The Unraveling, Volume One of The Luminated Threads: A Steampunk Fantasy Romance

by Wanrow, Laurel

  One of the day guards snorted. The others shuffled, and Jac darted a glare at them before meeting Daeryn’s gaze. He gave a one-shoulder shrug. Shouldn’t insert his bias.

  “What’s your opinion?” Miz Gere looked incredulous herself.

  Jac frowned. “I’d like to believe it, but Maraquin and I swear we’re seeing more pests than a few nights ago. Max claims the vermin are stirred up because of the killings, that the ropens’ presence is threatening.”

  “Indeed?” Miz Gere frowned. “At today’s Market, I shall inquire of the neighboring farms that have no ropen workers. Speaking of Market, Mr. Hortens needs help setting up. Jac, can you pass on my request to the team? Then they are free for the day.”

  Good, the ropens would be off property. No chance Daeryn would run into Paet and risk him pointing out Daeryn had been off crutches last night. The meeting ended. Daeryn turned to the farmhouse, and like yesterday, Annmar’s sweet earthy scent wafted across the yard.

  She was crossing the far end, with Mary Clare and Rivley, joining a group of growers starting for town ahead of the wagons. No. He’d forgotten Riv said Miz Gere had asked him to accompany Annmar today. Daeryn wouldn’t have a chance to have a word alone with either until this afternoon.

  From the opposite direction, the changing hut door banged. The team heading to Market Day. Daeryn better get inside before Paet—a thought hit Daeryn like a punch to the gut. Paet’s dammed attention to Wellspring’s females hadn’t stopped. And now both Annmar and Paet were headed to town.

  * * *

  Annmar stared down Chapel Hollow’s quiet Main Street. At least, it had been quiet yesterday. Market Day was like nothing Mary Clare had described. It was more. Stands lined the closed street. Since the houses and shops weren’t cheek by jowl like in Derby, the various carts and tables overflowed into many a wide yard and the nooks of side streets.

  Large and local, Wellspring staked a fair space on a corner, backing to trees surrounding the stone chapel Mary Clare had pointed out. The workers soon had the two sideless wagons unhitched from the steam tractors. A couple of growers, including the boy who had been in trouble the day before, Henry, climbed on the backs and rode off with the drivers.

  “Come on, now,” called a tall, wiry man wearing a straw hat. “Get this batch set up before the next arrives.”

  The remaining workers did as the head grower, Mr. Hortens, said, picking up crates of vegetables and moving them with no effort. Annmar hadn’t specifically been asked to pitch in, but when she and Rivley had walked down with the others, he’d asked if she minded waiting while he helped set up. She didn’t, and in fact, dressed in the loose and rugged fabric of her new bib-and-brace, and looking like everyone else, she felt she could help. However, she could barely budge an apple crate.

  “What?” Jac said from behind her. “You tired, too? From running a pencil over paper?” The wolf girl’s flannel-covered shoulder shoved her aside, and Jac grabbed the crate by its side slots and swung it wide, nearly catching Annmar’s elbow as she stumbled out of the way. Jac rolled her eyes and her lips twisted into a sneer before she walked off, leaving Annmar feeling like a helpless child.

  Hairy hands attached to even hairier arms extending from rolled shirtsleeves of black fabric reached for the next crate.

  Annmar’s stomach lurched, and before she could move, the man leaned closer.

  “Not havin’ a good start to yer day, eh, miss?” said Paet.

  She fell back, met his gaze and hastily dropped hers to the ground. She turned and bumped into Mary Clare.

  “Could you unpack the carrot bunches?” She steered Annmar to the far end of the wagon and hissed, “Stay over here,” before loudly directing, “Lay them out like this, piled to this one side.”

  She did the easy job, while nearby Mary Clare stacked neat pyramids of jarred preserves on the wagon’s middle. But then she left to help unload the second wagon.

  So did both ropen men, their distance flooding Annmar with relief. She just had to keep her eye on them. And Jac. Upon finishing the carrots, she searched for Mary Clare, but instead met Paet’s grinning gaze. Heat flushed up her cheeks as she jerked her gaze down and adjusted a few preserve jars. Where is Mary Clare? She didn’t dare risk looking another time. With her knees jelly-like, Annmar made a pretense of wiping dirt off the carrots.

