Shadow of the War Machine (The Secret Order) (11 page)

“Here it is!” I inched over next to Will so he could see it too. It was the only mention of the name Durant we could find. “He created a large observatory in his home.” I skimmed over the description of the lenses until I came across the single sentence that confirmed everything.

I sent a quick prayer of thanks to the ghost of Simon Pricket for his unceasing attention to detail. I pointed to the words as Will studied them.

While Calais proved easily accessible to the Foundry ships, the real challenge for moving the lenses became the journey to Ardres and the final installation at Pensée.

“
CALAIS IT IS, THEN,
”
WILL
said as he gathered the books and placed them indiscriminately on the shelves. “We can take the train to Dover, and then cross the channel from there.”

I stopped him by placing a hand on his forearm. “It isn’t so simple. It’s Christmas. Passage across the channel will be hopelessly booked with people traveling to Paris for the New Year, and the weather is unpredictable. We can’t take the risk of being caught in Dover for a week. We only have six days before we must return for the oath.” The tides felt like they were turning against me, and the ship I was on could only struggle uselessly against them.

On the one hand, this was the link I’d been hoping for, a clue that might lead me to my grandfather. On the other, years had passed since my grandfather had left for Calais. Maurice Durant could be alive, but it was quite possible he was deceased. We might travel to Calais only to find ghosts.

Even so, time was running out. If I didn’t discover where the man in the clockwork mask was hiding before the
Méduse
crossed the Atlantic, the consequences would be dire.

But there were consequences either way. We’d never make it back to London to take the oath.

What was my apprenticeship worth to me? Acceptance at the Academy was something I had never expected. It had taught me things about myself I would have never learned, about strength, tenacity, and courage.

I didn’t want to give that up, but when I closed my eyes, all I could think about was the quiet moments when I’d rested my head against my grandfather’s chest as a little girl and listened to the rumble of his voice as he’d hummed. It was home.

Not walls, not clocks or wealth, or the trappings of middle-class convenience. My family was my home.

I had to find my grandfather. If it had been me captured and held against my will, he would have stopped at nothing
to find me. I would do the same. It was what I had set out to do, and I would see it through to the end. Any strengths or talents I had would come with me, and if there were prices to pay, they would never equal my grandfather’s life. He was worth more to me, always. “So be it,” I said to myself, certain of my course.

“I’m going to find him,” I whispered. I had no other option.

“We’ll do our best.” Will gathered a new set of books and shelved them.

His words reached my heart even as it felt as if it had fallen to the floor. “Will, you shouldn’t come with me.”

“Of course I’m coming with you.” He rose and offered me a hand. I took it and let him pull me toward him. “Are you still worried about your reputation?”

“I’m worried for my reputation only so much as any scandal would be an excuse to remove me from the Academy. If we aren’t successful, then that becomes irrelevant, since we won’t be able to take the Oath. Beyond that, I’m quickly coming to the conclusion that I don’t care what people think of my moral standing any longer. They will assume the worst anyway.” I let out a deep breath. Saying that thought aloud was freeing. “They don’t know me, and they don’t know the truth.”

“I do,” Will said with conviction. “Don’t tarnish yourself with such talk.”

“Do you believe it tarnishes me?” I asked. I felt a sharp jab deep in my heart.

“No,” Will said. “Not in my eyes. But living with scorn is difficult. Trust me. I should know.”

Will had paid the price for his gypsy blood in terrible ways. Now that he had reclaimed his life, I didn’t wish to take that from him.

“You must be here for the oath. If I lose my position as an apprentice, that is a sacrifice I must make for the sake of my grandfather. You have no such duty to loyalty.” I placed my other palm over his heart, holding a slight distance between us, even as I reveled in the connection of our hands. “I can’t let you sacrifice all you have gained.”

He drew both my hands together over his heart and pressed his warm palms protectively over mine. I stared at our fingers intertwined.

“I do have a duty to loyalty,” he said. “I’m not going to let you face a murderer on your own. We started this together, and we’ll finish it together.”

