The Wingsnatchers

by Sarah Jean Horwitz

  Their strange party ventured out into the night, leaving the comfort of the warmth and merriment of the circus camp behind. The Vallows beckoned, cold and uncertain, a dark blight on the glittering skyline of Skemantis.

  DANGER!

  RESTRICTED AREA

  KEEP OUT

  Trespassers Subject to Arrest on Sight

  A rusty, lopsided SIGN hung from the barbed wire fence blocking the entrance to the Vallows. It swayed in the crisp autumn wind, creaking back and forth. Carmer reached for it with one hand, held it up straight, and let it fall back down again with a forlorn clank.

  Looks like they’ve rolled out the welcome mat, he mused. Just behind the gate, he could see the ghostly outlines of abandoned buildings and giant slag heaps. They’d left Eduardo tied up a few minutes down the road so as not to attract undue attention.

  “The fence has iron in it,” Grit muttered from her perch on his hat.

  Carmer brushed his fingers across one of the wires, careful not to cut himself. A liberal dusting of rust flaked off on his hand. “How could you tell?” he teased.

  “I just know,” Grit said flatly. “Iron repels all things fae. Honestly, even humans know that. Didn’t your mother ever read you bedtime stories? Nail a horseshoe to your house’s front door?”

  “Wouldn’t know,” Carmer mumbled. “Never had either of those.”

  “Oh,” said Grit.

  Carmer shuffled his feet in the dirt. “Well,” he ventured over the awkward silence, “how are we going to get in now?”

  “I think our bodyguards have an idea,” Grit said, pointing farther down the fence.

  Sure enough, Manymostly (or was it Merelymuchly?) stood at attention, one wooden arm extended toward the Vallows.

  “I can’t decide if it’s creepier when they talk, or when they don’t,” Grit said as Carmer walked over to the puppet.

  They leaned close to examine the area of fence the puppet indicated. Sure enough, two posts in the fence looked slightly newer than the others, and they were metal instead of wood.

  “A little light, Grit?” requested Carmer.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “I think we’ll have to chance it.”

  Grit turned her light on just enough to see by, and Carmer examined the swath of fence. He brushed his fingers along the wire between the posts; no rust.

  “There!” he exclaimed in a whisper, pointing at a knot in the wire near the bottom of one of the posts. But it wasn’t a knot at all—it was a small handle. Carmer turned it counterclockwise, and the new section of fence swung open without the slightest creak. Carmer bent down to screw the gate shut behind them, but Grit stopped him.

  “If the Free Folk taught me anything,” she warned, “It’s to always have an easy exit. Especially if you’re surrounded by a giant iron trap.”

  They made their way through the slag heaps and abandoned alleyways, careful to send at least one of Madame Euphemia’s puppets ahead to check the integrity of the ground. Of course, Carmer thought, whether the hollowed out earth could support his weight as opposed to that of a wooden puppet was largely a matter of chance.

  “Do you even know where we’re going?” Carmer asked. “All of these buildings look the same to me.”

  “I’ll know it when I see it, Carmer,” Grit snapped. All the iron was making her edgy. “Echolaken described it to me. Just because your shabby human eyes can’t see more than two feet in front of—”

  Grit stopped. Quite suddenly the alley had opened up onto a main road very different from the others. This one was clearly meant to be residential. Small cabins lined either side of the street, identical shabby tin boxes with copper-plated shingled roofs long since turned crusty and green. Though the Vallows had been abandoned for many years, nature hadn’t reclaimed the space. It was as if even the moss didn’t dare encroach on such a cold and hopeless place. Carmer felt suddenly exposed, like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding steam carriage.

  At the end of the street stood a massive building that dwarfed all the others around it. It was far more decorated than any of the houses, with a crumbling marble façade of tall pillars. Perhaps this had once made the building look classic and formidable, but now it only emphasized the state of disrepair. The gray speckled archway surrounding the main doors barely stood up. A great, gaping hole sank into the ground beneath it.

  The smell of smoke wafted over the breeze from the direction of the building, but the cloudy night made it hard to see exactly where it came from.

