Mist, Metal, and Ash

by Gwendolyn Clare

  “No,” Leo said quickly. His father had really done it once before, when Pasca went through a phase of refusing to eat his vegetables—whipped the cook right in front of them, to show the cost of misbehavior. “No, it’s not the food at all, it’s my fault…”

  Ricciotti folded his hands in his lap, self-satisfied. “So you admit you saw the notebooks. I imagine you must have questions.”

  Leo crossed his arms, vexed that his father cornered him so easily. “Not really. I’m sure Aris—ever your instrument—filled you in on our conversation.”

  “Your brother came to me because he was concerned about you. I understand you found my research upsetting. I want to assure you that I’ve only ever done what was necessary for the unification movement.”

  Leo stared at him, disbelieving. The thought of what Ricciotti had done to those women—their mothers—made Leo feel physically ill, and here he was acting as if they were nothing more than frogs or guinea pigs. “I think you might actually be insane. Your thirst for power blots out everything else.”

  “Power?” Ricciotti laughed—not harshly, but as if Leo had surprised him. “I don’t want to rule Italy. I’m no tyrant. I want our people to join together into a republic. I want us free from the iron hand of the Papal States choking our pursuit of knowledge. I want us free from the French and the Austrians fighting over our lands like wolves over scraps of meat. I want to lift our people up, to usher in a new age—a modern age—of justice and prosperity and innovation.”

  Leo shook his head. A part of him was desperate to believe in the altruism of his father’s intentions, however misguided his methods might be; that would be so much easier than facing the horrifying, unjustifiable lengths to which Ricciotti had gone. But Leo could not afford to fall into the trap of the obedient son. “If the people want to be free, they will rise up. Rosalinda always spoke as if we have many allies in the south, as if they were eager to revolt against foreign rule. There’s no love lost between the Sicilians and the House of Bourbon.”

  Ricciotti gave Leo a pitying smile. “Your grandfather believed he could dethrone that French bastard Francis with a thousand men and a popular rebellion. His ships never even made landfall. They burned and sank, and took the will of the Sicilian people down to the bottom of the sea with them. The common folk of Two Sicilies won’t rise against their ruler again.”

  “And this somehow excuses what you did to our mothers?”

  Ricciotti pushed out of his armchair and paced in front of the hearth. “Francis didn’t win with strategy, or numbers, or spy work. He won with Archimedes mirrors—he won because he had a pazzerellone who could build him weapons that no one else possessed, and that no one could foresee.” He reached out an arm and leaned against the mantel, staring into the flames as he spoke. “With most pazzerellones, age and experience calcify their obsessions. A mechanist who builds trains only builds trains; he will not, perhaps even cannot, do otherwise.”

  “And an alchemist obsessed with creating polymaths can only create polymaths?” Leo interrupted.

  Ricciotti shot him a warning look. “Don’t mock me, boy. Polymaths are the key. Their creative focus does not narrow with time; they remain intellectually malleable, and can aim the full power of their madness at any problem they choose.”

  Leo leaned back in his chair, calculating his slouch to be indisputably disrespectful. “It must really gall you, then, that Jumi was the one who created the ultimate weapon. And Montaigne was the one who scribed Veldana, thus creating Jumi.”

  “I have the editbook, don’t I?” Ricciotti said flatly.

  “But you can’t claim credit for it. Two decades wasted on the polymath problem, and at best your work is tangential.” Leo shrugged, enjoying the twitch of rage he saw at the corner of Ricciotti’s mouth. “I suppose if Aris can manage to decipher the Veldanese language, then it won’t have been a complete failure. Your prized polymath will have made some small contribution.”

  In two long strides, Ricciotti closed the distance between them and laid the back of his hand across Leo’s face. Stars exploded in his vision, and he tasted the salty tang of blood from where his teeth cut his cheek.

  Leo recovered quickly from the shock of the unexpected blow, and he sprang out of the chair and backed away to escape his father’s reach. He was out of practice; he should have seen that coming.

  With frightening calm, Ricciotti said, “You will learn to respect me again. One way or another.”

