A Study in Silks tba-1

by Emma Jane Holloway

  A few of the devas slipped beneath the sash of the window. Another glowing ball turned to a needle of light, sliding between the floorboards at the edge of the room. The rest were fading away like snowflakes, disappearing into thin air.

  The crisis was past.

  Sharing power had felt so good, but now Evelina’s body ached with the release of tension. She hastily picked up the volumes, shoving them back onto the shelf. Her hands trembled, aching to drop the books and return to Nick, starting the folly all over again. It wasn’t just the power. All of her old feelings had reawakened. She wanted to touch him.

  “You should go,” she said softly. Before I give way and fall into your arms and destroy us both. “You see what happens when we’re together.”

  “I know,” he said.

  She turned to him. His features were perfectly calm. To him, one more peril was just business as usual for a showman, another chance to pit his wits against fate.

  She didn’t walk the high wire anymore. “I wish I had your nerve.”

  He shrugged. “What did you expect would happen? We’ve never learned to control the power.”

  “Exactly.”

  He took a step forward, lifting a hand to reach out, and then letting it fall. Gran had said control wasn’t possible, not with Nick’s strange bloodline. And if anyone knew about magic, it was Gran Cooper. Evelina said nothing, her chest too tight to speak.

  Even without the wild magic, she wasn’t sure they could stay together. She didn’t belong in his world anymore, and he’d never belong in Mayfair, and love wasn’t everything. Her parents had been a similar mismatch, and she’d watched her mother fade like a flower cut off from its sustaining vine, shriveling until she died. That had left a shadow on Evelina’s soul that was impossible to dispell. I wish I knew what was the right thing to do. But there were no guarantees, and with the magic in the mix, it didn’t matter. They had to stay apart.

  He must have seen her thoughts on her face. “Very well. I’ll go.”

  “I’m sorry.” It was all she could think of to say.

  His features were a neutral mask, giving away nothing. “One thing before I leave. I overheard Bancroft talking with Magnus.”

  “When?”

  He sank back onto the sofa. Perhaps he was healed, but he was clearly still exhausted. “Earlier tonight. I’ve been trying to find a way to speak to you. I wanted to warn you about Magnus, but this place is guarded like Buckingham Palace.”

  She hugged herself, afraid to come any closer to him. “I’m glad you stayed away. It’s too dangerous for you to be here.”

  He leaned forward and peered up under his brows. She knew the look—it was the one he used when he spoke from his gut. “Evie, we go too far back for me to stand by and watch you sail into a storm.”

  There was no answer to that. Her throat ached too much anyway, filled with unshed tears—of gratitude, of regret, and mostly of confusion.

  “Magnus wants something,” Nick said. “I don’t understand what it is, but he thinks he can make Lord Bancroft help him get it from the Gold King. And he’s stolen something from Bancroft, and he’s holding it over his head. Something—he said trunks and cargo—that sounds like it would ruin him.”

  The automatons! Evelina tingled with excitement. “That fits. Bancroft and Magnus were friends once, but now they hate each other.”

  “Why?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know how it started. Whatever it is, Lady B and Tobias don’t seem to mind him. It’s between the two men.” She thought of the conversation she’d overheard in the library. Lord Bancroft had looked like a haunted soul from that night on. That was why. He knew Magnus had his dolls.

  “Evelina.” Nick’s face was pale and serious. “Wherever you think your life is going, what we did tonight is who you really are. Magic is in you, and it’s something your new people can’t help you with, even the few who wouldn’t hang you just for having it. And as much as I want to be by your side—and I would cut the heart out of my chest if I thought it would buy me the privilege—I can’t protect you. Not where you’re bound. You’ll be walking alone. That frightens me.”

  Her breath caught in her chest, too painful to move. She knew all this, but she didn’t want to hear it in words, least of all from Nick. It was hard enough without adding the memory of his pain-wracked face. Tears blurred the sight of him.

