by A. B. Keuser
“That means I spend my spare time finding ways to stop up the boiler heads.” He turned sharply, as if hearing something she couldn’t and raced away, skidding to a stop ten feet away. “You’ll want to try out our plan on her… I don’t think Agathina will like her being here at all.” And then, he was gone.
Isabelle blinked at the suddenly vacant corridor and looked back at him with a bemused smile. “You have a plan?”
“We were going to test something with the next orphan who came through the gate… I suppose it won’t hurt to try it on you.” He paused as if listening for something and then nodded toward a different corridor. “Come along.”
Following him up flight upon flight of stairs, Isabelle did her best to keep from wincing every time he stopped to press his leg one way or the other. The sickening pop that followed made her worry that he might topple over before they completed their journey.
When the stairs ended at a small doorway with a metal grate, she stepped to the side. If he fell, she didn’t want to be beneath him.
The door opened after three shoves as Arthur threw himself against it. Isabelle stepped in behind him and stared at the space before her.
A tinker’s workshop, the space was lined with shelves holding all manner of oddities. But the thing that grabbed her attention was the enormous table piled high with discarded bits and bobs. Rolls of parchment and broken quills littered the table as well – though some had fallen to the floor.
Arthur stepped up to the pile, digging through and sifting the stacks. After a moment, she moved forward, and started skimming the notes on a half hidden drawing. She couldn’t tell what it was from what little was visible.
“Here it is.” He turned his attention back to her. “May I see your wrist please?”
Holding out her hand, she watched as he reached toward her tentatively and then snatched his hand back. Looking at her offered hand, he said, “Why don’t you put it on.”
When she didn’t move immediately, he added, “I don’t want to pinch you if it’s too tight.”
He handed over the cuff bracelet and her fingers brushed the well-worn leather of his glove. She stepped away as she closed it around her wrist and closed the latch that snugged it to her skin.
“Fits perfectly,” she said, holding it up.
Studded with gilded gears and scrolling wires, it glimmered in the low light of the kerosene lamps.
“Avoid the teakettles when you can, but if you run into one of them, be sure the metal is visible. We think they only report new orphans.” He looked at his handiwork with concern. “I hope—if they do see you—this will make them think you’ve been here all along.”
“What happens if she finds out about me?”
“If you were another boy, she’d give you your first piece of metal in the night.” It was always in the same place, just above the heart. It allowed her control on the night of the full moon. He picked up another piece of discarded wire. “Because you’re a woman… I don’t know what she’ll do to you.”
A purr echoed from the door behind her. “He does.”
Spinning toward the voice, Isabelle’s gaze landed on the strangest cat she’d ever seen. He was a normal, brown tabby, if you ignored the fact his eyes were covered with a contraption that resembled opera glasses melded with an ironworker’s goggles. Two lenses, one iridescent and one red stared back at her as the tip of its tail twitched.
Arthur glared at the cat. “Ignore Maynard. He’s become a complete nuisance since the enchantment gave him a human voice.”
She glanced at Arthur and when she looked back, the cat was gone.
“She’ll do all manner of nasty things to you,” Maynard said from her feet.
Batting at the hem of her skirt, he rolled onto his back and wiggled against the rough floorboards.
“You’re not a very nice cat.”
Maynard rolled over, springing to his feet and leapt onto the table where he looked up at her with his head cocked to the side, his tail wrapped tidily around his front paws. “There is no such thing as a nice cat. I am an honest cat. And frankly, that’s the best you can hope for.” He smiled, showing sharp white teeth and turned to look over his little furry shoulder. “Arthur, slave, the mechanical men did not set out my bowl when they served dinner. See that it is rectified.”
Without waiting for Arthur to answer one way or another, Maynard leapt from the table and padded from the room, giving one last twitch of his tail before it disappeared through the door.
“He is the king of this castle,” Arthur said with a quiet resignation.
Isabelle looked at him, bewildered. “The fairy turned him into a cat?”
Laughing, Arthur rapped his knuckles on the wooden table. “No, he’s always been a cat. But cats are always the supreme ruler of whatever space they inhabit. In this case, Maynard simply possesses the one thing most cats want…. He has the ability to boss us all around.”
“Your dark fairy was kind to him, then.”
“She isn’t mine,” he said, tersely. “And she didn’t do it for him. She did it to drive the rest of us to the edge of insanity.”
“Was he right? Will she kill me?”
“Probably.” He turned to look out the window into the darkness, and she could see the thoughts in the way his eyes moved. When he looked back at her, he pulled a large ring of keys from his pocket, and pulled one from the others. “This key will open every door in the palace. If you need to get away from one of the teakettles, find the nearest door and get inside. They cannot open locked doors, so make sure you’re secure.”
Taking the offered key, she studied it and tried to hide her hope. “It opens any door?”
“Any door but the one that leads to the path you came to us by.”
“How does that open?”
Straightening his shoulder and with a great grimace, he pulled off his right glove finger by finger. When he was done, he held up his now bare hand. The disfigurement there was the only one that had truly made her stomach turn thus far. His middle finger had been replaced by a gnarled black metal key.
