Heart of Steel (5 page)

Yasmeen found the maids tied hand to foot on the floor in
a bedroom upstairs. She cut through the ropes, accepted their thank-yous, and when Zenobia rushed into the room a moment later, left them to do their weeping and dressing.

She retreated downstairs, where the actress had finally stopped screaming. Yasmeen led her outside and signaled to Rousseau. He sent down two aviators to escort the woman up to the airship while Yasmeen returned to the parlor. Her cabin girl, Ginger, brought Yasmeen's favorite mint tea down from
Lady Corsair
, and relayed that Rousseau had locked the actress in the stateroom. Good enough for now. Yasmeen would let Zenobia decide what to do with her.

When Zenobia came downstairs, she stopped and studied Mattson's body for a long moment. Jaw set, she stepped over him and poured herself a cup before sitting on the chair opposite Yasmeen.

“You've come to tell me that Wolfram is dead,” she said.

“Yes.” Yasmeen studied the other woman's expression. She saw resignation. Sadness. But no sudden grief. “You aren't surprised.”

“I was supposed to receive word from him two months ago. By the third week, I had to accept that a letter wasn't coming. So I have had some time to accustom myself to the idea that he wasn't returning.” She sipped her tea before leveling a direct stare at Yasmeen. “Wolfram isn't part of your crew. So why have you really come?”

“He was on my ship. He wasn't my crew, but he was my responsibility,” she said, marveling at the other woman's composure. How was it that Yasmeen didn't feel as steady as his sister looked? She slipped her fingers into her pocket, producing her cigarillo case and lighter. “Do you mind if I . . . ?”

“Yes,” Zenobia said bluntly. “It reeks.”

“If you smoke one, too, you won't notice it as much.” Yasmeen smiled when the other woman only fixed a baleful look on the proffered cigarillo. She slid it back into the silver case. “I have his belongings and his purse—minus the five livre he owed to me for his passage.”

Five livre was a large sum of money, but Zenobia didn't blink. “I'll take them. And the da Vinci sketch?”

“You'd be a fool to keep it in your possession.”

“As aptly demonstrated today.”

Though dryly stated, Yasmeen could see that the other woman knew it was the truth. “Mattson will only be the first.”

“Yes.” Zenobia took another sip before coming to a decision. “Sell it, then.”

Exultation burst through Yasmeen's veins. She contained it, and merely nodded. “I will.”

A tiny smile curved the woman's mouth. “I understand that on dangerous flights, the airship captain receives twenty-five percent of the salvage.”

Yasmeen met Zenobia's steady gaze. “For this job, I'll take fifty percent.”

Zenobia studied her, as if weighing the chances of coming to a different agreement. Finally, she took another sip and said, “I suppose fifty percent of an absurd fortune is still a ridiculous amount of money.”

Clever woman.
This
was the Zenobia that Yasmeen had expected to find. She wasn't disappointed. “I'll see that you receive your half when the sale is finalized.”

“Thank you.” She hesitated, and some of the hardness of negotiation dropped from her expression, revealing a hint of vulnerability. “I heard a little bit of what you said about the zombies, Captain. Is it true that you deliberately threw him into a canal?”

Yasmeen shook her head. “It was the middle of the night. I couldn't know where he landed.”

Lies. Her eyes saw well enough in the dark. She'd watched him splash into the canal. She'd known that with luck and brains, he'd survive—and her crew wouldn't think she'd gone soft.

But even for Archimedes Fox, his chances of survival were slim. She wouldn't give this woman any more false hope than she offered herself.

“I see.” Zenobia's fingers tightened on her cup. “If, on your travels, you see him with the other zombies . . .”

“I'll shoot him,” Yasmeen promised.

“Thank you.” The vulnerability left her face, replaced by sudden amusement. “Speaking of your travels, Captain . . . you've tossed the source of my stories overboard.”

Yasmeen looked pointedly at Zenobia's fingers. Unlike the actress's, ink stained their tips. “You're writing.”