  He reached out, taking her hand, the faintest silver light gloving their fingers. His palm was rough and hot, the hands of a man used to work. “Magnus wants you—or what you can do. I’m not sure what he’s planning, but it sounds like a play for power dressed up in big words and mumbo jumbo. He’d dead set on a spat with the steam barons, so you can bet there’s bad news coming.”

  His voice was gentle, low and rough and familiar as the smell of horse and the earth under her bare feet. “I know you want to be careful and keep this new life of yours clean, but you’re going to have to be ready for a fight. And tonight was just the start. This isn’t over.”

  She barely understood her magic, much less how to fight with it, but that probably didn’t matter. “What’s this all about, anyhow?”

  “Power and money.” It was more or less the same thing Tobias had said. “Magic is just a way to get it.”

  “I’m in the middle, aren’t I? I’m caught between your world and theirs. Gran Cooper and Grandmamma Holmes.”

  That might have been too frank. Nick pulled his hand away, looking down at the floor. She flexed her fingers, already feeling his absence.

  “I won’t tell you what to do. I love you too much to keep you in a box, however much I long to keep you safe. But I beg you to be careful.”

  The words shook her to the bone, bringing a sting to her eyes. “I will.”

  “If you ever want to come home to Ploughman’s, I’ll defend you to my death. But if you stay here, Magnus will know where you are, Evelina.”

  Her heart pounded beneath her stays. “I can’t run forever.”

  A long pause followed. It was plain to both of them that she wasn’t going back to the circus, though Nick would never know the whole reason. All those years ago, she wouldn’t let him give up the one home he knew for her sake. Magnus or no Magnus, she wasn’t about to do that now.

  Nick rose from the chair stiffly. “I have to go.”

  She took a step forward, longing to hold him but knowing that meant never letting him go. “What do I do?”

  Nick shook his head. “I can’t answer that for you.”

  He touched the side of her face lightly, just dusting her skin with magic. She wanted to lean in to the touch, to feel the comfort of his familiar warmth. The earthy salt of his skin called to memories deep in her bones. I can’t let him go. He’s part of me. And yet that was the one thing she absolutely had to do.

  Tears stung her eyes. “I don’t want to run or hide or be used by someone else. I just want to be who I am.”

  He stepped back, letting go of a sigh. “Then be prepared to fight for it, because only the strongest get to stand on their own.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  London, April 11, 1888

  SPIE HQ

  3 p.m. Wednesday

  “There must be a way to make this work.”

  Tobias stood back from the stuffed sheep and switched on the device. He was in a mood and more than a little drunk. The late afternoon had been spent at the clubhouse behind the tailor’s shop, trying to make sense out of, well, pretty much everything.

  His hoped-for reunion with Dr. Magnus had not occurred beyond a polite greeting at dinner. Magnus had been put at the other end of the table and had disappeared just after the meal. Evelina had apparently taken to her bed with a headache. The two had clearly spoiled each others’ digestion and had left Tobias stranded with Alice Keating. Alice was nice enough—well, actually quite pretty and a definite wit—but she wasn’t Evelina.

  Altogether it had been a miserable meal. The tension between his father—who for some r
eason looked like he’d been in a fight—Jasper Keating, and Dr. Magnus had worn away at his nerves. He had been counting down the minutes until Keating had whipped out some new invention to torture the guests. Perhaps steam-powered thumbscrews, or a spring-loaded guillotine designed for a faster slice.

  He hadn’t seen Evelina or Magnus since. He fervently hoped this afternoon would be less of a waste. He was testing his version of Aragon Jackson’s contraption, last seen electrocuting the upstairs maid. It was his firm opinion that whatever the Gold King wrought, the Society for the Proliferation of Impertinent Events could do it better.

  The mission might have been more personal to him than to the rest of SPIE. Smythe had his regiment, and Bucky and Edgerton were destined to take their place in their fathers’ manufactories. Tobias alone had no plans and, just speaking statistically, he couldn’t be a blot on the universe every hour of every day. There had to be something constructive he could do.

