Tarnished Are the Stars

by Rosiee Thor

  Nathaniel sighed and closed the book. He was getting nowhere.

  He crossed the room, stretching his legs. If only he understood the Technician’s thinking better, but that wasn’t possible. Nathaniel only knew Anna, not the outlaw. He’d only been studying the case for a few days. No one could expect him to crack the code of the Settlement’s most wanted criminal that quickly.

  His father certainly wouldn’t expect it.

  But Nathaniel was determined to confound expectations. If he couldn’t outdo his father’s own men, then … well, then Nathaniel would not deserve his father’s recognition. Snatching the Technician file he’d lifted from the officers’ bunker, Nathaniel settled against the window. He leafed through the pages, but the other riddles bore little significance to the one he held between his fingers.

  The Technician thanks you for your patience.

  That had to be some kind of joke. Nathaniel didn’t think he had any patience left. But as his eyes flicked between the note he held and riddles in the file, his breath caught.

  They were the same. The capital T leaned forward with a small but precise loop in its tail. The same letter, the same handwriting, graced all four slips of paper—the two from the file, the one from the market, and the one Anna had given him yesterday. She’d penned it with her own hand. She’d written them all.

  She was more than just one of many assistants. She had to be an apprentice at the very least.

  The Technician thanks you for your patronage.

  The Technician thanks you for your patience.

  But how could the Technician thank him if they’d never met?

  Nathaniel’s heart sank with realization. The elusive Technician, too busy to see his customers, had never even been a factor. There had only ever been Nathaniel and Anna. She’d written the riddles, she’d answered his questions, and she’d fixed his faulty, illicit, tarnished heart.

  Anna was the Technician.

  He’d had her. And then he’d let her go.

  He should have brought her to his father regardless. Even without knowing her true identity, she would have been valuable. The Technician’s agent would have been an excellent arrest. Perhaps an officer or the Commissioner himself would have been able to prove she was the outlaw as well.

  His father’s words rang in his ears: Leave it to the experts, Nathaniel.

  Nathaniel tried to swallow, but his throat scratched and scraped against the motion. It didn’t matter that he was not a soldier or an expert. He had an appointment with the Technician, not his father. He had the power.

  But the riddle in his palm wasn’t going to solve itself, and he was running out of time. In a few days, Anna would go to the heart of the Settlement, wherever that was, and Nathaniel had to be there to meet her.

  He pressed his nose against the windowpane, staring out at the city.

  “Where are you?” he whispered into the glass.

  In the distance, the clock tower chimed three times in reply.

  Clearing the fog from the window, Nathaniel gaped. The tower, with its iconic celestial clock face, stood resolute against a blue sky, the waterwheel below spitting water as though it mocked him.

  The heart of the Settlement.

  Could his heart be the key to the riddle twice in a row? His chest pounded back an answer. Still, it was not only an echo of his own heart’s machinery; the waterwheel, turning to the rhythm of the clock above, pumped water to every corner of the Settlement, flowing through the city like blood through veins.

  Experts be damned. Nathaniel would catch the Technician.

  When Nathaniel finally decided to leave his room, stomach growling, pride forgotten, he found an envelope on the hallway floor bearing the seal of the Commissioner.

  His cheeks flushed. Were things so strained between them that his father couldn’t knock, couldn’t ask to speak with him? Nathaniel wasn’t sure he didn’t prefer it this way. Another confrontation with his father could only cause more pain.

  Breaking the seal with his finger, Nathaniel unfolded the note.

  Nathaniel,

  I have gone to the Tower on business and will return within a week. While I am away, Councilor Ming will serve as interim Commissioner. Perhaps you will learn from him what I am unable to teach you.

  Commissioner Oliver Fremont

  Nathaniel read the note twice. To the untrained eye, it was not accusatory—it wasn’t even unpleasant. It was merely a father informing a son of the status quo, or perhaps a leader informing his heir, his words lacking familial intimacy. The Commissioner had even signed his full title, not “your father.” And yet, only a father’s expectations could cause the ache between Nathaniel’s ribs.