“I’ve read your letters. I know your desires plainly—a home, a family, safety. That’s what the Foundry is for you. It’s
what you’ve always wanted.” I couldn’t bear to look him in the eye. I feared it would break my heart. He reached up and tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.

“I wanted to be able to make a future for us. I know now that we can, with or without the Order.” His fingertips brushed the shell of my ear. “I’m no longer a stable boy who can barely read a sign in the road, and you are so much more than the penniless girl who first came through Rathford’s gate.”

“I’m still penniless,” I argued. The man in the clockwork mask had made certain of that. As for the alleged Whitlock fortune, I had yet to see any evidence that it was real.

“You’re a fine shopkeeper, and I would make a decent blacksmith.” He gave me a soft smile. “Between the two of us we will make our way as best we can, if the future is kind.”

I remembered making a similar argument to him on a distant moor. It seemed so long ago, when I had been swept away by adventures and drunk on all the feelings I had believed were love.

Now I knew so much more. I looked at Will, and my heart was breaking, not for me but for him. “I can’t ask this of you. I won’t.” For the first time, I knew that what we felt for each other was something so much more than selfish and
childish infatuation. I could not ruin what he had built. He meant everything to me.

“This is my choice,” he said. “I’m with you to the end. Always.”

“Oh, Will.” I leaned into him. He held me, and my words were lost. My heart was lost. His embrace was tender, but I felt safe and cherished in his arms. He pressed his forehead to mine, and we held one another in the quiet seclusion of my workshop.

“Two tickets for Dover, then?” he asked.

I shook my head. “If only there were a faster way to France. What I wouldn’t give for Albrecht’s airship.”

“It’s a pity you crashed it into the lake,” Will said.

“That wasn’t my fault!” I protested. “Still, we’d have much better chances of making it to Calais and back before the Oath if we had our own means of transportation across the channel. We could be in Calais by nightfall.”

Will’s eyebrows crinkled together as a thoughtful scowl crossed his features. He glanced at the door. “There might be a way, but we need to go to the docks.”

“Do you know of a ship that can make the crossing?” My heart surged with hope. We could go to Pensée and be back before the New Year.

“Not a ship, no,” Will answered. “But if rumors are true, there might be something better.”

•  •  •

Together we hastily packed some supplies and made our way across London to the docks near the old monastery that served as the Academy and central meeting place for the Amusementists. In spite of the cold, Mayfair was alive with Christmas cheer. Fine women and men bundled in fur-lined cloaks and neatly brushed top hats strolled the streets, bearing gifts and greeting friends and strangers alike with laughter. They hung holly boughs and wreaths on the doors as they invited one another in to share in their good cheer.

A small gathering of people sang carols in front of a bookshop while a young boy sold mistletoe to a cluster of young girls. The air was heavy with the combined scents of rich feasts from every hearth, as the smoke curled up into the brisk air.

I felt so awful that my own shop, the one that should have been bright and alive, had become so dreary. It was closed and shuttered on this, the happiest of nights.

As we traveled deeper into the city, those with less kept their revelry hidden within narrow doors and dark streets, if they had anything with which to celebrate at all.

A tiny girl in rags sold matches on the corner, huddled
under a shawl that had been worn through. I stopped our cab, and though the driver looked at me as if I had lost my mind, I gave the girl my heavy shawl and what was left of the apple cake that I had bundled into our pack.

Will smiled but didn’t say a word. I returned to the cab and leaned against him for warmth.

On the docks the ships rose and fell with the lazy swells of the river. Icicles clung to mooring ropes. I watched a pair of men hunched under thick coats rhythmically knock ice off the bow of a ship. Will kept his head down and led me along. Desperate people with hungry, suspicious gazes watched me from dark corners as we reached an empty dock. Will glanced over his shoulder, checking to see if anyone was following us, before grabbing me and tucking me next to a large crate covered with netting.

“What are you doing?” I asked. I couldn’t help feeling unsettled. The last time I’d been here, I had nearly been caught by the man with the mask.

“Hush,” Will whispered. Then he clanged a bell attached to a large wooden post.

