Clockwork Alchemist (The Thief's Apprentice Book 1)

by Sara C. Roethle

  The first article was a black shirt with buttons running up the front. She observed it for a moment, then moved onto the next pieces of clothing, fresh undergarments, finding that receiving them did not make her blush as much the second time around. Although, she really would have to find a way to do her own shopping in the future. She couldn’t expect Arhyen to buy her undergarments forever.

  She frowned when she realized there were no stockings, then reached for the last article of clothing, unfolding the fabric to find a pair of black trousers. They appeared to be just her size, and clearly designed for a woman, though she wasn’t aware women could wear such things.

  Feeling oddly exhilarated, she donned the clothing, then cleared the steam from the mirror to look at herself. Though the mirror was only able to provide a view of the shirt, and not the trousers, everything seemed to fit. Wanting to ask Arhyen a million questions, she combed her fingers through her wet hair, grabbed his hat, and returned to the living area in a waft of steam.

  Arhyen looked up from the sofa and grinned as he saw her. “I wasn’t sure the clothes would fit properly,” he admitted. “They’re made for women of the equestrian crowd, as it’s difficult to ride horses in skirts.”

  Liliana hopped from one bare foot to another, demonstrating the new clothes, then blushed in embarrassment. “It’s odd being able to move so freely,” she muttered.

  Arhyen nodded, then gestured toward the sandwich he’d made her on the table. “That’s the point. I’d like us to travel undetected tonight, and I didn’t want you hindered by a dress.” He glanced down at her bare feet. “There are boots to go with it too,” he added.

  She stood awkwardly for a moment, then hurried around the low table to take a seat on the sofa. Realizing she was being rude, she muttered, “Thank you for the clothing.”

  He lifted the sandwich plate from the table and handed it to her. “You can thank Ephraim. He’s the one that picked everything out.”

  Her eyes widened and she nearly dropped her plate. “Why would Ephraim pick out my clothing?” she blurted.

  Arhyen rolled his eyes. “Well I wasn’t about to leave you unprotected while you slept, not after everything that happened. And Ephraim didn’t fancy waiting around the apartment while I shopped.”

  Liliana’s face felt like it was on fire. She was wearing undergarments picked out by Ephraim. It was embarrassing enough when Arhyen did it, but Ephraim? She wasn’t sure she’d even be able to meet his eyes next time she saw him.

  “There’s no need to protect me,” she managed to say after recovering from her initial shock. “I mean, I appreciate it, but you shouldn’t have troubled yourself.”

  “That’s what partners are for.” He smiled, though there was a certain tension around his eyes that had never been there before.

  Liliana sensed something amiss. Did he feel odd around her now that they knew the truth of what she was? She tried to formulate some way of asking him, but everything she could come up with seemed incredibly awkward. She looked down at the sandwich on her plate, having no desire to eat.

  Finally, she settled on bluntness. Unable to lift her eyes to meet his, she asked, “Are you sure you’re alright with me staying here? I will understand fully if you want me to leave. It will be no trouble for me to find another place to stay.” So she’d settled for bluntness, and a minor lie. She just didn’t want him to feel pressured into keeping her.

  He took her sandwich plate suddenly and placed it on the table, then grabbed her hand. “Liliana,” he began patiently, “what do you think a soul is?”

  The question caught her off guard. She glanced up to see if he was joking, but his eyes were very serious, the tension around them remaining. “As far as I’ve been able to discern from my readings,” she began, grasping for the correct words, “a soul is an intangible, immortal thing. It is responsible for morality, personality, and to a lesser extent, emotion, though most of emotion can be explained away as a result of lingering survival instincts.”

  “Now tell me,” he replied, still grasping her hand in his. “Do you possess a sense of morality?”

  She hesitated, but nodded. She was quite sure she knew right from wrong, and felt compelled to do right.

  “Do you possess emotion?” he continued.

  “Well yes, but—” she began to argue, but he cut her off.

