Alice glared down at the unyielding numbers. They glared stubbornly back, hard little loops and corners that wouldn’t move no matter how hard she tried. Twice she had rubbed them off the page and run through them again, but they always came out exactly the same. She resisted the urge to throw the book overboard. Instead she snapped it shut and slipped it into her trouser pocket so she could lean on the gunwale to think while cool morning air washed over her like water.
In the distance ahead, airships of all sizes and designs floated, cruised, and hovered above the sprawling city of Luxembourg like tame clouds. London controlled airship traffic, but Luxembourg apparently didn’t. Alice glanced over her shoulder at Gavin, lean and strong at the helm of their ship. The rising sun caught his pale blond hair and turned it nearly white, making a stark contrast with the torn black clothes he still wore from last night. His sharp features and long jaw made her hunger for a kiss. He caught her eye and grinned that grin that always sent a delicious shiver down her back. And she felt all that when he was silent. When he sang, his voice melted her soul. She’d follow him into a volcano if he only sang to her first, and a part of her was glad he didn’t seem to know that yet.
And there it was. In the end, she had betrayed her country for him. She had broken into the Doomsday Vault and released the clockwork cure, an act which would eventually destroy the British Empire as she knew it. And all for the simple reason that Alice, Lady Michaels, had fallen in love with Gavin Ennock. What would the history books say about that? The thought that schoolchildren might one day read about her both fascinated and frightened her. What gave her the right to change the course of mankind for the love of a man?
The book of figures sat heavy in her pocket. Alice leaned out into the fresh breeze, trying to feel the freedom she knew carried Gavin forward. All her life she had followed the rules of traditional society, done as her traditional father had told her. And then Gavin had innocently blasted her life to pieces. Now she was spending her days with not one, but three strange men, and no other woman around to chaperone. Frightening. Exhilarating. It was like standing at the edge of a cliff with one foot over.
Below the ship lay a rumpled checkerboard of fields and pastures bordered by hedgerows and stone walls that surrounded the city proper. Arteries of rail and cobblestone ran in and out of the place. Canals threaded through it, and church spires pointed at Alice like accusing fingers. Castles with rounded walls took up the hills, and square houses occupied the slopes. It looked both foreign and familiar at the same time.
Several miles from the city, the Lady of Liberty’s blue glow dimmed, and the ship began to sink. Startled, Alice turned to Gavin, who was moving from the generator back to the helm. “Is something wrong with her?”
“We can’t dock at the shipyard,” he said. “Not if Phipps has gotten word out about us and what the Lady looks like. But I think I know a place.”
They came down in a weed-filled pasture surrounded by a scraggly hedge on three sides and a stand of trees on the fourth. Near the stand of trees were a small stone farmhouse and a large stable, both half in ruin. Kemp, Dr. Clef, and Feng emerged from below to see what was going on. Sunlight gleamed on Dr. Clef’s brass goggles, and he pushed them up on his forehead.
“Cut power to twenty percent, Alice,” Gavin ordered.
Alice leaned over the generator and restricted the flow of air and paraffin oil. The machine responded to her precise touch, and she thought about opening it up to poke around inside. Alice wasn’t a clockworker, but she was startlingly talented with the machines clockworkers created. Usually, only a clockworker could create and maintain the fantastic steam-driven inventions that let Britain and China dominate the world. In her short time with the Third Ward, Alice had encountered a number of mind-bending inventions that frightened her out of her wits. Weightless metal and walking trees were just the beginning.
Normal people were able to reproduce a few clockwork innovations—Babbage engines that allowed machines to retain information and appear to think. Tempered glass that let airmen create weapons that wouldn’t spark amid dangerous hydrogen. Designs for dirigibles. Electric light. But the vast majority of clockworker inventions were so complicated, so complex, that only clockworkers could create them, and their work seemed limited only by the materials they could afford. Normal humans couldn’t assemble the materials, even with careful diagrams or instructions. Even taking most inventions apart without breaking them was nearly impossible.
