by Liv Olteano
Before I could decide what made her so immeasurably interesting, time trickled forward and swallowed up the moment. Nana rushed me into the carriage and shoved the closed parasol into my lap while climbing in. The guards must’ve joined the carriage driver because we shot into motion, golem horses running fast. The girl’s screams echoed through my head. I stuffed my hands against my ears and pushed as hard as I could. If I pushed hard enough, perhaps the memories of the frantic screams would spill out of my head.
Silence filled the carriage as I focused on the mysterious stranger’s image. I fixed my gaze on my beautiful flowery lace gloves. My thoughts rushed. She was a welcome distraction, a much-needed one, in fact.
The mercies gave me a sense of joy because I was useful in alleviating some torment. But that joy came with yet greater pain and a deeper sense of loss—of my loss. With each new soul that passed away before my eyes, the weight of my mother’s death became harder and harder to bear. Sometimes dark ideas formed in my head, ideas about calling Death for me. It would be cowardice. It would be terrible to deny the withering victims the kind of help I could and dared to give. That was the one thought that used to keep me going. Father’s death—no, his murder—fueled me now too. I lived for the day when that favor could be returned to Edgar Verner. Because a lady had to live for something, didn’t she? And what else did I have left?
Nana sighed. “I just don’t get why you do this to yourself.”
Gaze fixed on the oval window of the carriage, I shook my head. It took a couple of seconds to summon my voice. “The oldest memory I have is of my mother being horribly tortured by the pain of withering for two whole days. I wished she’d die so her torment would end already. Then I remember the skewed expression on her corpse. Those tormented by this sickness, Nana, they die in anguish and despair. You can read that all over their faces after they spew out their last breath. Nobody should die like that. Their loved ones shouldn’t be stuck with that memory. If there’s anything I can do about it, I will. I must.”
She fidgeted, petrol skirts rustling. “They all appreciate it at the time. They sure do. And then, later on, they say you walk hand in hand with Death and avoid you.”
Unless they were unfortunate enough to need my help again, that was. When they did they had no problem at all in seeking me out.
The corners of my lips pulled upward. “Do they? Perhaps it’s a good plan after all.”
After a frustrated groan, Nana decided to change tactics. “Speaking of plans, you’re due for tea with Miss Valerie Sanders this evening.”
Sweet ink and needles, no. Valerie’s company was too much of a punishment regardless of the crime.
“You’ll let her know I’m indisposed when we get there.”
“No, no, Miss. A young lady needs to… mingle.”
“You must truly hate me,” I mumbled. “No caring human being would subject someone to the horror of Valerie’s company.”
She snorted. “The mayor subjects his son to her company—quite enthusiastically, might I add.”
“I said ‘caring human being,’ Nana. The mayor is neither of those things.”
She grinned but said nothing more. We both knew with crystal clarity I had no chance of being part of the right social circles unless I “mingled.” People in the right social circles were never in danger of being harvested or having their houses broken into. The right social circle never once suffered any form of violence or harm. Keeping friendly with Valerie meant I was part of the right circle. It was all a great marionette play set on a disgusting stage. I had to spend time with the marionettes and save face, but I didn’t have to like it.
“Oh, all right. Tell our esteemed guards we’re visiting Valerie Sanders,” I grumbled.
Chapter 4
ONE, TWO, three. I stirred the tea, smiling as the drops dissolved. Valerie Sanders must not attend the reaper’s ball a couple of days away. How was I supposed to snoop around his lair if Valerie tagged along on my every move? And with that insufferable Mathew Naraku in tow too. There was only so much a lady could put up with.
The good part of suffering the company of Valerie Sanders was my house, staff, and my person were safer. The unfortunate part was, of course, I had to suffer her presence—particularly in public. If I wanted to snoop around the reaper’s home at the upcoming ball, I couldn’t have her and her fiancée tailing me. But I couldn’t attend any social function they were attending as well and not be seen in their company. It would be taken to mean I had fallen out of their favor. I couldn’t afford that, not after all the efforts I’d put into being part of Valerie’s circle. My solution? Making sure Valerie didn’t attend this particular ball.
I set the teacup back onto the coffee table and patted my fluffy black skirts into submission, then puffed up my hair. I’d dripped enough laxative solution into her tea to keep her in the bathroom for a couple of days, more or less. And she would feel faint for a day or so more after that. A loose strand of regret tugged at my heart as she entered the room all smiles. Perhaps it was too much laxative, perhaps….
“You’re such a lovely thing to look upon, Cristina Mera. Pity you carry yourself around like death incarnate, truly.”
Her pink lips twitched into a self-satisfied grin of the ugliest kind. I hated this marionette and her entourage, and I hated Verner for the thousandth time that day for being alive. None of this charade would be necessary if it weren’t for him.
“A soul is collected almost every moment. Someone should mourn all this death. Besides, we can’t all glitter and hook our claws into the mayor’s son, now can we?” I quipped.
He was a boring and dreadful young man, though significantly more sufferable than his father. Valerie would fit right into her new family.
She beamed, the pride radiating from her almost frying up my eyeballs. Obviously sarcasm wasn’t a shade in Valerie’s glitter.
