Clockwork Secrets

by Dru Pagliassotti

  “Let’s go.” Helvi swung her rifle around. Taya pulled herself to her feet and held out a hand for the principessa. Blood spattered the girl’s face and dress.

  “You’d better come with us,” Taya said in Alzanan.

  “Pio….” Principessa Liliana’s face was white with shock as she lifted herself up, her gaze fixed behind them. Taya turned.

  The girl’s little brother had been shot in the head; his skull a bloody, shattered mess. Taya’s stomach heaved. Not far away, their mother lay in a huddled heap, her stomach soaked with blood. And behind her lay Il Re Quintilio Agosti himself, slashed and shot and beaten to death by his angry vassals, a number of whom now lay dead or dying around their victim. Cristof and Helvi had clearly done all they could to avenge the doomed family.

  “Oh, Lady.” Taya grabbed the principessa’s hand and drew her up, wrapping an arm around the girl’s narrow shoulders. “I’m so sorry. Come away.”

  “No— please!”

  “It’s all right— we’ll keep you safe. I promise.”

  “Taya, we need to go.” Cristof had pulled a dead Alzanan’s coat over his silk robes and scrounged new percussion pistols from the fallen. With his long black hair falling out of its ornate pins and clasps and his wave-shaped castemarks starkly visible on his naked cheekbones, he looked like the Oporphyr Council’s worst protocol nightmare.

  “Just a minute.” Taya released the girl and ran forward, sweeping up Amcathra’s boot knife and looking one more time for any sign of Fosca Mazzoletti. Seeing no sign of the noblewoman, she turned and took Principessa Liliana’s arm once more. Cristof and the lictors fell in around them, firing at anybody who came too close. The principessa was pale with shock.

  Lieutenant Amcathra was working on their steam carriage’s boiler while one of his men covered him, keeping the false lictors at bay. Amcathra pointed a gloved hand toward the three-foot-high wall that divided the avenue from the snow-covered expanse that led to the Capitoli River. Two of the four lictors he’d sent out earlier stood at the top of the riverbank, their rifles at the ready.

  “Follow them, Exalted,” he shouted over the gunfire, screams, and pounding hooves.

  “Agosti’s dead,” Cristof reported, also raising his voice. “So’s his daughter and grandson. We have Principessa Liliana with us.”

  “Who killed him?”

  “The Families— I think Fosca Mazzoletti was in charge.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “I missed.”

  “Too bad.” Amcathra pointed again. “Go.”

  They climbed over the short wall and ran toward the river. Taya risked a glance over her shoulder and saw royal soldiers and fake lictors shooting each other while bloodstained aristocrats and frightened commoners fled. Wounded humans and horses screamed with pain in the middle of the chaos.

  Then the Ondinium steam carriage lurched into motion, barreling into the carriage in front of it. Lieutenant Amcathra and the other lictor vaulted over the wall, holding their rifles in both hands, and charged toward them. The false lictors ducked around the mechanical collision to continue firing at them. Taya winced as bullets whistled past her ears and one of the lictors next to her cried out.

  “Down!” Amcathra bellowed. “Get down!”

  Taya threw herself and the principessa flat. Cristof and the lictors sprawled next to them.

  Two heartbeats passed. Taya was about to look up when an explosion thundered around them. She only had a second to register fresh screams before a second explosion followed. Something heavy and searing hit her calf. She shrieked and yanked her leg beneath her, reaching down to make sure her skirt wasn’t on fire.

  “Taya!” She looked up. Cristof was on his knees, reaching for her across the principessa. “Are you all right?”

  “I think so.” Her skirt was scorched and a steaming, twisted chunk of metal lay next to her, but her skin had only been scalded. “Principessa?”

  The Alzanan girl mutely lifted herself to all fours, then to her knees. She seemed alive and unharmed. One of the lictors wasn’t, though— Taya could tell that from Helvi’s grim expression as she leaned over her castemate’s body.

