CHAPTER 5I’m gasping for breath as if I’m still in the water as we come to form in the parlor. Truffler enters, muttering and clucking as he sees what a state we’re in. Piskel climbs from his basket, scolding us for waking him until he realizes that something is amiss. He floats over to me and puts his fingers over his nose. I guess I stink of the River too much for his liking.
“Hot water at stove,” Truffler says, indicating we can bathe if we’d like.
We each go to our rooms to find fresh clothes. Gentlemen that we are in manners if not in title, we let Vespa bathe first.
“What happened?” I ask as we sit shivering by the parlor fire, waiting our turns at the bath.
Bayne is practically green with exhaustion. “If it is Ximu, as you say, then she’s got a field surrounding the old City now. I can’t transport us in there without getting stuck in her energy web. I’m wondering if that’s how the kinnon got bitten—he may have flown into it accidentally and gotten stuck.”
“And then somehow he managed to get free, only to die of his wounds. Poor chap.”
Bayne nods.
“It’s Ximu, all right,” I say.
“What’s confirmed it for you, since we couldn’t manage to actually see her?”
I think about the scarlet-robed man and shiver. “The xiren. The man who was watching us—he is one of her Captains who can take human form. They wear robes like that, woven of their scarlet silk. And I saw the gold markings . . .”
Nainai always warned us to beware those who walked in scarlet. “Shoot first, ask later, where they’re concerned,” she said. I had always thought her advice so funny. What if the xiren changed colors on occasion? And why should I worry if they were extinct anyway?
I didn’t worry until today.
Bayne nods.
Vespa opens the kitchen door then, patting her hair with a towel. She’s dressed again in what I think is probably one of three gowns she owns, now that one of them is at the bottom of the River along with her petticoats.
“I . . . hmmm . . . have no other petticoats, so I suppose this will have to do for now,” she says. “Else I shall have to resort to wearing trousers.”
Bayne looks up at her, and something passes between them—that age-old something that I wish they would just resolve. She blushes and looks away from him. I often feel like I’m in the way, that so much is unspoken because of me, but then and again, I also know that it’s much more than that.
“Your turn, gentlemen,” she says.
I defer to Bayne. He looks far more uncomfortable than I am. “Your lordship,” I say, gesturing toward the kitchen. He glowers at me, gathers up his fresh clothes, and enters the kitchen.
Truffler is toasting bread on the hearth in the parlor, and Vespa goes in to sit with him. I don’t move, not wanting to soil anything with my wet clothes or offend Piskel with my stench.
Bayne is quick, and soon it’s my turn. Good man that he is, he’s refreshed the water, so I don’t have to wait too long before I can pour it into the beaten-brass tub. It’s not the most comfortable way to bathe—certainly not like the bathing rooms I glimpsed in the Grimgorn estate or Virulen Manor—but it’ll do.
I don’t want to think about anything as I scrub the River from my body, but one persistent thought worms its way in. If Ximu is in the old City, and I’ve no doubt of that now, then she apparently has something to hide. Something big.
When I’m clean and dressed, I return to the parlor just in time to see Bayne tucking an old quilt around Vespa, who’s fallen asleep on the settee. He reaches out a trembling hand toward the curls that fall around her shoulders, but then he withdraws as if he’s touched fire.
Those two. I clear my throat softly.
He turns. “I was just . . . making sure she sleeps. She needs rest after all that.”
“Mm-hmm.” Piskel is laughing behind him and making crazy, lovesick faces.
Bayne jerks his head toward the library. “Let’s go in there. We’ll catch her up when she wakes.”
We go to the scarred table with toast and tea. Bayne clears away maps and books, except for an old map of New London, which he unfurls before us.
We both stare at it a long time. I’m looking at the curve of the River, wondering if and how we can defend our side if anyone tries to cross it. The ravine gives us some advantage.
He’s thinking the same thing, because he finally points to a place upstream near the old Tower.
“There,” he says. “I think if it came to it, they would cross there. It’s shallow there and not as wide, yes?”
I nod, thinking of the time when I swam the River against Truffler’s urging and freed the Harpy. Bayne had been there. I never imagined when I hid under the Harpy’s cage with him that we would one day be living in the same house, plotting how to defend the Empress against Ximu.
“You think there’s an army, too?” I ask.
“I’m almost certain of it,” he says. “What else would she be hiding there?”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“We must tell the Empress,” Bayne says.
I remember their exchange yesterday. “Won’t she be angry that we disobeyed?”
“Perhaps,” he says. “But I hope the information will finally open her eyes. We must have better defenses.”
I ask the question I’m sure neither of us wants to contemplate. “Is it already too late?”
Bayne stands and begins to pace. He always paces when he’s thinking or nervous. “It may very well be.”