  “I think we found it,” said Carmer.

  “Maybe it was the main entrance to the mines,” Grit guessed.

  Carmer shrugged.

  “Scared, Felix Carmer III?” she teased.

  “Definitely.”

  Carmer crept down the center of the deserted road, slowly placing one foot in front of the other. He didn’t like the look of the empty houses on too-straight streets surrounding them on either side, even flanked by Manymostly and Merelymuchly.

  When Carmer reached the archway of the main building, he breathed a sigh of relief and put a hand on the marble to steady himself. A chunk crumbled off in his grasp, sending him reeling over the edge of the great hole until the puppets grabbed him under the arms and set him upright.

  “Thanks,” said Carmer breathlessly.

  “Okay, I’m kind of glad they came,” admitted Grit.

  They edged more carefully under the archway and around the edge of the hole. Carmer tried to keep from looking down into it, but he couldn’t help himself. It was all blackness as far down as his eyes (and probably Grit’s) could see. They skirted along the entryway, feet scraping on loose pebbles and remnants of concrete, for about twenty feet, until the puppets suddenly leapt forward into the darkness.

  “Wait!” Carmer shouted, but his alarm was unwarranted. They’d reached the end of the hole safely; plain but solid-looking floor extended to the back wall. Gently sloping hallways continued on either side. “Which way should we go?” Carmer asked.

  “The right one,” said Grit.

  After a closer look, Carmer saw she was right. Small, slick splashes of oil dotted the corridor on their right, glittering and fresh.

  Too fresh, Carmer realized at the same time as Manymostly and Merelymuchly, who bared their pointy wooden teeth and held glinting carving knives at the ready.

  Carmer heard their metallic growling before he saw them. Two Autocats slunk out of the darkness of the right tunnel, orange and blue jeweled eyes flashing.

  “The left one! The left one!” Grit shrilled.

  Carmer didn’t need to be told twice. He took off running.

  The hallway continued its downward slope as the Autocats gained on Carmer and Grit, their metal paws clacking against the concrete floor. When the cats were close enough to start nipping at Carmer’s heels, Merelymuchly and Manymostly launched themselves at the attackers, knives swinging wildly. The clanging sounds of their fight followed Carmer down the corridor. He tried locked doorway after locked doorway until he was forced to turn at the end of the hall. The puppets could only buy him so much time.

  And it wouldn’t be enough. Carmer stopped dead in his tracks, nearly toppling over and sending Grit flying. There was no escape. Somehow, he’d led them into a hoist room—a true entrance to the mines below, where workers could be lowered down in groups. A giant mine cage blocked their path, large enough to fit fifteen men. It hung crookedly, suspended by rusted chains over a cavernous drop.

  A yowl, a sickening crunch, and the sounds of splintering wood let Carmer know that at least one of Madame Euphemia’s puppets had performed its last show. He yanked open the door of the elevator, ran inside, and slammed it shut behind him. The whole contraption swung from side to side.

  “What are you doing?” yelled Grit.

  “Improvising!”

  Carmer looked around wildly and picked up one of the loose chains on the floor of the cage. He wound it around the door handle several times
and knotted it as best he could from the inside. Hopefully, it would be enough to keep the Autocats out, but it also locked him and Grit in.

  Seconds later, the cage rattled ominously as the two Autocats slammed themselves against it, silver teeth bared and claws extended. Carmer noted with a small amount of satisfaction that the blue-eyed one had a knife stuck in its eye.

  “What do we do now?” Grit said worriedly, hatpin sword in hand.

  Carmer hadn’t thought that far in advance. The blue-eyed cat pawed at the chains wrapped around the door handle, trying to loosen them, but the other one slunk back and paced in front of the elevator, orange eyes flashing. Carmer got the feeling this one was the brains of the operation.

  Suddenly, the orange-eyed Autocat leapt against the cage again, sending it swinging. But instead of swiping at Carmer and Grit, the cat started climbing up the side, flakes of rust raining down like snow as its claws raked against the aged metal.

  Carmer looked up and realized what it was about to do a second before it happened. “This is not good,” he said.

