Of Steel and Steam

by Pauline Creeden et al.

  She loved when her husband got excited about scientific theory. His smile widened and she grinned back, his enthusiasm contagious. “I think I could think of something suitable.”

  He laid his hand on her arm. “Good.” He tucked the crystal into his bag. “Did your salon go well? The Dean has spoken very highly of it. He says his wife appreciates your starting them.”

  “I am. I think if we could arrange to have dinner with Dorthea Overhill and her husband that would be good. Her way of explaining math to some of the wives, talking about how we use algebra when making household budgets…” Her voice faded because surely her husband wouldn’t want to hear about such things.

  “I’ve been meaning to do so. I’ll see about getting an invite.” He offered her an arm.

  She accepted. “Shall we go home, Mr. Calshire?”

  “Of course, Mrs. Calshire.” And then they giggled like the newlyweds they were.

  Chapter 11

  Hattie sat next to the crystal in their sitting room at home at the appointed time. Leo told her to simply be open and ready to receive a message, but not to apply any magic or coercion to the crystal. His goal was to see if the message went through. Of course, if it didn’t, she had no way, other than traveling to the college and telling him that it wouldn’t. But if he were doing this with students, then she suspected he’d been testing it for a while. They’d been talking about and tinkering with the theories.

  The crystal buzzed.

  Hattie stared at it, curious to find out what form the message would take. A wire ran from the crystal to a familiar Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph system. She missed hers from St. Louis, but this model clearly was well used, the keys worn from touch. A moment later the telegraph began to key the words.

  We would like to have you teach the class. You would be nicer than Professor Calshire.

  Hattie laughed. That sounded like a message that mischievous students would send. No doubt Leo stood there watching them send it, a smirk on his face.

  She waited for another message and when none arrived, she thought for a moment about what to send.

  Maybe someday women will be allowed to teach at that level. Until then, listen to Professor Calshire.

  She sent the message back, elation filling her. After all of her work, she was able to send a message without wires nearly all the way across London. She’d done it. Maybe it wasn’t the Atlantic, though her experience in reaching out to Leo during the fire showed that it could be done, but it was sending messages without wires longer than across a lecture hall. A new way of communicating, one known only to the Musimagium.

  Another message arrived.

  Thank you, Mrs. Calshire. We are pleased to report a successful experiment.

  Hattie couldn’t wipe the exuberant grin from her face. You’re welcome. She waited at the crystal for another quarter hour, but when no other messages came through, went down to ensure everything was ready for her husband’s return home. The post had come, and she was happy to see a letter from Alva. The woman had settled in nicely with her relatives and told stories about grandbabies and great-grandbabies. Things that Hattie wondered if she’d ever experience and then decided not to worry about it. Whether she and Leo had any children would be matter to discuss later. Right now both of them were too interested in their studies, and growing a family would only take time away from that.

  She spent the time until Leo came home thinking about the communication. There had to be a way to ensure it was more widely used. Getting a crystal to every magical home might seem like an audacious goal, but perhaps if a smaller crystal could be used, something that could be put inside a tea box, perhaps. Then, that may be something economical enough that either the Musimagium would think about providing to all magical families or that they could afford.

  She went to the room she used as a study and began sketching out an idea, along with notes. Leo found her huddled over the desk when he came home. He laid his hands on her shoulders and peered over them at the desk. “What are you working on? A smaller version of our device?”

  “Yes. If we can work with smaller crystals, perhaps get the size down to a snuff tin or tea box, then perhaps the Musimagium would think about providing them to everyone.”

  “And the telegraph machine? That would be a stretch to put one in every household, not to mention teaching them about using it.” Leo pointed out something on her design.

  She quickly sketched an ear trumpet on the outside of the box. “What about adding this. So instead of passing through telegraph signals, we’re actually speaking to one another. What do you think?”

  “It’d be a fun experiment for my students and would take us back to what we were working toward before. That’s how Melody’s system of communicating between buildings worked. We should be able to try.” He pulled up a chair and luckily dinner was remaining warm on the stove because they spent the time discussing how to make this communications device even more practical and something that every household could use.

  Three weeks later Hattie sat next to a smaller biscuit tin with an ear trumpet poking out of it. Leo had decided there might be an outcry if women spoke into tobacco boxes and some may find the smell offensive. She’d laughed at him, though secretly she’d agreed. The crystal inside hummed with magic. It’d taken this long to refine the design, not just to make it somewhat aesthetically appealing, but also to make it be something that could easily be replicated. Leo had sent his students back to their dorms with strict instructions, and soon, the monitors were complaining about hidden messages and voices coming out of nowhere. No quicker way to find innovation then see if some students could create a tool for pranks.

  Their hard work paid off.

  The crystal buzzed just as before.

  “I am talking to a cigar box.” A student’s voice—she couldn’t remember his name—emerged from the ear trumpet. A bit distorted by the distance and the method of communication, but clear.

