by Tish Thawer
“Fill a few jars,” I said. “We’ll take them back to the shop. There’s work to be done. We have to prep the wards for the conservatory, and we only have until sunrise to finish them.”
The trek back may not have been any longer, but it was most assuredly more effort carrying a few large jugs of moonshine. Theodore had bound four of them together and stuffed them into a large sack. Almost every step he took, I worried that he was going to overbalance and tumble down the mountain. Or worse, break a jar.
Once we were back onto the relatively flat roads, the walk wasn’t nearly as strenuous. My boots thudded on the wooden walkway outside the shop, and I pulled the door open to let Theodore in first. He shuffled past, careful not to smack the doorframe with the load he was carrying. The door had barely closed behind me when the thunderous chimes announced our arrival.
Charlotte grimaced and raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll get to it,” I muttered, glancing back at the calamity of chimes.
“Of course you will.”
“Theodore knows about the aether,” I said.
“Well, it’s about time,” Charlotte said. “He does have a key to the store, after all.”
“He also ran the pond water through the still again,” I said.
Charlotte’s other eyebrow rose to join the first. “I confess I’m rather surprised to see both of you alive.”
“The batch is surprisingly good,” I said.
“You drank it?” Charlotte asked.
“It’s not like it’s the first time,” I said. “We’ve been swimming in that pond before, before we realized what was.”
“That wasn’t distilled into a concentrated form,” Charlotte said. “Lord above, that could have killed you both.”
Theodore slowly untied the satchel after setting it on the workbench. His gaze flicked between me and Charlotte, and I suspected he was wondering if it was safe to speak.
“We’re getting low on the vessels for aether,” Charlotte said. “I checked the safe upstairs, and it looks like we only have a few left.”
I grimaced before nodding. “The conservatory ward has to go up at daybreak. We should have enough vessels for the morning. Roman Bishop is going to draw everyone away from the conservatory. I’ll have those defenses installed whether the innkeeper’s agreed to it or not.”
“What are the defenses?” Theodore asked.
“My great-grandmother used to call them wards,” Charlotte said. “Protection against the Unseelie fae.” She glanced at me. “I assume we’re telling him everything at this point?”
I nodded. I didn’t really see a point in keeping anything else from Theodore. If he was going to live as a human among the monsters, he needed to understand.
He needed to be ready.
Chapter 4
“Why is Roman Bishop going to help you with this?” Charlotte asked. “The Bishop boys have never seemed very fond of you.”
I harrumphed.
“What have you gotten us into?”
“Nothing. I took Roman up on his offer to distribute our moonshine. That’s it.” I patted one of the jugs on the workbench. “And he’s planning on selling this new aether brand at a premium. We may yet get out from under that banker.”
Charlotte frowned, her lips just barely turning down at the edges. She was considering my words, and probably weighing the benefits of working with the Bishops against the weight of our debts. It was much the same argument I’d had in my own head.
“So be it.” She nodded. “We need to do something.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “It’s why I said yes.”
Charlotte sighed.
“So what exactly are we doing tonight?” Theodore asked as he walked back into the room. He’d left for a short while after I’d told him it had been his girlfriend, Betsy, who had designed the wards. “And what do we need to do at the conservatory in the morning?”
A slow smile spread across my lips.
I exchanged a glance with Charlotte. Something that I’d truly come to enjoy about being in a relationship as long as we had been was that much communication could occur in just that glance. I couldn’t really explain it, whether it was the tilt of the eyes, or the body position of the other person, but it was like we could carry on entire conversations without speaking a word.
I wanted to be sure she agreed with telling Theodore everything, and when she blinked once, slowly, I knew she did.
I turned my attention back to Theodore. “This place is a haven for people, and creatures, that are different from much of the world. And while most of the folks here may be the peaceful sort, we all have histories.”
“What do you mean by histories?” Theodore asked. “I mean, we’ve all known some bad people . . .”
“These aren’t just bad people,” Charlotte said. “Settlers are going missing.”
Theodore frowned slightly. He’d heard the rumors, stories of some of the stranger creatures that had been sighted around the town. People still liked to share stories around the campfire, even when those tales had more truth in them than the listeners may have known.
“There are Unseelie fae nearby.” I let the words hang in the air, waiting for Theodore’s reaction.
Theodore frowned. “What can we do?”
“Fae can die if exposed to iron,” I said.
“Is that what we’re doing at the conservatory?” Theodore asked. “Ironwork?”
I shook my head. Charlotte held up one of the aether vessels. “You’ve seen these before.”
Theodore nodded.
“Gregory has designed them to work as a power source. And they can power a great many things.”
“Combined with iron and wards, it makes for an effective defense against the Unseelie fae. That’s what we’re setting up in the conservatory. I think we can shield the entire town with three strategically placed wards. The inn, the saloon, and the meeting hall.”
Charlotte glanced at me and frowned. “But we have concerns. The wards are fae wards, and if the fae themselves can be poisoned by iron, I worry what might happen. Will the iron cancel out their magic, or render it too weak to be useful? We’ll test it tomorrow.”