  Behind them, fire crackled across Grand Avenue. The walls and statues close to the carriage had been blown into rubble, and body parts lay scattered along the street partially obscured by a haze of smoke.

  Lieutenant Amcathra and the other lictor joined them.

  “We must go.”

  “Cael’s dead,” Helvi reported. “Shot in the back.”

  “Bright, carry him,” Amcathra ordered. Helvi took the man’s rifle as Amcathra’s companion grabbed the corpse and hoisted it over his shoulder.

  “What did you do with Jordan and Hind?” Helvi asked, standing.

  “Their bodies were inside the carriage.”

  Taya paled. If that was Amcathra’s idea of a cremation….

  “Go.” Amcathra jerked his head toward the river. “Run.”

  The lictors led them away at a jog. They followed the Capitoli River for several minutes and then, when it was clear the Alzanan rebels had lost track of them in the smoke and chaos, they cut back to a narrow pedestrian access tunnel that ran below Grand Avenue. Jager and another lictor huddled inside, guarding each end.

  “Sir, this leads into the city, but there are people all over,” Jager reported, her eyes flickering to Cael’s body and then back again. They heard another explosion; a third carriage had blown its boiler.

  Amcathra turned. “Principessa Liliana Agosti.”

  The young Alzanan shrank against the wall.

  “Principessa, the Families are in rebellion,” Amcathra continued in Alzanan. “Do you have any allies whom you can trust to keep you safe?”

  The girl shook her head, wide-eyed.

  “Please think again. It is in our best interest to deliver you safely to Family Agosti loyalist— you are the only Agosti left who can attest that we did not kill the king.”

  Lady! He was right, Taya realized. The princess’s testimony could salvage this diplomatic disaster. But tears filled the girl’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

  “She’s in shock.” Taya patted the girl’s arm. “Let’s find someplace to hide, and then we’ll figure out what to do.”

  Amcathra looked displeased, but he turned and began giving orders. His lictors smudged mud and blood onto their faces to hide their stripes and opened their jackets and shirts to disguise their uniforms. Cristof wiped ash across the castemarks over his cheekbones. He wanted to remove his telltale robes and go bare-chested under his pilfered coat, but Taya and Amcathra both vetoed the idea, unwilling to risk his health in the middle of winter.

  “You know that Mazzoletti — or whoever was behind this coup — has done a marvelous job of framing us,” Cristof said as he buttoned his coat to his neck. “We’re going to be shot on sight.”

  “Anybody who inspects the bodies will discover that they are not real lictors,” Amcathra said.

  “But what about— ah.” Cristof nodded toward Cael’s corpse. “That’s why you’re not letting them collect our fallen.”

  “Correct.”

  “It won’t make a difference. Nobody will get a chance to touch the bodies, and most will believe whatever the rebels tell them.”

  “Cris.” Taya touched his arm. “What about Jayce and the rest of our staff? They’re still in the palace.”

  “I’m sorry, Taya.” He clasped her hand between his palms.

  She recoiled. “We can’t just leave them!”

  “There’s nothing else we can do.”

  “But— but they’ll be killed!” She stared at him in disbelief. They had come to the palace with a staff of six, including their tailor Jayce, who was her best friend Cassi’s nephew and a friend in his own right. She and Jayce had survived poisoning and a train crash together, but now…
.

  “I’m sure the Alzanans will keep them alive as bargaining chips,” Cristof said, striving to sound confident. Taya looked away. Maybe so, but Ondinium’s decaturs viewed their nation as a giant machine and its citizens easily replaceable cogs and springs. They would never pay ransom for a group of lower-caste diplomatic staff.

  She didn’t know what she was going to say to Cassi if she ever got back to Ondinium.

  Chapter Two

  By midnight the small band of refugees found itself in a narrow alley that stank of urine and rotting garbage. The capital was in an uproar, and they’d hidden in the narrow, winding back alleys of its poorest quarter all day.

  Principessa Liliana remained with them, her eyes red and her face streaked with soot and tears. Two lictors kept watch on either side of the alley as the rest crouched in a circle of dim light cast from a small window overhead. Cael’s corpse lay several feet away.

