Amid Wind and Stone

by Nicole Luiken

  Leah’s tale had seemed fantastical, but it hadn’t sounded like a lie. Still, Audrey nodded. It was a relief to be believed.

  He sat back down. “Resume your tale.”

  Uncertainly, she obeyed. When she finally finished recounting the events of last night, he laid his hand on her shoulder. “You did well. Now, I need your help with one more thing.”

  Dread squeezed her heart. “Please don’t ask me to betray him,” she blurted. Despite everything, she didn’t know if she could. The choice should’ve been easy. He’s just a thief. And yet the thought of him being hurt wrenched her insides.

  “I know you think this boy saved your life,” her father continued, “but his reasons for doing so may not be as noble as you think. You are a Harding, a family that is close to the Crown. He is a thief, at best, and probably a traitor. He must be captured and questioned.”

  She bit her lip, drawing blood. Logic said The Phantom was a Siparese spy.

  Her heart said differently; he was a rogue, not a villain.

  Her father studied her. “Let me make things easy for you. I want you to Call Zephyr and send The Phantom a message. A warning. You needn’t lie. Tell him the truth, that I’ve set a trap for him on the Queen Winifrid to catch him should he try to spy on the Mirror Device.”

  The Mirror Device must’ve been the device Norton had been commissioned to make.

  “If The Phantom is a traitor, he’ll take the bait and try to spy on the Device and be caught. If he’s merely a thief, he’ll listen to you and stay far away.”

  Audrey could breathe again. Her eyes grew wet. For her father, this amounted to bending over backwards.

  “Will you do it?”

  “Yes, of course.” This was a choice she could live with. If The Phantom was imprisoned, it would be because he chose to betray his country.

  After it was done, her father immediately excused himself to retrieve the clockwork brooch from Grady. She hoped it would lead to them healing the breach.

  Most of her prayers, however, were directed toward the trap not being needed.

  Unable to bear the thought of sitting quietly in the parlor, Audrey paced round and round the atrium. But her eyes barely registered the lush greenery and bright flowers, her mind preoccupied with the terrible events of yesterday.

  Her father was convinced the attack had been planned by the Sipar Empire, using their agent, The Phantom. But he hadn’t heard the distress in The Phantom’s voice. She couldn’t believe him guilty.

  So either whoever gave The Phantom the modification for the snow machine had deceived him, or Donlon and Sipar were about to go to war over a mistake. A burglary gone wrong.

  A bitter thought.

  There ought to be some way to stop it, but she very much feared nobody was even going to try. Her father and the queen were convinced that war was inevitable, but was it really?

  Maybe it wasn’t too late. The queen had said she owed Audrey a boon for saving the prince. If Audrey could prove that the sedative gas hadn’t originated in Sipar, she could ask the queen to issue an apology for the ambassador’s murder. Audrey winced. How do you say, “Sorry we killed your ambassador. It was an accident”? Maybe offer reparations? If Sipar was even willing to listen…

  If Audrey could find proof…she could ask the queen to try to make peace.

  That was a lot of ifs, but she couldn’t stand doing nothing. Pacing—or worse, embroidering—while wondering if she’d betrayed The Phantom or if he’d deserved to be betrayed would drive her insane. Any course of action, no matter how much of a long shot, was better than that.

  Decision made, Audrey turned her mind to the matter of finding proof. She could send another message on the wind to plead with The Phantom, but, despite his help shutting off the Device, she doubted he’d suddenly be overcome with remorse and either turn himself or his confederates in.

  What other avenues of inquiry could she pursue?

  Someone had modified the Device. Norton, the Donlon copyist, might know of other inventors in the city, shady ones willing to work for the Queen of Thieves.

  She would start with him.

  “Hello?” Audrey rapped the door knocker on Robert Norton’s townhouse again. Still no answer, though she’d been knocking for long enough to make her knuckles sore.

  She should leave. But she didn’t want to have sneaked out of her house without an escort for nothing. What if he was just up in his lab and hadn’t heard her knock or was too preoccupied to answer it? It was late afternoon, past the time when most people would be out on calls or errands. She tried the knob, and the door swung inward, unlocked.

