THE BACK ROOM of the pawnshop looked like it always had, littered with boxes of tickers that needed to be repaired, shelves stuffed full of documentation, and pawned items that had gone unclaimed. The shop smelled the same—dusty and metallic. But it didn’t feel the same. Petra once felt as if she belonged there, as if it was her home, but now she was a stranger, an intruder.
She crept toward the door that separated the back room and the main shop, where she found Mr. Stricket sitting behind the desk, humming to himself as he pored over pawn stubs and receipts. Beyond her sight, she heard the familiar sound of broom bristles scratching against the floor. He had hired someone else to do her work since her arrest. She wondered if the person had taken her place as his apprentice as well.
Petra softly cleared her throat, and Mr. Stricket started, dropping a stack of receipts to the floor.
“What is it, sir?” said his helper, a boy by the sound of his voice.
“Nothing, Colin. Finish sweeping up, if you will.”
Mr. Stricket bent down on his old creaky knees and picked up the receipts. Petra knelt next to the doorway. She would have helped him, but she didn’t want to attract attention from the boy. He might not take so kindly to a criminal in the shop. As Mr. Stricket gathered the receipts and stood, he gestured for the shop boy to come up to the desk. “Colin, my boy, would you run a correspondence to post for me?”
“Of course, sir.”
The broom handle clattered against the wall, and the boy’s footsteps neared the counter. Petra shrank into the shadow of a tower of boxes.
“I haven’t any stamps, so you will have to purchase a set.” Mr. Stricket fished out a few shillings from his pocket. He took a parts order and slipped it into a marked envelope. “Afterward, go on and head home. You’ve worked enough today.”
“Thank you, Mr. Stricket.”
The boy exited the shop, the little doorbell tinkling long after the door had closed.
Mr. Stricket lowered his glasses and let them hang by the chain around his neck, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You can come out now, my dear.”
Petra stepped out from the back room, wringing her hands. “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said. “But I don’t have anywhere else to go. Is it all right if I hide out here for a bit? I’ll be out of your way soon enough.”
“Of course you can stay,” he said. “But why are you here? Has something happened?”
“Tolly has gone to the police, and I couldn’t stay where I was.”
Mr. Stricket clicked his tongue. “Foolish boy.” He sighed. “I heard why they arrested you. What nonsense.” He shook his head, frowning. “Well, you’ll be safe here for now. The police came around a few days ago, but when there was no sign of you, they went back to their usual business. If they come looking again, I’ll put them off.” He gestured toward the back room. “In fact, since you’re here, I have something I need your help with, an old cuckoo clock I can’t seem to fix. You have better eyes than I do, and poor Colin holds a screwdriver like he’s going to kill the machine, not fix it.”
Petra followed Mr. Stricket into the back room, not feeling so misplaced anymore. She could almost believe nothing had changed, that she was merely spending another evening repairing tickers with Mr. Stricket. She would give almost anything for it to be true, to be concerned with nothing more important than fixing a clock. Now, she felt as if the future of the world was on her shoulders.
She sat down at the worktable and began repairing the clock. In minutes, she had replaced the two warped gears and reassembled the movement. As Mr. Stricket returned the box of gears and springs to the clock case, a pang of regret twisted her heart. She wished she could stay here the rest of the night and come back every night after, as she had done for so many years, just forget about the problems of the world and fix clocks for the rest of her life.
Before she agreed to help Emmerich Goss, she had been simple shop girl Petra Wade. Now, she was Petra Chroniker—war machine builder, traitor, spy, and heiress.
Things had changed.
Mr. Stricket fastened the movement to the inside of the clock and adjusted the minute hand to the proper time. “I am grateful for the help, my dear,” he said, setting the clock aside. “These old hands don’t work as well as they used to, and poor Colin just doesn’t have the aptitude for it.”
“Sorry I haven’t been around much lately.”
He shook his head. “No, no. Don’t apologize. You’ve been busy.” He stood up from his chair and fetched a small box from the top shelf above the worktable. “Now, there was something else I wanted to show you while I have you here. You recall asking me about the ornamentation on the front of your pocket watch, yes?”
