“I’ve been looking for another magician to study under. I didn’t want Master Antoine to win the competition.”
“I tampered with his illusions to draw suspicion. It was all me.”
What had he done? Carmer remembered realizing the Mechanist was actually industrial tycoon Titus Archer after overhearing a conversation between him and his apprentice, but after that, things were less clear. He remembered visiting Archer’s lab, Theian Foundry, and . . . being offered an apprenticeship of his own? It seemed impossible, but so did waking up in four inches of mud without knowing how he’d gotten there. But had he really accepted the Mechanist’s offer? Had he really left Kitty and the Amazifier in the lurch right at the moment when they needed him most? None of it made any sense, but trying to remember exactly what had happened was like running his mind into a brick wall. He just . . . didn’t remember.
Carmer needed to find Kitty and the Amazifier. He needed to make sure they were all right and apologize for his behavior. He didn’t know who or what could have persuaded him to actively sabotage the Amazifier’s act, but there was something very off about Titus Archer, and Carmer knew the rival magician was somehow involved in all this. With any luck, the Mechanist would be at the Orbicle preparing for the show as well, and they could clear up any misunderstandings.
He trudged through the marsh toward the circus camp, and it was nearly afternoon before he reached the Moto-Manse. People gave him odd looks as he walked through the camp, some of them openly hostile. He must look a fright, covered in mud, hands wrapped in filthy bandages, and generally looking like he’d spent the night in the swamp. Many of them had undoubtedly heard of his betrayal and weren’t bothering to disguise what they thought about it. He couldn’t blame them.
Carmer tramped up to the door of the Moto-Manse and knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again. Even if they were home, he couldn’t expect a warm welcome.
“It’s me,” Carmer called into the door. “Please let me in. Something’s happened. I . . . I need to talk to you.”
Still no response. Hopefully, Kitty and the Amazifier had already gone on to the Orbicle to prepare for the night’s performance, far away from whatever sorry business had led Carmer into the middle of a swamp in the dead of night. First, though, he needed a change of clothes. The doormen at the Orbicle wouldn’t let him within ten feet of the building looking like a vagabond and smelling like a bog.
Carmer reached up to check the cleanliness of his hat, for which he did not have high hopes, and was surprised when his hand met empty air. Somehow, he’d lost his favorite top hat during the night. He felt curiously sad at its absence. He’d had that hat since the Amazifier first made him an apprentice.
But he wasn’t the Amazifier’s apprentice anymore, thanks to circumstances he still couldn’t fully wrap his head around. Perhaps after a shower and a quick cup of tea, more of it might come back to him. He reached out to open the Moto-Manse’s door and turned the knob.
It wouldn’t open. They’d locked him out.
Carmer rested his head against the door. He’d never had a key to the Moto-Manse, because he’d never needed one. He was usually safely inside whenever the old magician locked it for the night. Now, he was an unwelcome outsider.
Unwelcome outsider or not, he needed clean pants. He scooted around to the back of the Moto-Manse and slipped under it—it hardly mattered whether he got dirt on himself now—and felt around just behind the boiler compartment until he found a latch. It squeaked as he pulled but eventually opened with a hole just big enough for a boy of his size. He slithered into the bowels of his former home and pushed up through a trapdoor into the engine room.
He tried very hard not to feel like everyone he knew had abandoned him, or like he had abandoned them, and didn’t quite succeed. A cup of tea was definitely in order.
In the cold stone shelter of Oldtown Arboretum’s famous Whispering Wall, a flame was born. It came to life with a breath and a wish and the rubbing together of two tiny palms. It was no bigger than a candle flame, despite its maker’s best efforts. This was no mere exercise, and today, a forest fire was exactly what she needed.
Well, perhaps not a whole forest fire—what had the poor trees ever done to her?—but a sizeable conflagration all the same. The hundreds of pieces of paper shoved into the cracks of the Whispering Wall would do just the trick.
“I don’t see anything from up here!” called Bressel from the top of the wall. “What are you doing down there, Grit?”