  A tingling began in Nathaniel’s extremities, then traveled to his core. He would be alone for a week without a chaperone. He would try once again to capture the Technician, this time armed with knowledge. With his father gone, there would be no one but himself to berate him if he failed.

  Only this time he wouldn’t fail.

  The morning of Anna’s meeting with Nathaniel came faster than she’d anticipated, the days between blurring in her memory. So when she departed Mechan, Anna had not yet made up her mind about the Commissioner’s son.

  She reminded herself that he was a noble, tied to people she never wanted to meet. Thatcher was probably right: She should stay away. Still, Anna couldn’t shake the feeling that Nathaniel’s identity transcended his father’s. When she’d met him at the abandoned cottage, he’d been real, and human, and curious—not a servant of the Settlement. Thatcher had once believed him worth saving, and this fact, oddly enough, rooted itself in her core. Maybe he was worth saving, and maybe he wasn’t.

  With Ruby’s book, syringes and vials for a blood sample, and a choice selection of wrenches in her satchel, Anna took the path through the center of town, sunlight sprinkling across the waves. The silence so early in the morning instilled a certainty in Anna’s steps she couldn’t replicate in her mind.

  As Anna reached the top of the ridge, she cast her gaze down at the town below, still sleeping under a lavender sky. Thatcher wouldn’t know for hours that she’d left Mechan, and she did not relish his lecture upon her return. Anna didn’t have time to worry over Thatcher’s feelings, though. She needed to reach her chosen meeting place before the sun rose fully in the sky, before the gate watch changed from the exhausted guards who would think her just a shadow in their sleep-stained eyes.

  Cold wind ripped through her layers, slowing her progress, but she pushed on toward the old clock tower. It rose up from the Settlement’s outer wall, the waterwheel like a massive crimson planet hanging against the sunrise, the clock face a solitary moon in orbit.

  Turning away to let the wind beat against her back for a moment, Anna pulled her coat tighter across her chest. She squinted into the distance, searching the path behind her, but she saw no one, only tall blades of grass swaying in the wind. It made no sense that someone would be following her when she headed toward the Settlement, and yet she couldn’t shake the feeling someone was watching her.

  Whipping around without warning, Anna narrowed her vision at the grassy expanse behind her. A flash of white disappeared into the grass, and Anna’s throat constricted. She’d been right after all; she should have trusted her instincts.

  Anna withdrew the heftiest wrench from her satchel, ready to strike, but she found no malcontent lurking in her wake. Crouched in the tall grass, head bent low to hide his distinctive light hair behind the green blades, was Roman.

  Anna let her arm fall to her side, releasing the tension from her muscles with difficulty. “Roman! What do you think you’re doing?”

  Roman looked up, a sheepish grin on his face. “I wanted to come with you. Mama said she was worried about you and—and you were courting danger!” He said the last part triumphantly, like he was proud to have remembered his mother’s words.

  Anna sighed and knelt beside him, cold dew wetting the knees of her trousers. “Your mother w
orries too much. I’ll be just fine.”

  “Mama says lying is wrong.” Roman pouted.

  “Your mother says a lot of things, doesn’t she?” Anna smiled and patted Roman’s fluffy hair. “She’ll be worried sick if she wakes to find you’ve run off.”

  Roman’s pout fell away, replaced by a ponderous expression.

  “You shouldn’t be anywhere near the Settlement. You’re still healing from your surgery and it isn’t a good idea to stray too far from Thatcher. He’s supposed to help if you start to feel any pain. If you’re here with me and your chest starts to hurt, he can’t help you.” She put the wrench back in her satchel and pointed to his chest. “Let me examine your incision.”

  “It won’t hurt, promise! I’m brave, remember?” Roman frowned, but he let her open the top of his shirt.