“He’s a lovely, handsome man, I know. We’re a beautiful couple. Mayor Naraku said so himself.”
Yes, Mayor Naraku would think so. The height of beauty for him was a big pile of unconscious bodies, defenseless and damned for the Galleries.
I watched with glee as my host sipped her tea. Valerie closed her eyes and blew out a puff of air. For a moment I panicked. Did her tea taste strange? Could she tell? But she relaxed into a soft smile and my worries dissolved.
She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “Adrian Lacorte thinks you’re lovely, you know? But Mathew set him straight. You’re Stanislaw Herveux’s fiancée. We can’t have silly boys fawn over you and walk straight into their terminations, can we?”
I wanted Lacorte’s attention about as much as I wanted a festering limb. And I wanted to be Herveux’s fiancée about half as much. I plastered on another synth-like smile and ripped all feelings out of my heart as Valerie took another sip of tea. This was a state I slipped into more and more easily, detaching my mind from my body as if leaving it behind, and life with it. From that void space, everything looked lively and pretty, souls made out of blotches of colors and light. I liked the view from there better. But the thought of Valerie staying home for a few days made me plop back into the moment, a devious little smile replacing the synth-like one.
“Yes, well. Lovely tea, isn’t it?” I asked, smiling.
“Jefferson makes it extra sweet, just the way I like it. So tell me, how is the courting going? The senator is so… mature. Charming, of course.”
Weren’t they all, as far as Valerie was concerned.
“Of course. It’s going… uhm, steadily.”
A fact that devastated me. My father had pretty much herded me into this ordeal. No matter how I tried to make the case the senator was as appealing as chickenpox, he’d hear no reason. Either I’d go along with the engagement or he’d cut off my funds entirely. If he did that, I would soon become a victim of the engines, as fundless people tended to. So I got engaged, hoping the senator would expire before the actual wedding.
Of course, with synth body
parts and bribes, he was very much alive and seemed stubbornly set on staying that way. And once caught up in that kind of contractual horror, I had no way of getting back out. Engagements were as official as weddings, and repercussions for spurning a fiancé were severe. Especially when that someone was a senator. You needed to present a jury with reasonable motive to break an engagement, and should they agree, wait for their ruling before actually ending it so you’d be safe from repercussions. If you broke off without going through that process, it was considered a crime upon someone’s honor—just like adultery. Such mistakes were just as bad as crimes upon their body—punishable by termination. Our senators liked to keep the town tidy and well-behaved, or as I called it, well terrorized. Living in New Bayou was a particularly lucrative business if you were part of the right circles, and boy, did we take good care of our “right circles.” Other citizens were the greater part of the floating fuel material. Them, criminals, and volunteers like my father had been.
At this point getting rid of the senator wasn’t possible. He wasn’t worth losing my life over. I could go with the apprentice plan… but rushing into that kind of life-altering decision wouldn’t be wise either.
Changelings were as nonhuman to the town as alkemists. Though alkemists ruled their own hovering platforms and were treated as royalty by their citizens, they were strange creatures who kept the alkemic mechanisms running, maintained the ranks of soulless golems, kept the floating engines fueled, and built synth parts the town needed and used but despised. Publicly becoming one of them was a major decision that would forever alter the course of my life. I’d have no chance at a regular marriage, no human family, most likely, and quite possibly no real friends. It also meant I’d either have to build my own platform or inherit Verner’s when he built himself a new one. I didn’t want to lose my home, but I certainly didn’t want to become the resident alkemist of New Bayou either, the new alkemist monster who had to kill.
And even if Verner’s guess was wrong and I turned out to not be a changeling after all, the town wouldn’t forget. I’d never be fully human again in anyone’s eyes, though they already thoroughly debated whether I was human in the first place. My mercies certainly made me unique. And there wasn’t anyone in particular I fancied, but what if I did one day? I breathed in deeply, as much as the corset allowed. I was most likely doomed to put up with the toad senator’s attention for a while longer.
“Cristina Mera, are you listening to me?”
I shrugged. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
“Does he approve of this whole morbid aura of yours?”
Brainless doll. Two months ago my “morbid aura” served the dying Mr. Sanders well, but now that was a memory Valerie seemed to prefer forgotten.
I watched her take another sip of tea. “Who should approve of it?”
“The senator, of course.”
“Why would I care about what he thinks?”
She scrunched her pretty blonde eyebrows. “Sometimes you seem to enjoy going against everything it means to be a proper lady.”
I shook my head. “The horror of it, truly. The horror!”
Valerie’s face paled. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m not feeling well all of a sudden. Let’s do tea sometime next week, shall we?”
May you choke on it. “It would be my pleasure.”
After collecting Nana in the foyer, we left the Sanders residence. Outside, flanked by guards, Nana inspected me as I put on my gloves and shook my parasol, still grinning.
“I take it Miss Sanders won’t be seeing us out this evening?”
“She seems to be rather indisposed. Nothing serious, I’m sure. Pity she’ll miss Verner’s ball a few nights away, though. Such a pity.”
The guards exchanged a look. I entered the carriage, Nana following.
