Silverblind (Ironskin)

by Tina Connolly

  Annika seemed to accept the gentleness in Dorie’s tone, for she said with some understanding in her voice, “I think I have had a different position by being half-foreign. It was … not always easy growing up. And then my mother would tell me stories of her country, how women there did everything men did on a daily basis. She was always pointing out hidden problems in society here that I might otherwise take for granted.”

  Dorie thought Annika’s mother and her stepmother might well get along.

  “It is hard,” Annika said, and took a swallow of her ale, searching for words. “I love my country very much. But when I went abroad I saw different ways to be. They went through their revolution a hundred years ago, and now everyone is equal. My classmates would ask me how I could stand to live in a place stuck in the dark ages. There, it is commonly understood that the sexual and technological inadequacies here are why we have never been able to expand beyond our borders, why our efforts at expansion have always met with failure.”

  “Why didn’t you stay there, if it was so great?” said Dorie. She was needling again, but perfect, superior Annika was getting under her skin.

  Annika looked at her coldly. “You don’t save something you love by running away. Besides, Thomas—”

  “Yes, yes, Thomas,” said Dorie. “Thomas and his mythical book. Can I pick it up at the bookstore, do you think?”

  Tam laughed but Annika did not. “The Crown confiscated the University printing and declared it the property of the Queen’s Lab,” Annika said. “Those of us who were smart enough to pick it up when it was first published keep our copies secret. When I first started corresponding with Thomas about joining him here—”

  “You did?” said Dorie, raising her eyebrows. She was straight-out taunting now, but it was clear that Annika was busy engineering Tam’s future to suit herself.

  Annika stared her down. “It is purely the meeting of two scientific minds.”

  “Oh, of course,” said Dorie, perfectly politely and not a bit insufferably at all. She leaned back in her chair like a man, legs stretching out into the aisle. Annika rolled her eyes and looked away. Tam stared off into something in his brain, lost behind his glasses.

  Oh, it was all going just beautifully.

  Over Annika’s shoulder, Dorie saw Jack and Stella walk into the Pig with a man she didn’t know. Jack was in her typical slim trousers and bangles, but Stella was in a flouncy blue dress she couldn’t possibly have worn to the laundry. With relief at the interruption, Dorie excused herself to say hello. She strolled over to their table in the corner, grinding peanut shells underfoot, confident in her new male walk. She was starting to get the hang of this.

  Jack had her pocket sketchpad out, and her most cynical-but-trying-to-hide-it expression on, when she looked up and saw Dorie. Her eyes brimmed with laughter as she recognized her roommate’s boyshape. “Sit down, sit down,” she said.

  “I can only stay a minute,” Dorie demurred. “I was only stopping by to say hi.”

  “Dorian, this is Peter Tomkins, from the magazine I was telling you about.” From the arch of Jack’s eyebrows Dorie could guess that was the girlie mag, which also explained how Jack and Stella were able to afford lunch—someone else’s dime. “And my best and dearest friend, Stella.” Dorie shot a look at Jack and found her with raised laughing eyebrows, daring Dorie to take offense. “We were just talking about me doing a series of sketches for the magazine with Stella as model.”

  Well. This should be interesting. Dorie couldn’t imagine that Stella would really go that far—surely the two girls were just stringing Peter along to get a good lunch. “Pleased to meet both of you,” said Dorie. She straddled a chair and leaned her elbows on it, trying to match Peter’s laddish behavior. “Knowing Jack’s skill and hearing so much about Stella’s … talents, I’m certain those would be some good pictures.” She was surprised to see forthright Stella blush, all the way down the V of her flouncy dress.

  Jack glanced sideways at Dorie in the gesture she recognized as studying her for a sketch. There was a funny look on her face, though—Dorie was not sure why. Was she going too far in teasing Stella?

  Peter reached across the table to shake her hand as the waitress set down their drinks. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” he said with a fellow grin. “Tell me, wouldn’t you buy a mag with pictures of this little lady?”