“The crickets are searching the ground!” Grit shouted back. “Maybe he left something behind.”
Grit said the words, but she didn’t believe them. After hours of combing over every inch of Oldtown Arboretum, two things had become abundantly clear. The first was that Felix Cassius Tiberius Carmer III was no longer there, hadn’t been for some time, and, from his lack of any sort of message, had no plans to come back. The second was that the Royal Guard was never going to let her out of their sight ever again.
The hope that flared so brightly within the kingdom the night before was but a dim memory now. With Ombrienne’s encouragement, the faeries who usually inhabited the edges of the Arboretum retreated inward. Dryads wept thick, dark tears of sap as they abandoned their trees that skirted too close to the edge of the city outside. Lions, giraffes, and other animal-shaped topiaries inched away from the areas most populated by humans, penned in by earth faeries too frightened to let them amble freely as usual. The frog ponds froze over, and a thick frost spread outward from the Great Willow even in the afternoon sunshine.
Nothing was going to change after all. They were still running scared, the Mechanist’s power was still growing, and Grit felt like she was the only one who was mad about it. She was certainly mad enough to keep fighting—Carmer or no Carmer.
Grit was done waiting for him, and if a few traitorous tears leaked out of her eyes at the thought, the cold wind whipped them away fast enough. If Carmer had truly abandoned her, it didn’t change the fact that the Mechanist still had to be stopped. Perhaps she could convince the Free Folk to fight instead of flee, or even approach the Unseelie, though the thought of that meeting sent shivers up her spine. And if Carmer hadn’t run, if the Mechanist really had found a way to keep him away from the faeries, then she needed to find him. At any rate, she had to get back in Skemantis, and being stuck in the Great Willow under the beady, watchful eyes of the armored crickets was not going to get her there. She needed a diversion.
Grit knew she didn’t have much time before the crickets she’d sent searching around the Whispering Wall came back. She held her flame aloft, circling her hands around its dancing edges to make it as large as she could.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to a hundred years of wishes, and launched the flame at the stones.
Only a few of the notes shoved in the cracks truly caught on fire, but even the smoke would be enough to draw the crickets’ attention, and her magically enhanced flames would spread soon enough. When the smoke started creeping up the wall, Grit ran in the other direction as fast as she could. The West Gate was the closest exit she could hope for; she barely managed to stay out of view of the panicked crickets swarming toward the fire.
“Oh, her mother is actually going to kill me!” whined Bressel from the wall, dithering between patting at the spreading flames and flying after Grit. “I’ll be demoted to leek duty forever!”
“Maybe,” Grit said to herself as she vaulted between the iron bars of the West Gate, “but at least there’ll be leeks to look after at all.”
19.
THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
Carmer raced up the steps of the Orbicle, only to be stopped by the doorman already stationed outside for the evening’s performance.
“Sorry, performers only, kid,” said the red-suited young man.
“I am a performer, sir,” insisted Carmer.
“Hey, wait a minute,” said the doorman’s colleague on the other side. “That’s the kid! The little snitch
the boss told us about. Black-haired little munchkin in shabby clothes, he says.”
“Are you the kid?” asked the first doorman, holding Carmer by the collar.
“Probably,” admitted Carmer. He wasn’t too sure of anything these days.
“Well, scram,” said the doorman. “We’ve orders not to let you in.” He steered Carmer around and gave him a shove.
“Please, it’s important!”
“Ain’t it always?” teased the other doorman.
“No, you’ve got to understand—”
“Listen, kid, do we have a problem here?”
They were starting to attract attention from passersby. Carmer would have to find another way in.
“No, sir. No problem.”
“He’s with me,” piped up a familiar voice behind him. Gideon Sharpe stood on the steps, already changed into his full costume, looking every inch the proper magician. His long plait of blond hair fell over his shoulder and shone in the sunlight under a brand-new top hat.
Of all the people he wanted to come to his rescue at this precise moment, Gideon Sharpe was pretty near the bottom of the list.