  “I’m sure you’re quite courageous, but your mother’s not wrong. It isn’t safe where I’m going.” She prodded the skin around the incision lightly. Red irritation bloomed beneath her fingers. He needed to be in his bed, at home with his mother, but they were quite beyond that. The walk home would be too much for him to handle, and she didn’t have the proper tools with her if his incision split.

  Glancing at the clock tower, Anna saw it was nearly time. She couldn’t be late for her appointment, but neither could she send Roman home on his own. “I think it’s best you stay put.”

  Roman shook his head. “I can protect you from the dandy folk, Auntie Anna! They don’t scare me.”

  Something twisted in Anna’s chest, his bravery cutting through her like a scalpel. It had been a long time since Anna lived without fear, without worry. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent a day in complete safety, secure in her own town, in her own home, in her own skin. And yet she’d presented herself as fearless, an example for Roman to follow. He’d no idea of the danger inside those walls, no idea of the unease beneath her mask.

  “Well, they scare me.” She rose back up to her full height and reached for Roman’s hand. “And I won’t be able to focus on my work today if I don’t know that you’re completely safe.”

  Anna wanted desperately to send him home, to have Thatcher look after him instead of her, but Roman’s angry incision worried her. He needed rest, not a long trek back to Mechan. “I need you to do something for me.” She pointed to the line of trees a few yards away. “I want you to hide in those trees there and be a lookout, just like the pirate who watches from the—uh—the top of the ship.”

  Roman tilted his head to look up at her. “The crow’s nest?”

  Anna nodded. “I need someone to keep an eye on those guards.”

  Roman’s face split into a smile. “What do I do if they follow you? Should I fetch my sword and do battle?”

  “Stars, no!” Anna gripped his shoulder tight. “I want you to think like a runner, all right? Runners don’t stay to fight alone—their job is to warn us of danger. If anything happens, I want you to go back to Mechan by yourself and tell your mother.”

  Roman nodded his assent.

  “Good. Now, do you have any questions?”

  “Yes.” Roman scratched his head thoughtfully. “Who is Danger, and why does Mama think you’re courting them?”

  Once Anna was sure Roman would stay put in the tree line, she returned to the clock tower, climbing up the far side, out of the guards’ lines of sight. With Roman nearby, she didn’t dare approach the gate, even with her passport. The rope ladder she’d placed behind the vines and overgrowth had weakened, worn down by the spray from the waterwheel, but it did its job. In seconds she made it to the top and over the side without incident. A quick glance at the clock told her she was right on time.

  She pulled herself up onto the side of the tower and crawled through the stone archway just below the number six. As she disentangled herself from the rope, wood creaked beneath her feet. She much preferred her metals, sleek and relatively silent. It was this flaw in her meeting place, perhaps, that alerted the approaching officers to her presence.

  Two uniformed men mounted the stairs with speed and vigor, eyes glued to Anna.

  She whipped around, ready to fling herself back down the rope ladder, but as she turned, she nearly crashed into something—someone.

  Nathaniel.

  A cold, collected dandy, eyes hard like steel, jaw set, stood before her instead of the nervous, inquisitive boy she’d met. Where had he come from? If Anna hadn’t been distracted by Roman before, she would have arrived first. She would have had the upper hand. She would have escaped easily.

  Nathaniel smiled and snapped cuffs over her hands as she tried to push him away.

  “So good of you to arrive promptly, Lady Technician,” Nathaniel said. Though his gaze was stony, his voice wobbled.

  So he knew her secret. She knew his, too.

  She bared her teeth. “I should have expected nothing less deceitful from the Commissioner’s son.” Testing the cuffs around her wrists, Anna found herself quite stuck. The Commissioner might not approve of tech, but his smiths certainly knew their way around metal.

  Nathaniel smiled again, and her heart sank. If Anna hadn’t known better, she might have thought it good-natured. But he wasn’t good. He was the enemy.

