Riveted

by Brook, Meljean

  David frowned. Why wouldn’t he be all right? Rutted snow and chopped ice wouldn’t trip him up. But he bit back his irritated response. The man had probably been trying to be courteous, not condescending.

  Though cold, the wind wasn’t nearly so bitter as it was aboard the airship. Dooley caught his gaze as he stepped out of the steamcoach. The older man wore a tight smile. David hadn’t spent much time with Komlan on this journey, but his friend had often visited with the man the first few days. Midweek, David had noticed Dooley begging off from further visits, pleading work that had to be finished before they arrived in Iceland. Obviously he wanted to like the other Irishman, but was having a hard time of it.

  Hopefully the survey they’d receive would be worth the time spent at this dinner. Of course, if not for this supper, he’d likely be haunting the airship’s main decks, hoping to see Annika.

  Moping. Brooding.

  Any supper had to be better than hours of that.

  David stomped the snow off his boots and followed the others inside. Whatever money di Fiore had made back from the laborers, not much of it had gone into furnishing this house. Though well-appointed, nothing in the front parlor seemed overly grand or ostentatious, but could have come from Dooley’s own house—though his house could have also fit into this one several times over.

  The man who rose from the sofa and greeted them wasn’t much older than David, with finely tailored clothes and a neatly trimmed beard. Well kept, but not soft. He looked the sort who might traipse alongside them on a jungle expedition, hacking away at undergrowth. His gaze rested an extra second on David’s hand and eyepiece, then came back for another look when Komlan made introductions.

  “Lorenzo di Fiore, and here I’ve brought Patrick Dooley and David Kentewess from the Scientific Society in New Leiden.”

  A shaggy wolfhound sleeping in front of a fire trotted across the parlor to greet Komlan and immediately stole Dooley’s attention. Di Fiore’s gaze sharpened on David.

  “Kentewess? Are you acquainted with Stone Kentewess?”

  “My father,” David said.

  “And so you are the one who lost his legs.” He looked David over again. “You seem to have done well enough despite that. It’s incredible how technology aids us.”

  He’d done well enough? Undoubtedly. But his legs weren’t the only thing he’d lost, and technology sure as hell hadn’t helped his mother.

  Courtesy, David reminded himself. Di Fiore likely had no idea. As his father had often reminded him, every man had a choice: feed that which makes you happy, or feed that which makes you rage. David wasn’t certain what Lorenzo di Fiore had chosen, but he seemed to have done well enough, too.

  David always chose that which pleased him—and his life did please him. Still, it was an effort to say, “Yes.”

  Di Fiore must have realized his misstep. “Not that it was easy, of course. You must still feel the effects of that disaster. I do, too. It seems we are forever visited by the sins of our fathers, however good their intentions. And how is your father?”

  “Dead.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. My father said he was a clever machinist.”

  “He was.”

  “Your father once sent mine a letter, forgiving him and praising him for attempting to create good in this world, because so few men ever did. That letter meant very much to my father, so much that it was one of the few things he took with him from the insanitarium. Have you ever been inside one?”

  An insanitarium? “No.”

  “Pray that you never are. I read that letter during one of my few visits. I’d spent many years wishing that I was someone else’s son—my mother changed her name to escape the stares and the hateful accusations—but your father’s words made me understand, for the first time, what a great mind my father had, the importance of what he’d tried to do, and the tragedy of locking him away in that place. I vowed that I’d get him out, and dedicated the next decade to seeing him freed.”

  A tragedy to lock him away? Thanks to di Fiore, thousands of others had suffered a different sort of tragedy. But there were few things David despised more than conversations where the participants tried to outdo each other by comparing woes and suffering. Perhaps the man had paid enough for it. That wasn’t for David to say.

  But he perfectly understood being driven by a promise. “It appears you succeeded.”

  “Too late, perhaps.” Di Fiore was silent for a moment, then clapped his hands together. The effort he made to lighten the mood made his smile appear as if fishhooks had been caught in the corners of his mouth and given a tug. “Let us go on up and eat, shall we? The dining room is on the second floor. Can you manage the stairs, Kentewess?”

  Goddamn it. He knew the man only meant to be thoughtful, but if David needed help, he’d bludging well ask for it. His gritted teeth prevented every response but a nod.

  Dooley clapped him on the shoulder before preceding him up. Yes, his friend had seen this before. Too often, after someone learned of his legs, it was all that they saw in him, all that they thought about, and took a full pendulum swing away from ignoring the prosthetics’ existence. Instead, they became overly concerned, coddling him before every move. All well intended, but by God, even good intentions could rub a man raw and threaten to emasculate him.

  At least it gave him a good account of Lorenzo di Fiore’s sincerity. The man had just said that David had done well despite losing his limbs, and had gone on about the wonders of technology. Now he was asking whether David could climb stairs. Apparently, di Fiore’s “done well” had been little more than stroking David on, a bit of flattery and condescension toward a man he thought not truly capable.

  David took his time climbing the stairs—why not, at this point?—breathing deep, pushing away his resentment. His father had possessed a talent for saying exactly what a man needed to hear, and David thought of that now. More than once, he’d reminded David that a man wasn’t made by what happened to him, but how he responded to those events.

