An awkward silence followed, and Jack knew his question was responsible. He searched for a way to change the subject, eyes settling on the calico. “Um . . . I like your cat.”
“That is not my cat.” The Archivist’s somber expression shifted to one of mild annoyance. “He came with the Archive.”
The cat raised its head, swishing its tail with mutual disdain.
Jack wasn’t sure whether he’d made the mood on the gondola better or worse. “Oh. Well, he’s pretty.” He set the manifests down atop the pile of books and scratched the calico’s ears.
Gwen glanced up from her reading. “I wouldn’t do that. He’s a bit temperamental, that one.”
The cat purred contentedly, rolling its head against Jack’s hand.
The clerk frowned. “Well, he is when I try to pet him, anyway.”
“What do you call him?”
The Archivist snorted. “Monster, mangy creature, nuisance—I try not to call him at all.”
“I’ve found it!” Gwen raised a finger, then rested it on a page full of flowing calligraphy. “Robert Hubert. He is the connection between the Great Fire and the Clockmakers’ Guild.”
The cat dropped to the floor to take a stroll around the gondola, leaving dozens of fine hairs clinging to Jack’s fingers. He wiped them on his jacket. “Hubert. That sounds familiar.”
“Because I’ve mentioned him before. He was the Frenchman who confessed to the burning of London.” Gwen propped the book up in her lap so Jack could see. “It seems the merchant investors sometimes recruited foreigners for the guilds—new blood and all that. They offered passage on merchant ships, sending their candidates out to seek exotic materials and the like before bringing a masterpiece to London. If the guild accepted the masterpiece, the candidate would become a master, and the investor would get a share in his future profits.”
“So . . . Hubert was a French clockmaker applying to the guild?”
“A pendulier, Jack, just like that nutter who has your father.” She tapped an entry near the center of the page. “Look, it’s right here: Robert Hubert received sponsored passage on the Marigold, sailing from Istanbul with a proposed masterpiece entitled Aeterna Flamma.”
The Archivist let out a little chuckle.
“What?” asked both children at once.
“I believe the title is a play on words—if you’re a clockmaker obsessed with time, that is.” She pressed her pedal, sending up a burst of blue fire from the balloon’s central burner. “Aeterna Flamma is Latin for ‘Eternal Flame.’ ”
Chapter 34
THE CIRCLE OF light from the gondola lamps rose through the well of books, passing the sliding nickel doors to the topper headquarters. There was a matching set across the well that led to the Ministry Express. Leaning out from the rail, Jack could see another door in the darkness far above, flush with the books. He could not see much detail, only a thin crack of yellow light at the threshold.
The calico reclaimed his lazy perch on the stack of books, laying his paws across the shipping manifests. Jack gave its ears a little rub and returned to his seat. “The clock was called Eternal Flame,” he mused, wiping the new crop of cat hair on his jeans. “What if the Ember was part of the masterpiece? Maybe it powered the clock.”
Gwen laid her hands on the open book. “That would mean Hubert knew how to control it.”
“Maybe, but not very well. We know he confessed to burning the city. Maybe he unleashed the Ember by accident. Either way, I think our Clockmaker is an admirer, trying to finish the job.”
“I’ll grant you the Clockmaker.” Gwen leaned back against the gondola rail. “But not Hubert. You’ve forgotten the most famous mystery surrounding his confession.”
Jack hated how she always knew more than he did, and lorded it over him. “Famous in your country, maybe.” He folded his arms. “Okay. Out with it.”
Gwen gave him her know-it-all grin. “Hubert was exonerated. Everyone knows that. A few days after he was hung”—she grimaced—“and torn limb from limb, the captain of the ship that brought him to London came forward with the proof. He was a bit late, to be sure, but his evidence was rock solid.” She pointed to the date the Marigold arrived in London. “Hubert’s ship arrived on September fourth, 1666. Two days after the fire began.”
“If Hubert arrived in London after the fire started, how could he have caused it?”
“Exactly.” Gwen slapped the book closed, startling the calico. It sat up and glared at her, swishing its tail. “That’s why your father needed the shipping manifests.” She stood, reaching out for the book at the top of the calico’s pile. The cat hissed and swatted her hand away.
