Back at the Pavilion of a Thousand Silver Stars, Cixi entered her own chambers, her mind churning. Soft rugs hushed her footsteps, and the spy holes on the walls were well crafted, barely noticeable between the wall hangings. Since this was not the emperor’s residence, electric lights were allowed, and the maids set about flipping switches on intricate jade lamps. Cixi sighed as shadows fled the room and the place brightened. She felt more at ease in the light. The water clock on the wall told her dawn was only three hours away, and now that she was slowing down, exhaustion settled over her. Had it only been this afternoon that her eunuchs had thrown her dogs down the well? They were no doubt dead now. She hoped their little corpses rotted quickly and that a barbarian might sicken and die from tainted water so her dear pets’ deaths wouldn’t be completely in vain.
A woman was waiting for her, another Dragon Man dressed all in black with her hair worn in a man’s long queue. They were all called Dragon Men and referred to using he and him in conversation whether they were male or female to ensure that everyone treated even the women with deference, allowing them to build the all-important inventions and weapons that kept the empire on an even footing with the West. Her face was plain, her cheekbones broad and flat, but her eyes burned with intelligence. This Dragon Man was Lung Fan, and she—he—was personally assigned to Cixi just as Lung Chao was assigned to the emperor.
“My lady wished to see me?” said Lung Fan without bowing.
“I did.” Cixi handed her the spider. “I want you to test this.”
Lung Fan turned it over, examining it with long fingers. “An eating spider? What for?”
“For—”
“No, wait.” Lung Fan sniffed the spider’s legs and the little chopsticks it used to hold morsels of food. Then she took a metal instrument from her pocket. It was shaped like a serpent, a very wise creature. By law, all automatons and machines in China were shaped like animals or mythical creatures. Man-shaped automatons were strictly forbidden, lest the automatons begin to think themselves human beings. Lights along the serpent’s body flickered in strange patterns, and it hissed in short bursts.
“There is good news,” Lung Fan said.
Cixi furrowed her brow, puzzled. “Good news? But I haven’t told you what I was looking—”
“The battle in Peking has taken a turn for the better. Based on what I have learned from the eunuchs, the concentration of paraffin in the atmosphere, and the contents of a coded message the emperor has not yet read, our troops stand slightly more than a ninety percent chance of winning.”
Cixi realized her mouth was hanging open, a most unbecoming gesture. She shut it. “You are sure?”
Lung Fan sniffed the air again. “No. It’s ninety-two percent.”
A soft ripple went through the eunuchs and maids, though none spoke. A great deal of tension evaporated. Cixi herself felt a little giddy. “So all we need do is wait for a while, and we can go home.”
“Duck tongues,” said Lung Fan. “Bear paws, beef marrow.”
“I—what?”
Lung Fan held up the little automaton. “Those are the foods that were most recently eaten with this spider. I can do a much longer examination and tell you more, if you like.”
“Is that all?” Cixi asked, disappointed. “Because I was wondering—”
“Yes, they were all drugged,” Lung Fan added as an afterthought. “A powerful sedative also designed to stop a cough. I believe there is also willow bark distillate, which will reduce a fever.”
“Drugged.” Cixi didn’t know whether to be relieved or alarmed that her theory had been correct. It was so much news so fast, she was having a hard time taking it all in. Perhaps this was the reason Dragon Men went insane.
“With medicine,” Lung Fan said.
“Is the emperor ill?” Liyang asked doubtfully. “I heard nothing of it.”
“The sedative would make him sleepy and would explain why he was resting very comfortably, even without his opium,” Cixi said. “But why something for fever and cough when he had problems with neither?”
“Perhaps the sedative was all Su Shun wanted,” Liyang hazarded, “and the other effects are coincidental.”
“You believe Su Shun was behind it?”
“I have no proof, of course,” Liyang said. “But he was there, and he brought in the concubine, and I assume she served the food to the emperor, perhaps even tasted it herself beforehand to show it was not poisoned. And it was not. Quite.” Liyang paused thoughtfully. “Perhaps Su Shun knows the emperor is ill and is trying to hide it?”
