Corsets & Clockwork

by Trish Telep

  Chiara swallowed. LeClerc was taller and stronger than she was, not to mention an elementalist. What if he summoned a salamandra on top of her, the way Pietro had atop that soldier? Or ordered a silfo to steal her breath?

  Her heart pounded.

  He could easily render her unconscious or even kill her, if he wanted. And that's all he needed to do to keep her from shedding her blood into the sea.

  "Agreed?" LeClerc gave her a lazy smile. "And then we'll both go back and talk to your grandfather about handing over the republic. With Venice's warships and alchemically engineered armaments, the emperor should finally have the edge over the English he's been seeking for so long."

  "You have my grandfather?"

  "He should be upstairs, if he survived the initial attack. Our orders were to take both of you alive. Frankly, I think killing you would be safer but," he gestured dismissively, "as long as I get what I want, I don't really care."

  "And what do you want?" Tucked out of his sight, her fingers curled around the hilt of the knife. Chiara sank into a crouch as if in pain.

  "Control of your Guild, of course. Are you all right? Do you need a spot of brandy? I have a flask. Why don't we share it while we watch the fleet sail in?"

  She shook her head, squeezing her eyes closed.

  That morning, she'd awoken to the ringing of church bells and the light of a pale spring morning streaming through her casements. She'd had an exciting day planned--a day of adventure and disguise that she had guessed would probably end with another argument but, she'd hoped, would be worth the reprimand and punishment to come.

  She hadn't expected to see men killed and her city invaded.

  There was only one way to stop it.

  Well, she thought with regret, at least I got to have one first kiss before I died.

  I'm sorry, Pietro. I don't have a choice.

  She dove forward, leaping as far as she could out into the water, and jammed the knife blade deeply into her arm.

  Waves slammed into her and she went under, choking. Her eyes burned from the saltwater and the wound in her arm stung as a dark plume of blood stained the water around her.

  Her head popped up and she gasped, kicking and thrashing. Her dress was dragging her down, just as she'd known it would.

  "Stop! You little idiot, stop that!" LeClerc was tearing off his coat and kicking off his shoes, his face pale with anger. "Come back here!"

  She opened her mouth to speak and swallowed a mouthful of seawater, instead. Gasping, she kicked hard, shaking her head.

  "Brezza!"

  The silfo swept around her face and she breathed deeply, then shouted the words she'd heard her grandfather intone, year after year, in these waters.

  "Desponsamus te, mare, in signum veri perpetuique dominii!" We espouse you, oh sea, in sign of a true and perpetual leadership.

  Translucent shapes like man-eating mermaids manifested around her. Chiara plunged the knife into her arm again, dragging it down into the water. She felt the ondine eagerly sucking her blood, their rough tongues lapping her flesh.

  Then LeClerc was in the water, swimming toward her with strong, even strokes. Chiara gasped.

  Beyond them, the Great Hermetic Gate shook and slowly, ponderously, divided. It began to draw to either side.

  "No!" she shouted, horrified. If the Gate was opening--Pietro had failed.

  The ondine surged toward the Gate, plunging Chiara underwater again. She didn't know if it was tears or salt burning her eyes as she slashed at her arm with short strokes like tally marks. Blood--she needed to give them blood. How much blood was two pints? How could she tell? How could she tell underwater?

  LeClerc grabbed her wrist and yanked her to the surface. She twisted and tried to kick him, but her skirts were tangled around her legs.

  "Stop them!" she shouted. "Ondine, stop the French! If they enter the lagoon, stop them, sink their ships, keep them from reaching shore!"

  "Shut up!" LeClerc gave her wrist a sharp twist. Chiara cried out as the knife's hilt slipped from her wet fingers.

  The weapon fell into the water and sank.

  "It's too late!" she shouted defiantly as blood from her many deep wounds soaked his shirt sleeve and dripped into the water. "We won!"

  "Do you really think this piss-poor travesty of a ritual--" LeClerc's words were cut off as the rough waters swept them both under.

