Beauty & The Clockwork Beast (The Clockwork Fairytales Book 1)

by A. B. Keuser

  That was exactly where she found him. He’d rolled up his trousers and removed the tattered coat he wore and stood in the middle of the pond, legs surrounded by lily pads.

  “You’ll never catch Maynard in that water.”

  He turned so quickly, he nearly fell over, only managing to catch himself on a stone statue positioned in the center of the green water. “You scared the… well something out of me, Miss.”

  “Arthur has a job for you. And I think you’re going to like it.”

  His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t ask for any details as he sloshed out of the pond and pulled his socks and shoes back on. Redressed, he smiled at her and nodded. “Lead the way!”

  *

  Arthur startled as shoes clattered down the stairwell. Isabelle wasn’t close enough to him. It had to be Lord Cat Chaser.

  He burst through the door with a grin as wide as his face and said, “I’m glad to see you’re back down here, Master Arthur!”

  Arthur waited, not sure what to say, and a little worried that his longest-suffering charge was up to something. When Isabelle joined them, Lord Cat Chaser scrambled up onto the bench and sat on the worktable. “What can I do for you?”

  “Remember how we tried to destroy the teakettles?.” Arthur ignored the way Isabelle’s brows rose when he said “we.”

  Lord Cat Chaser sat upright and the glee on his face was almost scary. “When do I get to try again?”

  “Tomorrow, mid-morning.”

  “And what makes you think it’ll work this time?”

  “I don’t.”

  The boy’s face crumpled. “Then why?”

  He nodded to the mechanical behind him. “Isabelle got Mr. Hobbles working.”

  Jumping to his feet, Cat Caser ran to the mechanical man and studied him as though he was going to suddenly burst to life.

  “We’ll need a distraction to get this one close enough to disable it without Agathina seeing.”

  “So you want smoke as well as the bang, crackle, and pop.”

  “Think you can manage that?”

  “I do. I’m going to go get The Duke and we’ll start right away!”

  He ran off without looking at either one of them again and Arthur rubbed his eye, wishing he still had that much energy.

  “You should read to the boys and then get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a full day. Once we get the teakettle’s mechanical insides dealt with, we’re going to have to install them, close this thing up and sort out your scissors.”

  She hesitated, but whatever she meant to say, she didn’t. And when she left, Arthur wondered how he could have messed things up so awfully.

  With nothing left to do in his workshop, he climbed the stairs one aching step at a time.

  *

  Having read to the boys, she stepped out onto a tiny balcony Lord Cat Chaser had shown her and breathed in the crisp night air. She didn’t know how long Arthur had been standing with her when she finally opened her eyes, and she didn’t ask.

  Stars glittered in the night sky, so abundant Isabelle only had to let her eyes lose focus and it became a solid blur of shining white lights.

  "Is it so terrible here?" Arthur asked, and she did not know if he was speaking to her or not.

  "If I had the choice... I might stay. But I don't know, and until I have that choice, we won't."

  He said nothing then, tapping one of the cogs in his hand against the hard stone of the terrace railing.

  "The boys love you," she said when the silence had gone too long.

  He smiled at the dark garden and then looked behind them "Not, I expect, as much as they love you."

  She followed the line of his gaze to a lit window where the dark silhouettes of three heads quickly vanished from sight.

  "I'd disagree... but Lord Cat Chaser and The Duke of Hasty Pudding have made it abundantly clear that they'd be happy if I chose to adopt them."

  "We’re all starved for benevolent female attention."

  She paused, glancing at him, and when he walked away, wondered why he kept dangling tidbits like that in front of her.

  Shaking her head and glancing once more to the sky, she wandered through the halls, back to her room and lay down hoping for a blissful night’s sleep.

  Isabelle woke at dawn with a splitting headache and for the first time since she’d kissed Arthur at the gate, her awareness of him was jumbled. Something was wrong… or maybe whatever spell lay between them was wearing off.

  Dressing and fumbling to loosen her corset again—it wasn’t as though she could ask Arthur or one of the boys fix her lacings so she was stuck in it—she managed to step out of her room and into the corridor before the sun beat through the windows.

  The corridors were filled with a peaceful glow, and for once, Isabelle wondered if leaving was the right thing to do. She shook that thought away and pressed a hand to her forehead when the movement sent a spike of pain stabbing at her temples.

  She started toward the library, sure that was where she would find Arthur, but something stopped her. The tug she felt wasn’t from Arthur. It was different. Shallower, like hooks in her skin.

  Following the impulse, she moved through the castle and out the front doors onto the dew covered lawn. Her feet were damp as she walked a wide circle around the castle. She hadn’t paid much attention to its foundations before and as she did now, she saw sturdy stone covered in the same deep green ivy that crawled up the main gate.

  Something in that ivy pulled at her skin like an itch she was unable to scratch. But the irritation lessened with each step she took. When she reached the back of the castle, where the walls rose highest before windows peeked through them, she continued to walk around its base. But felt the sharp stab with her first step as the tug reversed, pulling her backward.