Alice, however, seemed to be unique in the clockwork world. She alone could understand, assemble, and repair clockwork inventions. She had, for example, assembled Click and Kemp with instructions from Aunt Edwina, along with over a dozen spiders and whirligigs, and could strip a clockwork machine to its component cogs in minutes, though this odd ability didn’t extend to the spider gauntlet currently gripping her left hand.
Alice had spent considerable time trying to pry it off, and with every tool at her disposal. It wouldn’t budge. She couldn’t even find a way to open it. It stoically wrapped her forearm and fingers, tipping her fingers with its claws and filling its tubules with her blood. It didn’t restrict her movements, and it left the underside of her hand uncovered, so she didn’t lose sensation, but she still found it… unsettling. It was always there, burbling to itself and dragging at her arm. The demon spider was a part of her now, and she a part of it. So far the demon did everything she required of it, except come off, but she wondered what would happen on the day her desires ran counter to its.
Under her ministrations, the generator’s power dropped and the envelope’s glow dimmed. The Lady descended toward the abandoned farm buildings and touched the ground in front of them with a delicate bump.
“Perfect landing,” Feng said. “You are quite skilled.”
Gavin flashed the heart-stopping grin, then cast lines over the sides. “Let’s get to work. That barn—stable—is big enough to hide the ship in.”
Once the passengers, including Kemp, dropped to the ground, the ship rose a few feet. Everyone took a line and towed the ship toward the two-story stable, which was really little more than an empty shell. The ship barely squeezed through the gaping space left by the missing main doors, and the group lashed her in place at Gavin’s direction, then edged around her to get outside into the late-summer sunlight. Click looked down at them smugly from the stern, clearly pleased that he didn’t have to do any of the work.
“How did you know about this place?” Alice asked.
Gavin shuffled a little, momentarily looking like the teenager he technically was. “Sometimes the Juniper carried cargo that Captain Naismith didn’t want the port authority in Luxembourg to see. We used to drop it off here and pick it up later.”
“Smuggling?” Alice raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Ennock, I am shocked!”
“Well, Luxembourg has high tariffs on certain items that made it more expensive to ship them in than the goods were worth, and we couldn’t always be— Oh.” He caught sight of Alice’s expression. “You were joking.”
“The famous dry British wit,” Feng observed. “So much like my father’s.”
“Madam,” Kemp said, “I am afraid I have to report that the food stores are nearly empty. Breakfast this morning drained what little we had.”
“Then we’ll have to get more,” Alice said. “How far away are we from the city?”
“Less than five miles,” Gavin said. “A decent walk, though we might be able to beg a ride from a farm wagon or a carriage. Alice, I think you should change into skirts. A woman in trousers attracts attention.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” Alice sighed. “And, Kemp, you and Click will have to stay behind with the ship.”
“Madam!” Kemp huffed. “It is my duty to attend to Madam’s every need and comfort. I cannot do that when—”
“The Catholics have made you illegal in Luxembourg,” Alice said patiently. “Besides, the Third Ward is looking for a group that’s traveling with a mechanical servant and a clockwork cat.”
“Madam,” Kemp replied stiffly. On the ship above, Click put his ears back.
“No worrying,” Dr. Clef said. “I will also stay. I am working on a new piece, and the clicky kitty will keep me company.”
“What about food?” Gavin asked.
“There is sufficient for one person for a day or two,” Kemp said. “I said we had little, not none.”
Dr. Clef looked sly. “And it gives farms about, with fruit and vegetables in the fields. If you are gone for a few days, it matters nothing.”
“Right.” Gavin rumpled his hair. “That leaves you, Feng.”
“Oh?” The young man struck a pose. He was, as usual, quite good-looking, though nowhere near as handsome as Gavin, in Alice’s mind. “Do I stand out?”
“I know!” Alice plucked the goggles from Dr. Clef’s forehead and drew them down over Feng’s head, then extracted a red scarf from her pocket and wrapped it around the lower half of Feng’s face. “There! With the right hat, you’ll look like an airman instead of a mysterious Oriental. Around here, that shouldn’t attract attention.”
