gave that dog whatever he’d been eating, and I don’t believe it was a coincidence.”

  “I remember that dog.” Lucinda nearly overturned her cup, but the duke righted it.

  “In our last correspondence, my father told me he feared for his life.” He looked me in the eye. “Your father had asked for an audience with him. He wanted to destroy Rathford’s machine and asked for my father’s help in doing so.”

  His gaze drifted to the key hanging around my neck. I found my hand drawn to it.

  “My father wrote that it was best to leave sleeping monsters in the dark. He turned George out. Less than a week later, your parents were murdered and my father was found dead.”

  “No.” The cavernous room pressed in, the darkness blurring in a muddy tapestry of shadows. “That can’t be possible,” I said. “The fire was an accident.”

  “Father died six months ago, the same night as the fire. And as I said, I don’t believe in coincidence.” Oliver stood again and began to pace before the hearth.

  No, it wasn’t murder. I had woken that night and retreated to my father’s workshop to read. I fell to sleep in my father’s chair, leaving the lamp burning. The accident was my fault. I had been careless. When I woke, the fire raged. I couldn’t breathe through the smoke. Blind and terrified, I’d been able to escape out the back into the garden then through the mews. My parents had not.

  Will took my hand across the table and squeezed. The pressure drew my attention back to the present even as I felt the tears sting my eyes.

  “I caused the fire,” I admitted, though I didn’t know why. It was as if I needed someone else’s condemnation to make it real. “I was careless and left a lamp burning.”

  He paused next to me. “Your family was killed for that key, either to claim the key, or to destroy it. I haven’t figured out which. The murderer is out there.” Oliver gave me a warning pat. “And he is still willing to kill.”

  I couldn’t believe the fire could have been set intentionally. But the most intense fire had burned in the front of the shop, not the back. Had it been my lamp, the first room to burn would have been my father’s workshop, not the clock gallery.

  My God.

  Sympathy softened Oliver’s expression. “You’re very lucky to be alive.”

  Lucky? He thought I was lucky to have my parents murdered? To be forced to work in the household of the man who had likely killed them? What part of any of this was luck? I was beginning to believe I was cursed.

  Someone wanted me dead, wanted us all dead.

  I clenched my teeth and felt the press of Will’s hand on mine.

  I gathered my courage. Oliver needed to know the whole of it. “A man shot at me in London.”

  Oliver crossed his arms thoughtfully. “The key is the single most valuable thing an Amusementist has ever invented. It holds the power to bring to life any of the Amusements created in the modern era of our order.”

  And I was the only one who could use it.

  “So, it isn’t just Rathford who may want it,” Will interjected.

  Something twisted in the pit of my stomach.

  Oliver nodded slowly. “That’s true, there are many who would love to use that key.”

  I pushed back from the table. “But Rathford is the only one who needs it,” I said.

  “Then who is the murderer?” Lucinda asked. She locked her gaze with Oliver’s.

  “We don’t know. That’s the problem.” Oliver poured himself another cup from the kettle. “Either the murderer wishes to unlock Rathford’s machine, or the murderer is killing anyone capable of unlocking the machine to thwart the baron. If that is the case, it could be anyone.”

  I hated feeling frustrated, yet in that moment, I felt numb to anything else. “There are too many questions and we don’t have the answers to any of them. How are we supposed to fight, when we don’t know what we’re fighting against?”

  Oliver pinched his lips together. “Come with me.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  OLIVER OFFERED LUCINDA HIS HAND. SHE HESITATED for only a moment then took it, and allowed him to help her to her feet. With her arm tucked in his, she limped as he led us up the stairs. In the main floor of the mansion, our footsteps echoed down the long and empty halls. Oliver’s candle seemed to float, a bobbing anchor of light in the deep darkness of the empty manor.

  He turned the corner and entered a large room with a high ceiling and tall arched windows. With care, he placed the candle on a small table and pulled the thick velvet drapes, ensuring they were completely shut. He lit a lamp and the room revealed itself completely.

  Heavy furniture rested under white sheets, giving the room a ghostly quality. In the corner, cobwebs had formed between the bust of a pompous-looking gentleman with a long roman nose and a globe so coated with dust I could no longer discern the continents. From floor to ceiling, enormous dark bookcases loomed over us, complete with rolling ladders to reach the highest shelves. Oliver began to climb, and I shuddered. I despised ladders.