  “Funny, I heard you from a biscuit tin. My favorite brand.”

  Much to her delight, the chorus of laughter that her words caused echoed through the line and she heard them clearly.

  “I am glad to amuse you,” she said, and the laughter quieted down as the students realized they were still being heard.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Calshire, for another wonderful experiment.” Something clicked and the magic in the crystal dropped to a near imperceptible level. Hattie stared at it, realizing that she’d done it. She’d made her communications method and she couldn’t doubt that sometime soon, she and her husband would be able to convince the Musimagium to encourage the use of this technology.

  She’d recently heard a new word. “Radio Arcanum. That has such a nice ring to it.” She stood, smoothed her skirts, and went to her study to write a note to Melody. They needed to know about her invention and how it best could be used.

  About the Author

  Mary Kit Caelsto never grew out of the phase of being a "horse crazy girl" and horses were her gateway to fantasy through Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar Books. Though she's now over 40, she's finally fulfilling her dream of writing equestrian books for others who haven't grown out of being "horse crazy" along with fantasy for those who love sassy animal companions. She lives in the Ozarks with her bearded dragons, her parrot, an emotional support miniature rooster and SuperDuck, plus four very spoiled and very opinionated horses, a large flock of poultry and enough cats to qualify her as a crazy cat lady.

  Visit her website at https://www.marykitcaelsto.com to learn more about her fantasy worlds, her horses and animals, and sign up for her newsletter to receive free stories, sneak peeks, and more.

  Hearts ~ The Glass Queendom #1

  Klarissa King

  Hearts ~ The Glass Queendom #1 © 2020 Klarissa King

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, reco
rding, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  The Black Woods

  One day, an island lifted up from the unforgiving Black Sea, born from the darkness of the world.

  Dark sand fringed the island and caged in the shadowy woods that grew there.

  Its soil was wet and black like the earth’s oil, the trees bloated with sap darker than tar, and the air was punched with the rotten stench of disease.

  In the middle of the woods, there brewed an endless pit.

  From the bubbling swamp of black sludge, a naked woman clawed her way into existence. Her skin, paler than moonlight, and hair, whiter than bone.

  Born of the darkness, she was the first of her kind. The First Witch. Mother of magic.

  And the end of the world as it was known.

  Chapter 1

  Since I was an apprentice blacksmith, I’d never seen the mud-sloped streets of Crooked Grove wear so many boot-prints. And I had two problems with that.

  One—the swarm of newcomers meant the annual auditions for the Tournament of Hearts had come to my damp village. A village intended to be left alone by the rest of the country, forgotten until gone from the cliff it barely clung to.

  Two—my little sea-side slum was peaceful no more, and it waged a war within me. The bustling mob that overran our village tempted me.

  Standing behind my wooden stall, I watched them move through our usually quiet lanes. Longing twisted my insides. My stomach might as well have turned into a bubbling cauldron of bile.

  The auditions for the tournament had come to our forgotten little nook of Hearts. Something I never planned for, and now I was left battling my own lust for the brutal competition of bloody fights and even bloodier ends. All for the chance to become a Queen’s Knave.

  If anyone dared leave Crooked Grove, the tournament was the road to take. One of the only two roads that led out of the damp, cold village.

  Maybe I was one of those dreamers.

  But I wasn’t much of a darer, so I watched those who did dare swarm my village. They came from other towns and villages, and now scrambled up the hills of my own. Staining our soil with their excitement.

  Crooked Grove was no place for happiness.

  The travellers climbed up to the cliff’s edge to look out at the choppy sea, lounged around the Square’s crumbling fountain, and lined up for rooms at the mouldy tavern.

  Dreamers and darers. We all wanted the same futures but not all of us had the freedom to chase those roads. I didn’t.

  Not since Holly.

  With a sigh, I turned my back on dreams never to become.

  As I peeled off my glasses, the little workshop I carted with me to the Square suddenly warped into a blur, and even as I inched closer with my safety goggles on, I had to hold out my hands to make sure I didn’t bump anything sharp—like my extensive collection of daggers and swords that I was still working on.

  This was my haven, my safe place that snatched me away from the hollow spot in my chest and instead, dropped me into a peaceful nothingness. Thoughts didn’t haunt me while I worked. I just … existed.

  The sun started its fall into the horizon by the time I finished the blades of three knives. I drew my foot back from the wheel’s pedal and traded my goggles for my real glasses, but not before a man swung himself over the stall and almost impaled himself on my fistful of knives.

  “Damnit, Rose!”

  I peered through the clarity of my glasses to see my blasted brother stumble back, the tips of the blades hissing over his waistcoat.

  “Watch where you point those things!” he shrilled.

  I rolled my eyes and tossed the hot blades into the pail of water beside him. “I barely grazed you. And you know better than to sneak up on a blacksmith.”

