“Well,” huffed the queen, her hornets already flying into formation around her. “I suppose one night couldn’t hurt.”
The Autocat had enough of an instinct for self-preservation not to throw itself off a bridge or self-destruct, for which Grit was grateful. She endured the bumpy ride to the laboratory in silence. Neither she nor the cat were keen to draw attention to themselves, it seemed. The Autocat kept to the shadows of the busy streets; the crowds thinned out as they approached what Grit assumed was Theian Foundry.
The cat padded to the back of a main building. It was quieter here; the sun would set soon and the workday was ending. A group of studious-looking young men passed, comparing notes and sounding almost disappointed they’d been sent home early for the day. Of course, the Mechanist would be busy preparing for that evening’s performance.
Grit could feel the crawling cables—she thought the workmen outside the Arboretum called them “power lines”—running through the freshly disturbed earth all the way to the theater district. Stolen faerie magic made that power possible, and if the Mechanist got his way, the whole city would soon be using it.
The Autocat pressed its nose against a metal cat flap in the back door, which sprang open at its touch. It slipped inside, meowing for attention. Grit reached up and pulled at random at one of the levers in the cat’s throat. It fell silent with a strangled gurgle and hissed, a few sparks shooting out of its nostrils.
Grit concentrated with all her might on remaining invisible as they passed lab tables still occupied by a few Titan Industries employees. The Autocat tried to approach one of the men packing up for the evening, but Grit gave another one of its wire muscles a yank, and it listed to one side, nearly toppling over.
“Oh no you don’t,” Grit hissed, but one of the workers had already spotted the cat. She froze. If he decided to examine it, the jig was up.
But the short, brown-bearded man only shuddered and turned away.
“Those things still give me the creeps,” he said to a nearby coworker. “Couldn’t they make a little more noise when they walk?” Both men turned to leave.
The Autocat stalked to a plain black door where another cat flap she hadn’t even seen sprang open. It shut behind them, edges melting back into the smooth surface of the door. They descended a wide flight of stairs, buzzing bulbs lighting their way on both sides, into the basement of Theian Foundry. The Hyperion was waiting for them.
Grit realized it was time to take action. She slunk down a few inches, as close to the Autocat’s crystal heart as she could get, and zapped it with the strongest spark she could muster.
There was a flash of light and the crystal exploded. Faerie dust propelled outward, but Grit turned it to ash with a flick of her wrist. The Autocat collapsed in a heap, its insides a warped and melted nest of metal. Grit fell with it and knocked her head on the hinge at its shoulder. She came up seeing stars and clutched the cat’s remains for support, extricating herself with difficulty. She fell onto the floor with a sigh of relief, hardly caring if anyone saw her. But there were no men down here.
Grit slowly raised her head, noticing for the first time how much noisier it was than on the ground floor. Then she saw the source of the low rumbling and scrambled to her feet.
A massive machine took up nearly half the room. Three times the width of the Great Willow and taller than a man, it was surrounded by a complicated framework of pipes and wires and had two great pillars extending almost to the ceiling. Grit could feel the pull of the giant magnets that made up the bulk of it. She could feel something else, too—the pain of nearly a hundred faeries who were trapped inside.
Grit ran up to the base of the machine, heedless of any Autocats that might be on her tail, where a multilayered cylinder—the dynamo, Carmer had called it—spun round and round. The imprisoned faeries were inside one of the compartments. But how could she get to them? The dynamo was a fortress of iron; even standing next to it made Grit feel sick and unsteady on her feet. (Although taking a knock to the head couldn’t have helped matters much, either.)
Her best chance was to approach from above. If she could climb the many shelves lining the walls, hop onto the exposed piping for the sprinkler system, get her hands on some wire or twine or something, then rappel down between the two pillars—
Oh, for fae’s sake, she thought just as an iron cage suspended from the ceiling fell down around her with a deafening clang.
“You made me scratch my floor,” said a petulant voice.
