by Beth Cato
“Greetings!” Octavia said, smiling at the woman on the other side of the golden cage. Mrs. Stout’s footsteps stopped just behind her.
A dour face stared through bars. The woman’s cheeks were elongated, the nose flat. Dull eyes gave a cursory glance that betrayed no actual interest. Octavia was reminded of a horse—a very plain, sell-for-meat kind of horse.
“Do you have an account?” the teller asked.
“No, but I have a withdrawal slip for an account here. Five silvers, please.” She slid the paper through a designated slot in the bars.
The woman took it up with fumbling fingers. “Percival, of the Medician Academy, to Miss Octavia Leander. Wait here.”
She turned and walked through rows of desks to the back of the room. The entire wall consisted of wooden drawers, a thousand at least. The teller opened several and pulled nothing out. She walked through a doorway and returned minutes later with a decidedly round fellow. A few strands of hair made a bold attempt to lessen the intense glare from his shiny pate.
“You are Miss Leander,” he said, greeting her with a clipped Mercian accent. A monocle made one eye appear monstrous and magnified.
“I am.” She frowned, suddenly ill at ease.
“There appears to be a bit of a problem here, m’lady. The paperwork you brought is in order and matches the account holder’s signature and seal in our records, but her account here was closed six months ago.”
Octavia’s mouth went dry. “What?”
“Perhaps she forgot about that fact while drafting her letter for you,” the man continued. The teller stood beside him, her head tilted as if she were listening, but her eyes were as vacant as those of a mechanical.
“No. Miss Percival wouldn’t forget something like that.” Panic clenched at her chest. This couldn’t be happening. “This is the money I’m owed for my last year of work. Miss Percival knows I need the funds.”
“I am sorry, Miss Leander.” The man’s voice cooled. He waved an arm, and Octavia heard heavy footsteps behind her. He was calling a guard—on her?
“Pardon me.” Mrs. Stout stepped forward and leaned on the ledge of the counter. “I’m a friend of both Miss Percival and Miss Leander, and I have difficulty believing that such an old, dear friend of mine would error in such a way.”
“Perhaps it was no error.” His gaze made no effort to surmount the magnificent summit of her cleavage. “We hear this throughout the day, Mrs. . . . ?
“Stout. Viola Stout.”
“Yes. Mrs. Stout, these things happen. Perhaps she forgot about the closure of the account, or addressed the wrong bank, or it was no error at all. But the plain fact is, we have no money under her name and we cannot help Miss Leander.”
Mrs. Stout seemed to poof up like a riled cat. “Now listen here—” The guard placed a hand on her shoulder and she flushed.
“Mrs. Stout, it’ll all be fine,” Octavia said. Dizzied by this development, she looked to the manager again. “I will contact Miss Percival and get to the truth of this matter. Thank you for your time.”
Lies, all lies. It’d cost Octavia a silver for an urgent courier to travel north by buzzer to connect with Miss Percival, but she knew very well the academy had no money. She wouldn’t have the other girls starve on her account.
She tucked the paperwork back in her bag and all but fled. Behind her, Mrs. Stout’s footsteps stomped like a shod draft horse.
“The audacity of that man! This is most assuredly a scheme. No wonder they were forcing out so many people. This bank is holding money hostage, no doubt. Insinuating that Miss Percival is in such poor control of her funds—”
“But she is in poor control of her funds,” said Octavia. Mrs. Stout gaped at her. “Caskentia has not paid her for our work at the front.”
“None of it?” Mrs. Stout was aghast.
“Not a copper, last I heard. The academy survives by farming. We haven’t been able to buy any of the Lady’s herbs, prices being as they are. Everything must be grown on site. Most patients pay through barter.”
Octavia pushed open the door. A chill wind blasted her in the face, but seemed mild compared to the new coldness against her heart. Her supplies of herbs were low, her supply of coins even lower. The two-day wagon ride from Mercia to Delford would probably cost a silver for cramped quarters in a livery transport, without accounting for bedding or food.