  * * *

  Leo spent the rest of the evening in the brittle sanctuary of his new bedroom. He sat on the carpet, leaning back against the side of his bed with a book open in his lap. The words were proving impossible to concentrate upon, though, the novel reduced to abstract markings of black on white.

  “Still sulking?” Aris said from the doorway.

  “Yes. So go away.” Leo glared; he did not want to be comforted.

  Aris entered uninvited. “I brought ice,” he said, offering a bowl.

  Leo held out for a moment before grudgingly accepting some of the crushed ice. He sucked on it, numbing his swollen cheek, like they’d done when they were children. Aris folded his legs and sat on the floor beside him. Leo wished he had the strength to aim his fury at Aris, but he felt as wrung out as a damp rag, and a traitorous part of him wanted nothing more than to be taken care of by his brother. Just once more.

  “Traitor,” Leo grumbled around the ice. “You tattled on me.”

  “I don’t tell Father everything, but I do have to throw him the occasional bone.” Aris shrugged. “And you need to learn not to antagonize him.”

  Leo gently prodded the side of his face. “Hardly the worst injury I’ve had.”

  “Hmm,” Aris said, as if he didn’t quite believe Leo’s nonchalance.

  Objectively, a sore cheek was nothing to worry over. His fencing lessons with Rosalinda had often left him with bruises and sore muscles, and his mechanics laboratory had gifted him with a variety of cuts and burns. There was a scar on his left arm from a cut that had needed five stitches. This was nothing compared to that.

  Except Ricciotti meant to hurt him. That always made it ache worse, somehow.

  Leo said, “He’s a madman, you know.”

  “He’s our father,” Aris insisted. “And we’re all madmen in our own ways, right? At the end of the day, we’re all pazzerellones. His is simply a very driven sort of madness.”

  “You are too forgiving of his faults,” said Leo. Faults was rather a euphemistic word for murderous human experimentation, but he wanted to draw his brother closer, not drive him away.

  Aris laughed. “I think that’s the first time anyone has ever accused me of being too soft.”

  “Not soft. Blind.” Leo fished another sliver of ice out of the bowl and sucked on it. “Has it ever occurred to you that he separated us not because of age or talent, but because we were too difficult to control when we were together? That he needed to isolate you in order to make you dependent upon him alone?”

  “I’m not dependent,” he bristled. “Father allows me a great deal of autonomy.”

  “Autonomy in handling the editbook, for example?”

  “Anyway, it’s you who does not see him clearly,” Aris said, neatly sidestepping the question of the editbook. “He lost his own father and his brother Menotti in the Sicilian revolt; is it any wonder he hates King Francis with a passion? You of all people should be able to sympathize with how that feels. And after what happened to Pasca, and having to leave you behind … he only became more determined. If he doesn’t succeed now, then everything he’s lost will have been for nothing.”

  “And if he does succeed, will that somehow magically bring Giuseppe and Menotti and Pasca back to life?” Leo said.

  Aris had no clever answer to that.

  * * *

  In retrospect, Leo decided his bruised cheekbone was a good thing. It had elicited sympathy from Aris—to the degree that Aris was capable of acting sympathetic, at least—and perhap
s Leo could leverage that emotion against Ricciotti. Aris had always been protective and possessive of his younger brothers, but the blind loyalty he now showed for their father was a newer instinct. All Leo needed to do was remind Aris of his original priorities.

  Ricciotti was relying on Aris to decipher the editbook, which meant Aris knew where the editbook was being kept. Now that Leo understood the depths of depravity to which Ricciotti could stoop, there was no sense in trusting him to honor their deal and leave Elsa free. So Leo would set to work driving a wedge between his father and his brother. And if Ricciotti ended up feeling abandoned and betrayed and terribly alone, well, wouldn’t that be poetic justice?

  The next morning, as he descended the stairs to look for Aris, Leo pondered how exactly to proceed. Should he push harder against Ricciotti, to make Aris see what a tyrant their father was? Or would Aris only blame Leo for stirring up the conflict?

