Breath of Earth

by Beth Cato

  Dedication

  To my agent, Rebecca Strauss

  Epigraph

  . . . Drop down, fleecy Fog! and hide

  Her sceptic sneer, and all her pride.

  Wrap her, Fog, in gown and hood

  Of her Franciscan Brotherhood.

  Hide me her faults, her sin and blame;

  With thy gray mantle cloak her shame!

  So shall she, cowlèd, sit and pray

  Till morning bears her sins away.

  Then rise, O fleecy Fog, and raise

  The glory of her coming days . . .

  —BRET HARTE, “SAN FRANCISCO”

  Map

  Contents

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Advance Praise for Breath of Earth

  Also by Beth Cato

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  APRIL 15, 1906

  Ingrid hated her shoes with the same unholy passion she hated corsets, chewing tobacco, and men who clipped their fingernails in public. It wasn’t that her shoes were ugly or didn’t fit; no, it was the fact she had to wear them at all.

  In the meeting chambers of the Earth Wardens Cordilleran Auxiliary, she was the only woman, and the only one in shoes.

  The men seated at the table wore fine black suits, most tailored to precision, and a few downright natty. If she glanced beneath the table, though, she would see two rows of white-socked feet.

  Cloth fibers conducted the earth’s currents best; thick leather or rubberized soles dampened the effect. The wood floor was also an excellent conductor, though plain ground was the best of all. Nearby double doors opened to the back garden. In the event of an earthquake, it would take a mere fifteen seconds for the mob of middle-aged and elderly men to bound outside for direct contact with the soil. Ingrid knew. She had timed the exercise more than once. As personal secretary to Warden Sakaguchi, she performed many vital functions for all five wardens—four in attendance today. A dozen senior adepts occupied the rest of the table.

  “Would you like more coffee, Mr. Kealoha?” she whispered as she bent over his shoulder.

  The silver-haired Hawaiian warden nodded, his thick fingers already twitching on the mug. In private at Mr. Sakaguchi’s house, he would smile at her and call her hanai niece, which meant foster niece in Hawaiian. He liked to joke that she could pass as a family member, but it was a dangerous jest. The Japanese overlords of the Hawaiian Islands had forbidden any use of his native language. Even on American soil, as a warden, he could lose his tongue for the offense—especially with a Japanese man as witness.

  Mr. Sakaguchi, however, was not like most Japanese.

  In any case, a Hawaiian would still be afforded more leniency than anyone from China. To speak any Chinese dialect was sedition and a quick path to a noose.

  Around the table, the members’ argument on Vesuvius continued as it had for the previous three hours. The ancient volcano’s eruptions began on April 6, deluging Naples with hot boulders and toxic plumes of smoke. Mr. Sakaguchi had argued that they should send delegates to assist their European colleagues in quelling the eruption. “They report it’s worse than the eruption in year 79 that took Pompeii and Herculaneum,” he had said in his quiet way.

  Others agreed that the Cordilleran auxiliary should dispatch wardens to Italy. “We have bountiful reserves of kermanite. This is a fine opportunity to harvest energy and fill our crystals. California has been extremely quiet of late,” said an adept.

  It had gone back and forth from there, how geomancers from all over the world would converge on Naples for the same reason, how those numbers would likely stop the eruption before representatives from San Francisco could even arrive, and on and on. Their words growled and tumbled together like fighting tomcats, and nothing would likely come of it. If Ingrid hazarded a guess at an outcome, a majority would resolve that California should remain their priority, and they’d send along a signed sympathy note to the suffering in Italy.

  An ornate shield on the far wall was emblazoned with the Latin motto to guide all geomancers: PRO POPULO, “for the people,” a reminder that auxiliaries acted as businesses but that their ultimate goal was to use their magic for the welfare of the public.