“I will write her a letter later in the day, and also address a note to my solicitor! The correspondence may reach him in Mercia the day before we arrive. Oh, that bank manager!” Mrs. Stout shuddered, bosom quivering. “I know they are holding something back, child, I know it.”
Someone was holding back, yes. But Octavia was no longer confident that the bank was the guilty party.
CHAPTER 13
Mr. Garret awaited them outside the hotel. “Miss Leander.” He frowned. “Is something wrong?”
She managed a tepid smile. “Minor things compared to attempted murder and mayhem.”
He didn’t seem quite sure how to take that. “I see. Mrs. Stout, good afternoon to you.”
“Mr. Garret.” Mrs. Stout’s greeting was a growl. “Miss Leander, I’ll write and—”
“Thank you, Mrs. Stout. We really must be going,” said Octavia, cutting her off with a wave of her hand. “I’ll see you later.”
Alonzo tipped his hat and murmured farewell. Octavia matched his stiff stride as they walked down the street. The crowds around them were too thick for the sort of conversation they needed to have, and so she welcomed the companionable silence.
Rows of smokestacks lined the horizon. Black clouds were belched into the clear afternoon sky. The smell of the place carried in the air; it stank of heated metal and coal and the grime of industry. Workers, men and women both, were smudged by coal from head to toe. Automated work carts rumbled by, treads clacking loudly on the cobbles.
Disgust twisted a knot in her gut. No trees in sight; no birds. Her lungs felt constrained as if squeezed by a corset.
The crowds around them thinned. She turned to Alonzo and murmured, “Have you found out anything in your investigation?”
He glanced around, casual yet wary. “Yes, in fact. Our stolen wagon was returned to the livery stable yesterday evening, everything in good care. No one saw the thief. My crutch was left in the back, though the assailant did help himself to our lunch.”
“Well, it would have spoiled by evening, anyway.”
“Quite. I also went to the Leffen Buzzer Company. They rented out a buzzer yesterday morning. The entire exchange was done through a courier, the payment in hard coin, and no names were exchanged due to the generous funds involved. They were most cross when I told them their vehicle’s whereabouts.”
Octavia arched an eyebrow. “Interesting.” Now he sounds like a Dagger out of a novel.
“I believe you will find this place interesting as well.” He pointed to a tall shop ahead, its facade blackened by soot. Brass pipes snaked the outer walls, and on closer look, they were not merely for function. Whirligigs in metal shades from gold to nickel spun from fittings atop the pipes. The lower blades were wrapped in steel cages, but the highest adornments on the wall spun free, the blades clinking with the stiff breeze.
A man stood in the doorway, bulky forearms crossed at his chest. He was thin yet solid, a shock of black hair draping over his forehead. Silver streaks in his hair caught the light. Beneath smudges, his skin had the texture of gently worn leather. The hum of his body denoted the loss of both hands, which were covered by black gloves.
“That’s a pretty rigid walk you got there,” said the man, jerking his head toward Alonzo.
“ ’Tis this or hop.” Alonzo grimaced as he stepped up onto the doorsill.
“Walking is your best choice, unless you wish to pantomime a spring rabbit,” said the man. “I could rig up some long ears for you, maybe find some cotton fluff for a tail. If you’re going to hop, you may as well have some style.”
Alonzo glowered.
The man’s face creased in a wide grin. “I take that as a no. And you are, m’lady . . . ?”
“I’m Octavia Leander, sir,” she said with a curtsy. Her satchel swayed against her thigh. She stood to find his dark gaze had narrowed.
“Alonzo. You said you were bringing a medician, not that you were bringing her. She’s the one who . . . ?”
Alonzo mutely nodded.
“Damn.” The man ran a hand through his hair. “Caskentia, Caskentia.”
Octavia felt her hackles rise. “Is that a problem, sir . . . ?”
“Dryn, Kellar Dryn.” He openly appraised her. “I know your work. Had more than one boy come here from the front with a nice, clean amputation, perfectly prepped for attachment. No issues with straight cuts or gangrene. I had to nose about to find out that a single Percival was behind all of that handiwork. Then there was that water contamination at the pass.”
“I—I had no idea I had a reputation. It’s not really me who heals, of course. It’s the Lady.”