  Anger wouldn’t serve him now. Explaining rarely did, either; he knew that too well.

  David had once broken an engagement over a flight of stairs. Emily had been so sweet, so pretty, one of the most sought-after girls in their town—and she’d told him that she didn’t mind his injuries. David, barely past eighteen, and who’d lived for years on the outside of society, always outside, had fallen quickly in love. Though he’d been embarrassed by some of the unnecessary help she’d given him, her concern, he’d ached for it, too—the attention she bestowed so willingly. He’d longed for every gentle kiss she gave to his scars, the tears she’d wept while she wished for each drop to heal him.

  Everyone said that she was an angel, loving him despite his mangled face. They didn’t talk so loudly about the sacrifice she was making, but everyone knew what had been left unspoken.

  David’s father had warned him. She’d confused loving him with loving her role as a savior. He’d confused loving her with being grateful that someone would touch him without disgust, like a starving man who falls upon the first ear of corn he finds, though it is withered, without looking farther into the field to see if there are any better to have.

  His father had spoken the truth. But hunger was also a fine seasoning, making even the driest food seem succulent. David had been determinedly happy, willing to make the best of every shortcoming…until they’d begun talking about moving into her family home, and she’d refused to change the stairs to a ramp for his cart to climb. Her family was wealthy, she’d reminded him; it would be nothing to hire someone to carry him up the stairs. Why change it to accommodate his cart? It was only one flight, and he used his rolling chair inside the house. What difference did it make whether he got into the chair himself or someone placed him there? She wanted to make his life as easy as possible; after all, he’d already suffered so much.

  David discovered that he wasn’t so hungry, then.

  Emily had accused him of letting his pride stand
in the way. She wasn’t wrong. He’d seen the decades stretching ahead of him—every day that she would tell him not to tire himself. That she would say there was no reason to get out of bed. She would do everything for him, take care of him. He’d understood then that she’d loved him for what he couldn’t do, not what he could.

  David would have rather given her up than his pride. So he had.

  There would always be the Emilys who kissed him out of pity, the women who flinched away in disgust. There would always be those with good intentions. It made David more grateful for rare men like Dooley, who took him as he was—and for women like Annika, who seemed to.

  No wonder the thought of losing all contact with her cut him so deeply. No wonder the thought of discovering that she might pity him or flinch away frightened him so much.

  Di Fiore’s opinion, however, didn’t matter a bit.

  Though not shed of his foul mood, David had calmed by the time he reached the dining room. Landscapes adorned the painted blue walls, but they couldn’t compete with the view. Large windows overlooked the frozen lake, the snow pinkened by the setting sun. Mountains rose in the distance, basalt peaks created by an endless tumult beneath the surface, and endlessly worn down by the elements above. Incredible. David lingered at the window before taking his chair.

  The table could seat a party twice their size, but was simply made. David had expected fancier decorations, given Komlan’s fashionable clothing and expensive jewelry. If this was all di Fiore’s doing, however, the man apparently had modest tastes.

  Sitting, di Fiore loosened his neckcloth, removed his jacket, and withdrew a pipe from his pocket. He regarded David across the table. “Komlan tells me you’re a vulcanologist?”

  “Yes.”

  “And does that pay you well?”

  The humor in his tone said that he knew it didn’t. Dooley’s laugh confirmed it. “We’re paid well enough to go on expeditions, but not quite enough to live on at home. Which is why we keep going. Wouldn’t you say so, Kentewess?”

  That wasn’t David’s only reason, but he saw no reason to share it here. “Yes.”

  Di Fiore nodded and gave him a shrewd look. “The company could use a vulcanologist. I’m not the mind my father is, but I’m determined to help him see his hopes for this island come to fruition. The potential here is…”

  He trailed off, shaking his head.

  “Astonishing,” Komlan supplied.

  “Yes. Everyone in the New World is using coal to heat their boilers, but the earth itself can do the same here—but without the smoke, without breathing in air that turns a man’s lungs black. Imagine, providing heat and hot water to every home in Smoke Cove. With enough steam, with the proper turbines, we could electrify the town. Lights in every home, without needing to burn oil. I can hardly imagine it, but my father has already drawn up the schematics. He knows the mechanics of it…but I also need a man familiar with volcanic forces, who understands how that all works.”

  “Oh, and I see why you’ve brought us here, Komlan. You’ll be stealing my partner away from me?”

  Di Fiore smiled faintly in response to Dooley’s good-natured grumble, but remained focused on David. “I’d offer any amount of money, but since you became a man of science, you obviously aren’t driven by the hope of making a fortune. But we could create something great here. We could wipe clean the dirt from our fathers’ names.”

  Dooley frowned. “Your father, Kentewess?”

  “He was the head machinist on Inoka Mountain.” And he’d never forgiven himself for helping to build that device, even though he’d forgiven Paolo di Fiore for inventing it.

  “Think on it,” di Fiore said. “I need a man like you.”

  The work did sound fascinating. More than that, it would allow David to remain on the island after the survey had been completed.

