Chains of Silver: a YA Theater Steampunk Novel (Alchemy Empire Book 1)

by Meredith Rose

  “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

  “I’m glad you did.” My honorometer vibrated against my forearm. I frowned.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “According to my honorometer, you have dishonorable intentions, Presul Wolff.” I lifted an eyebrow, challenging him to explain himself.

  He gave me a steamy smile. “Maybe I do. Maybe I have very, very dishonorable intentions, cariad.”

  A pleasant shiver skittered through me. “You’ll have to wait until I’m back in my own form to show me your intensions.”

  He just grinned.

  Miss Lampeter arrived, and Dietrich excused himself, sending me a cheery smile as he left. Miss Lampeter didn’t comment as she helped me touch up my makeup and hair. Everyone knew Dame Fairchild had been assigned her own presul for this show. They might privately wonder why, but no one was cogged enough to ask out loud.

  Act two began uneventfully. I had several scenes onstage, and in an ironic switch, I was relieved to be onstage. The Peacock had never pulled an actor off stage in the middle of a scene, so for once in my life, the stage felt like the safest place to be.

  But by the time we were heading toward the climactic point of the show, I was getting worried. Maybe all this had been for nothing. Maybe Lottie had been wrong and the Peacock had no intentions of attacking tonight. Or maybe he was planning to wait until the next show Nadine was in.

  Just the thought of having to live with this uncertainty even longer made my stomach hurt. We all needed it to be over—for better or worse.

  I wasn’t in the current scene, but it wasn’t long enough to warrant going all the way to my dressing room or even waiting in the Green Room. So I stood out of the way in the wings on stage right, watching the action play out on stage. It was easy to forget I wasn’t part of the stage crew this time as I had been so many times before.

  My honorometer vibrated, making me jump a little. My heart froze for an instant.

  Cautiously, I glanced around.

  No one was nearby.

  What is it? Dietrich asked me, the words coming sharp and tense to my mind.

  Nothing…I think.

  I felt disappointed—my honorometer wasn’t functioning correctly. First it buzzed when Dietrich was in my dressing room, and now it was vibrating when no one was near. I must have calibrated it incorrectly.

  In the dimness, Wallace Shelby walked toward me, pushing a sound effect machine to put it into position for the upcoming kraken attack on the ship. I almost greeted him, but then remembered that Nadine probably wouldn’t be so outgoing. I had no idea if she were friends with Mr. Shelby or not, so I settled for a gracious Nadine smile.

  My honorometer vibrated again. Worthless gadget.

  There wasn’t much space, and he needed to set the machine about where I was standing. I walked closer to the fly gallery lift to give him room to maneuver the machine.

  He nodded thanks to me and positioned the machine. He fiddled with the knobs and pressed a few buttons. Then he drew alongside me.

  I looked up at him, another smile ready to curve my lips.

  He didn’t smile back. He leaned close to my ear. “Get into the lift, Dame Fairchild. That’s a command. You’re needed for a greater purpose.”

  For an instant, I didn’t understand his words.

  Then icy knowledge burst into hot flames of pure fear in my soul. My heart and lungs froze and then burned.

  Dietrich! It’s Wallace Shelby. He’s the Peacock.

  I didn’t want to believe it. Mr. Shelby had been my friend—I thought. He was so sweet and scholly and awkward. How could he be a killer?

  I felt the jolt of Dietrich’s shock. But all he said was, Does he have you?

  Wallace grabbed my arm, his hold not sweet at all. “Come, now.”

  Yes. He’s ordered me into the lift.

  I sensed Dietrich’s own burst of fear, followed by a massive effort to tamp it down and focus. He has to have an accomplice to control the lift. Can you see who’s there?

  I forced myself to be calm and let Wallace guide me the few steps toward the door of the lift. Casually, almost vacantly, I tilted my head toward the proscenium wall where the controls were. A woman stood there, watching us.

  Agnes Lampeter, I told Dietrich, feeling betrayed.

  Shit.

  I knew he shared my sense of betrayal. They were part of our own Alchemy Empire Theater family. And they were murderers. But there was no time to think more about it. Right now, I just had to survive.