“Yes,” she said, her heart suddenly racing in her throat.
“I remember now where I had seen it before. The design of the letter is unique to the Chroniker family crest. It’s been so long since I last saw it, I’d nearly forgotten,” he said, holding the box atop his palm. “It’s interesting that you would have a pocket watch of the same design.”
Petra gravitated toward the tiny ring box. “May I?”
“Of course.”
She took the box into her hand and flipped the hinged lid back with a crisp pop. Within gleamed a familiar ring, the same ring her mother had been wearing the day she died. It was a man’s ring, thick-banded and clunky, and yet it had looked so elegant on her mother’s fingers.
She removed the ring from its box with trembling fingers and lifted it into the light, noticing hairline cracks in the gold plating, too uniform to be from wear. Where a stone should have been, the ring was ornamented with a two-headed raven, its wings at rest and an elaborate C engraved into a shield across its chest. A torch rose behind the bird, the flame a marquise garnet, and in place of the raven’s eyes gleamed tiny diamonds.
Encircling the raven were the words: mit meinen geist erstelle ich das unmögliche.
“It’s German,” said Mr. Stricket, flipping the magnifying lenses over his spectacles. He leaned over her shoulder and pointed to the words engraved into the gold. “ ‘With my mind, I create the impossible’—the Chroniker family motto. This here is an heirloom of our founders, and it should have passed on to the next Chroniker after the lady, but instead it ended up here. I’ve kept it all this time. Never tried to sell it,” he said wistfully. “Something like this is too precious to put a price on, a true artifact of this city’s history.”
To Petra, it was worth more than anything else in the world, the last piece of her mother’s legacy. She cautiously took the ring and slid it onto her right middle finger, the same place where her mother had worn it, but the band was much too large. The ring banged against her knuckle.
Disappointed, she moved to slide it off her finger and return it to the velvet-lined box, but as she touched the sides of the band, the raven’s wings twitched. The feathers ruffled, and in tiny increments the wings rose into a position of full flight, the band slowly tightening around Petra’s finger. She raised the ring to her ear, and sure enough, she heard the brassy ticking of a clockwork movement inside. In just a matter of seconds, the ring fit perfectly around her finger. Then the raven’s wings returned to their original position, and the ticking within stopped.
She couldn’t help but grin, a swell of familial pride rising within her.
If only she hadn’t lost the pocket watch and the screwdriver to the Guild. She wanted to hold onto the ring, to keep it, but she couldn’t take it from Mr. Stricket, not without telling him the truth. At least she could take comfort in the fact that Mr. Stricket would keep the ring safe. Because of him, some small part of her mother, of her family’s legacy, still survived.
“And if I’m not mistaken . . .” continued Mr. Stricket, examining the ring through the many magnifying glasses over his spectacles. “The C upon your watch is identical to this ornamentation, is it not? Shall we have a look to compare?”
Petra’s heart sank. “I—I don’t have it with me,” she said. “The Guild—when I was arrested, they took my things, including the watch.”
“I see,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “Fascinating, isn’t it? That you would have a watch with the Chroniker family crest. Are you sure you don’t know how you came by it?”
She glanced at him, her mentor and greatest supporter. She could tell him the truth. He might even believe her. “Well,” she said, her heartbeat quickening. “About that . . . I—”
There came a knock on the alley door, and Mr. Stricket hurriedly gestured her into the workroom and closed the door behind her, concealing her from view. Petra held her breath and waited, listening as Mr. Stricket crossed the back room and opened the door to the alley.
“Can I help you?”
“Are you Mr. Stricket?” asked a familiar voice.
Petra relaxed against the door, exhaling a relieved sigh.
“That would be me, yes,” answered Mr. Stricket.
“I don’t know if you know of me, sir, but I’m Emmerich Goss, a friend of Petra’s—of Miss Wade’s. I’ve come to take her somewhere safe. I wasn’t followed.”
Petra cracked open the workroom door to find Emmerich standing in the doorway. He smiled when he saw her. “It’s all right, Mr. Stricket,” she said. “He’s a friend.”
