The Tremblers

by Raquel Byrnes

  “Agreed,” Ashton said and his hand went to Lizzie’s shoulder. “And thank you, Lizzie. For keeping me out of trouble once more.”

  Lizzie’s expression softened and she nodded, going back to the control panel.

  Ashton turned, nodded at me. “You better have a seat, Miss Blackburn.”

  “Ash is right,” Lizzie said. “The Stygian is a prize ship, but we’re sure to hit turbulence as we rise.” She walked the length of the cabin, pulling down shades over the windows and dimming the gas lamps. “I’m sure I’m not the only one who spotted the firefly signal.”

  Despite my shaking knees, I stood my ground. “Not until you tell me what is going on. You two seem to be deciding my fate without my consent.”

  Lizzie raised a brow, but joined Ashton, taking control of the wheel.

  “You’ll want to hang on,” Ashton said quietly. He slipped his hand into a leather loop riveted to the wall above his shoulder.

  “I’ll be fine—” The great vessel banked, rising in an arc that sent waves of nausea through me. I grabbed at the back of a booth seat, stomach roiling with the sudden weightlessness. “I think I’ll sit.”

  Ashton lifted a single dark brow but said nothing. Instead he turned to the control panel, his elegant fingers adjusting dials and sliding levers as he muttered to Lizzie.

  She nodded, her shoulders relaxing.

  Now that we were moving, worry pricked me. Getting to Collodin would be doubly difficult from the sky.

  “Might I lie down?” I asked, my hand going to my stomach. “For a moment?”

  Lizzie pointed down the corridor, not looking away from the console. “Down there.”

  Rising, I made my way to the hall and pushed through the first door. The small observation room afforded a single wingback chair and table. I locked the door and sank into the seat, my bodice too tight, head swimming. I shook as I pulled the window shade down, adjusted a small gas lamp’s flame, and pulled the journal from its hiding place. I held the small leather-bound book in my palm. A delicate chain snaked around it, the silver pocket watch catching the light. My father’s. I flipped it open, took in the small picture of my mother inside the lid, and a groan moved through me. Unwinding the chain, I held up the timepiece staring at the face and noting the time was not correct. Frowning at the dual knobs I did not know which to turn. I had never seen a watch with two knobs before. There did not appear to be a secondary hand for it to control. Lifting the timepiece to my ear I realized it had stopped. Confused, I peered at the blank pages of the book.

  “What is this, Papa?” Countless questions swirled in my mind. Why did my father go to Pennsylvania those last few days? What did he do? Why would he strive to secure a journal with nothing in it? The image of his desperate worry flashed behind my eyes and I couldn’t help the tears that burned down my cheeks. Burying my face in my hands, I tried to slow my frantic breaths. I cradled the cool metal of the watch in my hand, holding it to my temple. Footsteps just outside the door made me pause.

  “Are you all right, Miss Blackburn?” Ashton’s voice sounded muffled.

  “I’m…yes.” I tucked the timepiece into my bodice, pulled my opera glasses from the hidden pocket in my gown, and slipped the journal in their place. “One moment.” I wiped my eyes and unlocked the door, letting him in. He seemed to tower over me all the more in the small space. A wave of hair fell over his eyes and he hitched it back with a shrug.

  “May we speak?” His formal tone struck me as cautious and I wondered if he’d heard me crying.

  “Yes.”

  He nodded to the chair and I sat as he leaned against the window, his arms crossed. “Lizzie is risking a lot to get you to safety.”

  Ashton regarded me expectantly, but I didn’t answer. Holding his gaze, I tried to remain calm. “You want me to apologize for shouting?” I strove to keep the defensiveness from my voice.

  “No.” He shook his head. “I want you to understand.”

  “Are you sympathetic to her…cause?” I tried to find the right words. “The violence alone—”

  “I believe we are ultimately after the same thing,” he cut across me.

  “Sedition?” I goaded him, frustrated. “Treachery?”

  “Truth.”

  “Truth?” Now I felt truly perplexed. “About what?”

