Papa shook his head. “That’s not going to work. This maze was very well designed. If you move out of the center and into the shifting glass, the paths that open up in front of you will always lead you back here eventually. There is no way to reach the outside unless someone activates the main corridor again.”
“Who created this awful thing?” I asked as Papa watched the mirrors.
He gave me a rueful smile. “This was not one of my better ideas.”
“You invented this?” I turned around, beginning to feel dizzy. “Had you lost your mind completely?”
He shook his head. “Perhaps.” He turned his attention back to me. “But I won the wager.”
“Dear Lord, what was the wager?”
Papa threw his hands up, the way one does when they don’t know what else they should do. “I was challenged to make an impossible maze. So I did. In hindsight, teasing the person with glimpses of the outside is a bit cruel, but trust me, it’s all an illusion. No man can fit through those gaps.” He took a step forward and peered out, only to have a panel shift suddenly and turn, forcing him to face himself. “More than half the Order tried to escape this maze. A fair purse hinged on it. Not a single one did. We are trapped until Boucher lets us out.”
I watched the mirrors move, some of them with surprising quickness. If a man got caught between them, he’d be crushed.
But then, I was not a man.
“I’m small,” I whispered. I’d have to be careful, and I’d have to be quick.
“What was that?” Papa asked over the din of the moving machine. I didn’t heed him. Instead I followed Will’s lead. He had found the single space that had allowed him to put a hand through the blades in our cage. If I observed carefully enough, perhaps I could find the precise timing, the correct gap to allow me to squeeze through.
I walked a slow circle, watching, counting. Planes of dusty glass and metal drifted before me, taunting me with my own image. I looked a fright. My hair had come completely undone and was sticking out in tufts from its pins. Poor Marie Marguerite’s dress was in tatters. Even so, I didn’t look nearly as horrible as Papa. I worried he would collapse again. My throat was parched. We hadn’t had water in ages. It had taken its toll on Papa.
We didn’t have much time. Boucher would be back for us as soon as the boiler was steaming. I took a deep breath. I couldn’t let the pressure get to me. I had to have a clear head.
I exhaled, and fixed my gaze on a spot through the maze as one of the larger gaps opened. I could see a torch flickering on a pillar beyond. I kept hold of it with my gaze, watching as mirrors cut it off, then revealed it again. Maintaining the rhythm, I tapped my foot in time with the machine.
Like the flow of notes over the page, the mechanical beat revealed itself to me. I moved my hand now, tapping the air as I noted the beats of rest, those pauses in motion where my path was clear.
“What are you doing?” Papa asked.
I had it. I could do this. I turned toward Papa. “I’m going through.”
“Meg, you’ll be crushed.” He took me by both arms and pulled me away from the gap. “I cannot allow you to do this.”
“You have to, or they’ll kill both of us before they’re through. This is our only chance. I can make it.” I stepped back to face the gap. My toe caught on my hem. But I couldn’t do it like this.
I bent over and pulled Will’s knife from my boot, then used it to free myself of my overly long skirts and slash the heavy sleeves of my dress.
“Meg, what on earth are you doing?” Papa said, clearly appalled that he could see the lace of the cuffs of my drawers hanging over my knees. I shed fabric the way a butterfly sheds a cocoon. Soon a pool of it lay at my feet.
“I can’t afford to catch my dress or stumble.” I ripped through the last bit of my sleeves and then cut a thin strip and used it to tie up my hair. Suddenly I felt more myself.
“I don’t have the strength to follow you.” Papa took my hand in his. His eyes burned bright with concern.
“I’ll release the lever as soon as I am out. Don’t fret, Papa. I can do this.” I kept the rhythm in my head as I turned back to my torch. I flexed my legs, feeling the strength in them as I pulsed up and down with the beat of the shifting glass.
“Be careful,” Papa said, but before he could say more, I sprang forward into the gap.
A panel of mirror twisted in front of me. I spun a half turn, then slid, making my body as tight and thin as I could while a second panel grazed along my back. I’d barely pulled my arm up before the panels closed in together, nearly trapping my hand within the tight seam.
