by M J Moores
A young woman, not much older than Louisa, cleared her throat. Louisa’s gaze flickered to the girl then back to the scrum … searching for a shock of blond curly hair.
“May I help you?” the receptionist raised her voice.
Louisa forced herself to look at the woman. Keys snapped and tapped a din over hushed voices in animatronic execution.
Smile.
No.
The woman quirked a perfectly shaped eyebrow and pursed her lips.
“I—is, um, Mr. Tweed available?” Louisa’s gaze darted past the receptionist but was forced back again with her crisp tone.
“Who may I say is calling?”
“Louisa—ah, no. Mr. Bennett’s assistant.” She bit the inside of her lip to keep her mouth shut. Change your voice! You sound too much like you.
“One moment, please.”
Time warped the second the receptionist turned away. She moved in slow motion through a near frozen and soundless space even as Louisa’s heart rate rocketed ever faster. The contrast between the two rhythms distorted reality.
The woman paused by an empty desk, allowing her fingertips to brush over the unused typewriter, before changing her trajectory toward the doors at the back of the room.
A rasping breath startled Louisa and an ache in her chest matched the pain she’d fought the night Morrie had bound her ribs.
The woman materialized in front of Louisa as time caught up to the moment in a flash. She staggered and clutched the tall counter.
“I’m sorry, what?” Louisa asked.
“I said, it appears he’s out on assignment. A mandatory piece. This place has been hopping all month since the stock market announced we’d become The Times’s biggest competitor. You know”—she leaned across the desk and lowered her voice—“since the merger with Universal Evening News, The Chronicle’s legitimacy skyrocketed. Then, last year when they brought in the prototype for a steam-powered press, our reach surpassed The Times’s. The bigwigs should be looking to hire again soon.” She straightened her pressed brown jacket and winked at Louisa. “Now, is there a message you’d like to leave for Mr. Tweed or shall I inform him you will return at a later time?”
“Um, no, I mean—” Dagnabbit, get it together. Louisa extracted the invitation and passed it over. “Please give him this when he returns. Thank you.” She nodded to the woman, turned, and commanded herself to walk, not run, from the building.
As she crossed the street, her heart threatened to burst. White spots danced before her eyes and she blinked to clear them.
The steam clock chimed the quarter hour. Not having to talk to Morrie had given her a few extra minutes before needing to return to the station. She had to pull herself together. So, Louisa walked into the Candy Shoppe, bells tinkling her arrival. She inhaled the fruity, sugary goodness and gave herself five minutes to tour the store.
In the end, she didn’t buy anything for herself, her stomach still in knots, but she did leave with a small paper bag. Before retiring from Bennett’s that evening, the bag of Queen’s Approved Hard Butterscotch Bites sat on the roll-top desk in the kitchen.
The Boot is on Which Foot?
L ouisa’s breath frosted in the evening air, the only trace of her presence in the dark. The shadows wrapped her in their embrace, just as Joe, her trainer, had shown her they would. Her skin prickled; she owed him an apology, though Morrie had likely told him of her criminal exploits, shattering their treaty. But it didn’t matter, Joe, at least, deserved an explanation and a proper thank you. Morrie, on the other hand, would be lucky to survive the night for his traitorous article.
But the lamplighter only just stalked the streets and lanes, and that meant she had to wait—Morrie never returned before eleven. In the meantime, she had another betrayal to address.
The lanterns glowing around the Viscount’s estate gave a false sense of warmth and deterred night predators. Still, Louisa retraced her steps avoiding detection as she slipped into the side yard and around the back of the manor house to the blackened-out conservatory.
Louisa opened the door, bursting into the inventor’s lair, her leather duster billowing around her. Princess Brynna Tamberlain Fitzhugh looked up with a jolt, her thin half-smile disappearing. She narrowed her eyes at Louisa, pressing her lips tight.
“Phoenix,” the engineering inventor said, voice monotone.
“Brynna.”