  She’d been wrong about him, and she would have to live—or die—with it. Her heart plummeted as the reality of her predicament sank in. She’d been beaten at her own game, but it wasn’t over. He’d taken her this round, but she’d win the match.

  Nathaniel waved to the officers, and they took each of her elbows in their iron grip.

  “And to think,” he said as they led her away, “I thought this introduction might be awkward and uncomfortable.”

  But Anna found nothing about her current predicament nearly as awkward and uncomfortable as explaining it all to Thatcher would be.

  If she ever got the chance to tell him.

  Nathaniel had always wondered how it would feel to win. The rush of adrenaline as he’d snapped the handcuffs around the Technician’s wrists consumed him, pulsing through his blood. He wanted to savor it. It tasted of triumph, of victory.

  But as Nathaniel led the restrained Technician down the stairs of the crimson clock tower, watching her descend with heavy footfalls, something else ran through him. Her gaze was sharp but resigned—the blade of a straight razor turned harmless only by the will of he who controlled it. And Nathaniel controlled her now.

  So why did she stare at him? No one dared look at his father like that.

  “What?” he asked, throwing the word at her with the same velocity as one of his father’s punches.

  Anna’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.

  “Surely you must have expected something like this would happen eventually,” Nathaniel continued as he and the officers marched her along the cobblestone streets. “You’re a criminal, and criminals always get caught.”

  Again, Anna glared at him, but this time she spoke, voice quiet but steady. “Only if there’s someone to catch them. You don’t have to do this, Nathaniel. You could still let me go.”

  Nathaniel’s eyebrows rose. “Let you go? Why would I want to do that? Today I caught the most dangerous outlaw in the Settlement. Today I’m a hero.” He clenched his jaw, unsure if his father would agree.

  “Just because the law isn’t on my side, it doesn’t mean I’m evil.” The intensity of Anna’s gaze wavered as they crossed over from the public streets onto the private grounds of the manor.

  Nathaniel sniffed. Not the Tech Decrees again. Her ideas about tech and his father’s legislature had gotten him in enough trouble already. He didn’t need to hear more of her nonsense. “Laws exist for a reason. My father isn’t a bad man just because you don’t like them.”

  “That’s debatable,” Anna scoffed. “But I’d say he’s a bad man for lots of other reasons, like what he’s done to you.”

  Nathaniel froze on the threshold, hand poised to open the door to the manor. She knew nothing about his relationship with his father
. What right did she have to judge his family? His father had disciplined Nathaniel, certainly, but his lectures were not uncalled for, and Nathaniel felt he’d deserved every one of his father’s blows, every lash of his father’s belt and tongue.

  So why did her words dig so deep?

  “Leave us here.” Nathaniel dismissed the officers with a poor imitation of his father’s authority. Though the officers obeyed him without question, he knew it wouldn’t last. When his father returned, any semblance of power he might have wielded in the Commissioner’s absence would be gone. Taking hold of Anna’s handcuffs, he led her through the door. He would endure her jabs, but he didn’t want others to hear them, too.

  Once they were inside, Nathaniel turned his eyes on his captive. “Whatever you think you know—”

  “I don’t think. I know.”

  Nathaniel felt himself shrinking against the solid assurance of Anna’s tone—the Technician’s tone. It was time he started thinking of her as the Technician, the criminal mastermind his father wanted above all else, not Anna, the young girl who’d taken pity on him and his condition. But it was harder to separate the two than he’d expected. It was not impossible, after all, for her to be both kind and fundamentally wrong, just as it was not impossible for his father to be unkind but righteous.

  “Don’t try to distract me with your lies. It won’t work, Technician.” Nathaniel tugged on the handcuffs, but he could not bring himself to pull hard enough to cause pain.

  “I don’t make a habit of lying,” she growled, but with a look from Nathaniel, her face softened. “I’m not sorry I didn’t tell you who I was. You can’t possibly expect that while holding me captive.”

  Nathaniel turned around, bringing her forward and across the foyer. “No, but I don’t make a habit of listening to liars.”