  Yes, survive, cariad. I’m alerting the rozzers. We’ve got you. I promise. Just follow the plan. We’ll be there soon.

  Wallace shut me with him into the lift, and I struggled to control my fear of the metal cage. If I lived through this, I was going to personally take a sledge hammer to the hated device.

  Wallace was silent during the short ride to the catwalk. My heart shuddered in my chest, and I put all my effort into keeping my breathing slow and steady. I couldn’t let him know yet that I wasn’t drugged. I needed the element of surprise.

  At the catwalk, he opened the door and propelled me onto the catwalk ahead of him. “Walk to the center,” he ordered me.

  We were not alone. Another dark shape stood on the catwalk, above center stage. Hope flared in me—maybe it was one of the rozzers.

  But no—it wasn’t a rozzer.

  It was Wallace’s friend, the sharp tongued Creston Diggory. My heart sank. I wasn’t sure I could fight off two of them by myself. I tried to get a look at the fly gallery catwalks that lined the walls on stage left to see if there were any signs of our rozzers. But there were too many battens and lights and curtains in the way of my view.

  There’s a third accomplice. Creston Diggory. He’s on the catwalk with us. I don’t think I can fight two of them.

  Dietrich’s reply was quick and sure. I’ll send the other two rozzers backstage through the side house access.

  “Any trouble?” Creston asked Wallace when we stopped over center stage.

  “No, you?”

  “They’ve got a team of rozzers. Four of them—two in the house, front row, and one at each backstage entrance. I blew some brug on the stage left one and told him to kill anyone coming through the side access from the house. Agnes was going to do the same on stage right. But we should hurry at any rate.”

  I gasped, my heart clenching. Dietrich! Don’t send them through the side access!

  Too late. Why?

  I frantically tried to explain, but then I realized Creston and Wallace were staring at me.

  “She’s not drugged,” Creston snapped at Wallace.

  At that moment, the stage rumbled. The orchestra’s foreboding music filled the air, and a whirring, clanking noise told me the mechanical kraken had been fired up. The kraken attack had begun.

  God help me. I mentally screamed at Dietrich. I snapped my pepper spray from the neckline of my dress and sprayed it at Creston.

  He reeled back, shouting, but his cries were lost in the screams from the actors as they played out the kraken scene.

  A scene I was supposed to enter in only a few minutes.

  I’m coming, Minx!

  Wallace lunged for me. I tried to pepper spray him, but he knocked the canister from my hand. It disappeared into the chaos far below us.

  As I watched it fall, I caught a glimpse of Dietrich, balancing on the wooden half wall surrounding the orchestra pit. He nimbly ran along the narrow ledge onto the stage.

  The sight of him filled me with renewed strength.

  I pressed the hidden button in my gloves, unsheathing my fingered blades. I clawed at Wallace. Four long slashes opened on his face. They filled quickly with blood.

  He swore at me and reach again for my arm. I shoved him. He hit the guard rail of the catwalk, momentarily off-balance.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Creston hurtling toward me.

  A sickened dread filled me. I wasn’t going to win.

  But if I wa
s going to lose, I’d cause as much damage as I could first.

  This time, I would fight.

  I stomped the heel of my boot, releasing three inch spikes through the sole. I threw the hardest kick I could at him.

  It caught him in the thigh. He screamed.

  I yanked hard to pull the embedded spikes out of his flesh. He stumbled back, clutching his injured leg and swearing at me.

  Wallace grabbed me around my waist from behind. I flailed. I reached backward and clawed his head. He growled, but didn’t let go.

  I sheathed my claws and grabbed my hairpins. Blindly, I jabbed them into his face.

  He screamed and released me. “Bloody hell!” Frantically, he dug at the burning, corkscrewed pins.

  Creston leaped on me, pinning my arms to my side. I struggled and stomped my boots, trying to impale my spikes on his feet. But he managed to stay out of my way.

  Wallace advanced on me, his face bloodied and full of rage.

  It was almost over. I knew that. But I wasn’t going to yield.

