“Only one way to find out.”
Petra and Braith quickly made their way into the University, the somber halls quiet as they navigated through the empty workshops and up the stairs to the Guild offices, pausing at every slight sound, every flicker of light. If anyone caught them now, prevented them from delivering their evidence to the Royal Society . . . that would be the end of it. Her rebellion ended, once and for all.
Petra exhaled a deep breath, slowing her steps as they neared the end of the long hallway, the council room entrance flanked by two men in red uniforms. She stopped in the middle of the hall, a chill settling in the pit of her stomach as she eyed the heavy wooden doors.
This was it.
Everything she and Emmerich had worked for, every failure they had suffered in their fight against his father, every setback, every defeat—it all led to this moment, one last attempt to stop this war and finally make Julian pay for his crimes. She was more than aware that she could fail again, that even with her evidence, Julian might still come out of this unscathed, but she could not turn back now, even if it meant she might lose her life in the process.
She glanced at Braith beside her, glad he was on her side for this. She wasn’t sure she had the heart to do it on her own.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Not wasting another second, she strode up to the council room doors, Braith not a step behind.
The two guards intercepted them.
“We need to speak to the Royal Society,” she said. “Immediately.”
“No one is allowed to enter the council room while the Royal Society is in session,” said one of the guards, keeping his voice just above a whisper. “The Society is currently in the middle of a hearing, and—”
“I know,” she said. “That’s why we’re here. We have evidence.”
The guards exchanged a frown. “Evidence of what?”
“Regarding the failure of the quadrupeds at Amiens and Calais,” she said evenly. “So if you would just let us pass—”
“Not possible. The hearing is already in progress, and there are to be no interruptions to the proceedings, as dictated by—”
“You’re not listening to me,” she said, her voice rising. “I have evidence regarding the failure of the war machines in France, a failure leading to over six hundred men dead—soldiers, like you. I know the cause of the failure and the identities of the ones responsible. You will let us into that council room.”
“Any evidence you may have can be directed to the Royal Society after—”
“Damn it, man, do you not hear her?” said Braith, stepping forward. “If we do not deliver this evidence to the Royal Society—”
“My orders are clear,” said the soldier, arching his brow. “No one is to interrupt the hearing. For any reason.”
Braith squared his shoulders. “And whose orders are those?”
The soldier began to respond, but then the door cracked open behind him.
Braith’s hand twitched toward his pistol, and Petra’s heart leapt into her throat, not sure if she should stand her ground or run, when Yancy Lyndon stepped out into the hall.
“What the devil is going on out here?” he hissed, closing the door behind him with a heavy thud. “You had better—” He stopped when he saw her, and his mouth fell open.
“Hello, Yance,” she said, a wry smile on her lips.
“Petra?” He stepped past the two Royal Forces guards and walked up to her. “But you’re . . . you’re dead. The minister said—”
“He’s lying, Yancy. About all of it. I didn’t die at Amiens. I didn’t sabotage the quadrupeds. You know that as well as I do.”
“Petra, he’s in there now blaming you for everything, for sabotaging the quadruped army, causing the failure, saying you’re the one responsible for all the lives lost in France. He says he has evidence against you, testimony from Royal Forces soldiers, other engineers, claiming you are an anti-imperialist, a French spy planted here to steal Guild secrets and sabotage the British war effort. He—”
Petra reached forward and gripped him by the shoulders, startling him into silence. “That’s why we’re here. We have evidence to prove who was behind the massacre at Amiens. We need to present it to the Royal Society as quickly as possible. Is your father inside?”
Yancy nodded slowly. “He is, but—Petra, if you go in there, they’ll arrest you on the spot. The minister has everyone but the magistrate and my father convinced of your guilt.”
“That’s why I need your help—your father’s help,” she said, letting go of him. “We have evidence to suggest that Julian was involved in the attack, that he ordered the massacre of all those men. It wasn’t just the quadruped failure, Yancy. He bombed them. He is the one responsible for those deaths. Not me. You have to help me prove it. You have to help me bring him to justice. We can’t let him get away with this.”
He clenched his jaw. “All right. Let me get my father.”
Yancy turned his back on them, ignoring the two soldiers as he pushed through the doors into the council room. Petra dared take a few steps forward. She could hear the distinct sound of Vice-Chancellor Lyndon’s heavy, gravelly tones beyond, a sliver of light illuminating the council chambers through a crack in the door.
“—and we have reason to believe the failure was not a result of sabotage as the minister claims, but . . .” He trailed off, a heavy silence falling on the council chambers. “What? Are you certain?”
“What is the meaning of this interruption?” asked another man, a voice Petra didn’t recognize. “Lest I remind you, we are in the midst of a hearing.”
“My apologies, Magistrate,” said the vice-chancellor. “I have an urgent matter to attend to, relevant to the proceedings. If I may—”
“Vice-Chancellor, we are in the middle of a trial. You cannot—”
“I am well aware of the trial at hand,” he replied, his voice drawing nearer to the doors. “And I assure you, Magistrate, I would not leave if the matter were not of the utmost importance. This should only take a moment.”
