The Unnaturalists

by Tiffany Trent

  Syrus drew a deep breath and then said, “We must get them out. Vespa, my people, the Elementals—all of them. We must.”

  He stared at the hill and the shadow of the Tower above. Just beyond it, the silhouettes of the Imperial Refinery’s smokestacks were edged in glimmering, noxious smog.

  “If only there were a door into the hillside—how much easier that would be than storming the Tower!” Syrus said.

  Bayne was silent. Syrus glanced back at him and saw a startled, dreaming look pass like a cloud over his features.

  “You know,” Bayne said, coming to stand beside him. “I think there just may be a door. When I was a child, we summered here often. I remember playing in the garden alone once. I looked up and a Raven Guard had appeared out of nowhere. I was terrified. I remember him looking at me and then turning around and marching back into a black hole that went into the Hill. I ran inside screaming to my nursemaid. Of course, everyone thought I was being fanciful. I came to believe it was all just fancy, too . . . but . . . I’m not so certain now.”

  He stared down at the deserted garden, bare and winter-gray.

  “Can you find out, Piskel?” Syrus asked the sylph. “How were you able to get out, anyway?”

  Piskel made gestures as if he’d moved an entire mountain just to escape.

  Syrus rolled his eyes. “Look, never mind. Just . . . go scout around and see if you can find something that looks like a door, will you?”

  Bayne pushed the window up and Piskel fluttered out. Syrus watched him go, a tiny light flickering through the afternoon gloom.

  There was a banging at the door. Lucy Virulen’s voice sawed through the wood.

  Bayne sighed. “You’d better hide in the trunk. And try to sleep. It may be a long night.”

  Syrus did as he was bid, though he chafed with impatience to be doing something. He heard the door shut and Bayne’s voice warring with Lucy’s until he drifted back off to sleep.

  * * *

  Syrus woke to the sound of the trunk thumping open again. A candle shone in his eyes, momentarily blinding him. He sat up, stretching his sore neck and cramped limbs.

  “What time is it?” he asked, as he climbed from the trunk. He hoped after tonight there were better sleeping accommodations. And then he shivered just a little, thinking that if tonight didn’t go well, he might end up nothing more than a pile of salt on the desert floor.

  “Nearly dawn,” Bayne said. He handed Syrus a greasy packet of cold sausages and crumbling crumpets. “All I could steal from the kitchens,” he said.

  Syrus nodded his thanks and scarfed the food down, saving a few crumbs for Piskel.

  “Come. I think Piskel’s found the door. Everyone’s asleep, but I’ve no doubt they’ve got nullwards set here and there.”

  Piskel swam into view, pointing toward the garden and grinning. He was obviously proud of himself. He took the crumbs Syrus offered him with a tiny bow.

  Bayne was deciding between two coils of rope as Syrus dusted his hands on his trousers. He already had a pistol and sword. “What does one take to a prison break? I’ve rope, weapons, and . . . these.” He held up rusty bolt cutters almost sheepishly. “Will we need these to cut chains?”

  Piskel giggled between his fingers.

  “We’ll probably need a neverkey or some other kind of nulling device,” Syrus said. “Hopefully, Vespa can help us with anything more than that once we free her.”

  Bayne nodded and patted a pack next to the trunk. “I have those already.” He decided on the rope and threw it in.

  “And a few pebbles in case there are illusion mines.”

  “Illusion mines?” Bayne swallowed.

  “Yes. The Lowtown Refinery has them. I don’t see why the Imperial Refinery wouldn’t,” Syrus said.

  “We’ll get pebbles in the garden.”

  “Then, let’s go,” Syrus said.

  Bayne blew out the candle and led the way out of the room and onto the landing. Piskel ducked up Syrus’s sleeve so as not to give them away with his light. One creaking step at a time they went down the stairs. Syrus saw shadows of palms at the corner of the staircase. The handrail was satiny-smooth under his fingers.

  They sneaked past an ancient grandfather clock and the cigar smoke–laced doorway of what must have been Bayne’s father’s study. At last, they were through the kitchens and Bayne was letting them out into the garden.

