The Tinker King

by Tiffany Trent

  Then his entire expression changes. He zips away, but it’s as if he’s flying through honey.

  “Fine. Leave us in our hour of need,” I say. Even my voice sounds slow and funny. All around us the silver army fights the xiren, immune to their poison and magic.

  I feel the wave of resonance when it starts, and I’m wishing that I could be on the other side of the wall to see it. I want to see Tesla’s experiment realized. But the way this feels is different from what I imagined when he explained it to me. It feels very much like magic. I see the light spread above the roofs like a new sun. Everything burns, and the hybrids slow and still, falling over dead. The golden markings of the xiren dissolve, and the darkness seeps from their skin. They all stand looking around them as if they’ve just woken from a long nightmare. From across the courtyard I see Uncle Gen shake his head and drop his long-handled blade as if it burns him.

  In the light, souls depart—the army’s, the newly dead, even what little piece of soul Charles had regained. All are departing like motes of fire in a golden storm for a country that is beyond the imagining of any witch or scientist.

  I feel a tug beside me, and I realize that the Tinker King is leaving, too.

  “My son has at last returned. Let your reign be filled with joy, my King.”

  A heavy coat settles around my shoulders. I look down and see dragon stitching up and down the sleeves. It’s the mantle of the King. I look up into Blackwolf’s face, his true face, and I see it’s as kindly as any of the old grandfathers who used to smoke around the fires in the trainyard.

  Then he, too, is gone. I bow my head, disbelieving.

  The light slowly dies.

  I am left standing alone in a courtyard of statues, the King’s robe heavy as all the burdens of life around my shoulders.

  Then Gen is smiling at me over the edge of the chariot, and he says, “Don’t get too comfortable in that fancy robe, boy. We’ve still got work to do.”

  I’m thinking of all the Tinkers who are still in the caves, delirious with venom, waiting for the nightmares to end.

  Olivia smiles at me. “Whenever you’re ready, my King.”

  I nod and pull Gen up beside us.

  “So tell me the truth,” I say as we make our way through the rubble and round the corner to try to find Vespa and Bayne. “Did you really choose to serve that old she-demon? Or were you just saying that to convince me?”

  Gen shakes his head. “Waisheng, half the time I never even knew my own name. It was like walking in a dream. I said all kinds of things I was trying desperately not to say. Every time I thought I’d warned you away, I realized I’d only just tried to draw you in. I’m glad you never believed me.”

  I’m about to answer when I see Ximu trapped in what looks like a glowing piece of amber. I knew they’d done it, of course, but the sight is still an overwhelming relief.

  Then I see Bayne and someone who must be Lucy holding up another person. Vespa.

  I leap off the chariot.

  “Is she all right?”

  Lucy won’t look any of us in the eye. She hangs back a bit. I suspect it will take a long time, if ever, for her to be fully healed.

  “She will be,” Bayne says. “I think we all will be now.”

  “Then may I have your permission to seek out my people in the caves? My uncle says many there are still in need.”

  Bayne smiles. “You’re the King, my Lord. Do as you will, and take whatever you may require to do so.”

  He bows to me. And that is perhaps the most surprising thing of my life—that a Duke would bow low to a trainyard melonhead like me and call me King.

  CHAPTER 36

  When Vespa woke, she was blind at first. Over her eyes was something cool and dark that smelled of lavender. She lifted her hands and pushed it off, and then realized her hands were bandaged too.

  Faces resolved slowly. Syrus. Truffler. Piskel.

  Her heart nearly stopped when she realized there was no Bayne.

  Then he was there, a bouquet of flowers in his hand.

  Tesla stepped forward. “It should have worked,” he said indignantly. “I’ve never had any invention of mine not work before. It’s very odd. I must find out why it didn’t work.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Vespa said. “Olivia?” She looked around for her.

  “Is making sure no Tinkers are still trapped somewhere in the caves,” Syrus said.

  Vespa looked at Bayne again, trying to read him. She could sense nothing from him, though, neither regret nor anger nor . . . anything else.

  Tesla took Syrus by the arm. “I think these two need to speak alone,” he said.

  “Inexcusably impolite way to treat a King,” Syrus said with the ghost of a smile.

  They shut the door behind them, laughing.

  “King?” Vespa said, raising a brow.

  “Yes, quite the surprise. Probably for him more than anyone else. Olivia abdicated in favor of him, and Blackwolf named him his successor. He is the first Tinker King in generations. And he has much work to do, if all the people we’ve rescued from the caverns are any indication. Ximu seemed to have a propensity for collecting Tinkers.”

  “And Lucy and Charles?”

  “My, you’re full of questions, aren’t you?”

  “I’m just getting started.” Vespa smoothed the coverlet over her stomach and patted beside her. “Do tell.”

  Bayne seated himself gingerly so as not to crush her.

  “I’m afraid Charles didn’t make it. At the last second he sacrificed himself. I’m still rather amazed. I think Lucy is quite damaged by her experience. She’ll never be the same, and perhaps that’s a good thing.”

  “And what about you?”

  “I have been formally reinstated to the family and officially proclaimed Duke.”

  “Ah,” she said. She looked down at her bandaged hands, moving restlessly on the covers. “Bayne, there’s . . .”

