Carmer’s heart hammered in his chest. Archer was trying to figure out how much Carmer knew. Carmer had to say something, and say it soon, but his mind was blank. As the moon came out from behind a cloud, a gleam of metal caught Carmer’s eye; an Autocat loped from shadow to shadow, following their every step. More were surely close at hand.
“Carmer,” a voice hissed into his ear. Carmer nearly jumped out of his skin before he realized it was Grit. “The birds.”
And then he saw what was different about the houses. The burst of moonlight cast their silhouettes into relief, and the jagged edges lining each rooftop were impossible to miss. But they weren’t jagged edges. The mechanical birds from the Mechanist’s magic show were perched in silent, watchful rows on every house on the street—hundreds upon hundreds of beady silver eyes trained squarely on Carmer.
Titus Archer saw Carmer notice them and paused, lantern held aloft. His own eyes blazed. Carmer didn’t even think to look surprised.
“Ah,” Archer said quietly. “It seems the cat’s out of the bag, as they say.”
The Autocats were suddenly right beside them, one crouched in each doorway on either side of the street.
This is how I die, thought Carmer. All he could do was stare back at the rows of metal doves and picture their sharp, pointy beaks pecking out his eyes. He blurted out the first and only thing that popped into his head: “How do they fly?”
Titus Archer tilted his head, eyes narrowed like one of his cats. “What’s that, Mr. Carmer?”
“The birds,” Carmer clarified. “I . . . I’d like to know how they fly.”
Archer looked at him then—really looked at him, the way Madame Euphemia looked at people, like she could see right through their skin and their bones and all the way into the deepest, darkest, locked-up parts of their hearts.
Fortunately, whatever Archer saw there seemed to satisfy him.
“I’m sure you would.” With a wave of his hand, Archer shooed away the Autocats, spun on his heel, and kept walking as if nothing at all had happened. “As you can imagine, Mr. Carmer, I am not overeager to have my identity as the Mechanist revealed to the general public. It may be a passing dalliance, but my performances as the Mechanist give me an opportunity to test my new inventions and their various capabilities . . . in the field, if you will. So much of what was once illusion can now be reality, Carmer. It has been reality for thousands of years, unbeknownst to most of us.” Archer winked.
Under Carmer’s hat, Grit shivered. Somehow, Archer knew she was there.
“In return for your silence in the matter, I will compensate you twofold,” explained the inventor. “Firstly, I shall let you and any of your . . . associates who may be nearby walk out of here unmolested and without prosecution. This is private property, you know, and a breaking and entering charge would most certainly be a strain on both your finances and your freedom.”
Carmer paled. He’d been so concerned about being eaten by the Autocats, he hadn’t really thought about what would happen if he were caught by the police.
“Secondly,” Archer continued, as if he didn’t notice Carmer’s distress, “I would like to invite you to my factory tomorrow. My real factory.”
Carmer stopped walking. “You . . . you want me to what, sir?”
“This little hole in the wall—if you’ll pardon the expression—is merely the Mechanist’s hideaway; a place to store my magical artifacts, practice my act, and train my assistant without attracting undue attention,” explained Archer, continuing on his way toward the barbed wire fence. “Which reminds me, I’ll have to have a talk with him about those birds of his.”
Carmer scurried to keep up with the man’s confident stride.
“As a fellow man of vision, I’d like you to see the real Titus Industries at our research and development headquarters in downtown Skemantis. I assume you are familiar with Theian Foundry.”
A small part of Carmer—the part that built his own automaton soldiers and studied combustion engines and wanted to forget faeries existed—would have jumped at the chance to see the laboratory of the legendary Titus Archer.
But Carmer’s heart told him that Archer’s achievements were suspect, at the very least, and downright evil at most. This latest invention—the electricity-generating Hyperion—was almost certainly powered by dozens, if not hundreds, of enslaved faeries. On the other hand, if Carmer said no—if he walked away from an invitation to observe the Mechanist in his own workshop—he knew he would never have another chance to find the missing faeries, repay his debt to Grit, or win the magic competition for the Amazifier.