“The food served by this spider was definitely not poisoned,” Lung Fan said. She dropped into a lotus position on the floor and fiddled with the spider. One of the maids made a disgusted noise, but Dragon Men were allowed to sit in the presence of the Imperial Court.
“The food was not poisoned,” Cixi repeated slowly. And then a dreadful thought stole over her, a terrible, world-wrecking thought. She also sank to the floor, and a maid pushed a padded stool under her. One of the seams burst as Cixi sat on it, and little feathers puffed out. The maid rushed about, gathering them up. “The food was not poisoned. Liyang, go now and find that concubine. Bring her to me immediately. If you cannot find her, find out everything you can about her. This is urgent. See to it yourself.”
“My lady.” Liyang bowed and vanished out the door with his apprentices and assistants.
“So, what are you thinking, concubine woman?” Lung Fan asked. “You look as if you swallowed a frog.”
“I do not wish to say.”
Lung Fan grinned, and the expression looked ghoulish in the bright lights. “I actually know what you’re thinking. And I think you’re right. Can I be reassigned to someone else?”
Cixi didn’t answer. For a long time, she waited in tense silence. The only sound was the dripping of the water clock and the clicking of the spider against the serpent in Lung Fan’s lap and the footsteps of the maids who were gathering feathers. Eventually, Liyang rushed back into the room with his apprentices panting behind him.
“Where is the girl?” Cixi asked without waiting for formalities.
“She is dead, my lady. Drowned in a lotus pool. Already the story is going about that she killed herself because she displeased you, or that you yourself are directly responsible.”
Cixi waved this aside. One fewer low-ranking concubine was of no importance. “And where did she come from?”
“That is the startling thing, my lady. No one seems to know. All the records are in disarray, thanks to the evacuation, of course, but no one I talked to seems to remember her, or when she joined the Imperial Court.”
“I thought as much,” Cixi muttered. “Su Shun arranged for her to slip into the evacuation caravan. Where is the body?”
“I anticipated your wishes, my lady, and my assistants are bringing her here. She is on the back lawn.”
A feather drifted across Cixi’s nose as she rose to her feet. “Come, Lung Fan. Bring your device.”
The dead girl was still soaked through. Her hair had come undone and lay tangled about her neck and shoulders. She huddled on her side in her ruined green robe on the grass. Cixi guessed she was no more than sixteen, the same age Cixi had been when she became a concubine. Lung Fan squatted next to her and punctured her skin with the serpent’s teeth. The lights along the serpent’s back glittered, then settled into a steady scarlet glow.
“Well?” Cixi asked. “Was I thinking right?”
“Were we thinking right?” Lung Fan corrected. “And yes. The girl was in the early stages of the blessing of dragons.”
Cixi stepped back, as did all the maids and eunuchs. The girl carried the blessing of dragons, and Su Shun had arranged for the girl to share Xianfeng’s bed. Thanks to Su Shun, the emperor now had the plague.
Chapter Four
Gavin slipped down the dark tunnel, the Impossible Cube clutched tight to his chest. The sandy floor ground unpleasantly beneath his boots, and he was uncomfortably awa
re that he stood out like a torch with his white leathers and blue wings. Fortunately, he hadn’t met any squid men. For once the clockwork plague worked in his favor—clockworkers sometimes became so engrossed in something fascinating that they forgot mundane duties, such as posting guards.
Back in the main cavern behind him, the Lady was moored at a small stone quay, her half-lit envelope glimmering like a tethered star. The giant squid that had towed her there was nowhere to be seen. Gavin had slipped aboard and quietly reconnected the generator so her envelope would lift her again, but he didn’t power the machine up fully to avoid calling attention to the situation. Now he just had to rescue his reason to escape.
Doors faced the tunnel, all of them heavy, all of them shut. He tried one and found it unlocked. On the other side was a laboratory—sharp glassware, smoking burners, gooey things in jars, a rubbery segment of tentacle on a dissecting table. An operating table with blue bloodstains hunkered in the corner amid a nauseating smell of sulfur. The sight oozed over Gavin’s skin and made him shiver. Thank God Alice and Phipps weren’t here. He slipped back into the tunnel.