  “Like a shot,” Dorie assured him. She watched the casual, self-assured way he held his ale, leaned his elbows on the table, and tried to mirror his gestures. Woglet hopped down from her shoulder and made himself at home among the saltshakers and bottles of malt vinegar. He peered into Jack’s gin drink as if to sample it and Jack shooed him off.

  “Now there’s a fine fellow,” said Peter, leaning forward. “I know a couple of mags who would be interested in getting their hands on pictures of him. I can put you in touch if you like.”

  “Oh?” Dorie said politely. She didn’t want more people thinking wyverns would make good pets, but Jack jumped in.

  “Peter, what a fantastic idea,” drawled Jack. “I would buy that issue like a shot. Why don’t you give me the names later and I can make sure to pass their contact information onto Dori … an here.”

  Dorie narrowed her eyes at Jack, who smiled innocently.

  “Can I see him?” said Stella. Her heavy blond hair fell forward over her eye as she held out her hand for Woglet to sniff.

  “Careful,” said Dorie. “They’re not known for liking most people.” But Woglet leaned down his triangular head and delicately licked her outstretched fingers. He flashed his mirrored eyelids at Stella in a way that meant he definitely did like her. “Well,” said Dorie.

  “I grew up with a lot of animals,” said Stella. “My parents had a farm.” Dorie recognized that as a slight stretching of the truth as in fact Stella’s parents were in service to a wealthy gentleman farmer. In the girls’ cataloging of how a decade ago they wouldn’t have been able to go to their respective schools, Stella’s was even more so, as in the olden days her class would have been thoroughly against her as well as her gender. She wondered if Stella was trying to impress Peter so he would raise their fee.

  “You raised a lot of chicks, didn’t you?” said Jack. “Maybe that’s why Woglet likes you.” Woglet delicately picked his way around to study Stella’s cocktail, claws tapping. He flicked his tongue at the side of the glass and warbled at it.

  “Oh yes,” said Stella, putting her hand over her glass. “Bottle-feeding goats, hand-hatching chickens—there’s always someone being orphaned on a farm.”

  Dorie perked up. “Did you ever build an incubator by chance?” she said. “I’m going to be tracking down a few more of these guys for the Queen’s Lab, and”—she couldn’t keep them in her belly, not if she didn’t want to acquire more pets—“I thought a little portable device might be helpful for bringing the eggs back. Just a little box with a lightbulb and a battery.”

  “I never did, but I bet I could,” Stella said eagerly. The engineering, mathy side of her clicked on and Dorie could practically see the wheels turning as she made calculations.

  Peter looked thoroughly bored at the turn the conversation had taken. “Surely your lab will have incubators,” he pointed out to Dorie. “Don’t bother my cover girl’s head with such things.”

  Stella laughed this comment off. “But he’s probably right,” she said to Dorie. “They’ll have something better than anything I could do. Gosh, it would sure be easier if we had the fey batteries like back in the old days. Compact, clean…”

  Peter smiled lazily. “I wouldn’t call them the old days if I were you,” he said. “You might be surprised what we’ll start to see soon enough.”

  “What is that?” said Jack. “Social regression, reduced opportunities for women and the poor? I expect we’re already seeing it. Backlash.”

  Peter waved this aside. “No, I’m talking about something much more interesting.” He leaned in. “Through the other editors I hear
about the latest things hitting the streets, often well before the papers. Some boring like the overcrowding at the hospital or, what was that kerfuffle last week about? You know, about the belligerent women.”

  “About women being turned away from the public boxes in Parliament?” said Jack, with the smile that said she was not amused but dammit, she was broke. “When they were trying to listen to the bill that plans to roll back women’s property rights?” Dorie’s stomach sunk again at what Jack was doing for them.

  “Yes, yes,” said Peter. “Well, much more interesting to my mind is what’s coming over the wire about a … certain sort of technology we used to have, shall we say. A very clean, blue sort of technology.”