Feng made a horrified sound. “I was hoping my exotic good looks would attract a great deal of attention, if you understand my meaning.”
“Mr. Lung!” Alice admonished. “That’s hardly appropriate.”
“That is why my father asked you to bring me back to Peking,” Feng pointed out. “Unlike my father, when I see a pretty piece of… a pretty face, I become a bad diplomat.” His voice was muffled through the scarf. “But for your sake, my lady, I will try.”
“Your Ladyship,” Alice corrected. “A baroness isn’t rightly addressed as my lady.”
“You see? Bad diplomat.” He straightened the goggles. “Let us go now. I will be hungry soon.”
“Feng,” Gavin said, “the jar?”
Feng’s almond eyes widened. “How could I have forgotten?” He dashed for the ship.
Alice, meanwhile, quickly changed into skirts in her tiny stateroom belowdecks and snatched up a cloth airman’s cap for Feng. She also took the book of figures. Gavin had changed out of his torn black clothes into a plain workman’s outfit, complete with a cloth cap of his own. He wore his fiddle case on his back, since he rarely went anywhere without it. Feng appeared with a rucksack that clinked. They bade Dr. Clef and the mechanicals good-bye and left.
“Are you still a baroness?” Gavin asked as the trio set off down the dusty, hedge-lined road toward Luxembourg. “I mean, you left the country and abandoned your fiancé and became a traitor, so—”
“Titles are for life,” Alice said. “My father was the last Lord Michaels, and I was his only child. His only relative, really. When he passed away, that left me Alice, Lady Michaels, and I will be until I die, no matter how scandalously I behave, though if I have a child, things become complicated.”
“How?” Feng inquired. His feet kicked up small puffs of dust that hung on the still air. Birds called from the hedges and the trees that grew among them, and cows lowed from their pastures.
“For the line to continue, any child I have must be legitimate,” Alice said, flushing a little. The subject still made her uncomfortable, even though England was hundreds of miles away. “If Gavin and I don’t marry in a Christian church, our children won’t be…”
She trailed off in horror, realizing what she had just said. Gavin would never live to see children. Tears welled up, and she looked abruptly away.
Gavin squeezed her hand. “I don’t care if they’re titled or not,” he said brightly. “We aren’t going back to England, and that’s the only place the title matters. You will be my wife on our airship and the whole world will be our estate!” He spread his arms wide, then swept her into a kiss. “There! Title that!”
Alice had to laugh. “Thank you, Mr. Ennock.”
“You’re welcome, Miss No-Longer-Lady-Alice-Michaels,” he said impishly.
“I believe I will call you Miss A,” Feng said. “If you prefer.”
“Actually, I would not,” she said. “The Third Ward uses Christian names among themselves to show comradeship and to emphasize the fact that they operate outside the usual boundaries of society. Since we are traveling together outside the boundaries of society, and I have little use for my title anymore, I think I would prefer my Christian name. Feng.”
He put his fist into his hand and bowed to her in what Alice assumed was an Oriental fashion. “Then it will be so. Alice.”
“You must be looking forward to going home,” Alice said as they continued to walk.
Feng blinked at her. “What a strange thing to say.”
“Is it? I would think you would miss your homeland, though I would imagine it’s difficult to leave your father. Your mother will certainly be glad to see you.”
Feng was silent for a long moment. Then he said slowly, “I am not returning as any kind of hero, Alice. I thought you knew that.”
“Sorry?”
“I am returning in disgrace. The lowest disgrace you can imagine.”
“I don’t understand,” Gavin put in. “You and your father don’t want you to be a diplomat, so you’re going home to—”
“That is exactly the point, Gavin. I am a nephew to the emperor and my father’s only son. I should be following into his profession. But my father has decreed that I have failed him and the family, which includes the emperor.” Feng’s usual carefree demeanor had left him. The words came out slow and dull as lead pipe. “I am a failure and a disgrace. If I am very lucky, I will spend the rest of my days scrubbing chamber pots with the servants.”