I tugged my coat more tightly closed across my chest and we waited. The cool stench permeating the air felt as if it were clinging to my skin.

“I hope he’s here.” Will gazed expectantly at a large iron cleat. Next to it a ginger striped cat slept in a coil of rope. I wondered if the poor creature was dead. The snow had settled on its fur and hadn’t melted.

To my surprise the cat suddenly stood with a rigid, almost mechanical motion, then blinked open black marble eyes and meowed.

Will stooped to the cat and said, “It’s about time. We’re freezing out here. Let us in, will you?”

The cat stretched its neck up, and I noticed the gear wheels turning beneath its worn fur. One ear twitched unnaturally. The cat howled out another cry that sounded suspiciously like “Word now?”

“Lake fire,” Will answered automatically.

The cat settled back into his original position in the coil of rope. Meanwhile the front of the crate creaked open. Will opened the crate farther and motioned me in. “Quickly.”

We ducked inside, and Will shut the crate. He held my arms, and the crate shook. I clutched Will’s coat as the floor sank, and we disappeared into the dark.

The platform we crouched on stopped suddenly, and a door opened into a small room. Along most of the walls were intricate controls with large levers and gauges. They made
the room look like the inside of a clockwork engine. I recognized one of Rathford’s spying machines near the corner, but not the man standing near it.

He had the darkest brown skin I had ever seen and a flashing smile framed by two large muttonchops. A faded red knit cap flopped at an angle across his smooth high forehead.

“William MacDonald, come to bring me a Christmas present?” the man teased as he shook Will’s hand. I didn’t know what to say. He turned his warm gaze to me. “Cat got her tongue? I suppose she’s never seen an Irishman,” he said, then burst into deep belly laughter.

“Meg, I’d like you to meet John Frank. He’s one of the most trusted members of the Guild, and in charge of operating the lock systems that help the Foundry steamships dock at the Academy.”

I knew a couple of Guild members. Like the Foundry workers, they were essential to the functioning of the Order. Most Guild Members were essential servants of the Amusementists who had also sworn to the Order’s secrecy. I had always been curious who was responsible for the water chamber lock that allowed the steamship from the Foundry to sink beneath the Thames and hide deep in the catacombs under the Academy.

John Frank reached a hand out. He’d cut the fingertips off his gloves. “So this is the infamous Miss Whitlock. Pleasure to meet you.”

I took his hand and shook it. “I’m infamous? Whatever could I have done to earn such a reputation?”

“From what I hear, love, you’ve done quite a lot. You destroyed a castle, broke several casks of wine in the cellars, crashed an airship—”

“None of which was my fault!”

He held up one long finger to silence me. “You also saved the Foundry, and several of my close friends.” He smiled again. “Now, what brings you to my humble control room?”

“We need your help,” Will said. “Some time ago I heard a rumor in the Foundry about a tunnel. Some of the men still talk about the challenges of the construction. From what I heard, it sounded as if the tunnel went beneath the channel. I figured if anyone knew anything about it, you would.”

“Thinking of sneaking off to France?” he asked. “It would be less trouble to take the train back to Inverness if you want to elope, though I admit France is probably more romantic.”

“We are searching for my grandfather,” I said with a fair
amount of impatience. “There may be information about his whereabouts in Calais.”

“I knew Henry well. He always treated the Guild members with respect, not as though he were above us at all. He knew there weren’t nothing that happened within the Order without the Guild and the Foundry making it so. He was a good man.” There was an earnest quality in his expression. “You believe he’s alive?” John asked.

“I do, but we don’t have much time.” I deeply hoped he could help.

“Come, come. Sit. We’ll talk.” John ushered us through a narrow door into a small room with a table and a bed, and a cheerful fire burning in a small hearth. He pulled out a chair for me like a gentleman. Will took a seat beside me.

“There
is
a tunnel. It was many years in the making, started during the wars with France. The Amusementists wanted a secret way to bring people from the Continent to London and back. But it was too dangerous. Early on there were collapses during the digs. Several good men lost their lives.