by Beth Cato
The presence of the tea was a reminder that Wasters would be here as well, keener than ever before to kidnap her. Because trained assassins from Caskentia are not enough to worry about.
It also brought to mind Mrs. Stout. Octavia pressed her fingers to her lips and sent a prayer to her friend.
Mrs. Stout had been Octavia’s roommate aboard the Argus. The vivacious and plump older woman turned out to be a childhood friend of Octavia’s mentor, Miss Percival. Mrs. Stout was also the long-lost princess of Caskentia, Allendia. Her kidnapping fifty years ago had sparked the endless intermittent conflict with the Waste. The young princess had been presumed dead, and the next year, the rest of the royal family was killed in a Waster attack on Mercia. With her cousin Queen Evandia now on the throne, Mrs. Stout had adapted to life as a civilian with the hopes that it might spare Caskentia a civil war.
Miss Percival had been one of the few who knew Mrs. Stout’s true identity and she’d kept the secret for decades, until now. She arranged for Octavia and Mrs. Stout to travel together by airship because she had sold them out to the Waste.
It was mostly about the money to save the academy. It had to be. But envy had to be part of it as well, and fear.
Octavia was so sick of being feared, but with these new changes, she was starting to fear herself as well.
She hurried past more lorries and cycles. A fountain glowed purple. Two boys in knickerbockers sat on the edge and splashed each other, giggling. The lit fountain—Alonzo had said his mother’s flat overlooked a blue fountain. Looking around, she realized that she had passed an orange fountain already, and she didn’t see any duplicated colors. Lady be praised!
After another long block of walking, she found the blue landmark and glanced at the building above. At least now she was at the right place. It was just a matter of gaining entry and going from there. Could she sneak around the back? Perhaps there was a goods entry. She walked past a doorman, looking for any placard listing residences.
“Hey! You!” The doorman lunged to grab her arm.
Octavia’s hand immediately went to her torso for her capsicum flute. Drat. Used it on the airship! When she found nothing, her hand formed a fist and she punched at his fingers. “Let me go! Stop!”
“Stop struggling, woman. I been told to look for you. Come here.” Chew tobacco reeked on his breath. Mouth lesions.
She stopped fighting, though her heart continued to hammer in her chest. A small twist and she could grab her parasol from its loop on her satchel. It’d make a fine cudgel.
“Who told you to look for me?”
“A Mr. Garret. Said to look for a pale young woman with brown hair and a ripped black coat. You fit the description mighty well. Hold on. He just went inside to the lobby.”
She could have melted into the pavement in relief. The doorman returned to his station and scribbled a note. He tucked it inside a strange capsule and set it at the base of a clear pipe. At the press of a button, the capsule shot up the tube with a mighty whoosh and vanished through the ceiling. She stared, mouth gaping.
“What, never seen a pneumatic tube system before?” He brayed a laugh. “The message will go right to the desk. Hold here.”
All the best inventions come from Tamarania. She shook her head in awe. Yet another reminder that she was in the place that invented airships, mechas, and even gremlins.
A few more minutes of restless pacing, and she heard that familiar song of marching-band brasses—distorted. Alonzo nigh broke the glass door as he flung it wide. Relief shone in his eyes. Even with noise of his song dimmed by the headband, blood screamed beneath his clothes. Ribs. Muscle shredded. Bone chipped.
“Al . . . Mr. Garret.” She could have hugged him, but she knew it would worsen his pain.
“I was just about to head upstairs, m’lady. Now we shall go together. My thanks to you, sir.” Alonzo extended a hand to the doorman, to which the man responded with a bright smile. There’d been a coin tucked in Alonzo’s palm.
She followed Alonzo into an austere hallway. “You were stabbed. Several hours ago,” she murmured.
“Yes. ’Tis not that bad, truly.” He frowned. “You are aware of this, just as you were aware of the ailments of the factory workers?”
“Yes. My senses have strengthened in a rather obnoxious way. The city . . . has been especially taxing.” She gestured to her headband. “This is all that’s keeping me from crouching in a corner, aware of the screaming maladies of passersby.”
