Lumière (The Illumination Paradox) (35 page)

“I’m going back for him.” I turn to Pan. “Will you help me?”

I slip on a puddle of street grease and slide past the corner out into the middle of the market. Mouths fall open, staring. My arms paddlewheel backward in a furious attempt to regain my balance, drawing even more unwanted attention.

Pan panics, circling around, swooping low, creating the diversion I need. I dash from the street, falling in behind a makeshift wall at the back of the market, next to a balloon-maker’s shop.

I peer through a knot in the wood at the shrouds of sackcloth lining the mud floor of his stall, cut into slices a hundred times the length of an arm. The vendor sits in the middle of the stall, a deflated balloon at his feet. He threads the needle on his sewing machine, pumps the throttle, and begins stitching on a patch. It’s nearly as big as he is—though he’s not very big—but only half his width.

Mounds of varnished taffeta lay billowed in the opposite corner, sky blue in color, adorned with painted planets and constellations, as big as frescoes on a wall. He finishes stitching the canvas, and lays the balloon in a perfect flat circle on the road. Attaching its ropes to a basket, the vendor lights a fire in the basket’s canister. Slowly the balloon swells to life. The bluest of blue taffeta creeps to the sky, drifting up from the earth. On its side is a whimsical drawing of our long-lost sun.

A scuffle breaks out on the other side of the wall. My heart jumps to my throat. An angry voice pours through a crack in the mortar. I throw my ear to the knot in the wall and listen.

“
I
saw
you take it. Now,
’and
it over, you grimy little thief, you!”

“I ain’t got it,
’onest
I ain’t.”

The second voice sounds small.

I press my face to the bricks and peer through a hole into the vendors’ lot beyond it. A brute of a man with a bristly beard holds a small boy up by the scruff of his neck. The boy’s spindly legs are kicking. He’s trying to connect with the man’s shin. Something metal glistens from the boy’s pocket.

“I
din’t
take anything from yu, I swear,
I din’t
.”

“Yu lying little sod, you!” The man shouts. “That’s the third time this week you’ve pillaged from me! And I tell yu, it’ll be the last!” He drops the boy to the ground and grabs him by the ear. “Maybe some time in the orphanage will keep yu from robbin’ me blind!”

“Ooooow!” the boy yowls as the man tugs him forward. “You can’t do this!”

“The
’ell
I can’t!” The man yells.

“Pleeeeeease,” the boy fights. “Me mum, she’s not far. She’ll be looking for me.” He wrinkles his face. “You can’t put me in a ’nage wiff parents—”

“Oh, can’t, can I?” The man stoops to get a better grip, dragging the boy up the alley. My heart burns listening to the boy holler. I swallow as they draw near. My eyes move again onto the balloon in the alley, nearly half filled.

All at once, I have an idea.

“There you are, Roderick.” I step boldly from my hiding place, praying my plan is going to work.

My knees tremble as the man comes to a halt in front of me.

The boy looks up, sniffs.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” I say, trying to sound convincing. My gaze shifts from the ear pinching man to the boy and back again. “I see you’ve found my little brother.” The boy goes to open his mouth and I flash my eyes at him, signaling for him to keep silent. “Muvver’s been lookin’ everywhere for yu. What’s ’e done this time?” I return my eyes to the man. “Pinched something again?” I put my hands on my hips and try to look cross. “How many times has Muvver told you not to steal! You’ll have to excuse ’im, ’e takes after our no-good father. ’E left us, ’e did, a long ways back.”

The man clears the choke from his throat, releasing his grip on the boy’s ear just slightly.

The boy looks up at me, and smiles.

“’E’s got real sticky fingers, this one,” the man says. “Made off with a ’ole lot o’ me best tinkers, he did. And it’s not the first time ’e’s done it, neither.”

“Roderick!” I say, turning to the boy. “Return this man his tinkers.” The boy looks at me, shocked, confused. “You ’eard me.” I shoo him with my fingers. “Go on, empty your pockets.”

Slowly, the boy dips his hand into his trouser pocket and pulls out the shiny object I saw before. “Now the other,” I say. Reluctantly, he turns his second pocket inside out and several more trinkets fall to the ground. “There you are,” I say.

The man snatches them up in his palm, using a dirty, fat finger to sort through the lot.

“He won’t do it again. I promise,” I step up and rest my hands on the boy’s shoulders. “I’ll see to that myself—”

“You’d better. Or you’ll both be finding yourselves in the orphanage.” He wags his filthy finger in front of my face. Slowly he narrows his eyes. “Say,”—he leers at me—“don’t I know you from somewheres?” His lip grows a curious stitch.

My heart stiffens in my chest. “We’d better get going,” I say to Roderick, dropping my gaze to the pavement to avert the man’s. “Muvver’ll be worried sick.” I push the boy ahead of me up the alley, shuffling as quickly as I can behind.

“Wait a minute…” The man shouts after us. “You’re that girl! The one from the posters!” I break out into a run. “Get back ’ere!” the man shouts, sprinting.

The boy reaches back, grabs me by the hand and wheels me around a sharp corner. The two of us fly up the alley into another. “Hurry!” The boy flits up the cobblestone. “Over here!” He ducks in behind a trash bin and signals for me to join him.

I race the last few steps, fall in behind him and crouch down.

The man thunders past the opening to the alley and out into the market square, hollering.

“Guess I owe you one,” I gasp, looking at the boy, once it’s safe.

“I’d say we’re even.” He smiles at me.

“Sebastian.” He sticks out a grimy hand for me to shake.