He met her eyes and said, “Painfully.”
She swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat and turned away from him. “Is there anything else I should know?”
He didn’t say anything at first, and then he sighed. It was a long, miserable sound. “I’m sorry you were pulled into this.”
He stopped and for a long while, she stayed where she was, uncertain. And then, feeling like a coward, she fled down the stairs and into the dark, dusty halls of the palace.
Everything was silent save for her footsteps and she paused on the first landing she reached. Lights twinkled in the halls below, but there was no sign of life aside from her. Blowing out a breath, Isabelle realized the second reason she had to get out. Even if Heather wasn’t waiting for the medicines in her basket… even if it would save her from whatever future she faced with Gaston, the idea of remaining here, this sad and lonely existence was as unpalatable as over-salted fish.
Maynard found her shortly after her revelation and led her to a room he said Arthur approved for her use. It smelled of dust, and she imagined no one had used it in years. Overlarge and with more space between the bedroom, dressing room and bath, than the house she’d grown up in, Isabelle was certain she’d never be able to sleep.
But exhaustion soon found her and she pulled back the bed’s heavy curtains, beat the dust from the pillows and kicked off her shoes before sliding between the cold sheets. She’d sort out the room tomorrow, if she couldn’t find a way to leave.
In the end, she fell asleep with an ill-mannered cat curled on her feet, and a whisper of a long-forgotten dream dancing in her mind.
*
Arthur gripped his head in his hands and stared at a drawing he’d created months ago. Another failure he couldn’t quite let go. Machines were the answer to breaking this spell. It was a simple truth. And yet he couldn’t prove it. He couldn’t finalize the last step.
Inventions were the creations of man. They were one of the few things that could be used against magic… but that required that they had magic of their own. Enchanted metalwork, animated clockwork gears. He was playing with something dangerous, and he couldn’t stop.
Especially now.
He stared at the drawings for what felt like days. He was stuck—well and truly stuck—and he had no idea how to dig himself out of this particular hole. He looked up at the clock and cursed. The hands were an ever present reminder that Agathina would be back, and each month seemed to pass more quickly than the last.
If Isabelle was still in the castle when Agathina descended on them…. He was not willing to lie to himself about what the dark fairy would do if she caught a woman in the castle. Isabelle would be dead before any of them could beg for her life.
And while she shouldn’t mean a damned thing to him, he couldn’t let her die. The thought struck him, hard, and he backpedaled. “It’s because she’s one of your father’s subjects.” Saving the lives of our people is the only reason he hadn’t given in. He couldn’t break.
He thought of the things he could do and his body tensed.
He’d spent too much time alone in this damned castle. He hadn’t expected the arrival of a woman would remind his body of all the wonderful things two joined bodies could do.
Shaking his head, he turned back to his work. It was pointless; she was at risk, she put them all at risk… so why was he still thinking about this?
He shoved the top paper off the stack and tried to push away thoughts of her as well. His twitching erection didn’t get the memo.
With Isabelle presumably in bed, and the boys unable to unlock the door, he glanced around for Maynard. The fool cat was probably curled up at her feet.
“Lucky bastard.”
The idea of being cozied up in bed with her only made things worse. Shoving away from the table, he stalked further into the library, away from the lights, and slunk back into a shadowy corner where he’d set up a fainting couch for an occasional nap during his painstaking work.
The air held a chill, but that didn’t cool the thoughts of Isabelle that danced through his mind.
Arthur leaned back, ignoring the ache of the metal in his skin and undid the front of his trousers. Unhindered, his cock sprung from its confinement and he palmed the thickening erection with his left hand, taking hold of the couch back with his right and ignoring the way the key snagged on the fabric.
All he wanted to think about was Isabelle. After all, arousal was a natural physical reaction to attraction.
He stroked himself harder as he thought of sliding into her, of feeling her heat. Careful not to hurt her, he’d move slowly as she sighed his name in pleasure. She’d look him in the eyes, her soft fingers moving from his face to grip his ass through the fabric of his trousers and she’d say sweetly, “Take me, Arthur.” And she’d moan impatiently, “Harder.”
He pumped his quickly hardening length, feeling the slickness of his precum and then he squeezed as though she was clenched around him. He imagined her crying out his name, the hoarse scream echoing from the stone walls as he came inside her.
Shivering at the sudden cold, he ignored the chill as his body twitched and muscles flickered as the idea of her continued to circle in his mind. She would be the death of him.
Still dizzy, he shook his head and immediately regretted it. It had been a pathetically long time.
Breathing heavily, he sat in silence a moment before he cleaned up the result of his fantasy.
And that was all it would ever be.
Putting himself back together, he cursed and glanced to the soft glow from the library beyond these shelves. He hadn’t sated the hunger he felt. If anything, he’d made it worse.
He returned to the table, but after that… he wasn’t going to be useful to anyone. He needed to get some sleep and start over in the morning. From there, he just had to hope he’d find an answer in time.
Stalking through the dark halls of the castle, the glimmer of fairy light dotting the halls, he paused when he passed by Isabelle’s door. No sound came from inside and he didn’t dare try to open it. It needed to be a safe place for her, somewhere she could retreat if she needed it. And he of all people knew how much a person could need that.