Alonzo’s brows drew together in thought. They stood before the black wire of the lift doors. Judging by the number of floors, they would have quite a wait. At least her senses informed her that he could manage awhile more, though in agony.
“What happened, Alonzo?” Shallow wound. No poison, but there are always zymes to cause infections. Someone aimed for his kidneys. “Someone was trying to kill you. Was it . . . ?” Clockwork Daggers? Wasters?
He stared at the ticking light on the dial that showed the lift floors. “No. None of our past acquaintances. The train car was mostly occupied by Caskentian workers of a desperate nature. One decided to liberate me of my coins and bag, and when that effort failed, my body.”
“Yes. They were a rather desperate lot.”
His gaze snapped to her. “Were you assaulted?”
“Don’t you dare fuss over me. Must you end up injured in every single city?”
“Considering our ‘smashing’ arrival in Tamarania, I feel I have done quite well today.”
“I’ll grant you that. A straightforward stabbing is preferable to breaking most every bone in your body, not to mention potential immolation. Your piloting skills are to be applauded.”
“Thank you. Ah, here we are.”
The lift lowered into place. The iron gate cranked open. People exited, eyeing them and granting a wide berth. The lift man looked none too pleased to be in their company either. Octavia’s tepid smile didn’t seem to relieve him. Fortunately the ride only lasted five floors.
“Room 553,” Alonzo said as they staggered together into a carpeted hallway. The place was staid and clean with white wainscoting and cream paint. Pneumatic tubes followed the walls and connected to each room.
“Is your mother here?” They walked past 550, 551.
“I know not. At the front desk I sent up a message that was approved by—”
The door ahead of them burst open. “He’s here! He’s here!” A small body lunged from the domicile. She looked to be perhaps ten or twelve in age, her kinky black hair cropped close to her skull and molded into a pastrylike swirl. Her skin shone in a bright nutmeg tone. Icy-blue eyes, just like Alonzo’s, were filled with tears. Alonzo caught her with a pain-filled grunt as he was almost bowled over.
“Tatiana!” The name was an agonized wheeze.
The girl bounced in place, squeezing him. “When the desk sent up the message, I could hardly believe it! You, here! I’m so happy!”
Octavia forced her jaw up again as she looked between them. “Ah . . . Alonzo?”
Sweet Lady. Do I really know this man at all? Is this his daughter?
CHAPTER 3
Alonzo gently pried the girl off of him. “Miss Octavia Leander, I would like to introduce my sister, Miss Tatiana Garret.”
Sister. That was worlds better. “Hello there. Do take care. He’s injured.”
“Injured?” Tatiana looked Octavia up and down, frowning. “Who are you? Alonzo, what happened?”
“Let us discuss the matter inside, please.”
The decor of the flat looked much the same as that of the hallway—generically upper class without any gaudiness. Five servants stood in line. One woman curtsied. “We’ve prepared his room, miss.”
Tatiana bit her lip. “My brother’s hurt. We need a doctor!”
“I’ll get to the pneumatic, miss,” said the servant.
Octavia shook her head. “That’s not necessary. I’m a medician. I can take care of him.”
A few of the servant girls looked aghast; the older men were more stoic in their clear disapproval.
“A medician!” The way Tatiana looked at her, Octavia might as well have announced she kicked kittens as a hobby. “Well, you’re not going to touch my brother with that hocus-pocus.”
Octavia bristled. “Hocus-pocus! I’ve healed him more than once and I’m quite qualified to do so again.”
“Ladies?” queried Alonzo.
Tatiana’s nose flared. Even when she was perturbed, her face was lovely—her cheeks rosy and rounded, nose pert, her lips broad. But then, a horse could be quite lovely as it kicked you in the face. “Magic. Alonzo, please tell me she hasn’t done magic to you.” At the word “magic,” the servants made slashing motions across their chests to show contempt.