  Telling herself she wouldn’t go any farther than the vestibule, Audrey stepped inside the gloomy hall. “Hello? Mr. Norton?”

  Her voice echoed off the ceiling but didn’t provoke a reply. Disappointment weighted her lungs like a chest cold. She’d already crossed the bounds of good propriety. She’d just have to call again later—provided her mother didn’t chain her to the bedstead when she slunk back.

  Then her eye registered something wrong. An overturned bookcase. A desk with the drawers all pulled out and the contents scattered over the floor. A trail of papers leading to the fireplace, as if Norton had decided to burn the contents of his desk. Why?

  A chill wrapped around Audrey’s limbs.

  The place had been ransacked, but by whom? Were they still about? She tiptoed over to the fireplace.

  Bending, she extricated a half-burned sheet of paper. It was a schematic for some device, meaningless to her untrained eyes. A phrase jumped out at her: vents for gas.

  Her pulse hammered in her throat. Could ‘gas’ mean sedative gas? Had Norton designed the modification to the Snowflake Device?

  “It was her idea,” a man said. “She’s the one who put the thought in my head. I just wanted to discredit the Clockwork Earl.”

  Audrey started violently and took two steps back. “Whose idea?”

  Robert Norton stood at the top of the stairs. His goggles hung around his neck, and his eyes were sad. “Queenie’s.”

  Did he mean the Queen of Thieves? Audrey remembered the bed-tousled woman on the stair. Was Norton’s lover the Queen of Thieves?

  “You must understand. I never dreamed the gas would be used on children.” He came down a step. “I calculated the dosage based on an adult’s physiology.”

  Audrey swallowed. Her fingers itched to reach into her reticule and draw out the blunderbuss she’d borrowed from her father’s desk, but Norton’s obvious regret stopped her. “Everyone thinks it was a Siparese attack. You have to tell them the truth before there’s a war.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t! They’ll arrest me. And it’s too late anyhow.”

  He was unwilling to try, just like every other adult. “But—”

  “No. I’m leaving, and you can’t stop me!” He thundered down the stairs and roughly shoved her aside. Audrey fell to one knee on the threadbare rug. Then he moved past her and out the door.

  “Winds!” Audrey sprang up and rushed after him. She reached the door just in time to see him jump into a pedal car laden with laboratory materials and madly pedal away.

  Too infuriated to concede the inevitable, that wheels were faster than feet, especially on a slope, she sprinted after him down the main road that spiraled and switchbacked through Donlon.

  Rounding the first hairpin turn, she crashed into a warm male body. A bowler hat tumbled to the ground. “Audrey?”

  “Piers! Catch him! Norton—he’s getting away!”

  Frustratingly, Piers kept holding her shoulders. “Slow down. What’s going on? Why are you trying to catch Norton?”

  “He’s responsible.” She gasped in a breath. “The attack on the palace. His invention!”

  Piers frowned. “I heard the Siparese attacked, and we shot their dirigible out of the sky.”

  The rumor mill had made a hash of it, and she didn’t have time to explain. She set her palms on his chest and shoved past him. />
  “Audrey!” Piers chased after her. It hardly cost him any effort at all to catch up with her. The knowledge made her resentful. She ignored his plaintive tone and put her head down, but now a stitch of bright pain pulled in her side with every stride.

  Norton’s pedal car was no longer in sight, but she kept doggedly running. Well, really it was more of a jog now. Her side hurt.

  “Audrey.” Piers touched her arm. She shook him off, determined not to listen, until he said the magic words: “I know a shortcut.”

  She stopped, lungs heaving.

  “Come with me. We can cut Norton off.”

  His invitation floored her. Any other male of her acquaintance would have tried to leave her behind—even Grady. She nodded.

  They were on Tier Three in a middle-class neighborhood. Houses were well-kept and freshly painted but often built in rows, ten dwellings all sharing walls with their neighbors.

  Piers slipped down a narrow alley between two blocks of row houses. Audrey turned sideways and followed him. Brick scraped at her shoulder, and water trickled underfoot; they were walking in a stone-lined gutter.