“He has a meeting with my—our—employer. It won’t take long. I promise you, no one will even know he’s here,” Gideon assured them smoothly. He clearly got his lessons in charm from his master.
“You’re the Mechanist’s boy?” asked the second doorman.
Carmer was sure he saw Gideon visibly chafe at being called someone’s “boy,” but he didn’t think the doormen noticed.
“I’m his apprentice, yes,” corrected Gideon. “And as we are regular performers in this establishment, I’m sure you know he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
“That he doesn’t,” admitted the first doorman.
The second nodded. “Make it quick.”
“Oh, it will be,” Gideon assured him.
Before Carmer could protest, the blond-haired boy was guiding him forcefully by the elbow into the theater. Carmer saw a flash of silver and felt something cold and sharp press into his back.
“What the—”
“Not a word,” Gideon hissed, leading them through the bustling lobby, the flat of a knife pressed against Carmer’s ribs. Around them, stagehands and producers and performers were in a flurry of activity getting ready for the night’s final show; there was to be an opening spectacle in addition to the magicians’ performances. No one noticed the terrified boy being herded at knifepoint by the Mechanist’s assistant.
They walked down a red-carpeted corridor and into a nearly deserted tile hallway. At the end of it, Gideon kicked open a door, revealing nothing but a staircase going down into darkness.
“In,” he ordered.
“But—”
“Now.” Gideon poked Carmer with the tip of the knife, nearly breaking the skin.
Carmer took one step down, then another, and the door slammed shut behind them, plunging them into darkness. The lock clicked, a pin drop in the silence.
“Keep going,” instructed Gideon.
Just as Carmer was about to protest that he couldn’t see where he was going, a dim silver light emanated from somewhere behind him; the band around Gideon’s wrist was glowing, and it provided just enough light to see the edges of the stairs beneath his feet. They creaked with every step the boys took.
After what seemed like an eternity, they finally reached the bottom. Carmer nearly lost his balance, expecting there to be another step. The light moved and the air shifted behind him. Gideon strode away from Carmer, leaving him momentarily unguarded. Carmer watched Gideon’s light zigzag around in the dark, dodging unseen obstacles. Carmer considered running back up the stairs but didn’t think much of his chances down here in the pitch-black with an adversary who clearly knew the territory.
Somewhere, Gideon flipped a switch, and half a dozen arc lights stuttered on—big, unflattering bulbs usually reserved for factories. Carmer shielded his eyes until they grew adjusted to the light.
They were in the basement of the Orbicle, and it was an explosion of organized chaos. Bits of set pieces, old costumes, spotlights, mannequins, spools of rope and wire, even old stage curtains, cluttered every bit of the cavernous space. The ceilings were surprisingly high for a basement, and Carmer knew they must be deep underground. Here, a piece of Juliet’s balcony leaned against a Roman chariot. There, giant sheets of glass in every color of the rainbow lined up like soldiers at attention. Above Carmer’s head, six pairs of angel wings hung from a wire rack suspended from the ceiling, a macabre mobile. One of the feathers brushed against his cheek.
“It won’t do to run,” said Gideon. He placed a pale hand on a black silk – covered birdcage on the workbench next to him. “I’ve locked us in, and no one will hear you down here.”
“What are you doing?” asked Carmer. He knew the rival apprentice didn’t like him, but kidnapping him and dragging him into a deserted, locked basement seemed a little severe.
“Even for an idiot,” observed Gideon, “I didn’t think you’d be quite so gullible.” He reached into the folds of his cloak and took out the knife—but it wasn’t a knife at all. It was a magic wand with a pointed silver tip.
Carmer did feel like an idiot then. “What do you want from me?”
“Please don’t play dumb, Carmer. It won’t get you anywhere. Tell me where the faeries are, and my master will let you crawl back into whatever hole you came from.”
“The faeries,” said Carmer. Clearly, Gideon Sharpe was toying with him. “The faeries?”
“Yes, Carmer, the faeries,” spat Gideon. “Surely you didn’t think we wouldn’t notice such a flagrant use of fae power, even at the pedestrian levels of your magic act.”