Grit turned to see Titus Archer standing behind her. He was dressed as the Mechanist, his sickening cloak of faerie wings draped across his shoulders, but he wasn’t wearing his trademark clockwork mask. Grit supposed he didn’t much care whether his prisoners knew his true identity.
The Mechanist surveyed the broken Autocat at his feet and gave it a nudge with his toe. “You killed my cat.” His face was calm, but he kicked the corpse of the Autocat so hard it ricocheted off the wall.
Grit jumped back in surprise and hissed in pain as her bare skin made contact with the iron bars of the cage. Just one more reason to hate her mother’s stupid flower petal dresses.
The Mechanist ambled toward her, his black leather boots twin monsters from every young faerie’s nightmares, ready to stomp the life out of any tiny being in their path.
“And you and your little Friend seem quite intent on exposing my identity to the people of this fine city.”
He surprised Grit, then, and sat down on the floor, crossing his legs like a child and resting his elbows on his knees. He peered into the cage with genuine curiosity.
“If you weren’t so very important, I’d be very cross with you,” the Mechanist scolded.
Grit glared at him.
He shrugged. “Do you know why I perform as the Mechanist?”
She shook her head.
“Because the only time people will accept real magic in their midst is when they are a hundred percent certain it is fake. This is the mistake too many others have made in introducing magic to the general populace. My dynamo merely builds on existing theory. The electricity it creates is an extraordinary phenomenon, to be sure, but electricity can be produced by other means. My method just propels it more sustainably into the future.
“But the limits of possibility with this kind of real magic—or, as I prefer to call it, real science—can never be explored in the usual channels. How many witches burned at the stake are proof of that? The Mechanist’s performances, safely couched in anonymity, are my true laboratory, the real testing ground to stretch the limits of my power.”
“You mean the power you stole,” spat Grit.
The Mechanist frowned. “Do you not have an arrangement with the humans of this city already?” he asked. “For over a century, your kind provided shelter and light in the Arboretum. You cared for it and made it your home, but you opened that home to Skemantis.”
“We didn’t make it our home,” countered Grit. “It was always ours. And we let you humans in on the condition that you leave us be.”
“Yes, you did at that,” said the Mechanist. “But in case you haven’t noticed, Princess Grettifrida, your bargaining power has been decreasing steadily for centuries. A hundred years ago, your people consolidated their territory to conserve their power. They made a deal to ensure their survival. I propose it’s time for a new one.”
“To be your slaves.”
“To work with humanity, with progress, instead of against it!” insisted the Mechanist. He shimmied a metal sheet under the cage until Grit was forced to hop on top of it or lose her toes. She was truly trapped on all sides now.
The Mechanist picked up the cage, holding it firmly from the bottom, and stood up. “It is time the fae adapted to the modern world,” he said. “This is merely an extension of the relationship some of your kind have already cultivated with humans.”
“I’m sure the faeries forced to spin your wheel until they drop are big fans of your ‘relationship.’ ”
&
nbsp; “I provide incentive, Princess. No one works well without a little pressure.” The Mechanist ducked around the interconnected pipes and wires in front of the dynamo. “And I am hardly a cruel man.” He paused. “Well, perhaps I am, but not to the extent that it hinders my business. I would never let these faeries work themselves to death—what would be the point in that?”
Grit snorted.
“Did you see the third floor of my humble establishment here?” asked the Mechanist. “It’s a greenhouse. A faerie paradise utterly protected from the outside world.”
“But not from you,” muttered Grit.
The Mechanist stopped in front of a steel box with a door made of bars suspended in the center of his pipe maze. A direct line went from the dynamo to the box, with more wires feeding out in every direction toward the tower in the ceiling. He opened the door.
“No,” the Mechanist admitted. “Not from me.” He tossed Grit in the box.
“No, no! What are you doing?” demanded Grit. The box was surrounded by iron that made her head pound and her breath come in gasps. Tendrils of gold wire snaked out of nowhere and wrapped themselves around Grit’s wrists and ankles. The iron’s effect dulled somewhat as she found herself suspended in a web of golden wires in between two magnets wound tightly with coils.