  They emerged into weak sunshine. The gutter fed into a pipe, which led down to a rooftop on the next tier. Piers jumped five feet down onto some red shingles. He held up his arms. “Your turn.”

  The roof was slanted but not steeply. Compared to the leap from the Queen Winifrid to the Artemis, it was nothing. Audrey tossed down her reticule, then, ignoring his outstretched arms, made the jump. She landed on her hands and knees beside Piers.

  He raised an eyebrow as if impressed, but said only, “This way.” Two more short jumps took them to a large gable and then the roof of a shed. The shed was stuffed with so much junk it couldn’t contain it all: half-rotten boards, spools of rusty cable, hoses, and stacks of bricks were piled against one side. Piers hopped down onto an old stove, then helped her down afterward.

  She was laughing at their sheer speed and the illicit thrill of being where they oughtn’t. He grinned at her, and for a moment, Audrey thought he intended to kiss her.

  Flustered, she turned her head to the side and fussed with her clothes. She’d ripped her underskirt on a nail, and soot covered her hands, but it would be worth it to catch Norton.

  A goat bleated, and Piers led the way though the junk pile out to the road. “Norton should be by in a moment.”

  Audrey peered anxiously up and down the street and wished she shared his confidence that they’d gotten ahead of Norton. She could only see foot traffic.

  Here on Tier Five, they’d descended into patches of fog and poverty. Audrey wrinkled her nose at the reek of pig manure, blood, and offal from the livestock pens and nearby slaughterhouses. Their footsteps echoed on the cracked roadway, and the passersby, poor people in ragged clothing, shot them hostile sneers.

  The hairs rose on the back of Audrey’s neck. She was suddenly very glad for Piers’s presence. It was a lucky thing she’d run into him—

  A very lucky thing. Too lucky to be coincidence?

  “How did you happen to be on the road, just when I passed?” she demanded. Sudden suspicion struck. “Do you work for my father?” Had the Admiral had her followed, hoping she’d lead him to The Phantom? The lack of trust in that possibility stabbed.

  Piers quirked his lips, amused. “No. Your father didn’t send me. I didn’t know he employed spies. Perhaps I ought to apply. It sounds like a fascinating pastime.”

  She waited, arms folded.

  “I was on my way to see Norton. My uncle picked up an amusing clockwork toy on his last voyage to the mainland, and I thought Norton might be interested in copying the design.”

  It sounded plausible.

  “While I was in the neighborhood, I planned to pay a call on a certain young lady and return her lost hatpin. But now, I’ll be able to save that for a different occasion.” He winked.

  Audrey felt her face warm. Was he courting her or merely flirting? Should she encourage him? She liked him, and he was quite attractive with his dark hair and light eyes. She didn’t care two figs about his lack of title.

  But she also had feelings—tender feelings—for The Phantom. Oh, it was all so confusing!

  Something of her thoughts must have shown on her face because his expression became uncertain. “Unless you’d rather I didn’t call on you?”

  “No! That is, I enjoy your company…” She stumbled to a halt.

  He raised an eyebrow. “But?”

  “But…” This was so awkward. She twisted her hands in her gloves. “But there’s someone else.”

  “Someone of higher rank?” he asked.

  She was surprised into a painful chuckle. “No.” How could she tell him his competition was a thief?

  “Ah.” Piers seemed oddly cheerful at her answer. He thrust his hands into his pockets.

  Audrey cleared her throat. “What if we missed him? Norton?”

  Piers tilted his head. “I think I hear a pedal car now.”

  A moment later she heard it, too: the rattle of wheels on flagstones.

  “Ready?” Piers stepped out into the middle of the roadway without waiting for an answer. Audrey joined him.

  A black pedal car emerged from the fog with Norton in the driver’s seat, pedaling furiously. Instead of towing a shaded seat, the tricycle pulled a four-by-four-foot wagon, stuffed to the gills with equipment.

  “Out of the way!” Norton shouted. Behind his goggles, the whites of his eyes showed. He didn’t slow down.

  Piers grinned and folded his arms. “Sorry, the lady has some questions for you.”

  Audrey stood her ground—and stood it, and stood it, as the pedal car careened closer. Surely, Norton wouldn’t truly run them down? She closed her eyes.

