Heart of Steel

by Meljean Brook

  “The Iron Duke.”

  Archimedes laughed. Almost ten years ago, when the Iron Duke had only been known as the pirate captain Rhys Trahaearn and Archimedes had still been smuggling weapons as Wolfram Gunther-Baptiste, he’d provided Trahaearn with enough explosives to destroy the Horde’s controlling tower in London. After Archimedes delivered the bombs to Marco’s Terror, however, Trahaearn hadn’t trusted him enough to sail with them—and into the ocean he’d gone.

  “He threw me over the side of his ship, too.”

  “Yet you aren’t destined to court him?”

  He flattened his hand over his heart, fluttered his lashes. “Alas, the sight of his face does not make me catch my breath.”

  “And Scarsdale?”

  “Your lover?” Or friend. During the journey to Venice they’d all shared dinner in her cabin, and Archimedes hadn’t been able to determine exactly what the relationship between the mercenary captain and the Earl of Scarsdale was. But whatever the nature of it, Scarsdale posed no threat. The man was terrified of heights, and Captain Corsair would never abandon her airship.

  “Yes.” She turned to the bureau and began sheathing knives, tucking away pistols. “You get along well with him.”

  “But do I trust him to hold the sketch? He might use it to tempt you into running away with him and making you his countess.”

  She snorted, a half-laugh that emerged on a puff of smoke.

  That response was good enough for Archimedes. “But suppose I did trust them. What would you propose?”

  “Take the cash I have aboard my lady. If that isn’t enough, I’ll withdraw the money I keep in trust for the aviators’ families. You pay off your debt, and we sell the sketch at our leisure . . . each receiving fifty percent.”

  A fine proposal, but with one flaw. “You have ten thousand livre?”

  Her ragged gasp cut off mid-inhalation. She choked, coughing on smoke and astonishment. She pounded her fist against her chest, stared at him with wide, watering eyes.

  “Ten thousand?”

  “Yes.”

  “By the lady’s shining teeth,” she breathed. “Little wonder you changed your name. Altogether, I only have a fifth of that.”

  A significant fortune by any standard, but still not enough. Archimedes stood and stomped his feet more snugly into the tall leather boots, ignoring the shouted curse from the room below.

  “We need to be aboard your airship before the hour is up,” he reminded her.

  He half-expected her to kill him now, but she only shook her head, muttered “Ten thousand,” and started for the door. On the stairs, she tied the kerchief over her hair, but waited until they were outside before speaking again.

  “How the hell did you stack up ten thousand in debt?”

  “I lost a shipment.”

  “One shipment worth that?”

  “Yes.” He tossed the stub of his cigarillo into the water sloshing against the dock. “My supplier was unhappy.”

  “If you’d lost ten thousand of mine, I’d have killed you for it, too.”

  But she wouldn’t kill him for a sketch worth more? He didn’t ask, though. No need to encourage her. “Zenobia told me what you did to Mattson. Thank you for that.”

  “You can thank me with fifty percent.” She arched her brow at him when he laughed. “No? Don’t give me your gratitude, then. It was never for her. Mattson tried to cheat me with an actress. Did he believe I’d be so stupid and not see through it?”

  “The actress tried to cheat you, too. She’s still alive.”

  “And she was as much of a threat to me as you are: none. Unless, of course, you manage to make a fool of me. She didn’t.”

  But he had. Archimedes fought the sinking sensation in his gut. “How many men have ever managed to make a fool of you?”

  She offered her hard-edged smile and glanced down at the bracelet. “The better question is: How many are still alive?”

  “One,” he guessed.

  “And if you’d like to keep it that way, Mr. Fox, make certain not to do it again.” She smoothed her woolen cuff down her wrist, hiding the bracelet. “If you even suggest to my crew that you’ve threatened your way aboard my lady, I’ll rip out your spine.”

  He could see she meant it. God. “That’s unbearably arousing.”

  She swept a considering look the length of his body, pausing once. Her gaze lifted to his again. “Your purse is bulging, Mr. Fox. Tuck it away before you board.”

