Angel of Brass (3 page)

“Oh, was that near your shop?” Winifred’s
hand went to the Saint Megrah medal around her neck, touching it
briefly in thanks for disaster averted. “I didn’t realize. Surely
you weren’t working so late?”

“Er, no,” Molly lied, and saw Winifred relax.
“I heard someone else talking about it, that’s all.”

“It was a small, one-man airship. No one was
hurt, but a factory was damaged when the gondola hit the stack. The
police are looking for the pilot, of course. They think a goggleboy
stole it, although no one’s reported a missing ship yet.”

“Good. I mean, I’m glad no one was hurt.”
That relieved the whisper of guilt she’d felt about helping the boy
get away.

Winifred leaned forward, clasping her hands
around her knees. “So, although it’s always wonderful to see you,
you might be wondering why I came all the way down here instead of
writing a letter.”

Molly winced. “I was hoping to avoid the
subject, actually.”

“Mother asked me to come see you.”

“She could have written and spared you the
trouble.” Molly didn’t bother adding that their mother might have
come herself—both sisters knew that would never happen. Gwendolyn
Feldman would never set foot in Chartown again, and would pretend
to everyone that she’d never been there in the first place. Even
so, she wasn’t above sending one of her children to do her dirty
work for her.

“She knew a letter would never convince you,”
Winifred said. “She asked me to remind you about the fȇte being
held in honor of Prince Five Jaguar—”

“Who?”

Winifred grinned. “You mean you don’t hang on
every doing of the court? I’m shocked.”

“He’s a Xatlian, obviously. Probably the
Emperor’s twelfth cousin five times removed, or some such.”

“His youngest brother, actually. Close enough
to the throne to be important, not so close that he has any real
chance at the succession. Everyone who is anyone will be there, and
of course Mother is certain you wouldn’t want to miss out on such
an opportunity.”

Molly closed the doors to her wardrobe and
leaned back against them, folding her arms across her chest.
“Opportunity for what?” she asked. “To suddenly come to my senses
and turn into a shorter version of her? To fall wildly in love in
some idiot who doesn’t know a differential gear from a drive shaft,
give up everything to marry him, and start popping out babies?”

Winifred’s face settled into an
expressionless mask at the last. Despite five years of marriage,
she’d yet to conceive. Though she never spoke of it, Molly knew she
longed for a child.

Cursing her own thoughtlessness, Molly said,
“Saints’ blood, I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. I didn’t mean to be so
stupid.”

Winifred managed a smile. “Of course not,
Molly. Don’t let it trouble you. Just say that you’ll come to the
ball.”

That’s a dirty, underhanded trick,
Molly thought sourly. But she deserved it after her insensitive
comment. “All right. I’ll do it for you.”

“Wonderful!” Winifred sprang to her feet and
clapped her hands. “We’ll go dress shopping in Brasstown.”

“That sounds...”
slightly less enjoyable
than having my eyeballs poked out
“...like fun.”

The sisters visited for another hour or so,
their conversation moving onto safer topics. When Winifred left,
Molly walked her to the carriage, so that Winifred could brag about
the clockwork horse. Although Molly had to admit that it was a fine
example, it was nothing extraordinary, and she critically noted
that its gait was uneven as it pulled the carriage away.

Feeling even more exhausted than before,
Molly turned back to the house. Something—a small noise,
perhaps—attracted her attention, and she glanced over her shoulder.
A small park sat across the street from the boarding house, and the
sight of squirrels or birds moving in the foliage was commonplace.
For a moment, though, she thought she caught a faint gleam, as of
sunlight on metal teeth.

An icy hand seemed to brush her back, and she
hurried to the safety of the boardinghouse door. It had just been
her imagination, combined with exhaustion and the odd events from
the night before.

Unless they think I’m still helping that
boy.

No—they didn’t know she’d helped him in the
first place, and certainly had no reason to follow her around the
city. She must have imagined it.

Even so, she slid the bolts on both her door
and her window once she was safely in her room.