“Good heavens,” Alice said. How outrageous this was! “Feng, I had no idea. You always seemed so cheerful. I assumed you were thrilled to get away from London and go home.”
Feng swiped a surreptitious finger under one lens of his goggles. “What is the worth of moping about? I will be unhappy enough later. In any case, I am in no hurry to face my disgrace, so I am in no hurry to arrive in China.”
“Why not simply disappear between here and there?” Gavin said reasonably. “You’re smart and know several languages. You could vanish into any number of places and live very well.”
“That,” Feng spat, “would show cowardice and bring even more disgrace to my family. I will not do that to them.”
“You are not a disgrace,” Alice said tartly. “Just now you helped save Gavin’s life. Surely that should count for something.”
“Perhaps.” Feng sounded more tired than convinced, and fell silent. Alice didn’t know what to say, so she fell silent as well.
At that point, a farm wagon drove by, and Alice’s schoolgirl French was able to persuade the drover to let them ride on the back for a penny. Less than an hour later, they passed through one of the gates of Luxembourg.
The city was cleaner than London. The air smelled of horses and wood smoke and manure, but none of the scents were as cloying as in London, and dirt didn’t hang on the air with yellow coal smoke. A cheerful sun chased away the dank smell and the dampness. The people on the cobblestoned streets bustled about and shouted good-naturedly at one another. Windows stood open to catch the summer breeze instead of locked against the misty damp. A group of chattering children ran past the cart, laughing and shouting their way through a make-believe world of their own. Alice felt her own heart lighten, and wondered what it would have been like to grow up here instead of chilly, drizzly London.
The cart carried the trio to an open market, and they hopped off. A number of church bells rang to announce midday. The metal tones bounced off the hills and scampered up the side streets. Merchants shouted for attention from brightly colored stalls, and a number of surfaces sported garish advertisements for the Kalakos Cirque International du Automates et d’Autres Merveilles. Here and there, a mechanical horse pulled a carriage down the street, or a spider skittered by with a basket on its back.
Alice bought a loaf of bread and a bit of butter, and they shared it for lunch on a corner. Despite the heat, Alice wore bulky gloves to conceal her spider, but no one seemed to take much notice. Most ladies were wearing gloves of their own.
“What is next?” Feng adjusted his scarf and his pack.
“We need to find paraffin oil for the ship, food stores, and a way to get both back to the ship,” Gavin said. “How much money do we have?”
Alice sighed. It was the moment she’d been dreading. She took the little book of figures from her skirt pocket. “Not near enough,” she admitted. “I performed a few calculations based on how much oil the ship used to get this far, how much weight we need to carry, what the winds are like, and the possibility that paraffin oil prices will be stunningly low—unlikely, considering how difficult it is to make, and how rare.”
“Meaning we won’t have enough money to make it to Peking,” Gavin finished.
“No,” Alice murmured.
“Then,” Gavin said brightly, “our plan is both to earn money and figure out a way to get farther on less oil. So. Feng, you buy supplies and find a way to get them back to the Lady without letting anyone know where the ship is hidden. And don’t forget about the jar. Alice, you find a supply of paraffin oil and bargain hard.”
“What are you going to do?” Alice asked.
“Earn money. Back away.” He whipped out his fiddle, sprinkled a few coins into the case on the ground before him, and began to play. The merry music on the crowded corner attracted attention fairly quickly, and even as Alice watched, a few people tossed coins of their own into Gavin’s case. He winked his thanks at them and continued the song. Alice let the golden song wash over her. Though the violin was playing to the crowd, the musician was playing for her. He smiled at her, and her breath caught.
Feng plucked at her elbow. “We have much to do.”
She reluctantly let him lead her away. A few moments later, he dodged down a less crowded side street and opened his rucksack. “We should do this first.”
“Oh!” she said. “A good idea.”
From the rucksack Feng took a largish jar, the sort that might store pickles. It held a bunch of grass and twigs and bits of food. Amid all this swarmed a large number of little fireflies. They winked green in the shady side street and cast odd shadows into the corners.
