Chapter Twenty-Three

 

 

 

QUESTIONS.

Another day had passed with no answers. A string of equations wrapped their way down the page before her, but still she’d not arrived at a solution that would allow her to control the negative feedback governor with a simple punch card. Were her skills up to the task?

Olivia glanced at Ian. Deep in concentration, alternately peering through an aetheroscope and pouring over pages of Warrick’s spidery notations, he took no notice of her. He’d avoided her gaze since yesterday’s…‌ encounter. It was quite deliberate, this avoidance, as if he wished to snuff the spark of attraction that kept flaring to life between them. Perhaps it was for the best.

Never let your heart rule your head.

How many times had she heard that phrase recited? With good reason. For her head had certainly been turned by a particularly handsome, young earl. She was forgetting herself, her mission. Mr. Black would chide her. Track Lord Rathsburn. That she’d done. The next logical step would be to keep the osforare apparatus inoperational and out of enemy hands. Yet she’d been working diligently to perfect its operation. Elizabeth’s presence was an unforeseen complication; one she couldn’t dismiss. If not for her, Olivia would even now be slipping from the castle and heading for the border on foot, the device securely in her possession.

As an agent, she was floundering. She had a sneaking suspicion that a field agent would prioritize national security and the return of the device over the health and well-being of a woman she barely knew, but she couldn’t bring herself to abandon Elizabeth.

As a societal liaison…‌ well, she wasn’t after marriage. Not a real one.

Never mind that her thoughts kept straying back to that enormous bed. By the time the guardsman escorted them to their frigid bed chamber last night, her fingers were so frozen, Ian had needed to assist her with the laces of her gown. While he himself undressed, she’d tapped a faint rhythm on the floor, calling Watson forth and secreting the axon thrall bands within him. Perhaps the device might prove useful. It was another secret to keep from Ian, but at least it was a gratifying one. Warrick would not be able to use them to bind Lady Elizabeth to him again.

She slid beneath the bedclothes with every intention of picking up where they’d left off in the laboratory. But when Ian reached for her, tugged her to his side, his hard angles and planes a pleasure to lean against, she was too exhausted to attempt a seduction. As a wondrous heat and a curious sensation of security enveloped her, she’d fallen into a deep sleep.

A new day brought a new—‌thankfully woolen and high-necked—‌dress, a brief conversation with Steam Matilda when she delivered yet more broth and hard bread, and a return to the wine cellar where Ian resumed his research, answering her questions in a brisk voice, all business.

Hours later, eyes bleary with fatigue and fingers cramped with cold, Olivia rubbed the back of her neck. Time for a break. Time to reconsider her course of action. She stood and began to pace, blowing on her stiff knuckles, flexing them against the cold, as if preparing to pick a lock.

Lock.

The lock that kept them in this wine cellar taunted her. She hated being confined, and it was ancient, easily cracked. More a suggestion she remain in the laboratory than an actual impediment to her escape. What if there was no cure for Elizabeth, for the guardsmen? The longer they labored in this prison, the sicker Ian’s sister would become. Might her best chance of survival lie in London where an entire team of scientists could focus upon a cure?

She glanced again at Ian. He was so certain of his path. But locked here midst the wine, they knew nothing of the intrigue that swirled about the castle. Time to reconnoiter. She’d slip out for a bit, creep down a hall or two. Climb a spiral staircase or three, pay a visit to Lady Elizabeth. The woman who was at the center of this dilemma might well possess critical insight. Olivia would only be gone a short while, no reason for anyone but Ian—‌and perhaps not even him—‌to notice her absence.

Sliding a lock pick from her corset, she opened the door. A guardsman lay unconscious on the floor of the hallway. Sick? She closed the door quietly behind her and pressed a hand to his chest. It did not rise or fall. So young, barely a man, and yet he was dead, another victim of those horrible cells.

A deep sorrow swelled in her chest, but there was nothing she could do for him. Better to move onward, to work to put an end to such future atrocities.

Heart pounding, she slid through the hallways, pausing to listen at half-open doorways. Only once did a guardsman approach. She held her breath, certain she was about to be discovered behind the suit of armor—‌which provided rather poor concealment—‌but his glazed eyes stared at his shuffling feet, and he moved as if his every joint throbbed. Her chest tightened. Sentenced to an early death by impatient, immoral men.

Halfway to the turret room, the clanking of Steam Matilda’s spider-like legs met her ears. Olivia froze. Then ever so carefully, peeked around the corner.

A tea tray. Despite the fear that banded her chest, her stomach growled. Loudly.

“Halt,” she called in German. Steam Matilda stopped. Such a delicate porcelain tea service must belong to the countess. Did she dare divert the steamboat, deprive Katherine her small luxury?

Olivia’s stomach growled again. “To the tower. To Lady Elizabeth,” she ordered, crossing her fingers that her programming would override that of the countess’.

With creaking joints, Steam Matilda turned and altered course. Olivia followed. At the turret room’s door, the posted guard straightened at her approach, his hand falling to the hilt of his blade.

But a meek woman was rarely seen as a threat. She directed her gaze to his boots. “Sent by countess,” she said, deliberately mangling her German. “My guard…‌ too much pain,” she waved at the spiral staircase behind her. “He waits below.”

A slight hesitation. A grumble. But with stiff fingers, he unlocked the door.

Olivia followed Steam Matilda into the small turret room. “Good afternoon, Lady Elizabeth.” The guardsman locked her in.