Jack was sure Gwen had skipped over something. “Wait. I’m not sure I’m following you.”
“Do try to keep up, Jack.” The clerk kept her eyes on the cat, staring it down. “The Levant Company had regular trade with Istanbul—several ships. What if Hubert had already sent his masterpiece to his investor? What if the clock containing the Ember arrived before the Frenchman?”
“Of course. That would explain why he felt responsible for a fire he couldn’t have started. So, if we want to track the Ember, we need to know who the investor was.” He pursed his lips, finally getting it. “And the manifest of the Marigold should tell us.”
“Precisely.” Gwen gave him a nod, reaching for the manifests again. The cat flattened its ears and batted her hand. She stopped, took a breath, and forced a smile. “Niiiccce kitty.”
The calico glowered at her, putting one paw against the binding of the text. The moment the clerk’s fingers moved again, it pushed the book to the edge of the pile, inches from the open space between the rail supports. A low moan rumbled from deep in its furry chest.
“You wouldn’t.”
The cat raised its head and perked up its ears, removing the offending paw from the book.
“Of course you wouldn’t. Goooood kitty. You were just playing.” Gwen straightened up, pretending to lose interest. “Me too.” She turned partially away, then made a quick grab for the manifests. It was a big mistake.
The calico shot out its paw, smacking the book over the edge long before Gwen’s fingers reached it. The book bounced off the deck and dropped through the rail, vanishing into the infinite darkness below. Jack never heard it hit the bottom.
“Bad kitty!” Gwen stomped her foot, shooing the cat off the remainder of the stack. It hissed, retreating between Jack’s legs.
The Archivist sighed. “Do you see what I have to deal with? That’s the second one this week.” She pulled one of her ropes, arresting the balloon’s ascent. “Dropped books, hairballs on the seats—three days ago he used a fifteenth-century manuscript by Edward of Norwich as a scratching post.”
“Hairballs?” asked Gwen, glancing back at the bench where she had been sitting.
The gondola bumped against the dragonite, its deck touching the threshold of the door Jack had seen from below. An engraving above read MINISTRY OF TRACKERS PRIVATE COLLECTION. Gwen opened the gondola gate for Jack, and he pushed the door inward.
A huge form stepped into the frame.
“Well, look ’oo it is. Mrs. ’udson sent me ’ere to find out wot that drone pinched from the Chamber. Guess I’ve done ’er one beh’er, now, ’aven’t I? I found me the kid wot ’ijacked the drone in the first place.”
Chapter 35
THE SIGHT OF the oversize sixteen-year-old from the Chamber gave Jack a knee-jerk desire to run. Then something clicked. Over the course of the day he had faced gas explosions, fireballs, and specters of the dead. He had survived a game of chicken with a subway train. Shaw no longer measured up. Jack scowled. “Where’s my sister?”
“Where’s my artifact?”
“He didn’t take it.” Gwen passed Jack and bulled right through the warden, heading for a big walnut desk at the center of the room. “He’s helping me track down the man who did, some nutter calling himself the Clockmaker.”
Shaw followed her into th
e collection. “But I thought ’e was—”
“You thought wrong.”
Suddenly finding himself alone with the Archivist, Jack mumbled an embarrassed “Thank you” and rushed after the others, entering a small, three-story library. Spiral staircases at the four corners wound up to railed walkways that wrapped around the room, allowing access to the volumes on the upper levels. “Sadie,” he insisted, catching up to Shaw. “Where is she?”
The big warden reversed course, forcing Jack to pull up short. “Your li’l sister’s still at the Chamber, going on an’ on ’bout ’ow ’er big brother is finding ’er daddy. She ’as a captive audience, as it were. All the doors and ’lectronics are still locked out, thanks to you.”
“If the Chamber is still in lockdown, then what are you doing here?”
Shaw’s scowl sagged a bit. “Since the computers was fried, Mrs. ’udson wanted a warden to go out through an air shaft and get to the paper ledger, ’ere in the Archive, to find out wot the drone took.” He heaved out a sigh. “I was the only one small enough to fit.”