  Something was here. She looked at the wall, a mountain of ivy piled in front of it, climbing toward those windows like the steep slope of a verdant landslide.

  The tug was sharp and she moved closer. It didn’t ease.

  She took another step forward and fell through the ivy in front of her. The only thing that saved her from breaking her legs on the hard stone stairs was the netting of ivy that had collapsed beneath her.

  Dark and musty, the space she’d fallen into was the entrance to something kept beneath the castle. Its doors were made of sturdy wood, the copper of its hinges turned green with moisture like the main gate.

  She stood, looking up toward the bright square of light above her, it’s edges marred by the tangle of ivy, and she flinched away from the door as it opened.

  No one was there. Despite her better judgement, she gave in to the tugging and stepped inside. Torches lit the walls as though someone was always present. And, as she stepped further inside, she realized that was true enough. The sharp edges of stone crypts shifted in shadows and she touched the one nearest to her, it’s ancient stone rough beneath her fingers.

  As soon as she lifted her hand away it was as though the cord that had pulled her to this place snapped. No compulsion made her stay, but something in the distance caught her eye and her own curiosity got the better of her.

  It was a book, laid open on a pedestal carved from the same stone as the tomb. She walked toward it taking careful steps in the hopes of keeping quiet—even though she knew she wouldn’t wake the dead.

  The page in front of her was blank….

  Until she touched it.

  Ink bled over the paper, curving and twisting as it formed what looked like a family tree. Illustrations of people she’d never met, whose birthdates were followed by dates of death scrawled across the page and for a moment, Isabelle considered leaving it where it was, but when she turned the page, she stopped, her breath caught in her throat and she slammed the book closed.

  Three steps away from the podium on which it stood, though she didn’t remember moving, she looked at the dark cover and questioned the possible trickery therein.

  Another tug pulled at her heart and she knew witho
ut questioning that Arthur was frustrated. She knew also that he was in the library. Determined, she pulled the book from its stand and ran back up the crypt’s stairs, around the castle and through to the library. After all, there was no better place for a book than a library, and she needed answers.

  *

  Arthur had felt her moving around the castle and then, he hadn’t. For a moment he worried that something was wrong, but he imagined if she was hurt or worse the severance of the connection would be agonizing. He hoped that it had deserted him as quickly as it had taken hold.

  And then it had come back, hitting him hard enough that he staggered backward into a tall shelf and knocked all of its books to the floor.

  Cursing, he started to pick them up, searching through the titles in the hopes that he would find the book he had been looking for.

  When Isabelle entered the library, he wasn’t surprised; he could feel her coming after all. That she did it by bursting through the doors was unexpected and he managed to knock half the books off the shelf he had just repopulated.

  “What does this mean?”

  She slammed a book down on the table, sending his papers fluttering, and glared at him like he’d done something inexcusable. When he saw the book’s title—the book he’d been searching for—he had a feeling he knew why.

  Letting out a long, deep sigh, he pulled the book to him and opened to the page that had been marked with a ribbon.

  He scrolled through his family tree there. Nothing was out of order. He let out another sigh when he saw that Isabelle’s name was nowhere in the long line of Velois offshoots.

  “Not that page.”

  She flipped through the book and opened to a page that had only three faces illustrated.

  A woman too otherworldly to be anything but a fairy—though her features were not as harsh as Agathina’s—was next to a man who wore a simple crown and looked undeniably like Isabelle, and she was beneath them, her face drawn in a perfect reflection of the woman who stood across from him now. Except that Isabelle was not smiling.

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means that your mother was a fairy.” He noted her name and flipped to the front of the book. “Luckily for you, she was a light fairy. It’s probably why creation and invention comes so easily to you.”

  “Those are not my parents.” She said glaring at the book as though it had insulted her. “My father was a merchant, my mother….”

  She sank to the bench and covered her mouth with her hand as her eyes searched for something Arthur wasn’t sure was there.

  He stood and strode to a cluttered shelf on the far wall from her. It had become disorganized in his search for the book she so easily found, but now that he had a different fairy tome to find, his search would not be so exhausting. He pulled the tome from the shelf easily and brought it back to her.

  “It may not have the answers you want, but it will probably tell you what you need to know.”

  She took it as though it would bite.

  Maynard jumped up and placed a paw on the page that showed Isabelle’s family tree. “Fairy texts fill themselves automatically. It’s another way they keep themselves tied to this realm.”

  “My mother… died of a lung ailment.”

  Arthur stood frozen while the cat padded over to her and knocked his head against the underside of her chin.

  “The book should answer your questions.”

  “Bryony and Heather both have it. I don’t… is that why?”

  She pulled the text to her and stared at it, seemingly afraid to open it.

  Isabelle’s eyes were locked on the table in front of her, eyes searching the woodgrain as though it held some answer to what she clearly thought was a trick of fate.

  “My grandmother was a dark fairy.” Arthur said, “She did something to make my grandfather take her as his queen, take her to bed. In some ways, that protected my parents from interference by any of the other fairies, but my blood is diluted. I am not strong enough to drive her away; I’m only strong enough to refuse her.”