  Syrus scooped up some gravel as they went. Piskel crawled out from under his sleeve and led them down through the boxwood border toward the thorn-tangled slope of the Hill.

  The sylph disappeared among the wicked spines for a few minutes. When he emerged, he motioned them forward.

  Bayne used his sword to hack through the thorns, but it was rather ineffective and Bayne muttered about dulling the blade.

  When the vague outline of a door was visible, Piskel pointed them toward the keyhole.

  “Let us pray this isn’t warded such that the Empress knows when her fortress has been breached,” Bayne said, as he slid the neverkey inside.

  The door swung open with the faint scent of the Refinery and ordure. They stepped into the tunnel, and the door scraped shut of its own accord. They listened to the sound echo down the corridor for a long while. Bayne waited to kindle the magic flame in his palm until they were well inside and nothing seemed to have been alerted to their presence.

  Syrus tried tossing a pebble down the long expanse, but it triggered no mines. He sighed in relief.

  The tunnel wound around until it came to an odd, corkscrewlike chamber. They had to step over delicate stone sills and around edges of stone that reminded Syrus of a giant snail shell. They were about to step through to the other side when they heard something that was not the drip of water or the crunch of their own feet on stone. It sounded like coins dropping. Or armored feet trying unsuccessfully to creep toward them.

  Syrus eyed Bayne’s sword. It was the obvious choice. If the pistol was fired now, it could bring the entire fortress down on them. They needed more time. “You do know how to use that thing, right?” he whispered, even as he remembered the day at Rackham’s when Bayne had fought off the rookery leaders.

  Bayne snorted at him. “Of course.” He unsheathed it slowly and blew the flame up into the air so that it danced above them. Bayne pinned Syrus with his gaze. “Stay here,” he said.

  Bayne slid around the odd folds of rock.

  “Halt! You will come with me to the Empress,” the Guard croaked.

  Syrus poked his head around in time to see Bayne engage the Guard’s pike. He feinted toward the wall, forcing the Guard to swing at him. Syrus watched in admiration as Bayne ducked the Guard’s next cut; the force of the blow stuck the pike straight in the wall. Bayne spun close enough that the Guard had to release the pike or else be rendered nearly defenseless.

  Bayne rained blows around the Guard’s head and shoulders, but they bounced off with green sparks. Obviously, the Guard was protected by some kind of field. Syrus didn’t know how long it would take to break through, or if the Guard would soon call his fellows to help deal with this troublesome human.

  And then the Guard clapped his hands on the sword blade.

  Bayne twisted this way and that, unable to swing the sword free of the Guard’s grasp. They struggled like that for several seconds until Syrus heard a fatal ringing snap. Bayne tried punching at the Guard’s shielded face, but got sizzling knuckles for his pains.

  Bayne came away with the hilt. He cast it aside and, before the Guard could grab him, dropped and swept his armored legs out from under him. Overbalanced, the Guard fell heavily to the floor.

  Syrus watched in amazement. He’d only ever seen some of his Tinker uncles fight like this hand-to-hand. Where had a spoiled lordling learned such tactics?

  Then, all other resources exhausted, Bayne took the already loaded pistol out of his belt, cocked the hammer, and fired.

  The explosion thundered down the tunnel with a burst of feathers.


  “Should have done that to begin with,” Bayne said. He removed the cap from his powder bag with his teeth and reloaded the pistol with powder, patch, and another silver ball. “Best hurry now. They know we’re coming.”

  Syrus followed him.

  Bayne tore the Guard’s pike from the wall with a grunt. He kicked the useless sword blade aside. “That was my favorite sword, too,” he muttered.

  “Why didn’t you make a sword of magic like you did at Rackham’s?” Syrus asked.

  “I’m trying to save as much magic as I can until we reach the main chamber,” Bayne said. “Pity that we no longer have the element of surprise as our ally. Come on.”

  They raced down the tunnel, trying to get out of it before more Guards came. All they could do now was move forward.

  Bayne reached out to stop Syrus before they ran out into empty space. They were on a narrow landing. A metal catwalk to the left went down toward the Refinery floor. Syrus looked out over the cages and swallowed. To see so many Elementals held captive, to imagine so many spaces in the world devoid of life because of their absence—it was almost too much to contemplate.