  The cat clamped its jaws on the cord that wound around the device keeping the elevator suspended from the ceiling. It used its mouth like a saw, sliding up and down the thick wire cable.

  Carmer guessed they had seconds before the cat cut through it and sent them plummeting into the infinite blackness below. He stared up at it, horrified but fixated. They had two options—stay in the cage and fall to their deaths, or leave it and be mauled to death by giant automaton cats. Neither seemed an attractive option.

  “Carmer!” snapped Grit, yanking him from his fear-induced stupor.

  “What?”

  “Smoke bombs. Do you have any left?”

  Carmer fumbled in his pockets, coming up with a single, tiny cylinder that smelled faintly of violets.

  “Give it here!” ordered Grit.

  Carmer held it up to her, and the faerie placed her hands on it, whispering in a language he couldn’t understand.

  Carmer lost his balance as the cage lurched to one side, sending him careening against the edge. The orange-eyed Autocat had nearly cut the cord through. Carmer darted forward and untied the chains around the door, avoiding the blue-eyed Autocat’s swiping claws as best he could. Grit rolled the now-glowing smoke bomb over the brim of his hat; he caught it in shaking fingers.

  Carmer kicked open the door with all of his might, sending the Autocat flying. He jumped onto solid ground just as the elevator cable snapped. The orange-eyed Autocat leapt off it with a yowl, and the cage plummeted into the unknown depths below. If it ever hit the bottom, Carmer never heard the crash.

  He threw the faerie-enhanced smoke bomb directly at the Autocats and hit the blue-eyed one square in the chest. Whatever happened to the Autocat, Carmer didn’t have a chance to see. A cloud of purple smoke as thick as pea soup immediately consumed the automaton, blocking it from view. The purple smoke spread outward in clumpy tendrils, filling the whole hallway. Carmer ran straight at what he hoped was the space between the two cats, dashing back down the hall as fast as his legs could carry him. The cats yowled behind him, bumping into each other and crashing into the walls in their blindness.

  Back in the main entryway, Carmer stopped for a moment to catch his breath, hands on his knees. “Let’s just hope they don’t have nine lives,” he gasped.

  “What?” asked Grit.

  “Never mind. Where are the puppets?”

  “Probably in splinters somewhere down a giant hole,” Grit guessed darkly. “Let’s get out of here!”

  She turned her light on brighter to get a better view of the crater in the middle of the floor, now that Manymostly and Merelymuchly weren’t there to guide them. Besides, there was little point in secrecy now.

  They edged slowly, step by step, toward the main entrance. Carmer thought for a brief moment of the unexplored hallway on the other side, but Grit was right. They needed to get out of the Vallows as soon as possible.

  As careful as they were, Carmer’s foot caught on something hard jutting out of the rubble, and he nearly tripped.

  “I couldn’t have run into someone a little more coordinated?” Grit said. She hopped down to his shoulder and sat there instead, thrusting her hatpin through the collar of his shirt for extra support. For all of her complaining, though, she was careful not to pinch him with it.

  “Sorry,” Carmer muttered, distracted. He looked down at the object he’d tripped over; it was an old padlock wedged between two crumbling pieces of what remained of the concrete floor. There was an insignia of some sort engraved on it. He bent down to take a closer look.

  The logo was long since worn away, but the engraved text above it was still very much readable in Grit’s light:

  PROPERTY OF

  TITAN INDUSTRIES

  12.

  AN OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE

  It had to be a coincidence. It had to, but it wasn’t.

  Carmer remembered Titus Archer addressing the crowd around the Hyperion, the captive audience hanging on his every word.

  “What if I told you that Titan Industries has recently patented a previously untapped energy source, one that is both clean and unlimited? That we have refined a method of producing electric light that cuts down on nearly half the machinery required and all of the waste?”

  Suddenly, the reason for the Mechanist’s mask became quite clear.

  “Carmer, whatever it is,” urged Grit, “it can wait!”

