The Unnaturalists Page 12

  Together, the Tinkers and Refiners shoved and pulled the creature toward the open door. It struggled, using some of its tentacles to hold itself at the threshold.

  But the Refiners kept jabbing at it with their sticks, stuffing its billowy body into the sickly-green mouth of the boiler.

  Sudden understanding was as painful and sharp as the werehound’s bite. Nainai had been absolutely, utterly right. There were no mythmines to the north. This was why the Elementals were disappearing and the Culls had resumed. The Manticore was in terrible danger; her request for help was perhaps more pressing even than his own need to free his people.

  As the last tentacle slipped into the boiler, Syrus couldn’t bear it any longer.

  “STOP!” he screamed.

  A gasp of light and a surge of cold sound almost knocked his heart completely out of rhythm. Jets of steam spurted from the merrily rocking engine. Everything went still, except for bits of frozen ash that glimmered green in the gloom. The Elemental’s song ceased.

  All eyes turned to him. Syrus gasped, not just because of his own foolishness, but because the eyes of the Tinkers were as white and cloudy as flint. And yet they moved like those who could see, because they were running toward the catwalk stairs to catch him.

  Syrus started running, but was soon reduced to hobbling by the pain in his foot. He pulled at the door he’d come through, but it was locked from the other side. And there was no going below. He glimpsed a tiny door high on the dome. If he could get there maybe he could crawl out and eventually find a way down. He swallowed and limped for it as fast as he could.

  The Tinkers gained on him as he plunged up the metal stairs, but he noticed that their gait was odd. His people had a native grace, developed first from learning the forest and then often enough from learning the stealth required to survive in New London. But those who chased him stumbled along awkwardly, as if they’d forgotten how to move. Their white eyes gleamed.

  Tongues of energy licked up along the metal walkways from below. The Refiners tried their best to take him down too, with their thunderbusses, though he saw that none of them were willing to climb the many flights of stairs. As he lifted himself up yet another flight toward the beckoning little door, he heard the telltale howling. They were sending werehounds after him, too.

  A hand clutched at him and then another. He turned and kicked one person in the shins with his good foot, and they went down together in a tangle of limbs because his bitten foot couldn’t support his weight anymore. He crawled free, punching and scratching, trying to save his little dagger as a last resort. When he’d crawled up to another landing, he loaded his dart pipe with trembling hands and blew two darts into the closest white-eyed Tinkers. At least they’d only be asleep for a little while, rather than permanently hurt.

  The darts bought him some time, but not enough. The first of the werehounds was soon upon him, grabbing him by the back of the coat and shaking him away from the door. He twisted, drawing the little knife. He stabbed as he could, the werehound dancing and leaping and trying to drag him down the stairs. The last blow slid between the ribs, puncturing a lung.

  The werehound loosened its grip, slumping against the rail, wheezing and whistling. It gazed up at him with a look so human that Syrus felt queasy. He watched as it shimmered and slowly shifted into the form of his cousin Raine, the one who had proudly declared she would use his earnings as her dowry. Now, she clutched her side, desperately trying to draw air into her collapsed lung.

  He stared. The Refiners had taken his people and turned them into dogs. And he had killed his cousin.

  He reached for her, but she gestured him away. “Go,” she breathed. He could barely hear her over the howls of her kin, the throbbing of the boilers far below. She nodded toward the door.

  He went, closing it just as more jaws sought the hem of his coat. He looked desperately for something to wedge the door shut, and found a bit of rusting railing to wedge through the door handle. But with enough time and strength, they’d surely break through.

  A small widow’s walk circled the smokestack that belched glowing smog above him. Syrus’s eyes and nose streamed; the burning bone smell seared like acid now. He couldn’t stay up here much longer, but as he looked over the edge, he had absolutely no idea how he would get down.

  He crouched against the smokestack, out of sight of the door. The white-eyed Tinkers banged against it; the werehounds howled for his blood.