  Beyond the cages sat a strange throne on a raised dais, but there was no sign of the Empress or any other human. Where was Vespa? Syrus wondered. Only one way to find out.

  The sound of feet coming up the metal stairs severed his thoughts. Syrus drew out his pipe.

  The first few guards—regular humans, rather than Raven Guards—fell to his fairy darts.

  Bayne looked back at him. “Why didn’t you just do that in the tunnel?” he asked.

  Syrus shrugged. “You told me to stay back!”

  Bayne glared at him. “If you have that much skill with a weapon like that, don’t listen!”

  Syrus blushed.

  Bayne turned to the next wave of guards and pushed them down the stairs with his pike. Fortunately, none of these had guns, nor much skill at fighting, either, when it came to all that. Syrus supposed that the place was so charged with magic that a gun might not even fire properly in here. He just hoped Bayne’s wouldn’t suddenly go off and take off a foot or bit of his leg.

  Syrus leaped into the fray with his dagger, trying not to remember his cousin Raine taken down by his own hand. Piskel also bit and confounded and rained curses down on the guards.

  When at last they made the ground floor, the Elementals in the cages were going wild. Singing, screaming, hooting, chanting—all begging for one thing in a myriad of voices . . . Free us . . . Free us!

  Bayne looked around wildly as a lull came in the fight. He had a gash on his forehead where a thrown dagger had nicked him. Hordes of wraiths and guards—human and Raven—poured down the stairs after them.

  Syrus hardened his heart against the wraiths. They might have once been his people, but the most important thing now was to find Vespa.

  “Piskel, where’s Vespa?” Syrus yelled.

  He and Bayne raced down the aisles of cages and things reached through the bars, crying out in pain. In the great, cloudy aquaria, water Elementals beat the glass with suckered arms and brilliantly scaled tails.

  Piskel fluttered and floated, trying to get answers from his brethren above the din. At last, he came back shaking his head.

  “She’s gone, isn’t she?” Bayne asked. “What have they done with her?”

  A nearby dryad clutched at Syrus with twiggy fingers. “Do you seek the witch?” she asked. Her voice was the murmur of dry leaves. “They’ve already taken her down to the Museum for the Grand Experiment. That’s why there are so few guards. The Empress has gone down with them for the viewing.”

  “So few?” Syrus laughed hollowly.

  The dryad’s green eyes pierced Syrus as perfectly as one of his fairy poison darts. “Let us out and we will help you free her. The control panels are over there by the throne. Just take all the fields down. Hurry!”

  Syrus and Bayne nodded. So much magic in one place made Syrus’s skin curdle. He was afraid at any moment he might find himself changing and be unable to stop. He gritted his teeth and raced across the floor toward the strange throne.

  A Guard led wraiths to meet them. “Go!” Bayne yelled, lifting the heavy pike. Syrus pushed himself past them, diving for the control panel beneath the Raven Guard’s swinging ax. He had one last dart left. He’d try to hold off using it as long as he could.

  He stood in front of the control panel, as the Guard loomed behind him. He tried pulling levers and turning dials, but beyond some hissing sighs in the tangle of hoses above him, he heard nothing.

  Except for the swinging hiss of the ax.

  He dodged just in time, and it came crashing down on the control panel right where he’d stood.

  Then he heard the flicker and murmur, the stuttering sound of paralytic fields dissipating. The nevered cages sparked and steamed, and then the bars dissolved entirely.

  A Thunderbird rose toward the dark ceiling and when it shook its wings, lightning flashed and echoed around the entire chamber. A Giant uncurled from his cramped confinement and stretched high above; his shadow drowning everything in the flashes of lightning.

  Syrus yelled triumphantly. But there was still the Guard to deal with. He brought his ax up again and swung. Syrus just barely jumped high enough to miss being severed in two. Piskel fluttered around the Guard’s eyes, trying desperately to distract him.

  And then the Giant lifted his foot. There was a gust of wind, and the Guard disappeared in a puddle of metal and feathers under huge, cracked toenails.