“They seem to be reproducing,” Alice observed. “That’s good. Let me.”
She took the jar from Feng and carefully opened the lid just enough to allow perhaps a dozen of them to escape and fly off before she clapped the jar shut again. For a moment, she was back in London, in Hyde Park. Aunt Edwina’s shriveled corpse had just collapsed to the ground and the cloud of fireflies was pouring out. Gavin swept the jar through the cloud, capturing a number of them, while the rest descended upon London to sting and bite. Each firefly carried a tiny organism—a virion, Aunt Edwina had called it—that attacked and destroyed the bacillus that caused the clockwork plague. Eventually the hardy little fireflies would spread throughout the world and cure or inoculate the entire human population, but it would happen faster with help.
One of the fireflies landed on Alice’s neck and bit her. Normal fireflies didn’t bite, of course, but these were different. She only just stopped herself from slapping, allowing it to fly off instead while Feng shoved the precious jar back into his pack. “Now, let us see what we can find for food and oil,” he said, sounding more like his old self. “And perhaps female company.”
“Feng,” Alice warned.
“Male, then.”
“Feng!”
He pulled down his scarf and grinned rakishly at her from beneath the goggles. It wasn’t an expression Alice associated with Orientals. “That was a joke. Maybe.”
“Let’s just do our—” Alice cut herself off. In an alley nearby, a shadow shifted with a small groan, and two figures shuffled into view. They were both male, and dressed in rags. Blood and pus oozed from a dozen sores on their hands and faces. In several places, skin had split, revealing red muscle. Their bodies were thin, almost emaciated, and they smelled of rotting meat. One of them reached toward Alice and Feng, but flinched from even the indirect sunlight afforded by the side street.
Feng drew back with a hiss. “Plague zombies.”
But Alice was already moving. She strode forward, stripping off her left glove. One of the zombies had enough brain function left to look a little surprised. Most people shunned or fled plague zombies—anyone who touched one was at risk for coming down with the clockwork plague and joining their ranks, steadily losing brain and body function until they dropped dead. Only one in a hundred thousand victims became clockworkers, and no one wanted that, either. Plague zombies lived as pariahs, turned out and spurned even by family. They usually survived by scavenging garbage in the streets. Most of them starved to death before the plague finished them, and their corpses rotted in alleys and sewers because police and other city workers refused to touch them.
Alice approached the first zombie. Mucus ran from its half-rotted nose, and it babbled something incoherent at her. Alice’s gorge rose, and a lifetime of fear slapped her hard. Her mother and brother had died of this very plague, and it had made her father into a cripple. Still, she forced herself to raise her metal-clad hand. She couldn’t save her family, but she could save the person standing in front of her, and she would.
The iron spider’s eyes glowed red, and its clear tubules, which remained painlessly drilled into Alice’s arm, flowed constantly with Alice’s blood. She swiped at the zombie with the gauntlet and the claws made four light cuts across the zombie’s shoulder. Blood from the hollow claws sprayed over the wound as the zombie recoiled. The other zombie started and slowly moved a hand to his cheek. A firefly zipped away, leaving a green phosphorescent streak in the air. Alice, who had been ready to slash at and bleed on him as well, checked herself and stepped back instead.
“Are you well?” Feng asked.
“They can’t infect me,” Alice said. “Or you, for that matter. I gave you the same treatment. You needn’t be afraid of them.”
“It is hard to remember,” Feng admitted.
“It’s working,” Alice breathed. “Look!”
The zombies shuddered. One looked at his hands, turning them over and over, as if seeing them for the first time. The other licked his half-rotted lips and darted glances up and down the side street. Slowly, he took a step out of the darkened alley into the half-lit byway. The light didn’t seem to bother him, even though extreme photosensitivity was one of the early symptoms of the clockwork plague. As Alice watched, some of his sores stopped weeping. He gave a little moan that Alice could only describe as happy and he lurched toward the entrance of the street, where the market lay. The second zombie had vanished back into the shadows. Before Alice quite realized what was happening, the first zombie entered the square. Full sunlight fell across his face, probably for the first time in months, and he lifted his eyes to the sky in exultation.