“You might be the conduit but your hand still has a signature. Please, come in, we can go straight to the workshop.”
His handiwork carried a signature as well. She certainly never would have expected a master mechanist to possess two mechanical hands. It made his work all the more extraordinary.
The atmosphere within the shop struck her as bright, a contrast to the makeshift sheds of mechanists at the front. The heavier stink of a forge wafted through the first doorway, but Dryn continued to walk through an archway at the end of the hall.
A stained glass window as tall as Octavia herself depicted the Saint’s Road in all its glory and cast dappled color onto the floor. The floor tiles contained an inlaid copper oval easily seven feet in length. A wooden platform with adjustable panels had been wheeled into the middle, the brakes in place. Alonzo leaned against the platform, grunting as he pried his boots off.
Dryn stood back, hands at his hips, lips clicking in reproval. “What exactly happened again?”
Alonzo related the tale of his leg as Octavia set up her supplies.
“Well, you two had quite the day, didn’t you? So we have the possibility of water damage or an unaligned crystal or disengaged wires.”
Alonzo settled himself in the seat within the circle, his trousers rolled up past the knee. Dryn hummed as he palpated the surface of the mechanical limb. With a small screwdriver, he unfastened an inner panel along the calf. He peered inside.
“It’s dry,” he said. “And there are loose connectors.”
Alonzo’s sigh of relief was audible. “Is that the worst of it?”
“We’ll see,” said Dryn. He glanced back at Octavia. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” With the oval so large, it required fully working within its confines. She crossed the copper lines to stand near her pampria, and then stooped with her fingers hovering over the circle.
“Pray, by the Lady let me mend thy ills,” she said.
The circle crackled into life. She felt how readily Alonzo acquiesced in the sureness of his body’s song. He had absolute trust in her. That warmed her even more than the Lady’s presence. She stood and rested her hand on his bare knee. Hairs felt prickly yet soft against her palm, the skin warm.
Dryn leaned over Alonzo’s good leg as he tweaked the wires within the case. The mechanical leg jolted, and he cursed, shaking his head. “There’s a single gear out of alignment and it won’t budge. Perhaps it needs the Lady’s persuasive touch?”
“Let me see.” He and Octavia switched positions.
A glowstone within the leg illuminated the minute mechanical construction within. The confines were tight, every inch occupied by gears and flexing bands and the solid central supports of the metal tibia and fibula.
“This,” said Dryn, motioning with tiny forceps.
She could see the gear in question, on the far side. It was so small it would be easy to dismiss, and yet it connected to the belt system that played the role of tendon. She closed her eyes and breathed as in her Al Cala.
“Lady,” she whispered, “gaze through your poor servant’s eyes and lend your aid, so that this man’s leg may work again.”
A vision of the Tree brightened her mind. Despite the clear heavens above Leffen, this sky stewed with clouds. Thunder rumbled as wind whipped the high branches and sent debris falling to the canopy of normal-size trees far below. Keen awareness of the Lady trickled through her veins as warmth whirled in her eyeballs.
Octavia opened her eyes. The errant gear, in reality the size of a thumbnail, now looked as large as a belt buckle. She had expected greater awareness, but nothing of this magnitude. Stunned, she almost closed her eyes, but remembered herself and forced them open. The heat reminded her of a kettle billowing steam in her face, and yet there was no pain.
She took in deep breaths. The Lady is using me. No reason to fear. This is like lifting Mrs. Stout. She focused on that single errant gear. It shifted. It was a movement of millimeters that loomed in her vision. In that instant, the magical magnification vanished. The world swam slightly as she shuffled aside. Dryn resumed his work inside the cavity.
“Impressive.” Dryn spared her a glance. “My usual medician requires thirty minutes of meditation to get the sort of results you achieved in seconds.”
She shrugged off the praise and scooped up some pampria. The fragments of leaves vanished upon contact with Alonzo’s knee.
Alonzo propped himself up on his elbows. “Kellar, has your wife heard interesting news from the Waste of late?”
