Rebel Mechanics

by Shanna Swendson

  He winked. “Don’t remind the magpies of that story. Next thing you know, they’ll be turning pumpkins to coaches left and right, and I can’t compete with that.”

  “Oh, but it was wonderful, better than magic,” I insisted. Then I remembered how the ride had ended and felt bad for not having asked sooner. “Did the police catch you?”

  “No, they didn’t,” he said, beaming. “You don’t have to worry about us. We’ve got a number of hiding places. By the time they caught up with us beyond the magpie zone, Bessie was safe and an ordinary team of horses was pulling the bus. Everyone on Fifth Avenue must have imagined a speeding bus pulled by a steam engine.”

  “It really is a wonderful machine,” I said.

  “That’s merely a small one,” he said. He gestured animatedly as he spoke, his voice rising with fervor. “A larger one could pull a train. Or power a boat. A smaller one might drive a carriage. Steam power could run factories. I know a man who uses a steam engine to generate electrical power for light and to run machinery, even to send messages over long distances. With machines, we can do anything magic can do.” He was so passionate about the subject and so close to me that I found my breath quickening in response.

  Lizzie leaned across me and patted him on the knee. “Now, Alec, I’m sure Verity doesn’t have all day.” To me, she added, “He can go on for hours about his machines. You should hear him when he gets together with his university friends.”

  “My machines may win our freedom,” he insisted. “If we don’t need magic, then we don’t need magisters, and then we don’t need the aristocracy or Britain. They can cut off our power, like they did a century ago in the last rebellion, and it won’t affect us at all. The factories can still run and goods can be delivered without magisters.”

  “See what I mean?” Lizzie said with a raised eyebrow.

  I smiled at her, but it felt strained. These could be very dangerous people to know. Lord Henry might have had Ideas, but I doubted he’d want someone associated with the rebels teaching his wards, and it was entirely possible that he was within earshot, crawling through the bushes on a search for insect specimens.

  Suddenly uncomfortable with my companions and the conversation, I checked my watch without really looking at it and said, “I should get back to the house. It was a pleasure meeting you properly, Mr. Emfinger.”

  Lizzie shot him a glare, to which he responded with a slight shrug. He turned to me and touched the brim of his hat. “Likewise. I’m sure I’ll see you around town, Verity.”

  “Thank you again for saving my life. And for the lemonade.”

  “Don’t mention it at all,” Alec said, standing and offering me a hand up. He gave my hand a lingering squeeze, adding with a smile, “On second thought, feel free to mention my heroics as often as you like.”

  Lizzie shook her head and sighed with long-suffering patience as she stood and took my glass from me. “Don’t encourage him, or he’ll be quite impossible.”

  “Have you ever considered that she might like impossible?” he asked her, smiling and winking at me. He was almost as dashing as the masked bandit had been—and possibly even more dangerous.

  Before I could do anything impulsive and improper, I stammered another goodbye and hurried away. Despite wanting to, I forced myself not to look over my shoulder at Alec. If I had been the sort of girl who kept a diary that was more than a list of books I’d read and my thoughts on them, I’d have run home to record this encounter. I was crossing the street to the Lyndon home when I realized I still clutched Alec’s handkerchief. I tucked it carefully into my pocket before climbing the front steps.

  I entered the house to the sound of a piano. Flora must have been having her lesson. Her lush, passionate music perfectly suited my mood. I couldn’t hold back a wistful sigh as I remembered the feeling of Alec’s arms around me, the lightning bolt that had struck when I looked into his eyes. I jumped guiltily when I sensed someone behind me and turned just in time to step out of the way before Lord Henry stumbled into me. He was intent on the net he held with a large, vividly colored butterfly caught in it and didn’t seem to see me. He also didn’t seem to see the statue in his path.