* * *

Jin crouched on the edge of a roof, watching
the evening crowds mill around in the gas-lit streets below. The
noise of so many people grated against his ears like notes from an
untuned violin, and the twisting streets of the city confused him
so that he’d spent half the day wandering lost. At least he’d been
able to take to the roofs once night had fallen.

Far below, a child tripped on the uneven
cobbles of the street and immediately began to cry. His father
scooped him up, while his mother crowded close, examining his
skinned knee and wiping away his tears. Jin tried to imagine the
little boy’s life, what it must be like to have two normal parents,
with a normal house and normal friends.

He remembered sitting in front of the fire,
on a dull, dreary day much like this one. Dr. Malachi had been in
his favorite chair, near the flames. Unlike Del and Jin, he felt
the cold keenly. Del had put her metal fingers against Malachi’s
arm, aware of their difference for the first time.

“Why don’t we look like you, Father?” she’d
asked.

Malachi had smiled and touched her shining
black hair. “Because even though you’re my daughter, you didn’t
come from my blood. Nor did your brother.”

“Then how can you be our father?”

“Because I created you. Now come, both of
you, and give me a hug.”

Jin shifted as the wind blew strands of his
hair back from his face. The Saint Cygnus medal around his neck was
warm from the heat of his body. He touched it lightly with metal
fingers, praying that he could somehow survive this city, that he
could somehow blend in and convince everyone that he was normal.
That he was a real person, not something cobbled together in Dr.
Malachi’s basement.

That he wasn’t a monster.

Feeling colder inside than he ever had on the
outside, Jin turned away from the crowds and climbed higher,
seeking somewhere quiet to sleep.

Chapter 3

Molly stifled a yawn and tried to look
interested in Professor Titus’ lecture. History of the Mechanical
Sciences was without question her most boring class. Unfortunately,
it was also required to graduate, which at least meant that she
wasn’t the only one suffering through it against her will. A quick
glance around at her fellow students showed that most were staring
at the chalkboard with glazed eyes or listlessly scribbling the
occasional note into their composition books, although one girl
surreptitiously worked on a mouse-sized automaton under her
desk.

“The first true automata are credited to a
group of inventors known collectively as ‘Heart of Heaven,’ who
created wooden men able to move about independently,” Professor
Titus droned. “As indicated by the date, this took place during the
Formative Period. It is thought that the Long Count, and thus the
concept of zero, were also invented around this era...”

Molly’s eyes drifted up to the sign above the
chalkboard. In large, red letters, it declared: “ABSOLUTELY NO: RAY
GUNS, AUTOMATA, ELECTRO-SHOCK DEVICES, AETHERWAVE RECEIVERS
OR
TRANSMITTERS, OR OPEN FLAMES ALLOWED IN THE LECTURE HALL
AT ANY TIME. - DEPT. OF SAFETY.”

A shame
, she thought drowsily.
Otherwise, I could invent a note-taking automaton that could
come to class for me
. Which, on reflection, was probably the
reason behind that particular restriction.

A student asked a question that she didn’t
catch. Professor Titus’ reply was laced with impatience. “Because,
Mr. Delorn, Eroevian contributions to the Mechanical Sciences
mainly post-date the Xatlian invasion. We will get to them when we
get to them. Now, if we may turn our thoughts back across the ocean
to the lowlands of Tliti, we will find that other early inventions
have also become shrouded in myth...”

Molly’s mind wandered back to the young man
who had fallen through the skylight. He’d looked Xatlian, but his
accent was pure Eroevian, and upper-crust Eroevian at that. Not
nobility, he didn’t have the perfect diction for that, but
well-to-do for certain.

She wondered what had happened to him, if he
was all right, or if the metal-toothed men had caught up with him.
Although the fact that he had flown an airship into the town made
her question his sanity, he
had
been awfully handsome.

Molly sighed. There was no point in
daydreaming about the dashing young lunatic who crashed airships
and fell through skylights. It wasn’t as though she would ever see
him again, after all.

He certainly did have nice eyes, though.

Gah!
Frustrated with herself, Molly
forced her thoughts back to the lecture and resumed taking notes.
I don’t need this sort of distraction. I can’t afford this sort
of distraction. I have to pass this class. If I fail, I’ll have to
move back in with Mother and Father
.