  In the corridor outside Aris’s laboratory, Leo took a moment to compose himself. He pressed his ear to the door and heard the muffled clunking and banging of Aris at work inside. Excellent—they could start with bonding over a mechanics project.

  Leo let himself in, saying, “So this is where you’ve…”

  His voice trailed off and he stopped with one hand still on the door handle. Someone—or something, rather—was in the lab, but it wasn’t Aris.

  Leo stood face-to-face with a grotesque commingling of alchemical monster and mechanical construct: a green-skinned, ram-horned, brass-clawed, organic-and-metal automaton. She was shaped more or less like a female human, except for the two enormous mechanical wings that sprouted from her shoulders. Over two meters tall, she stood like a cat on her toes, her feet elongated and her knees high on the leg.

  She’d frozen in place when Leo burst in. She held so still that if it hadn’t been for the noises he’d overheard through the door, he might have doubted she was powered up. Or alive. Whichever term applied to her.

  Leo eyed the creature, cautious of the potential danger she posed. His hand went automatically to his hip, but his rapier was still hanging from a peg on his bedroom wall. “Um … hello there…?”

  The creature shifted her weight and tilted her head at him, the motion accompanied by the soft sound of joints clicking and gears whirring. She did not reply, but something about her posture spoke more of curiosity than aggression, despite her daunting height.

  Leo relaxed a little and took a step toward her. “I’m guessing Aris is your maker, right?”

  She made a series of complicated gestures, none of which had decipherable meaning, though Leo got the distinct sense that she was attempting to communicate something and expected him to understand.

  He gave her a confused expression and shook his head. “I don’t know what that means.”

  The creature made a breathy noise in her throat, half hiss and half sigh.

  “So you’re the spy?” Leo said. “It’s not polite to look in people’s windows, you know.”

  The creature suddenly glanced up like a deer catching the scent of a staghound, though Leo couldn’t hear whatever noise was distressing her. Then she wiggled her long brass fingers in the air, and the black maw of a portal appeared out of nowhere. No portal device, no worldbook. Leo only had time to watch as the creature quickly stepped through and the portal closed behind her.

  “What the hell?” he asked the empty room.

  7

  THERE IS IN EVERY ONE OF US, EVEN THOSE WHO SEEM TO BE MOST MODERATE, A TYPE OF DESIRE THAT IS TERRIBLE, WILD, AND LAWLESS.

  —Plato

  At dinner, Porzia needed to pack away all her irritation and save it for later. Casa had invited all three of their surprise guests to stay and eat—without consulting Porzia—and Elsa was too busy with Revan to be of any help at all with the Carbonari. Across the table, Faraz was discussing the details of the plan with Rosalinda, which left Porzia alone in sussing out the trustworthiness of Vincenzo.

  She put on a welcoming smile and said, “How are you finding your first day in the company of pazzerellones? I’d love to be able tell you this kind of excitement is unusual for us, but honestly, it seems par for the course of late.”

  “I admit I didn’t expect to draw a weapon until Austria,” Vincenzo said. “But no, this isn’t my first encounter with pazzerellones.”

  “Really?” she said with polite curiosity, careful not to seem too interested.

  “I was a fencing pupil of Rosalinda’s for a while, so Leo’s an old friend.”

  Porzia’s jaw tensed. Old friends? Leo had never so much as mentioned Vincenzo’s name. Another secret withheld from her, just when she thought she was done feeling punched in the gut by Leo’s betrayal.

  Vincenzo looked at her, observing the abrupt change in her mood. “Pardon me, Signorina Pisano. Did I say something displeasing?”

  Porzia attempted to bring back her hostess smile, though she could tell it came out rather thin. “No, it’s not you. I just sometimes wonder if I ever knew him at all. Leo, I mean.”

  Vincenzo grinned ruefully. “Well, you know his experiences have made him secretive, which is more than I could tell you about him. I’ve been on assignment in Bologna and haven’t seen him in years.” He paused. “Actually, I was better friends with Aris. We’re closer in age.”