  With some trepidation about being so forward with my employer, I grabbed his arm and gave him a sharp pull, just before he fell into the arms of a naked marble woman. He blinked at me over the top of his glasses, then pushed them up his nose with his forearm. “Oh dear, you seem to have rescued me from a rather improper embrace, Miss Newton,” he said with a rueful smile. “I’m afraid my glasses slipped, and I’m quite blind without them.” I thought that if he’d been the one with me in the park, he’d have fallen headlong into the carriage’s path and we’d both have been killed. “And now I’d better take care of this specimen.” He started for the stairs, paused, then turned back to me. “Once you get Rollo this afternoon, you’ll be free until dinner. I’ll be teaching the children their magic lessons.”

  * * *

  After I had Rollo safely home and in no danger of being seduced by a nonmagical girl or—more likely—running away to join the Rebel Mechanics, I went to my room. I hardly knew what to do with myself in all this spare time. I supposed it was the perfect opportunity to read my novel.

  I settled onto my bed with my book, but I couldn’t concentrate on the story. My mind kept returning to that afternoon in the park. I took Alec’s handkerchief out of my pocket and held it to my nose to see if I could detect any trace of his scent, since that was an element missing from my memory. Unfortunately, it didn’t smell like anything that reminded me of him, but I hid it in the drawer of my nightstand anyway. Even if I never saw him again, I’d have that memento of my adventure.

  I tried to return to my book, but my thoughts still strayed. I finally gave up and closed my eyes to relive the moment—his arms around me, his eyes meeting mine, then later him smiling at me and his eyes flashing with passion when he discussed his cause.

  I was jolted out of my thoughts when a wave of power washed over me, heightening every one of my senses and setting my nerves on fire. If I hadn’t been lying down, I might have fallen. I shivered and burned as if with fever, and the sensation came in intense waves.

  The magic lessons must have begun. I had never been around anyone else who could use magic, so I’d never known what it felt like. But the sensation was familiar, and I realized I’d felt something similar during the train robbery, only I’d attributed my reaction to the excitement of the situation and dismissed the idea that magisters would rob trains. If this was the way I reacted to magic being used nearby, then keeping my secret in a magical household would be impossible.

  IN WHICH I RECEIVE MULTIPLE INVITATIONS

  The sense of magic gradually became less shocking and painful as I became accustomed to it, but I doubted I could avoid reacting visibly when it was used. Surely magisters could control or block the sensations, or else they’d go mad. I knew very little about my magical heritage, but how was I to learn? I couldn’t ask to observe Lord Henry’s lessons with the children if I couldn’t mask my reaction, and a commoner like me couldn’t ask for instruction from a magister without revealing that I had forbidden powers.

  When I entered the dining room later that evening, Olive and Rollo were in high spirits, while Flora made a great effort to appear bored. No one commented that I was pale or looked ill, even though I felt like I’d been put through a clothes wringer.

  After grace, Lord Henry started the conversation by saying, “Olive, would you like to tell Miss Newton what you learned?”

  “I lit a candle, all by myself!” she said, beaming.

  “We have lights,” Flora sighed wearily. “I don’t see why we need to learn to light candles. We don’t even use candles.”

  “It’s not about lighting a candle. It’s about channeling and controlling the power,” her uncle said. “The candle is merely an exercise.”

  “It’s not as though we need to know how to use magic,” Flora said with a toss of her ha
ir. “We have magical devices to do things for us. Nobody who’s anybody actually has to perform magic. That’s so old-fashioned.”

  That was welcome news to me. If aristocratic magisters seldom used magic, then I might not suffer too terribly. But Lord Henry’s eyes hardened and his jaw firmed, so that he lost his usual vague look. “Anyone can use a magical device—a servant can drive a magical carriage—but you have power. You’ve been given an incredible gift, and you will learn how to use it,” he said, spitting the words out so crisply that little Olive shied away from him. “The rest of the aristocracy has become lazy, resting on their ancestors’ achievements and willing to pay for magical power provided by magisters beneath us, but we will use our gifts.” I wished I could ask him more about that. I’d assumed that all magisters were upper-crust, but it sounded as though some of them worked to provide the magic that powered their devices, which put them below the nobility but still above the nonmagical.