  Syrus put his head in his hands. He wanted to cry. His foot throbbed with pain; his lungs hurt from trying to breathe the acrid air. But more than that, his heart hurt that his world was even crueler than Granny Reed had once said. Everyone with any sense knew that this world belonged to the Elementals and their kind. Humans were just visitors in this land. But now, all indications were that the New Londoners were much worse than he’d ever dreamed. They were not only destroying Elementals to power their infernal machines, but turning his people into monsters. How much further would they go? All he knew for sure was that he couldn’t stop them by himself. And yet, something had to be done.

  Thunk, ka-thunk, thunk.

  His people would soon have that door open, and then what?

  He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes to stop the seeping tears. He went to the railing and looked down over the edge of the dome. The ground was lost in pre-dawn mist.

  He could just make out the rusting rungs of what looked like a ladder built into the side of the dome, but he would have to free-climb for several hundred yards before he made it. He could probably do it on any average day. But with a bum foot and werehounds possibly waiting for him below . . .

  He withdrew the stone from his pocket. Couldn’t hurt to give it a try.

  “Et in Arcadia ego,” he whispered.

  Light shivered next to him and spat out a handsome man in a dressing gown, who stared at him disapprovingly and said, “Athena’s Girdle, boy! Could you pick a less decent hour to summon a chap?”

  Syrus stared. This was the same Architect who had been with the witch outside Rackham’s, the one the witch had called Hal.

  The Architect looked around. “I doubt there’s any less decent place, either. How did you . . . ?”

  He saw Syrus’s injury and heard the banging at the door simultaneously. He made a sound of disgust.

  “Never mind. Come here and take hold of my sleeve,” he said.

  Syrus hesitated. It occurred to him that he could be jumping from the kettle into the fire, as Nainai would say.

  “Oh, dash it all, boy!” the Architect said. “I am not leading you to certain doom! Take hold of my sleeve or stay here and suffer your fate. I’m under house arrest. If my valet finds I’m gone, there’ll be more than a pack of angry Refiners waiting, I promise you.”

  Syrus took hold of the Architect’s sleeve just as the Tinkers burst through the door. Their white eyes dissolved into the green haze of the New London dawn.

  CHAPTER 15

  I’ve never been particularly enraptured with girlish things. Give me a sylphid net, a capture box, and a sketchbook and I’m the closest to Scientific Paradise one can rationally get. Now I feel guilty for my enjoyment of those things, with Piskel riding comfortably in my pocket by day and sleeping in a little nest I’ve made for him in my wardrobe by night. I had to coax him out from under the werehound’s skull with the mere promise of jam cake after Hal was escorted away. It wasn’t easy.

  Hal. I have no idea what’s become of him. I tried to ask Father, but he very quickly set aside my queries. “Pedant Lumin was dismissed,” he said, not looking me in the eye, when I asked one evening. “He will soon be replaced, have no fear. You should turn your mind to other matters. You have much to learn before taking up your place in the Virulen household.” And with a snap of his newspaper, he’d ended the discussion. There has been no letter, no magic whisper, nothing since. Even when I ask Piskel about Hal, the sylphid only shakes his head and sighs.

  So, I was actually relieved when M
istress Virulen’s request came for me to join her at the Night Emporium this afternoon. We’re to begin shopping for our Carnival gowns and she has promised to take me to high tea at The Menagerie, an exclusive Uptown ladies’ club, afterward.

  Aunt Minta won’t allow me to take the trolley to the Emporium unaccompanied. “Let’s hire a carriage instead. There’s been trouble at the Lowtown Refinery and more predicted throughout the City,” she says, as she pulls on her kid gloves. “They suspect the Architects are involved.”

  I try not to show any emotion at the mention of them. I have left Piskel behind in his wardrobe nest today, as his presence might be too dangerous for both of us. He must not be seen. He would be mounted for a Museum display and I would be sent to the decontamination asylum for certain if the sylphid were to be found on my person.

  We wait in the foyer until the carriage is announced and then step out into another gray New London afternoon. The air is sharp with the promise of an autumn storm; green-edged gusts skirl down the cobbled street, catching our skirts and tangling them about our legs. I hold my new bonnet tight against my head as we hurry to the carriage; the driving wight blinks at us as we nearly trip over him in our haste to get inside.