A woman screamed, and then another. Shouts and cries erupted all over the market as people scrambled all over themselves to get away. Box stalls tipped under the stampede and wood smashed. Alice only heard—the buildings at the entrance of the side street restricted her view. All she saw was the zombie standing in the sunlight like a misshapen angel, oblivious to the chaos around him.
“Oh dear,” Alice muttered.
“Perhaps we move along now,” Feng said.
Another sound made Alice turn. At the mouth of the alley stood the second zombie. With him was a crowd of others—males, females, children. All of them wore torn, filthy rags that dripped blood and pus. Their skin was as tattered as their clothing. Some were missing fingers or even entire limbs. All of them huddled in the alley, not daring to go into the half-light of the side street. The second zombie, the one Alice had scratched, lifted an arm toward Alice in supplication.
Alice felt abruptly overwhelmed. She couldn’t move or speak. “Oh,” was all she could manage.
“What do we do?” Feng asked.
A small child limped forward, dragging a useless foot. Alice couldn’t even tell if it was a boy or a girl. It held up its arms to Alice like a toddler asking to be picked up. Alice wondered who its parents were, how long it had been on the streets, scrounging for food, spreading disease, hiding from painful daylight in cellars and under dustbins, in pain, wondering what was happening and why no one was helping. She jolted forward.
“I will help you,” she said, addressing the child, but speaking to them all. As gently as she could, she scored the child’s arm and wet the wound with her own blood. The child gasped and lurched backward, then straightened. The cure wouldn’t regrow the bad foot, but at least the disease would stop devouring flesh and bone. Alice didn’t pause. She flicked her claws at the next zombie, and the next, and the next, working her way through the fetid alley in a red haze. The spider grew heavier and heavier, and her arm ached from swinging. The smell of blood hung on the air, mingling with the soft groans and yelps from wounded zombie flesh. Alice’s entire world narrowed to bricks and blood, and she lost all sense of time. She could save them all. Swing, slash, bleed, and move on. Swing, slash, bleed, and move on.
“That was the last one,” Feng was saying. “Alice! You can stop!”
Alice came to herself. The last zombie was shuffling into the light, and the screaming had died down from the marketplace, and whether it was because the people had become tired of running away from zombies or because they had all fled, Alice didn’t know. The strength drained out of her, and Feng caught her before she collapsed.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t know it would be like this.”
“You helped so many,” Feng said. “That was a fine thing you did.”
“But there are still more. I need to save them.”
“They will be well. The cure will spread to them quickly enough.”
“I’m thirsty.” Alice’s mouth was dry, and her head felt light. “So thirsty.”
She was only vaguely aware of Feng half leading, half carrying her somewhere. Eventually, she found herself sitting at a table with a plate of fruit, bread, and cheese before her and a mug of cider at her elbow. A muscular arm encircled her like a warm wing and drew her close.
“Are you all right?” Gavin demanded.
She leaned in and soaked in his scent, his strength. “Yes. I just needed to eat.”
“I found him at another market,” Feng reported from across the table. “He was unaware that the zombie was your doing.”
“I thought it was a chance event,” Gavin said, “so I moved on to play somewhere else, without all the screaming and stampeding. I had no idea you were in trouble.” His voice was tight with tension.
“I’m fine. Really.” Alice sat up to emphasize her words and noticed for the first time the little tavern where they were sitting. It was low-end, with straw on the wood planks and a bored-looking pair of daughters serving bread and beer drawn by their mother, who held forth behind a scarred bar. Alice, Gavin, and Feng occupied a freestanding table near the fireplace, which was empty this late in summer. The faint smell of dead ashes and old alcohol hung on the air, and the working-class patrons were still talking quietly, not drunk yet. “No need to worry, darling. I was just caught a little off guard. Next time, I’ll know better.”