  “I like using magic!” Olive piped up. “I’ll be better at magic than you are, Flora. Look, can you do this?” She closed her eyes and concentrated very intently, then moved her hand like she was lifting something invisible. Her spoon rose a few inches off the table. It wasn’t powerful magic, but it was performed so close to me that I felt the power surge through me in a violent wave. I couldn’t suppress my reaction, so I grabbed my water glass, took a sip, and then began coughing as though the water had gone down the wrong way. That gave me an excuse to convulse and have tears in my eyes.

  Flora unwittingly deflected attention from me by continuing the argument. “A high-born lady doesn’t need magic,” she insisted.

  “Without it, there’s no difference between you and the daughter of some nonmagister military hero or wealthy capitalist who couldn’t marry into nobility,” Rollo countered.

  “But it’s my birth that matters, not my magic. My father was a marquis and my grandfather is a duke, so I can marry a nobleman.”

  With a wicked grin at his sister, Rollo said, “Someday, some high-born lord will ask you to prove you can at least light a candle so he’ll know you’re not a commoner in disguise, and when you can’t, he won’t marry you. No one will.”

  “Men will want to marry me because of my position,” Flora said.

  Before the argument could escalate, Lord Henry said, “Did anyone read anything interesting today?”

  “One of my friends at school had a newspaper that told all about the steam engine racing a magical carriage,” Rollo said. “But it wasn’t in the Herald. They missed the story entirely.”

  “And what about you, Flora?”

  She gave a deep sigh and asked, “Must I?”

  “If you don’t want to participate in the conversation, you don’t have to. I’m sure Miss Newton has something interesting to say.”

  I scrambled for some topic to discuss, but Flora shot me a chilling glare and then went into a summary of the Herald’s society pages: a list of who was holding balls in the coming weeks, who was expected to attend, which couples had announced engagements, and which families had gone to the Continent. When she finished, she smiled smugly, daring her uncle to comment.

  Lord Henry’s eyes widened in dismay. “Surely that’s not your idea of conversation,” he said. “Miss Newton, what do you talk about with your friends?”

  His question caught me off-guard. The truth was, I didn’t have many friends, not real ones. But I wouldn’t admit that to Flora, who looked at me with a sly smile that said she knew I wasn’t a very popular girl in any social circle. “Most of my friends were students at the university, so we talked about the books they were reading for class,” I said, omitting the fact that these talks had been tutoring sessions. “We discussed the philosophies or principles from the books.”

  “I’d never be invited to another party if I had that kind of conversation,” Flora protested to her uncle.

  “I can’t imagine any man wants to hear a list of the clothing you’ve bought lately,” Lord Henry argued. “I’d rather discuss books with Miss Newton.”

  Flora gave me an appraising glance that clearly found me wanting as a companion, then turned back to Lord Henry. Batting her eyelashes innocently, she said, “Well, if you insist on discussing something else, I have to say that they really must do something about that gang of bandits.”

  “Why do you say so?” I asked, trying to sound only casually interested.

  “People should be able to travel without having their journeys interrupted by such unpleasantness. They don’t even take much money. It doesn’t seem as though it’s the amount of money that matters to these bandits, but rather to whom the money belongs.”

  She had surpassed my knowledge of the event, which was limited to having experienced it. I’d seen them take the royal courier’s bag that he’d said contained dispatches, but I didn’t know what else they’d stolen before they reached my car. The guards had already been chasing them, so they must have committed a robbery before then, and they’d had those heavy sacks. But then why did they bother taking the courier’s bag? “To whom does the money belong?” I asked, pretending that I knew already and was merely quizzing her.

  “It always belongs to the government. In yesterday’s robbery, they took tax money being delivered to the royal bank here in New York.” She held her head high and gave me a smug smile, as if to point out that not only was she wealthy and beautiful, but she was as clever as I was when she wanted to be. There was no way in which she wasn’t superior to me. It would have stung more if I hadn’t been distracted by thinking about what she’d said.