  There wasn’t any room in his breeches to tuck it, but a walk to the end of the docks and the breeze carrying the harbor’s stench into his face did the trick. Yasmeen stopped beside Lady Corsair’s steel tethering cable and gave it three hard strikes with the flat of a blade. Above, a woman’s head popped over the side, her pale blond hair washed in gold by the light of the deck lanterns. Ms. Pegg, Archimedes remembered from the journey to Venice. After the captain had taken her knife from his throat and allowed him on board, Pegg had shown him to his cabin, shaking her head all the way as if he’d been headed to the gallows rather than a finely appointed stateroom.

  Silently, Yasmeen held up her fist. Pegg nodded and disappeared. A loud clank sounded. A moment later, the cargo platform unfolded from the side of the wooden ship and lowered on rattling chains. When it reached a few feet above the docks, the captain leapt to the metal platform and struck one of the chains. It jolted to a halt, and Archimedes climbed up before it reversed direction. She looked him over, cool amusement settling into her expression.

  Ah. So his presence would be played as a joke in front of her crew. That suited Archimedes. If no one took him seriously, no one would consider him a threat—and they’d ask fewer questions when he left.

  The platform rose, and the loud continuous clink of the chains being winched into the windlass prevented any further conversation until the platform clanged into place against the rail.

  Yasmeen hopped to the deck. “Thank you, Ms. Pegg.”

  Pegg’s hand remained frozen on the windlass’s lever, her eyes wide and fixed on Archimedes’ face. After a sharp look from the captain, the aviator managed to stammer a reply. Yasmeen nodded briskly and started for the quarterdeck. Archimedes followed, aware of the nudges and whispers moving from aviator to aviator, the surprise and the disbelief. Several crossed themselves—they must have been Castilian, Lusitanian, or hedging their bets.

  And amusement was exactly the right way to play his return from the dead, Archimedes realized. It was as if the captain had never expected any other outcome after she’d thrown him from the ship.

  Rousseau waited amidships, near the ladder that led to the lower decks. The quartermaster had been with Lady Corsair since the war, but whether he’d fought for the French or Liberé, Archimedes hadn’t been able to guess. Aside from the lift of impressive black brows, the man didn’t comment on his miraculous reappearance.

  Formally, he stepped to the side as Yasmeen approached, deferring to her lead. “Your ship, Captain,” he said.

  “Thank you, Mr. Rousseau.” She crushed out her cigarillo. “You remember Mr. Fox, of course, and how our last meeting concluded with me dropping him into a canal to see whether he could swim.”

  The quartermaster’s mouth twitched. “Yes, Captain.”

  “It turns out that he can. So I’ve lost that bet, and now I’ll feature in his newest adventure.”

  “As a villain, of course,” Archimedes said. No need to tarnish her reputation.

  “Of course, sir.” Rousseau looked him over. “How far did you have to swim?”

  “Only to the door I’d been using as a raft. From there, I rowed to sea.”

  Rousseau nodded. “A boat picked you up?”

  “Yes.” And a boat in the Adriatic meant either smugglers or Horde fishermen. “But if I tell you about it now, you won’t have reason to buy copies of the serial adventure.”

  The amusement in Yasmeen’s eyes warmed to something genuine. She continued on to the ladder. “Mr. Rousseau, please
inform Ginger that I’ll be in my cabin. I won’t need dinner, but she can bring mine for Mr. Fox.”

  “Right away, Captain.” Rousseau turned toward the bank of copper pipes that ran throughout the ship and allowed the aviators to communicate between decks.

  Archimedes followed Yasmeen down the ladder and into a dimly lit passageway. Ropes and gliders hung from bulkheads. At the end of the corridor, the captain’s quarters occupied almost a full third of the deck, with the passenger cabins directly below. Narrow doors along the passageway led to locked storerooms and berths for the senior crew members.

  A sturdy, dark-haired girl of twelve or thirteen in a cobalt tunic and loose trousers emerged from a small cabin near the entrance to the captain’s quarters. Archimedes had a glimpse of bunks filled with two more girls before she slid the door closed. The girl turned to the side to let them pass, standing tall with her shoulders pressed against the wooden bulkhead.

  “Only one dinner, Captain?”

  “Yes, Ginger.” She hauled off her long coat and handed it over to the girl. “Tea for me.”