  Magic itself was common throughout San Francisco. Advertisements for Reiki doctors spanned the exposed bricks of skyscrapers, while the wealthy of Nob Hill journeyed to Sunday picnics in wagons teamed by iron-shackled pookas.

  Geomancy, however, was a rare skill among people and relied upon kermanite, an even rarer crystal that acted as a supreme electrical capacitor. Wardens absorbed the earth’s energy from earthquakes and then channeled their power into kermanite, which was then installed in all varieties of machine. No other battery could keep airships aloft.

  Kermanite had stimulated the Roman Empire two millennia past; now it was the manifest destiny of the Unified Pacific to govern the world, thanks in no small part to geomancers.

  Ingrid poured coffee into Warden Kealoha’s cup. He grunted his gratitude.

  A few seats down, Warden Thornton twirled his teacup in his hands, his lips frowning along with his imperial mustache. She caught his eye, but he jerked his head in a negative. He had been brooding for the past few days, probably due to more dire news from India.

  She refilled an adept’s mug just as he bellowed, “Airship fares will be lower to that part of Europe! No one will want to fly near an eruption! We can charter a flight—”

  “And for that very reason, any sensible pilot would charge more,” said Senior Warden Antonelli with a blatant eye roll.

  The earth shifted. It was the tiniest twitch, like the tickle of a gnat landing on her skin—not even enough to coax a blue sheen to rise from the ground. The men, unshod as they were, showed no response. These were supposed to be the most gifted wardens west of the Rockies. In nearby classrooms, they cultivated the next generation of geomancers, but no barefoot boys trampled onto the lawn to absorb energy either.

  Women weren’t supposed to be geomancers, but Ingrid was, and a damn better one than any of these men.

  Earth magic was considered a hereditary trait among men, like baldness or an affinity for foul-smelling cigars. But then, women weren’t supposed to do anything as well as men. No, Ingrid shouldn’t be interested in reading, or learning, or anything that—heaven forbid—involved thinking. It was the dawn of the twentieth century, and given her skirts and complexion, she should be content to carry laundry for the rest of her life.

  She carried something else instead: power.

  The night before, Ingrid had fallen asleep in the first-floor library—Mr. Sakaguchi would launch into a tirade if he knew—and early in the morning an earthquake occurred. The energy coursed through her, hot and heady, like the time one of the adepts kissed her in a broom closet.

  Hours later, power continued to course beneath her skin. Here she was, more sensitive to the earth than any warden, even with her feet stuffed in shoes. Shoes!

  She squeezed the
handle of her pitcher. Beneath the pressure of her anger, the ceramic cracked with a delicate tink. A foot nudged her below the table. She knew without looking that it was Mr. Sakaguchi. He would notice, as closely as he watched her.

  Ingrid pasted on a smile. Not a very pretty smile, judging by the quick jerk of his head. She tried to dampen her constipated grimace as she softened her grip on the pitcher.

  If Ingrid had to be a clandestine geomancer for the rest of her life, she’d probably explode—and to Mr. Sakaguchi’s chagrin, that might be literal, and at the cost of several windows or dishware sets. Ingrid ached for the earth’s vibrations to break out her skin in goose bumps and create eddies of heat along the length of her legs. She wanted—

  “Da-drat,” she muttered, almost cursing aloud. She was around old men too often, picking up their language and other bad habits. Heaven forbid she start growing a mustache.

  She pulled a rag from her waist to mop up spilled coffee. Mr. Antonelli shot her a frown as he paused while clipping his fingernails. She wished she could stick her tongue out at him, like when she was little, even if the action caused Mama to wallop her upside the head. It had been worth it.

  The coffee pitcher was empty; time to resupply. She scooted backward. The men paid her no heed.

  Ingrid slipped out into the hallway where her father always stared her down.

  “Papa,” Ingrid whispered, offering his portrait a nod.