  “Lizzie and her, traitors, as you put it, believe the government has overstepped their bounds.”

  “By restoring order?” I shook my head. “How can that be?”

  Ashton moved, squatting down to eye level. “Do you know how the soldiers gained access to your home so easily?”

  I blinked, stunned. I had not even considered it. “No…”

  “They have ‘All Keys,’” he explained. “They are a mechanism that allows them entrance into any home, any building, by virtue of engineering they alone possess.”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” I said and still the explanation seemed truthful. The alarms my father set did go off. The gates and door were locked and yet they’d entered almost without notice.

  “That is the point, Miss Blackburn,” Ashton continued. “The Union Security Bureau does not just protect. They monitor and record and invade our sanctuaries in the name of The Peaceful Union and the Governors. Those who disagree, that help those who disagree, are acted against.”

  “Like my father.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Like your father. He discovered something they very much want to remain hidden.”

  “The monsters,” I said. “What they are? What caused them to be, that way?”

  “I am not sure,” he admitted. “I only know that your father discovered something he feared would get him killed.”

  I thought about the man who broke his own body against my carriage…how he flailed and moaned…and I shuddered. “Do you know him well, my father?”

  “He is the closest thing to a friend one could have in a time like this,” Ashton said, echoing my father’s words from earlier.

  “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

  “I only meant—”

  “D—did my father send you an aether missive tonight? Is that why you came?”

  “No,” Ashton answered. “I told you. I have not heard from your father in some time.”

  “Oh.” My spirits fell.

  “Is there something you are not telling me, Miss Blackburn?” I considered him, debating. If my father did not trust The Order, could it be that he at least trusted Ashton? And if he did, why tell me to go to Collodin? I thought about Cornelius’s threats to the serving girl at the ball. He’d said something about rumors about her activities. He’d accused her of treachery and threatened expulsion from the safety of the dome for passing a note…no…for the mere suspicion of passing a note. I hesitated, and then pulled the book from my gown.

  “My father gave me this,” I said quietly and handed the journal over.

  Ashton rocked back on his heels, his gaze going from the book to me and back again.

  “Thank you,” he said and took it carefully. “For trusting me.”

  “I don’t,” I said. “It’s blank. I don’t know what else to do but show it to you. I thought it would have answers.” I held up the pocket watch. “And this. I haven’t the slightest idea why. It does not even keep time. A blank book and a broken watch. I don’t understand any of this.”

  “Did your father give you instructions?”

  “He mentioned a man. Signore Collodin, a tinkerer. Do you know him?”

  “No.” The puzzled look on his face did not inspire.

  “My father told me to get the book to Collodin, but I don’t know where he is.”

  “He said Collodin, not The Order?”

  “No, he never mentioned anyone but the tinkerer.”

  “I see.” Ashton flipped through the pages. I noticed a bracelet chain on his wrist; dark metal, it was held together with a single silver link. Unfamiliar writing etched a word across the surface. It reminded me vaguely of jail bon
ds. Dull and functional, yet he wore it like jewelry. He caught my gaze. “May I look at your father’s book more closely? While you rest?”

  Unsure, I nodded after a moment. “There’s nothing there.”

  “Things aren’t always as they seem at first glance.” He rose, heading to the door. “Get some rest.” He left without another word.

  I sat in the chair staring at the door, reeling.

  Doing what is right is never out of place.

  I thought about Ashton’s words, my heart ramming. I hoped with all my might that I’d done the right thing.

  8

  Liquid bubbled gently in the glass flask suspended above the flame. Behind my father’s hunched form, tubes snaked into decanters and looped over beakers that hissed and steamed with colorful fluid. He sat at his workbench, the smell of his laboratory always so mysterious to me despite it being on the third floor of our home. I stood just inside the door with my new notebook clutched in sweaty palms, the scratch of his handwriting the only other sound in the quiet room. He shifted on his work stool, a creak sounding as he turned to wink at me over his shoulder.

  “Ready for your first lesson, Charlie?”