“Then . . . what can really be done? Can you and Vespa make a field like hers to protect the City?”
Bayne shrugs. “We could try. I’m not sure how successful it would be unless we could convince some Elementals to help us keep it going. And we obviously can’t live this way forever, can we?”
“No. Ximu won’t rest until everything belongs to her. That’s always been her way in all the stories. I can’t imagine that has changed.”
“Olivia is right in one thing, at least,” Bayne says. He opens a cabinet and fishes out paper, pen, and ink.
“What’s that?”
“It would definitely be easier if we could all just learn to live together in peace.”
I nod. “Yes. Yes it would.”
But somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen.
While Bayne writes his letter, I fidget with the need to do something. I decide to go work on the boiler. It will take my mind off things, and it’s something that I know will please Olivia if I can manage to fix it. I try not to think about whether soon it may not matter if I fix it.
I go to my workshop and find my favorite spanner on the bench right where I left it. I pull on the one dry coat I have left and return to the table.
“Are you off?” Bayne asks.
“Back to the warehouse to fix that boiler if I can.” Beats sitting around here fretting, I want to say. But I don’t.
He nods. “If you don’t mind, carry this letter and ask that it be delivered to Doctor Parnassus.”
I take the letter and put it in my pocket. Piskel floats over and settles in my collar. “Ready for another day in the dungeon?” I ask him. A resigned squeak is my only answer.
“What will you tell them about what we encountered?” I ask Bayne.
“Only the bits that are relevant, of course.” He smiles, but it’s brief and troubled. He looks down at the map again. We’re still thinking the same thing. How can we defend what we’ve rebuilt, if it comes to that?
I think about it as I pick my way across town, the letter snug against my chest in my jacket. The rain from the kinnon’s death and the autumn chill have made the streets into channels of cold, sucking mud.
It’s an unpleasant journey, but I at last arrive at the warehouse and find a faun courier who’s warming himself by a brazier outside. He agrees to take the letter to Doctor Parnassus, the satyr doctor who is head of the Elemental Council, and receives the letter with all due ceremony. I don’t envy him the trek through the mud.
Back into the warehouse cellars I go, with Piskel muttering against my ear.
The boiler squats in the half light, taunting me. I eye it the way I would one of the boys I used to box in Lowtown as I take off my jacket.
I light my oil lantern and crawl inside very carefully. I will never wish for an everlantern, but I do wish for a thing like it that could produce light without the potential of catching everything on fire. It’s a strange idea, I know.
I’m up to my elbows in grease again, and just thinking that Piskel is awfully silent when he comes zooming into the boiler. He bounces off the walls, sparking so hard, I’m afraid he’ll blow us through the roof if he manages to ignite any of the fuel. I clap my hands around him.
“Stop! Before you blow us to bits!”
The buzzing in my hands calms, and when I open my hands, he is glaring at me. He wipes a smear of mythgrease from his face.
“What?”
He tilts his head toward the outside and floats upward, gesturing that I should climb back out.
“But I just got in here. Is it really important?”
He stares at me with those gimlet eyes and nods slowly.
“Is it dangerous?”
Piskel shrugs.
I can’t help but roll my eyes.
I climb back out carefully with the lantern. “If this is a prank, I’m not going to be happy about it.”
I wipe my hands again on the rag and glance at my patched coat. I’d put it on, except that I’m still so thick with grease that I’d rather wash off first. But, thinking about the xiren I saw on the riverbank, I pick up the knife I keep nearby.
Piskel tugs at me, gesturing and buzzing toward the stairs. I follow him up out of the cellar and into the hall, which is crowded with people trying to get out into the courtyard.
I blink once I’m out in the midmorning light. Everyone’s here—Councilors, guards, tradesmen, Elementals. I’m certainly not the only person with patched clothes. (Though I do seem to be the only one covered in grease). Gone are the eversilk coats and trousers, the elaborate wigs and beauty marks of days past. This New London is new indeed.
I’m not sure what they’re all looking at until I notice the edge of a silver cloud above the building roofs.
It can’t be.
Piskel makes a noise like: Now do you believe me?
Not yet. I let the crowd push me down the cobbled street until we get a clear view.
The airship floats at the edge of the Euclidean Plain like a dream. It’s vast, bigger than anything I’ve ever imagined. It holds all of my attention, such that I don’t notice the crowd is moving again until someone next to me jams their elbows into my ribs and smashes my toes.
I curse under my breath and am about to say it louder when I look round. The Empress walks down the makeshift aisle to stand beside me. I shut my mouth.
The morning sun lights her pale hair, much as it did yesterday when she stood in the window. I feel guilty that we disobeyed her and have the sudden urge to tell her everything that transpired earlier this morning. But I have a feeling that would be a very bad idea. I drop my gaze, afraid something on my face will betray me.