  Lock patted down his untouched, smooth waistcoat and muttered under his breath. “You know better than to ruin a perfectly good ensemble.”

  I gave him a once-over, my gaze lingering over his rough mop of copper hair, the angular slant of his jaw, and the misbuttoned waistcoat he clung so dearly to.

  He’d been rolling with a girl. It was all over his crumpled clothes, and now that I looked that bit harder at the smear of rouge on his olive-skin, it seemed bloodier than a red moon.

  “Who was it this time?” I shoved my way by him and tidied the merchandise on the stall. “I want to know who was foolish enough to think your pretty face better than it is.”

  Lock gave me a lopsided grin and swept up behind me. “You think I’m pretty?”

  A hard elbow to the gut wiped the grin off his face and warned him away from me.

  “You’re a right grouch today,” he said, rubbing his tummy. “What’s got your skirt in a tangle?”

  “Nothing.” The mumble of my words did little to convince either of us, so I slapped on my most Lock-like smile. “I only wanted to know how you manage your days with such a refined beauty. Then I realised, it’s not your beauty that challenges you. It’s that enlarged head of yours. How do you fit through a doorway with a head the size of a baker’s backside?”

  The tease unwound whatever concern he had. Lock perched himself on the worktop and fished out a pair of apples from his brown satchel. “It helps to use bigger doorways, or avoid them altogether. Wide windows are preferable.”

  He tossed an apple my way. I swiped it out of the air without a blink. All those years of swordplay with Lock gave me a perfect swing. My dad once boasted that I had the swing of a Knight. Not a lowly Knave. A Knight.

  A proud smile took my lips; I masked it by shoving the apple between my teeth and leaning back against the anvil.

  I bit into the apple and looked around the Square.

  My gaze rinsed over the cobble-stone streets swarming with people from all over the nearest towns and roads, humming with the annual excitement that swept over Hearts.

  At every crooked shop and home, crowds swarmed the doors and bounced between the slanted buildings, searching for some soggy room to spend the night in.

  Lock rolled the apple between his brown, slender fingers, eyes thoughtful. “How many of them will sleep on the sand, do you think?”

  With all the weight of the newcomers, the sloped houses and taverns seemed to sink even closer to the ground than before.

  Some years ago, the tavern and apothecary had already sunk inwards, looking more like deflated cakes than the crooked trees that zigzagged around the village. Others leaned against their neighbouring houses for support, as though it would somehow stop the wet soil from dragging them down into the muddy bogs we lived on.

  Sometimes, the buildings wobbled or one would collapse. I was six years old when I first dreamt of the whole village falling into rubble. Since then, I called it the ‘Great Collapse’, and Lock would add, ‘Yet to Come’. My fears vanished each time I packed up the stall and returned home come sundown.

  “At least a hundred,” I said, thinking of how cold the sand would be for a bed. The crabs and sharp rocks would be the least of their worries, what with the violent tide due to hit the cliff-side shortly. “There’s too many of them, and too few rooms here. We should’ve had some notice at least. Mum would have set up the barn and made a few sly shillings on the side.”

  I tossed the browned half-eaten apple to the rug behind my workshop. Ark, my family’s steed, stretched out on the rug and soon as the apple touched down near him, his massive tongue snatched it into his mouth the way a frog would snatch up a pa
ssing fly.

  Ark chomped it down in two short chews.

  Lock shot a sour look at me, not unlike the face he made when he would drink too much karvka—a cheap lemon-laced liquor.

  I shot him a smarmy look and wiped my hands on my apron. He and Ark couldn’t stand each other.

  Somehow, I suspected Lock was to blame for their fraught relationship. He probably suggested we eat him before his meat passes the right tenderness.

  Two Knaves marched by.

  The steady thumps of their boots on this trail’s harder soil sounded like the beat of drums to my ears, but I tried to push all thoughts of that from my mind. They didn’t look at any of the stalls on their way to the tavern up the Square.

  Those damned Knaves would plunge the mean old tavern hag into riches, and scare off anyone from loitering too long around the Square. They were stealing my business.

  At the thought, my fingers twitched as if to reach for my favoured dagger. Instead, I unhooked my work-apron from around my neck and let it fall onto the rusty anvil.

  “I’m sick of the Knaves already,” I grumbled. “Since they got here, I’ve had one customer and he only bought a horseshoe. What were they thinking bringing the auditions here?”

  Lock flashed a crooked grin. “Heavens, Rose. Careful what you say. You wouldn’t want people thinking you don’t worship everything about her majesty, would you?”

  Turning my back on him, I bunched my curls up into a sagged bun somewhere at the back of my head, then ran my rough hands over my face.

  A stray piece of straw-blond hair tangled around my finger but I whacked it back, out of the way. I had half a mind and enough frustration to chop my hair off.