  “Yes, Papa.” I shuffled in the room, unsure of where to stand. The first time I’d ever been allowed on this floor and I stood like a dumbfounded statue.

  “Come, sit.” He tapped the stool next to him.

  Hurrying over, I climb up, aware of a faint taste in the air. Fragrant and sweet, it reminded me of jasmine my mother used to grow. I folded my hands in my lap, waiting as he adjusted a burner flame and jotted down a note. He must have caught the look on my face because he paused, his bushy brows furrowed. “I thought you wanted to learn, Charlie?”

  “I do, Papa,” I assured him. So excited that I was finally allowed entrance to his inner sanctum, I fidgeted in my seat, conflicted. “But Aunt Sadie says girls do not need chemistry. Not like we need French or drawing. She and I had a tiff just now.”

  He nodded, running his palm over his graying beard. “Perhaps that was correct before the quakes, but the world is different now. We are all different now.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. My mother’s death only two years ago still felt fresh, raw. I struggled every day to remember the exact color of her eyes or how her laugh sounded. I wasn’t sure I wanted any more change. In fact, I often wished for things to go back to what they were. Though our home was nearly repaired, evidence of the quakes was still evident in the fissures splitting the plaster overhead. Glancing around at the whirling apparatuses, simmering concoctions, and glinting glass of my father’s laboratory, I felt overwhelmed and swallowed hard. Maybe my aunt was right. I seemed out of place here. “Papa…perhaps—”

  “Your painting the other day,” my father said, pulling a tray with small vials filled with clear liquids in front of us. “You wanted the ocean?”

  I nodded, eyes filling. My attempt at a shore scene, one remembered from my younger years, had frustrated me to tears. “I could not get the water right. Mama loved the sea.”

  Handing me a pair of laboratory goggles, he poured one vial into the other and mixed the two liquids with a glass wand. The most brilliant cerulean hue swirled forth from the clear fusion. My mouth fell open.

  “And the garden. The one your mother so loved to read in, do you remember it?” He took a third vial, pulled the stopper and handed it to me. The scent drifted out, and in a flash the memory of her warm skin against my cheek rocked through me and tugged tears to my eyes.

  “Lavender and rose,” I whispered. “How—”

  “Chemistry is the poetry of the universe, Charlie. It harbors the secrets of love and life, death and wonder.”

  “But I thought it was electricity, the great machines that Mr. Tesla—”

  “They are just the workhorses,” my father chuckled. “But this is ethereal, a fundamental truth. Fire, the heat that powers those machines, that is a chemical reaction.”

  Pouring a fine powder onto my palm, he blew it toward the flame. It ignited in a shimmering cloud that fell to the table like fairy dust. I gasped with awe, marveling at the magic my father understood.

  “I want to be a poet of the universe,” I whispered, completely enthralled.

  My father smiled. “So you will, Charlie, but never forget, my sweet; something so powerful must always be respected…”

  ****

  The light, soft at first, brightened as I fought back from a fitful slumber. Opening my eyes, I squinted in the pale glow, fighting against the confines of my bodice to draw breath. Clouds, dense and shining with muted light, hovered against the window. Droplets on the window pane trembled with an unseen wind and then streaked off to the side. Sitting up straight, I winced at the crick in my neck. Something seemed odd, missing somehow, and then I realized I no longer heard the ever present hum of the Tesla Dome. Never without it, the near silence of the skies unnerved me.

  “My blessed stars!” Forehead pressed to the window, I stared with astonishment. Peering into the clouds floating past the glass, I was startled at the blue spark that flitted along the edges of the mist.

  “Residual charge,” Ashton’s voice made me jump. “Static electricity jumps from the atmosphere to anything not properly grounded.”

  I hadn’t noticed him enter.

  He looked tired, my father’s journal tucked in the crook of his elbow.

  “Did you discover anything?”

  “Nothing I can understand.” He scratched at the fine stubble of his jaw. “The pages are traced with a raised pattern but it looks to be a design I cannot fully discern. I do not think it is writing or even a drawing. And the paper. It seems to be infused with a metal of some kind. Woven threads between the layers, I believe. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

  “I tried all night to think of anything that might be useful and still I don’t understand why my father gave it to me.”