Carmer wasn’t even sure he was at liberty to refuse. The Autocats flanked them on either side, silver claws barely retracted. All it would take was one word from Titus Archer, and he and Grit would be cat food, pecked to death, or tossed down a mineshaft to rot—or possibly a combination of all three.
They reached the edge of the Vallows. The Mechanist stood with one gloved hand on the disguised entrance and looked at Carmer expectantly.
“What do you say, Mr. Carmer?” he asked. “How would you like to learn even more secrets than those of a handful of toy doves?”
“Thank you, sir,” was all Carmer could manage, but it was apparently enough for Titus Archer. He extended his lantern in front of them at the gate, lighting up the road back to Eduardo.
“You will come to my home at noon,” said Archer. “My apprentice will send you the address.” He tipped his own gray bowler hat, and Carmer was forced to do the same, knocking Grit about inside of it.
Carmer winced and looked down to see his fingers smeared with red. Both of his hands were bleeding, covered in small but deep gashes where the blue-eyed Autocat had clawed at them in the cage.
“Don’t worry,” the Mechanist assured him. “My cats have had all their shots.”
Carmer took a deep breath, fighting the wooziness that suddenly washed over him like a wave. He set his jaw and walked past Archer as steadily as he could manage.
“Oh, and Mr. Carmer?” Archer called to Carmer’s back.
Carmer stopped, but didn’t turn around.
“Don’t be late.”
“Absolutely not.” Grit stomped her foot in defiance, then grumbled as her spur pierced the fluffy cushion under her boots. Her foot sank into the plush like quicksand. She yanked it out, a few down feathers coming with it, and scowled. “There is no way you’re going into that madman’s secret laboratory alone,” she insisted. “Look at what he’s done to you already!”
Carmer hunched over Madame Euphemia’s card table while the old woman cleaned his wounded hands as best she could, dabbing at the cuts with some sort of stinging and smoking mixture that she’d ground together herself with an ancient mortar and pestle. A puppet in an old witch doctor’s costume, complete with beaked mask, cut strips of long white linen bandages with a small, sharp scythe.
“The princess has a point,” said Madame Euphemia.
Carmer hissed in pain as her homemade remedy hit a particularly deep cut.
“Hold still. If even my boys were no match for these cats of his,” the old woman continued, “I fear this man is a more powerful foe than we could have imagined.”
“I’m sorry about Manymostly and Merelymuchly, Madame Euphemia,” Carmer apologized. It was strange how easy it was to remember their names now that they were gone. “Grit, it’s too risky for you,” Carmer continued. They’d been having the same argument all the way back to the camp. “Who knows what would happen if Archer caught you and found a way to control your magic?”
“So his stupid lamp would glow a little brighter,” Grit scoffed. “I’m willing to risk it—”
“You shouldn’t be,” Madame Euphemia interrupted, surprising them both. “You’re a royal fire faerie, Princess, whether you like it or not. If the Mechanist were to gain control of your power, he would be nearly impossible to stop.”
“See?” said Carmer.
Grit sat on her cushion with a huff. She
didn’t understand why everyone seemed to think she was so powerful. Certainly, Queen Ombrienne had never told her as much. Until a few days ago, Grit wasn’t sure that her own magic could be half as good as an average faerie’s. And now, even so . . .
“What if he can give you what I can’t?” she asked. She had to. “What if he promises a guaranteed future for you and Kitty and the Amazifier? What will your answer be then?”
Carmer tried not to be hurt by her suggestion, and mostly succeeded. After all, the only reason he’d started helping Grit in the first place was in exchange for her magic. She had no reason to believe he had altruistic motives where the fae were concerned.
“Girl, you’ve got some nerve,” scolded Madame Euphemia, now wrapping Carmer’s hands in the bandages helpfully supplied by the wooden witch doctor. “This boy got himself diced up like minced meat for you, and you think he’s going to hand you over for a few pieces of silver?” Madame Euphemia shook her head, the beads on the ends of her rainbow braids jingling.