  Leaning back against Creston, I braced one foot on the railing and kicked with the other one.

  Wallace grabbed my foot. Twisted it.

  Pain shot through me. I cried out.

  I lifted the other foot, but I couldn’t cross my body enough to get a good kick in. My skirt tangled around me, and Wallace laughed at my contortions.

  Creston let go of me with one arm. I almost fell, and instinctively put my free leg down to regain my balance.

  Before I could attack Creston again, he jammed a gloved finger into my mouth.

  Like a chalk painting in the rain, the noise, screams, and soaring orchestral music ran together into a muddied blur.

  Minx? Dietrich’s thought sounded far away, thin and muffled. Oh god. Don’t give up. Keep fighting.

  Too…late. The desire to struggle drained away from me. It didn’t seem to matter anymore.

  A calmness overtook me, almost a sense of euphoria. Everything seemed lit with a halo of silvery light. It was so beautiful. My heart fluttered in a rapid tremelo, even though I felt like I was floating on a sea of peace.

  Creston shoved me back onto my feet. “Sheathe your boots,” he snarled at me.

  The command was like a physical force slamming into me. I obeyed immediately. I couldn’t not obey.

  The men were breathing hard, glaring at me with hatred I should have found chilling. But nothing seemed to matter anymore.

  “I am going to kill Agnes when this is done,” Wallace said. “She was supposed to have neutralized her before the show started.”

  From the steel in his tone, I didn’t think he was exaggerating. But I didn’t care.

  Dimly, I heard Creston say they’d better hurry.

  I looked down on the teeming stage far below. So many little people. So much scurrying around.

  So meaningless.

  I saw Dietrich, struggling to make his way across the stage. Mechanical kraken arms slammed on the stage, nearly smashing him. It was all intricately choreographed, but he didn’t belong in the dance. He might get seriously hurt.

  I didn’t know why he should be doing that. The plan was to send the rozzers up the fly gallery stairs to the catwalk. Not across the stage.

  But we had no rozzers. They were drugged or dead.

  Pity.

  The two men began chanting in a foreign language. Slow, rhythmic. Eerily beautiful. It sounded like Latin. At first, I was confused.

  Then I remembered—that’s right.

  They were going to kill me.

  And now that they’d succeeded in drugging me with the brugmansia, I wouldn’t be able to resist.

  I was going to die.

  I felt no fear. Just a calm acceptance. Death suddenly seemed normal. Everyone was going to experience it someday. My turn was now.

  I watched Dietrich’s progress across the stage. A kraken arm slammed his head. He stumbled, nearly falling off the front of the stage.

  He pulled himself to his knees and crawled. There was blood on his face. Even though our mental connection was fuzzy now, I could still feel the traces of his desperation and determination to save me.

  Dietrich, it’s fine. Really. I will miss you, but everything will be all right. Don’t be upset.

  I will not let them do this! I swear it, cariad.

  My poor, brave Dietrich. He just didn’t understand—there was no need for so much struggle. It was better to be calm, and accept fate.

  Wallace tied a rope to a batten in front of the catwalk. At the other end of the rope was a noose.

  More chanting. Creston flicked something wet over me in a pattern of three. It was all so strange. Like a religious rite.

  A sacrifice.

  My head ached.

  I heard the orchestra’s music, as if from a long distance. It was reaching the apex of the scene. It would have been fun to take my place in it all. I had been a good Julia Donovan.

  I would have made a fine actress.

  But it wasn’t important anymore.

  The chanting stopped. Wallace handed me the noose. “Take this noose in the name of the Sacred Master. Put it around your neck,” he commanded me.

  The compulsion hit me hard again. I took the heavy, rough loop and lifted it over my head. Creston tightened it so it fit snugly against my skin.

  Then he took a red sash and wrapped it around my waist. He slid a beautiful, iridescent peacock tail feather into the sash.

  Wallace lifted my hands and placed a small red bottle in them.

  He and Creston backed away now.

  I could barely hear Wallace’s voice over the other noise. “You will drink from the vial of death. You will stand on the rail and count to thirty. Then, you will jump. And so another piece of defilement will be purged from the empire.”

