Corsets & Clockwork

by Trish Telep

  He dragged himself back into his bedroom by dawn and slept for thirteen hours. His tutor, Paul Primus, woke him after sunset in order to make certain the young prince wasn't ill.

  Ever sat, ran to the washroom, and vomited into the tub. He came out and ordered Primus to ready their things; it was time to return to the City of Light.

  * * *

  Alys Greentree of the Chenworth Niobes was generally bored with life. Not that she wished for an end to it, but rather she looked at her family as they sent her off to the City that same summer and wondered what was the point. Three younger sisters, hair swept up with flowers; a mother too clean to garden; a father interested in political ties, not familial ones; two aunts with husbands and daughters dressed, for all intents and purposes, identically to Alys's sisters.

  As her horse broke into a gentle--too gentle--canter, and her nurse and four Earth Hand bodyguards fanned out behind her, Alys relaxed into her seat, put her heels down in the stirrups, and imagined what her Promethean husband would be like.

  Full of temper, disregarding of her cares, and no doubt, boring. She suspected the young prince to be ugly, for why else would he not have been sent to collect her himself?

  So it was with a delicate scowl that Alys came to the crossroads an hour's ride south of the City of Light, and met with Ever, who careened past on a dun gelding, his cape flapping and his mouth open to yell at them to get out of the way.

  Alys's horse reared, and to her credit, she did not fall. Instead she wheeled around, calming her poor mount, and held her chin high.

  Ever, to his credit, paused. A flush overwhelmed his Promethean freckles, but he bowed from the saddle and made his apologies. Alys barely managed to respond, demanding this churl's name, before Ever shouted a nameless apology and charged on.

  * * *

  They met more formally that night.

  The City of Light glowed with new electricity, a crescent of earthly starlight bowing around the eastern banks of the River Acrimony. On the west bank crouched the Greenlight City, dull and pale like a sore against the world from the green gas lamps lining its crooked streets. From an island in the center of that river, seven towers rose: Promethean, Zephyr, Niobe, Amphytrite, Animator, and Thanatos. In the center, connected to all others by arching bridges, was the Seventh Tower in which the six royal families held council.

  From the window of the library in the Promethean Tower, Alys could see the crown of the Seventh. A giant model of the solar system turned there with an audible tick-tick-tick. The planets were gilded and silver-cast, glowing in the sunset all the colors of blood. A scattering of glass stars hung from the clockwork and caught the light, too, dazzling her eyes. Each was the size of her skull, but from this distance seemed little more than pinpricks against the sky.

  Alys ran a finger down the windowsill, coaxing tiny green tendrils out of the stone. Her skin warmed; the leaves unfurled to the size of one of her teeth and turned toward her as if she was the sun. The greenery calmed her, though it was unable to entirely soothe away her anxiety. She'd asked to be left alone until her fiance arrived to escort her to supper, and as she contemplated her final moments of freedom, Alys thought perhaps she would one day climb to the top of that Seventh Tower, walk out along the steel supports, and collect one of the stars.

  At least, planning such a ridiculous scheme would keep her occupied over long afternoons regretting her marriage.

  In his rooms, one story above, Ever continued staring at himself in the bronzed mirror that hung between two wardrobes full of court jackets. All his family had freckles and dark red hair. But while his mother and aunts, and even his six-year-old sister, covered theirs with rice powder, and his uncles sought to draw attention away from them with bright cravats and feathered hats, Ever had always rather liked his.

  To him, the scatter of dots on his nose and cheeks were dark embers, points of fire that billowed up from inside his heart and pushed out. The fire was so desperate for life that it cut through his skin and emerged in small, burning spots.

  He was a Promethean. Fire was his.

  And yet. And yet he had flown.

  * * *

  Ever entered the library wearing crimson and black, an appropriate but utterly uncreative choice. The red of the jacket clashed with his hair; when he bowed, uneven chunks fell into his eyes and Alys wondered if it had been cut with a hacksaw.