  Someone tugged at her arm, sending her heart to her throat.

  “How fresh are these carrots, miss?” A lady dressed in gingham held a bunch aloft and turned them to and fro.

  “Uh, I—”

  “Pulled last night, ma’am,” Rivley said, suddenly right beside her. “Greens, tomatoes and fall grapes will arrive within the quarter hour.”

  Giving a hard swallow, Annmar stared.

  “I’d like two bunches and a head of cabbage.”

  Coins changed hands, and the vegetables disappeared into the woman’s bag. Another customer handed Rivley more money. The customers flooded their stand, and he answered their questions, placed produce in their baskets and accepted their money.

  Annmar edged out of the way and took her familiar sketchbook from her satchel. She ducked her face to it and found a fresh page. Hand shaking, she outlined the buildings across the way. When she looked up for the details, a tall, antlered man with a prickly gray beard strutted into view. He wore a long suit jacket with a leather purse buckled over top at his waist and nothing else but a basket carried over his arm.

  She drew a breath, and though she knew she should lower her eyes as the deer man strode on his cloven hooves up to the stand, she couldn’t. She stared, and his return stare turned to a frown as his gaze dropped to the sketchbook in her hand. His lips peeled back, revealing enormous, flat teeth jutting from his lower jaw. She started and turned toward the stand, only to run into a woman with a silk turban topping the whiskered face of a lynx. The cat-woman released her breath in a hiss and waved her off with a clump of parsley.

  Annmar bit her inner cheek to keep from exclaiming. Lynx were extinct in Britain. Or at least in the rest of Britain. How were they still here, and if they were what—who?—else might she stumble across? A wall of tweed appeared between her and the strange people.

  “Annmar?”

  Her gaze rose from Rivley’s waistcoat to his amber eyes.

  “Breathe.”

  She did, closing her eyes when he gently pivoted her behind the wagon. Rivley spoke to someone who answered in a gravelly voice. The deer man. She wrapped her shaking arms around her waist and peeked at Rivley filling the man’s basket with turnips. He paid and strutted off, his tail waving like a banner.

  Rivley turned to her. “Better now?”

  “Yes, thank you. Mary Clare warned me Market Day is a real mix of Basin residents, but I had no idea.”

  “You’re seeing things Mary Clare cannot. You best put away your sketchbook. People may not take to having their hidden selves shown.”

  Oh. She darted a glance around. The people approaching the stand looked normal. Then a second later, they didn’t. “You’re right. Today my Knack is coming on without me calling it. I don’t know what is, uh, visible to everyone else and what’s not.” She slipped the book into her satchel.

  “Probably need a bit more practice.” He smiled at her. “The other wagon is done and the growers working the stand, so we can go.”

  Did that mean the ropens were also free? Without meaning to, Annmar looked to the far end of the stand. The wagon was rolling off, the extra workers riding it, including Jac. The black-clad ropens weren’t among them.

  “Have you eaten today?” Rivley’s question drew her attention back.

  “I got up too late.” Plus, dinner and sleep hadn’t seemed to revive her after hours of drawing she barely remembered, though Annmar now had seven label mock-ups to present to Mistress Gere.

  “MC,” he called. “I’m taking Annmar up to Mrs. Ruby’s for breakfast. Your break coming soon?”

  “I’ll meet you there.” Mary Clare left her newest
stack of jars and took Annmar’s hand. “You’ll stay with Riv, won’t you?”

  Something intense hid behind her normal question. Rivley also wore an expectant look. Annmar frowned. “Tell me what the problem is.”

  Mary Clare squeezed her hand. “I don’t want you getting lost.”

  Annmar nearly laughed. “In a town of a handful of streets and a dozen blocks?”

  “Very well, it’s not the town but the visitors. Like the ropens, some of them can be rough. You’re naïve about the species, an easy target.”

  One part of Annmar cringed. Worse than the ropen men? The other part of her set her jaw at this insinuation. This country girl had no idea what a borough of rough fellows was like to navigate. Annmar could rebuff the ropens if they approached her on the streets of Chapel Hollow. And likely they were retiring after their night’s work. But Mary Clare looked so serious and only meant to be helpful. “I’ll stay with him.”