  “So you have morals and emotions,” he stated, “and I can attest to the fact that you have a personality. Who is to say that you do not, therefore, possess a soul?”

  “Because my emotions are artificial,” she argued, though with no real passion behind it. She wanted to agree with him, but couldn’t. “Everything about me is artificial, not a result of my immortal soul.”

  Arhyen gave her hand a squeeze. “Perhaps, but this all begs the question, do our inner tendencies compose our souls, or do our souls compose our inner tendencies?”

  She frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “No, but neither do souls.” He winked at her. “There’s really no saying if any of us have them. Souls may be an artificial construct as much as anything else. The argument is futile. You are here, you are alive, and you care. What does anything else matter?”

  She opened her mouth to argue, and realized she could not.

  “See?” he said. “Now why should I care whether or not my apprentice has a soul, when no one knows what a soul is, or even if they truly exist. It’s silly to waste time over such trivialities. You have everything that’s important, without argument.”

  She took a moment to think about what he’d said. Her hand was growing warm in his grasp, but she did not find it entirely unpleasant. She recalled her earlier excitement while she was getting dressed, and the despair she’d felt when she’d thought Arhyen had perished, coupled with her joy at seeing him alive. She also felt a very new emotion, one she felt a need to express.

  “Arhyen,” she began softly, thinking of how best to phrase her words.

  He squeezed her hand again, seeming suddenly nervous. “Yes?” he asked, after a few seconds of silence.

  She smiled softly. “When we were speaking the other night, you told me to let you know when I felt I could trust you,” she explained. “I wasn’t quite sure what you meant, or how I would know when such an occurrence took place, but I understand now.”

  He lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “You do?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I believe the feeling in my chest right now is trust.”

  He grinned and shook his head. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it.

  She smiled, glad she was able to so succinctly express her feelings. She was also glad to see the tension had left Arhyen’s face. He seemed suddenly relaxed, though oddly, he still held her hand.

  “So what is our next mission?” she asked.

  He waggled his eyebrows at her. “I told you, all will be revealed in time. Now eat your sandwich, we’re going to be late.” He let go of her hand and retrieved the plate for her.

  She debated reminding him that she didn’t need to eat, and if they were going to be late they could just leave right then, but she liked the way he was smiling at her. He leaned back against the sofa cushions, seeming at ease. She liked sitting with him, especially with a companionable mood in the air. So, despite the late hour, she took her time eating her sandwich. She was quite sure it was the best one yet.

  Chapter 19

  They hurried along down the dark streets. Arhyen was pleased to find that Liliana’s new black boots were far more quiet than her previous ones. He was also pleased with how quickly she could move in the new outfit. She easily paced him as they hurried through the shadows, and likely would have left him in the dust if she knew where they were going. It was good he hadn’t told her.

  He was not sure if the London Network had a way of listening in on conversations in his apartment, but he hadn’t been willing to risk giving anything away, just in case. They would need to come up with some sort of code from that point f
orward. He’d had more than the task of shopping to relay to Ephraim when he’d visited that morning, but he’d made a point of being quite vague with the requests. Ephraim had understood though, and if all went according to plan, would be waiting for them at the meeting place.

  Arhyen would not risk heading straight there though, first he would need to be sure they weren’t followed. He’d already noticed a highly suspect street urchin hanging around his door earlier that day. There was no good reason for the boy, a scruffy youth of around thirteen, to be there. Those of his ilk tended to stick to the market district during the day, either begging for coin, or covertly proffering it from wealthy pockets, but this child had remained outside for several hours, only to later be replaced by an older vagrant pretending to be asleep. Arhyen wouldn’t be overly surprised if he was told that every vagrant in the city was in the employ of the LN.

  Since they’d left the apartment, he’d noted echoing footsteps behind them numerous times. If Hamlet was the one following them, he doubted they could evade him, but he thought it unlikely that the automaton would be employed on such a menial task as keeping an eye on the LN’s newest forced recruits, nor would he be clumsy enough to alert them of his presence. No, they were likely being followed by other humans, just like those who loitered outside his apartment.