I hesitate. “Please to meet you, Sebastian.” I shake it, begrudgingly.

“You’re Eyelet, right?” The boy grins.

“How did you know?” I snap.

The boy laughs. “Your face is all over them posters.”

“Saw them, did you?”

“Who could miss ’em? They’s everywhere.”

I lower my head.

“Don’t worry, Miss. I ain’t gonna tells no one I see’d y’u. You ’ave me word.” He crosses his chest.

“Thanks,” I say.

I look up, checking the skies for Pan. I seem to have lost her. “Don’t suppose you know a safe way for me to get back to Brethren.”

“Not for the likes of you, Miss.” The boy sucks his lip. “No offense, but your mug's all over the poles, you’d ’ave to travel by rooftop not to get arrested.”

“Wait a minute.” I stand. “That’s it!”

I grab the boy by the sleeve and drag him up the alley.

“Where are we goin’ Miss?”

“How do you feel about helping me steal something?”

The boy grins.

I haul him around the corner of the balloon maker’s stall. “What is it?” he asks, as I hold him up to peek through the knothole.

“My rooftop ticket to Brethren.”

F
orty

Urlick

The thought of Eyelet standing alone at the quarry makes my stomach roll. I never should have sent her ahead without me, down a drainpipe and out into an open yard full of guards and Brigsmen. What was I thinking?

I
wasn’t
thinking. Or I’d never have let us get separated.

I burst from the trees across from the Academy, twisting my way through Brethren’s streets, hoping to lose the two Brigsmen who’ve now joined the guards in their search for me, snapping like dogs at my heels. Lucky for me, they’re old and out of shape, huffing and puffing and easy to hear.

I dart down an alley, losing the Brigsmen altogether, or so I believe. I’m just about to rejoice when an angry dog appears in their place—ears flat to his head, teeth bared. Slobber flops from his chops.

“Easy, boy,” I hold out my hands.

The dog curls his lips.

I turn and run, and he stalks me like a panther, his teeth nipping at the backs of my calves all the way. Racing to the end of the alley, I suck in my breath and leap sideways, slipping between the building and the fencepost, relieved when only the dog’s head pops through after me, his shoulders too broad to fit.

I turn and run, grinding to a halt. Dead end. I look both ways. No escape. The dog still yaps through the hole in the opening. I have no choice. The only way out is up. I gulp, scaling the fence at the end of the alley—only to come face to face with a Brigsman. The same one who forced me into the forest at the beginning of my run. He aims his steamrifle directly at my head. “I knew it would only be a matter of time,” he grins.

I drop off the fence, choosing dog over Brigsman, only to find myself facing four more guards in the alley. They cock their guns and take aim, prepared to blast my head from my shoulders. I’ve got to do something, and quick.

Luckily for me, the dog decides to make the first move. Twisting his body sideways, he pops through the opening and charges, snarling, into the alley, capturing the Brigsmen’s attention. Their heads swing sideways just long enough for me to boot the dog into the other Brigsman and squeeze my way back through the hole in the fence.

I race through the alleyways, catapulting over fences, toppling garbage cans behind me as I go. I’m just about to drop down from another fence top when a voice behind me yells, “Stop!”

A Brigsman appears out of the cloud cover like a ghost. I look down the barrel of a steamrifle into a set of angry eyes. His jaw is set. His finger, twitching.

“
Stop!
Or I swear I’ll blow a hole straight through your
ticker.
”

He’s young. Barely nineteen, if that—just a year older than I. His chin is covered in a soft layer of manly dust, not even enough to be bothered to shave. By the looks of how hard his hands are trembling, my bet is he’s never shot a man before. Let alone blown a hole in someone’s ticker.

Banking on that, I drop from the fence and start running, my backside disappearing over another before he’s had the time to think.

“Bloody
hell!
” He hurdles the fence and chases me, his shoes striking the cobblestones like gunshots. I fly down another alley, gauging my speed ahead of the roar of his breath—again, blocked by another fence. This time a brick wall with a flat cement top, stretching a good foot over my head.

“Blast!” I swear, leaping, barley hurling myself onto the top edge, my organs groaning as they collide with the bricks.
Certainly not as much give to this wall as there was to the wooden ones.
I pull to a stand, coughing. Teetering tightrope-like over the narrow cement top, I race sideways seeking safety between two buildings. A bullet takes out my right heel, knocking my leg out from under me. I spin around, fighting to regain my balance.

“Get down from there or you’re dead.” The boy shows his teeth. “I’ve orders to kill you on sight—and trust me, I will.”

“I doubt that,” I say, my heart lurching in my chest, “as you’ve already had your chance and haven’t.”
That’s it, taunt the man with the gun. That’s always brilliant.

“Get down,” the boy growls, pulling the hammer back on his gun.

“Halt!” Another Brigsman appears in the alleyway behind me. I glance over my shoulder to find at least five more. Brigsmen fill in the streets on either side of me. I’m surrounded. Smrt appears out of the fog. “Shoot him!” he snarls through gnashed teeth.

The Brigsmen on either side raise their guns.

I scan the fence line, my stomach in my throat.
If only I could make it between those two buildings.
I track the fence line through the middle of them onto the next street.
If I ran and turned sideways perhaps…
“Wait!” I shout, buying myself some time. I throw my hands in the air. “I don’t think you really want to shoot me! Not with this strapped to my chest!” I reach down, slowly, and throw open the front of my coat, exposing the covers of three red journals. “I don’t think they’ll be very legible riddled with steamrifle bullets, do you? Not to mention spattered with my blood.”