“Tatiana.” Alonzo clutched his elbow to his side as he worked his bag’s strap over his head. A servant immediately took it from him. “Do not call for a physician. We do not wish to attract extra attention. Octavia is a medician, yes, but she is also an accomplished doctor. She will tend to my wound without use of a circle. That will also spare your blessed supplies,” he said directly to Octavia.
She almost growled at the compromise.
Tatiana did not look placated either. “I want her to promise that she won’t use magic in my house. If she does any healing, she must do it naturally. It’s just embarrassing otherwise! This is Tamarania, not Caskentia.” Her tone made her opinion of Caskentia quite clear.
Alonzo nodded. “I promise on her behalf.”
“I am standing right here, you know,” said Octavia.
Tatiana grimaced as she nodded. “Very well. I suppose she’ll need a room, too. She does require her own room, doesn’t she?”
Impertinent little twit. A girl her age needs a mother close by to keep her in line. A hot flush bloomed across Octavia’s cheeks. “Yes. I do.” She looked to the servants. “But foremost, I need boiling water, please, and clean bandages if you have them.” If not, she certainly had her own.
“Yes, of course, miss,” one of the girls stammered, curtsying.
Octavia looked to Tatiana. “Where can I tend to him?”
Tatiana’s haughtiness faded some as she looked to her brother. “Follow me.”
A countertop island in the kitchen was cleared. With the help of a chair, Alonzo managed to roll himself onto the top, groaning. Octavia set her satchel on the floor near her feet and briskly set up her workstation. Really, she despised doctoring. Not only was it slow, but it was such a gamble—wait to see if the mundane herbs worked, wait to see if infection set in.
Yet now, thanks to the Lady, my doctoring is not mere doctoring.
When she kissed Alonzo after using a leaf to revive him, she had felt an intense understanding of his body—and not in the way she wished at that particular moment. If he had had any lingering health issues, she had the sense that she could have remedied them.
Given how she was now able to hear so much more from every passing body, she wondered just what she could do. Only one way to find out.
She pulled out her doctoring kit. The sight of the bullet probes made her flinch; she had used one to kill the Waster Mr. Drury by stabbing him through the eye.
From what Octavia understood, Mr. Drury had been infatuated with her before they even met aboard the Argus. He had been the mastermind behind a poison attack that killed thousands of Caskentian soldiers; she had been the medician who, through the Lady, found the source of the toxins in the water and saved thousands more. Mr. Drury had intended to enlist her in the Waste’s cause and marry her as well—all due to some perverse admiration of her wit and strength. She didn’t mourn the man in the slightest, but regretted that a life had been lost at her own hands. A loss that the Lady supported, since the Tree’s leaf did not revive him.
With a shiver, she pulled out the straight scissors and cut Alonzo’s shirt. He sat upright, his hands bracing him on the edge of the table.
Tatiana made an odd keening sound, as many did when they saw a loved one’s blood. “I’ll come back in a while, Alonzo.” She planted a kiss on his knuckle and left with a rustle of skirts.
Water began to boil on the stove—goodness, electric stoves were fast. Octavia tugged back her headband a wee bit. His agonized song flared in her hearing. Oh, Alonzo, why must you so frequently be in pain because of me? At least he hadn’t lost his mechanical leg again.
“A servant stands just beyond the kitchen door,” Alonzo murmured.
Octavia already knew by the woman’s song. “To ensure my good behavior, I’m sure.” She grabbed the clean sheets the servant left on the counter, and began to shred them into strips. The cloth was silky and strong, far superior to anything she had ever used for bandages in Caskentia.
“With reason. As I warned you, attitudes are different here in the south.”
“Being a medician is not an embarrassment.”
“Not in Caskentia. Octavia, whenever you are complimented on your healing skills, what is the first thing you say?”
“That my power doesn’t come from me. It comes from the Lady. Why—”
“That is the distinction. In the southern nations, personal accomplishment defines a person. You do not claim credit. Beyond that, magic simply is not considered fashionable.”