  Taya counted out the handful of coins that they had between them. Nobody had expected to need money at the execution, and they couldn’t pawn Cristof’s or the principessa’s jewelry while they were wanted.

  “Well, we have enough for a day,” she said. “I’ll go buy us something to eat.”

  “You can’t,” Cristof protested. “You’ve been the face of Ondinium since we arrived— people will recognize you even without a castemark.”

  “I could disguise myself.”

  “How?”

  Taya looked at her dirty skirts. “Well… I hate to say it, but right now I could probably pass as a prostitute.”

  Cristof gave her a disbelieving stare.

  “That would be a reasonable disguise for a woman in this neighborhood at this time of night,” Amcathra agreed.

  “Janos, I am not sending my wife into the streets as a— a streetwalker!”

  Taya crossed her arms and glowered at him.

  “Well, it’s not as if—”

  “It will not work, Icarus.” Principessa Liliana’s voice startled them all. “Your accent will give you away.”

  Taya paused, surprised. She hadn’t realized the principessa spoke Ondinan. She took a deep breath, remembering that she might be talking to the last surviving member of the royal family.

  “Is it that obvious, Your Royal Highness?” she asked, formally.

  The girl nodded.

  That was disappointing. Taya had thought her Alzanan was pretty fluent; it wasn’t as accented as the principessa’s Ondinan, anyway. She blew out an impatient breath and ran a mud-streaked hand through her hair. Castemarks, accents, clothing… for the first time, Ondinium’s singularities struck her as more drawback than distinction.

  “I know a place we could hide, if we can get there,” Cristof said after a moment. “It’s a little risky, and Janos, I’ll have to ask you not to write it up in any report you may file….”

  “Where is this place, Exalted?” His voice was laden with suspicion.

  “Um…” Cristof pushed up his glasses and shot Taya an apprehensive glance. “Well….”

  Taya groaned. “You planned a meeting with him? Here?”

  “We didn’t plan it; we only discussed the possibility.”

  “‘Him’?” Amcathra’s expression darkened. “Your brother is here, consorting with Alzanans?”

  “He’s not consorting. He publishes some books here, that’s all.”

  Principessa Liliana looked up with curiosity.

  “The Council was under the impression that your brother lived in Mareaux,” Amcathra growled. “That is where you set up his secret bank account.”

  “If it’s so secret,” Cristof muttered, “why does everybody know about it?”

  The lictor waited.

  “Al lives on the border and publishes his political rants here under a pseudonym. It’s ridiculous stuff; completely unacceptable in Ondinium and probably not publishable in Mareaux, either— but Alzanans love radical free-thinkers, especially disaffected Ondiniums. Apparently he’s developed a following. Anyway, he suggested we rendezvous with his publisher if I found the time while I was here.”

  “How were you going to find the time?” Taya demanded. “And when were you going to tell me about it?”

  “If I had found the time, I would have told you before I went.” Cristof took her hand. “Really. All he said was that he’d be in the capital while we were here and that I could contact him through his publisher. We didn’t make any arrangements beyond that.”

  “This is a very bad plan,” Amcathra declared.

  “Well, what’s yours? The last I heard, the Alzanan government had invested a lot of time and effort into expanding its telegraphic network. I’m sure the army’s monitoring the roads and railroad tracks from here to the border. We’ll need inside help if we want to escape— or even eat, apparently.”

  “The Council and I anticipated the possibility of an emergency evacuation. I will get us out of Alzana.”

  “How?”

  “By ship. However, we must meet it at the coast.”

  “We’re on the opposite side of the city right now. But I’ll bet Alister could get us to the coast.”

  “Your brother is a saboteur and a murderer,” the lictor stated.

  “He wouldn’t murder me.”

  “He’s framed you for murder once already,” Taya reminded him. “And he threw you off the Great Engine. And he tried to shoot you.”

  Cristof scowled. “He wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “I will carry a message to your brother’s publisher,” Principessa Liliana volunteered. Taya hesitated and saw her reservations reflected in Cristof’s and Amcathra’s expressions.