The door slammed shut and the princess raised her eyebrows.
“Problem?”
“I’d say,” Louisa rasped, barely reining in her anger. Heat crept up the sides of her neck, staining her cheeks. If she could, she’d breathe fire—maybe she was part dragon … along with every other ancestry that had failed her. “I have a bone to pick with you.”
“Oh, is that so?” Ryn placed her tools and gear-laden rod on the broad work surface.
Louisa stepped up to the opposite edge and slammed her hands down, rattling devices, tools, and parts.
“Thanks to you, I’ve disfigured a man and stolen his sight. The constabulary now count me a suspect in your father’s crimes, and I’m beginning to wonder if that wasn’t your plan all along.” Her heart jumped and her skin crawled.
Ryn’s eyes widened further.
Louisa hadn’t meant to reveal this—hadn’t meant to say anything about her—
“I see.” Ryn also smashed her hands down on the table and leaned forward. The women stood, separated by a hand’s breadth, glaring icy shards at one another.
“I don’t think you do—haven’t the capacity to.”
“I wouldn’t be making such blanket assumptions if I were you. You asked me to help amplify your little orbs without killing anyone. To take down a wall, even a human one, requires force. How close to him did you launch it, hmm? I thought you were supposed to be smart. Looks like we both made unverified assumptions.”
Louisa’s gaze darted side-to-side.
Wait … Is it my fault?
Yes, my fault I trusted her. But I should have tested the modifications before—
“You’re right.” Louisa stood up, the heat draining along with her resolve. She knew Ryn’s inclinations and shouldn’t have blindly chased after her intel. “It is my fault.”
Ryn stood. She tilted her head slightly and looked at Louisa more out of the corner of one eye than the other.
“The device did exactly what you promised it would, and I didn’t test it ahead of time. I wasn’t fully clear with my request, but you helped me when I was in need. I apologize.” Louisa’s insides blazed from hot to cold and back again as she warred with herself about admitting to the oversight and her assumptions. Still, it was the right thing to do, no matter the cost.
She nodded her respect for the inventor and turned to leave before the girl decided to obliterate their prior truce and call in reinforcements to take her out—permanently. She’d already revealed too much. Her anger at Morrie had clouded her thinking.
“Don’t you even want to see it?” Ryn asked, her voice neutral if not a little ambivalent.
Louisa looked back over her shoulder. “See it?”
“The device you asked me to build.” The girl’s tone wavered ever so slightly, not pleading but … excited?
“You mean—”
Ryn shifted to the end of the worktable and whipped a soiled rag off a misshapen object.
“The anti-flame weapon.”
Louisa’s heart skipped and then sank as she walked closer to inspect the device. “It’s a gun.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“N-no. Just confused.”
Ryn laughed, not maniacal-like the way villains did on stage but not flat either. “That’s the beauty of it. Looks are deceiving. What do you notice?”
Louisa caught the infectious query and leaned over the weapon. “It’s a Blunderbuss. A short one. May I?” She waved her hand toward it.
Ryn nodded, the hint of a smile teasing her normally sober lips.
Louisa lift
ed the broad, flared muzzle in one hand and the ornate, inlaid grip in the other. “I’m no expert, but this metal ring here isn’t standard, and it’s attached to what looks like a section of the barrel that”—she pushed on the ring; it slid into the housing with a click and disappeared into the piece as an identical ring popped up on the other side—“moves.” Louisa shifted the gun and looked down the barrel. “An alternate loading mechanism? And why is it more bulbous along the top here?” She slid her fingers along its length.
“A piston chamber.”
“Really?” Louisa’s skin tingled at the notion. “I thought this was a short flint-lock musket. The kind you load with primer and powder?”