“Fashionable. Bosh and tosh.”
“I know it perturbs you, Octavia, but this is an age of science. The idea of a giant tree fostering life is considered, as you put it, bosh and tosh to many educated people.”
Well, I’d like to see science explain this. Listening, she rested a hand on the smooth curve of his ribs just above the wound.
She knew the thrums of his pain, the exhaustion of his body, the coldness from the loss of blood. Immediately, she ached to reach into her satchel for her blanket and herbs. Her hand formed a fist. I will make my own circle. She let her eyes flutter half shut. She imagined the gold line of honeyflower around him and her herbs at ready. Pampria, for blood loss. Bartholomew’s tincture, to repair his chipped ribs. Heskool root, against infection. Bellywood bark, to counteract zymes. Linsom berries, to mend skin.
Stop hurting.
Alonzo sucked in a sharp breath. “What?”
The wound was still there, same as before, but she could sense a block to keep pain signals from reaching his brain. That ability could come in useful. She began to clean the wound with water and rags.
“Octavia?” He gave her a look, the sort that told her he was well aware she was doing something impossible, again, and that he wanted to learn more.
“Shush. Let me do my job.” By applying her will, the broken bits of bone pulled into place, the worst of the muscle mended. Hot prickles zinged to the top of her skull. She found herself bent over Alonzo, suddenly so tired she could scarcely move. His hands gripped her upper arms.
“I think I need to sit,” she said.
“Here.” He guided her to lean against his lap.
“This is rather comfortable.” Her cheek rested on his thigh, gaze outward. If she closed her eyes, she’d slumber in a matter of winks, his body’s thrum as her lullaby.
He managed a small laugh. His self-consciousness carried through his song. “ ’Tis good to know I am cozier than the cold kitchen floor.”
Oh, Alonzo. He was always so frustratingly proper and polite, so Mercian. The man had no idea how much she yearned to wrap both arms around him and kiss him for hours on end—just to be close to him, know his full heat, the hard contours of his body. To feel just how coarse his beard was beneath her fingertips, how his muscles tensed to compensate for the slight differences between his mechanical leg and intact leg.
But he was injured still, and she was afraid of what she would know through t
hat kiss. What I just did without a circle should be impossible, now part of a long list of impossibilities I’ve committed. If I can heal through sheer focus, I could do the opposite. I could kill.
That horrible thought sobered her. She eased herself several feet away to a stool. Alonzo studied her, arms extended as if she were going to keel over at any instant.
She waved him back. “I should eat soon. It’s been an exhausting day. I have no intention of sprawling out on the kitchen floor.” He arched an eyebrow, and she continued, “If my plans change, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“Please do. Though I might recommend other rooms of the household, as they are likely carpeted.”
“A very good point. I should create a priority list of where best to faint.” She scooted the stool beside his knees and sat upon the curved steel seat.
“As if you are the fainting sort, m’lady.” His blue eyes sparkled with mischief.
“What sort am I, then?” Behind her, the servant’s shoes scuffed on the floor. Octavia doubted the sound was an accident.
Alonzo bowed his head toward her. “The delightfully obstinate sort.” His words were a low rumble.
“Well, thank goodness for adverbs, or I might take offense at that.” They froze as those shoes tapped the floor again. A chaperone, and not just to prevent me from my hocus-pocus. Piffle. Alonzo straightened and cleared his throat as if in reply to their watcher, and Octavia looked to his injury again.
She did the rest of the work by hand, movements brisk. With the strips of cloth, she bound his torso tighter than any corset.
“There.” She slumped forward on the stool. The life-debt blessing from the Lady would speed his recovery as well. In her mind, she eased off on her control of his pain. The more pain he felt, the less tired she was. She stood upright. Interesting. Apparently, instead of spending herbs, I spent my own energy. How’s that for personal accomplishment by Tamaran standards, hmm?
Octavia sensed the servant scurrying away.
Alonzo glanced in that direction as well, making the same observation with different senses. “How did you control my pain?” he murmured.