“I hope nothing is wrong.”
“Oh goodness, no. Nothing is wrong.” She sat down across from him. “He just needed to step out for a moment.”
“Should we expect him back soon?”
“I honestly couldn’t say,” she shrugged. “I’m not sure where he was off to. I hope it isn’t bad for his health for him to be out,” she added, concern welling up in her voice.
“No, I shouldn’t think so,” Stoddard assured her. “As long as he isn’t overexerting himself. I’m surprised to hear he’s up and about so soon.”
“Well, that is a testament to how well your practice has come along, Doctor. Willard hasn’t been out of the hospital a week, and he’s more active than I’ve ever seen him. It took him months before he was moving after his first operation, and even then I would hardly say he was active.”
“Harper’s good fortune continues to astonish us all,” Stoddard said. He had difficulty controlling the tenor of his voice.
“It’s a modern miracle,” she said proudly, taking no notice. “I’ll be sure to share it with everyone I meet with. You’ll be the toast of the city if I have any influence. And, as you know by now, I have no small amount of influence among the women of this city.”
Stoddard rolled his eyes. Her influence wasn’t half as important as she tried to hint. She was a socialite philanthropist, tolerated by the meritocracy for the sake of her husband. Her sphere of influence was limited to those ladies and wives who attended her quaint tea parties and discussed causes they had no real knowledge of. Among such company, it was easy to fool herself into significance.
“Now, if I could only get him to spend more time with me,” she smiled. “That would be another miracle. He’s entertained more guests this week than I can count.”
“I’m sure many will be seeking audience with your husband in the coming weeks. He’s caused quite the sensation.”
“Like a biscuit in tea,” she said. Stoddard wasn’t sure he knew what she meant by that. “But it’s so unlike him. You knew what he was like before.”
“I’m afraid we kept most of our interactions to matters of business.”
“That’s just his way,” she said. “Or was his way. Honestly, he’s felt like a different person. It’s taken some getting used to. He used to have such a routine. He would get ever so cross when it was interrupted. But now, if I bring him his paper he refuses it, preferring a walk. I have Anne prepare his favorite meals and he won’t touch them, preferring to work.”
“He isn’t eating?”
“I’m sure he is. He just won’t stop to sit down and have a decent meal with me. Is that typical?”
Stoddard rubbed his brow. He had a feeling it wasn’t the meal that turned away the captain’s appetite. “I don’t think it’s anything to be alarmed about,” he said. “Perhaps he’s working through things. It’s a rare thing for a man to come so near to death during his life, and the captain has done so twice.”
“Perhaps,” she said pensively. “But, I’m not as alarmed about his meals as I am what he’s been... saying. Yesterday, I tried stopping him before he went out, to remind him of our visit with Lady Tulk that afternoon and he told me he didn’t have time for—honestly, it upsets me to repeat it—keeping up our ‘superficial friendships.’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing!”
Stoddard tried to express an appropriate amount of disapproval. It appeared the captain shared a similar opinion of his wife as the rest of the capitol.
“I can see how that would be upsetting,” he forced himself to say. “I’m afraid I have little experience to lend on the matter, however, having never married. I’m a mechanist, not a counselor.”
“Oh, that reminds me!” she said, practically bouncing in her seat. “Congratulations on your recent engagement, doctor.”
“Thank you.”
“I remember when you and Emmaline were first considered a match. How old was she at the time? Fourteen, was it? Difficult to recall, it’s been so many years. She was such a dainty thing. And still is. My friends and I thought it a fine match; we knew you’d prove yourself in time. Your work had already shown such promise. I’m glad Lord Worthington has come around.”
“As am I,” Stoddard admitted. It had been only a week since they’d announced their engagement, but the time had escaped him. With so much happening, and all at once, he felt like he’d hardly had a moment with Emmaline.
Yet, she’d affirmed it again when he’d gone to see her after the luncheon. Her affections for him had endured the years—as had his for her.
“Well, I’m afraid I should be going,” Stoddard said. If nothing more could be expected of Harper today he didn’t intend to waste what time he had. “Emmaline will be expecting me.”
“Oh, you won’t stay longer?” Lady Harper asked. She looked positively distressed by the interruption. “I haven’t gotten to tell you what Willard said about it when I told him.”
“I’m sure I’ll have a chance to hear it from the source in the near future,” Stoddard assured her. He was making to rise when she reached out and clasped his hand in hers.
“And he’s made comments about your work too,” she added quickly.
Stoddard’s brow raised. She was trying to bait him in order to prolong their meeting. It wouldn’t do for her reputation if a guest left prematurely. And what surprised Stoddard more was that it worked. She’d set the hook in just the right spot.
“My work?” he asked.
“I overhear him with his guests, and I hope you don’t take this as ingratitude on my part because it certainly is not,” she explained. “But, he’s criticizing it.”
Stoddard spine stiffened, and he felt a twitch in his cheek. “I see,” he managed to say. “And what exactly has he said?”
“Well,” she began, sitting back with a look of satisfaction at holding him longer. “He seems to be under the impression it wasn’t you who saved him at all! I told him how ridiculous that was. All one has to do is look at his heart to know he has your craftsmanship to thank for it still beating. Yet, he still denies it.”