  Syrus fell back, sure the Giant would crush him, too, but the Giant seemed as uninterested in him as he would have been in a mayfly. With a great roar, he smashed both fists down on the throne, sending sparks and smoke flying. The concussion knocked Syrus head-over-teakettle toward the cages, from which Elementals of every kind and description were pouring in a golden tide across the shaking stones.

  “Syrus! Syrus!” Bayne called to him through the smoke.

  Bayne lifted him from the floor. “Come on, let’s help them get out.”

  “But . . . my people . . . they’re trapped somewhere in here too. We must help them!”

  Pain convulsed Bayne’s face. “I know they are, Syrus, but look there—” He pointed up the stairs. Refiners, wraiths, and more Guards were pouring in, some of them toting thunderbusses whose humming charge carried under the sounds of the melee. “If we go that way, deeper into the Refinery, we and all the Elementals are doomed.”

  “But . . .” Syrus reached toward the Guard-infested tunnel. He pushed away from Bayne, tottering toward the wave of onrushing guards.

  “Syrus!” Bayne yelled. Before the boy knew what was happening, he was upside down over the Architect’s shoulder. Bayne raised a hand and sent a current of magic behind them, creating a great, glowing wall that nearly blinded Syrus with its light.

  Then he saw a low, roofed tunnel and the Giant, stooping so he was almost crawling as he led them through it.

  Bayne carried Syrus down the tunnel in a flood of Unicorns and Amphiteres, bugbears and dryads. A Kraken thundered by them at one point, desperate to get to the River. The Giant punched a hole into the living rock. The roof shuddered overhead as if in pain.

  Soon enough, the winter sun shone on Syrus’s face, but all he could do was reach back toward the dark tunnel, reaching for the people he knew were still imprisoned there, even as the Elementals rejoiced in their freedom all around him.

  CHAPTER 27

  When I wake up, I ache all over as if my bones have been broken and hastily reassembled. Something is breathing under me. At first, I think I’m lying on a great, billowing bed. Something takes slow, steady breaths, breaths that inhale the world and let it back out again. The Beast in the Well sleeps deep beneath me. For a moment, I think I might have reached my destination after all, that everything is safe, that victory is assured.

  Then, I smell something familiar—the must of old books, dust, forgotten displays. My eyes don’t want to open, but I sense t
he light going by in a circuit. I manage to peel my eyes open. I’m in the storage basement in the Museum, that room where Bayne and I first kissed. I’m lying on a pallet and an old blanket from Father’s office.

  The illusion of breathing remains just for a moment. Even the walls stretch and snore. Then the light passes the door and a paralytic field glimmers, the wards snug inside the door frame. Everything returns to normal. Except nothing is normal anymore.

  A tall shadow passes, so familiar the cry is out of my throat before I can hold it back. “Father!”

  He looks in at me through the shimmering field. His eyes are sad, so sad.

  “Father, let me out!”

  He shakes his head. “Charles told me you would try to use your witchery against me in any way you could. I can hardly believe it of you, my little girl.”

  There’s so much sadness in his voice that I get to my feet and go to the door. I walk as if I’ve never used my feet before. I look down. I’m still in my torn stockings. My gown is tattered and streaked with dirt and blood. And I remember. I remember the Manticore’s death, changing into the Phoenix with the Heart safely in my own chest, the Guard coming after me in a twisted cloud.

  The field is so strong that it snaps and hisses at me the closer I come. There’s definitely no way I’d be able to trip this field as I inadvertently did with the Sphinx’s field. This one is a hundred times stronger. I stumble back, but I put out my hand toward Father.

  “Father.” I swallow the sharpness that rises in my throat. I won’t apologize, nor will I beg. Charles—or rather, the Grue inside him—has been the puppet master all along. The puppet, even if he is my father, won’t suddenly grow a will of his own. But I try to appeal to the inner recesses of his heart. “Father, I may be a witch, but I am still your daughter. I’m still your Vee.”

  He puts his hand up—the mirror image of mine, only larger, more gnarled. For a moment, for a single breath, I think he might free me. But instead he shakes his head. “Minta warned me you would turn out just like your mother. I tried to dampen your abilities, tried to shelter you from them while giving you at least some rein to enjoy what you loved. But Minta warned me. And I wouldn’t listen.”