  Chiara fought to pull away, but the Frenchman's grip was like iron. She was starting to feel weak as the ondine continued to whirl around her, sucking her blood out of her body.

  Her head broke the surface again and she choked, gasping for air. Dark spots swam before her eyes. Seawater poured through the gate and into the lagoon, sweeping them forward.

  LeClerc pulled her to him.

  "Do you see?" he shouted in her ear as they passed through the narrow gap in the Gate. "It's open! You failed!"

  She'd failed. Her blood had been rejected, her heritage denied.

  I'm sorry, she thought weakly. It was an apology to everyone--to Pietro, to her grandfather, to Venezia. I'm sorry I wasn't good enough.

  The ondine had left her. Ribbons of blood curled around her arms, meaningless in their absence. She wanted to argue, but the Gate was open, and she was feeling very cold and tired.

  So cold and tired that she was hardly even startled when, all of a sudden, the ondine turned on him. LeClerc's mouth opened in shock as the aquatic creatures wrapped slender fingers around his wrists and ankles, plunging into the depths with powerful strokes of their piscine tails and dragging him down with them.

  Chiara stared through the water, chilled, as his eyes widened, fear entering them at last. A bubble of air burst from his throat, and then he was lost in the abyssal darkness of the deep.

  She hadn't failed, after all.

  Her eyes closed with a bone-deep weariness, and she felt herself sinking, as well.

  She slammed abruptly into something hard. She dragged her eyes back open, weakly throwing an arm up out of the water. Her hand landed on a spar of wood and she desperately clung to it, shivering. One end of the spar was splintered and burned. It was a piece of Lezze's destroyed steamship.

  She rested her face on the charred wood, barely noticing either the tiny gust of air that kept puffing and puffing around her, slowly blowing her and the spar closer to shore, or the young man running out the door of the Gatehouse, anxiously shouting her name.

  V: MAGNUM OPUS (THE COMPLETION)

  "You're cold," Chiara complained, after she'd coughed most of the water from her lungs while he was bandaging her arms. Pietro hugged her closer, resting his forehead against hers. His lips were blue from summoning salamandre, and his hands felt icy. "I thought you were trying to warm me up."

  "Well, that's what I'll tell your grandfather if he sees us."

  "Grandfather!" She pushed away from his chest and looked up at him. "Is he there? Is he all right?"

  "He's there. Bruised and bandaged, but alive."

  "And your maestro?"

  "Apparently bound and gagged and thrown into prison."

  "How did they capture him?"

  "I didn't stop to ask for details." Pietro brushed a strand of wet hair from her face. "As soon as I saw you and that traitor swept through the Gates, I gave the rifles to the doge and ran out here to find you."

  "Did Grandfather shut the Gate?"

  They both turned. The Hermetic Gate was moving ponderously closed, fighting against the pressure of the incoming tide.

  No French ships had made it through in the few minutes it had been open.

  "They haven't even bothered firing," Pietro observed. "They know the plot failed. I'll bet they're already leaving, before we get our own ships assembled."

  Chiara rested her head against his shoulder, shivering. "I think I killed LeClerc. I told the ondine to stop any Frenchmen who entered the lagoon. They drowned him."

  "He deserved it."

  "Pietro!" She raised her head, frowning. "It's a holy day."r />
  "You'll be forgiven. It was war." He laid a finger on her forehead where her frown had creased it and then leaned forward to kiss her.

  This time she was ready.

  "I don't know about you, but I feel warmer already," he said after a breathless moment.

  "So you'll tell my grandfather this is therapeutic, too?" she inquired, a smile tugging at her lips. Despite the chills that still wracked her, her heart was glowing with a completely internal, private heat of its own.

  He climbed to his feet, reaching down to grasp her unbandaged arm and gently help her up.

  "No," he said, "I'll tell your grandfather that it's a promissory note for the reward I plan to collect for helping to save the republic."

  "What reward?"