  As soon as they were past, the girl took off at a run, her bare feet slapping the boards. Though Archimedes wasn’t hungry, he wouldn’t refuse food from Lady Corsair’s galley. Fragrant and delicious, the dinner he’d taken here had rivaled any other meal that he’d ever eaten. The same couldn’t be said of the fare on many airships.

  Still, he had to wonder about the offer. “Should I check for poison?”

  “I can fit my fist between your stomach and the buckles of your waistcoat, Mr. Fox. How long were you at sea?”

  Long enough. The whole ordeal had stripped every pound of extra weight from his body and then some. But if his appearance made her imagine putting her hands under his clothes, it was worth the hunger he’d suffered. “As I’m still alive, it obviously wasn’t too long.”

  “And what sort of boat rescued you?” She glanced back at him. “As you are still alive, it obviously wasn’t a smuggler’s.”

  “No, but I’ll ask Zenobia to tell it that way.”

  “And what would be the true route?”

  “A fisherman’s boat to Pflaum. From there, I decided between walking north along the top of the Hapsburg Wall, or taking a grain barge to Cairo.”

  “Zombies or a city full of Horde soldiers,” she said. “What did you choose?”

  “In summer, I’d have chosen the wall. Winter, the only choice is Cairo.” Where there hadn’t been nearly as many soldiers as he’d expected; they’d been replaced by rumors—the most popular that they’d been ordered east to defend the heart of the empire. “From there, I boarded an airship to the Ivory Market, and then a ship to Port Fallow.”

  “All without your purse?”

  “I stowed away and stole what I needed to. And I still had my guns.”

  “You threatened your way aboard? That didn’t work so well the last time.”

  Archimedes disagreed. She’d thrown him overboard but he’d ended up on her lady again, so it had worked perfectly well. He didn’t mind taking a roundabout way. “I traded the guns. Horde rebels are always looking for weapons.”

  “That they are, though the rebels are also difficult to find.” Yasmeen lifted her cabin’s door latch and led the way inside. “Interesting that you knew where to look for them.”

  He bowed before stepping through the entrance. “I have many talents, Captain.”

  With a roll of her eyes, she shook her head and crossed her quarters toward the writing desk bolted to the starboard bulkhead. He watched the pull of her tight breeches across her luscious bottom before glancing around her quarters—the same quarters his father had once occupied. Gone were the shelves of leather-bound books, the unforgivably firm bunk, the straight-backed chairs, and the solemn table as simply made as the sparse fare that had topped it. Emmerich Gunther-Baptiste had been a lean, hard man, and his cabin had been the same.

  Though also lean and hard, Yasmeen had filled her quarters with softness and color. His boots sank into thickly woven rugs. Bright silk cushions surrounded a low mahogany table; carved grapevines and leaves created an intricate pattern in the wood. In the recessed berth, red curtains formed a tent over her mattress, which appeared to be little more than an enormous pillow. The cabin’s two portholes had been enlarged to let in more light, and between them hung a large metal cage. Inside, two lovebirds flitted and chirped.

  Yasmeen sank to her heels beside the desk, where a steel strongbox squatted on wide feet—though not quite like any strongbox he’d seen before. Shaped like a fat egg standing on end, the smooth casing possessed no hinges, and he couldn’t determine the location of a lid or a door. Curious, he joined her.

  She didn’t attempt to conceal the movement of her fingers across its face. This close, he could see the thin seams joining the steel, but he still couldn’t make out the pattern of a door. She rotated one section clockwise. At the front of the strongbox, a steel panel the size of his palm lifted a few inches, parallel to the casing. Not much room. Archimedes had to lay his cheek against the strongbox to peer beneath the panel to see the twelve flat metal dials, each resembling the face of a clock, and each of them blank except for a faint, raised dot.

  “Based on the al-Jazari locks,” she said, sliding her hand under the panel. “But with improvements.”

  A combination lock, like the slave bracelet. “You can’t see the dials.”

  “No.” She grinned. “And neither can you.”

  No numbers to memorize, just the position of the dots—and she had to do it blind. “And if you mistake the sequence?”

