“James, please,” she hissed, hoping it would not end in fisticuffs or a duel. Not yet anyway. Right now she wanted to handle this her way. Besides, if Charles still wanted her for a wife there was no better time than the present to show him what he was in for, if he married her.
At James’s question, the slightest hint of a smile passed over Charles’s face. “Only the devil knows.”
With such an unexpected answer, James opened his mouth then shut it, thoroughly confused at Charles’s response.
Berd suspected illness the reason for all the pain he had put her through in the last couple of days. She had so many questions, but the most important ‘how to ask the one she loved why he was pretending he had stopped loving her’ could not be phrased aloud. She doubted he would even answer if she did.
They stood quizzing silently into each other’s eyes, unanswered questions raging to and fro before James threw his hand in the air.
“Blast it! Blast it! And poppycock! I don’t need to hear any more. I’ll be outside the door. You have full five minutes. Make good use of it.” Then he glared at Charles as if to warn him he would have his guts for sausages for any wrong doing before stomping out.
She tilted her chin at Charles. “I can see from whom Gine learnt so much.”
At her attack, Charles’s brows twitched then he was cold stone once more. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“You invited me,” she accused.
His eyes were the frozen blue of the tundra. “I wanted you to know, it wasn’t Gine but me. I, who was doing all of this to you.”
Her heart wrenched.
Gine had torn her in two; Charles was doing the exact same thing. Only Gine had been kinder–
Gine kinder than Charles? But it made sense.
Charles was the master. The creator. Gine had learnt from him.
She gasped as the lay of the land became blindingly clear. Armed with this valuable knowledge she could now orientate herself. She no longer needed a guide.
She knew the land.
She had thought to win the battle with Gine by thinking like a programmer, by thinking logically.
However, instead of fighting the program, she was fighting the programmer. But though the enemy had changed, she could still win. She tapped one finger against her lower lip, pretending she was musing aloud and that Charles wasn’t right in front of her. Sure she was irking him. Glad she was irking him. “You have never lied to me. I believe you’re not lying to me now.”
Surprise flickered in his eyes before he answered, “Correct.”
“Good,” she said, thankful she knew him well enough. He wasn’t lying. He still loved her. He was Charles. Her knight in shining armour. He had come, albeit reluctantly, to her rescue when she had called. He always had. He always would, if he could, which made it clear he was sacrificing himself for her right now.
Good thing he was in such a sacrificial mood, because it made her plan easier. Time to put it in action.
“James!” she screamed as though Charles was attacking her.
Even before she heard James scramble for the door, she swung her parasol, aiming for Charles’s left arm, the uninjured arm. She was surprised to see him raise instead his right arm, using it to shield himself from her blow.
Her parasol slammed into his wrist. The ring of metal resonating across the room as it promptly broke in two, gave her the answer, even as her brother hurtled towards her.
Metal! Charles had a metal arm. That was not possible unless he was wearing armour like a knight. Or because of the energy! But gauntlets could not fit inside leather gloves. And she had not thought it possible that Charles could use the energy to change his appearance.
When Charles flushed in agonised embarrassment, she knew something was seriously wrong. He wrenched her parasol away from her, as she reached out and grasped hold tightly of his arm as a beige object blurred past her.
She released Charles’s arm just as James flung himself on him. When the two men rolled together on the ground, there was nothing else for it, but to turn and run, to use the time, the distraction, she had so painfully engineered in order to delve deeper into the mansion. She raced past the stairs, past the open doors, her trail of breadcrumbs the lines and gouge marks of the statuary.
But now she knew! She had seen the shame sinking in Charles’s eyes. Only she had not believed such a thing possible.
The hideous truth had been under her fingertips. For in her grip she had felt not the bulky joints of armour, but the smooth, feel of his arm. Instead of muscle, she had grasped steel.
Charles was turning to metal.
The horror of his fate threatened to engulf her. She stumbled for half-a-dozen steps before her footsteps steadied.
One thought carried her through.
Find the Engine.
Find it even if it meant being swallowed up once more.
When the floors changed from marble to linoleum, she knew she was at the back of the house, in the section where the servants lived and where the kitchens and scullery lay. No one came to stop her though.
She could not tell if James and Charles still fought, for with each step she took, the hum increased in intensity.
Deeper, darker and more intense.
Pray James kept Charles occupied long enough for her to find the Engine. She should have guessed what was happening as soon as she had seen Charles. She had always thought it Gine who was the clever one.
But it was Charles who had programmed him.
Charles.
It wasn’t Gine alone who came up with the reasons for attracting and distracting her. He had simply been made in his creator’s image. At the time, Charles had meant it physically, but of course it passed on to being mentally like him as well.
One of the reasons as to why Charles had not wanted to marry her was clear now. However, knowing Charles, there would not be one reason but three. She had learnt the hard way from Gine.
Berd stumbled upon the door that led out to the back garden, turned the knob and pushed the door open—
Sound blasted in her face, frizzing her hair as the stink of scorching traced fingers against her brow. Her teeth vibrated in her mouth and there was a warm wetness trailing from her nose to her lips. Blood.