  Stella lit up. “If trade has started up again, it would be wonderful. We’ve studied the old energy in class—so far superior to anything we’ve managed to create yet.”

  Peter smiled in a way that looked unpleasant to Dorie’s eyes, if not to anyone else’s. “Yes. Trade,” he said. He leaned back in his chair, a finger to his lips. “You didn’t hear this from me, but word is for a very nice fee, certain wealthy gentlemen in this city are able to buy themselves a very nice sort of energy that lasts … forever.” He shrugged. “Nice to be rich, eh?”

  Dorie felt pale from head to toe. She stood, retrieving Woglet from Stella’s drink and excusing herself with all the politeness she could muster. It was mostly limited to smiling and handshaking, as the words were getting stuck up behind her tongue again.

  Stella smiled sweetly at her, and Peter told her to buy a copy of the issue with Stella in it.

  Jack shook her hand and held it for a second. “Dunno what it is, Dorian,” she said. “But seems like every time I see you, you’ve changed.” She casually slid the sketchpad over in front of Dorie. “We’ll have to get together more frequently.”

  “Yes we will,” said Dorian. There was a funny feeling sinking to the bottom of her chest as she looked down at the sketchpad on the table. It was all too clear from the sketch what Jack meant.

  The bump on her nose was gone, and her hair was curling into tiny black ringlets.

  * * *

  Shaken from this double blow of news, Dorie found the restroom before she returned to her seat. She willed her body to calm. Men did not tremble. And surely Peter was mistaken. The fey were no longer selling bits of themselves for energy—that had been a punishment from the old Fey Queen, long before the war. And how else could it be happening? You couldn’t forcibly split a fey … could you?

  She stared at the doors to the two restrooms, lost in thought, before she finally realized she was supposed to open the men’s and go through it. The women’s was quite modern in comparison—literally so, as it had only been built in the last twenty years as the Pig cast off its reputation as an old campus boys’ club and opened its doors to the second sex. She had not known the men’s would be that disgusting, and it only had one tiny splotchy mirror above the sink. But it was enough to look in and see what the sketch had told her. She was not keeping a firm enough grip on Dorian. Her mother’s imprint was leaking through.

  There was no one around, except Woglet. Quickly she put the bump back on her nose, firmed up her jawline, straightened her hair. Hoped it was dim enough in the bar that no one would notice the slight changes. She looked at her ears, trying to remember if they were the same or different, and shook her head. She was going to have to get Jack to do her a quick sketch of Dorian—a reference point.

  Their food had arrived by the time she got back, and Dorie picked up her fork and stared at it. Almost without meaning to, she said suddenly, “Have you heard of any rumors in the lab? About any sort of new technology?”

  “New technology happens every day,” Annika said coldly.

  “Well. Anything particularly clean? Anything new on the energy front?”

  Tam shook his head and Annika just shrugged.

  The rest of the meal passed without incident, if also without any particular pleasantness. Tam was lost in his head, stuck on some puzzle, and Annika shut down Dorie’s feeble efforts at politeness. Eventually Dorie gave up and ate her food.

  Back at the lab, she was shunted into Dr. Pearce’s office to wait for him. Before he had been attentive; now she had to cool her heels. Which meant they were going to talk actual numbers next. Woglet flew over to examine the caged wyvern, and Dorie distracted herself by seeing if she could snap one of Dr. Pearce’s pencils from across the room. The cool lights that were everywhere in the lab were giving her a headache again, and she put the unbroken pencil back in its tray.

