Emma Holloway - A Study in Ashes

“It is a small service, given the immense amount that I’ve shared with you. That I will share with you in our time together.”

“No!” She pushed him away with both hands and kicked the chain at her feet into the fire. “You may think you have me, but I will fight you for every inch.”

Magnus staggered back a step, the angry flare of his eyes giving the lie to his amused smile. “You need not stay forever. Just long enough to allow me to make a new little helper of my own.”

“And what would be left of me by then?” Evelina snarled.

“Your true face,” he said. “As long as I’ve known you, my dear, you’ve been an event waiting to occur.”

And with that, he left her, locking the door with a sound like doom.

Cornwall, October 5, 1889

KILLINCAIRN

1:17 p.m. Saturday

NEXT TIME NICK CHOSE A SECRET HIDEOUT, IT WAS GOING TO have more amenities, like a convenient train station—preferably one with a decent alehouse nearby. Unfortunately, locations where one could hide the hangar for a steamspinner tended to be off the beaten path. Far, far off, where not even the customs boats watched for smugglers.

The railway stop closest to the tiny fishing village of Killincairn was at Falmouth, and from there it was horseback all the way south along the coast. Nick had missed horses, but this was a long ride in the pelting autumn rain, and in Cornwall that meant bucketing torrents. Nick’s coat was soaked right through. He’d stopped to buy some extra shirts with the money the Schoolmaster had loaned him, but he was fairly sure his bags were sodden, too.

He went back to his daydream about the alehouse, because fantasy was more bearable. His perfect tavern would have that good brown stout he’d had at the place a few miles back, and decent bread and cheese—the sharp, crumbly white stuff that went with hot pickled relish. And there would be an inn, with a warm bed and a real wood fire. Oh, yes, a good night’s sleep felt just the thing. Not that he was complaining. At least he was free, even if his backside did hurt because he hadn’t ridden for a year.

Evelina would be in that bed .

But he couldn’t afford to think of her right then, or he would think of nothing else. She was the key to his happiness, but it was as if that key was hidden inside a Chinese puzzle box. He could hold it, but he couldn’t get to it without solving the riddle of how to free her from the complex prison Keating had created for everyone she cared about. And if everyone Evelina loved wasn’t free, she wouldn’t be, either. Loving that way was her curse and blessing, and therefore Nick’s.

Of course, puzzle boxes could be solved two ways—with a clever mind, or with a hammer. Nick was starting to vote for the latter.

Nick pulled the horse up and looked toward the horizon. He was fairly sure he was near the road to Killincairn, but he couldn’t see the path. Rain pattered off his hat brim, obscuring the view he might have had if it wasn’t all buried in a thick gray mist.

Where the blazes am I? He sat pondering a moment, the rain chattering around him. He felt like the last living man in the Empire. He’d seen no other travelers for miles. No birds peeped, but he could hear the ocean in its constant, restless churn. The air was fresh and salty and Nick sucked it in, feeling every lungful expel another particle of Manufactory Three’s soot. The mare shifted restlessly beneath him, and he absently patted its neck. I should have stayed in the last town and waited out the storm . But he wasn’t able to do the sensible thing. Not when his ship and crew were so close—or at least he hoped they were. The closer he’d got to Killincairn, the greater the magnetic pull to reach it. It strained on him now, as if his breastbone might crack if he didn’t keep moving.

Niccolo? He felt the touch of Athena’s mind, warm and familiar. Her metal cube was in his saddlebag, no doubt as wet as everything else. She’d been quiet for the last several miles, as if the rain had depressed her, too. Why have we stopped?

“I’m looking for the path.”

Do you have a map?

Nick felt the twinge of her impatience, but answered reasonably. “It’s too wet for a map.”

Is there someone you can ask for directions?

Now he was getting irritated. “I’m not lost. I just don’t know where I am. There’s a difference.”

There was a beat of disgusted silence. Odysseus said the same thing, and look how long it took him to get home .

Nick tried to think of a smart rejoinder, but he was just too damp and cold. But as he sat hunched on his mount, beneath the smells of horse and sea he caught something else—a sharp odor almost like mint. Aether . And the only way aether was detectable at sea level was if something brought it there—like the propulsion system of a steamspinner.

Nick straightened in the saddle, his spirits revived by an urgent excitement. The horse pricked its ears and whuffled a question. “I need to follow that scent,” Nick answered. “There’s oats in it for you if you find the road.”

He wasn’t sure it had understood. He had the power to speak to birds, but other animals were hit and miss on an individual basis. Nevertheless, the horse started forward at a determined walk. Nick loosed the reins and let it go. It couldn’t do worse than he would in this fog.

At least someone has a sense of direction .

“You’re the magical navigation device, not me.”

I fly winds, not mud trails. And I would use a map .

“If you were human, you’d require three porters, two maids, and a Spaniel in a diamond collar just to visit the dressmakers.”

I’ve had thousands of years to develop a sense of occasion .

They found the turnoff a quarter mile farther on. The path snaked over hill and dale, winding toward a cliff overlooking the sea. The hangar sat on the cliff’s edge, the doors ready to open and launch the ship to fly free over the waves. The last time Nick had seen the steamspinner, it had only been half built and paid for with gold he’d stolen—along with Athena—from Jasper Keating. He was assuming a lot, he told himself sternly, thinking he’d found his ship and his crew. There were other pirates who might have found his hideout and made it their own. A year was a long time in his world. But Nick couldn’t hang on to his caution and felt the bloom of hope anyhow.

The ground rose slightly, the veils of mist parting enough to make out the tough green grass and red earth. The ruins of an old tin mine rose like ghosts around him, walls and chimneys tumbling down the hill to the cliff. Nick noticed a dark shape detach itself from a crumbled wall in one enormous flap of wings.

Fair winds, Captain Niccolo , said Gwilliam. You’ve come home .

“Fair winds, Lord Rook,” Nick cried, and suddenly everything was all right because a friend had been there to greet him. “You’ve come a long way from London.”

Because you would come as surely as geese fly in autumn .

Fair winds, Gwilliam , said Athena.

The ash rook spread his wings wide, as if in salutation. The lady of the skies has returned!

And then giant black birds erupted from all sides, rising into the mist in a rough-voiced swirl of black. Ash rooks were warriors, armed with sharp beaks and talons, and Nick felt his back prickle at the rush of feathers as dozens of the flock whooshed overhead, streaming toward Killincairn.

The mare shied, rearing up, and then Nick was working to stay on his mount. The horse landed, prancing in a tight circle until he got it back under control. When he finally did, and pointed its head the right way again, he saw a lone figure standing at the top of the road, right where it forked—one path toward Killincairn, the other toward the hangar. The figure stood with his feet apart, arms folded, the hood of his long coat pulled over his face. But Nick didn’t need to see the man’s features; the coat was enough. It was covered with random pieces of metal sewn over every inch of the garment. It was wealth in a world where the steam barons controlled access to anything that might be used to build a power source, and it was protection against damn near everything. Nick knew several of those metal pieces bore the mark where bullets had been stopped cold.