I studied Theodore for a short time. “We won’t know until we try. It’s better than anything we have right now. Charlotte can provide an amulet to the innkeeper that will offer protection to even an Unseelie fae should they choose.”
Charlotte nodded. “You might want to call Betsy over for dinner. We have a lot of work to do tonight.”
Betsy was one of those strange people who loved to cook. She had her hair pulled up into a braid that didn’t look so different from Charlotte’s, other than its jet black color. I’d suspected Betsy was something more than human the first time I’d met her, as even Charlotte had commented on her ethereal beauty. But it was also the only reason I could come up with as to why in the world she would be running around with Theodore, a brash young man most would consider far less attractive than Betsy.
“Disgusting,” Charlotte said, eyeing the giggling couple as they worked on installing a handful of our smallest vessels.
“We used to be like that,” I said.
Charlotte harrumphed. “Maybe in your head,” she muttered.
“Maybe.”
I scraped up the last bittersweet bread from my plate before picking up everyone else’s dishes and taking them to the wash bucket in the back. It was more of a trough, I supposed, just a bit cleaner than what you’d let the horses drink out of. I let the small stack of dishes clink to the bottom where, if I was being honest, they’d probably soak for several hours.
My boots thudded on the hardwood floors as I made my way back to the workbench and settled in beside Charlotte. She was putting the finishing touches on one of her intricate gift boxes, more or less a bribe for the Petrans, the owners of the inn, for letting us work in the conservatory. For a moment, I didn’t focus on my work; I just watched Charlotte. She moved with the deft motions of someone who had practice
d their art for a very long time. There was no uncertainty as she slid fragile bits of wood into a baffling alignment that would only open when someone inserted one of the aether pendants, or broke the box open entirely. She fiddled with the lid and tightened the ratio on the wooden gears used to withdraw the locking bars.
“Pass me that pendant, would you,” Charlotte said, “if you’re just going to stare?”
I smiled and slid the slightly luminescent pendant closer to her. Her fingertips brushing mine, she took the locket and placed it on top of the puzzle box. The faint glow of the trapped aether etched its way across the box until the polished crystal she’d inlaid in the wood burst into life, and the mechanism inside clicked. The faintest echo of wood sliding across wood preceded the lid of the box slowly creeping open. Charlotte smiled at her handiwork, and I shook my head.
“That’s a fine gift,” I said. “Are you sure you want to give it away? I don’t know if we have the finer?”
“There will always be more boxes. I think more might sell with the aether pendants. It’s attractive.”
“I’d certainly buy one,” Betsy said. “My mother loved puzzle boxes.”
“We can take a small one,” Theodore said. “Leave it on her grave?”
Betsy gave him a smile and patted his shoulder.
I pulled the spring-loaded lever off the shelf behind the workbench. It had a long empty space in the middle, almost like a lathe that I would use to turn wood, but this was something quite different. Once the lever was securely mounted to the workbench, I pulled one of the folded iron plates out from the hidden drawer beneath the workbench. Some tinkers I’d known would go so far as to create hidden panels all across their shop, but I generally found that hiding something under the table was good enough.
The plate itself was mounted to a cylinder, and when its twelve sections were folded together, it looked like little more than the head of a walking cane. An unbalanced and perhaps ugly cane, but a cane nonetheless.
I pulled the lever, which struck the mechanism at the center of the pole, causing the plate to fan out and the small receptacle to become exposed. I slid one of the aether vessels into the pipe, not so unlike loading a bullet into a rifle. Once it was seated, I released the lever and let the plate slap closed once more.
“Are you bringing that one?” Theodore asked. “It looks like the ones you use in the automata, just bigger.”
I shook my head. “It’s similar, but it’s not the same. This one will fit into the pipes that run along the conservatory. You remember the broken pipe you pointed out last week?”
Theodore nodded.
I pulled the cylinder off the lever and held it up. “This will fill that gap, and the aether will flow through the ward etched into this plate.”
“You really think that gadget will power a ward?” Betsy asked.
I nodded.
“Where in the world did you get a fae ward?” Betsy asked. “Those aren’t exactly common knowledge. Although, not so uncommon around here, I suppose.”
I blinked at her. She’d given it to us. Was this a less-than-subtle way of telling us not to tell Theodore? I glanced between the two.
“Yes, I know she gave you the ward,” Theodore said, exasperated. He turned to Betsy. “Is this really the time for more mischief?”
She grinned at him.
“It’s not active when it’s collapsed,” I said, returning my attention to the ward. “Only when we install it will it activate.”
“These aren’t weapons,” Charlotte said. She eyed Theodore for a moment. “They won’t defend you from what’s out there. You’ve seen them. Around the still, near the old mine.”
Theodore nodded. “The man of shadows.”
“So dramatic,” Betsy said.
Chapter 5
It took more effort to keep our work clean as the night wore on. We needed precision in the assembly to allow the wards to work. When Theodore’s head started to fall forward and his grip became loose on the ward he was working on, Betsy snatched the ironwork away.
My gaze may have been a bit too sharp, as she gave me an odd look.
Betsy glanced at Theodore, and then back to me. “Did you expect it to burn me?”
I blinked at the question.