  She had chosen a simple split skirt in mauve, in case she decided to run, and covered it with a long jacket colored similarly to the pea soup her nurse used to bring her when she was ill. Not a poetic association, but it made her feel better. She hadn't let them put flowers into her hair, and instead it was bound only by a string of ribbon that loosely gathered it at the nape of her neck.

  "Hello," Ever said as he rose from his bow. All the extended and polite greetings he'd been taught since he could walk had slipped out of his head when the air slipped through his fingers.

  Yet Alys didn't mind. His eyes were the color of mud--rainy and murky and reminding her of her garden. So much not what she'd expected that it took her a moment to recognize him as the youth who'd nearly killed her on the road that afternoon. Her lips parted, but instead of the measured salutation Ever expected, she said, "Damn you, my horse nearly broke her ankle!"

  Ever gaped at her, never having heard a lady curse before. Swiftly, he shut the library door behind him, and began to laugh.

  Horror at herself made Alys touch her lips, smearing the carefully applied pink paint meant to make them appear larger and fuller. The moment her fiance began to laugh, she lowered her hand and laughed, too.

  Soon his hands were around hers and they supported each other in their merriment. Ever wondered that such a lovely and shocking girl had shown up to marry him, and found further amusement in the thought that his own mother had chosen a girl so very different from herself. Alys's relief that her intended hadn't run from her, wasn't ugly, and seemed, in fact, the very opposite of boring, bubbled up inside her and transformed into heady delight.

  Before either had managed another word, their lips met.

  * * *

  That night instead of bathing and readying himself to retire, Ever stood at his bedroom window and stared out toward the glowing green lights across the river. Unlike the City of Light, which shone silver and gold from the new voltage lamps, the eastern shore was lit by eerie gas lamps that burned green. It was said that Titan did not allow electricity in his domain. Smaller and squatter than the Seventh Tower, but still hulking over the green radiance, the Titan's Tower on the eastern shore had been there for generations. Its many windows winked in all the colors of the rainbow, and Ever stared at the uppermost square of red.

  It was said by nurses and old grandfathers to their wards and children that Titan had lived a hundred lifetimes, that his control over all six types of magic gained him immortality and power as strong as all the ruling families combined. Never go to the Greenlight City, they whispered, for there are all the monsters and criminals, living together under the Titan's protection. And it was said by Ever's own father that 328 years ago, a truce of sorts had been set between Titan and the Seventh Tower--that Titan should never cross the flowing waters of the Acrimony, but keep himself and all his mischief and mayhem on his side. In return, the ruling families would turn a blind eye to small trading and the forbidden, unclean progeny of Titanic magic. Never go to the Greenlight City, Ever's father ordered, for the wizard there is a king of crime, a king of mischief, and a king of lies.

  In the City of Light the understanding was only one magic from one hand. But Ever had discovered two magics in his blood. No one under the Seventh Tower could teach him, or even explain. If he tried, he would find only censure and fear.

  Titan was the only creature he could turn to for answers.

  Although he should have been exhausted from the long day of travel, followed by a rather blissful evening in the company of his future wife, Ever's body hummed.

  When he'd kissed Alys, he'd
felt her breath inside his own mouth. Ever had wondered if she tasted his, too, and could tell that he'd discovered how to fly. A part of him had wanted to confess it to her, just to that one person, the girl he was supposed to marry. But the smell of her hair and the sweet, slippery flavor of her lip paint had stopped him. He hadn't wished to ruin the moment.

  Pushing open the window, Ever climbed up onto the narrow stone sill. His rooms were on the seventh floor of the tower, and at this time of night the courtyard far below was a black nothing. The river, though, sparkled like a ribbon of sequins, and beyond it, the green ocean of gaslight.

  Wind brushed at his hair, curling around his face and neck, tugging at Ever, cajoling and playful. He reached out to grasp at the strands of air. They whipped around his wrist, and before Ever could decide otherwise, he stepped off the sill and into the night.

  * * *

  It was only because she'd happened to shove open her own window to let out the candle smoke that Alys saw Ever leap over her head two stories above, and take off in an arc both graceful and sudden, toward the river.