As if to remind him of the way Agathina surveilled his castle, a teakettle trundled around a corner far ahead of him. This time, he didn’t run away. He walked with slow and determined steps toward it until he reached the first stairwell that would take him to the tower he’d claimed as his own. He ignored the clanking as the teakettle followed him up the stairs. Its magically driven mechanical legs managed the steps in an awkward shuffle. They were an oddly matched pair.
When he closed the door behind him, he couldn’t smile. Agathina’s minions were an ugly reminder of everything he’d lost—of everything he could still lose.
Four
Isabelle opened the door timidly, and Maynard shot out, disappearing from sight before she realized someone was waiting for her.
Lord Cat Chaser sat on the floor with his legs crossed. He bounced a small rubber ball on the ground until he saw her and then he stood too quickly, his foot kicking the ball down the hallway and he glanced after it with an expression that told her it wasn’t a possession worth chasing after.
He scooped up a small bundle from beside where he’d been sitting and held it toward her. “Since the teakettles are always in the dining room, Master Arthur asked me to bring you breakfast. I wasn’t able to carry eggs or anything else, so I hope this is okay.”
She took his offering and unfolded the napkin. A perfectly golden sticky bun sat in the palm of her hand, icing glittering under the low light.
“This looks delicious.”
“They are. I had three!” Lord Cat Chaser moved down the hall, and turned back, waiting for her.
Humoring him, she followed as she took a bite from the bun, savoring the sweetness. “What are you up to? Surely you have something better to do than keeping me company.”
He shook his head and pointed toward the windows. “They’re playing apples and oranges and I’m so tired of that game I’m pretty sure I’d rather throw apples and oranges at my own head than play it ever again.” When he turned back to her, he had the biggest smile on his face. “Besides, you’re much better company than the Duke of Hasty Pudding.”
Finishing the bun, she cleaned her fingers on the napkin and glanced around, not sure what to do with it.
“Leave it anywhere. The teakettles keep the hallways clean enough. We tried to put up barricades once to trap them in one part of the castle. They had them back down in half the time it took to put them up.” He grumbled something she couldn’t hear and scowled down the corridor.
If that was how they lived, she wasn’t going to disagree. She placed the napkin on a sideboard and turned back to him. “What do you say to giving me a proper tour?” she said adopting his tone, “Master Arthur doesn’t seem like he wants to give me one. I probably shouldn’t ask him.”
The boy looked at her with a single raised eyebrow. The look conveyed more understanding than she’d hoped from a boy who was so young.
“You don’t need to dance around it with me, Miss Isabelle. I saw how you looked at him yesterday.”
He smiled widely and she started to protest but he cut her off.
“And I saw him pause outside your chamber door last night. I may not be old enough to know exactly what’s going on… but I’ve been here almost as long as Master Arthur. I’ll be able to figure it out, given enough time.”
That was a terrifying thought. Swallowing the tiny moment of dread, she smiled at him and dropped down to his level. “Okay, you’ve got me. Your grouchy guardian makes me curious, but that doesn’t mean I want to spend all my time with him. Remember, he’s grouchy.”
She followed Lord Cat Chaser through the corridors, half listening as he told her what the rooms were. She needed to be a better actress if a little bo
y could read her face like a book. But being intrigued by Arthur had no bearing on what she needed to do.
And it would not stand in her way of escaping.
They turned a hallway and her escort froze. He glanced in every direction and Isabell couldn’t figure out why. Then she heard it.
A clambering noise echoed through the hall and Lord Cat Chaser looked up at her with an expression she would call terrified excitement. “Teakettle, come on!”
He grabbed her hand and she ran with him.
When he slowed, they were on the other side of the palace and she was out of breath.
Her little lord didn’t seem to notice. Checking around them, he started up a tightly coiled stair case, only stopping when he was around the bend and realized she wasn’t with him.
“What are you doing?” She asked, breathless when he waved for her to join him.
“You wanted to see the palace grounds without running into Master Arthur; this is the way to the second highest tower. The only thing that will block our view is the one he’s in.”
They climbed and climbed until Isabelle was certain her legs would give way with every next step. But when they reached the wide landing at the top, she felt more exhilarated than exhausted. From this perch, there was a remarkable view of the castle’s many floors below. It was a maze of stairwells and dark gaps.
“Don’t fall,” Lord Cat Chaser said from behind her. “I’m not worried about the teakettles seeing you, they can’t look up, but I’d hate for you to fall and break your neck.”
Isabelle’s hand went to her neck without thought and she nodded in agreement. “Wouldn’t we all?”
He pulled at the door but it didn’t budge. “Dang, it’s locked.”
The teakettle was shuffling its way up the stairs after them.
“Don’t worry, I can get us in.” She pulled the skeleton key from her dress pocket. Shoving it in the lock, she gave it one quick twist and they fell into the room, kicking the door shut behind them.
They waited, holding their breath for the few minutes it took for the teakettle to ram into the locked door and then listened to it putter around the landing for a minute more before it started back down the stairs.