“Listen, I have no idea what you’re talking about—”
“I don’t have time for this,” muttered Gideon. “You refused to join us willingly, but you will lead us to your little friends.” He swept the black cloth away from the birdcage. Inside was not a real bird, but an automaton even more complex than Carmer’s soldier. It was a completely clockwork crow, all of its parts painted jet-black except for a swirling silver orb under its breast where its heart should have been. It spread its wings and cawed, beady glass eyes fixing themselves on Carmer.
Carmer remembered the Mechanist’s mechanical doves dive-bombing the Orbicle’s stage and gulped.
“I will be the one to bring the rest of Skemantis’s faeries to my master,” said Gideon, red spots rising on his pale cheekbones. The crow stepped out of the cage and flew onto Gideon’s shoulder.
“Find any faeries hiding on him,” Gideon told the bird. “And if he won’t tell us how to find the rest, peck at his eyes until he does.”
“What the—” Carmer had just enough time to duck before the crow dove at his head. Its talons raked against the fabric of his coat. He swatted at it with all his might, but the crow kept coming, pecking at his pockets, his sleeves, even the turn-ups of his socks.
“I don’t have any faeries!” Carmer yelled and turned to run, but the crow sank its talons into his collar and dragged him back with much more strength than it should have had. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Save it!” yelled Gideon. His cool attitude from earlier abandoned, he leapt over the workbench toward Carmer. “I know a Friend of the Fae when I see one!”
He pushed Carmer, hard, but Carmer knocked Gideon across the face in one of his attempts to throw off the crow. They fell into the ring of hanging angel wings, accidentally pulling one pair off its hook and onto the ground with them, oversized white feathers floating around them like snow. Gideon pinned Carmer beneath him.
“You think you’re so special?” asked Gideon, panting. His hat had fallen off in the fray and strands of blond hair were escaping his neat braid. “You think you’re the only lonely child those creatures have ever preyed on?”
The crow flew back to Gideon’s shoulder. They both looked down at Carmer with wild eyes. Carmer had no idea what this insane boy
was talking about, but he knew one thing: if he had any hope of getting out of this place, he had to destroy that bird.
With his last ounce of strength, Carmer reached up, grabbed the bird around the middle, and smashed it as hard as he could against the concrete floor.
“No!” gasped Gideon. He released Carmer, just for a second, but that was all Carmer needed. He scooted out from under Gideon and crawled backward until his back collided painfully with something behind him.
The crow still flew, but haltingly. Its left wing was bent at an odd angle, and the fine silver powder that seemed to operate it was leaking out of its side. Both boys watched as it dipped and weaved around the room; they couldn’t look away. Odd things happened to the objects where the glittery dust fell. Spots of peeling paint on set pieces looked suddenly brand new. A demon’s mask mounted on the wall started moving, lips spreading open in a grin with a frightening cackle. A fake Christmas tree in one corner started growing, actually growing, green silk boughs stretching outward and upward, its wrought iron stand bending and twisting into roots that dug furrows in the concrete floor.
The bird shuddered back toward them, weaving in and out of the angel wings still hanging above, scattering the glittering dust on them. The wings sprang to life at once, leaving their wire perches behind and flapping with utter abandon, careening into each other, soaring over the boys’ heads. Carmer looked around wildly; a fake gold-painted tree caught his eye. He broke off one of the branches and waited for the moment when the broken crow tried to return to its master.
Gideon saw Carmer raise the branch and was about to stop him when one of the rogue angel wings buffeted him across the face, blocking Carmer from view. Carmer swung with all his might and smacked the crow into the wall. It met the stone with a sickening crunch, and its silver heart shattered.
The shimmering dust exploded from the bird’s body. Carmer instinctively threw his hands up in front of his face, dropping the branch. But he wasn’t fast enough; it was as if the powder wanted to find him. The specks of silver turned to gold as they hit the air. They flew into his eyes, blinding him, and all he saw was light.
The Wingsnatchers Page 19