  "We can talk about it in two more years." He possessively tucked her arm close to his body as they began walking back to the Gatehouse.

  "When your apprenticeship is over." She drew in a deep breath, considering that implicit promise as she looked up at the Gatehouse.

  Her grandfather wasn't going to like it. He wasn't going to like seeing her walk in, exhausted, drenched, and bandaged, and he wasn't going to like the young man who'd helped her get into this state.

  Her hand tightened on Pietro's arm.

  But her grandfather was just going to have to learn to live with it. Because the blood of doges ran through Chiara's veins, too, and she was ready to stand up to him to get what she wanted.

  "You'd better remember," she warned, "my grandfather can't give you everything."

  "All I need is his permission to try." Pietro gave her a warm, secretive smile. "And after that all I need to do is to convince you. And I can be very persuasive."

  She met his eyes and saw a strength and determination there that matched her own.

  "Well," she said, "I suppose two years might be enough." And then she laughed, confidently turning her face up to the late afternoon sun as Pietro sputtered with indignation beside her.

  It was a beautiful day, her favorite day of the year.

  The Clockwork Corset

  BY ADRIENNE KRESS

  "IT HAS COME to my attention that you've been ambushing Rafe."

  I looked at my father but said nothing.

  "Imogen," he continued, "is it true?"

  "What exactly do you mean by 'ambushing'?" I didn't feel his word choice accurately reflected my motives.

  "I mean you've been hiding in trees and then jumping out and attacking him."

  I thought about this for a moment. "If that's your definition, Father, then yes, yes I have." I couldn't understand what was wrong with that. After all, it had been Father who had taught me how to climb up trees in the first place. Surely jumping out of them was logically the next step. And if someone was standing beneath you, unaware of your presence, surely making him your target made perfect sense.

  "I'd like you to stop."

  His line of reasoning didn't make sense. I bit my bottom lip and squinted at him.

  "You simply cannot attack people, Imogen. And especially not Rafe. I thought he was your friend."

  He was my friend. My very best friend. That's why I would attack him. The thought of jumping on someone whom I didn't know or like seemed a very odd thing. Sometimes Father was very silly.

  "Father ... I don't think ..."

  "No more, Imogen. You will refrain from ambushing anyone in the future, and there's an end."

  And there's an end.

  It was a phrase Father used to conclude matters. What was surprising was that, almost predictably upon his choosing to say it, the matter would be far from concluded. When, for example, Mother had told him that she was with child, he'd explained to her the importance of the final result being a boy. Mother had explained she had little control over the outcome, but Father had said, "I expect a boy, Margaret, and there's an end."

  But it wasn't an end. For there I was, nine months later, swaddled in his arms. I don't recall his expression, I was too concerned with the nature of the universe and what on earth all this meant to notice his face. Mother had assured me, when I was a little older, that he had been so shocked at the result and yet so excited at the same time that his features had contorted into a strange open smile, almost a grimace. A horrific expression, she'd said, and she'd been greatly concerned what my opinion of him might be.

  Again I assured her his expression was the last thing on my mind at the time.

  They had tried again for a boy, when I was nine, and the tragedy of the thing was not only the loss of the little unknown soul, but my mother as well. A pain felt strongly by both husband and daughter.

  Father, I think, at that point, blamed himself and his preoccupation with his wanting a boy for the loss of his wife. And so he set about making it right, spoiling me no end. He also was determined to teach me all the things he had longed to teach a boy. And so it was that we went quail hunting together, I learned to fence, and I could run a foot race as a serious threat to any male competitor. He had encouraged my friendship with Rafe from the start, seeing something positive in a boy's influence. The funny thing, of course, was that at this stage, the very mature age of eleven, I was far more masculine than he.