  “You are being hunted, Principessa,” Lieutenant Amcathra demurred. “The rebels do not want you alive, either.”

  “I know.” The principessa pushed her long, curling black hair out of her face, avoiding the lictor’s eyes. “I know. I know I am in danger. I know—” her voice broke. “I know my family is dead. I know I have no choice except to take my chances with you. I know all of that better than any of you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Taya whispered.

  “The ambassador is correct,” the girl continued, stubbornly. “You will not be able to escape to the coast without assistance. I am not— I am not very familiar with the city, but at least I belong here. I will deliver your message for you, for my own safety as well as for yours.”

  “Your accent is no more suitable to this neighborhood than ours, Principessa,” Amcathra objected. “It is that of an aristocrat.”

  The girl’s shoulders hunched. “Then I will say as little as possible.”

  “Do you understand what is happening out there, Your Royal Highness?” Cristof asked, gently.

  “A revolution,” the girl replied. She opened her fist to reveal Fosca Mazzoletti’s broken necklace. “Those Families killed Mama and Pio. They killed my grandfather, the king.”

  “And they’re framing us for it.”

  She met his eyes. “I do not know how it is done in Ondinium, Exalted Forlore, but in Alzana, they owe me a blood debt.”

  “Does that mean you are declaring a vendetta, Principessa?” Amcathra pressed. The girl nodded. The lictor turned to Cristof with an air of satisfaction. “Exalted, I recommend we support Principessa Agosti’s vendetta.”

  “Does that mean we have to help her kill her enemies?”

  “And re-establish her Family’s presence on the throne.”

  Cristof slowly nodded. “We’re not in any position to fight your enemies just now, Your Royal Highness, but as Ondinium’s ambassador, I am willing to support your attempt to see justice done.”

  “I accept your support,” Principessa Liliana replied, closing her hand over the broken necklace again. “My allies are Family Agosti’s allies.”

  Taya ran a hand through her short hair, wondering why everybod
y in the group but her seemed to think that killing people was a good idea.

  “First things first,” she said, turning their attention back to the problem at hand. “The principessa can’t go out into the streets wearing all that jewelry.”

  Principessa Liliana handed her the broken necklace and slipped off her own jewels, dropping them into Taya’s reticule. They set aside her fur-lined coat and turned their attention to her dress, transforming it from a principessa’s day gown to something more suitably ratty and hard-used. The principessa used one of the torn and muddy ribbons they’d removed from her skirt to tie back her thick hair.

  “Her bodice should be lower,” Amcathra said. Taya shot him a scandalized look. “It is a matter of disguise, Icarus. Prostitutes display more cleavage.”

  “Do they?” Taya scowled. “Maybe she’s disguising herself as a chambermaid, not a prostitute.”

  “In this neighborhood?”

  “I will do it, Icarus.” The young principessa blushed and tugged down the top of her dress. Taya glared at Amcathra and Cristof, but the two men were taking great pains not to glance at the girl’s chest.

  Good.

  “Do you have the address, Exalted?” Principessa Liliana asked, sounding as nervous as she looked. Cristof slipped a hand into the pocket of his pilfered coat, then looked down at it with bemusement.

  “Er, no. You’ll need to find Muraro Press and tell the owner to contact Alessio Scordato. Tell him … hmm … tell him that Viridinion wants to see him.”

  “Too obvious,” Taya objected. “Even if the publisher doesn’t know his history, that name’s clearly Ondinium. Here, Your Royal Highness, give him this.” She reached into her reticule and fished out the watch Cristof had made for her.

  “Taya, no!”

  “Alister will return it.”

  “No. Don’t. Use mine.”

  “But…”

  “Hide it well, Principessa,” Cristof said, handing his pocketwatch to Liliana. “Don’t get pick-pocketed.”

  The girl slipped the watch into her bodice.

  “Muraro Press. Alessio Scordato,” the girl repeated, standing. “All right.”