“Why not ask her?” Dryn offered, his tone casual. He grabbed pliers from the tray. His arm swung out and banged against the invisible barricade of the circle, the impact soundless but for his gasp of surprise. “Good God.” He stared at Octavia.
“Sorry. When I make a circle, it has a certain . . . potency.”
“That’s no joke. A circle usually feels like a wall of spiderwebs. This is akin to brick.” Dryn shook his head, clearly awed.
“Kellar.” Alonzo cleared his throat. “I thought it best to ask you first. We have little time remaining in Leffen. Also, your wife can be more intimidating than my mother.”
Dryn snorted. “I’ll have to tell Adana that. She’ll take it as a compliment.” He reached over and tweaked the row of metal toes, testing the joints.
Octavia recognized her cue and focused. Heat surged beneath Alonzo’s skin. She imagined the connections between the leg and brain like the Lady’s roots and branches, the unique duties of roots and leaves. She drew her finger down the hard knob of his knee to the smooth metal extension, dragging the heat with her all the way to his big toe.
Alonzo’s leg jerked, his toes flinching. She smiled.
“Thank you, Lady,” she whispered. The faint buzz in the back of her mind dissipated, the sudden silence strange and almost disturbing. The burden of her life debt had been removed, but more than that she was grateful for Alonzo’s sake. She stooped down to touch the copper bands, and that pressure released as well. “You’re able to leave the circle now,” she said to Dryn.
“Thank you, Lady, indeed,” said Alonzo. “And thanks to you, Kellar, Octavia.”
“It’s the least I can do.” She inclined her head. “Now I’m curious. What do you expect Mr. Dryn or his wife to know of the Waste?”
Kellar Dryn nodded. “Exactly. I’m just a mild-mannered mechanist.”
“You, mild-mannered?” Alonzo snorted. “You have all the domesticity of a wild boar. This is where I stop pretending that you are ignorant of my mission. Octavia needs to have you available as a resource. You both know things about Caskentia and the Waste, things you are not meant to know.”
“Alonzo, shut up.” Dryn’s voice held an edge.
“Damn it, Kellar. The Waste has changed tactics. They are trying to kill Octavia, and have made more than one attempt. I could very well be caught in the cross fire. Octavia must have someone to turn to if I am gone.”
Alonzo’s words cause
d a vicious twist to her gut as she turned to stare at Dryn. “You’re spies? Daggers, like Alonzo?”
“Now really, Alonzo. You tell your mark what you are? Softhearted fools like you aren’t meant to be Clockwork Daggers.” Dryn’s eyes fluttered half shut as he sighed. “But she is favored by the Lady, more than any other medician I’ve ever encountered. That’s both a blessing and a curse. God knows what Adana endured.
“To clarify, we are not Daggers. Caskentia uses my wife as a resource for translation, but only that. We work to preserve knowledge, the sort of knowledge that’d get us arrested and declared collaborators of the Waste.”
“If not shot outright,” Alonzo murmured.
“True. Why waste any expense or effort on imprisonment?” Dryn grimaced.
“I love Caskentia, but I’m not blind to the government’s machinations,” said Octavia, frowning. “If Alonzo is a Dagger and allied with you, does that make him a sort of double agent?”
Dryn barked out a laugh. “No. Not in Alonzo’s case. Oh, he walks a fine line, that’s for sure, and Caskentia wouldn’t be pleased, but he’s something worse—an idealist.”
“ ’Tis a sad day when optimism is mocked.”
“Every day is a sad day here.” Dryn sobered. “Queen Evandia is at the head of a body beset with gangrene. How long until the heart fails?”
She thought of the soldier rotting in the alley in Vorana, of the clock with its burden of bodies, of Miss Percival and the academy left utterly destitute.
“The heart already fails,” she whispered.
“Maybe that’s why the Lady has brought you here,” said Dryn, expression contemplative.
Octavia frowned. As if she could heal a government. She could scarcely heal anyone at all.
Dryn looked to Alonzo. “When does your airship leave?”
“Late morning tomorrow.”
“Adana will be in her office then. Both of you, go to her.”
Alonzo sat upright. “My thanks to you, Kellar.” He tottered and Octavia grabbed his forearm to steady him.