  “Then I’ll need to ask my blacksmith to make me a new hand. But not this time.”

  She sat back. A series of hollow clangs sounded from deep within, like knocks from inside a tomb. The rounded top slowly unscrewed, widening the gap in the midline seam and revealing the six inches of steel that formed the housing. Christ. When closed, a firebomb could hit it and wouldn’t do any more damage than a few scratches and a smear of smoke.

  The top finished spinning. With another hollow thump, the belly of the strongbox opened like a drawbridge, pivoting on an interior steel rod. Coin bags were stacked neatly inside. She reached in, withdrew a leather portfolio cover, and held it out to him.

  “Your sketch, Mr. Fox.”

  She’d transferred the sketch from his protective satchel to this? Dear God. He hadn’t trusted the satchel to be watertight, but he also hadn’t exposed the paper to air and moisture again. Had it been damaged? Heart pounding, he untied the strings and lifted the cover. Two plates of tempered Rupert glass shielded the delicate paper, yellowed with age. Ink had faded to brown, but the elegant lines of the glider and the distinctive backward handwriting were unmistakably da Vinci’s.

  Or rather, an incredibly well-rendered copy of his work. He closed the portfolio. “Where’s the original?”

  She bristled. “The what?”

  “I don’t traipse through zombie-infested cities to be fooled by a fake, Captain.” He tossed the portfolio back into her strongbox. “You should sell that. Scholars will be clamoring for a look at the sketch, and a replica will be as close to it as most of them will ever get.”

  Her hand dropped to the knife at her thigh. “Mr. Fox—”

  “I wondered why you agreed to hand it over so easily. It’s a clever ruse. Had someone held a knife to your throat, you could have given them the fake and they wouldn’t have known the difference. I do.”

  Silence reigned for a moment. Even the lovebirds quieted, as if aware of the tension. Finally, Yasmeen relented and shook her head.

  “Very well.” Her smile held no apology as she rose to her feet. “You understand I had to try.”

  He’d have been disappointed if she hadn’t. A da Vinci sketch falling into the hands of someone unprepared to protect it would only end in tragedy.

  Ducking his head, he looked into the strongbox. “Is it hidden in here?”

  “Feel around inside and find out.”


  Even without the wicked edge of her voice to serve as a warning, he wouldn’t have. “Does it close on a timer, too?”

  “Yes.”

  Clever and useful—his favorite sort of device. Curious, he looked up at her. “What would you have done if I’d left with the forgery?”

  “Laughed. Then I’d have sold it for no less than fifteen thousand, and kept a portion.”

  Only a portion? Yet she said it so easily that he believed that had truly been her plan. “And what of the rest?”

  “I’d have given you your ten thousand.” Her cool smile appeared again in response to his surprise. “If I possess five thousand livre, Mr. Fox, then adding another ten thousand means nothing. It is like having two hundred puddings. It doesn’t matter if I give away half, because it’s impossible to eat the hundred that remain, anyway.”

  A scratch at the door prevented his reply. He stood as Ginger rushed in. She wound through the cushions scattered around the table and set down a covered tray. As she straightened, her gaze darted from the open strongbox to Yasmeen’s face.

  “Will there be anything else, Captain?”

  “No. I’m to be left alone until I call for you.” When the door closed behind the girl, Yasmeen glanced at him. “She’ll be upset when she hears that the forgery didn’t fool you. But if scholars will buy copies, she won’t be too disappointed.”

  “She created that?” Incredible. “Where did you find her?”

  “Oyapock.” She named the Liberé capital on the coast of the southern American continent. “But to hear the rest, you’ll have to buy the first Lady Lynx serial adventure.”

  Archimedes almost laughed, but the same instinct that often saved him from stumbling into a room full of zombies stopped the sound in his throat. If he’d taken the forgery, she’d claimed her response would have been laughter, too. But she wasn’t laughing. Instead, she regarded him with the same cool amusement that she’d used with her crew—the amusement that said everything was happening exactly as she’d anticipated. And it was, in one way: When he sold the sketch, she’d still be receiving a ridiculous fortune. Perhaps not five thousand, but even two thousand was the equivalent of having more puddings than could ever be eaten.