  Mary Clare grabbed her into a quick hug, then turned to Rivley. “Annmar’s safety is in your hands. If you care anything for me, you’ll look after her the way you would me.”

  A blush blossomed under Rivley’s freckles, and he put up a hand between them. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “I mean it.” She clasped his hand and drew it to her.

  “Don’t nag at me,” he muttered. He pulled away with a quick side step and gestured Annmar to the street.

  Mary Clare frowned and pushed her after Rivley. “See you soon.”

  chapter twenty-nine

  In the branches over Wellspring’s market stand, Daeryn’s fur bristled. Paet had no reason to speak to Annmar.

  But he was. Daeryn leaped to his paws and stalked along the elm limb, despite the danger his movement might be seen by his co-workers below.

  Mary Clare sidled up to Annmar. The growl rumbling through his chest halted. Rivley’s headstrong female did have her uses, thank the Creator. Daeryn scooted behind a clump of yellow leaves, firmly anchored his claws and crouched.

  None of them better look up, Jac especially. She’d recognize his ’cambire form more readily than the growers and wouldn’t see any need to keep his presence quiet. Tired as the wolf was after the long nights, Daeryn had no doubt she’d howl across the stand without a thought.

  He spared the wolf girl a glance as Jac thrust a crate at the talkative ropen and sent him in the opposite direction from two growers. The ass was bothering every female. Well…speaking to them. Daeryn didn’t suppose saying “good morning” could be construed as annoying, but his hackles kept rising.

  Daeryn passed a paw from ear to nose. He intended to visit the town chapel today, and the stone tower rising from the treed hollow was leaps away. Why didn’t he just go and make his appeals to the Creator?

  Because he didn’t want the ropen anywhere near Annmar. Her delicate hands adjusted the jars nearest the carrots she’d stacked, then returned to swipe at the orange roots again. Rivley moved to work nearby. Between the hawk-eyed avian and Mary Clare’s continued glances to that end of the stand, Annmar was well watched.

  Miz Gere may not be ’cambire, but their employer certainly had innate sensitivity where it counted. Her attention to Annmar might have been praise of Daeryn himself, the way it soothed his fur.

  His haunches rose, and Daeryn inched deeper into cover, to a spot where he could still keep one eye on Paet. The unloading was complete. The ropens pitching in on their way back to their rooming house had helped the shorthanded farmworkers, giving Daeryn no right to be grumpy.

  The head grower, Mr. Hortens, dismissed the extra people. The tractor’s engine turned over and jerked the wagon forward. As it pulled off, the ropens stopped Mr. Hortens. Maxillon had a hand out.

  Why? With Jac gone and the chances of Daeryn being recognized reduced, he stalked forward and swiveled his ears toward the conversation.

  “…this evening,” said Mr. Hortens. “She’ll be in her office while dinner’s out at the bonfire. Just stop by.”

  They were looking for their pay, which Miz Gere didn’t give out until after Market Day.

  Maxillon stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets and turned without saying a thing. Paet frowned, but a second later he followed, donning the black duster he’d removed while helping with the unloading. The crowd parted for them.

  Good, they were leaving, taking away their sullen temperaments that made Daeryn’s current mood look housecat-like.

  They stopped to speak to someone. Daeryn caught a glimpse of a yellow coat and dark hair beneath a top hat. Nothing more. It wasn’t worth moving to inspect some random market-goer, so Daeryn stayed put.

  Then Paet craned his head and looked back at Wellspring’s stand…to the end where Annmar leaned against some crates, drawing.

  No. Daeryn was on his paws, ready to leap, to warn Rivley. Hell, to change if needed…

  A hand, scarred across the back, pulled Paet around by the shoulder. Anger flashed across the ropen’s face. The man in the yellow coat dropped his hand immediately, but dipped his head, blue eyes narrowed and cold. In the next second, passersby blocked Daeryn’s view. The man gestured and pivoted. The ropens followed, their dark bodies bobbing like muskrats swimming through the waves of more colorfully dressed people. The three disappeared.