  “Then why wouldn’t she wait for you to have a son? Further dilution would provide her with what she wants, wouldn’t it?”

  He shook his head and thought of how he could possibly explain. “It has to be me. Anyone more human than my generation wouldn’t accomplish her goal. My sister… well, women are less susceptible to fairy’s charms than men are.”

  Arthur sat beside her.

  “I don’t know how your magic thwarted hers and brought you here, but the light magic that flows through your veins is what makes the dark magic in mine call to you. It’s what makes it easy for us to… be what we are.”

  He shot Maynard a cold look when the cat laughed, and he went back to licking his paws.

  “I have a teakettle’s destruction to supervise. You should read the portion that relates to you now. You can read the rest later, but I’m certain you’d want to know. You can join us if you want, when you’re done.”

  He left her staring at the book, with Maynard pressed against her side.

  Carrying his mechanical counterpart to the teakettles back up the stairs was awkward, but it was easier than carrying the thing all the way down from the tower. And, Agathina didn’t know about this work room. As far as she knew, he spent his time locked in the library.

  He carried the mechanical creation past Isabelle, through the corridors and to the room in which Lord Cat Chaser and the Duke of Hasty Pudding had cloistered themselves.

  The number of incendiary devices at their feet was startling. He set down his metal man, noting how much smaller it was than the one he’d hidden from in the hallway, and moved to sit beside the boys.

  “We’re doing this so she can leave, aren’t we?” The Duke did not look up as he worked on stuffing a fuse into another little bomb.

  “She can’t stay; Agathina will kill her.”

  “And what is she going to do to you when she finds out?”

  “She won’t.”

  Neither of the boys looked like they believed him. He turned his focus to the pile in front of him. “This is more than enough. We need to pick our trap, find our bait and work out timing.”

  By the time they had everything figured out, Isabelle joined him. She stepped in front of him and peeked around the corner to where the boys waited.

  “Why here?”

  “There’s no carpet to catch on fire, it’s a little used hall so there shouldn’t be any chance of a second one showing up. Mostly, it’s close to the bomb stash.”

  “I can’t believe you let children make bombs all night.”

  “I was busy looking for a book you managed to stumble on.”

  She tensed. “Why?”

  “Because as soon as I knew you had fairy blood, I needed to know which fairy it was.”

  “There are not many of them left in our world and…”

  “And the Lonterra royalty are a little more interbred than they’d like to admit?”

  He nodded, and pulled her back as the first flash of copper glared from the far end of the hallway. Turning to their creation, he dropped down, and twisted the key in its back; springs and gears would power it long enough to do its job.

  The bombs went off with a great crack, and Arthur let his little mechanical man go. They both peeked out to the smoky hall and he held his breath, trying to see through. The only indication he had that his invention had worked was a bright flash of copper sparks.

  Within minutes, the boys had pulled the teakettle apart and they were left with nothing but the chest mechanism that drove its awkward body.

  “I guess it’s a good thing you made that many. We’ll need two more if they’re all this size.”

  *

  Lord Cat Chaser and the Duke of Hasty Pudding managed to get them two more mechanicals though the last was more difficult to trap. Isabelle had a long scratch on her arm from where she pulled the mechanism out of a broken teakettle, but for the first time in the weeks she’d been in the c
astle, she truly felt like she was going to find her way home.

  She sat at the workbench in his underground laboratory fixing the mechanisms to work together once placed inside. And by the time she was done and she’d helped Arthur put them inside the device’s body, it was well after she would normally have been in bed.

  Arthur stood close to her while he attached the scissors in place of the axe blade. Side by side, they would work more like a scythe than an axe, but as long as it did the trick, she didn’t care. Now that they’d attached a wide metal grate to plow through the underbrush, she was certain it could carve a big enough path for her to escape.

  Chewing on her nail, she watched Arthur work.

  She had obligations to her family—and she refused to believe they weren’t her family simply because a fairy’s book said something other than what she’d been brought up to believe. It was perfectly clear, and yet that little strand of hope and doubt wrapped itself around her heart. Leaving the castle meant leaving Arthur and potentially severing the connection that hummed in her veins.

  She couldn’t stay simply because of him. Biting her nail again, she wondered how many times she would have to tell herself that before she stopped weighing her options.

  Watching him check over the ugly contraption they’d just built, she decided she deserved a moment of selfishness.

  *

  Arthur put the last piece in and sealed up the contraption. He knew he should leave, distance was an important factor in his own willpower. But she was beside him, her hand tracing its way down his back.

  He turned, grabbing her hand and gently pushing her back. “I don’t want to hurt you again.”

  “You won’t.” She scowled at him when he shook his head, and fought with her skirts, lifting them up to show him. “All evidence of our last… encounter has disappeared.”

  She hadn’t worn underwear.

  He reached out and touched the smooth, unbroken skin of her thigh and shuddered as his own desire rolled through him. When he moved to pull his hand away, she caught him and held him there, looking directly in his eyes.