  Oliver pulled himself along the bookcase from his perch on the ladder, inspecting the spines of several volume
s before meticulously tipping certain books forward. He then jumped straight to the ground, and walked to a small statue of a foxhound nestled in a corner of one of the shelves. With a single finger, he dusted the dog’s head, then twisted it to the left. A loud click broke the silence, followed by a creaking sound.

  One of the bookcases turned outward, revealing a secret passage. Will’s eyes grew wide as he watched Oliver and Lucinda disappear through the narrow opening, taking the candle with them.

  “You should have seen Rathford’s,” I whispered as I extinguished the lamp and followed Oliver’s candlelight down the narrow passage.

  Will came after me. I stopped in my tracks as I entered the small room at the end.

  It was an ode to chaos incarnate.

  A lamp burned unfettered in the corner, as there were no windows to reveal its light. Papers and armatures of brass and copper stood on an abundance of shelves. The odds and ends completely covered the surface of a small table in the corner. On the opposite side of the room a large round-bodied vessel bubbled as the contraption beneath it whirred. Cogs and pipes sprouted from it like whiskers on some disheveled beast. The lid jittered and Oliver clamped it down. I thought I smelled the unctuous odor of burned onions.

  “Pardon the mess, I’ve been brewing—something.” He reached up and pulled rolls of paper down from the shelf. Will tucked himself into the corner as Oliver cleared off the table with a swipe of his arm and spread out the plans. I marveled at the layers of drawings.

  “What is this?” I flipped the top page up to peer at the one beneath.

  “It’s what I have gathered of the different plans for Rathford’s machine, the ones I could access anyway.” He pushed the curling edge of the pages down and studied them intently. “If the murderer is not Rathford, then it has to be one of the survivors who worked on the project. None of the other Amusementists knew anything about it. Rathford never brought these designs forward for the general assembly. Only someone involved would know what he was killing for.”

  “If no one else knew about it, why have all the Amusementists gone into hiding?” Will asked. “Those who didn’t work on the machine wouldn’t need to fear the murderer.”

  That was a good point. I turned to Oliver, who twisted the crank on the crazy kettle. It settled a bit.

  “All meetings have been called off until further notice,” he explained. “The leadership fear someone is targeting members of S.O.M.A. to destroy the Order. Such a thing happened once in our early history and the threat of it has lingered ever since. Even I believed such was the case until I received my father’s letter and began digging into the murders. This is everything I’ve found since.”

  “What did Rathford invent?” I asked. “When I saw the plans in his workshop, it looked to me like some sort of conveyance.”

  “You saw Rathford’s plans?” There was a hint of hope in Oliver’s voice.

  “Rathford offered me employment after the fire. I’ve been living as a maid in his house. I discovered his secret workshop, and then he turned me out.”

  “Brilliant,” Oliver whispered. He rummaged through the contents of a drawer, then swept a new sheet of paper out over the others and handed me a drawing stick.

  “Draw everything you can remember, even if it seemed insignificant,” he ordered.

  I did so gladly, thankful for the tutelage in drawing my mother had insisted upon. I had found drawing endless pictures of teacups and roses tedious, but my skill with detail served me well. I couldn’t replicate the notes along the sketches, but when I was done, I had produced a fair replication of the plans I had glimpsed in the workshop.

  “Could it be a weapon of some sort?” I asked.

  Oliver shook his head. “I don’t know.” He lifted my drawing and inspected it. “I have never seen anything like this, and I have yet to study the pieces of the plans I have managed to gather. Creating weapons goes against the charter. Inventing one is grounds for the most severe punishment of the Order.”

  “Which is?” Will stepped closer and seated himself at the bench.

  “Death.” Oliver said as if it were nothing of consequence.

  “Then what do you call the rifle?” Will asked. He straightened as Oliver met his challenge with an inscrutable stare.

  “I didn’t invent the rifle, I only modified it.” Oliver waved his hand as if shooing away a meddlesome bee. “It’s a world of difference.”

  Will crossed his arms. I glanced at him, and I could have sworn we shared a single thought. These Amusementists thought little of their own rules in spite of the consequences.

  Lucinda took a step forward and peered at the plans. “The only way to find the murderer is to draw him to us. Once we know who is at fault for all this misery, the rest of the Order can help us stop him,” she said. “But the murderer has been hiding for so long, and in spite of everything no one has managed to see his face. How do we force him to reveal himself?”

