Of Steel and Steam

by Pauline Creeden et al.

  Hatter chewed the end of a fork, studying me. “A mad hatter and a blind tailor, white rose so red.”

  White rose, so fair!

  I thought about correcting his quote, like I’d corrected Tabby. But Hatter’s pensive gaze made me wonder if his misquote and muddled words were intentional.

  Hare wrestled a golden flask out from a teapot with hearts painted onto the metal. “There was once a girl with long hair like snow,” said Hare, in beat with a poem. “But yours is burnt with blood from long ago.”

  “Are you red, dear girl? Are you white?” Hatter whispered the words like a growl. “Will you hide from the game or will you fight?”

  All eyes settled on me, questions dancing in each pair.

  I looked to Night for an explanation. But he looked to be fighting off a laugh, and hid his smile behind a teacup.

  Unsure, I fiddled with my own teacup and guessed, “Fight?”

  It was the right answer.

  Cheers hooted from all around the table. Mouse swung the napkin above her head, Hare hopped on the spot, and even Dodo gave a small clap.

  Night set his teacup on the table and held my gaze. “What would you fight for?”

  I shrugged. “Whatever I need to fight for. My life, my village, a way home … Holly.”

  Stunned, I blinked that damned daze away. It had snuck over me again, like it had at truth-time, and peeled a secret from me.

  What use would fighting for Holly do me now? She was dead. She’d died long ago in the Hatterthon. I just had to make sure I didn’t meet the same end.

  “Tock-tick, tock-tick.” Hatter shoved a pocket watch in my face. “Time might stand still in my game, but the other players won’t.”

  My nose crinkled and I eyed the white smear over the clock’s face. “Is … is that margarine?”

  Hatter arched his brows and sniffed the white smear.

  I watched in horror as he licked it.

  “Oh, what do you know,” he said. “Margarine.” He pocketed the watch and tilted towards me. “I’ve been on a dairy-free diet. Milk products trick my bowels into thinking they are in a fierce tango competition.”

  I had no words. So, I just closed my mouth and nodded.

  Night scoffed. “You’ve been pouring milk into your teas since you woke, Hatter.”

  “Lactose-free, I’ll have you know.” Hatter waved him off, then filled my cup with more tea again.

  It was then that I wondered how many cups I’d had since Hatter had woken.

  Hatter ignored Night’s empty cup. “Now, tell me. Holly is a plant you fancy?”

  Before an answer could leave me, Hare spat out his honey-brew and shouted, “Where is your hat, you undressed tart!”

  My outraged eyes turned on Hare. Night swerved his glare at him too.

  But Hare prodded the thick crust of a buckle-berry tart in front of him—a tart that didn’t have a hat.

  My outrage caved to a scoff. “I didn’t know a hatless tart was offensive.”

  Hare scrambled onto the table with a canary-yellow bonnet and slammed it down on the tart.

  I didn’t shield myself in time.

  Blood orange goo splattered all over me.

  Night had ducked before any could reach his face. Still, tart-filling dripped down his sleeve.

  Hatter wore the remains of the desert proudly.

  “Well, this is the strangest tea party I’ve ever been to,” I said, wiping at my now-orange hair. I spat out a chunk of pulp, then used a napkin to clean my face. “I’m sure anyone would agree.”

  Hatter lunged over the corner of the table and clutched my slimy hands. “And a hat? Would you agree to a hat?”

  I tried to pry his fingers off of me. “Hats don’t suit me much. It’s hard to wear one with glasses on. They always knock each other around.”

  All excuses went ignored.

  Hatter dove under the table, rummaged through something that sounded clunky, then popped up with an armful of headwear.

  He slammed a red cloche down on my sticky hair. Hare ran over the table to help, sending cups and saucers zipping through the air.

  Night shook his head ever so slightly in what I thought was a silent apology. I fast realised he was giving his opinion on the cloche.

  Hatter hit the hat off of my head. “Red is not your colour!”

  “Nonsense,” I said stiffly. “I wear red all the time. It’s one of my favourite colours.”

  “What’s nonsense without a little sense?” he said.

  Hatter tried a blue beanie on my head. Just as quickly as before, he hit it off, then dropped all the hats onto the table.

  “This might take some time.” His eyes glittered as he bit back a smile. “But we have all the time in Spades!”

  Chapter 19

  Marybelle always said that I wouldn’t know manners if I choked on them. She always hated to take me into the Square when I was a child.

  According to my mum, I would burp in public and play in the mud. But Holly would curtsey and remember everybody’s name.

  So Marybelle would parade Holly around in all her pretty pink dresses and talk to anyone who would listen about how fine a young girl she was, and an even lovelier woman to be.

  At the tea party, I was thrust into the spotlight. A model, a star in the night, the guest everyone wanted to talk to.

  One by one, we paraded down the table, wearing the most ridiculous of the hats.

  Fastened to the seams of my ivory hat were dried, wilted roses. The rim was so wide that it flopped down past my shoulders.