I didn’t have time to panic. Another gap. Another twist. I nearly lost my balance as I jumped to the side, then darted forward. I had to keep the torch in my sights, remember the rhythm.
A mirror passed in front of me. Go! No, wait! Another panel spun and stopped in front of me. I had nearly slammed into it. Now go. I jumped again, then stopped short. Go. Wait. One, two, hold, jump!
The mirrors aligned to create a long channel, and I broke into a run. My boots pounded hard on the metal floor as I flew toward the closing gap. The edges of the mirrors inched closer and closer to the torch, threatening to cut off my only escape.
I felt the knife come loose from my boot, then heard a clatter on the floor. I flinched, the briefest hesitation, but it stopped my momentum. I didn’t want to lose my only weapon. In that moment an unexpected mirror swung into the path in front of me. I glanced back, hoping to grab the knife before the panel turned again, but another panel swung in and crushed the knife in one of the seams.
No.
I felt as though the last connection I had with Will had shattered.
The panel before me moved, and so did I.
Pulling in my breath, I ran. My timing was off, but I had to make it through one more gap. It narrowed, dangerously thin. I reached out my arm, then pressed my back to the mirror and slid through moments before the seam slammed shut, catching my skirt and holding it fast, unwilling to let me go.
I grabbed on to the already shorn fabric and ripped, cutting a long slit up the side of the skirt.
Falling to the ground, I gasped and felt as if my lungs were afire.
I did it.
“Meg?” Papa’s voice sounded so distant. I had to hurry.
I ran to the lever Honoré had used to open the corridor into the maze, but I stopped short.
“Oh no.” He had wrapped our chains and manacles through the lever. A heavy lock held the lever fast. I gave it a shake. It couldn’t move, with the chain threaded through the gears at the base. Papa was still trapped. “Papa?” I called, terrified I was going to alert the Haddocks that I was free.
“Papa, the lever is locked. I can’t get you out.”
I didn’t know if he could hear me. I didn’t want to shout any louder. I found another shifting gap and stared back at him. There was shock and relief on his face. Then he smiled, and I saw the pride there. He shook his head as if in awe or disbelief and said something. I couldn’t hear his words, but before the gap closed, I saw the movement of his lips. “Go.”
I had to find help. I turned my back to the spinning maze, and suddenly found myself face-to-face with Josephine. She looked as surprised as I felt, with her hands out, as if I’d caught her off balance.
We stared at one another, unmoving, for a moment that felt like three lifetimes.
A million thoughts raced through my head. The loudest of them told me to rush forward, grab her, throw her to the ground and silence her before she could call a warning to the others. That instinct to attack screamed at me. I remained frozen, unable to move, the way a deer goes still in the face of the hounds.
The corner of her lip turned up, just a hint. The Mona Lisa grinned like a fool compared to the subtle slip in Josephine’s stone visage. “You escaped,” Josephine said, her voice breathy.
I still had a chance. We were equally matched, and with my dress in tatters, I could move as freely as she d
id. I balled my fist. “I’m going for help. I won’t let you stop me.”
She shifted, widening her stance with a subtle slide of her boot on the stone.
Josephine glanced to the side toward the entrance to the elephant graveyard. “You won’t make it through the tunnels,” she said.
I couldn’t tell if it was a warning or a threat. I had nothing left to lose. Holding out my hands in a conciliatory manner, I implored her. “Help me. If I can reach the Academy, I can stop this, but if Boucher succeeds, no one will be saved. Thousands will die. How many daughters will be condemned to lose their fathers?”
Josephine’s brown eyes widened, a flash of expression that revealed little, but it was something. Something was there. Pain, and I could have sworn I saw anger. If she didn’t feel it, then she was less human than her father, because I felt it on her behalf. She’d been gravely mistreated, and it wasn’t fair. “You know what it is like to lose those you love,” I pushed, digging into the wound.