  He veered across the dark street, making his way toward a fire escape on the side of a tall building. He silently guided Liliana to start climbing, then followed up after her, the cold metal of the rungs stinging his bare hands. As he ascended he thought he heard footsteps on the cobblestones below, but it was difficult to tell with the noise of their climb. Liliana had scurried ahead, and now waited atop the building for him. Reaching the end of the ladder, he peered at the street below. No one climbed the fire escape after them.

  He boosted himself the rest of the way on top of the building, then moved away from the edge. “I hope you’re not afraid of heights,” he whispered as Liliana hurried to stay at his side.

  She didn’t appear afraid. She did, however, appear monumentally confused. With her hair curled up in a bun and a black cap on her head, she’d be difficult to spot in a crowd, and just as difficult to spot atop a roof in the darkness, which was exactly what they were going for.

  Not wanting to give their pursuers time to formulate a new plan, he grabbed Liliana’s hand and traipsed across the solid roof of the building to the hatch access meant for maintenance workers. Dropping Liliana’s hand, he made quick work of the lock with tools removed from his coat. He quietly opened the door, and down they went into the building, shutting the hatch gently behind them.

  “Where are we going?” she whispered, glancing around the building’s top story, a storage space for barrels of grain and hops.

  “Down,” he whispered, reclaiming her hand. No one ought to be in the brewery at this hour, though that wasn’t the only reason he’d chosen that particular building to climb. He knew the cellar, where giant casks of ale were stored, had access to London’s water drainage system. They could pass undetected through the network, arriving at their destination with the LN none the wiser.

  They hurried out of the storage area and down wooden stairs to the main brewing room. Liliana glanced around in the darkness curiously. There was a sudden thunk upstairs. Had someone actually followed them onto the roof and into the building? Arhyen shook his head in irritation, then tugged Liliana forward toward the cellar entrance.

  The hatch guarding the stairs was composed of massive double doors mounted into the brick floor, covering a space large enough to carry barrels in or out. Luckily there was no lock on the doors, and they only needed to open one side to slip through.

  Arhyen crouched to lift the heavy wood, then held it open for Liliana. Once she disappeared into the darkness below, he hurried down the steps after her, shutting the hatch above his head, leaving them in total darkness. Knowing that searching for a light would likely alert whoever followed to their location, Arhyen fumbled about for Liliana’s hand, accidentally brushing her leg, then her hip in the process. Once her hand was firmly in his, he started forward, keeping his free hand in front of him to avoid running into any of the barrels. The grate leading downward should be only a few steps ahead.

  There, Arhyen stepped onto the grate, making the metal groan softly.

  Footsteps sounded above them, more than one set. For the first time Arhyen wondered if perhaps it wasn’t the LN following them. Perhaps some associates of Clayton’s or Viola’s were left over to enact vengeance.

  He shook his head and stepped off the grate. There was nothing he could do about it now. If they could escape quickly, perhaps their pursuers would think they’d gone out the front door. He crouched, bringing Liliana down beside him, then let go of her hand to quietly move the grate, just enough to make space for them both to slip through. Footsteps sounded near the cellar doors, then murmured voices. The cellar door creaked open.

  Nervous sweat beading on his brow, he helped Liliana down onto the steel ladder beneath the grate. Fortunately not asking questions, she quickly ascended. Arhyen followed her, slowly sliding the grate back into place as the light of a lantern filled the cellar.

  He was scarcely breathing as he waited at the top of the ladder. The grate would mostly conceal his presence, but if the lantern bearer lowered the light to peer through, he would be caught. He could hurry downward, but his progress would make at least a small amount of noise, and it might alert whoever pursued them.

  Footsteps neared, bringing the light of the lantern with them. Arhyen silently prayed that Liliana would not call up to him, wondering why he hadn’t joined her at the bottom.