The thought of knocking on their door in
defeat, begging to be allowed back in, made her cringe inside.
Mother would never let either Father or me live it down
. It
had been her father who’d taken her side when she’d wanted to go to
the institute, which had led to the worst fight she’d ever
witnessed between her parents.

Straightening her spine, Molly began to take
notes in earnest.

* * *

Jin stood on the docks, watching the
steamships leave the harbor. The salty breeze stirred the feathers
in his hair, bringing with it the smell of seaweed and pitch. As he
watched children and seagulls scavenge in the surf, he took a big
bite of the vegetable pie he’d bought from a street vendor. Rougher
fare than he was used to, but it was good and filling, and paid for
in coin instead of pain.

The last of his coin, actually, which meant
that tomorrow he’d have to find some useful work, something to keep
him fed while he planned Del’s rescue. He couldn’t go back too
soon—the estate would be on high alert after his escape. But with
any luck, Malachi’s plots would eventually distract him, and Jin
could slip in unnoticed. By that time, he’d have earned the money
to take a steamer across the sea to Xatli or the Muling-Raja
Empire. Anywhere would do, really, so long as it was far away from
Dr. Malachai.

Finishing off the pastry, Jin turned from the
sea and headed back into the city proper. He needed to find work
where his gloves wouldn’t seem suspicous. Some sort of day laborer,
maybe, hauling on cargo ropes, or packing bricks onto pallets, or
some such. It wouldn’t pay well, but he wasn’t sure he had any
other options.

If I had my violin, I could play on the
street corner and beg for tips
. But, like his rig, he’d had to
leave behind the violin to make good his escape.

As he sauntered down the street, waiting for
the sun to sink low enough that he could take to the roofs again,
the nightlife of the city began to sluggishly stir around him.
Shops closed up and taverns opened. Prostitutes called out bawdy
suggestions from a street corner, and he looked away uncomfortably.
Given his isolated upbringing, his experience with girls was
practically nonexistent. There had been Rebecca, the downstairs
maid he had liked, and who seemed to like him. Maybe she really
had; they’d shared enough stolen kisses and backstairs fumbling.
Yet when things had progressed to the point where he’d taken off
his shirt, and she’d seen the smooth joining of metal and
flesh...

He still heard her disgusted words in his
dreams sometime.
“What manner of thing are you? Don’t touch
me!”

Jin shook his head sharply to clear away the
memories.
How naïve I was, acting like a person instead of a
thing. A monster. I know better now; I’ll never make that mistake
again
.

The alleyways had grown dark, which meant
that he could climb up to the roofs without being seen, so long as
he was careful. He’d find a warm chimney somewhere, curl up against
it, and try to forget about both the past and the future for a few
hours. Slipping into a likely-looking alley, he peeled off his
gloves and tucked them neatly into his belt, then bent to unlace
his boots.

“You’ve given us a great deal of trouble,
Master Jin,” said an all-too-familiar voice.

Jin spun on his heel to see smiling men
standing at the end of the alley. A quick glance in the other
direction showed they had that end blocked as well.
Curse
it!

Their captain took a step forward; the light
of the nearby gas lamps skittered off its goggles, reflecting in
the blood red lenses. “Your father wants you to come home,” it said
in the hated monotone. “Stop being foolish and return with us. All
will be forgiven.”

As if to reassure him, the captain grinned,
and its troops did as well, exposing rows of metal teeth. Jin
shuddered; he knew exactly what those teeth could do.

He swallowed hard and unsheathed the claws on
his hands. “No,” he said, hoping that he sounded braver than he
felt. “Tell Dr. Malachi that I’m done with him. I’m not going
back.”

The captain took another step forward, and
Jin was dimly aware of movement from either end of the alley as
well. “Don’t be foolish. All other considerations aside, you’ve
stolen something quite valuable.”

“I’ll pay him back for the cursed
airship.”

“Not the airship, Master Jin. You.
You
belong to Dr. Malachi, and he’s a man who likes to keep his
possessions close.”