The Cube shifted in Gavin’s hands, almost as if it resisted being moved. Dr. Clef had once said the Cube always stayed in a fixed point in space and time, that it never actually went anywhere and instead forced the universe to move around itself, like a rock in a river. It rather felt to Gavin that if he lost control of the Cube, it might go spinning away from him, punching holes in space-time like a hot needle, and the possibility unnerved him.
His fingers tightened around the Cube’s springy surface as he slipped down the long cave, trying to listen, but the heavy doors trapped sound and light. The only noise was the soft clink of metal wings on his back and his heart pounding in his ears while he searched. He was always looking for something. It had started when pirates attacked the Juniper, the airship on which he had spent most of his childhood. That attack had stranded him in London, forcing him to search for a way home. Then he had met Alice, and he had found himself constantly searching for a way to have her in his life. Then he had been infected with the clockwork plague, and he searched for a cure. And just lately, he had learned from a woman who could see the future that his father, the man who had abandoned him, was still alive and his destiny was somehow “entwined” with Gavin’s. The thought both thrilled Gavin and angered him beyond measure. He wanted to find his father and grab him in a big bear hug even as he wanted to punch him in the gut.
To his horror, he realized he was singing under his breath:
I picked a rose, the rose picked me,
Underneath the branches of the forest tree.
The moon picked you from all the rest
For I loved you best.
He stopped himself. Gavin used to think his grandfather had taught him that song, but lately he’d begun to wonder if it had come from his father instead, if his father hadn’t sung it to his mother when they were young and in love. If so, it was more than a little unsettling that Gavin had gotten Alice to fall in love with him by singing it to her. Or maybe that was just fitting. He would have to ask his father. If he could find him.
Tension tightened every muscle and joint, and anger burned in his belly. Alice. Al-Noor would pay for touching Alice. The thought of the man laying a hand on her unleashed a red, snarling fury and made his fists clench until they ached. He wanted to storm through the caves, brandishing the Impossible Cube like Zeus with a bucketful of thunderbolts. The Cube bit into his fingers.
Calm, he told himself. Calm. He had a right to be angry about al-Noor taking Alice, but actual murder . . . That still lay beyond him. Not even the plague could make him into a murderer. Not yet. Though it was true that he could use the Cube to bring down the entire cave and peel the flesh from al-Noor’s bones with—
Gavin ground his teeth, and a bead of sweat ran down the side of his head. Damn it, he had to get control of himself. He didn’t really want to kill al-Noor, and the squid men were his innocent pawns. At least now al-Noor wasn’t in a position to destroy the Lady and drown Alice, which freed Gavin to effect a rescue. If he could just find her.
He was putting out his hand to try another door when he heard the crash of breaking crockery. Gavin turned, trying to orient on the sound. A moment later, he heard the scream. An icy spear drove through his heart. Alice! He tried to find the source of the sound, but the tunnel echoed and he couldn’t pinpoint it. Frantic, he ran up and down the stony path. Alice was hurt. Alice was dying. He had all this power, and he couldn’t help her. More than a dozen doors faced him, and he had no clue which was the right one. It was like one of those dreams in which he had something to do but couldn’t do it, no matter how hard he tried.
Another crash brought his head around. This time he was able to get a better sense of the noise—it seemed to come from one of the first doors, some thirty yards behind him, but he still couldn’t tell exactly which one. Gavin didn’t even think. He opened his mouth and sang. A hard, crystalline note streamed from his throat. The Impossible Cube drank the note in, twisted it, changed it into something alien. Power poured out of the Cube in all directions, and the wings on his back quivered with sympathetic vibrations as every door smashed into splinters. Chunks of wood pelted the air. From one of the newly open doorways, light streamed. Gavin cut the note short and dashed into the stony room while bits of sawdust bounced off his face like warm snowflakes.