  When Dr. Pearce finally walked in, he sat down across from her at his lovely desk and launched in without preamble. “Let me lay it on the line, Dorian—I can call you Dorian, can’t I? We need a man of your talents around here. Someone who can bring us back the test cases we need. I would appeal to your love of country, but I sense that an upwardly mobile man like you might be more interested in … shall we say, more monetary rewards.” Dr. Pearce looked pointedly up and down Dorie’s neatly patched jacket and she stared levelly back at him. “I hate to do anything so gauche as talk numbers, but let’s see if this sort of thing is up your alley, shall we?” He took an already prepared piece of paper from his pocket and slid it across the desk to her. It was a penciled list of animals with prices next to them. “That’s in addition to a monthly stipend,” he added.

  The numbers were already a touch higher than Malcolm Stilby’s, but Dorie knew that if he had written these before she walked in the room, it was just a starting offer. And regardless, if you looked like a boy, they expected you to bargain. She barely glanced at the paper, then slid it back. “Double it and we’ll talk,” she said. He looked pointedly at the patches on her borrowed boy’s jacket, and she said, “We all have our little foibles, don’t we?”

  He sighed and said, “This lab is in service of the Crown, Mr. Eliot. We subsist on funding.”

  “And on the wyverns you sell to collectors, and the new protective compound to the wealthy, and—”

  “Consider if there’s anything else I could throw in to sweeten the deal,” he said. “I noticed you eyeing Annika. We brought her in to secure Grimsby, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind having two of you to take care of. You might need an assistant to help you handle some of the cases.…”

  “Not Annika,” she said before she thought. “Tam.”

  “Ah, that’s how it goes, is it?” Dr. Pearce mimed zipping his lips, and said, “I am the soul of discretion. Let’s say one point five on the numbers, and your very own, personally chosen assistant. And”—he raised a finger, forestalling whatever Dorie would have spluttered to this—“a special bonus if—no, when—you bring us one hundred eggs. We are in great need, Mr. Eliot, and those bastard underground brokers like Malcolm Stilby are not only beating us to the eggs, but they don’t care a bit what kind of damage they do getting there. I can tell you’re a bit of a bleeding heart yourself, though you try to hide it. Let me assure you, crooks like Stilby are a far worse threat to the wyvern population than anything that goes on here. Now, are you with us? On the side of truth, justice, and a bit of cash for yourself? What do you say?”

  “Yes, yes,” Dorie said. “Of course I am.” Her headache was throbbing and she would have agreed to anything at that point to get out of there, even working with Annika. She had finally realized what was bothering her about the blue-tinged lights in the lab.

  The entire building was lit with fey light.

  Chapter 7

  CATCHING SILVER

  Dorie is seven, and she has convinced her father to take her into the woods, to see what the other half of her heritage is like. Her father is easy to convince; he is still shredded from what the fey did to him. She knows that, even at seven, and she knows that she contains all of his guilt, and all she has to do is push and pull in the right way and he will tell her what he knows.

  What he knows is this:

  He himself was taken by the Fey Queen when he was a young boy. Most
fey are too indolent to take humans. They drift through the trees. They bask in the sun. But the few fey who are strong-willed cause all the fey tales one hears, back in the human world. This one took him when he was a small boy. Put her hooks into him, and he drifted along with them for several decades, aging at a snail’s pace.

  It is said when the fey release humans back into the world, they send them with a gift, and it is so—if you count being impregnated with fey substance a gift. It is both power and curse, and it was what allowed the Fey Queen to retain her hold on Dorie’s father, even after he had been let go.

  He has no fey in him anymore. Jane has driven it from him, leaving his hands crippled and scarred, but human again. He is aged; no longer beautiful, no longer talented. They would have no interest in him, and even if they did, Dorie could protect him. He knows this, she knows this. She knows, too, even at seven, that it is a hard thing for her father to go back into the forest, to introduce her to the fey. To let her meet them, to let her go.

  She makes him do it anyway.

  If you think that children don’t think about their moral compass, you are wrong. This is the thing seven-, eight-, twelve-year-old Dorie struggles with, over and over, the thing that she has constantly turned to Tam about and said, is this thing that I do, wrong? Is this fey? And Tam does not know what to say. For when he does something wrong, where can he place the blame?