“Next time?” Gavin echoed. “What next time?”
“Next time I heal people,” she said.
“You’re not going to keep doing this?” he asked incredulously.
She pulled away from him. “Of course I am. I have to help, Gavin. The clockwork plague needs to be cured.”
“That’s what the fireflies are for.”
“Every person I cure is one fewer person who dies,” she said with heat. “I can’t hold it back and wait on the chance that a firefly will bite.”
“And you’re putting yourself in danger!”
“It didn’t seem to be an issue when I came to rescue you!”
“That was low.”
Alice’s voice rose. “No lower than you assuming I can’t take care of myself.”
“Of course you can take care of yourself.” Gavin’s voice rose to match. “It’s why Feng had to carry you in here.”
“I often enjoy it when people stare,” Feng said, “but I believe our plan was to keep to ourselves.”
Most of the customers were indeed staring at them. Alice, who noticed she was on her feet, sank slowly back to her chair. Her claws had pierced the tips of her glove. “I apologize, Mr. Ennock,” she said stiffly.
“Me, too, Miss Michaels.”
They finished eating in silence. Alice kept her eyes on her food and fumed, despite her apology. She had a duty to spread the cure. The plague had made victims of her entire family, ruined her life, and she wasn’t going to let anyone else go through the same thing. Her life was replete with sacrifices to the plague, and at last, at last, she could fight back. Was Gavin trying to control her the way her father and fiancé had tried to do? Infuriating! More than that, he was a mere commoner, with no right even to speak to her in such a tone. In some parts of England, a baroness like her could still have him…
. . . flogged.
Alice swallowed a bit of carrot without tasting it. Gavin had already been flogged. By the pirates who had captured his airship and shot his best friend and killed his captain. When she embraced him, she could feel the ropy scars through the thin fabric of his shirt. The thought made her ill. He had seen his share of sacrifice. He had already been hurt so badly, and now she was hurting him again. But iron pride stiffened her neck, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to apologize again.
“Did you earn much money?” she asked in a quieter voice. The other patrons went back to their drinking.
“A bit,” he said. “But not as much as I would have liked. I was interrupted by zombies, so—”
The temper flared red again. “Are you implying that I shouldn’t have—”
“I’m not implying anything. Boy, you’re hot under the corset.”
“Mr. Ennock!” She found she was on her feet again. “That… that…”
“What?” he said evenly.
“That… will be all.” She turned and marched out the door.
Angrily, she chose a direction and stalked away down the darkening street. Luxembourg had a number of yellow gaslights to light her way, but they were spaced widely, and each stood out like a giant candlestick in a pool of ink. Closed shops alternated with pubs and hotels. A lonely set of church bells rang a melody Alice didn’t recognize, and the cool evening breeze smelled unfamiliar. A lonely flyer for the circus, its colors muted by the gathering dusk, blew down the street. Music and sounds of men singing in French drifted across the cobbles, and a few people were scattered up and down the walkways. Now that she was outside in the cooler evening air, Alice realized she had no idea where to go or what to do. But she wasn’t going back to the pub. Not now.
A door banged open ahead of her, and a little man carrying a black bag hurried out of a building, pulling on his black coat as he went. Behind him came a woman wringing her hands. She was pleading in rapid French, but the man ignored her. Normally Alice would have averted her eyes and continued on her way, but she caught the word peste—plague—and halted. The man yanked a small jar of paint from his bag, scrawled a large red P on the door over the woman’s protests, and jumped into a waiting hansom, which sped away. The woman watched the man go, then slowly returned to the building and shut the door.
Alice’s mouth went dry, and the spider hung heavy on her left arm. Then, before she could lose her nerve, she strode up to the door and knocked. It opened almost instantly, and Alice saw the hope on the woman’s face die, replaced with a guarded look.
“Oui?” The woman had straight brown hair and tired, blue-gray eyes. Her hands were red and swollen from work, and she wore a limp brown work dress.
In her halting French, Alice said, “Is someone ill?”
“Why do you ask?” the woman responded. “Who are you?”