“You’ve been good to Theodore,” Charlotte said. “You’ve been good to us. There is no quarrel here, only the insatiable curiosity of a tinker.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I can tell she’s keeping secrets.”
Betsy grinned. She glanced at Theodore, who was now half bent over on the workbench and snoring. “I like this town, and I like the people that have come here. I want no harm done to them.”
I ran my finger across the rune etched in one of the plates that formed the ward. “You must like us if you’ve offered your family’s magic.”
Betsy didn’t respond. She only offered a small smile, then elbowed Theodore to wake him up. He woke with a start, almost falling sideways off his chair before Betsy caught him.
“What did I miss?” Theodore asked before releasing a wide yawn.
“Wordplay and shenanigans,” Charlotte said. “The usual nonsense.”
“Are you still playing this game, Gregory?” Theodore asked, eyeing me.
The question rankled. “It’s not a game, boy. It’s simply a concern for Betsy’s well-being, and ours. Fae magicks can be quite dangerous, to both the user and the target.”
“You could be a politician with words so smooth as that,” Betsy said.
“No, he couldn’t,” Charlotte said.
I snapped the last pole out of the levering mechanism and studied the panel on the back. Theodore had done the metalwork on parts of this one. The grooves fit together perfectly, so no man, or creature, could fit so much as a hair into the grooves to pry open the aether chamber.
“It’s good work,” I said. “Damn good work.”
“I think were done,” Charlotte said. “Let’s get packed up and ready to go.”
“How many do we need for the morning?” Theodore asked. He gestured at the array of five plates and columns.
“We’re only installing one,” Charlotte said. “But take them all, in case we have issues when we try to install it.”
“All of them?” Betsy asked. “Doesn’t that seem a little excessive?”
“No,” I said. “Charlotte’s right. We haven’t tested this on a structure as large as the inn and the conservatory.”
Betsy nodded, apparently agreeing with the thought to some degree.
I looked at the clock on the wall, a mass of exposed gears and springs. We had about two hours before daylight. “If you want to, you’re welcome to rest here. Or we can rendezvous in the morning.”
“There’s plenty of room in the guest room upstairs,” Charlotte said.
“Let’s just stay here,” Theodore said. Betsy wrapped her arm around his and nodded.
“Until the morning then,” I said.
“You’re being too hard on that girl,” Charlotte said, her voice barely above a whisper. “She has done nothing to us. She has done nothing to our friends. If she was a threat, we would’ve seen some semblance of it by now. No creature is so patient as to sit among their prey for a year.”
“But—”
“No,” Charlotte said. “You approach everything as if it’s a threat. And sometimes you’re right. But you’ve also alienated some of our greatest friends, and befriended some of our greatest enemies. And I think it’s made you paranoid, Gregory. Theodore is a smart boy. I’m telling you, we should trust her until we see different.”
“She touched the iron tonight,” I said.
“Yes,” Charlotte said. “She’s clearly not an Unseelie fae sent to infiltrate our clock shop.”
I harrumphed, but the sheer level of sarcasm in Charlotte’s words made me cringe.
“I’m not saying you need to apologize,” Charlotte said. “All I’m saying is you could be a little more subtle in your suspicions. Not everyone is out to get you
. No matter how much you deserve it,” she added with a small laugh.
I grumbled and pressed a small button on the side of my end table. A mechanism inside started to turn, and the old woven cable that led up to the suspended lanterns above us slowly closed and snuffed the light with an old iron half sphere.
“That sounds a little squeaky,” Charlotte said. She elbowed me in the ribs.
“Woman. You’ll be the death of me.” I rolled closer and snaked my hand across her waist. She settled in next to me, and I kissed her, lightly at first, until she responded.
A moment later, she pulled away and cracked one eye open. “Don’t even think about it. Two hours of sleep is barely enough as it is.”
“We’re too old for this,” I said with a small laugh.
Our short sleep came and went far too quickly. It felt as though I had barely closed my eyes, barely drifted off, before the gentle buzz on my nightstand grew into the dull calamitous roar of my bell alarm clock. It didn’t take much to get dressed, as we hadn’t really bothered to get into night clothes. Changing into something soft and warm sounded much more appealing at that moment than trudging our way across the square to the conservatory.
“Get a move on, then,” Charlotte said. “You can put some coffee in that contraption of yours.”
I nodded and started down the stairs with heavy, sleepy footsteps, surprised when I reached the bottom and found Theodore and Betsy waiting for us at the workbench. They almost looked chipper, which I found unusually irritating.
Theodore slid a mug of coffee toward me, and Betsy clinked the copper vacuum flask down beside it. “No time for breakfast. Let’s go.”
“There’s always time for breakfast,” Charlotte said. She pulled the basket off the counter behind her workbench and held out a scone she’d made the day before. You could almost say there was an art to eating leftover scones. They tended to turn into rocks, but if you soaked it in coffee or tea for just a moment, it made for a quick and easy snack.
I frowned at the small sea of crumbs the scone left in my mug before dumping everything into the copper vacuum flask. Charlotte took a few sips of coffee and added hers to the thermos as well. I figured that would be enough to get us through the morning.