  “We expose the machine,” I said. My insides twisted with unease, but my heart beat stronger with sudden certainty. “If we unlock the machine, whoever the murderer is will reveal himself. If it is Rathford, he’ll desire unlocking the machine so strongly, nothing will stop him from coming to us to try to use it, and if it is another Amusementist, then he will try to stop us from revealing it at all.”

  Will pushed to his feet, nearly knocking over a twisting contraption made of glass with eerie floating orbs within. It rocked back and forth behind him. “This is madness. You’re suggesting we use ourselves as bait.”

  Oliver turned to Will. “She’s right. From what I have gathered, Jean-Phillipe, Argus, Victor, Ludwig, Richard, and Alastair all worked on Rathford’s machine, and they are still living. Charles, Henry, Simon, Thomas, Edgar, George, and my father are dead.”

  Lucinda seemed pensive. “Argus is in Scotland, and as master of the Foundry probably had little to do with hiding the machine, though he’d know what parts were made and how they fit together. Victor and Richard have supposedly been out of the country for some time, so they must be suspect. They could have easily remained hidden in England and carried out the murders. I haven’t heard anything about Ludwig.”

  She huffed and let her gaze drift to the ceiling. “I’m thinking about this all wrong. If the men involved with the machine needed to hide the pieces to the lock quickly, they would have had to use those within their small group with Amusements on their land nearby. They wouldn’t have had the time to traipse all over the country.” Lucinda turned to a map near her elbow. “Charles had Gearhenge on his land. Henry fixed the locks. Your father set up the coach, and my Simon created the raven. The automaton was also probably his doing. So how did the others help?”

  Oliver abandoned the plans and turned to the map. “The only others with land nearby that have had an Amusement installed somewhere on their property are Thomas, Edgar, and Alastair. Since Thomas and Edgar are dead, it would be safer to begin searching there. I’m not sure I trust your father, Luli,” Oliver confessed.

  The use of Christian names had me befuddled. Wait, Lucinda’s father? The only Alastair on the list of Amusementists was the Earl of Strompton.

  “You’re a lady?” I exclaimed.

  She shook her head. “My father and I had a falling-out. I’m nothing but a toymaker’s widow.” She let out a heavy and resigned sigh. “My father certainly has his faults. But I can’t believe he would stoop to murder.”

  The conversation stopped cold, leaving me feeling uncomfortably in the middle of a brewing war. I struggled for some means to head it off. “It seems to me the ones who were murdered would ask fewer questions. Perhaps it is best to start there. So, when do we leave?” I said.

  They all turned to me. The pot jangled in the background as a coil rolled off the table and clanged against the floor.

  Feeling uneasy, I placed a palm on the drawing of Rathford’s machine to steady myself. “Whatever this is, we should destroy it, as my father, my grandfather, and Simon set out to do.”


  “I’m going with you,” Will said. I let out a breath, thankful that I wouldn’t have to face the next challenge alone.

  Oliver shook his head, but his eyes gleamed in subtle amusement. It made me feel proud of myself for some inexplicable reason. “If anyone discovers I’m here, word will get back to the murderer. He could try to find us.”

  “We need more information,” Lucinda said. “We can do little to dismantle this atrocity without first discovering the nature of the machine. I can ride Daisy back to Charles’s manor and search for his plans. It would lead the murderer away from Meg.”

  “You’re not going alone,” Oliver insisted.

  Lucinda looked to her feet, took a deep breath, then met the duke’s eyes. “Then come with me.”

  Oliver drew himself up to his full height. He nodded. “Very well.”

  My heart swelled with sudden hope. We’d be able to find the machine and end this. I knew it.

  Only then did the realization of what I was about to do weigh fully on my shoulders. We would only be able to end this so long as the murderer didn’t end us first.

  We had much to prepare.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “WE SHOULD LEAVE EARLY IN THE MORNING,” I SAID, “before the first light of dawn. It’s best to travel when fewer people might see the coach.”

  “That would be wise,” Oliver agreed. He led us back out of the passage and into the library. He shut the bookshelf then proceeded down the hall to the narrow servants’ stairs.

  We descended the steep treads and returned to the kitchen. Oliver helped Lucinda to the bench and handed her a new rag. “Lucinda and I can disguise ourselves with some of the clothing left about here then hitch her horse to one of the carts in the stable,” he said.

  Slowly Oliver lit the lamps in a neat labyrinth of clean white halls and rooms. I could picture the whole area buzzing with prim servants in crisp uniforms, marching with military precision through their large, well-organized barracks. Only now it was silent, though not dead the way Rathford’s house had felt. No, it was waiting.