She smiles shyly. Her guard—a contingent of fauns—makes a small circle around just the two of us.
“Mr. Reed, I see you have been hard at work.” I look up for a moment, and her gaze takes me in. I’m both embarrassed and proud at once.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“And what have we here?” she says, looking toward the airship.
“No idea, Majesty.”
A line of people moves down the gangplank, a parade of brightly feathered birds.
From a little pouch at her waist the Empress takes a pair of old opera glasses and looks toward them.
“Ah,” she says. “I think perhaps we should summon Pedants Lumin and Nyx.”
“Your Majesty?” I’m thinking of the boiler still half fixed, my tools scattered everywhere in the cellar.
“It would appear the Grimgorns have finally answered my letter.”
When I tell Bayne the Grimgorns have sent an airship, I worry for a minute that I’ve made a mistake. He has that lightning-eyed look that I’ve come to dread. Though he’s no longer the fine lordling with his heeled shoes and brocaded coats, he can still play the part. Piskel thinks I’ve slipped up too, because he cowers behind my ear, peeping out when it seems that Bayne is taking a while to answer.
Truffler enters from the parlor, trailing Vespa behind him, who has apparently just woken from this morning’s nap. Truffler comes to stand beside me, patting my hand.
“And?” Bayne says.
Vespa’s avoiding Bayne’s gaze, probably for the same reasons I am, but that’s not hard because all his attention is on me. I’m surprised I don’t go up in a puff of smoke.
“Her Majesty asked that you both attend her,” I say.
“Well, I suppose we should be off,” Vespa says. “We wouldn’t want the festivities to start without us.” The false cheer is obvious in her voice as she bundles into her overlarge Pedant’s robe.
Bayne’s brow rises. “No, I’d imagine not.”
“Do you think your father . . .” Vespa trails off as Bayne’s expression hardens again.
“He is not my father,” Bayne says. He throws on his Pedant’s robe and digs out warding stones from the drawer in the library. He turns to me as he pockets the stones, and says, “You did get my letter off to Doctor Parnassus, yes?”
“Yes. A faun courier has taken it to him.”
“Good. Council certainly has many things to discuss now.”
Nothing to argue with there. I glance at Truffler to see if he wants to come along, but he shakes his head.
He shrugs. He much prefers forest and hearth to crowded streets or warehouses. He salutes me as he steps aside into the workshop, shedding clouds of hob hair as he goes. I try to keep myself from wishing I could just stay here with him.
We go back the way I came, and there is little discussion as we make our way. Vespa tries to draw Bayne out of his shell, but he doesn’t really answer. Eventually, she gives up. He’s strung tight as a bow. I’m almost glad that I’m not a Council member, and therefore will not have to be present when he and the Grimgorn entourage meet. I suspect it won’t be pretty.
We part ways just beyond the doors. Bayne takes me aside and says almost in a whisper, “Say nothing to anyone of the xiren, do you hear? Now is not the time. It will be discussed in Council. For now, silence.”
I nod. This is confirmation of what I felt earlier, and it’s not like I come across many people in the cellar anyway. I make my way back down to where the cursed boiler sits like some dark Elemental. My stomach protests; I’ve had nothing to eat since our bit of toast, and I’m not likely to get anything until either I defeat this boiler or it defeats me for another day.
I knock at the boiler with my wrench, thinking of the old Tinker songs my uncles would sing outside the train cars as they worked on fixing anything from leather harnesses to small engines. Elder Ji told me of the great engines he’d worked on back when the trains ran from Scientia through Euclidea to here. The steam engines had run on coal, and he could remember shoveling coal into the boilers to make the engines run day and night. Back then, Tinkers worked on the engines and in the northern mines. It didn’t sound much different from working for the Refineries, but my uncles always assured me that it was.
“There was nothing like the thunder of the iron horse across the Plain,” Elder Ji used to say.
I wonder sometimes if that’s why my people clung to the train-yard. They were nostalgic for that life of wandering on the iron horse, for the minesongs, for the Elementals they met on their journeys. But then there was always the Manticore to consider.
And now I am thinking of converting this boiler back to coal and wishing that I didn’t have to. Coal may be better than myth in many ways, but it’s dirty and causes disease, even if it doesn’t directly take the lives of Elementals. I can’t help but wish I could harness the sun’s light as easily as Vespa and Bayne harness their magic. If I could convert sunlight into energy, there would be no end to it. Except when there’s no sun, of course.
Piskel squeaks at me to stop dawdling and finish the thing. He’s hungry too, I reckon. He could leave in search of food, but he stays, lighting my work with his golden glow so I don’t have to use the oil lantern.
In the end, the boiler wins. Just as I’m attempting to reroute a major pipe, it falls apart in a shower of rust and unmoored fittings.