  He stopped to take a swig out of his hip flask and then considered the sheep in its technological finery. Tobias remembered some Serb had recently published a paper on wireless transmission, and Jackson had put the cutting-edge theories to bad use. The device consisted of a wristband strapped to the forearm—in this case foreleg—and a receiver that circled the head, a little like a tiara with an antenna on top. Tobias had stitched it awkwardly onto one of the frilly white caps the maids wore. On the sheep, it looked slightly rakish.

  A small voice at the back of his mind reminded him about grounding wires, but the alcohol garbled the message. Bucky was standing nearby, and he thought vaguely of mentioning it to him, but decided against it. Forming a complete sentence would cost more effort than he wanted to exert right then. And, well, the stuffed sheep couldn’t actually feel pain, after all.

  Tobias bent over the main control unit, set a dozen steps’ distance from the sheep. He flipped the transmission switch. There was a crackling noise, sparks flew, and Fleecy’s head burst into flame.

  “Bugger,” grumbled Tobias as he emptied a bucket of water over the experiment, which resulted in further pops and sputters.

  Bucky folded his arms, tapping one forefinger to his chin. “Unfortunately, SPIE will have to amend the name to include incendiary as well as impertinent events.”

  Tobias made a rude noise.

  A tall figure emerged from the clubhouse behind them. “Can’t see the maids going for that one,” observed Michael Edgerton, pushing his dark hair out of his eyes. He still had one arm in a sling from the squid incident. He’d fallen into the trombones. “Gar, that wool stinks.”

  Tobias stomped on a stray scrap of smoking wool. “Smell of progress, Edgerton.”

  “There’s a gentleman here who says he knows you, Roth.”

  Tobias shared a look of confusion with Bucky, and then strode across the yard. Surprise morphed into annoyance. Hardly anyone knew of the existence of their private workshop. He guessed the only reason the Gold King tolerated their operation was because they were rich and kept the operation very, very quiet.

  Tobias shouldered his way through the door, ready to snarl. Then he stopped in surprise. Magnus sat inside, looking as comfortable in one of their ratty, discarded chairs as he had prowling through the dinner crowd at Hilliard House. His cane leaned against the arm of the chair, holding his high-crowned hat.

  “Dr. Magnus!”

  He rose when he saw Tobias. “There you are. And I’ve met the Mr. Edgerton. But I do not know you, sir.”

  “Penner.” Bucky shook his hand.

  “I am delighted to meet you all.” Magnus smiled warmly. “I admired your work at the Royal Charlotte. Such spirit is not to be underrated.”

  Tobias’s mood lifted with the praise. Bucky and Edgerton looked equally flattered.

  Magnus gestured around the room. “And now that we have been introduced, perhaps I should explain why I am here.”

  They sat, Edgerton turning over a crate to use since Magnus was in one of the few actual chairs.

  Magnus began in a confidential tone, as if he were picking up a conversation with old friends. “I am currently in pursuit of a—how should I put it?—a part for the main project for which I will need your collective talents. And trust me, this is a large and marvelous thing for which I require a crack team of makers. But it is taking some time for me to acquire this part, and in the meantime I am eager to see what you gentlemen can do.”

  “You want a demonstration?” Bucky sounded amused. “The squid was not enough?”

  The doctor gave a gracious smile. “It showed competence and power of invention. I also require delicacy of execution. Consider this first commission as a type of audition for what comes next.”

  Edgerton, who liked nothing better than a challenge, shifted impatiently on his crate.

  Magnus nodded toward a trunk sitting against the wall. It was plain black, neither old nor new, the brass bindings dull with use. There were a thousand just like it on any train in the Empire. “The contents are your assignment. They require repair and assembly. With your extraordinary talents, I believe this test is well within your reach.”

  The members of the society exchanged “after you” gestures. Growing impatient, Tobias crossed the room and released the clasps of the trunk, wondering vaguely how Magnus had got it there without a servant anywhere in evidence. The thought dissolved into unimportance the moment he lifted the lid. “What in blazes?”