  I didn’t really considered myself a defilement, but it wasn’t worth caring about.

  I recognized the music. It was my cue. I was supposed to scramble from below deck and climb my way to the ship’s rudder to take command of the ship and save it from the kracken.

  Instead, I would drink.

  And die.

  I lifted the bottle to my lips.

  Goodbye, Dietrich.

  The catwalk lurched with a great squeal that cut across the music. It dropped a half a foot. The abrupt movement knocked the bottle from my hands. It crashed to the floor of the catwalk, dark liquid splashing on my dress and the wood boards.

  The catwalk shuddered again and screeched downward. The bottle rolled crazily, tipping off the edge of the board and disappearing into the air.

  Wallace and Creston staggered, trying to keep their balance. I leaned against the rail for support.

  Wallace pointed to stage left. “Creston, go! I’ll finish here.”

  Creston hesitated a moment, but the catwalk had sunk so that the fly gallery was already at his shoulders. He sprinted to the end of the catwalk and leaped at the floor of the fly gallery. He scrambled onto the catwalk railing to claw his way back up to the surface.

  I watched the rope in front of me uncoil. The end was still attached to the batten, now overhead. We were dropping away from it quicker now, and it occurred to me if the catwalk continued to lower, eventually I would be hung even without jumping.

  Wallace backed away from me, stage right, eyeing the black wing curtain the edge of the catwalk was brushing behind. “You will jump from the railing, now.”

  The force of his command propelled me. I climbed on the lower rail.

  The catwalk sunk into the glare of the spotlight.

  The spotlight meant for my entrance. How ironic.

  As I came into view on the catwalk, the audience gasped. Gasps turned to screams.

  I put one boot on the flat iron surface of the top rail.

  The music and noise died.

  The catwalk halted.

  “Minx!” Dietrich ran on stage, skidding to a stop below me. Terror and grief contorted his face. “Don’t! Shift! Just like we pract
iced!”

  “You will hang.” Wallace’s firm command crashed through me.

  I have to.

  Please, Gia! “Stop it!” He wasn’t screaming at me. He was yelling at Wallace, pleading.

  Wallace didn’t reply. But the force of his order shook my body. I couldn’t hesitate any longer. I put my hands on the railing to hoist myself up.

  Dietrich’s body glowed with anguish. I will do whatever I must to keep you alive.

  Power exploded inside me. Pain rocked my body. My hands gave way and I slumped over the railing. The noose dug roughly into my skin.

  I sensed Dietrich’s magic, but also Thea’s and Raymond’s. But it didn’t feel like it had before. There was no safety, no compassion.

  This was brutal, dark, as if they’d all been possessed by an evil force beyond anyone’s control. The power tore through my mind, invading my memories, my thoughts, my soul. It wrestled my magic, twisting it. At last, it consumed my power, exploding back on itself into a black inferno. Nothing remained untouched by its ferocious storm.

  “By the name of the Sacred Master, I command you to hang yourself!” Wallace’s compulsion battered me.

  It was like a knife slicing my skull in two. I had to obey him.

  Before I could respond, a silky, seductive voice sliced through the silence. “Claire…”

  The voice of my nightmares. Jensen Cornelius.

  My gaze snapped down to the center of the stage. He stood there, dark and menacing, his fiery eyes ripping through my soul.

  For the first time since I’d been drugged, fear raged back to life. I began to tremble. I couldn’t breathe.

  Time seemed frozen.

  You will not hang yourself, he told me. You will live.

  I have to die. I can’t refuse. And why would you want me to live?

  He laughed, the sound icy and cruel. Because I thrive on your pain. Your suffering is my food and drink. I want you alive. For my pleasure.

  I shuddered. Worms seemed to slither in my stomach.

  He continued speaking up to me, in that voice that only I could hear. That’s right, Claire. You should be afraid. Terrified. Did you think I would let you leave my life so easily? I found you. I gained your trust. I made you think I was your dream come true. Was I convincing, Claire?

  It couldn’t be true. My Dietrich couldn’t be this monster.