  “The Night Emporium,” Aunt Minta calls through the speaking tube, and we’re off, rocking down through the blustery streets.

  We don’t speak much until we’re almost at my destination, and then Aunt Minta puts her hand over mine. “Now, my dear,” she says, “remember what we’ve been working toward. Discretion and decorum—these will be of utmost value to your new mistress.”

  I nod. We’ve been through so many things over the last few days that I can scarcely remember more than pacing up and down in the parlor balancing a book on my head while Aunt Minta corrected every flaw in my posture with an old cane. “Shoulders back, bosom out—we want them to appreciate your attributes, my dear, not wonder whether you’re even female. . . .”

  And the blushing, the hideous blushing, as my corsets were laced tighter, my gowns cut lower, a bustle added to make sure “back there” was as well-proportioned as “up front.” I have never thought of any of it before and now it seems it’s all I can think of, because I can’t bear to think about anything else.

  Aunt Minta squeezes my hand, bringing me out of my gloom. The carriage has stopped at the entrance to the Night Emporium. Aunt Minta peeps out the door. “Ah, there they are.” She points out the guards near the gate. A Manticore rears red on their livery. “They’ll take you to Mistress Virulen.” She smiles and kisses me briskly on both cheeks. “Out you go. And remember—discretion and decorum, my dear!”

  I embrace Aunt Minta, inhaling one last comforting whiff of her verbena and orange blossom perfume. Then I step out with the driving wight’s help, buffeted by the gusts that have chased us all the way down from High Street in Midtown. His grip is odd—one moment insubstantial, another firm as death. The Imperial Refinery just alongside the Tower makes and programs the wights to customer specifications, but the process of their making is a great trade secret. It’s said only the Empress knows how the wights are truly made. I’ve always thought of wights as mindless automata, but knowing the truth about the Elementals has made me question everything. The driver’s expressionless face flickers and then he drifts back toward the carriage as Aunt Minta calls to be returned to High Street. I’m left standing with no real answers.

  The Night Emporium’s violet-swirled domes bloom over me, spanning half of the bridge that vaults the River Vaunting and joins Lowtown on the other side. Closer to Lowtown, there are gambling houses and other dens of iniquity, but on this side of the great bridge, we’re still firmly in Midtown. The arched gates are lit by twinkling everlights that flash like Piskel when he’s excited or happy. Various shop wights circulate through the crowd, offering samples of candied apples or eversilk ribbons. It seems a bit odd to me that a lady of such stature as Mistress Virulen would come here to seek Carnival gear, but perhaps she is bored of the Uptown boutiques and looking for a bit more local color.

  I exhale a long, slow breath, approach the liveried guards, and hand them my invitation as instructed. Their appraising looks make me want to shrink back into myself, but I haven’t spent the past several days walking with a book on my head for nothing. I throw my shoulders back and say, “Take me to Mistress Virulen, please,” as if I’m giving a Scholar directions for finding a lecture in the labyrinthine Museum.

  They turn in unison and begin shouting for the way to be cleared.

  We pass through the arched gates with their fanciful lights and glimmering faces. People look askance and whisper behind their hands as I follow the guards. I wave away several wights before we enter Hooke & Smee’s, a ladies’ costume shop. The shop is empty of all but Mistress Virulen and a few of her retainers. She glances up from the fabric the seamstress wights have spread before her and rushes toward me across the honey-golden boards.

  “Vespa,” she says, taking both my hands in hers. “I may call you that, mayn’t I?”

  “Of course, my lady . . .” My voice doesn’t even sound like my own.

  “Oh, stuff and nonsense, do call me Lucy. When we’re in intimate circumstances like this, of course.”

  I nod, then blush when I realize I’ve forgotten to remove my bonnet.

  Her eyes travel to it just as I reach for the gray ribbons. She clucks at me. “Wherever did you find that?” She touches it briefly, as if it might bite her.

  “I . . . that is to say . . . my aunt . . .” I stammer, as she swiftly unties it, lifts it off my head, and passes it to one of her attendants.

  “We shall do much better for you by far.” She turns to her attendant and says, “Get rid of that dowdy thing, will you?”