  Egged on by the hoots from the tea-goers, I tugged down the floppy rim and walked the table as though it was a stage.

  Night, alongside Hatter, wore a grin and applauded as I spun around and posed.

  Night’s hat was the most ridiculous of the bunch.

  I laughed so hard I almost slid off my seat. He wore a fascinator with a stuffed pigeon perched on top. Though, I later learned that the pigeon was very much alive and had perched itself there for a nap.

  Sometime after the parade, Hare had passed out on Dodo’s notebook after he’d tried to sneak a peek at what was written. He couldn’t handle his honey-dew.

  When my eyelids began to droop and speech began to slur, I suspected Hare had spiked all our teas.

  Much of the tea party after that was a blur.

  Small shards of memories scattered around my mind.

  Fragments of broken teacups, tattered hats, and a vague memory of Hatter claiming that the lavatory in the house was a work-in-progress, then myself peeing behind a tree.

  There had also been a liquorice-tea drinking contest, which Night had won, and at some point, I remembered a food fight with jams and creams and spices.

  It all went dark after that, and I fell down a well of dreams and horror.

  Nightmares and Ruins.

  I was kneeling among broken stones and debris.

  Ash flittered past me in flakes, carried on the cold sea breeze. All around me, smoke snaked up from fires still burning.

  I was in the middle of a graveyard. My graveyard, I realised.

  A cry choked in my throat.

  I knew where I was, where my dreams took me. The ruins of Crooked Grove.

  Dazed, I watched the fires burn. Spreading like disease and plague. Orange flames licked down the rocky shore and swallowed the sea. Dust clouded over the high hills where my cottage suffocated in death.

  The sob broke free, and I let out a raging scream.

  Frantic energy rushed through me and I tore at the rubble.

  I shredded stone and lumps of charred wood away from me, searching for someone—anyone. But with every rock I moved, another sprouted in its place.

  I dug until my fingers bled and my arms ached. I only stopped when, out of nowhere, a firm grip yanked me to my feet.

  I found myself staring at moonlight skin and twilight eyes.

  Night stood before me, hands tight on my shoulders. The heavy pull of his stare enveloped me.
>
  My cries softened to shivered breaths, as though he lulled my pain to sleep.

  “Stop,” he said softly. But beneath the hush of his voice was a command that struck through me. “There’s no use, Shoshanna. Your old life is gone.”

  “It’s all I have,” I whispered. “It can’t be gone.”

  Night lifted his slender, ungloved hand to my face and wiped away a stream of tears. A shiver seized my spine.

  I took a deep, steadying breath and landed my gaze on him.

  Night looked at me with such intensity that the breath was strangled in my chest.

  “You’re strong,” he told me, finger dragging along my jawline. “You will rebuild, and it will be something greater than you’ve ever known.”

  I hung in that place between soul-destroying sobs and suffocating peace, where a senseless calm swept over me. Dream or not, the rock I rested on was Night.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  Night dropped his gaze to my lips, then dragged his fingertip over the damp skin. “Because you want me here.”

  Did I?

  Drifting in that cold calm, I couldn’t dig for the answer. So I let him pull me closer until our bodies melded, and my head tilted back to align our faces.

  My voice was hoarse, broken by the sobs that were banished by his presence; “Why?”

  If Night had an answer, he didn’t share it with words. He brought his lips to mine and brushed his warm breath over me.

  The moment our lips touched and sent tingles through my numb body, I knew why I wanted him there, why I summoned him into my dream.

  In a time that I felt nothing, Night made me feel something.

  When he drew back, I let myself look into his eyes. Hunger burned back at me in those flickering purple hues.

  I could have asked him again why he was here. But scraping through the inner workings of my mind didn’t seem worth it in the face of him—a face so striking that the flutter of my stomach reached up to my chest.

  In all the horror and destruction around me, I only saw him. I stood with him, his fingertips dancing down to the waist of my skirt, and I felt every nerve in my body strike back against the numbness.

  I didn’t care how, but he made me feel, and that was something I had a desperate urge to cling to.

  Setting my skin alight, Night pushed up the hem of my blouse, fingertips grazing my pebbled skin.

  My breath caught as he yanked me against him, a sudden ferocity in his dark eyes. All hesitation was snuffed out of me with that one, starved look, and my entire resolve came crashing down around me.

  My hand found a fistful of his hair. I slammed my lips against his. A shudder set me alight as he tore down the front of my blouse with a single tug.

  The agony in my heart threatened to drown me, drag me down into the abyss. I found air in him. And I consumed it.

  I grabbed at him, any place I could get my hands on.

  Night pulled a gasp from me as he nipped my bottom lip, a dangerous spark glittering his eyes. But he bit again, hard enough to draw blood.

  I staggered back, out of his hold.

  Barely covering my breasts, my blouse hung open at the front, heaving with my rocky breaths.

  Night grinned something cruel. Blood stained his teeth.

  My blood.

  Night made to grab me, the hunger in his eyes turning dark. I leapt back, but I wasn’t quick enough.