“Sir, if you leave the council chambers now, you forfeit the floor.”
The vice-chancellor paused a moment, his shadow blocking the light from within the chambers. “Forgive me, Magistrate, but I believe you will make an exception upon my return.”
“Vice-Chancellor—”
But he was already pushing through the door and into the hallway.
The door shut soundly behind him, and he stopped in the middle of the hall, standing stock-still as his steely brown eyes met hers. “Petra?” He took a tentative step forward. “Is it really you?”
“Hello, Vice-Chancellor.”
“You’re alive,” he breathed, the tension melting from his shoulders in an instant.
“Seems that way.”
He stared at her a moment longer. “We thought you fell at Amiens. We thought you were dead. I—” He cleared his throat, a hard frown weighing on his brow as his gaze swept over her face and hair, taking in the state of her dirty, tattered clothes, stained with mud and soot and blood. “What happened to you? How did you get here?”
Petra glanced at Braith beside her. “We escaped,” she said, remembering the aftermath of the mortar attack in vivid clarity—the blood and death, the smell of it still in her clothes, everything burning, the world cloaked in ash. Her throat tightened, a shiver snaking down her spine. “We came as quickly as we could,” she said. “We need to speak to the Royal Society. We know what really happened at Amiens. The quadrupeds didn’t fall under French fire. It was Julian. All of it was Julian.” She swallowed hard. “We have to tell the Royal Society. Before it’s too late.”
Lyndon sobered a bit. “Yancy said you had evidence. Where? How?”
Petra reac
hed into her pocket and withdrew the lieutenant-general’s logbook, the rest of the letters and telegrams tucked inside its pages. She clutched the smooth leather cover, every piece of evidence she had against Julian contained in the tiny, nondescript journal.
“It’s here—all of it,” she said, holding tight to the little book. “Letters, telegrams, what little I could gather from the lieutenant-general’s office tying Julian to the attack. I don’t know if it’s enough to convict him, but . . .” She swallowed hard, a lump rising in her throat. “We have to try. He can’t be allowed to continue like this, not after what he did at Amiens. We have to stop him, Vice-Chancellor,” she said, meeting his hard gaze. “Today.”
Lyndon pressed his lips together with a weary sigh. “I know.”
“Then you’ll help me?”
“I promised you a long time ago that I would help you put an end to Julian’s conspiracy, and I meant it. Which is why I called the Royal Society here—to bring him to justice once and for all.”
“That was you?”
“When I heard what happened at Amiens, I knew I had waited long enough—and foolishly so.” He cleared his throat. “I thought you were dead,” he said, his gravelly voice breaking. “And I blamed myself for not acting sooner. Perhaps I might have saved you had I not been so cautious. Perhaps I might have saved them all.”
Voices sounded from within the council chambers, and Petra tensed at Julian’s familiar dulcet tones, the sound of his voice driving needles through her spine. She swallowed hard.
“We have a chance now to make it right,” she said, her chest tight. “We have a chance to stop him. We have to try.”
“And we will. Just wait here a moment. I’ll—”
“No.” She stepped forward, meeting Lyndon at the council room doors. “I’m done waiting. I’m done hiding. If we do this now, then I want to be the one to look him in the eye and tell him that he’s lost.”
Lyndon let out a heavy sigh and turned toward the door with a shake of his head, the sound of muffled conversation beyond. “You’re just like your mother,” he muttered, curling his fingers around the door handle. “Damn stubborn woman.”
CHAPTER 20
The council room doors opened wide, and Petra followed Lyndon inside. She paused at the threshold as she spotted Julian Goss in the center of the hall, his back to the doors as he argued with one of the men now presiding behind the council bench—five of them in all, their faces stern and lined with age. Sitting along the walls were a few familiar faces, some pledged to Julian’s cause—Fowler, Calligaris, a few of the more unsavory engineers she had met in her time at the University—and others more friendly. She recognized a few members of her engineering team sitting off to the side, Yancy among them, and beside him . . .
“Rupert . . .” she gasped, her feet carrying her forward before she could think otherwise.
Yancy nudged him in the arm and he glanced up as she approached. His eyes met hers, and half a second later, he was on his feet, hugging her close.
“We thought you were dead,” he whispered, breathing into her hair.
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
He laughed, drawing away to look at her again. There were tears in his eyes, and his hands shook on her shoulders, but the smile on his face was unbroken. “Never should have doubted you.”
“It’s good to see you,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
“Better to see you.”
Raised voices drew her attention back to the center of the room.
Julian glared up at the council bench, pointing accusingly at Lyndon. “Whatever evidence he claims to have is too late in coming. You cannot—”
“It is for me to decide whether his evidence is admissible or not,” said the man behind the bench, sitting where the vice-chancellor usually presided. “I will hear his claim and decide then if this new evidence of his is permissible. Now then . . .” He turned toward Lyndon. “Explain yourself. What is this new evidence of yours?”