“Perhaps he’s confused,” Stoddard said. “He may be feeling the effects of the surgery after all. I’m curious, who has he been complaining about me to?”
“Oh, nobody of importance,” she assured him. “I’m certain they’re not members of high society. From the way they’re dressed, I believe they were alchemists. Even if he didn’t tell me where he was going this afternoon, I suspect he’s with them again. That’s something else I wanted to speak to you about. Are you certain you’ve given him strong enough medicines for the pain?”
“I was confident in my prescription, yes. He’s seeking remedies from alchemists?”
“What else would he have to do with alchemists?”
That was a good question. One Stoddard intended to ask him personally. The image of the man in the coat surfaced in Stoddard’s mind again. The pockets, he thought. Is that who you are?
“Maybe I’ll talk with him about it again when he comes back,” Lady Harper suggested.
“Yes,” Stoddard agreed. “And perhaps I’ll be more persistent in obtaining a meeting with him in the future.”
“I hope you will. Who knows what they might peddle on him in his discomfort? I’d be much more at rest knowing he wasn’t going to that lot for his remedies.”
“Or at all,” Stoddard agreed, taking up his tea from the table.
Chapter Seventeen
The Plan
Best not to let others witness your surprise, lest they be the wiser about your accidents.
— Alchemical Proverb
W ho the hell?”
“This is Captain Harper,” Ashworth repeated. “I thought any questions you had or rumors you’d heard could best be put to rest by the man around whom they revolve.”
The captain approached the front of the room with a slow gait, leaning heavily on his right side as he eyed those whose gazes were fixed upon him. The winding and ticking of many workin
g gears hidden inside his metallic arm accompanied each of his movements.
It surprised Chance how old the captain appeared. Though he assumed Harper and Ashworth were close in age, the captain’s face bore the signs more glaringly. He was grizzly and unkempt, apart from his immaculate uniform. His grey hair was trimmed in a flattop, patches of hair straying wildly from a few stubborn cowlicks.
But his eyes bore an intensity Ashworth’s had somewhere lost, and when their gazes met, Chance had to look away.
A heaviness permeated the room as the alchemists gave one another troubled glances. It was as though an apparition walked in their midst. Chance couldn’t be sure what he was feeling, whether awe or fear or a blend of both.
Without resistance, Harper walked to Ashworth’s side.
“Thank you, Charles,” he said, his voice raspy and strained. It emanated from deep inside of him, and his entire body flexed with each labored breath. Again, the whirling of gears was heard.
It was strange for Chance to hear Ashworth called by his first name, adding to the surrealism of the moment
“Perhaps I’ll start,” Harper began when no one made any attempts to speak. “Yes. I died.”
There was an audible out-breath across the room.
“How?” Keefer asked, the first to overcome his stupor.
“Heart failure. Or a mechanical failure. Both apply in my instance, I suppose,” Harper explained. “Years ago, I served in the war. While deployed abroad, I sustained a life-threatening injury—shrapnel through the chest and arm.”
Harper pulled down the collar of his shirt to expose his shoulder more clearly—or what was left of it. No one could miss the metal fixtures which comprised much of his shoulder.
“Splendid work,” Chance heard Welch whisper in quiet admiration. “Phenomenal work.”
“They did what they could to restore what I lost, but those older parts didn’t prove the test of time. A clock pumping my heart was too old to sustain me any longer, and it was in their attempt to rebuild it that they lost me. I suppose you could say that I expired.”
“How dreadful,” Liesel said.
“What was it like? I mean... “Welch fidgeted on his stool, “...dying.”
Harper made a face as though a pang shot through his left side. “It’s not easy lying there, being torn apart and pieced back together. I’m not going to lie—it was agony.”
“What? You were conscious while they worked on you?” Liesel looked shocked.
“Certainly, he wasn’t,” Keefer insisted.
“Impossible,” Estrada scoffed. “No man could have endured that without being sedated.”
“They had me heavily sedated during the procedure,” Harper said, “but I felt it. Like thousands of tiny clamps under the tissue being tugged and twisted. I knew they were losing me. It was as though my heart were being wound tighter and tighter, until finally something snapped and I was hurled in every direction at once.
“For those few moments, I had no sense of myself. I felt I was spinning—or my mind was. I say a moment, but really I couldn’t be sure how long.”
“But you were still conscious?” Sager asked.
“I believe I was.”
“Impossible,” Estrada said again.
“Yet, here we meet, master alchemist.” Harper opened his arms wide, gesturing to Estrada. “Evidence to the contrary.”
“Improbable then,” Estrada muttered.
“Hush,” Liesel hissed. “Let him speak.”
“That’s it, more or less,” Harper said. “Ashworth is the man to fill you in from there. However long I was lost, I came back to myself when I woke and found myself packed away like a sardine in one of those iron lockers in the morgue. It was quite the scene,” he grinned. “Nearly gave the young woman working that night a heart attack.”