  “What indeed, Mr. Roth.” The words rolled out like a dare.

  Inside lay the disassembled parts of a perfect woman. Tobias caught his breath, his brandy-hazed brain barely making sense of what he saw. It was clearly an automaton, but not one like he had ever seen. It was nothing like his father’s grotesques, nor at all like the steel monstrosities used in factories.

  The hair, a long, lustrous auburn, had to be real. He reached in, fingertips brushing the soft, ruddy waves, discovering a tiny part that seemed shorn away. The slightest flaw, but it somehow gave the breathtaking features individuality. The face was porcelain and painted with such subtelty it was hard to believe that it was not hot blood that pinked her cheeks. The limbs were smooth and white, the hands perfectly molded and tipped with dainty nails. What jarred Tobias was that all those exquisite parts were jumbled into the trunk’s interior. He picked up a foot, the shining joint poking out where the shin should have begun—but the naked toes were exquisitely detailed.

  A shudder took him. This wasn’t a machine. It was a dismembered corpse made of ceramic and steel. His stomach suddenly disapproved of the brandy.

  “I need you to put her together,” said Magnus. “I need you to make her live again.”

  Edgerton had come to stand behind Tobias, the technical challenge clearly drawing him like catnip. “Is she clockwork?”

  “Yes, that is the basis of her workings. And yet the design of my angel is imperfect.”

  Imperfect? That word didn’t fit the creature he saw, despite her disassembled condition. Yet, Tobias wasn’t sure if he felt excitement or revulsion. The others had gathered around, crowding him where he knelt by the trunk. The clubhouse suddenly felt stifling. Sweat soaked his shirt, making it cling to his back.

  He picked up the head. The eyelids had soft lashes glued on in tiny tufts. They flicked open with a click, leaving him staring into glass eyes of an impossible blue. Goose pimples rose along his neck. The creature looked vaguely like Alice Keating.

  “What’s her name?” Bucky asked.

  “Serafina. She is meant to be the first of a troupe of life-sized puppets, if I can master the logistics of her workings. That is where you young gentlemen can assist me.”

  Edgerton picked up an arm and was examining the tiny cables that worked the joints. “We may need some additional parts.”

  “Buy what you need, and please factor in a cost in consideration for your time.”

  The young men shifted self-consciously. There wasn’t one among them who didn’t have debts. Though gentlemen technically didn’t work f
or pay, the offer of money caught their attention.

  They cleared the worktable that sat at one end of the clubhouse and began ferrying parts from the trunk one by one, laying out the body in proper anatomical position. Some of the limbs were scratched or mended, as if the doll had met with violence. There were many tiny bits left in the bottom of the trunk, not all of which made sense to Tobias. He would need to spend a good deal of time studying the design before he knew where everything went.

  He looked down at the automaton, trying to ignore the gaps where she should have been whole. The torso had a layer of sawdust stuffing beneath taut, flesh-colored silk that felt unnervingly like female skin. Whoever had made her had left no detail of female anatomy to the imagination, right down to details of the cleft between her legs. He had an irrational urge to cover her up to preserve her modesty. “Who built her?”

  Magnus waved a dismissive hand. “A young Italian made it to an existing plan. Alas, consumption took him before he perfected her. The first trials showed flaws in the design, and I was obliged to make repairs. She walked and talked to perfection, but her ability to reason occasionally proved primitive, even aberrant—a common difficulty with automatons, as I’m sure you’ve heard. I have just now recalibrated that portion of her workings and would like to embark on a new trial at once.”

  “So she outlived her first maker.” Tobias layed the final hand at her side. The fingers slipped coolly over his, as pliable as if she merely slept.

  “She is an orphan and an only child. How long she stays thus is up to you.”

  “If you took her apart, can you not reassemble the pieces?” Edgerton asked.

  Magnus smiled. “Of course. But I believe that an essential bond is formed between the maker and the made. You will nourish her in the act of bringing her to life and be, if you will, her bridegrooms in her passage back to the world. Or, you will not and she remains but a puppet.”