“Only letters.”

“You won't need the income when I've sold the sketch.”

“You misunderstand me.” Zenobia set her cup on the table and leaned forward. “I don't need the income now. I write because I enjoy it. Will you leave your airship when you've received your portion of the money?”

“No.” When she left her lady for the last time, it would only be because her dead body had been dragged away.

“It is the same with me for writing. I won't stop, not voluntarily. But I do need inspiration for the stories. With the basis for Archimedes gone, I'll have to create another character. Perhaps a woman this time.” She sat back, her gaze narrowed on Yasmeen's face. “What about . . .
The Adventures of Lady Lynx
?”

Yasmeen laughed. Zenobia didn't.

“You're not joking?”

The other woman shook her head. “You live a life of adventure and meet with many different people, particularly the villainous sort.”

Yasmeen
was
the villainous sort. “Yes, but—”

“I'll write them. You receive twenty-five percent of royalties.”

The sudden need for a cigarillo almost overwhelmed her. A drink, a hit of opium. Anything to calm her jumping nerves. Was she going to agree to this?

Yes. Of course she was. Even without royalties, she would have.

But still, no need to be stupid about it.

“Fifty percent of royalties,” Yasmeen countered. “Paid quarterly in French currency or gold.”

“Twenty-five percent. You send me reports of where you go, who you see, what you eat. I need to know how long it takes you to fly to each location. I want your impressions of your crew, your passengers, and everyone you meet.”

Impossible. “I won't share everything.”

“I won't name them. I only seek authenticity, not a reproduction of the truth.”

“I
won't
share everything,” Yasmeen repeated.

For a moment, Zenobia looked as if she'd try to negotiate that, too. Then she shrugged. “Of course you can't. But let us begin with your background. Thirteen years ago, you joined my father's crew. After you killed him—well done, by the way—you sold
Lady Corsair
's services as a mercenary in the French and Liberé war, where you worked both sides, depending upon who paid the most. You earned the reputation of being willing to do anything for money. But what happened before that? Where were you before my father's ship?”

In a very pretty cage. But did she want to share that? Yasmeen shook her head. “As far as I'm concerned, my life started when I boarded
Lady Corsair
. Make up what you like about what came before.”

“All right. A mysterious past will only make Lady Lynx more fascinating,” she mused. “I could deliver the background in bits, like crumbs.”

“Whatever you like.” Yasmeen stood. “I'll send the other reports to you regularly.”

Zenobia's expression sharpened as she rose. “Where are you heading after you leave Fladstrand? Do you have a job now?”

“No. We'll spend the day traveling to Port Fallow. Mattson was only here because an art dealer talked about the sketch. I need to have a conversation with him.”

Then she'd fly to England, and ask the Iron Duke to hold the sketch safe at his London fortress until she found a buyer. If word of the sketch had begun to spread, she couldn't risk carrying it with her any longer.

Zenobia glanced at Mattson's body. “A man has been killed in my house, and I suppose I must explain it. Will you come with me to speak with the magistrate? This time of morning, he's always at the Rose & Thorn taking his breakfast. You can give him your account and I'll buy drinks for your crew afterward.”

And let word spread that Yasmeen had run to the authorities after Miracle Mattson had threatened her? That she'd answered to a magistrate? Not a chance.

“He'll believe that I shot Mattson without my word on it,” she told Zenobia. “But if you like, I'll have the actress taken to him. She's on my lady now, and we can fly her wherever you wish—whether to the Rose & Thorn or to a mob of zombies in Paris.”

Zenobia smiled. “The magistrate will do, thank you. May I come with you? For research.”

Yasmeen didn't care. She nodded, then waited outside while the other woman retrieved her coat. The frigid air shivered through her. Lighting a cigarillo, she let the smoke warm her lungs and ease the tiny shakes.

A few neighbors had ventured outside, gaping up at
Lady Corsair
. When Zenobia finally emerged, she waved to them and called a good morning, and Yasmeen couldn't decide whether surprise or relief added such volume to the “Good morning!”s they called to her in return. Feeling the cold down to her toes, she started for the rope ladder.