The Mechanist’s face was inches from her own. He fiddled with various knobs on top of the box, and the wires around Grit tightened. “Do you know what a transformer does, Grit?”
“No! Let me go!”
“Let me see if I can explain it in terms you’ll understand. Simply put, it does exactly what it says—it transforms the power generated by a dynamo, either increasing or decreasing it, in preparation for distribution across the power system—to my lights in this lab, or to the theater district, for instance. I find fire faeries make particularly good transformers, perhaps because fire is one of the oldest sources of energy there is. But my system still has its limitations. One dynamo can only power a few city blocks. But with a royal fire faerie’s magic . . .”
“I’ll never help power your stupid machine,” spat Grit. “You’ll have to kill me first.”
“Or I could just kill all the others,” said the Mechanist.
“No, you can’t—”
“My Autocats can always find more. Your cooperation is entirely up to you.” The Mechanist actually smiled.
Grit hung her head.
“That’s better,” he said. A long, gloved finger chucked her under the chin and she turned her head away. “You’re learning already. Now, I want you to watch these gauges here.” He reached into the box and tapped inside the top, just above Grit’s head, where circular displays like tiny clocks were attached to the machine. Each had a red hand that moved up and down across a scale.
“It’s very important you use your power to amplify each volt of power as it passes through the transformer, and make those little red arrows point as far as they can to the right,” instructed the Mechanist. “If you don’t, your little friends will suffer the consequences.”
“No. No. No no no no—”
“This might sting a bit the first time,” warned the Mechanist. He flipped a switch inside the box and slammed the grill shut.
The power of the entire dynamo rushed into her at once, and Grit heard someone screaming like their insides were on fire.
It took her a moment to realize the screaming was coming from her.
21.
BREAKING AND ENTERING
“This is the strangest thing I’ve ever done!” shouted Carmer above the sound of roaring rapids around him. He clung to the slimy mane of the kelpie propelling him along the shores of the Bevel River. Lieutenant Axel Hudspeth, his automaton soldier, stood at attention in a weather-sealed leather case strapped to his back.
You and me both, mon ami, whinnied the kelpie with a frothy toss of his head. Carmer could hear its deep, lolling voice inside his mind.
Giving a ride to a boy and a Friend of the Seelie Court! How times have changed. I usually prefer . . . guests of a more feminine persuasion, explained the kelpie with a chilly chuckle.
“Are you from the Unseelie Court, then?” asked Carmer as he rocked back and forth on the rapids. His legs were submerged in icy water, but the kelpie’s magic kept him from feeling the worst of the cold.
Mon dieu, how the time does fly, said the water horse, sidestepping the question. His pace slowed, his body dissolving into the foaming breakers with each step toward the rocky shoreline. A few seconds later, only his shaggy blue head remained solid and visible above the water.
You give those Wingsnatchers hell from us, Carmer III, said the kelpie.
Before Carmer could reply, the kelpie disappeared completely in the gently lapping waves, and Carmer felt the horse’s weight go out from underneath him. Carmer staggered up the shore and headed for the cover of the trees. He looked down and was only a little surprised to find himself completely dry.
Hiding as best he could in a thicket of birches near the river, he removed his bag and unpacked Lieutenant Axel Hudspeth. The automaton soldier had gotten a hasty makeover, Madame Euphemia-style, and could now follow simple commands and move on his own without being wound.
“Stay close to me for now,” Carmer whispered.
Lieutenant Hudspeth saluted him.
They darted from the tree line, the lieutenant’s brass joints creaking a little as he ran. With the kelpie’s help, Carmer had approached from the north, looping around in the Bevel River, as he was certain he wouldn’t be a welcome sight waltzing up to the front door at Theian Foundry. He hoped the faeries were in place and that Madame Euphemia hadn’t encountered unplanned trouble on the road.