“It used to be.” Ryn gingerly took the piece from Louisa’s hands. “I’ve been studying Samuel Colt’s patent for a revolving gun. Don’t worry. I haven’t stolen his idea, but I have modified it. See, his pistol has six chambers for loading. Mine has two. His handles bullets, mine ball bearings, just like the Blunderbuss would normally. However”—she pulled her hand from a hidden pocket of her silver and bright green saree—“mine are made of wax.” She rotated the ball to reveal a small metal shell attached to the round yellow wax.
“How does it work?” Louisa whispered, an edge betraying her excitement.
“Load the open chamber like this, push it in, cock the hammer, ease back the trigger—” She turned and aimed it at an open woodstove.
“Wait!”
Ryn fired.
Flames spat from the muzzle. An explosion rocked the stove. The fire disappeared, leaving only glowing coals.
Louisa gasped. Her heart swelled and her stomach flipped. She stood dumbfounded, gawking as Ryn turned with a genuine smile and passed the gun to Louisa. The stark contrast of a pristine, ethereal middle-eastern princess to the woman holding a weapon she’d modified herself, in that very workroom, didn’t seem real.
“Take it,” Ryn said.
Louisa took it. Smoke trailed from the slight bell of the barrel. The smooth inlay on the wooden handle teased her fingertips. She shifted the gun for a closer look.
“They call the short ones dragons,” Ryn said. “But I think I’ll name this one phoenix.”
A gold and blueish metal glistened in the outline of the mythical bird Morrie had first dubbed her. Louisa’s stomach tightened.
Morrie.
“Thank you,” she said, far more deadpan than she intended. Louisa met Ryn’s intense gaze. “How did you do that?”
“What?”
“Make the fire disappear. I didn’t think that was possible. What did you put in the ammo?” Her inquisitive mind refused to let her issues with the reporter totally dampen this feat of engineering.
“Well, that part is a secret.”
Louisa raised an eyebrow.
“It’s my own mixture—not black powder. I sealed it into a hollow wax-round. It explodes when the fire melts the wax. I use a wax with a lower melting point on the front and a higher one that holds its shape better at the back to grip the strike plate. The heat in the chamber primes the ball so that when it reaches the intensity of the fire, the rest melts and the powder explodes. The blast and powder inside sucks the oxygen from the fire, extinguishing it. The force might knock someone over, may even steal their breath a moment, depending on how close they are, ‘cause this is a short-range weapon, but it will only knock them over—no killing. No maiming. I took your aversion as a design challenge. That’s why I only finished it yesterday.”
“I—I’m speechless. It’s perfect. Do you have any inert ammunition? I’d like to practice. Don’t need to be blowing stuff up until I have to, right?”
“Of course. Leave it with me, and I’ll have some blanks made for target practice.”
Louisa handed the refined weapon—the phoenix—back to Ryn and took the hint.
“I have one more stop ahead of me tonight. I’ll leave you to your work.” Louisa gave a slight bow and pushed the door open. She hoped to disappear before anyone from the house thought to check on the princess, especially after such an explosion.
“Don’t be a stranger,” Ryn called as the door swung shut.
Louisa skirted around the estate’s security measures and headed for the merchant quarter and the hidden pub.
#
The closer Louisa got to Morrie’s place the more she let the boiling heat in her guts rule reason. This wasn’t her fault. If he hadn’t announced to the nation that she was a confirmed suspect and not their guardian, she could still do her job. But now, the cool metallic cylinder of the pipe-whistle pressing against her chest only acted as a reminder she could no longer count on the constabulary. And with her training cut off, she’d need another way to improve—a way to do this on her own and still hold the Judge accountable for his crimes.
A sharp yell echoed from a lane up the street, just past one of the sanctioned public houses. Any lingering thoughts of the reporter disappeared as she blended into the shadows and followed the lingering resonance to its source.
Two figures scuffled, one from the ground, the other above. Louisa hovered near the dark walls, but not too close—places like this became public toilets at night.
“Now, stay still or ya won’ remember nothin’ when ya wake.”
On the ground, the slimmer figure wiggled and muffled a response that never made it past whatever had been stuffed into his mouth. The broader hunched figure reached down and tugged at the man’s boot.
