Wish leaned down from his perch in the cannon turret to hear the answer too.
“I don’t really know,” Gavin said over the hum of the walker’s foot gears, which whirred and clicked as they were propelled forward.
“That’s great,” Wish said. “Drop me off at my house on your way to getting killed, please.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know where it is.”
“I think it would be in the vault, or maybe the armory. The Council would want something that powerful under lock and key,” Landa answered. “When my father worked for them, he said that they were an untrusting lot bent on power and control. But maybe he was wrong.”
“No. No, Landa. That’s it,” Gavin said. His excitement caught them all off guard. “My father is more untrusting than all of them combined.” He looked at Orion, whose face betrayed nothing. “He would keep it close, where he could control access.”
“Like in his office?” Lucas asked.
“Yes. Or maybe the secret room in the basement of Parliament.”
“It would save us time, not to mention the danger, to know which,” Wish said.
“Do you have something that your councilman father has given you?” Orion asked Gavin.
“Why?” When Orion continued to wait for an answer, Gavin fished something out of his vest and held it up. “He gave me this,” he said and held up a brass skeleton key. Orion took the key and placed it in a small metal bowl fished from his pouch.
Orion took his dagger off his hip and handed it to Gavin, who looked quizzically at it. “This was a gift from my… from my father. It will amplify the power of the spell. Feel it, think of your father, and hand it back.”
The dagger had braided leatherwork on the handle, small guards, and inscribed work on the blade. The pommel had a small orb. He couldn’t tell what the inscription said, as he did not recognize the language. Gavin carefully placed it back in Orion’s outstretched hand. Orion inspected it.
Gavin alternated his attention between the path ahead and Orion behind him as he drove the walker.
Orion placed the dagger on a cloth he had pulled from his hip pouch where he kept potions. He asked for canteen water, poured it into the bowl, and sprinkled some grains of a sandy substance in next to the dagger. Gavin looked back.
“Why don’t you just use some magick? What’s with the powder?” Gavin said.
“Magick can help you achieve amazing feats, but there are times that a simple potion proves more effective.” He touched the blade, and his eyes instantly turned silver, his hair shock white. He gave himself over to magick.
“Goddamn!” Wish shouted.
“What? What’s happening?” Gavin asked, twisting his head to see while making sure he didn’t crash them into the trees that sprinkled the path.
“The warlock is committing a crime punishable by death back here,” Lucas snarked.
Air moved in the small cabin, even though the door remained closed. Wish moved backward while Landa edged away from the analytical engine so she could see into the bowl better. Landa, Wish, and Lucas were not used to wielders, let alone ones who used magick powers right in front of them. Landa looked intrigued, but Wish and Lucas did not look happy, which meant they finally agreed on something.
He put his fingertip in the water, and then reached out to Gavin. “Give me your hand.”
Gavin eased the walker to a stop and slipped out of the pilot chair to sit with the rest of them on the cabin floor, the engine purring.
As Gavin grasped Orion’s hand, the cabin of the walker erupted in light.
They were transported into Jacobson Haveland’s home office behind an ornate wooden desk, its ghost images illuminated on the metal walls. It looked as if people danced in front of them, yet were not there at the same time. Specters of the past or the present, he could not tell. Gavin could still see Lucas’s body tense when he touched Orion’s hand.
“Whoa,” Wish exhaled. Landa looked into the bowl and Gavin knew she was trying to figure out how the images were projected.
“Think about your father, what you know of him,” Orion said. His voice echoed across the walls of the once tight quarters of the cabin. “Look around his study. Where does his mind go when you see him there?”
Gavin did his best to look around the room. He searched in vain, ashamed to say he and his father weren’t very close. He didn’t know him well. Then in a flash he remembered something.
He had gone to his father in the study to report why he had skipped business classes in order to test out one of Landa’s designs for airships. He was ten, and they had no business flying by themselves. That time, like the most recent adventure, they crash-landed.
His father seemed unusually energized then, but he did not know why. He seemed to already know of the crash landing and barely paid him any mind. He had been busy… doing… looking at…. There it was. Against the wall, an outline of a door highlighted in a faint glow. How had he never noticed it before?
The light vanished, and Orion’s head thumped against the solid metal of the cabin wall when he slumped over, unconscious.
“Stop!” Landa shouted, reaching out to Orion before pulling her hand back.
“You think we should have done that in the first place before we became party to this witchcraft? We could all get death sentences,” Wish said.
“Is he going to be all right?” Gavin asked, worry in his voice.
“Who cares about the Irish?” Wish said.
“Wish,” Landa chastised him. She listened to Orion’s breathing a tick. “I think it was the strain. He should be fine. I guess.”
“You guess?” Gavin said.
“I’m not a doctor, you know.” She folded a coat under Orion’s head to comfort him as he slept. “All right. We had better get going, then. Looks like we’re going to your house.”
Gavin let Orion sleep. He started the walker toward London again. This time they had a definite sense of purpose. They had a clear mission. They would go to his house, the well-guarded home of the leader of the British Islands’ Council, during wartime, to get a sacred relic from a hidden room. No problem.