“Small enough?” Jack leaned sideways to catch Gwen’s eye.
The clerk was busy pouring herself some tea, reading a wide ledger that lay open next to the silver tea service. She looked up and nodded, returning the kettle to the platter.
“Okay . . .” Jack returned his attention to Shaw. “So, what was stolen?”
“Nero’s Globe.” Gwen answered for the warden. “According to the entry, it was a sphere of dimpled glass, infused with a blue-green metal.”
“Blue-green,” muttered Jack, “like the beetles.”
Shaw’s thick eyebrows knitted together. “Like the one you brought to the Chamber, eh?”
“I told you, it wasn’t mine.” Jack pointed at the book. “Who wrote that entry?”
“Your dear departed dad, as it were,” replied the warden with a grin.
The flippant reference to his dad felt like a smack in the face. Jack bit off an angry reply and stepped around the warden, heading for the desk.
Gwen took a sip of tea and continued reading. “John Buckles Twelve signed the globe into storage more than two weeks ago. According to this, he and Uncle Percy liberated the artifact from a private residence in Calais.”
“Um . . . liberated?” Jack stood across from her, placing his hands on the desk.
“Stole, Jack. Did you really think the ministry finds the world’s most dangerous artifacts lying around in caves?” Gwen lowered her cup. “Most often they’ve already been discovered, changed hands a number of times. If an artifact can’t be purchased, the rules permit more covert methods of acquisition.” She pushed the ledger aside and slid a second book in front of her.
“Oi! Leave that alone.” Shaw lumbered around the desk, towering over the clerk with his gargoyle scowl. “That’s my research. Took me forever to find it ’mungst all this lit’rature.”
“Your research?” Gwen’s freckles flattened into an ironic frown. “If you could even spell research—or spell lit-er-a-ture for that matter—I might take you seriously.” She planted five fingertips on his chest and pushed him back to the end of the desk. “The professionals are here now. Keep out of the way and let us work.”
“Professionals,” mumbled Shaw. “Not likely.” But he remained where she had put him.
A soft padding brushed the edge of Jack’s hearing and he glanced up to see the calico settling on the second-story walkway, bushy tail slipping down through the iron balusters. “The Archivist left the cat,” he said absently.
“More likely, the cat left her.” Gwen carefully lifted a yellowed page, checked the other side, and laid it down again. “This text says the globe was a weapon of Ancient Rome. The statue called The Colossus of Nero depicted the emperor holding it in his left hand, sculpted to look as if stars”—her eyes shifted up to Jack—“or embers, were shooting out from all sides.”
Jack didn’t buy it. He may not have known British history, but every American kid had to study Rome. “The Colossus of Nero disappeared a thousand years ago. Nobody knows what it looked like, so how could the ministry possibly know what was in his left hand?”
Both Shaw and Gwen stared at him with flat expressions.
“Unless, of course, a tracker found it.”
Gwen gave him a freckle bounce. “Your grandfather, actually. He found it inside one of the Seven Hills of Rome.” She returned her eyes to the text, muting her voice with her teacup. “Lying in a cave, it seems.” After turning the page and reading for a bit, she cleared her throat. “The mad emperor Nero used the globe to destroy Rome. Three hundred forty years later, a similar device appeared in Constantinople, right before that city burned to the ground as well.”
“Constantinople,” Jack said slowly. “Isn’t that—?”
“Istanbul. Spot-on. The same city where Robert Hubert created his Eternal Flame clock.”
“But the globe can’t be the Ember. The Clockmaker already has it.”
“No. It can’t.” Gwen sidestepped along the desk, returning to the ledger. “In his entry, your father postulated that Nero’s Globe required a power source. He suggested an expedition to find it.” She set her cup down on the platter. “That power source must be the Ember. I’m betting Robert Hubert separated it from Nero’s Globe and used it to power his clock.”