  His hands locked onto my shoulders and rattled me.

  “Wake up,” he whispered, and shook me again. “Shoshanna, wake up.”

  Everything ebbed away, blackness eating into destruction—

  Until there was nothing left.

  Thank you for reading HEARTS

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  Book 2, SPADES, is available now.

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  Cog

  Pauline Creeden

  Cog © 2020 Pauline Creeden

  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, recording, 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.

  Cog

  "Excuse me, marm," a young boy not much older than my brother said, as he ran into me, yanked the shopping bag from my hand and ran.

  "Hey!" I yelled and rushed forward after him. But he was faster than me, and as I tried to round the corner in my hard-soled boots, I slipped and fell to my rear on the cobblestone walkway in the wet snow. "Someone, help! Thief!"

  A few passersby peered our direction, but not one person lifted a finger to help me or stop the boy who was running away with the Christmas present I'd purchased for my mother.

  I wanted to curse. I wanted to yell and scream obscenities and disregard any lady-like behavior. But my nine-year-old brother caught up with me and reached down to me. "Jenna, are you alright? Did you get hurt?"

  Tears stung the backs of my eyes. We'd spent all afternoon finding just the right gift, and now it was gone. I accepted my brother's hand, and he helped pull me to my feet. "Edward, did you see him? Did you see which way he went?"

  A whistle blew, and a Bobbie came running up with his nightstick. "What seems to be the problem here?"

  "A young man just stole our bag. He's run off..." I looked the direction he'd gone, but wasn't sure which way to point, since I’d lost him when I fell.

  "He went that way, sir. Wearing a green cap, brown jacket with elbow patches, and knee trousers. Our bag is red with gold lettering for the Smith's Shop," Edward finished, pointing in the direction the boy had gone.

  "Right, I'll see what I can do. You two wait here." And then the Bobbie ran off after the young man in the mushed, half-melted snow.

  We stood in front of the bakery, slipping under the canopy out front as snow flurries began to fall around us. The lamplighter reached the lamp on the road in front of us, just as night began to fall. The heavenly aroma of fresh bread met our noses each time a patron opened the door of the establishment.

  "I'm hungry," said Edward.

  I peered down at my nine-year-old brother as he pulled his cap a bit further on his head. Then I reached into my jacket pocket for my billfold, only to find it missing. "No."

  My heart sank as I remembered placing my billfold into the shopping bag after paying at the store. "Please, no."

  I patted all of my pockets, looking for it, but they were annoyingly flat.

  "What's wrong?" Edward asked, his hazel eyes looking up at me with worry.

  I bit my bottom lip for a moment, trying to figure out some solution for this. "Hopefully that Bobbie will catch the thief. It appears he has my billfold as well."

  Edward blinked. "Nothing to do about that then but wait. I'm sure the Bobbie will capture him."

  I frowned, blinking back tears.

  "Everything happens for a reason," Edward reminded me. They were words often said by my mother. But right now, I had a hard time believing anything good could come out of this situation.

  The bakery's door opened again, and a man in a three-piece, brown suit strode out and bumped into Edward. I caught my brother just before he fell forward and pulled him closer to me so that we huddled together. The man looked at us with disdain. "Loiterers. There's nothing for y
ou here. Move along. Find somewhere else to beg. It's enough to make one lose his appetite."

  My mouth dropped open, and I may have made a croaking sound. But the man harrumphed toward us, straightened his suit and continued away. Did we look like homeless orphans? I looked down at my brother, who'd spent most of the day running around a head of me in the snow. His cap was lopsided on his head and his hair was disheveled, but he wasn't dirty or smelly. Then I caught a glimpse of myself in the window as the bakery's lights went out. I was a mess. My hair had been tussled when I chased the thief, and my clothes were a wet mess from the fall I’d taken. No wonder the man had been so impolite.

  "He dropped something," Edward said, lifting a small bag from the ground where the man had bumped into him.

  I looked around, but I didn't see where the man went or in which direction. "Did you see where he went?"

  Edward shook his head. "No"

  He shook the bag. "Feels like coins, almost... maybe cogs."

  I took the pouch and felt it. The linen bag felt had the weight of a purse full of coins, but each coin seemed to have edges that poked toward my hand. When I pulled out one of the coin-like objects, each one had teeth that surrounded the outer edge while the center of each coppor object had a hole. "I think you're right, looks like cogs."

  "Really?" he asked. "There are more than twenty of them in there of different shapes and sizes.

  I laughed. Edward treated the bag as though it was treasure filled with gold coins. The wind picked up and a chill made me shiver and wrap my arms around myself. It was getting late and if we didn't hurry, we'd miss the last train. "I think we should try to find the Bobbie. See if maybe he caught the thief."

  Edward nodded and reached for my hand. All day long, he'd run ahead of me and gotten into as much mischief as possible. At nine years old, he hadn't held my hand in at least three years, it seemed. But when he reached for it just now, I took it and gave it a reassuring squeeze. Then we started in the direction the thief and the Bobbie had gone.