“I suppose I do recall seeing him hanging about the shop some weeks ago,” he said, a smile lifting his lips. “Always disappeared at the end of your shift.”
Petra blushed.
“I am sorry that we haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting, sir,” said Emmerich. “It is an honor to meet the man who taught such a fine engineer.”
It was Mr. Stricket’s turn to redden. “She has an innate talent for it. I merely gave her the opportunity to learn.”
“All the same,” said Emmerich. “You did her a great justice teaching her mechanics despite the fact she is a girl.”
“Yes, well I never bought into the idea that women couldn’t be engineers. Our late Lady Chroniker was one of the best, was she not?”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Emmerich,” said Petra. “Where’s Norris?”
His smile evaporated. “He went home to detain any policemen lurking about. We should leave here as soon as possible.”
“Where will we go?”
“I have an idea.”
They bid their farewells to Mr. Stricket, who hugged Petra before letting them out the back door. He placed a light, whiskery kiss on her cheek and turned to Emmerich. “Take care of her, my boy,” he said, shaking his hand.
“I will, sir.”
Mr. Stricket turned to Petra. “And you, my dear, promise you’ll stay out of trouble.”
“I’ll do my best.” She waved goodbye as Emmerich led her down the alleyway.
Around the corner, she glanced down at her hand and realized she still wore her mother’s ring. She paused, releasing Emmerich’s hand.
“What is it?” he asked, skidding to a stop in front of her.
“The ring. It’s not—” It wasn’t hers, she was going to say, but the lie fell quiet on her lips. She turned back toward the pawnshop. “I need to take it back.”
Emmerich grabbed her by the hand and dragged her on. “We don’t have time.”
Hand in hand they wove through the city’s lattice of streets and alleys. When they came to the second quadrant, they found Delaney Road crowded with finely dressed people carrying opera glasses and lorgnettes. Hawkers circled the crowd’s perimeter, shouting show times and ticket prices for the upcoming theater performances.
Petra caught only a glimpse of the flashing electric lights above the theater’s entrance before Emmerich pulled her into the next alley, delving deeper into the second quadrant.
“You should have come to stay with me in the first place,” he said, stopping in the middle of an alley.
He drew Petra into a tight hug, and she breathed in the dusty tweed scent of his coat and the metallic warmth of his skin. Abruptly, he broke the embrace and slid his hands into her hair, pulling her into a ravenous kiss, an insatiable hunger in his lips. When their lips parted, he smiled, brushing stray hairs from her face.
“What was that for?” she asked.
“I don’t know when I’ll be able to do so again.” He kissed her a second time, a delicate touch of their lips, and a third time on her nose. “Come on. We should get you inside.”
Emmerich led her to a whitewashed building and down a narrow set of stairs leading to a door hidden below the street. He knocked twice, and a young girl answered, fair-skinned and dark-haired, her eyes the same blue as the sky. Her cheeks flushed when she saw who was at the door.
“Master Emmerich,” she breathed. “I didn’t know you’d be coming down for a visit.” She fidgeted with her hair. “Would you like to come in for some tea?”
“Thank you, Josephine.”
Josephine led them into a dark, narrow hall, depositing them in a small, windowless sitting room while she fetched the tea. Emmerich sat down in one of two chairs and fiddled with the lid of a candy dish while they waited. Petra sat in the chair next to him and examined the room, sparse on decorations—assorted picture frames in varying shapes scattered along the walls, all in shades of blue and displaying a dried, pressed flower.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“This is the servant’s hall beneath my house,” said Emmerich.
Petra frowned. “What are we doing here?”
“If we are to make plans to bring down the Guild, we need a way to communicate on a regular basis without arousing suspicion. If you enter my family’s employ as a maid, we are guaranteed daily contact.”
“You want me to work as a maid?”
“Only for a short time.”
Josephine returned to the sitting room with a teapot, three cups, and half a dozen biscuits, which she sat on the table between the two chairs. “It’s been a while since you’ve visited, Master Emmerich. Haven’t seen much of you upstairs either, not for some months.”