  “We will figure it out, Miss Blackburn.”

  “It seems we have no choice.” I turned to the window. “So is this Outer City?”

  “No, we’re just below it.” Ashton moved next to me and pressed his fingertips to the glass. “This firmament, it’s the boundary between the sky cities and the top of the Tesla Dome.”

  “How long did we travel?” I smoothed my hair, frowning at the errant curls brushing my neck.

  “Lizzie took a convoluted route; doubling back several miles before ascending to be sure we were alone in the sky. We hover over the Atlantic a few miles off shore.”

  “But we’re going to Port Rodale?”

  “There are many ports to Outer City, better to keep any followers guessing as to which one we’ve chosen.” His dark eyes searched my face. “I cannot express to you the danger you court if you do not trust me, Miss Blackburn.”

  “I understand,” I assured him.

  “Do you really?” He half turned to face me. “Do you truly understand what is at stake here?”

  “I understand what it has cost me so far.”

  “Yes.” Ashton chewed his inner cheek. It was such a youthful mannerism, and I realized then that his unlined face could belong to someone no older than nineteen. In the frenzy of the night and the dark of the cabin I had not realized. “I am sorry. I meant only that…”

  “It is all right. I know what you meant. I am just so worried for my father and aunt.”

  “Of course.” He kept his gaze on the window without further comment.

  I reached for the tea Lizzie had brought me last night only to freeze at what was visible through the window. Murky mist swirled in an eddy slowly revealing the prow of another ship as it moved past us, half shrouded in the clouds. Tattered flags strung across the battered vessel’s deck bore a blood-red fleur-de-lis against a black backdrop. A herald I’d learned about in my lessons. A hated flag. A feared one.

  The teacup trembled against the saucer and yet I could not tear my gaze from the ship. The clouds parted and revealed a man at the bow, his hand o
n the railing. A leather cap and brass goggles obscured his face, save for the scar that snaked across his forehead. I gasped as tiny sparks snapped from the ship to the Stygian, spitting and crackling as they sped along the side railing.

  Ashton put his hand over mine to still the clinking porcelain.

  Three bell rings tolled before the ship sank deeper into the glowing haze. Ropes netting the black iridescent balloon creaked in the wind before slipping into the depths again.

  “Was that?” I turned to Ashton, breathless. “Those were pirates. There are pirates here. You said they were just stories.”

  “I said mostly. And they prefer to be called privateers.” He gave my hand a gentle squeeze, catching my gaze with his own. “You’ll be fine.”

  I jerked my hand away and he fixed me with a puzzled frown. Boys my age were…well, they played at being men. They spouted stories from their chaperoned gap year. Trips to museums and days spent idly being pampered in the sanatoriums near the old capitol. But Ashton…

  Everything about him threw me off balance and that was something I did not need right now. Not with my father’s fate resting in my ability to get what I needed from Ashton. It did not help the way he burst into my life at the moment I most needed someone. I reminded myself that Ashton made it clear his intentions and mine did not quite correspond. I wanted my father back at any cost. He and I seemed destined to part ways and badly at that. For now, I needed him to help with the journal. To find Collodin. I wanted nothing else from Ashton Wells, of that, I was sure.

  “Are we nearly there?” I strode to the other end of the small room.

  He turned and called out the doorway. “Lizzie.”

  Carrying an armful of material and clanking buckles, Lizzie entered, breathless. “This is what I have.”

  “Will they fit?”

  Lizzie’s gaze went to me. “They can be made to fit our needs.”

  “Made to fit what needs?” I backed up hitting the wall with my bustle.

  “If I’m to stash you up here, you can’t look like you’re from down there. No one but armed security soldiers venture into Outer City from the ground. Least of all, a debutante in a ball gown.” Ashton walked over to me and lifted the end of one of my bodice ribbons between his thumb and forefinger rubbing the silk. “You’re hard to overlook.”