Dotted about the overgrown lawn of the Fotheringay back garden was not merely the statuary but also furniture. All arranged in some sort of pattern. As she made her way past the statues she understood the cipher. A simple pattern: concentric circles. The centre was the door of the stables and the inner circles of the circle were mostly empty...
She deciphered the message. The hidden code. She was proven right when as she strode towards the door, a statue-Pan playing his hornpipes-blinked out of sight.
Charles was using the statues and furniture to gauge the range of Gine’s power as Gine grew in ability.
The stable doors opened.
She gritted her teeth and continued forward as waves of sleepiness overcame her. Everything around her blurred...
Charles. I love Charles.
Charles, who was turning to steel.
Pain in her chest intensified. It was all her fault.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I AM NOT leaving. I love you, Charles.
Heat flowed through Berd’s body, steaming her alive as waves of sleepiness overcame her.
It must all have been a dream.
A hint of lavender teased her nostrils and she sneezed. Lavender … so painfully familiar … lavender and the room in the book stack. Hope trickled through her and she shook her head, fighting sleepiness.
If she was dreaming then maybe she had never returned home, maybe Charles still carried her...
She shivered and forced her eyes open. “Charles?”
She was back! Back in the book stack. Back in the little blue room. Back in Charles’s arms!
She wept as she snuggled against his steel chest. It was akin to embracing a rock, except now she knew why. Even the chrysanthemum in his buttonh
ole was frozen. Charles must have been at the end of his strength when he carried her. Gine had pumped Charles full of energy and something had gone wrong...
The agony in her chest tightened. She ran her fingers through his jet hair then over his poor frozen face. Snow-white crystals had formed like miniature diamonds on the tips of his lashes and brows. She remembered how in some other life her strangled cry had echoed about the room as cold water swelled up and enveloped her.
Only now there was no water. The panels in the walls were back in place. The door of the elevator was closed and faint white light, as if from hidden daybreak, poured from the cornices of the room.
She massaged her throat, trying to understand what had happened and her palm slid over brocade instead of silk. She stared down at peacock green in place of mauve. Gone were her torn and ripped blouse and pants. Like Charles, they were both attired in the same garments they wore at the Fotheringay mansion. Even his hair was clipped... Either she had really returned or this was this some trick of Gine’s.
“Charles, please, please, come back to me.”
His skin was ice-blue. His lips blistered and peeled. She knew that if she kissed him she would likely tear her lips on the jagged surface.
She closed her eyes and pressed her mouth onto his. His lips had the texture of frozen custard skin...
Still she hung on, unsure if this was what she was supposed to be doing. In all the fairy tales she had read, it had always been the prince who did the kissing.
The air grew heavy with the sound of rushing water. Its song pressed upon ears. After a minute, she drew back, unable to feel her lips. If only she knew how to kiss.
Then terrified that drawing back might mean losing him, she pressed down again harder, trying to fill the contours of his lips with hers, banish his cold with her warmth. Unmoving, she waited. Oh, why had she always refused to kiss him before!
She kissed him, again and again and again. The sound of her empty kisses echoed about the room, reminders of failure. Finally, in exhaustion, she pulled back. Or tried to. She was stuck.
Kissing Charles was like kissing a frozen lamppost in the depth of winter. She tried to force her tongue through, to wet enough of the surface so she could escape.
Slowly, ever so slowly her lips began to pull away only…
His moved. His lips moved!
She felt the butterfly flicker of lashes against her cheeks as his eyes opened. So close she was cross-eyed. And then it was no longer her unmoving lips, but his and hers, both moving.
All she heard was water as it pattered down the walls around her. She knew now she could pull apart only she didn’t.
She was finally kissing him. And he was kissing her back.
Charles’s pupils widened and narrowed and as he focused and saw her, actually saw her, he came back to life with a jerk, his body swayed, collapsed and then they were on the ground, laughing.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” they both cried out as they tried to grasp onto and support the other.
Even as they stared at one another, each was leaning forward again only before their lips met, the ground shuddered as if twenty cannons had fired close by.
“What’s happening?” Berd called out as Charles yanked her up.
With the elevator door shut, it was impossible to see outside. As soon as she was on her feet, he called out, “Wait here,” then released her and hurtled alone towards the elevator.
The sod was going to leave her behind! She raced after him.
Charles turned his head, saw she had followed and groaned. “Please.” Worry shone in his eyes.
“No!”
The book stack rattled. She lost her footing. Charles caught her before she fell, but this time instead of demanding she remain, he pulled her inside the elevator as the door slid open.
She was sure they had destroyed the stack’s energy source. “How is this possibl—”
“Down!” he hissed, dragging her onto the floor.
Outside the landscape had darkened as if dusk, and neither golden sky nor green-enamelled ground could be seen. They were suspended in a calm cylinder of ginger-scented air. But something had caused the stack to shake.
A mile away, sparks of red light glistened to the left.
“He’s started.” Charles’s voice was grim as he stabbed the button with the number ‘24’ on it.
The door closed. No need to explain who ‘he’ was. Or ‘it’.