“Captain Corsair?” When Yasmeen turned, Zenobia avoided her gaze. She seemed to find the act of pulling on her gloves either fascinating, or extraordinarily difficult. “I thought we might walk rather than fly.”

“I thought you might want to have a look at my lady. For authenticity.” And because the boilers kept the cabins heated and the deck beneath her feet warm.

“I've seen her.” She shot a glance upward. “When she was my father's.”

Damn it. Yasmeen wouldn't ask what had happened. She'd seen enough of Emmerich Gunther-Baptiste's cruelties to guess.

“We walk, then.”

She signaled for Rousseau to follow overhead, then started for the taverns along the bay. Zenobia's boot soles clipped across the cobblestones as she matched Yasmeen's long stride. So loud. Yasmeen's soft leather boots weren't as warm, but at least they were quiet—and didn't announce her approach from hundreds of yards away.

“I can't remember if I've thanked you for saving us.” Zenobia's cheeks had already flushed with cold. “That was quite the crack shot. I never saw you draw your weapon or aim.”

That was the point. “If Mattson had seen it, you'd be dead.”

“Are you infected, then? I have heard the bugs make a person stronger and quicker.”

Infected with Horde nanoagents, the millions of tiny machines that lived in her body like industrious little ants. Though Yasmeen's nanoagents weren't exactly like the two strains Zenobia was probably familiar with—the “bugs” used by the Horde to control large populations, or the ones that infected the zombies—Yasmeen didn't bother to explain the difference. The woman had only asked if they'd made her fast and strong—and they had.

“Yes,” she said.

“Mattson must not have been, then.”

Oh, he had been. His bruises had always healed too quickly after each tavern brawl for him to have been anything but infected. But Yasmeen only nodded. “He was slower,” she said.

“Are you originally from one of the occupied territories, then?” Zenobia asked. “Or did you take a blood transfusion and infect yourself later?”

“Is this a search for a crumb?”

“For your background? Yes.”

“Surely you've already picked up a few.”

“Yes, but they tell me little. Your accent, for instance. Perhaps you were born in the occupied territories of northern Africa or farther east. Perhaps you came from one of the tribes who fled to the southern American continent when the Horde moved across the Arabian Peninsula.”

Only her accent was of note? Was Zenobia trying to be delicate? Or, considering the woman's hatred toward her father, perhaps she simply didn't want to echo him. “And my complexion?”

“Tells me nothing. In the New World alone, I cannot name a city that you couldn't have hailed from. Who does not have family that is native or African, or some mix of both in their blood?”

Spoken like a true Liberé supporter. “As your father often pointed out, your family doesn't.”

“Yes, well. Even that means little as far as discerning your origin by complexion. Without the sun, Wolfram is as pale as I, yet after a summer spent diving along the Gold Coast, he returned as dark as you. How many of your own crew are, too?—and how many are from the New World?”

Most of them. “So I could be from anywhere. Your options are open. You cannot make a story out of that to please your readers?”

“Of course, but it does not satisfy
my
curiosity.” She huffed out a breath. “At least tell me how you became such a crack shot. Did you learn before you joined my father's crew? Of course you did, since you shot him in the head, too. You must be from the New World, then—perhaps along the frontier borders, or in the disputed territories. I cannot imagine anywhere in the Horde empire that they would teach a young girl to fire a gun.”

“Can't you? I imagine they'd have reason to in the walled cities. If a zombie came over the barrier, a girl's ability to shoot it in the head might be her—and the city's—only chance of surviving.”

“That is true enough. But I didn't realize the Horde armed the citizens in the occupied cities. They didn't in England.”

“They don't. But they should.” Amused by Zenobia's second exasperated huff, Yasmeen smiled and blew a stream of smoke through her teeth. “I think every woman should be armed, including writers in quiet little townships like Fladstrand.”