Grit looked abashed, a blush creeping across her cheeks. “I only meant that—”
“It’s all right, Grit,” said Carmer. “But we need to know what the Mechanist is up to. And if other faeries are there, I promise, I’ll do everything I can to get them out. But you need to stay here in the camp with Madame Euphemia. It’s probably the only place in the whole city you’ll be safe.”
Grit wasn’t pleased. She bounced up from the cushion and drew her hatpin from its sheath. “Oh, what I wouldn’t give to poke one of those stupid cats right in the whiskers!” she said. “You know, Carmer, you should really think about getting a sword yourself.”
Carmer laughed. The idea that he would ever be coordinated enough not to stab himself, never mind a swiftly moving automaton, was certainly amusing. “As hard as it may be to believe,” Carmer said, wincing again as Madame Euphemia tied up the ends of his bandages, “my life was a lot less full of danger before I met you. I don’t think I’ll be making a habit out of it.”
Madame Euphemia made a sound that might have been a snort, and the witch doctor puppet brandished his scythe with a cheerful swish.
13.
IN THE LION’S DEN
As he stood on the doorstep of Titus Archer’s town house, Carmer couldn’t shake the feeling that he was about to be turned away or tapped on the shoulder and told to scram by a passing city watchman. Every inch of him felt shabby compared to the pristine whitewashed mansions and meticulously trimmed flower beds around him.
A silver-faced humanoid automaton opened the door and silently ushered him inside, gliding along subtle grooves inlaid in complicated patterns all over the white marble floor.
The place was hardly what Carmer imagined an evil lair looked like. It was actually a surprisingly light and open space. Contrary to the style of the time, the first floor was sparsely furnished, with polished silver and chrome accents the only nod to the industrialist’s immense wealth. The one brightly colored feature of the room was a very real, fully grown tiger lounging on a zebra-striped rug in the middle of the floor. It barely lifted its massive head to glance at Carmer as he entered. Perhaps it decided he wouldn’t make much more than a snack.
Titus Archer’s fascination with cats of every kind was apparent in his home; they were everywhere. No Autocats — Carmer hoped they were safely back in the Vallows—but cats, all the same. There were cats carved in shiny black onyx standing guard on the mantelpiece, a complete lion’s skull in a glass case, electrical lamp bases with cats sculpted in twisting silver wire, the bulbs held in their upturned paws, and twin bookcases with howling spotted leopards carved in the corners—each and every detail intricately rendered. It was a lot of cats.
The door shut behind Carmer with a click.
The butler automaton gestured to Carmer’s hat with its bladelike fingers. Carmer almost handed it over until he remembered the faerie-friendly alterations inside. Though the Mechanist probably knew about Grit, there was no reason to add fuel to the fire.
“I, uh . . . I’ll hold on to it, thanks,” said Carmer. He could’ve sworn an eyebrow-shaped ripple raised itself in the automaton’s smooth metal face, but it didn’t reach for the hat again. It motioned for him to sit down and bowed, gliding backward up a ramp that ran alongside the staircase and out of sight.
Carmer lowered himself onto a high-backed white sofa as far from the tiger as he could get—which, due to the arrangement of the room, was not very far.
Directly in front of him, a display of ornate masks hung over the fireplace, like the kind performers wore at the opera or during Carnivale. All were in metallic shades of gold, silver, copper, and bronze, and while many were feline-inspired, some were not; Carmer spotted a sun and moon, a wolf, and a knight’s helm. Off to one side, blending inconspicuously with the others in the display, was the Mechanist’s silver clockwork mask.
“It’s a bit cheeky of me, I know,” admitted the Mechanist. He stood behind the white sofa, his hands resting inches from Carmer’s head. His silver wristbands peeked out from the cuffs of his sleeves. Carmer had no idea how long he’d been standing there.
“But I can’t resist tempting fate every now and again.” Archer crossed to the fireplace and took down the silver mask. He held it up to his face and dropped his hands, but instead of falling to the floor, the mask hovered in the air before him. It floated toward his face, impossibly small gears clicking and spinning. The whirring noise continued as it adhered to his face, the metal bending and twisting to accommodate every facial feature. When the Mechanist turned to face Carmer, his face was half silver, and even without his gruesome cloak, he looked more terrifying than he ever had on stage.