Thunder boomed in her ears. The stack rattled, the glass walls shook. Blue bursts followed to the right. She cupped her ears to stop the pain, squeezed her stomach tight as her whole body shook with the next waves of sound.
They were the target.
Once she had suspected Gine of injuring her so she would be forced to partake of the energy. Now she wouldn’t put it past him to injure Charles, just so he could pump him full of energy. While Charles had programmed Gine to always save his life, Gine was under no obligation not to kill her.
Between each explosion, a heavy silence pressed like a weight on her chest: a silence more terrifying than the explosions. She had thought at first that it was the explosions she had to fear, but quickly learnt otherwise. It was in that gap of silence, in that interval when she had no knowledge as to whether she would be hit the next second; of being alive or dead; of where the next impact would occur; of the end of onslaught. It was in that long moment she learnt who she was.
Nothing. For all her pride and accomplishments, her wealth and intelligence, in the end she was simply a sack of bones.
Silence, the great leveller, was more frightening than sound.
“Are you all right?” Charles demanded as the ground rocked violently. Something titanic, hidden inside, was erupting.
Her head ducked up. “How’s the elevator working?”
Charles pushed her head down protectively. “Why wouldn’t it be working?”
“I thought we destroyed this book stack.”
“Gine has a lot of energy at his disposal. He’s been repairing himself.”
Repairing himself.
Thanks to the energy she had brought in with her, Gine now had a physical form. He had his own two hands. And he could enter the stack. This explained why all the panels were intact. But a machine that could repair itself meant that Gine was becoming more and more invincible by the minute. She had to find out how and from where this energy was coming.
By now it was so bright that she would have believed Charles if he told her they were nearing the sun. Even on the ride there was evidence of Gine’s growing power. The elevator reached the top in less than a minute.
The low-ceilinged, dome-shaped room they entered was walled in steel panels, riveted together and lit by hidden lights secreted in the cornices. In the centre rose a copper chair, fronted by a quarter-circle panel filled with controls and what looked suspiciously like a steering wheel. The stink of paraffin and motor oil filled her nostrils.
Charles settled himself in the chair and flicked switches. Banks of ruby lights flashed as the stack’s engine restarted. Part of the walls and the roof slid open, giving them a view of half a circumference. Cold air caused her skin to tighten, goose pimpling her arms and legs. It was either that or fear.
Showers of green, blue and red light bloomed, brightening the sky as the explosions tore the air apart. Gigantic dying flowers. Their touch poison. Their scent gunpowder. Even in all this danger, her breath caught at their ethereal beauty.
Thunder exploded, ripping the sky in shock waves, blowing the locks of her hair off her shoulders. Mist peppered her face. She shivered, feeling she was a wishbone wrestled between the hands of giants.
She was actually in battle.
Even when she was on the last carriage on the train she had been indoors. Here she was exposed to the elements, several stories high, and a target.
“Berd!” Charles swivelled to face her. “When the stack starts up, talking will be difficult. I want to apologise. I know I promised not to kiss—”
He gave her a tiny, proud smile then pumped a pedal. “Ready?” he called out.
She barely heard him over the roaring of the stack. She nodded and gripped onto the back of his chair.
“Hang on.” He released a lever and the book stack rattled, shook and staggered forward. Headlights lit up the ground in front of them like twin tallow eyes in the dark.
“Beats walking,” he laughed into her ears. “At least I did something right.”
He was blaming himself for Gine. “How can you see?”
He pushed on into the darkness for a while before he answered. “Can’t. Half-speed. London fog. Helped.” As if the memory cheered him, he halted and gave her a lofty grin.
It reminded her once more of the god she had first met. She grinned back.
“Watch,” he instructed as the stack ploughed on again.
It appeared that he was expecting to give her a chance to operate the stack. Charles never explained where they were going. He didn’t need to, because there was but one logical target. Gine was becoming too powerful, therefore he had to be destroyed, and the only way to do so was to strike at his heart and brain. Its soul.
The Mill.
The stack’s headlight caught on some object that glimmered back, not like polished glass but a dull brown. Charles swung the headlights in a 180-degree arc, searching.
A line of about twenty copper book stacks blockaded their path, resembling naval vessels in formation as they prepared for battle, but otherwise the enamel-green landscape was clear.
She gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on the back of his steel chair. She didn’t have to wait long to find out how would Charles handle the situation.
Charles pressed his foot to the floor. Their stack sped up.
She gasped. He was going to crash into them! She buried her forehead into the curve of his neck and shoulder as she waited for the impact, held her breath, looking up barely in time to see their stack crashing through the centre of the copper perimeter. Smashing into them broadside.
On impact the shock waves of a hundred cannons firing exploded in her head. Sound vanished as if her ears had popped multiple times. Her mouth opened, but she heard nothing. Everything appeared to freeze. Even heavy bits of metal that had flown up in the air looked inexplicably as light as eiderdown. Then sound flew back into her ears as the world burst, returning, throbbing painfully into life. Metal debris crashed around them, pounding the landscape like cannon balls.
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