As if on cue, a bang and a splintering crunch rent the air. This was the trouble on the road he’d been hoping for. Carmer’s distraction had arrived.
The front corner of Madame Euphemia’s vardo was smashed into the cobblestones directly in front of Theian Foundry. The remains of one of its front wheels spun uselessly on the ground, spokes splintered. The wagon looked ready to fall on its side at any moment.
“Oh, goodness!” cried Madame Euphemia. She thrust open a lace curtain and peered out one of the tiny square windows.
The driver, dressed like a small boy but with a hat pulled suspiciously low over his face, hopped down from his seat. A few curious faces poked out of the foundry’s front door.
“Well, what are you standing there for, boy?” said the old woman to the little driver. “Go and fetch help!”
The puppet scampered away.
Madame Euphemia caught the eyes of the assistants watching her from the doorway. “And you!” she shouted at them. “What are you gawping at? Aren’t you going to help an old lady in need, or should I resign myself to a long, cold winter out here in the middle of the street?”
Men in white lab coats hurried out at once, leaving the door behind them wide open, and three marionettes slid silently out of the back of the vardo and slipped out of sight.
“It’s about time,” groused Madame Euphemia.
Half a dozen air faeries—Carmer thought they were called sylphs—circled the top of the factory, unnoticed by human eyes. Two ugly smokestacks and a brick chimney protruded up through the glass-walled greenhouse on the roof. They weren’t much in use today—the Mechanist had less need for burning coal now that his faerie-powered dynamo was up and running—but a few steady streams of black smoke still curled up into the sky. The sylphs sang to the air around each vent, binding it to their will until it spun in tiny whirlwinds, and then with shrill little laughs sent the twisting air crashing back down the way it came.
Poof. Poof. Poof. The ash and smoke went soaring back down the chimneys and into the laboratories, scaring the remaining Titus Industry employees out of their wits. They ran coughing from the polluted clouds billowing from the flues and out into the cold, fresh air of the grounds with their goggles still on and their coats pulled over their mouths.
Carmer and the lieutenant took
advantage of the chaos. They ran alongside the foundry wall and slipped past the marble pillars into the open front door. Meanwhile, Madame Euphemia kept the three employees assisting her occupied, supervising the moving of the vardo toward the stables while they waited for the “help” that would never come. The men staggered underneath the weight of the wagon while Madame Euphemia urged them on.
“That’s it, boys! Put your backs into it! I’m not getting any younger!”
Madame Euphemia’s puppets cut through the stables to get closer to the lab without being seen. The horses snorted and whinnied as the puppets wove in and out of their legs and over the walls of their pens.
“I say, where’s all that smoke coming from?” asked one of the employees.
“I have some potentially volatile chemicals inside—”
“Should we wire Mr. Archer?”
“He said he was not to be disturbed!”
“Well, that was before . . .”
Two puppets wearing Japanese hannya masks and wielding curved blades, along with the little French maid Carmer thought was named Whoseywhatsy, met Carmer and the lieutenant just inside the front door of Theian Foundry. Carmer took a quick head count, looked around for witnesses, and shut the door behind them.
Carmer didn’t think the Mechanist would keep Grit on the first floor of the laboratory where anyone could see her. The black door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY seemed the most likely candidate—especially since Gideon’s wristband was practically humming in Carmer’s pocket, as if the doorknob were calling to it—but they had to make it there first.
“Let’s split up,” Carmer said decisively.
Whoseywhatsy and one of the demon-masked puppets took the lab’s rightmost aisle, Madame Euphemia’s third puppet took the center, and Carmer and the lieutenant took the left. They proceeded cautiously. Autocats could be hiding anywhere.
Sure enough, two ruby- and emerald-eyed monsters pounced into the aisles as soon as Carmer and the others stepped forward. Carmer had a smoke bomb at the ready, but he didn’t want to use it if he didn’t have to.
The Wingsnatchers Page 21