  Daeryn watched, making sure they didn’t return and taking periodic checks of the stand. Annmar had put away her sketchbook and stood, shifting nervously between Rivley and Mary Clare. His friend’s low tones didn’t carry, but Mary Clare’s higher-pitched words did—wails about Annmar getting lost. A worthy concern. Daeryn perched on his paws while the female worked at Rivley, making sure the birdbrain would look after this lovely girl. His respect for Mary Clare was growing. Perhaps these persistent traits in humans weren’t so bad.

  Rivley stalked off. Annmar joined him, and they left Mary Clare behind. She should have gone—that redhead understood better how to care for the innocent Annmar. Daeryn spat, nearly yowling his annoyance.

  His protective urges surged, bidding him to follow. But how? He scanned the limited trees here at the central square. None spanned the more open area, but those farther down did. He spun and climbed the trunk, chose a branch, bounded to the end and jumped to a crisscrossing limb from the next tree around the chapel.

  By instinct, his paws raced along branches until he spied a suitable limb on the opposite side of the street. Daeryn wiggled into a crouch and flung his long body forward. He landed squarely, but when he darted a look to Annmar and Rivley, they were moving faster.

  Daeryn stared after them. The damned buzzard had taken her arm—and Annmar was laughing.

  * * *

  Annmar walked side by side with Rivley up the rapidly filling street. Every third or fourth person was unusual in some way. Familiar and unfamiliar animals walked by on their hind legs with furred, feathered or scaled skin, and sometimes ’cambire appendages. Some of their clothes, bags and jewelry were in the brightest, most colorful and outrageous combinations imaginable, while other garments faded into the background with muted earth tones of brown, ocher or gray. The people—she had to think of them in that way—inspected the sales goods, carried on conversations and chased after their children.

  She wanted to record it all but, with her sketchbook tucked away, settled for committing the images to memory.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake.” Rivley leaned to her ear and whispered, “You can’t dawdle every time you see someone different. We’ll be all morning going one block.” He took her hand and linked it through his crooked arm. “Do your looking while I fly you—while walking.”

  His technique of escorting her was most proper, the same as any town gentleman. She was instantly reminded of the last instance she’d witnessed, Mr. Shearing offering Polly his arm. Rivley was younger, not dressed as a gentleman, nor did he have Mr. Shearing’s ulterior motives. Yet he was equally confident in the posture, like nothing would ruffle him. She giggled at how Rivley’s bird characteristics now naturally fit into her thoughts, caus
ing him to look at her curiously.

  She smiled in return. “Thank you for your consideration.”

  “At your service anytime.” He dipped his head, a flicker of avian features showing.

  They arrived at the side garden of a stone house where a woman in a red apron served food from an outdoor table. They joined the line, bought breakfast pasties and took seats in the garden. As soon as Annmar bit into the flaky crust, she fully expected to have a vision. But she didn’t. The eggs and squash tucked inside were simply eggs and squash, and it was wonderful to just eat.

  Rivley finished first. He slouched into the bench back and closed his eyes. He looked about to nap. Annmar hated to bother him, but over the garden wall streets of new and exciting sights waited.

  “Rivley? Won’t Mary Clare find us if we stick to this area? Another farm stand is right there. Scarpel’s Farms. You could keep a lookout for her while I check its promotions.”

  Rivley cracked one eye. “They’re in Mistress Gere’s consortium. Try not to be too obvious. Once MC arrives, we’ll visit the others on the way to the Town Hall. Mistress Gere is speaking at the monthly lectures, along with other Basin agriculturalists. They share seasonal updates and present new inventions for use here or that might be introduced Outside. We seem to always be in competition with Outside, though they have no notion of us.”

  “Very well,” she said, but the thought of being indoors wasn’t as interesting as the market stands. Steps ahead of Rivley, Annmar headed to Scarpel’s, identified by the hand-painted name on a canvas strung along the front of their stall covering. Wellspring had neither, or hadn’t put up a covering on a clear day. The identification helped, but its serif letters were a little roughly executed. Inside, she discovered the sign’s artist had attempted to copy the professionally printed name that graced their crates and jar labels. Nice, but nothing unique to a farm.

  Mary Clare hadn’t arrived, so Annmar wandered to the adjacent stand. It held fancy pewter plates. The next displayed hand-knit woolen wear and the third, used children’s shoes. Clearly, Market Day was part farm market, part sales of handcrafts and part secondhand store.