In the Heart of London, It Waits for Thee
LONDON, OR what was left of it, still stood in smoke and darkness in the wake of the deadly faerie attack. All electric lights and gas lamps had been extinguished in case there was an aerial bombardment. London had remained on edge since the faerie army came and killed thousands of British citizens and laid waste to scores of steamwalkers nearly a week ago. Battle cruisers and armored airships still burned along the Thames and Serpentine River at Marble Arch. Fire crews worked day and night to put out the flames once the faeries were beaten back, the high price having already been paid.
Their steamwalker plodded silently—or as quietly as Gavin could pilot it—down village streets with rubble strewn about. They saw their once vibrantly growing city reduced to war refuse. The men would have all been called to military or construction bases around the city to strengthen defensive positions and rebuild any structure vital to defense of the empire. The women not only worked with rations and strict wartime regulations to keep homes and children safe and functional, they also went to work in factories and shops and everywhere men had been taken from. There was sacrifice to be made, and the English met it with a stiff upper lip.
The empire remained. The English heart did not know failure, only stubborn resolve, righteousness, and victory. Small piles of timber and brick had begun to be cleared from destroyed buildings to inevitably be used to rebuild. The empire would remain.
Wish swiveled around in the cannon cockpit. “Gavin,” Wish called in warning.
“I see it,” Gavin replied.
Up ahead of them, lit by the waxing gibbous moon, where the little village streets became wider roads toward city center, an army regiment had established a blockade. It was rough-hewn with logs and some official-looking portable barricade walls. Gavin slowed the steamwalker to a crawl and edged toward a small alley.
The alley’s uneven old cobblestones made the walker clunky to maneuver. It began to loudly click and whir as its gears spun overtime to compensate for the terrain. The bouncing stirred Lucas and Landa out of their fleeting slumbers.
“What’s going on?” Lucas said while he cleared his eyes of sleep. Landa sat up quickly to check the gearbox and pressure gauges.
“Sorry,” she called out. Frustration showed on her face as she set to her work before reporting, “Everything is nominal.”
“Even so, we are going to have to go it on foot from here, I think,” Gavin declared. “Unless there’s some magick that makes us invisible.”
“Not that would get us all the way past a blockade like that. Maybe if you find a smaller blockade?” Orion said. The whole group turned to stare at him in disbelief.
“What?” He shrugged.
“Maybe where you’re from, realities like, I don’t know, staying visible isn’t commonplace, but the idea of disappearing scares the hell out of us,” Wish said. His face had twisted up in disgust.
Gavin pulled the steamwalker to a halt in a small rubbish collection spot. They gathered their bags and climbed down into the foggy night. They had traveled the countryside all evening and through the night in hopes they could carry out their mission under cover of a sleeping city.
“It’ll be a dangerous hike to my house,” Gavin informed them. “Luckily we don’t need to cross any bridges, or the military blockades might end our mission before it’s begun.”
They walked along the cobbled side streets that paralleled High Street, which became Bayswater Road. They slipped into the denser wooded paths that snaked through Kensington Gardens near the airfield. They kept their distance from the airfield because of the heavy military presence after the attack. At last, they made it near Grosvenor Square, where Gavin lived.
The square was thick with soldiers. Their sharp red overcoats had been stained with coal dust, sweat, and in some cases, blood. The artillery officers worked hard making sure the cannons were ready, but Gavin knew they were worn out. Their white pants had blackened with soot, and the sashes on their chests grayed with detritus. Some stood guard at each roadway that lead in and out of the square. Others were busy with their tasks and moved about like bees. All the streets to Gavin’s house were choked off.
“How are we going to get to your house?” Lucas asked, defeated.
“Leave that to me,” Orion said.
This turned all of their heads except Gavin’s. He figured they would need Orion’s help getting past soldiers and his father. He knew they would use magick. He prayed Orion would keep his secret, having no idea what his friends would do if they knew he wielded it as well. He paused a tick to acknowledge that he had lumped Wish in with his friends. He never would have believed that possible a day ago.
They ran and hid behind steamcabs as they made their way down the street. Wish acted as point man. He scouted the clearest path and timed when they should run.
Landa made sure pressure rose high enough on her steam cannon pack. She clutched it tightly in her hand.
“It’s going to be all right,” Gavin said, reassuringly.
Landa shook her head. “I hope so. I don’t know if I can fire this at our own, even if we’re caught.”
Lucas’s job was to not fall too far behind since he never had been good at running. Especially in big clunky boots. They were highly fashionable for being an artificer’s, but they were not functional at high speeds. He looked behind them at each hiding point to see if they had been followed and told them when they were clear. Gavin thought they were growing into a pretty good team.
“I live down there,” Gavin said, pointing. They all hunkered behind a concrete stoop in front of a large home. It lined half a block on Grosvenor and Brook Street at the edge of the square.
Orion looked along the road to see the wrought iron gate, with its pointed spike fence posts, which lead to an enormous, extravagant dwelling.
“Big house,” Wish proclaimed. “Must be hard.” Gavin’s shoulders drooped. He heard the accusation in Wish’s voice. Gavin felt embarrassed by the size of it.