  The lantern holder stepped right on top of the grate, then kept walking. Arhyen heaved a sigh of relief, then nearly cursed out loud as a second person moved toward the grate and lowered a light.

  Noises be damned, he half stepped, half slid the rest of the way down the ladder. By touch alone, he found Liliana waiting at the bottom, just as the grate above was lifted and tossed aside with a loud clatter. Taking her hand in his, he used his right hand to feel along the wall of the underground canal. The water rushed along peacefully to their left. He knew the walkways on either side of the water were only roughly three steps wide, so he kept close to the wall, guiding Liliana to do the same. He’d traveled the route many times before. If they could reach the complex maze of waterways roughly twenty steps ahead, they might be able to lose their pursuers in the dark. He had a small lantern in his satchel, but didn’t dare use it.

  The sound of feet hitting the concrete at the base of the ladder made him flinch. Just a few more seconds until the first turn.

  The wall disappeared beneath his hand, signaling the bend in the drainage canal. He turned it, walked a few steps, then kicked his left foot to the side, searching for the narrow walkway that crossed the water. He found it just as the light neared the corridor they’d turned down.

  Quickly scampering across with gritted teeth, he waited for the moment he’d step too far to one side and fall off the walkway, but it never came. Liliana seemed to have no trouble following in the darkness right behind him. As soon as he stepped onto the next platform, he regained Liliana’s hand and ran full-speed forward, knowing there was a corridor directly ahead of him.

  They continued on like that, taking numerous turns, as the lantern light fell further and further behind them. Eventually they lost their pursuers in the maze of canals. He hoped whoever followed them stayed lost down there forever. He waited another minute to be sure they were alone, then took a deep breath and plastered his back against the nearest wall. The lack of light was starting to get to him. Figuring it was now worth the slight risk, he fumbled through his satchel for his lantern and matchbox. He set the lantern on the ground and kneeled, then struck a match.

  Liliana’s face illuminated across from him in the flare of light. She’d kneeled on the other side of the lantern.

  “Don’t tell me you can actually see in the dark,” he whisp
ered, lowering the match to the wick.

  She shook her head, obviously not comprehending his sarcasm. “No, I suppose I just have good spacial awareness and hearing.”

  He stood with the lantern and raised an eyebrow at her. “So you truly had no trouble following my lead?”

  She rose and shook her head again. “No,” she smirked, “you’re quite loud.”

  He balked. Had she actually just made a joke? He suddenly felt as if the entire foray through the drainage canals was worth it. He held the lantern aloft and looked around. If he’d navigated correctly, the grate nearest the meeting place was only a short distance away.

  He began walking again while Liliana followed silently behind him. When she’d first asked him to teach her his thieving ways, he had not thought it possible. An apprentice would simply slow him down, or get him caught. She’d proven him wrong on both counts. Once she learned the ropes, she’d be a far superior thief, just given her physical assets.

  “Can you tell me where we’re going now?” she whispered from behind him.

  He barely heard her voice over the gentle flow of water beside them. He took another turn into a dry corridor that would lead to the proper grate. Or what should be the proper grate. He’d traveled the drainage canals countless times, but never whilst running away from someone, with no light to guide him.

  “We’re going to a meeting,” he explained softly, feeling nervous even though there was no way someone from the LN could be present to listen to them.

  “Does this have something to do with what you and Ephraim are planning?” she asked.

  He stopped so abruptly that Liliana ran into his back, nearly jostling the lantern from his grip. He turned so the light would illuminate her face. She appeared utterly serious.

  “How on earth did you figure that out?” he asked. He’d barely even communicated with Ephraim, not wanting the LN to catch on.

  She tilted her cap covered head. “Last night when we left the burning building behind,” she explained, “I saw the look you two gave each other. It was a mixture of determination and ire. There is no way such a look could have held no hidden meaning.”