  From the time she was very young, her greeting had become part of her daily ritual in the auxiliary. Mama always brought her along for a day of cooking and cleaning; the employment had been the least the auxiliary could do for a widow of their own. Abram Carmichael’s aptitude had earned him the title of warden by age thirty and killed him by thirty-five.

  Like the other dead men memorialized in portraiture, Papa’s gaze was rendered as cold and haughty. Thick black hair had a slight kink to it and spiked out over his ears. His skin had the perfect hue of caramel, his eyes narrowed and bold as if lined by kohl. Broad lips smiled as if he barely contained a secret.

  Ingrid’s face mirrored Papa’s but with long hair, while her body took after Mama’s curvaceous form. No matter how Ingrid pinned or lacquered her hair, it defied any attempt at containment. It wasn’t at all like Mama’s hair had been—as bright and straight as stalks of wheat. Ingrid had always envied that hair.

  “Girl!”

  She turned toward the voice. One of the older adepts leaned from a classroom. White streaked his mustache, though his hair remained as black as slate.

  “We need more kermanite. The classroom safe is out.”

  “I’ll tend to it, sir,” she said. She set down the pitcher. The adept granted her an abrupt nod and ducked back inside.

  Girl. As if she was permanently a child, not twenty-five years old. “Heaven forbid you take care of anything yourself, or call me by my name after you’ve known me for a decade,” she muttered.

  Still, she knew which lesson the class was engaged in, and she hurried down the hall for the students’ sake. She rounded the corner and stopped cold.

  A stack of desks blocked the entrance to the basement. She huffed in annoyance. Someone chose a fine time to clean out storage. She could go outside and come in through the back of the building, but it would take twice as long, and likely three more adepts would stop her with other urgent requests.

  “It’s supposed to be blocked for a while yet, Ingrid.” A deep baritone voice rang out behind her. An adept hobbled out of a side room. “Thornton is having the basement fumigated. Rats, again. What do you need?”

  “The junior classroom ran out of kermanite.”

  The older man clicked his teeth. “Again? Those quantities should have been checked before the end of day yesterday. Come along. There are some smaller crystals in the senior room. No point in letting those young’uns suffer.”

  She followed him back up the hall and into an empty classroom. The seniors were sequestered in the library just up the hall as they prepared for the end of term; with tests so soon, all of the students were required to work half days on Sundays through the month. The fact that it was Easter didn’t grant them any reprieve.

  Ingrid feigned patience as he opened the safe and pulled out a small leather bag. He poured the contents into his palm, counting beneath his breath, and then trickled the crystals back into the pouch.

  “Here. I hope no one else comes up short in the next while. Everything else is downstairs.” He stooped over as he scribbled the transaction in a ledger.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  He whisked her away with a motion of his hand. “Run along, girl.”

  She did. Her presence in the meeting would be missed by now, and Mr. Antonelli was sure to give her a gimlet eye as he gestured to an empty mug.

  Whimpers and moans welcomed her to the junior classroom. Nearest to the door, a dozen boys half sprawled over their desks. A blue mist overlay their skin, and beneath that mist were the sure signs of power sickness—skin flushed by high fever, thick sweat, dull eyes. The rest of the class stared, their expressions ranging from curiosity to horror. Some of them still showed signs of very recent recovery in their bloodshot eyes. None of these boys was older than ten; the youngest was a pudgy-faced eight.

  “There you are!” The teacher scowled, as if it were Ingrid’s fault he’d been so inept with his accounting. Biting her lip, she held out the bag. He snatched it from her fingertips.

  The chalkboard laid out the terminology of the lesson, one Ingrid had seen taught dozens of times: hyperthermia, hypothermia, and the quick timeline to a geomancer’s death. These young boys experienced the hard lesson of hyperthermia. The last earthquake noticeable by the wardens had taken place three days before. These students had been directly exposed to the current and hadn’t been allowed access to any kermanite. As a result, they spent the past few days bed-bound in misery as though gripped by influenza.