“Don’t feel bad. I live in an actual castle,” Orion said.
“How are we going to get to it and over the gates?” Landa asked.
“There’s squaddies everywhere here,” Wish said, pointing his chin toward the soldiers in red coats.
Orion dug into his bag for the seemingly never-ending supply of powders and potions and pulled out a little brown pouch. He opened it and grabbed a pinch of blue granules. His hands glowed dark blue. He moved his lips slightly in a chant. He raised his hands as if to throw it at them.
“Not bloody likely,” Wish exclaimed, much louder than anyone would want while slinking through a well-armed city. Gavin grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him back close to them.
“Shut your mouth,” he growled through his teeth.
This was the angriest Gavin had seemed since they met, and Orion nodded his head in approval.
Wish knelt down next to them again, but he easily brushed Gavin’s hands off him.
“What is that?” Landa asked. Orion explained it would make them harder to be seen in the darkness of night. Not quite silent, not totally invisible, just harder to focus on. None of them really understood how magick worked, even Gavin, but everyone relented to it except, of course, Wish.
“You can’t come with us to the house if we’re all captured,” Lucas said.
“What’s so important about this stone thing anyway?” Wish said. “Shouldn’t we tell my father so he can simply destroy it? Why do we have to break in with him?”
“No,” Landa whispered. “Don’t you get it? This Knowledge Stone might be the reason the faeries attacked. It might even be why Blaylock and his evil Brotherhood want to destroy the empire. To get it, to use it to hurt people.
“And worst of all, Gavin thinks his own father, and maybe everyone connected to the Council, like your father, is using it. We can’t tell anyone. We can destroy it here, and it can be over.”
Gavin knew Landa was one of the most intelligent people he’d ever met, but it didn’t keep him from staring at her in amazement. She didn’t even have all the pieces of the puzzle. He hadn’t even thought it all the way through to that conclusion. The Monk said their task would reveal itself. It sounded too hoodoo and complicated. He’d much rather be off in the air behind the pilot wheel on one of Landa’s experimental airships than dealing with this.
Orion sneered at her the moment she mentioned destroying the stone. He did not have his cloak’s hood to hide his expressions behind. “Blaylock will never possess the stone.”
“Well, I still don’t like this,” Wish said. “I certainly don’t like being magicked up with pixie dust and the like.”
“I’m going with it,” Landa said, and touched his shoulder.
Wish rolled his eyes. He reached for her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze back, which she didn’t jerk away from. He turned to Orion and nodded.
“But I swear, if I don’t become visible or whatever again…,” Wish added.
The blue powder glowed and glistened when Orion threw it in the air to dust them all.
Wish held his hands out, and when nothing happened, he shrugged. “Stupid magick doesn’t work.”
“Trust me. It will,” Orion told them. He got up and motioned for them to move. They walked along the fencerow toward Gavin’s home at the corner block of Brook and Davies Streets.
“Well, I don’t feel anything different,” Lucas declared.
Cloak and Dagger
THEY WALKED past soldiers who seemed preoccupied with looking the other way at something every time Orion waved his hand. Gavin couldn’t believe they walked so closely to people without being seen. How did the soldiers not see the deep glow of Orion’s hands? He wondered if he would ever be able to do that type of thing.
Orion looked up at Gavin’s house. It could have been called a castle in its own right.
Its high roof blotted out the skyline in dark silhouettes of turret points. The high trees cast eerie shadows across the facade. The silver moon illuminated the light brick walls and corner jut-outs, which made it difficult to hide. Lucky for them there were plenty of bushes to hide behind.
Gavin put his key in the lock of the front door, which clicked far too noisily. He swung it open for them, and they slipped into the house. At the study door, Gavin crouched and paused to listen for his father, who often could not sleep and worked through the night instead. He’d hoped tonight wasn’t one of those. He nodded to let Orion know the coast was clear.
Once inside the study, a vast room with overly stuffed couches and one large ornate desk lay before them to search. “Bloody hell,” Lucas whispered. “This is it, the desk from Orion’s seeing bowl.”
“Scrying,” Orion corrected.
“Whatever,” Lucas said.
“Spread out and look for a panel or lever that moves or something. There has to be a secret way to open up the wall,” Gavin said.
They started to look for the opening in the walls. They felt with their fingers, pushed on every possible object in hopes the wall would move, but still came up with nothing.
“Landa, where is it?” Wish asked.
“How would I know?”
“Well, you can fix all those engines with hundreds of moving bits.”
“Yes, but this isn’t some broken machine, is it?”
Gavin turned to Orion, who had been murmuring to himself, and his hair had gone white. When he noticed Gavin looking, he shrugged. “Nothing.”
They gathered in the center of the room, defeated. They each, in turn, focused on Lucas, when he raised a hand in the air as if asking for permission to talk in class.
“Now what, po—” Wish started but stopped short and looked at Landa as if for approval.
“Well, this poof thinks we are going about this the wrong way,” Lucas said, sarcasm dripping from his tongue. Lucas turned toward the room, studying it.
Absolute Heart Page 20