Al-Noor was aiming a large pistol at Alice across the ruins of a dinner table while two of a group of squid men held a struggling Phipps. The dead squid man on the floor barely registered. A red haze descended over Gavin. The man had threatened Alice. With a snarl, Gavin launched himself at al-Noor. Al-Noor saw him coming. He flicked the pistol around to orient on Gavin and pulled the trigger. Alice screamed. The universe slowed down. Air became fluid as water. His body floated in it. He calculated how fast he was moving, the arc of his travel. He was aware of the temperature heating the barrel of the pistol and how brass and glass expanded with tiny crackling noises. He saw where the pistol barrel was pointed and in a fraction of a second assessed the eventual path of the emerging energy. In midair, his plague-enhanced reflexes lined up the Impossible Cube to match it. A yellow lightning bolt cracked from the pistol, crawled slowly through the air, and struck the Impossible Cube. The Cube sucked the bolt down, and the energy vanished.
The universe snapped back to normal speed. Gavin slammed into al-Noor. Both pistol and Cube went flying. The glass parts of the pistol shattered, but the Cube bounced, unharmed. Both clockworkers rolled across the floor, trading and blocking blows so fast, their hands blurred. Gavin was younger and stronger, but he was hampered by his wings, and al-Noor had the advantage of height and a longer reach. Any thought of plan or strategy fled Gavin’s mind. He didn’t feel any of the hits that landed. Nothing but the animal fury burned in him. Al-Noor’s face was twisted in an equally horrible rictus of rage.
“Sing, damn it!”
“Sing what?”
“Any note! Just sing!”
Gavin remained only vaguely aware of the two female voices speaking somewhere behind him. Al-Noor flicked a fist through Gavin’s defenses and caught Gavin on the chin hard enough to make him see stars. Gavin kneed al-Noor in the belly. Fetid air rushed out of him. Al-Noor straightened his right hand, and a needle sprang from his index fingernail. A clear liquid glistened at the pointed tip. He tried to stab Gavin’s face, but Gavin caught his wrist. The older man forced his hand inward, pressing his weight into Gavin, shoving the needle closer to Gavin’s eye. Gavin gritted his teeth and fought back, but al-Noor had the advantage now. The needle crept toward Gavin’s eye, and the light glittered hard and sharp off the tip. It brushed his eyelashes.
A terrible sound smashed through Gavin’s head. The needle jerked back. Al-Noor and Gavin both screamed and clapped their hands over their ears. The sound tore through Gavin’s mind. It was worse than countless claws screeching across a blackboard the size of a galaxy, and he felt as if h
is nerves were sizzling in acid. A part of him recognized the horrible noise as a tritone—two notes separated by three full steps. The two notes that made up the tone vibrated against each other at a ratio of one to the square root of two, an irrational, impossible number that couldn’t exist. Like all clockworkers, Gavin had perfect pitch, and the tritone, the idea of the tritone, spun him around, threatened to swallow him in the same way that infinite swallowed a whole number. He screamed and tried to shut the sound out, but his hands couldn’t quite mask it. Al-Noor writhed on the floor beside him, and Gavin was dimly aware that all the squid men had fallen to the floor as well.
And then the sound stopped. The pain ended, but the disorientation continued. Hands hauled him to his feet.
“How did you do that?” he gasped.
“I may not have perfect pitch,” Phipps said in his ear, “but after twenty-five years in the Third Ward, I can make a tritone with any note you—or Alice—can sing. Now, let’s get out of here before al-Noor and his squid men recover.”
“I’m so sorry we had to do that,” Alice said in his other ear as they stumbled toward the doorway. “Are you all right?”
“I—I think so.” Gavin shook off the disorientation and regained enough presence of mind to snatch up the Impossible Cube. It glowed pure azure, and it squirmed in his hands. The lattices twisted in ways he had never seen before, moving over and behind themselves, and his own hands seemed both close and far away at the same time. When he moved forward with Alice and Phipps, he could feel it tugging in his grip like a dog that wanted off its leash.
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