  “What!” Porzia said too loudly, drawing a curious glance from Revan, who was seated beside Elsa down the table. Porzia quickly looked away before the heat could rise in her cheeks, but she felt the weight of his gaze lingering for a moment after.

  Vincenzo was saying, “Garibaldi didn’t approve of his sons growing too familiar with Carbonari rabble such as me, of course, but at that age Aris was not overly concerned with following his father’s wishes.” He paused and tilted his head like a hawk, eyeing her. “Does that bother you?”

  Porzia adopted an air of extreme unbotheredness. “Not at all, so long as you’re prepared to use that connection to our advantage.”

  “Why did you think Rosalinda summoned me for this? My charming personality? While I admit to being excessively charming, that’s not the primary reason.”

  “And modest, too,” she said dryly, to which he laughed.

  Vincenzo was a bit of a flirt, but not in a way that led Porzia to believe he actually wanted something—it seemed habitual, a reflex not specifically directed at her. She wondered if it had occurred to Elsa to be on guard against that. Yes, he was a revolutionary of questionable loyalties, but Porzia was also simply concerned that he was a man.

  He and Elsa would be on their own. Traveling alone with a strange man was … not done. Especially one of low birth, low manners, and potentially low morals.

  Despite her reservations, Porzia took the two Carbonari to the sitting room for some after-dinner limoncello to keep them occupied until Casa declared that Elsa was ready. Then she escorted them to the foyer.

  Elsa descended the main stairs carrying her carpetbag in one hand and a wooden box tucked under her other arm. She came straight over to Porzia and held out the box.

  “Here,” she said, her voice low so the others wouldn’t hear. “There’s a transmitter inside, so all you have to do is pick a good hiding place, and I’ll be able to find it.”

  Porzia made a reluctant noise in the back of her throat, but she accepted the box. It felt heavy with the weight of responsibility—Elsa’s only escape strategy, in physical form in her arms.

  She asked, “Does Revan know you’re leaving now?”

  “I can’t worry about Revan. If he can break out of Veldana, he can take care of himself.” Elsa paused, the irritation in her voice softening. “You’ll keep an eye on him for me, won’t you?”

  “Obviously.” She already had three siblings and twenty orphaned pazzerellones on her hands; what was one more stray?

  “And Porzia, after we leave … I need you to do something else.”

  Porzia rolled her eyes. “Of course I’ll do whatever it is. You know that.”

  “Don’t be so quick
to agree,” Elsa warned. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “I already don’t like this plan, so how much worse can it get? Out with it.”

  Elsa took a deep breath, as if to steel herself. “I need you to report me to the Order. Convince them that I’ve switched sides.”

  “What!” Porzia screeched. “Have you lost your mind?”

  Elsa held up her hands to forestall Porzia’s temper. “For this to work—for me to trick Garibaldi—it has to look real. The Order has to be hunting for me in earnest.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking.” She squeezed her eyelids shut for a moment. “I’ll … think about it.”

  “And I’ll already be on my way, rushing into the lion’s den whether or not my story holds up to scrutiny.” Elsa sounded stubborn, but there was also an edge of something else in her voice—mania, almost. Certainly obsession.

  “You’re impossible,” Porzia huffed.

  Elsa grinned. “Everything’s going to work out.”

  Porzia had never known someone so determined to bend reality to their will. She worried that quality would get Elsa into trouble one of these days.

  “Right, well, best be on your way if you’ve got everything you’ll need.” Porzia turned to Rosalinda, who was hanging back to give them some semblance of privacy. “Signora Scarpa, are you going with them to Bologna?”

  “No,” Rosalinda said. “I have work to do here—queries to send, rumors to set in motion. I must lay the groundwork for Vincenzo and Elsa’s defection.”

  Porzia searched her face, doubtful of the older woman’s motivations. She did not like placing so much trust in someone she barely knew. The only agreement between the Order and the Carbonari was to stay out of each other’s business; they were not allies.

  Rosalinda let out a short, humorless laugh. “You still mistrust me? My dear girl, with suspicion like that, we could indeed make a Carbonara out of you.”