“Hozide pigu!” The old language is as good for cursing as it is for blessing.
Piskel holds his sides and laughs, his light fitful between gales of laughter.
I’m half-in, half-out of the blasted thing, spitting rust and myth residue out of my mouth, when I hear a slight cough.
“Sir Artificer.”
The voice echoes through the maze of pipes. I haul myself from the boiler. It’s gotten so dark now that I can barely make out one of the Empress’s faun guards standing nervously nearby. He doesn’t like the iron or the myth residue any more than I do.
“The Empress has requested your immediate attendance in the throne room.”
I nod. Once again, I am covered in grease and rust. I wipe myself down with the rag as best I can, glaring at the boiler. I had no idea it was this late. We will meet again, and next time I will triumph. I hope.
Piskel follows behind us, humming to himself through the maze of pipes.
Upstairs there are smoking torches and lanterns, the result of a city now utterly devoid of myth. I am wishing we could somehow get a gas line in here and wondering how that might be possible. Then I think about the xiren I saw and wonder if anything will be possible soon.
The faun ushers me into the throne room, one of those galleries created to show off the merchants’ wares to best effect. Banners of silk have been hung where the old drapes used to be. No one is about except guards and servants; the meeting regarding the arrival of the strange airship must have concluded.
The Phoenix Throne on which the Empress sits for Imperial business is ablaze with the failing sun’s light. It was carved from deadwood by the dryads, inlaid with salvaged gold and precious stones by hobs and gnomes. Olivia sits in the center of all this richness.
“Forgive me if I’m blinding you, Mr. Reed,” she says, getting up and coming down off the makeshift dais on which the throne rests.
It’s then I notice the strange golden egg on the last step. She scoops it up and brings it to me. “I thought you might like to see this.”
The egg is so large that I’m afraid she’ll drop it when she opens her hand. I reach to catch it. She smiles because the egg is already unfolding itself, having put down tiny golden feet that clutch the edges of her palm. With unbelievable smoothness, a long, elegant neck unfolds, and jeweled eyes peer at me. A long, filigreed tail spreads across the Empress’s wrist.
It’s a mechanical Phoenix, very nearly an exact replica of the throne in miniature. Except that it can move, of course.
“The Grimgorns gave it to me,” she says. “As a sign of faith and goodwill.”
I am curious to know more, but she stays silent on that subject. I suppose I’ll wait until I see Vespa before I get answers. Bayne isn’t likely to want to talk about any of this. For reasons I can’t explain, I feel uneasy about the little Phoenix, though I won’t say so. Piskel does too. I can tell from the way he’s frowning as he checks it out from every possible angle.
I reach out to touch it, and it snaps its tiny golden beak at me. In fact, I’d almost swear it hissed when it did so.
“What the . . . ?”
The Empress strokes it with her free hand, and the thing calms. “I think perhaps it only likes me,” she says. “Though I can’t quite fathom how that might be so.”
I bite my lip. I don’t either, but I don’t want to say so. If it had been built with myth, there’d be no question. But I sense no magic, and neither does Piskel, much to his consternation. It doesn’t look like any of the antique clockwork I keep in my workshop. Piskel’s frown deepens; he pokes and prods at the Phoenix.
“Gently, Piskel,” she says. She puts her other hand over the Phoenix to protect it, closing away all but the tail trailing across her wrist. Piskel grumps over to my shoulder and hides in my hair.
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen, Majesty,” I finally admit.
“Me neither,” she says. “Would you like to take it with you and try to figure out how it’s made? I would very much like to know who in Scientia is capable of making such things without magic.”
I nod. I open my hands, and she places the Phoenix in them.
“It’ll be all right,” she says to the Phoenix. “Go with him.” It bows to her and then folds itself back into an egg. Olivia’s cool fingers dance across my skin, and it’s all I can do not to shiver. I look into her eyes and see she’s smiling. I want to ask her a million things, but my tongue seems to have tied itself in knots.
“Let me know what you find out, Mr. Reed.”
It feels as though her fingers are still on my skin. Somehow I manage to untie my tongue. “I will, Majesty.”
I shift the egg to my jacket pocket and bow. She holds her hand out to me then, and I realize I am meant to kiss it.
Praying I don’t mar her with rust or grease, I take her hand in mine. I bend and press my lips just above her knuckles. I can’t look in her eyes, though I feel hers on me. The skin on the back of her hand is as cold as her fingers. There’s even a metallic tang against my lips, a charge like the spark off an old myth cell.
A deep shiver moves through her as she withdraws her hand, and it makes me smile just a little. I can give as good as I get. I risk a glance into her eyes and find mirrored there all the things I feel in her presence before she shutters them and steps away from me.
“Tell me what you learn.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
The gold egg is heavy in my pocket as I return home.