Lyndon faced the bench. “It is with regard to the failure of the quadrupeds at Amiens, further evidence of the persons responsible for the deaths that—”
“We know who is responsible,” said Julian. “As I have already—”
“Yes, the young female engineer, as you have already claimed,” the magistrate interrupted, his voice firm. “But until you can provide substantial evidence to support your claims, your words are meaningless in my court. Nullius in verba, Minister . . . ‘On the word of no one.’ Evidence will determine our course of action, not hearsay.”
“You want evidence?” Julian went on. “There are nearly six hundred men dead, and more than a thousand inactive war machines now sitting on French soil, utterly destroyed because that girl—”
“You mean me?” Petra stepped forward, a fire raging in her chest. She clenched her hands into tight fists. “You want to blame me for their deaths? After what you did?”
“Petra . . .” Braith whispered, gently holding her back.
Julian’s shoulders tensed, and he turned, slowly at first, his face lit in profile as he glanced over his shoulder—the familiar line of his brow, the angle of his jaw highlighted by the electric sconces set into the walls.
She gritted her teeth and stepped forward, ignoring Braith’s warnings. “Answer me, you bastard. You want to blame me? Do it to my face.”
He turned toward her then, recognition flashing across his dark copper eyes in an instant. A muscle twitched in his jaw.
“What is the meaning of this?” asked the magistrate. “Who is this person?”
Lyndon stepped forward and cleared his throat. “This is the engineer—”
“Petra Wade,” she answered, breaking away from Julian’s fierce gaze. “The engineer who designed the quadruped.”
“Who sabotaged the quadruped,” said Julian, finding his voice. “This is the girl responsible for their failure, Magistrate. If not for the effects of her sabotage, the British soldiers now lying dead on foreign soil might have escaped that battlefield before the French launched their deadly attack against us. Those men died as a direct result—”
“They died because of you,” she said, raising her voice over his. “They didn’t die because the quadrupeds failed; it wasn’t the fault that led to their deaths. It was you.”
“You see the level of her delusion? To think that I—”
“It’s no delusion. The British army didn’t fall under French fire. They fell because he ordered it—disguising half the British fleet as French ships and bombing the battlefield to destroy both armies, killing what few survivors knew the truth. All to secure a war against France.”
The magistrate arched his brows. “That is a tall accusation.”
Julian clenched his jaw, his face reddening a shade. “It is hearsay,” he announced, turning away from Petra with a dismissive wave. “What would I have to gain from such a plot? This is preposterous, a fanciful invention to further her anti-imperialist agenda, a pale attempt to undermine the Society’s investigation. Miss Wade is the one responsible for the quadrupeds’ failure. She is a traitor to the empire, a known anti-imperialist conspirator and saboteur. We should be arresting her, not listening to whatever falsities she would attempt to have you believe.”
“I can prove it.” She withdrew the lieutenant-general’s logbook from her trouser pocket, the collection of telegrams and letters stashed inside. “I have evidence to suggest Julian was involved in the attack at Amiens, that he was in communication with the lieutenant-general, and that he knew the quadrupeds would fail before the British fleet ever left Hasguard.”
“What evidence would that be?” Julian sneered. “This is an absurdity! Nothing more than a desperate attempt to subvert the investigation at hand. Miss Wade is the one behind the failure of the quadrupeds. To entertain otherwise is a
waste of the court’s time.”
“I will be the one to decide that,” said the magistrate. “If she has evidence to support her claims, then I should like to review it.”
“To even consider these accusations is folly,” said Julian, his voice sharp. “She is nothing but a lying saboteur, and any evidence she claims to possess is a grotesque falsification, an inexcusable attack against my very character. If you think I shall stand here and allow her to spout such slanderous statements without recompense—”
“You will stand there, Minister, and if you wish to remain for the rest of our proceedings, you will do so quietly,” said the magistrate, his voice stern. “I will hear no more outbursts from you. I was brought here to investigate the failure of the quadruped army and bring any persons responsible to justice, and I intend to do my job. You have made your claims against Miss Wade very clear, and I have reviewed your statements regarding the quadruped failure quite thoroughly. Now I shall give Miss Wade the same consideration and judge the validity of her evidence myself. Is that understood?”
Julian gathered to his full height and glared up at the magistrate, sitting tall behind the council bench. “This is a mockery of British justice.”
“This is how things are done.” The magistrate leaned forward in his chair, folding his hands together under his chin. He regarded Petra with a measure of cold reservation. “Now, let’s start with your accusations. You say you have evidence of the minister’s involvement in the massacre at Amiens?”
“That’s right.”
“Let’s see it, then.”
Petra clutched the lieutenant-general’s logbook in her hand and stepped forward, approaching the magistrate and the council bench. Julian glowered at her, his jaw set in rigid determination, but he did not make any move to stop her. He couldn’t, not without incriminating himself further.
The magistrate regarded her coldly as he took the leather-bound journal from her outstretched hand. “This is everything?” he asked.
The Guild Conspiracy Page 30