“Someone in your house has la peste de l’horlogerie, yes?”
“Non, non.” The woman moved to shut the door. “You are mistaken.”
Alice, not quite believing her own temerity, blocked the door open with her foot. She could smell the dripping paint. “The doctor marked your door for all to see. Now everyone will avoid you and your house. I can help.”
The woman paused. “Who are you? We have nothing to steal.”
“I am a friend. I can help. Is it your child?”
“I… I am…” The woman licked her lips, then suddenly opened the door wider. “Enter, please.”
The door led into a pair of rooms that were part of a much larger building. The front room had a stove and a few pieces of furniture. Alice assumed the back room was used for sleeping. A single candle provided the only light. On a pallet on the floor huddled a little girl, perhaps nine or ten years old. A thin blanket covered her, and her face was flushed with fever. Her hair was already falling out, and her limbs twitched as if possessed by little demons. A smell of sickness hung in the air. Alice’s heart pounded behind her ribs. For a moment, she was looking at her brother in his sickbed, watching the fever make him quiver. Eventually he convulsed and died. Many victims of the clockwork plague didn’t survive this early stage, and those few who did were often scarred or crippled. Most went on to become zombies. At least the early stage didn’t seem to be contagious, though the victims were often shunned as a matter of course.
“My husband is working, and my other children are asleep in back,” the woman said. “Please do not wake them. My name is Theresa Nilsen. This is Josette.”
“I… would prefer to keep my name to myself,” Alice said, remembering Phipps. “Did the doctor say Josette has the clockwork plague?”
“He did.” The woman’s voice choked. “He would not touch her, and he left. I do not know what to do. She will become a monster and die. My little Josette.”
“She will not.” Alice stripped off her leather glove and laid her gauntleted hand on the girl’s forehead. The spider’s eyes instantly glowed red, confirming the doctor’s diagnosis. “This may be difficult to see, Madame Nilsen, but it is necessary.”
Before Mme. Nilsen could say anything else, Alice slashed Josette’s arm and sprayed a bit of her blood over the wound. The girl whimpered in her fevered dreams.
“What did you do?” Mme. Nilsen demanded. “You hurt her!”
“It is a cure for the clockwork plague,” Alice said softly. “Now that Josette has it, she will spread it whenever she coughs or sneezes, but I should give it to you and your other children anyway. Let me check you. It will not hurt.”
Mme. Nilsen hesitantly held out her arm, and Alice took it. The spider’s eyes glowed red.
“You have the plague,” Alice said, and Mme. Nilsen cried out in alarm. “But you are not showing symptoms yet. Do not worry—I have the cure.” Alice slashed and sprayed. “I should check your children.”
“How—?” Mme. Nilsen began, but Alice was already moving to the back room, where four other children were sleeping piled together on a large pallet of their own. Alice checked, but none of them had the plague.
“They are healthy,” Alice said, and strode back to the front room to check on Josette. Already her fever had lowered. When Alice touched her, the spider’s eyes glowed green, indicating a lack of clockwork contagion. Josette opened her eyes, and Alice backed away to let a tearful Mme. Nilsen take her place.
“Mama,” Josette whispered. “I want water.”
Mme. Nilsen hurried to bring a cup. Josette drank and fell back asleep. The fever flush was gone and her breathing was more even. Mme. Nilsen looked at her for a long moment, then burst into tears. Alice didn’t know how to respond. The emotional display made her uncomfortable, but she was so very glad to have helped. Her heart felt lighter, knowing the child would grow to adulthood.
“There are no thanks,” the woman cried. “I will give you everything I have!”
“Just some water, and something to eat, if you have it,” Alice said, remembering what happened the last time.
Mme. Nilsen gave her water and cheese, and then said hesitantly, “Can you do this to anyone?”
“Yes.” Alice swallowed the last of the water. “Until my strength runs out.”
“You must come. I have a friend who also has a child.”
Alice dusted crumbs from her hands. “Quickly, then, while your children sleep.” She paused. “But I need to do something else first.”