  He was merely a red and black shadow, but Alys knew it was him by the tenuous connection already linking her heart with his. Her fingers dug into the stone casement, causing tiny furrows that sprouted yellow flowers. She lost her breath, and watched him until he vanished into the darkness between the stars.

  * * *

  Over the river the wind turned sharp and hungry.

  Ever struggled to maintain his control. He was buffeted and tossed about like a leaf in autumn, and only his fierce determination kept him from being shredded.

  He landed on the far bank, boots clomping down onto the docks hard enough that he fell to his hands and knees. All around were the smells of river-rot, fish, and gear oil from the barges. Laughter came with the wind and the soft lapping of the water against wood. He heard music pouring out of gambling houses and the call of women from the fancy rooms. Here, in the Greenlight City, the night was a living monster, sticky and ecstatic and reeking.

  Making his way through the green-tinged shadows, Ever kept his eyes on the black silhouette of Titan's Tower. It blocked out stars and moonlight, and he could see it over all the buildings. The cobbles at his feet shimmered sickly as the gaslights sputtered. It wasn't green light, he realized as he paused to gather his bearings beneath a tall iron streetlamp: the glass enclosing the tiny fire was mottled green. As he watched, the lamp went dark. A clicking noise drew his attention to the next lamp, which suddenly flared into life.

  Ever moved between lamps, counting off the moments they ticked on and off.

  The lamps were on a timeline, and all, it seemed, part of the same giant network. In the City of Light, it would take a massively coordinated effort spanning each of the different families of magic: Animators to bring the gears to life, Prometheans to charge the flames, Niobes to create the gas pipes, and Zephyr magic to move the gas.

  But here in the Greenlight City, all the credit lay entirely at the feet of Titan.

  * * *

  The tower door was small as a cupboard, and had no lock so far as Ever could tell. He knocked once, and then again. Green light shone off the polished stone and silver of the building from a perfect circle of gas lamps, creating a round courtyard between the tower and the ring of shops and churches.

  When no answer came to his knocks, Ever twisted the intricately carved knob. A rattle of gears and shaking of tiny metallic parts echoed through the thick wood, and a low gong rang through the tower. The sound shivered through Ever's bones, and he called upon that ferocity of spirit that had allowed him to pick himself up at the base of the Pearshire cliffs and climb his way to safety.

  The door swung outward, forcing him to step back.

  A young woman appeared, wearing a pink dressing gown with tattered hem. Her thick ash-bark hair fell in snake-like curls around her shoulders, and when she spoke she showed off perfect rose-petal lips. But the thing that made Ever's breath thin and disappear were the plump violet berries where her eyes should be.

  "Welcome, young sir." Her voice was liquid and thick as perfumed oil.

  He recognized the simulacrum for what she was, though such a creation was not supposed to have been born for more than a hundred years because it was a task that took a variety of magics perfectly woven together.

  Something Titan could do with ease, Ever thought, raising one hand to his chest and bowing. Both polite and kind, it most conveniently allowed him to avert his eyes from her beautiful, alien face.

  "My thanks, lady," Ever managed in a whisper.

  When he glanced up, the rose-petal lips had broadened into a smile. "What is it that you need this evening?"Her small white hand gestured widely, spreading before him all the room, with its shelves of potions and dried flowers. Ribbons and knives and candle wax covered a worktable, and dripping from the rafters were a hundred tiny glass hearts. The simulacrum continued, lifting perfectly groomed eyebrows coquettishly. "A love potion? Something for virility? Or perhaps a tonic of forgetfulness."

  Wiping his sweating hands down the legs of his trousers, for he was much too nervous to be particular about his behavior, Ever said, "No, I must speak with Titan."

  "Oh," she said, raising perfect hands to her silk-covered bosom, "a great request indeed. I'm afraid Titan does not take sudden visitors lightly or well."

  "Nevertheless, I must."

  "Perhaps if you leave your name, and return in a week, he will see you."