  “I don’t think it can,” Carmer said, standing up slowly. They were halfway across the great chasm, but a glance in either direction told him they had nowhere to go. The orange-eyed Autocat had caught up with them; it stalked back and forth across the back of the hall. Two more Autocats emerged out of the shadows in front of them to block the exit, their jeweled eyes and shiny metal hides glinting in the moonlight. Carmer and Grit were surrounded.

  The grating growls of the Autocats echoed in the cavernous dark, increasing in pitch until Carmer was forced to cover his ears. He was just beginning to entertain the notion of jumping into the abyss below when a man’s voice cut through the din.

  “Stop!”

  Titus Archer stepped out from under the crumbling archway. He held a pulsing silver lantern that spilled light into the room, making Carmer see spots in front of his eyes. The Autocats ceased their caterwauling immediately and slunk back into the shadows, their glowing eyes still fixated on Carmer. They looked disappointed to see their prey snatched right out from under their paws.

  “Walk toward the light, my boy,” said Archer from the doorway. He was dressed in the same unassuming business attire Carmer had seen him in at the technology expo. It made him look even more out of place in their derelict and mysterious surroundings. His expression was inscrutable; he didn’t look pleased, but neither did he look inclined to order his Autocats to rip out Carmer’s throat.

  “What should I—” Carmer started, looking down at his shoulder for Grit. But she wasn’t there, and he stopped himself immediately.

  Carmer blinked, slowly and deliberately, and glanced down again. Grit was still there. She brought a single finger to her lips and shook her head. Hopefully, her magic was enough to fool Archer.

  “I mean, where should I go?” Carmer corrected hastily.

  “Just keep to the wall and walk straight ahead,” said Archer. “I’m not going to eat you, boy.”

  But your cats might, thought Carmer grimly, pressing on. Grit climbed up the back of his neck and through the door in his hat. At the end of the vast hole, Titus Archer extended a hand and helped Carmer over the last few piles of crumbling stone. Carmer let go as quick as he could and stared at his shoes, shamefaced and terrified.

  Titus Archer and the Mechanist were one and the same. The strange feeling Carmer had gotten during the Hyperion demonstration finally made sense. Archer hadn’t invented his own power at all—he’d found a way to force the fae to make it for him.

  “I see you’ve discovered my security system,” A
rcher noted, slightly amused. Two Autocats crept forward again, and Carmer backed away warily, but they simply sat down on their haunches on either side of their master. Archer stroked one of them affectionately behind the ears. “They can be a little overzealous,” he admitted. “But . . . effective.” He looked stern again.

  Carmer gulped.

  “Walk with me,” said Archer. “Mr. . . .?”

  Archer started off before Carmer had a chance to respond. Carmer didn’t think he was in a position to refuse to follow.

  “Carmer, sir.” He followed Archer to the deserted main street, the silver lantern casting a strange half light around them. Something was different about the still, silent houses on either side, as if both their stillness and their silence came less easily now. Carmer couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched from just beyond the reach of the lantern’s glow.

  “Now, Mr. Carmer,” said Archer, “would you like to tell me what an upstanding-looking young fellow such as yourself is doing lurking about in the Vallows after dark?”

  Carmer glanced down at his muddy boots and tattered patchwork coat. He was far from an expert in such matters, but he was fairly certain he looked the exact opposite of upstanding.

  “I was, um . . .” Carmer trailed off. “Well, you see . . .”

  Grit was pacing back and forth along her perch inside his hat; Carmer had to reach up and grab the brim to keep it steady.

  “Because you know,” said Archer, “if you wanted to explore Titan Industries further, all you had to do was ask.”

  Carmer stopped short.

  “Oh yes,” Archer said with a chuckle. “I remember you from the Hyperion demonstration. Inquisitive minds can always spot a kindred spirit.”

  A kindred spirit? Carmer thought. Archer had nearly bitten Carmer’s head off for getting too close to the machine.

  “I do wonder what you thought you would find all the way out here,” said Archer, continuing his stroll through the darkened streets. The gritty slopes of the slag heaps glittered in the lantern’s silver light. “Surely, Theian Foundry and the rest of the International Exhibition would have more to hold your interest than an abandoned mine? Few people even remember that Titan Industries was involved in the goings-on here at all.”