“Which he sent to London,” added Jack. “Where either Lord Bloodworth or the Duke of York lost control of it—or used it on purpose—burning five-sixths of the city. But . . . if the Ember burned the city on its own . . . why does the Clockmaker need the globe?” Jack’s brain stalled. His thoughts kept winding back to the confrontation between his dad and the Clockmaker. He closed his eyes, trying to see the vision again.
I will recover the amplifier you stole and the people of London will finally pay for their crimes.
“The amplifier.” Jack repeated the phrase out loud, stopping the vision before it reached its horrible conclusion. “The Clockmaker accused my dad of stealing an ‘amplifier.’ I think he meant Nero’s Globe. Maybe it magnifies the Ember’s effects.”
“Exponentially, it would seem.” Gwen patted the book. “This text tells us that Nero used the globe to burn Ancient Rome, a city with more than a million people, spread over an area seven times the size of Old London. A fire that size could burn all the inner boroughs of London, from Kensington to Canary Wharf, with Buckingham at the epicenter.”
“Burn Buckingham?” Shaw’s ruddy features had turned ashen, as if he had finally grasped the severity of the situation. He sank into a leather chair beside the desk. “A million in Rome. An’ ’ow many people live in the inner boroughs, then?”
Gwen closed the text and clasped her hands together, resting them on the cover. “Three and a half million.”
Chapter 36
“WE CAN’T LET the Clockmaker have the Ember.” Jack stared across the desk at Gwen. “So how are we going to get my—?”
The clerk cut him off with a glare, eyes subtly shifting to Shaw and back again. Jack took the hint. The warden did not need to know they planned to trade the globe’s power source for Jack’s dad, especially now that Shaw understood what the Ember could do.
Gwen left the desk, motioning for Jack to follow. “We’ll figure it out. But first we need to find the blasted thing. For that, we need your father’s journal.” She led him to a tall cabinet at the rear of the library, unremarkable except for a bronze sphere mounted on the top.
When she opened the doors, Jack expected to see shelves of journals. Instead he saw what looked like an antique typewriter, with odds and ends crowded into the spaces around it—a large crank wheel attached to a glass sphere, a brass box with jars of yellow liquid, and tons of copper tubes and wires.
“I don’t actually know where the journals are kept. I’m only an apprentice clerk, after all.” Gwen pulled a telescoping stool out from beneath the contraption and nodded for Jack to sit down. “But this will locate them for us. We call it the Findomatic, invente
d in 1749 by William Watson, the first scientist to send data via electricity. It would have replaced card catalogs two hundred years before computers if not for a small incident in the Royal Society library.”
“Incident?” Jack eyed the typewriter, then gently lifted the black paper spilling out from the spool to read the latest entries—phrases like Cloud-Busting Umbrella and Black Prince’s Ruby, typed in silver ink. Three of the four most recent lines were failed attempts to type Nero’s Globe, with only the fourth spelled correctly. “This your work?” he asked, glancing back at Shaw.
The big warden glared at him from his chair. “Shut it, you.”
Gwen cranked the wheel several times, spinning the glass sphere against a fur cloth. After a few turns, the yellow liquid in the jars began to bubble. Jack felt his hair stand on end. “Type in ‘John Buckles,’ ” said Gwen, releasing the wheel and stepping back. “Better make it ‘John Buckles the Twelfth,’ actually. Otherwise we might get quite a few results.”
Jack did as he was told, carefully pressing the round, ivory keys. Each one sent a hammer up to smack the paper with a sharp report, leaving a silver letter behind. When he finished, he slid his pinkie to the return key, but Gwen blocked him. “One moment, please.” Then she turned and shouted, “Clear!”
Shaw groaned. “We’re the only ones ’ere, Gwen.” As he said it, though, the calico dropped from its perch, landing on the carpet with a heavy thump.
“And that’s why we have rules.” Gwen ducked down behind Jack. “All right. Go ahead.”
Wondering why he suddenly felt like a human shield, Jack pressed the return key. The carriage slid to the beginning of the line and the paper rolled up one notch, aligning the new entry with a pair of small copper spheres on either side of the page. Nothing happened. The bubbling yellow liquid settled to silence. Gwen squeezed Jack’s arm. “Wait for it . . .”
The Lost Property Office Page 13