  The attendant bows and hurries off to do her bidding.

  Lucy turns back to me, her dark eyes intent on my face, lifting her small, porcelain-perfect hand to brush at my temperamental curls. “Yes, I can see it. You will be quite the catch when I’m done with you.” She leans forward so only I can hear. “And so shall I when you’re done with me, eh?” she whispers, winking.

  I swallow my stammering and simply nod. I try not to follow the progress of the brand-new bonnet out to the wastebin with my eyes. Both Aunt Minta and I had thought it the height of fashion when we bought it last week. Somehow, I know better than to say that to Lucy Virulen.

  “Now, come,” she says, taking my arm and leading me down the long aisles toward where the seamstress wights still spread fabrics across the boards. “Let’s decide our Carnival theme.”

  And so it begins. Eversilk, organza, batiste, yards of lace, gilt thread, and feathers of every kind and description. Lucy’s eyes light up at a pile of feathers so brilliant, I’m certain they must have once belonged to a Phoenix. I turn the cerulean pinions, watch them change to fiery gold under the shop lights. Definitely Phoenix. Sickness clenches at my gut, especially when Lucy practically leaps at the feathers, crying, “Yes! These will be just the thing!”

  “They’re Phoenix feathers.” My voice is stiff with unspoken things.

  She tickles my nose with one. It smells of embers and sorrow. “Of course I know that, dear. That’s why I want them. I shall attend the ball tricked out as a magnificent Phoenix before her ascent in flame. But we have been thinking too much about me. What would you like to be, Vespa?”

  My gaze wanders helplessly across the sheen of fabrics and glittering thread. “Whatever you want me to be, Mistress.”

  “Such a cautious creature!” She smiles, running her hands along the fabrics on the table. The seamstress wight blinks, caught between holding out a swatch of peacock-blue silk and some golden braid.

  “With that hair and those eyes,” Lucy continues, “we must be careful. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still be dramatic.”

  I nod. Aunt Minta often says that I’m not easy to dress because of my coloring. Therefore, I mostly keep myself to shades of gray, when I worry about it at all.

  Lucy wande
rs down the table to where dark silk sparkles with silver threads, a swatch of night sky plucked from the clean air beyond the City walls. There’s a half-finished owl mask here; a few downy white feathers grace the edges of its hooked beak. I pray to the saints that no rare owl lost its feathers for this.

  As if the saints would care. I’m beginning to suspect they don’t care about anything.

  Lucy pounces on the mask and holds it up to my face. “Bewitching!” She smiles that infectious smile and I can’t help but return it. “How would you feel about going as the Strix, my dear?”

  The Strix is a flesh-eating, owl-like creature, rumored to haunt the great rivers and caverns of the East. I’ve seen a stuffed one in the dustier vaults of the Museum, her feathers moth-eaten, her glass eyes vacant. But I imagine that if she had been preserved alive like the Sphinx or the Grue, she would have been very fearsome indeed.

  “I’ve always found the Strix interesting,” I say carefully. I consider saying more about the one in the vault at the Museum or the Eastern expedition to capture her decades ago, but Aunt Minta has cautioned me not to speak too much of my work with Unnaturals.

  “Very well, then,” Lucy says. “You’ll be the Strix and I shall be the Phoenix. What a glamorous pair we’ll make for Carnival!”

  One of the shop proprietors—Mr. Hooke, I believe—sweeps up to us, bowing and making grand flourishes with his scarlet sleeves. With little more than a pause for breath, Lucy launches into detailed instructions which Mr. Hooke copies onto a gilt-edged pad with an elaborate quill, somehow managing not to stain his lacy cuffs with everink as he writes.

  Before I know it, seamstress wights are pushing me off toward the dressing rooms, where they whisk off my gown and undergarments, leaving me in little more than my stockings and a cold breeze. They take my measurements, their fingers appearing and disappearing as if I’m looking at them through running water. They pin a swath of the starry silk here and there, hold up the owl mask, nearly blinding me with the feather tips. There’s a low murmuring between them not unlike language, but still unintelligible.