  Drawing a breath from deep inside himself, Ever blew a string of air that curled around the simulacrum's neck, tickling with the pressure of ten invisible fingers. He followed it immediately with a snap of his right hand, and ten tiny yellow flames flickered in a spiral over his palm.

  As if he had pulled off a mask and revealed himself to be a salamander or sylph or unnatural monster, the simulacrum's entire demeanor shifted. No longer coy and sweet and flirting, the lines of her body fell into seriousness, and she inclined her head as a great queen might have, in the days there had been queens in the City of Light. "I shall take you to Titan at once," she said, and turned with enough swiftness to cause the tattered bottom of her gown to billow out like a blossom.

  * * *

  Titan, despite the perception of his countrymen, was only a man, and had once had a man's name. He hardly thought about what it used to be, as he had been Titan for nearly a hundred years. And although Titans tended to be longer lived than those with skills in only one kind of magic, they were not immortal. In fact, Titan's immortality was merely a ruse perpetrated by the line of men--and very occasional women--who were born naturally inclined to all forms of known magic. It suited them to have the populace at large afraid, and so they lived under the pretense of all having been the same powerful wizard.

  But this particular Titan was getting on in years, and had yet, despite two decades of hunting, to find a suitable heir. Which is what caused him to receive the boy Everest Aleksander the Younger more cordially than he was typically inclined.

  Ever was greeted in the wizard's show room, the most impressive level of the tower, where Titan kept all of his worldly and otherworldly acquisitions. Fountains of fire and water; metal birds flitting back and forth across the cavernous ceiling; a pair of automatons sharing a game of chess; a tree shaped like a woman, made of glass and light; a life-sized clockwork horse with a silver mane and chips of green glass for eyes. Some of these things one Titan or another had obtained, some he had created with his vast power and curious nature. Many were the result of bargains he'd struck with the wealthy or desperate from the City of Light. They came to him for aid, and sometimes he helped; other times he tricked them out of self or life. Because he was cruel or lonely or merely bored.

  A perceptive person would notice that the walls and domed roof should not have been able to fit in Titan's Tower, but Ever was too engrossed in the person of Titan standing before him to detect the difference.

  For Titan was not a large or tall man, but in the grayin
g hair pulled back from his temples, in the creases about his eyes, and the way his lips dragged down at the corners, Ever saw years of weariness and a complete lack of malice. It surprised him, and so he was softer and more polite than else he might have been.

  "Show me what you came to show me," Titan said in place of greeting.

  And instead of speaking, Ever obeyed.

  "I don't know, sir. Can you help me learn?"

  Titan walked closer to the boy, taking deliberately slow steps. He loomed close, and although sweat broke out along Ever's hairline, he did not quail, nor back down. It satisfied Titan, and the wizard smiled. Thin tendrils of smoke coiled through his teeth, and Ever felt his heart stutter. But Titan said, in a coaxing, gentle voice, "Most certainly."

  * * *

  Alys waited all night long for her intended to return home, and it was only as the sun threw pale orange scarves of light over the rippling water of the Acrimony that she noticed Ever's red and black form hop off one of the river taxis and down onto the stone landing of the Tower island. He turned around to pay the poler before dodging though the shadows in a swinging, jagged line toward the Fire Tower.

  Wrapping her dressing gown more tightly about her waist, Alys tiptoed past her snoring nurse and skirted the door beyond which her Earth Hand guards slept in rotation. Out in the hallway, Alys dashed for the outer staircase, praying to her ancestors that she'd guessed correctly which Ever would use. She slipped into the well and pressed her back against the cold wooden panel wall. Closing her eyes, she listened for footsteps. She let her hands rest flat against the wood, and listened to the lines of grain singing so quietly they were only vibrations under the pads of her fingers.

  Ever came quickly, skipping two stairs with every step. When he noticed Alys standing against the curving wall, he checked himself so abruptly he nearly fell backwards. She reached out and grasped his lapel, and they managed to find a balance. Alys's face tilted upwards, and Ever found himself leaning into her.