Wise eyes jumped all over my face, and she furrowed her gray brows. “Are you sure she’ll miss it, Miss?”
“Quite. That laxative you brought me from the apothecary? It’ll keep her company on the night of the ball. It might actually make for better company than Mathew.”
“You plan to snoop around Verner’s home, don’t you? Maybe it would be more prudent to have Valerie there, Miss. On your own you might attract more of his attention.”
I shrugged. “I’ve watched him at his social functions, Nana. He endeavors to spend time with each guest, get the proper adulation from all parts. If I’m in a party of three, then that’s three times the attention.”
“What do you think you’ll find in his home, anyway? Not like the creature keeps a dagger with a ‘This kills me’ note attached.”
I chuckled. “I suppose he doesn’t. But you learn a lot more about a person through what they keep hidden than what you can see. Any news on meeting that alkemist friend of yours?”
She frowned. “She’s not my friend. Jean is arranging it in our name. It’s not just a meeting with her that we need to obtain, but her interest in helping us. Jean will make a valid case, and we’ll add to it in person when we meet.”
I nodded. “Never hurts to have more than one strong argument, does it?”
Jean…. I suspected more than simple friendship there, but Nana would sooner eat knives than admit such intimate information. I’d tried to pull the secret from her and failed miserably each time. I also suspected she was more involved with the marauders than she led me to believe, but I respected her privacy. More forced than by choice, but all the same, I respected it. Marauders were the only ones taking action against those heinous harvesters. Every now and then after spying and poking around, they’d take out a batch of harvesters. New ones sprouted, of course, but then the marauders took out a few more and so on. It was a vicious circle, but some sort of momentary solution was better than none at all.
The downside, of course, was the souls of the killed harvesters weren’t processed into float fuel for the engines. Their bodies weren’t used as golems for the Galleries either. So others would have to supply the raw soul material and golem-to-be bodies in their place. New Bayou was a strange beast that devoured itself without dying. The idea sent chills up my spine. In the perpetual night of our world, everything looked sinister under the alkemic lights. And by candlelight, no matter how bright, it was harder and harder to tell what was wrong and was right. Nothing was simple or clear; nothing was easy. Not even death. Especially not death.
Outside the carriage beautiful gothic buildings lined up on both sides of the street. The shadows of a world without sun played over New Bayou. In the emptiness outside of hovertowns, the ruined world was covered in layers of dust, disease, and desolation entombed in permanent darkness. The notion of it beneath alkemy-powered hovering towns, fake worlds full of fake lives, seeped into my very soul and festered there. Our way of life was penance, I thought, punishment for our ancestors having destroyed the proper world. Now we were all paying for their crimes.
I refused to be one of many who’d be consumed. I wouldn’t be a nameless, faceless carrier of prime float fuel material or a golem body momentarily occupied. New Bayou would remember me, and perhaps it might remember itself too. Edgar Verner would be a thing of the past—he had to be. Any new resident alkemist had to be better than him. That was the only chance this hovertown and its citizens had. And I’d make sure we’d get that chance, even if it was the last thing I did. Without that goal I would have no chance. And I couldn’t bear being alive for nothing, not while I was kept alive through the deaths of so many.
Chapter 5
THINGS WENT from bad to worse the following week. It wasn’t enough to be visited by the vile reaper on the evening of Father’s murder. Now on the third gloomy morning since, I received the dubious pleasure of a visit from New Bayou’s liquidator, Natalia Alexeevna.
Shivers ran down my spine as we settled in the drawing room with our cups of tea. Alexeevna’s blue eyes sliced through me as I sipped. Lush crimson skirts contrasted with the light-brown color of her skin. The corset hugged her tightly, pressing her chest into th
e perfectly flat plane that was so en vogue. Without inspecting her from closer than it was polite to, there was no way to guess how much of her body was purely synthetic. Rumor had it she was basically a sapient, speaking golem. Synth skin didn’t quite crinkle like natural, it didn’t crease and lump at the joints. Did her skin crinkle? I couldn’t tell—she wore full sleeves and her dress was long, as was our fashion. I kept imagining secret compartments in Natalia’s arm popping open to reveal weapons, but she looked like a perfect lady. That was perhaps the most terrifying part.
She was a high-end commodity in the New Bayou society, the official bounty hunter. A culprit could enjoy a fast track to termination as soon as the courts acknowledged their crime. And Natalia would procure said criminal if they chose to hide or run. And she was in my drawing room now. I was inhaling too deeply. The corset squished my lungs almost closed.
“Lovely to be here, Cristina Mera. This is just a friendly visit, you see,” Natalia said in monotone.
Oh, I saw all right. Because we were such close friends. It was the first time we’d met, and I had no desire to do an encore, even if this meeting had nothing to do with my desires to begin with.
I plastered on my synth-like smile and inclined my head. “Lovely to have you. To what do I owe the… surprising pleasure, though?”
Glacial almost-white eyes saw straight through me, or at least it felt that way. I exhaled a gush of air.
Natalia smirked behind her teacup, something wicked and positively improper dancing in her eyes as her fingertip circled the frail edge of the plate in her lap. “I understand you’re about to become a prominent member of New Bayou society. Of any society, in fact.”