  “That is very interesting,” Lord Henry said. “I look forward to hearing what you have to share with us tomorrow night.” He paused, then said, “I saw the most exquisite swallowtail today.”

  “Why would it swallow its tail?” Olive asked with a giggle.

  Rollo nudged her shoulder playfully. “It’s a butterfly that has a tail like a swallow—the bird—right, Uncle Henry?”

  The current events discussion thus became a lecture on butterflies. The two younger children participated, but Flora just sat there. I pretended to follow the conversation, smiling and nodding at what appeared to be appropriate points, while my mind was on what Flora had said about the bandits. Stealing from the government and taking royal dispatches suggested motives beyond mere greed, and that somewhat changed my perception.

  Lord Henry stopped me as we left the dining room after the meal, letting the others go on ahead. “I think that went well enough, don’t you?”

  “You—you do?” I stammered.

  He grinned boyishly. “That was the first time Flora has ever talked about anything but clothing or paying calls at the dinner table. I knew she wasn’t as vapid as she pretends to be. Excellent work for your first day on the job, Miss Newton.”

  “I really can’t take credit for that.”

  “But you are a good example to her.” He bowed slightly to me. “Have a pleasant evening, Miss Newton.”

  I dragged myself wearily up the stairs to my room. This had only been one day, and not a particularly busy one, and yet I felt utterly drained. There wasn’t as much physical exertion as there had been when I was nursing my mother, but I felt like I had to constantly remain alert. Although it was early in the evening, I could think of nothing but going to sleep. I was already pulling the pins out of my hair as I entered my room.

  I threw back the covers on my bed and picked up the pillow to retrieve my nightgown from beneath it, then stumbled backward in horror. Fortunately, I was too tired to scream. I hadn’t believed myself to be afraid of spiders, but then I’d never encountered one like this. It was nearly the size of my palm and covered in black fur. Now I understood why some of the previous governesses had fled.

  When the spider didn’t move after several minutes of me staring at it, I realized that it wasn’t alive. It must have been one of Lord Henry’s specimens, and I suspected Rollo was the culprit. Although Flora would probably take great delight in tormenting me,
I couldn’t imagine her willingly handling a giant spider.

  The key would be not to react in a way that would reward Rollo, and I was glad I hadn’t screamed. I took a sheet of writing paper from my desk, slid it under the spider, then carefully slid my hand under the paper, cradling the spider in my palm. I marched to Lord Henry’s study and knocked on the door. When he opened it just far enough to peer at me, I held the spider out to him, saying, “I believe your friend got lost and ended up in the wrong room.” As soon as he took it from me, I turned to go.

  He called after me, “Miss Newton!” I stopped and slowly turned around. “I am terribly sorry about this, and I will punish Rollo.”

  “Don’t,” I said, shaking my head. “I would prefer that he think I didn’t notice.”

  “You’re not going to leave?” He sounded surprisingly concerned at the prospect.

  “Over a little prank? Of course not.”

  It wasn’t until I returned to my room that a glance in the mirror reminded me I’d taken my hair down already and had confronted my employer in that state of disarray. It hardly seemed to matter compared to everything else that had happened that day. Between dragging my youngest charge into conflict with the police, being narrowly rescued by a rebel, discovering the danger of being surrounded by magic, and earning what was likely to be the lifelong enmity of my oldest charge, it had been quite a first day on the job.

  * * *

  The next morning, I derived some satisfaction from the way Rollo studied me as though he was waiting for a reaction. He flinched every time his uncle spoke to him at breakfast and was overly polite to me on the way to school. He hesitated before entering the school, then blurted, “Flora made me do it.”

  “What did Flora make you do?” I asked.

  “The spider in your bed. I didn’t want to, but she thought it would be funny, and she said she’d tell Uncle Henry … well, there was something she said she’d tell him that I would rather he not know. But I wasn’t being mean to you.”