  He’d be employed by Paolo di Fiore, though. David felt no anger toward the man but couldn’t see himself working for him—and he’d never believed that Stone Kentewess’s name needed to be cleaned.

  “Thank you for the offer, but I can’t. We have a survey to complete.”

  “I’m sure the society can find another vulcanologist.”

  “True,” David said. “As can you.”

  Di Fiore conceded that with a nod. “Yes, I could. But I put great stock in destiny, Mr. Kentewess. It can be no accident you’re here at the very moment I need you.”

  It was no accident that David was here, but not for this. He was here for his mother—and he preferred to make his own destiny. But he could see that di Fiore wouldn’t take “no” as an answer now.

  “I’ll think on it,” he said.

  Di Fiore’s lips tugged back in that fishhook smile again. “That’s all I ask.”

  Despite the increase in population, there weren’t many more boats in the harbor than usual—and only one other airship, a small ferry cruiser. As soon as the men were out of the cargo hold and their supplies unloaded, the docks quieted.

  Annika waited until the steamcoach carrying David was out of sight before loading a hired sled with her own goods and trudging to the general store, swearing all the way. Unlike the port cities in the New World, there weren’t any carts to run her down, but the streets were frozen into ruts of mud and snow. In Hannasvik, this would never be allowed. She’d have taken out her troll and smashed them flat.

  After fifty yards of straining against the sled harness, the inside of her heavy coat steamed like a swamp. She hoped everyone at home appreciated this.

  Captain Ylvasdottor wasn’t the only one who supplied their village with goods from outside. Annika often picked up items on request, or things that she believed her people could use or enjoy.

  She also bought far too much fabric to keep aboard Phatéon. Though Vashon allowed her some space in the cargo hold, it was hardly enough for four years’ worth of purchases. Annika regularly sent the extra bolts of material home, where the women could use it—or put it aside until she returned.

  All of it would be put aside in the general store until spring, anyway, when someone from Hannasvik would come to collect it; until then, Valdís Annasdottor would keep it for her.

  Much like Captain Ylvasdottor, Valdís hadn’t thought Hannasvik was big enough for her, and had struck out for the New World fifty years ago. When the ship she’d left on was captured by pirates, she’d taken a decade-long detour around the world before finally reaching the American shores—captain of her own ship, mother to two boys, and with a cargo hold full of silks and gold. Ten years later, she’d returned to Iceland, this time with a cargo hold full of dry goods. She’d set up the general store in Smoke Cove—the first in the community—and lived in the quarters above the shop ever since.

  As a girl, Annika had grown up with tales of Valdís’s adventures…and had been as terrified of the woman as she had been fascinated. One look into the woman’s steely eyes, and it had been all too easy to imagine her striding across the deck of a storm-tossed ship, dagger clenched between her teeth and blood staining her sword. It had been easy to imagine her hunting down the marauders who’d murdered the father of her sons, ripping their tongues from their mouths while they pled for their lives. It was easy to imagine her seducing a Horde governor, and laughing as she sailed away with the treasures he’d bestowed upon her.

  It wouldn’t have surprised anyone who knew Annika that whenever she and Källa had reenacted those adventures as children, Källa had been Valdís, and Annika the cowardly foe.

  After four years away and meeting with Valdís on every visit to Smoke Cove, however, Annika was more terrified by the woman’s thinning frame, and by the cough that had settled into her chest the previous winter and never completely left. Valdís still had fire in her, and plenty of it—but Annika wished that she had more than two hours to spend.

  She left her cart at the door and entered the store. The warm, familiar odor of surturbrand squeezed at her heart. The fibrous brown coal produced more smoke than the black, but the
woody scent reminded her of home.

  Smiling, Annika unbuckled her jacket. Two women examined the case of books on the back wall. Like the harbor and the streets, the general store wasn’t as busy as Annika expected—and to her surprise, the shelves were almost empty, too. Valdís stood behind her counter, her iron-gray braid dangling over her shoulder, wearing the bright green tunic and trousers that Annika had sewn for her.

  Annika opened her mouth to call out a greeting when the identity of those two women struck her. Long blond braids. Homespun trousers. A lavender blue tunic that she’d sent to Hannasvik last spring, because it had matched her friend’s eyes.

  “Lisbet?”

  Lisbet whipped around, her blue eyes widening. Orange freckles dotted her pale cheeks, and had once been scattered across her nose until she’d lost it in a wild dog attack. Now a silver nose covered the cavity, finely shaped by Lisbet’s blacksmith mother.

  Laughing, Annika raced across the store and jumped into Lisbet’s arms. Her best friend, the closest she’d ever come to having a lover—until they’d both realized that they’d drifted into a pair because it was easy rather than because they wanted each other. Still, the kissing had been nice while it lasted.

  In any case, Lisbet had fallen in love with someone else. She drew back, happiness lighting her entire face. “Any news of Källa?”

  “No. I’m sorry.” Annika couldn’t bear the way her expression fell. She looked to Lisbet’s mother, Camille—the elder whom Källa had fought with before her exile. In appearance, she was a softer, shorter version of her daughter. “Greetings, Aunt.”