Steven Harper - The Impossible Cube

“I noticed the change in your heartbeat and respiration,” Kemp said, answering a question she hadn’t asked, “and stepped out to prepare a meal. Sir said you had lost a fair amount of blood, and the proper remedy for that is tea and liver.”

Alice swallowed a mouthful. “How long was I asleep?”

“Nearly two days, Madam. I urge you to drink as much as you can.”

“Thank you, Kemp. As always, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

His eyes glowed. “You are quite welcome, Madam. In anticipation of your next question, Sir is in the workshop with the doctor. Shall I alert him to your present state?”

“Not if he’s in a fugue.” Alice tapped an egg with her spoon and unwound the shell. “Where are we? What’s been going on?”

“We left Luxembourg late last night. Ringmaster Dodd became nervous at the number of ‘mingers,’ as he calls them, patrolling the streets to look for you. In any case, their presence seemed to have a dampening effect on the number of people who attended performances. So we are moving on to Berlin. I believe the local baron is giving a birthday party for his son and he wants a circus. Eventually, of course, we will travel on to Kiev.”

Alice glanced out the porthole. Greenery rocked past in a blur, and the engine gave a long, low whistle. Sharp coal smoke and cinders mingled with the scent of liver and eggs. She remembered traveling by rail with her father and mother and brother and eating on tall-sided trays just like this one. Mother always bought a large bag of peppermint candies and shared them with Alice and Brent. Father sniffed that he didn’t care for peppermint, but pinched pieces outrageously and made Alice giggle. Then Mother assigned Alice the task of counting cows in the fields they passed while Brent was to count sheep. Father joked that it was faster to count all their legs and divide by four, which made Alice giggle all over again and lose count. That had been in happier times, in the days before the clockwork plague struck her family, sending her mother and brother to the graveyard and twisting her father’s body into a wheelchair. She held up the dark spider gauntlet for a moment. Her blood still coursed through the tubules. What would happen if she cut the tubes, sliced off its legs until it had nothing to grip with? It wouldn’t be difficult, just time-consuming. But the spider moved with her perfectly, responding to every muscle twitch far more efficiently than a simple glove. How deeply had it bonded to her and how much would it damage her own flesh to cut it off?

She pushed the questions aside to finish her breakfast, wash up, and dress, opting for a simple blouse and skirt and not bothering with a corset. Her legs were a bit shaky. Sharing the blood cure was difficult, time-consuming, and physically draining, and although the people Alice cured would themselves spread the cure with every cough and sneeze, it took time, time, and more time to get the cure to those who needed it, and every day it took was another day someone else’s mother, father, or brother died. There had to be a faster way. The fireflies would help, of course, since they could fly and spread things even faster, but they had their limitations as well. They couldn’t cross an ocean or mountain range, and chance or nature might destroy all the ones in a particular area before they had the chance to do much good. Still, they were helpful, and would take some of the burden off Alice. She would have to make more use of them in the future.

That decided, Alice left Kemp to tidy up her room while she went off in search of Gavin. Out in the corridor, however, she encountered a seething mass of metal. A brass flock of whirligigs flitted and hovered in the air while spiders scampered back and forth over the corridor floor. They jumped and squeaked when Alice emerged, and crowded around her. She laughed, and put out a hand. Two whirligigs landed on her arm, and spiders crawled up her body to her shoulders and head.

“All right, all right.” She laughed again. “I’m glad to see all of you, too. Good heavens.”

The little automatons refused to leave her sight, so Alice wore them like odd flowers or jewelry as she went off in search of Gavin. She tapped on the laboratory door and slid it open. Gavin, clad in a leather coat and goggles, turned to glance at her. His eyes widened, and he dodged away with a yelp and snatched up a beaker, ready to throw.

Alice backed away. “Gavin! What’s wrong?”

“Whirliblades chopping the chaos into wrong patterns,” he babbled. “So much fluff.”

Her heart lurched. He wasn’t a snapping, snarling monster, but the nonsense wasn’t much better. “Gavin, it’s me,” she pleaded. “Snap out of it!”

His blue eyes swam behind the lenses and he was breathing fast. Gently, she pulled the goggles off and touched his face. When had she last really touched him, just to touch him? His handsome face, so young but so old at the same time, felt warm and a little raspy under her palm. She wanted to take this man’s hand and run with him somewhere safe, to a place where there was no plague, no machinery, no ticking clock. Just the two of them.

He grabbed the back of her hand and pressed it harder against his face. “Alice?”

His voice was normal, and she felt better for it. “It’s me, darling.”

“What are you wearing? You look like a knight who went through a threshing machine.”

She laughed for the third time that day and turned. “Do you like it? Give it time, and whirligigs and spiders will become the latest rage.”

“You’re beautiful in everything, Lady Michaels.”

The sincerity in his voice made her blush. “Well. For that, you may have a kiss.”

She meant it to be a quick peck, but she found herself wrapped in his arms. The whirligigs and spiders exploded away from her in a startled cloud, and Gavin’s entire body pressed against hers. He ran his hands through her hair and down her back as his mouth came down on hers. The world swirled away, and her entire universe became nothing but him. She felt his muscles move on hers, and felt his hardness press against her. Her body throbbed in response. She ran her own hands over him, touching his jaw, his smooth collarbone, the ripples on his chest and stomach. Her breath quickened as-oh God, how daring could she be-she explored lower and touched his erection. He groaned against her teeth as her hand traced its length through his clothing, and his arms tightened around her. Her skin felt feathery, and she wanted to pull Gavin into her, make him part of her and never let him go.

“Alice,” he whispered hoarsely, “oh God, Alice. I don’t… We have to stop now or…”

“Or what?” she whispered back.

“Or we have to keep going.”

She moved her hand again, fascinated and excited by his length and hardness, by the reactions and gasps of pleasure her touch elicited in Gavin, and she ached for his hands on her, but he was barely moving now, as if he were afraid he might explode. He gave another groan.

“. . should we keep going?” he murmured. “Can we?”

She knew what he was talking about. A baby. If she got pregnant now, before they found a cure for Gavin, the baby would grow up without a father. That would destroy Gavin, not to mention what it would do to her. Further, an illegitimate child would also be unable to inherit her title, and despite all the traditions she had flouted, this one she wasn’t willing to give up.

It would be so easy to take him back to her stateroom, put him on the bunk and help him undress. She wanted to see him, feel him, touch him skin to skin, no barriers between them. And no one would know, or care if they did.

Her body hungered for him. But no. She had flouted any number of traditions, but this one… This one she wasn’t ready to forego yet. She dropped her hands and turned aside. Gavin swallowed, then turned his back so he could adjust his clothes. When he turned around again, she couldn’t help reaching out to brush his white-blond hair back into place, and she nearly leaped into his arms again.