“I can’t be certain why we would take your word for any of this,” Estrada began. “Some offense intended, Captain, but this sounds like an old man’s delusions under sedation. I’ve heard more believable stories from drunks after their frolics. You expect us to believe this? This is just another old man’s feeble attempt to advance his own fame on an account of dumb luck. For all we know, you two planned this from the start, hoping to gain some final glimmer of fame before you ‘expired,’ as you called it. Is that right?”
“Estrada,” Keller said sternly.
“Here’s a story for you,” he continued. “An old kook went to meddle where he had no business. He found a man pronounced dead prematurely by his doctors, and he fed him lies about how he’d brought him back from the dead.”
“Estrada, please!” Ashworth said.
“And then, once they’d begun believing their own silk themselves, they called a meeting to ensure that everyone else be dragged down their deluded ploy.”
He spat the last few words with venom.
“That’s it!”
Liesel rose from her chair and lunged toward Estrada. He was so caught off-guard that her fist caught him upside the head, spinning him like a top before he fell backwards onto the floor. Everyone was too stunned by her suddenness to react. Estrada’s eyes went wide as she overturned the stool he’d been sitting on and seized hold of him by the collar.
“Get her off me!” he cried, flailing wildly to try and escape her grasp as she dragged him toward the door. “She’s gonna kill me! Someone!”
“Enough!” shouted Ashworth. “Liesel, let him go!”
Liesel reluctantly released Estrada, shoving him away so that he stumbled to keep his footing. Most of the room had risen to their feet, a few of the men taking a step or two away from Liesel.
Estrada fumed, and he touched his cheek gingerly. “If you dare touch me again you—”
Liesel shot him a glance that communicated he wasn’t out of danger yet, and he stopped himself.
“Take your seats!” Ashworth shouted. The whole room jumped at the sound of his voice. It wasn’t common for Ashworth to bark, and everyone quickly returned to their seats—everyone except Estrada, who opted for a wall on the furthest side of the room.
Chance just smiled, he’d heard Ashworth’s voice enough over the years to read when Ashworth was actually at his tipping point. He was only just beginning.
“Goodness, what has brewed in all of you tonight? I bring a man who could be the key to redeeming our livelihood and here you are quarreling like schoolchildren. I invited you here because I thought you were capable of handling yourselves with some amount of dignity. Was I wrong?”
Silence passed uncomfortably between them.
“Does anyone have anything constructive to contribute?” Foxx asked, trying to restore some order.
“What now?” Chance spoke up from the back of the room. Heads turned in his direction. “I think we’d all like to know what you plan to do now.”
“He’s already begun doing a great many things for us,” Ashworth explained. “Our greatest handicap is our lack of a voice on the Spire. There was a time—some of us may still remember—when an alchemist was regarded as a valued member of society. Innovators by nature, we were recognized as some of the greatest minds behind medicine with our curatives, industry with our combustibles, and we were among the greatest dreamers with our transmutations.”
“The Philosopher’s Stone!” Gravatts cried out.
“Lead to gold,” Foxx grinned.
“Aether,” Yoon whispered with reverence.
“Yes,” Ashworth said, nodding to each of the men. “The three greatest pursuits of our trade. Dreams we all admire, but have never seen realized... until now.”
“Then it is Aether? You’ve created Aether?” Welch asked, quite animated.
Chance looked between Welch and Ashworth. Was he right? Had Ashworth been developing Aether?
“It is,” Ashworth smiled. “Or the spark of it, at least. It’s not stable enough to sustain itself, but we’ve developed a spark powerful enough revitalize it.”
“I never thought—” Yoon put his hand to his mou
th.
“In the past, such a moment as this would have been shouted from the rooftops. It would have been broadcast from the tip of the Spire to the shores of the Basin. However, we’ve been reduced to rags—disparaged and dispirited as gears and machinery occupy the minds of the city. It’s been a long while since alchemists have had any recognition in Hatteras. But now, we have a miracle in our hands and a voice once again.”
“And that will be my honor,” Harper said. “I’ll take your words to the ears of those who can do something with them. I’ve already begun speaking with my closest acquaintances among the meritocracy. I can’t guarantee change will be quick or effortless, but I know these men well. I know what motivates some and compels others. I promise you, I’ll see this through until you’re given the credit and support you need to reestablish yourselves and take up your great pursuits again.”
There was a cheer from a few of the alchemists.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Captain,” Sager said, “but it was your signature on each of those legislations which put us in this plight.”
“That is true,” Harper admitted.
“Then why now? I’m not trying to undermine you here, but this is a bit much to swallow all at once. Why the sudden change of heart?”
Harper let out a heavy sigh.
“I’ve spent the better part of my life pushing legislation to expand clockwork mechanics. I’ve always considered it a lifesaving craft. Given my experience, was there any other way I could have seen it?”
He tapped the metal casing of his shoulder.
“It sustained my life after the war, and those of many more who served alongside me. We were more than willing to give what we could to support the minds that made our preservation possible.
“But now, after so many years, this cold appendage is a sore to me—a hollow memory of what I once possessed. The life I gained was hardly a life. Waking every day to the weight of this... blight.” He looked at his arm as if it weren’t a part of him at all. “It’s a canker wrapped in a fancy tin can.”
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