“I have been a bit busy as of late, Josephine,” he said, pouring himself a cup of tea. “And I’m afraid that my visit today is on business, not leisure.” He gestured toward Petra. “This young lady is looking for work. I thought her presence might be welcome, as we are now short a maid.” He blew on the steaming tea and took a sip, eyeing Josephine over the teacup rim. “Can I leave her in your care? Mother will soon be wondering why I am not at dinner.”
The girl bowed her head. “Of course, Master Emmerich.”
“I will inform Kristiane that she is here by my appointment. I expect her to be ready for work in the morning.” He drained the last of his tea and placed the cup back on the tray. “For now, I must go. Thank you for the tea.”
“Thank you for the pleasure of your visit, Master Emmerich,” said Josephine, curtseying.
He inclined his head toward Josephine and then to Petra, and without another word left the sitting room. Petra felt suddenly empty without him, misplaced and ignored. She understood why he couldn’t show her affection in front of his servants, especially if they expected her to be a maid, but the lack of a proper farewell put a slight ache in her chest.
Josephine exhaled a deep breath the moment he disappeared down the hall. “Well, I suppose we should get you settled,” she said brightly. “I have to tend to the fires after dinner, so we don’t have long to acquaint ourselves, but I can show you to your room.”
She shuffled down the hall and snapped her fingers when Petra did not follow. She led her through a door at the end of the hall and into a small bedroom. “This is where you’ll be sleeping, sharing with me. We have a spare bed now; one of our girls recently married. No more mopping floors or cleaning fireplaces for her,” she said with a smile. She shuffled to a wardrobe on the back wall and threw open the doors. “Here is your standard uniform. Keep it clean and wrinkle-free. The mistress of the household is most particular about the state of our uniforms.”
Petra touched the soft fabric, much nicer than the clothes she and her siblings owned. Josephine then explained the extensive rules of the household and the maids’ duties. She seemed to speak in one single breath, stringing her words together until they were barely understandable.
“Are there many servants here?” asked Petra.
“Oh yes. Kristiane is the housekeeper. She’s in charge of all of us. Biddy is our cook, probably the best in the city. There’s Meriel, the mistress’s maid, and Sarah, Victoria’s maid. Then there is Harriet and me, and now you.” She smiled sweetly. “Actually, you may not meet Meriel and Sarah for some time. The mistress and Victoria are preparing to leave for America soon. I think they’ll be gone about a month. It will just be Master Emmerich and his father, and we don’t see much of him these days either.” When Petra did not respond, she continued, “Well, if that’s all you need, I need to go light the fires. There may be a bit of leftover supper in the kitchen.”
“Thank you, Josephine.”
“Oh, call me Josie. Everyone here does, except Master Emmerich. He says—” She blushed. “He says Josephine is a lovely name, and it’s worth taking the time to say.” Josie fanned her face. “I should be off. It was nice to meet you . . .” She trailed off. “I’m sorry. I didn’t get your name.” She extended her hand.
“Pe—” Petra stopped herself before giving her real name, and instead gave the first false one she could think of, shaking the girl’s hand. “Penelope.”
“Nice to meet you, Penelope. Stay out of the others’ way until you get the hang of things. We’ve managed with just the six of us, so you’ve time to catch up. Kristiane should be down shortly to better explain how things work around here. Go ahead and get changed, and I’ll see you later.” She disappeared around the corner, leaving Petra alone in her new quarters.
Petra changed into one of the maids’ uniforms and removed her mother’s ring, knowing she couldn’t wear it while pretending to be a servant. She found a hank of yarn in the bottom of the wardrobe and quickly crafted a crude necklace to keep the ring safe around her neck until she could return it to Mr. Stricket. She hoped he would not be cross with her for taking it.
Kristiane came downstairs soon after, visiting Petra in her room. “It’s nice to see you again, Miss Wade,” she said, her smile kind. “Though I hadn’t expected it would be like this.”
“Neither did I.”
“Have you eaten supper?” she asked.
Petra shook her head.
“Well, then I’ll take you to the kitchens. You can have yourself a good hot meal and meet Biddy and the other girls while they clean up.” She gestured to the door. “Come along.”