  A crash made them fly open. Norton had tried to steer around them on the narrow roadway, and two wagon wheels had gone over the edge, tipping his materials into the ditch.

  Confident the inventor would never leave without his belongings, Audrey sauntered closer.

  To her surprise, Norton jumped off his tricycle and ran pell-mell toward them, arms pumping. “They’re right behind me!”

  She didn’t have a chance to ask him who he meant. A shot rang out, and a red hole appeared in the middle of his pin-striped shirt. Audrey screamed as Norton collapsed on the road. He lay face down and didn’t move.

  Piers pulled at her arm, but she didn’t—couldn’t—move, stunned by horror.

  Before he could drag her more than a few steps, three burly men in bowler hats and gas masks materialized out of the swirling fog. They had the swagger of men who used their size and muscles not just for a living but for intimidation.

  All three walked abreast in a line, blocking the road back up to the higher tiers. The other passersby melted away, leaving the street utterly deserted but for the men, Piers, Audrey, and the body.

  Norton was dead. Killed in front of her eyes. Nausea and cold terror mixed together in her stomach.

  “They’re bullyboys, part of a gang that runs things in the lower tiers,” Piers whispered. “I’m going to try to bluff them. Follow my lead. If things go bad, run.” He moved in front of her, shielding her from view. He raised his voice. “Stop right there, boyos.”

  The lead bullyboy removed his gas mask, revealing bushy red sideburns. “Out of our way, toff.”

  Piers leaned closer and growled, “Look at me and then say that again.”

  The boyo’s body posture changed from confident to confused. “Jack? What’re you doing ’ere, dressed in those fancy duds?”

  Jack? Who was Jack? Wait a minute. Hadn’t Piers told her Norton might call him Jack, mistaking him for his lab assistant? Curiosity unfurled inside Audrey, pushing aside her shock and anger. Piers was proving to have hidden depths.

  “None of your business,” Piers said contemptuously. He indicated the body. “Who ordered the hit? Why does Pinko want a harmless inventor dead?”

  Sideburns shrugged. Another scuffed his toe.

&
nbsp; The third boyo moved forward. He shoved a blunderbuss into his belt—the murderer. His nose appeared red and swollen, as if recently broken, but his eyes burned bright blue like a hot flame.

  Audrey inhaled sharply. He was the orange-wigged clown who’d tried to kidnap her. She’d broken his nose last night.

  How did Piers know him?

  Heart beating too fast, she backed away, trying to be unobtrusive.

  “Just cleaning up loose ends,” Broken Nose said breezily, as if murder was a chore like sweeping the floor. “That’s all we were told. Sorry, didn’t know Norton was a friend of yours.”

  “Cleaning up whose loose ends? Who ordered the hit?” Piers demanded.

  Broken Nose smiled smarmily. “You know that ain’t how the game’s played. Tell your lady friend not to run. If she ran, I’d have to catch her, and she wouldn’t like what happened next.”

  Audrey stilled, like a mouse hiding from a falcon’s gaze. Unfortunately, she was bigger than the average rodent.

  “She has nothing to do with this,” Piers said, voice low and angry.

  “Does your mother know you’re courting, Jack?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Piers said curtly. “She’s much too fine for the likes of us. I’m just showing her the way home. She got turned around in the fog.”

  Another smirk. “She does look a wee bit lost. Tell you what, Jack. Why don’t you skedaddle back to your ma and let us escort the lady home?” Broken Nose sauntered forward, the other two toughs falling in behind.

  Audrey’s insides froze. She wanted to clutch at Piers’s jacket. But what could he do? There were three of them and only one of him. She resolved not to go quietly, to fight.

  The blunderbuss! Suddenly remembering the weapon, she jerked it out of her reticule. “Stay back!” she shouted.

  Piers moved to the side so that she had a clear target. “Good girl,” he murmured as she pulled the hammer back. “Don’t fire. You only have one shot, and there’s three of them.” To the men, he shouted, “Think she won’t shoot you? That’s Admiral Hardbottom’s daughter! She’ll plug your heart dead center!”