She drew in a slow breath.
“As do I,” I added. I felt the sting of the admission in my heart. Her father had killed mine, yet I needed an ally, not another enemy.
A high-pitched whistle sounded from the other room. Josephine looked up, and I did as well. The boiler was ready. We were out of time. I inched forward. If she wasn’t with me, I’d have to keep her from warning the others somehow. I couldn’t afford to linger any longer.
Our eyes met.
I shifted my weight, preparing to grab her.
As I surged toward her, she turned with surprising adroitness and ran like a fox with the hounds on her heels. She outpaced me, sprinting for the entrance to the tunnels.
“Dammit,” I muttered under my breath as I charged after her, stumbling forward and trying to shift my momentum enough to get my feet under me. I should never have trusted her, not even enough to consider trusting her. My hesitation had led to my ruin. She’d tell the others. I had to get out as quickly as possible. So much was at stake, and help was so close.
If I caught her again, I would give her no pause.
I chased after Josephine through the Amusement graveyard, pausing only to yank an ornamental spine from the back of the dragon. The end of the spine formed a sharp spike and a hook, typical of the designs of the East, but it made an excellent pike for my purposes.
I ran forward toward the archway but didn’t see Josephine anywhere. Slowing down, I listened.
Instead of the frantic steps of a running girl, I heard a squeaking noise driven forward by the sound of heavy footsteps.
I glanced down the tunnel that led to the room where we had boarded the clockwork train, then immediately pulled myself back and into the shadows.
Honoré was pushing a handcart full of fuel straight toward me.
I tucked myself behind one of the large mechanical bears. Honoré didn’t seem in a hurry. He must not have spoken to Josephine. It was as if she had disappeared into thin air. But she hadn’t found and warned Honoré. That was something. Boucher was behind me in the room with the juggernaut.
Neither of them knew I was free.
It was my only advantage.
If I could get past Honoré, I could make it down the long tunnel to the Academy and find help.
But Papa was still trapped in the mirrors, and the boiler on the juggernaut was primed and ready. They would do untold atrocities to him, and he wouldn’t survive it. Boucher was waiting for her moment to do so. I could see it in her eyes. She wanted revenge.
Boucher, for all her evil machinations, wasn’t strong enough to do any of it without her puppet.
I watched my uncle pass before me, completely unsuspecting. I couldn’t let him harm Papa anymore.
My hands tightened on the pike. The weight of it felt solid, steady. He had killed my family. He deserved no mercy.
With a shout I leapt forward, swinging the pike above me and bringing it down toward the back of his head with a swift strike that landed on the back of his shoulder.
I expected to hear the crack of a bone. Instead the pike clanged loudly, and the shock of the reverberating force nearly knocked it from my hands.
The monster swung his head around, his mechanical eye burning red as it watched me stumble backward. The pike had caught on his shirt and was ripping the fabric as it tangled and fell.
Half of his back had been plated in smooth metal that encompassed his shoulder and flowed over his chest to cover his heart. It was like looking at a suit of armor, but more precisely molded. He turned, and the shifting plates of metal seemed alive as they stretched and revealed the clockwork mechanisms beneath.
Dear God, he was no longer human.
He laughed, a cold, cruel sound with a grinding undertone. Then he lunged forward and grabbed me by the throat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
HONORÉ’S MERCILESS GRIP CHOKED ME. I couldn’t swallow or breathe. He dragged me to him. All the while the gears around his red eye twisted and turned as his gaze swept over my face.
“Should I kill you now?” he asked, squeezing harder. White pinpoints of light dotted my eyes. I scratched at his hand and kicked as hard as I could at his legs. I felt so weak as my toes bounced ineffectively off his shins. “I was given an order.”
“You were ordered to put me into the maze,” I choked out. I didn’t know to what extent the mechanical parts of the man could take over his reasoning. His last orders had been to keep me alive.
He dropped me, and I fell to the ground coughing. I still felt as if I couldn’t swallow. My jaw ached and my head throbbed, but my vision began to clear.