“And as usually happens when you tempt fate,” said the Mechanist, “you get caught.”
The Mechanist seemed amused, like he was congratulating Carmer on finding him out, but it was hard to tell his expression behind the mask. All Carmer saw was white teeth and flashing eyes.
“Shall we go to my laboratory?”
“Eat something, girl.”
Grit stood in the windowsill of Madame Euphemia’s vardo, watching a tentative rain sprinkling down outside. Dark clouds were circling over the camp; soon, it would be raining in Skemantis, too, if it wasn’t already. Grit hoped that a few showers would be the most of Carmer’s problems this afternoon.
Madame Euphemia had set out tea for them with the help of one of her puppet maids. (The wooden girl looked rather dejected in the absence of her butler comrades.) There was a thimble full of honey for Grit, along with roasted pumpkin seeds and baked cinnamon apples. The autumn feast was clearly meant to cheer her up, but it just made her homesick. As much as Grit hated the suffocating confinement of the Great Willow, she missed Bressel and Dusten and even—though she would never admit it out loud—Queen Ombrienne. Her kingdom was in real trouble, and for all she knew, they thought she had abandoned them to run off with the Free Folk and left them to face the Wingsnatchers alone.
“I’m not hungry, thank you,” said Grit stiffly. No old human woman, Friend of the Fae or not, was going to tell her what to do.
“As you like,” said Madame Euphemia, “but these cards tell me you’ll be needing your strength, soon enough.” The old woman was smoking a long purple pipe and knitting a lumpy shawl. Occasionally, she set down her needles to idly flip through her faded set of tarot cards.
“Your cards told you Carmer and I would be part of the ‘great change’ coming to Skemantis, and we haven’t solved anything. It would be nice of them to tell you something useful for once.”
“When your mother looks into the stars, when she takes a cut of the root of the Great Willow and studies its rings, does she always know what the signs are trying to tell her?” asked Madame Euphemia.
Grit blushed.
“I didn’t think so. And I’m far from being a faerie queen. So you’ll pardon my lack of an instruction manual.”
“I wanted to ask you about that,” said Grit. “I’ve heard of Frie
nds of the Fae, but I’ve never heard of one commanding the kind of power you do. This wagon, the puppets, your Sight? How do I know for sure you’re different from the Mechanist?” Grit felt badly for suggesting it as soon as the words were out of her mouth. It was obvious that Madame Euphemia was anything but evil.
“I was born with the Sight, Grettifrida,” said Madame Euphemia, taking a long draw from her pipe. She blew out bright purple smoke rings that danced around the room. “Is a human with a touch of the Second Sight such an impossible thing? A bit like a faerie with one wing, no?” She winked, and then sighed. “That was a long, long time ago. Before I met the Thorn with Wings.”
“The Thorn is my grandfather,” said Grit. “Queen Willowright chose him to continue her line. But he disappeared . . .”
“Ah, so that’s what they’re telling the young folks these days,” said Madame Euphemia with a chuckle. “Funny how all creatures can be a bit selective about their stickier bits of history.”
“Selective?” asked Grit, raising her eyebrows.
“The Thorn was Willowright’s partner, this is true, but he was also mine,” explained Madame Euphemia. Her flashing knitting needles paused in their work as she smiled.
“You were the Thorn’s . . . partner?” Grit asked, a blush creeping up her neck. “But how?”
“He made the ultimate sacrifice,” said Madame Euphemia. “After I was named a Friend, he took human form to be with me, and left the fae behind forever.”
Grit gasped. The idea of faeries giving up their power to live among humans was something only talked about in whispers, and many thought it wasn’t even possible. It was a myth among the mythical.
“He used up all of his magic for the change,” said Madame Euphemia sadly. She sniffed, eyes suddenly misty, and the puppet maid handed her an embroidered handkerchief. She blew her nose with gusto. “Thank you, dear,” she said to the puppet, then turned to Grit again. “Or so we thought. He lived as a human for the rest of his life. It wasn’t always easy, but we were happy as clams.”
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