No fire burned in the grate, and with every gust of wind, panes of glass rattled in their casement. At least the voltaic prod was gone, no bizarre medical equipment was in evidence, and Lady Elizabeth was dressed and seated in a chair. The thick wool blanket wrapped about her shoulders slid to the floor as she stood, mouth agape. “How—‌”

“I came alone.” Olivia poured a cup of hot tea and handed it to Lady Elizabeth through the iron bars that separated them. Her cheeks were a healthy pink, not flushed with fever. Thank the aether. After that horrible procedure…‌ “The door to the laboratory was unlocked,” she said, spinning the tale she would stick to, “and I rather thought we should speak.”

“Please, call me Elizabeth. We are, after all, sisters. I am so pleased that Ian has finally married.” She tipped her head and regarded Olivia with a touch of suspicion. “I have to admit the announcement rather took me by surprise.”

Though it pricked her conscience to let that fiction stand, it was all that stood between her and the count’s unwanted advances. “As it will my own parents when we return.” She thought of Ian’s delightful kisses and hoped she glowed with starry-eyed delight as she lied. “We eloped, saying our vows aboard the airship. Though this isn’t the honeymoon I would have chosen, your rescue was paramount.” She poured her own cup of tea, wrapping her chilled fingers around its heavenly warmth. She closed her eyes and sighed. “This castle is so very, very cold. I rather expect I shall be made to regret stealing the countess’ afternoon tea, so we ought to make the best of it before we are found. Cream cakes?”

Elizabeth accepted the delicacy with a twist of her lips. “The cook means well, but she’s a simple village woman and terrified of the rusty, old steambots. Nearly everything emerges from the kitchen raw in the center or baked into a brick.”

Olivia tasted the cream cake. “A bit short on sugar, but otherwise consistent with my recipe.”

“Your recipe?” Elizabeth looked at the steambot doubtfully, but took a bite, humming in delight. “Oh, it’s wonderful.”

“Steam Matilda brought me a tray my first evening and, well…‌” It was no secret that her presence was tolerated at Burg Kerzen for her programming skills. “I’ve talent with mechanical household staff. I dismantled her, polished her various parts and pieces, reassembled her. And, having sampled what passes here for brown bread, I may have slipped a baking program into her card reader while I worked. If I could only spend a few hours in the kitchens…‌”

They shared a smile.

Elizabeth set down her tea cup. “What are the plans to remove me from this prison?”

“That is what I wish to discuss,” she began. “As yet, there are none.” Elizabeth’s face fell. “The cell transplant you received altered Ian’s plans. I left your brother pouring over Warrick’s scribblings, trying to discover if his boasts are fact or fiction. If he finds any glimmer that Warrick’s words are more than a brave-faced lie…‌”

“My brother will refuse to leave without that information,” Elizabeth finished. “John Warrick is a madman.”

“Even the rantings of a lunatic sometimes contain core truths, and his work has not been entirely unsuccessful. Think a moment. Has he mentioned anything about your future, about how your treatment might proceed? Odd words, scientific jargon?”

“No.” Elizabeth blinked, then reached to a small bedside table. “But he did give me this. He called it a promise stone. It’s strange. Watch.” She tapped the gray metallic lump against an iron bar. It stuck.

“A magnet?” Olivia frowned. Perhaps Warrick’s words about a cure were nothing but braggadocio in the face of Ian’s arrival and the count’s threats.

“What it might have to do with my condition, I’ve no idea.” Elizabeth tugged it free and dropped the smooth nugget into Olivia’s hand. “Keep it. Give it to Ian and see what he makes of it.”

She slid the odd stone into her pocket. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t want to die here in this awful castle, behind bars.” Elizabeth closed her eyes. “If there’s no cure, I want to return home. Six months.” She swallowed. “That’s time enough for one more English spring.”

Olivia nodded, then eyed the lock that held the iron door closed. Another basic, rudimentary lock. It would take her mere seconds to open. The tools in her corset would suffice, but two women brazenly exiting this chamber wouldn’t make it far. First they needed a plan.

“Have you met Wei?” Elizabeth asked.

“She visited you here?” Olivia’s heart gave a great thud at the thought of the girl climbing seven stories up the side of the castle wall, of her gliding down seven stories.

“Before your arrival, she offered to free me.”

Her heart stopped even as her lungs demanded more air. “She has suggested you jump from the window and glide to freedom. But your…‌ condition. You could easily break several bones.” Ian would refuse.

“Not once Warrick’s cells lodge themselves in my bones. Soon I will be unbreakable,” Elizabeth reminded her. “Alas, there is the matter of my prison and the question of where I would go once—‌if—‌I reach the forest floor.”

Biting her tongue against the temptation to reveal any more of her skills, Olivia walked to the small window in the far wall. She lifted the latch and swung the casement inward. Cold air blasted into the chamber as she leaned outward. Overhead, a dark shadow passed. Odd to see a pteryform circling in broad daylight. But the wildlife was none of her concern. The distance to the ground concerned her much more. Far, far below, like a tiny toy boat, the Sky Dragon floated in the river. Her heart thudded against her breastbone in terror at Wei’s acrobatics.

She pressed a hand to her heart. “Pistons and pipes.”

“I am in complete sympathy,” Elizabeth said. “If only she could bring the airship to my window instead.”

Olivia wiped her damp palms over her skirts and turned to face Elizabeth. “If it came to it, if I could find a key, would you? Jump and glide? Are you strong enough? Brave enough?”

“Stark, raving mad enough?” Elizabeth finished with determination, wrapping her hands about the iron bars. “I just might be. Just enough.”