  Rafe Wells was my age, the son of Father's clock winder, a job that described itself in its title. Father was rich. There was no mistaking that. Our home was so vast that once it had taken a week before I'd realized he'd returned from Europe. He had many servants that worked for us, employed half the county some said. We had maids and footmen, cooks and two chauffeurs. Even a pilot for the days Father rented an air machine for a lark. This massive home of his was filled with exotic furnishings and historic paintings. It also housed hundreds of ticking time pieces--beautiful, dainty things that kept us all at his rigorous schedule. And Mr. Wells was the man who wound them.

  He would make his way through the home carefully seeing to each. By the time he reached the last in Father's study, it was time to call it a day. In the morning it all began again. He did more than just wind the clocks, though he performed that particular duty with all due seriousness. He repaired them when they broke, he kept them free from dust. Rafe was being trained to inherit the family business.

  Darling Rafe. He had come to us as a bit of a surprise. A woman from town deposited him at Father's door when he was seven with a note around his neck addressed to Mr. Wells. Servants were not allowed families usually, but it was such a strange happening, and Mr. Wells was such a noble fellow, that, upon his attempt to quit so that he might care for the child, Mother had refused, insisting he keep his position and son. So it followed that Mr. Wells raised the boy in our home and trained him to be a clock winder like himself.

  Rafe took to ticking things beautifully. He was so inspired by the devices that he would take any useless bits of wheels and winches and put them together to make the most fantastic creations. He had begun joining me in studies. This is how I discovered his talent. My father believed in education even for the masses, and had insisted Rafe be tutored by my governess along with me.

  I'd been resentful at the start, but it turned out we rather got on. He liked how I'd tease him and thought I was terribly funny with my jokes. And I liked all his little inventions, the way his mind worked. For my twelfth birthday he'd made me a fantastic little train that, once wound up, would speed about the floor all on its own.

  We could play for hours. Talk about matters of the day, or just act silly. He always liked it when we wrestled, though I inevitably won. So it made sense that I would feel rather frustrated being told that I was no longer allowed to jump out of trees at him. It made no sense. Our innocent pastime was amusing to both of us. Where was the harm?

  At that time in my life, newly turned fourteen, I hadn't understood entirely the change in my father's attitude. He would become irritable when I wore my hair loose, and yet that was how I'd worn it for as long as I could remember. He didn't like the way I walked about with large long strides, even though this habit had resulted from trying to keep pa
ce with him. He wouldn't let me shoot with him and his friends anymore, which was odd as most believed the older one got, the more responsible one was with a firearm, yet here was Father thinking it wasn't right for me to shoot as a fourteen-year-old but finding it just peachy at ten.

  Fencing he still let me do. My education continued. And I was still allowed to visit Rafe in his room. Though even then Father had a strange obsession with keeping the door open wide.

  And here was yet one more restriction. No more ambushing.

  Drat.

  "But it's fun when you attack me. Maybe if I was old and had a weak heart it might not be wise ..." Rafe spoke energetically even though he was focused on the small clockwork pieces in front of him. He held one with a pair of tweezers and examined it through an eyepiece my father had bought him as a surprise for his most recent birthday. I wasn't entirely certain what it was he was inventing, something like a tiny self-propelling catapult I believed.

  "I know! Exactly!" I flopped down on his straw mattress and stared at the stark white ceiling that sloped above me.

  "My father's been getting on me too, but it's been all about my inventions."

  "What about your inventions?"

  "He wants me to stop 'fiddling about' and read those." He pointed at a stack of books on the small desk in the corner. I rose and crossed the room to read the spines.

  "War in the New Age? Strategy and Strength? How dry."

  "It's odd because he knows I'm just going to be a clock winder. But he says there's a war coming and thinks I'll be of age soon enough. I think he wants to prepare me--he even said I should learn to fence. But I think that, with the flying machines and the latest technologies, hand-to-hand combat is certainly a thing of the past."

  "Isn't there always a war?" I asked, flopping back down.

  "Oh, yes. There's always a war. If it isn't coming, it's going. Father says it's what makes a boy a man, says that's what happened to him."

  "I don't want you to be a man." What an awful thought. Oh! Imagine him with a beard. How frightening.