“Move the cart,” he barked at me. He didn’t have to say anything more. “Or you die” was clearly implied. He inspected the point of the pike and lifted it from the ground.
He wouldn’t kill me yet. They needed me alive. If he murdered me, Papa would die before bending to any threat. They had held him for years, and they hadn’t been able to break him before now. But now he was weak, on the verge of collapse. If they tortured him, he would die.
As long as I was still breathing, I had to keep my head. It was the only way I could discover a means to escape.
But “alive” and “unharmed” were two very different things.
I used the handle of the cart to pull myself to standing, then struggled to push it forward. The rusting metal dug into my palms, pulling the tender flesh there until it burned. I threw my weight forward, but the cart weighed more than I did, and it took throwing my hip forward against the cart before it would move over the uneven stone floor.
The tip of the pike dug into my back like a bee stinging below my shoulder. Though it was only the point, one false move, and the blade could cut into my flesh. It was like standing on the trapdoor of the gallows. Gritting my teeth, I struggled to maintain the momentum of the fuel-laden cart as I pushed it into the elephant graveyard.
My back ached, and the muscles of my arms burned and shook. Pain seared through my legs with each step. The enormous mechanical creations stared down on me, and I felt the heavy judgment in their lifeless gazes, as if I should be fighting. The handle of the cart and the pike at my back boxed me in.
I didn’t know if I could fight anymore. I didn’t know if I was strong enough. I had been struggling against my captivity, and at every turn Boucher managed to get the better of me.
I should have waited for Honoré to pass, then crept down the tunnel. I should have never tried to play the hero.
But it could have cost Papa his life.
I didn’t know what to do. I was trapped and friendless, close enough to home that the stench of the Thames clung to the air, and yet I could see no way out.
The wheel of the cart bumped up against an uneven stone and stopped so suddenly, my own momentum threw me forward into the handle, knocking the wind out of me. My chest fell against the coal.
The pike jabbed into my back, stabbing into my flesh, and I cried out.
Honoré yanked the pike back, but the pain continued as m
y body shook. The cold air of the dark chamber felt like ice against my sweating skin. I could feel the sticky blood seeping into my corset. Every muscle trembled as I struggled to pull myself up. A cramp seized my leg, and I fell to one knee.
“Enough!” Boucher snapped at Honoré. “Take that cart and tend the firebox. Then bring the old man to me.”
I didn’t bother to look up as the hem of Boucher’s fine dress swung into my view. She reached out with a black-gloved hand and tipped my chin up. She gripped my jaw, forced me to look into her withered face and fierce cold eyes.
“You are as slippery as an eel. Get up.” She shoved my face to the side. I didn’t move. “I said, get up.”
I let all my hatred radiate outward until it felt like an aura of fire surrounding me. In it I found my strength. My entire body hurt, but I knew the cause of the pain, and so I could let it flow through me without succumbing to it. So long as I felt it, I knew I was alive. I rose.
“Dear me, whatever happened to your dress?” Boucher asked as she circled me.
“I improved it.” I couldn’t run. Honoré would catch me too quickly, and I couldn’t afford another gouge in my back.
Boucher clucked in disapproval. “Frankly, my dear, it’s an affront to decency.” Her voice bounced off the walls.
“It’s such a shame that we are at odds, you and I,” she said. “I would have loved to have a granddaughter like you—clever, resourceful, strong.”
“You have a granddaughter,” I said as she came back around to my front.
She slapped me hard. My ear rang, my teeth clattered, and my skin caught fire. I raised my head, lifting my posture until I could look down at the smaller woman.
She looked as if she could have been playing cards over tea. Not a strand of her snowy hair was out of place, while damp tendrils of mine clung to my forehead and touched my nose and eyes. “As I was saying, it’s a pity you hold such loyalty to your dear grandfather. A girl with such potential should have the guidance of someone worthy of her.” Boucher cocked her head to the side.
Shadow of the War Machine (The Secret Order) Page 23