Louisa kept to the inky crevices of the alley but spoke to the attacker. “I don’t think those belong to you.”
The hunched man stiffened and looked around but didn’t let go of the victim’s foot.
“You’d best mind yer own business. These streets are no place for little birdies to be after dark.”
“I’m glad we agree on something. You should be getting along home.” Louisa stepped from the shadows into a pool of moonlight, flaring her long leather coat out behind her to increase her size. She palmed a sphere from her work pouch and lifted her chin. The feathers pluming from the left side of her mask flickered in the longer, shadowed version of herself painted on the cobblestones.
“This is your last warning.” She held the orb aloft. “Leave him alone and be on your way.”
“Looks like you need a lesson in manners, chickadee.” He stepped away from the man on the ground.
Louisa tensed. Not yet … Not yet …
He moved toward her, his measured steps belying a feigned confidence. Scythe and Bug never hesitated like this.
Louisa shook the phoenix sphere with a quick twist of her wrist and whipped it at the ground between the thief’s feet. The calculated burst of charged energy lit his face before shoving him back. He stumbled over the uneven ground and his own feet.
“Gah! The Phoenix.” He spat and ran.
Louisa listened to his footsteps echo away down the alley. She didn’t chase him, didn’t blow her whistle to warn the police; she stayed on high alert as she kneeled by the man tangled in his own jacket, struggling to free himself.
“Hold still, sir. Just a moment. Let me help.” The calm of her voice and the gentle placement of her hands on his shoulders helped settle his frantic struggles.
Louisa helped him sit up, removed his cravat from his mouth, and straightened his jacket from around his wrists back up over his shoulders. He gripped her hands as she hauled him to his feet. The streaks of silver above his ears stood out against a well-managed coif. The distinguished lines fanning the corners of his eyes spoke to his age, but he was neither old nor frail.
“Caught you by surprise, did he?” Louisa asked, brushing crushed leaves from his shoulder and arm.
“That he did, young lady.” He tugged his boot on the rest of the way and stamped the heel down to set it in place.
“I trust you’ll be all right, now?”
“Yes, thank you. I’d best be off or my wife will worry.”
“Next time, avoid dark places at night.”
“Ah, yes. I will. S
hould have waited to use the loo but, well, that’s not always possible.” He looked toward the main street. “If you’ll excuse me.” He coughed, loosened what was left of his cravat, and hurried off. Louisa stared after him. His embarrassed confession brought an image of her father to the fore.
As a willful fourteen-year-old girl, she’d searched for him and confronted him after the opera one evening. He was relieving himself down a side street as his family waited for their landau out front. Mother had pointed him out a number of times with that half-wistful, half-confounded look of hers.
Mother.
A deep ache threatened to overwhelm her. A crate jolted over the cobbles at the opposite end of the lane.
He’s still here. Why?
A group of men sauntered past the opening to the main street, talking about “the show.” No doubt there would be more. She turned back.
“Come on out, then. You’ll not want me chasin’ you down and leavin’ ya for the rozzers to find.” She pulled her deepest drawl to form her words, something her mother used to do in certain company to reinforce an assumed barrier. Most of her “clients” didn’t want a woman who could out-talk them. Here, though, Louisa did it to erase a barrier.
She stepped forward and a figure appeared several paces away. He’d been making his way back after she’d thought she’d chased him off.
“Why should I?” he asked.
“Why should you what?”
“Trust you.”
Louisa took a deep breath. She had a hunch but couldn’t tell him that. “You’re not a thief. Clearly, you’ve never done this before. You are, however, a man in need … of a pair of boots. Am I right?”
“So what if I am? Nufink you can do ‘bout it.”
“No? All right then. But if you go after another person to take what’s not yours, I’ll make sure the constabulary find you gift-wrapped with several witnesses to attest to your behavior. Good night then.” With a sharp turn, she headed for the main road.