  “Vespa,” he began at the same time.

  They both laughed.

  “You first,” they said.

  More laughter. She didn’t think she’d ever seen his eyes sparkle so much.

  “Look,” Bayne said, sliding off the bed and kneeling beside it, “this is rather a big, lonely place, and I find I’m much in need of . . .” He took a deep breath. “ . . . well, you.”

  Vespa watched him for a long moment, unable to say a single thing. “What about your vows?” she finally managed.

  “As I think someone astutely pointed out, the Architects are no more, and thus I am no longer bound by their vows. I would like to make some new ones,” he said. And his voice was soft and steady as it had been that day his words alone had kept her safe from the Sphinx.

  But she would not let him get away that easily. “Such as?”

  “Marriage vows,” he said. “Vespa, I hardly deserve to ask this of you, and I deserve you even less, but . . .”

  “Oh, stop talking, you stubborn fool,” she said. She pulled him into her arms as best she could, which was awkward considering the flowers and the bed between them. But his arms slid around her, and his lips met hers almost before she could murmur, “Of course the answer is yes.”

  As his lips moved on hers, that longed-for golden country opened wide before them. This time, neither of them made any move to leave.

  CHAPTER 37

  At midnight I go out to see my city. I know so little of this place or the Kings of old, but it stirs some primal memory—part of the hound within. I wander through the Bone Palace. I can still feel Blackwolf here, but it’s like the warm presence of someone sleeping. He has at last gone to his rest, and the troubles that tormented him have dissolved with Ximu’s capture.

  But mine, it seems, have just begun.

  I climb the battlements, which have mostly all been repaired since the attack of the xiren. The mountains that ring the City are white-shouldered in the moonlight. Clouds heavy with snow are moving in off the sea, and the first flakes fall even as I watc
h. The harsh salt wind matches my mood, and I exult in it.

  Some would say that I have triumphed. Some would say that I have done more than could ever be imagined, though somewhere I think Nainai may be smiling and saying, “At last you did what I thought you would all along.” It is no small thing to wake up and find oneself King. But it is even greater to realize that all along all you wanted was to be King in one woman’s eyes.

  That happened. But not in the way I had intended.

  The courtyard below is filled with the King’s army, row upon row of silent statues. I know I have but to speak the word and Olivia will rouse them and lead them to battle. But I also know that I won’t use that power. I will do everything to keep from using it. There is something terrible about such perfect, swift compliance. It reminds me far too much of the Raven Guard for my liking. We must find a way to live together in this world, all of us.

  I go down to the courtyard, and the snow freezes through my boots as I walk out onto it.

  Olivia steps out of the line of her regiment to be with me. She prefers to stay out here, she says, the better to guard us all in the nights.

  “My King, you seem deep in thought tonight.”

  I sigh, wishing for things that cannot be.

  You will find your love, she had said. But I know no other, better love than this.

  “Tell me a tale of the Time Before,” I say, “when you led the armies of Blackwolf, and my people were as numberless as the stars.”

  She smiles and takes my hand. “Let us go somewhere warm, and I will tell you of a Time That Will Be.”

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks go to the usual suspects—my very patient and tireless editor, Navah Wolfe; agent, Jennifer Laughran; publicist, Anna McKean; and the design team headed by Chloë Foglia.

  Big thanks to Ysabeau Wilce, who has been my rock through this draft, and encouraged me to think big and small in all the right places. Thanks also to the many friends and family both near and far who have supported me throughout this process.

  Finally, I want to say how much I appreciate the brilliant readers who buoyed me along the way with their cheer, flowers, little gifties, and reviews of undying devotion. I’m proud to know so many of you personally. Though I was very ill through much of the writing of this book, you’re the reason I kept going, even when I thought I couldn’t.

  is the author of The Unnaturalists, which won a Green Earth Book Honor. She is also the author of the Hallowmere series and the recipient of a Society of Children’s Books Writers and Illustrators Work-in-Progress Grant. Her short stories have appeared in Magic in the Mirrorstone, Corsets and Clockwork, Willful Impropreity, and Subterranean magazine. She is also the coeditor of Breaking Waves: A Charity Anthology for Gulf Coast Oil Spill Relief. When not writing or editing, she’s either contemplating pie, out playing with bees, or wrestling with the jungle of her garden. She lives and writes in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia with her husband and a passel of critters. Visit her at tiffanytrent.com.

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  Also by Tiffany Trent

  The Unnaturalists

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Tiffany Trent

  Jacket photo-illustration copyright © 2014 by Aaron Goodman

  Jacket design by Chloë Foglia

  Jacket photograph by Aaron Goodman

  Hand-lettering by Daren Newman

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Book design by Chloë Foglia

  The text for this book is set in Weiss.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Trent, Tiffany, 1973—

  The Tinker King / Tiffany Trent.—First edition.

  pages cm

  Sequel to: The unnaturalists.

  Summary: With rebellion brewing in the far-off city of Scientia and dark Elementals plotting war in the ruins of New London, Vespa, Syrus and their friends are plunged into a new swamp of intrigue, deception, and magic.

  ISBN 978-1-4424-5759-1 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-5761-4 (eBook)

  [1. Fantasy.] I. Title.

  PZ7.T73135Ti 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013006018