  Thank God none of them were as sensitive as Ingrid. Another direct tremor would cause their temperatures to spike even more, and could even lead to death.

  The teacher adept pressed a piece of kermanite to a boy’s skin. He gasped at the contact. Blue mist eddied over his body, the color evaporating as it was pulled inside the rock.

  If she could see the kermanite in the adept’s hand, the clear crystal would be filling with a permanent smoky swirl. It took a trained mechanic to rig an electrical current to tap the trapped magic as a battery. When the energy within was exhausted, a crystal turned dull and dark. Once that happened, kermanite became a useless rock.

  The young boy sat up straighter. “Thank you, sir,” he whispered, voice still ragged. It would take him hours to fully recover.

  Ingrid looked away, that familiar anger heavy in her chest. Wardens and boys in training carried kermanite openly from watch fobs and cuff links, or most any other accessory where stones could be easily switched out once they were full.

  She had to be far more subtle. Her kermanite chunks clinked together in her dress pocket. She had to take care not to touch them today, or the energy she held would be siphoned away.

  Ingrid loved this slight flush of power, because that’s what it was—power. It sizzled just beneath her skin, intoxicated her with how it prickled at her nerves. Certainly, if she absorbed any more energy, she’d use the kermanite. She didn’t want to feel sick, though she could hold much more power than these boys, or even the wardens. Mr. Sakaguchi said she took after Papa—that she stored power like a bank vault, while most everyone else had the capacity of a private safe.

  When it came to her natural skill, Ingrid often regarded herself as a rare fantastic or yokai—not like garden ornamentals such as the kappas or naiads sold to the stuffed shirts on Market Street—but like the geomantic Hidden Ones Mr. Sakaguchi so loved to research. She was a creature relegated to idle fancy and obscure mythology, and aggravating shoes.

  As she neared the meeting room, she heard the sound of chairs scuffing against the wood slat floor. The door
opened and voices rose in volume. Warden Thornton exited first, one hand pressed to his gut while the other held a folded newspaper to his chest.

  “My pardon,” he said, moaning. “I think—I do believe I’m getting ill. Maybe the same thing as Mr. Calhoun.”

  “Oh dear,” Ingrid said. Warden Calhoun had come down sick quite suddenly the day before, which had been quite a surprise considering he was hale and active in the way of Theodore Roosevelt. “Here, Mr. Thornton. I’ll help you to the door and fetch a cab.”

  “Thank you, child.” He moaned again. Mr. Thornton wasn’t deathly pale as Mr. Calhoun had been, but his red eyes and shaky hands weren’t normal. He was an experienced warden, so this certainly wasn’t power sickness.

  They passed the open door to the library. Inside, the seniors—teenagers—muttered as they stared at open texts on a table. Auxiliaries functioned like boarding schools for those gifted with geomancy, with the Cordilleran the largest in the country. Boys from age six through twenty resided in dormitories just above. During the day, they attended classes for their general education, and supplemented that with the basics of geomancy. Ingrid had absorbed their lessons as she ferried coal or scrubbed floors. Mr. Sakaguchi taught her more during evening tutorial sessions.

  Mr. Thornton released a shaky breath. He stepped alongside her and fumbled open his watch. His fingers could barely manage the case. “Time. Such a peculiar thing. Passes so slowly, and then so fast.” His British accent lightened the words as he looked out the windows overlooking the street.

  Ingrid nodded, all the more certain the man was coming down with a genuine fever.

  Mr. Thornton, like his ill comrade Mr. Calhoun, was from Britannia and had spent many years in India. The Cordilleran Auxiliary took pride in the acquisition of both experienced wardens—two priceless jewels thieved from the Unified Pacific’s greatest rival. The Chinese had once held that distinction.

  Ingrid followed Mr. Thornton’s gaze and frowned. A laundry truck idled at the curb. Its canvas cover advertised a laundry company in Chinatown. “Odd. Laundry day is tomorrow.”