THE FOLLOWING MORNING ELEANOR TOOK HER PLACE IN THE gallery once again and listened to further evidence against her son. The first witness was the engineer who parroted the Professor, and worse. He said that Edgar was a child who loved danger, who climbed everything that was forbidden, who never took an instruction, who was a risk to himself and his fellows.

“Only a matter of time,” said the fat-faced rogue, “before he would do great damage to some part of Oxford or another. I am only grateful it was not the museum.”

Mr. Clark tried to pick apart the argument, but the engineer was as strong and determined as the steel that he worked upon. Edgar would be ruled by no man. Edgar brought trouble upon himself.

Eleanor’s hand gripped knuckle white around the banister. Mr. Clark should have asked her about Edgar’s time at the museum. Then she would have given him her truth: the truth of Edgar’s hands rubbed red raw and flowering with blisters. These were things that he did not bring upon himself; of that she was certain.

But then the scales of justice began to tip.

Mr. Ellis had summoned enough of Edgar’s enemies. It was time for Mr. Clark to call forth the men who would speak in her son’s favor.

The very name of the first witness caused mutterings in the gallery.

“Mr. Stephens, erstwhile proprietor of the Invention Shop.”

Eleanor leant over the bar of the gallery to watch as he walked the length of the court and took his place. Unlike the other men, he looked straight at Edgar as he settled upon his seat and smiled at him—a smile that was full of kindness for her son, the boy who had burnt his business to the ground.

“I am sure, sir,” said Clark, matching smile for smile, “that you have the sympathy of the court. We know full well that you have suffered more than any man here in the loss of your livelihood under the actions of Edgar Jones.”

“Better the loss of my livelihood than the loss of any life, sir,” countered Mr. Stephens. “A shop can be rebuilt, inventions can be remade.”

“A most generous sentiment.”

“It is my belief that any master should be held accountable for the actions of his apprentice, sir. If Edgar Jones is to blame for the accident, then so am I.”

A gasp went up from the gallery. The jury twisted about upon their perches. Eleanor was almost pitching herself over the balcony. Here was an honest man indeed, a man who cared for her son more than his own reputation! Her blood quickened. Here was hope, after all. If the victim of Edgar’s crime did not hold him accountable, then how could any other man?

“This is most unexpected,” said Clark. “Can you enlighten the court to the logic of the statement?”

Mr. Stephens could. He spoke with a great passion about the skill that he had observed in Edgar, his enthusiasm for the work, the way that he had turned a great profit for Stephens within a matter of months, his natural eye for invention.

“He was the quickest child that I have ever encountered. He could set his hand to the trick of taking a thing apart in an instant.”

“This is all fascinating, sir, but I still do not understand how such talents shift the blame for the great inferno on to your shoulders.”

Stephens spoke softly about how Edgar was given a key before his time, and free access to the books and the instruments.

“I am afraid, sir, that in my sheer enthusiasm for his talents, I did not consider that I was presenting him with temptation as well as guidance. I should have been more careful in my instruction, and taught him the dangers of invention along with the pleasure of it.”

But when Ellis took to the stand, he turned Stephens’s words against Edgar in an instant.

“His talent was in the taking apart of a thing, you say, sir?”

Stephens frowned over the top of his glasses.

“That is the common form of any apprenticeship amongst machines, sir. The taking apart of a thing must be learnt before the construction.”

“And for how long have you been an inventor, Mr. Stephens?”

“Twenty years, sir.”

“And in that time you have studied the dangers of your craft closely?”

“Yes, sir, but as I said, I should have imparted that knowledge to Edgar, and I did not.”

“Nevertheless, in your own understanding of these dangers, would you say that the great inferno that Edgar Jones created, if it had gone unchecked, would have had the power to leap from roof to roof and burn apart the heart of Oxford?”

“You cannot hold the boy accountable for what might have been.”

“I am merely trying to assess the danger, sir. Yes or no?”

Stephens cast his gaze to the ground, and then back at Edgar. “Yes, sir, it could. But it did not.”

But that was all it took: the possibility of destruction. All praise was forgotten; there was just the knowledge of Edgar, a child who could have consumed the city with flame.

Then came a tall man with a mop of red hair. A man of solid stature. Much more of a man than any of those who sat in the jury. Eleanor thought how, if only the whole charade could be decided by a pure show of strength, this man would settle Edgar’s fate in an instant.

“Mr. Fisher,” said Clark, “will you explain to the court your relationship with the accused?”

“We were ironworkers in the museum together, sir.”

“And how did the accused seem to you?”

“He seemed awful small, sir.”

The gallery erupted with laughter. Even Eleanor smiled. She had almost forgotten that such a sound could exist in the world.

“Thank you, sir,” said Clark. “I spoke in reference to his attitude rather than his stature.”

“He was a brave lad. He would climb upon anything. He had no fear of the work at all.”

“I see. And what about his ethic?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Was he industrious, or did he slack at the work?”

“Oh, Master Jones could not be kept away from the work. There was nothing he loved more than being at the top of the iron. Why, when our engineer tried to keep him at the lower levels, Edgar made a harness to haul himself up to the heights. And I was his anchorman.”

“His anchorman?”

“The steerer of his rope. It was a good bit of sport, sir.”

Mr. Ellis strode up to the box and, as with Stephens, so with Fisher: he threw the argument back at him in an instant. Edgar’s love for the work was a love of transgression. He was a boy who did not keep to the orders of his master.

“And tell me, sir, the Professor asserted that none of the ironworkers held Edgar in his favor. Can you enlighten the court as to why you took the position as his anchorman?”

“It is true. At the start of the work I had little time for him. But he is not a bad lad, sir. A touch proud, perhaps, but not bad.”

Mr. Ellis drew a paper from his pocket and spread it across the bar before him. He read, like a man speaking prayers by rote, the pay given to the ironworkers. And Fisher’s pay, double that of the others.

“I wonder, Mr. Fisher, if you were so enamored of Edgar Jones, why then did you demand so high a wage to work beside him?”

Up in the gallery, Eleanor twisted her gloves around in her hand, fit to break them. These men played with Edgar’s reputation as if words were only words. And now it was all upon William’s shoulders to set the world straight.