“I blame the plague, not you,” she replied briskly. “Soon we’ll get that taken care of.”
Would they? Gavin was starting to wonder. Lady Orchid said China had no cure for clockworkers, and even with all the Dragon Men working together, how could they possibly find one before he went completely mad? Gavin had met any number of clockworkers during his time as an agent for the Third Ward, and the ones who had multiple fugues in a single day were nearing the end of their sanity, and their lives.
“But,” Alice continued, “it did mean I didn’t check on you for quite some time. You look as though you slept in here.”
He stuffed a bun into his mouth without regard to manners. Click wound around his legs as if begging, though he never ate. “I did. I don’t know how long. We have some weapons now, but they’re untested.”
“Your weapons always work, darling. What do we have?”
He showed her while he ate, and she was suitably impressed, especially with the sword. She gave it a cautious wave, and it left a growling blue trail in the air. Click backed away.
“This might catch on,” she said. “I’ve never seen the like.”
“Thanks. I think I built it for you.”
She gave a little laugh. “Most men bring flowers, you know. But I’ll take it.” She set it down and suddenly touched his face with the back of her right hand, the one without the spider. He closed his eyes and took her hand with his own. They both stood like that, without speaking, for a long moment. It was all Gavin needed right then. He wanted to capture that moment and hold it forever, make it a single, perfect note that never stopped, more powerful than any mere symphony.
“How,” he said at last, “does a cabin boy on a merchant airship end up in China, in love with a beautiful baroness? Are we nothing but game pieces on a board?”
“If it meant being with you, Gavin, I would happily make myself a pawn of fate.”
He kissed her, softly and on the mouth, then again with hunger. He pressed his forehead to hers. “I’ll make you my queen one day, my lady.”
“And you, my lord, will be my knight in black pajamas.”
Another laugh. “Let’s take all these up top. Where are the others?”
“Phipps and Li are still here. Lady Orchid and Prince Kung have left, but they should be returning any moment.” Alice paused. “I’m afraid we do have some bad news, darling.”
“What is it?” He grew tense.
“Let’s discuss it up there.”
They carried the weapons and battery packs up top. Click followed. On the way, Gavin said to Alice, “Why haven’t you put the corks back on?”
“I don’t like them.” She flexed her left hand, and the iron spider creaked softly. “Actually, I’m planning to ‘accidentally’ scratch a few people, no matter what Lady Orchid might think. It would be foolish not to.”
“And you’re anything but foolish.”
“Let’s see. I’m sneaking into a heavily fortified palace to attack the most powerful despot in the world and cut his hand off on the small chance that his successor will find a way to heal an incurable disease. No, not at all foolish.”
“Well, when you stack it all up like that. .” The bird poke on his neck itched again, and he unsuccessfully tried to juggle battery packs to get to it. “Besides, I have total faith in your ability to destroy empires. If this works, you should see if Queen Victoria will hire you to handle Tsar Alexander in Russia. Make a fortune.”
Alice made an unladylike noise.
Up top, things were much as Gavin remembered them-dim light from a setting sun filtered in through the high stable walls, and the Lady sat motionless on the floor. Lanterns provided a bit more light. It was like living in a hot, stuffy cave. Phipps and Li were drinking tea and talking in low voices. At first Gavin thought they were discussing strategy, but then Phipps actually gave a low laugh and covered her mouth with her hand in a feminine gesture Gavin had never in his life imagined she would make. They both caught sight of Gavin and Alice, and cut themselves off, looking a little guilty. Alice cut Gavin a sidelong look.
“Gavin’s out of his fugue, so it’s safe to talk to him,” she announced. “He did a wonderful job on the weapons.”
“Let’s see them,” Phipps said. “Hing-Lieutenant Li-says things in Peking are getting worse and worse.”
“What things?” Gavin set the battery packs on the deck next to the Impossible Cube and the Ebony Chamber while Alice set the pistols and the sword on the table. “Alice said something was-”
“They’re looking for us, darling,” Alice interrupted.
“Who?”
“The Dragon Men.”
Gavin looked at her, puzzled. “Well, we knew that.”
“No, I mean they’re looking for us. In the city. They know we’re here somewhere, and they’re out with their automatons and mechanicals. They’re climbing over walls and knocking down doors. A section of the city caught fire after one of their dragons breathed fire on someone, and they still haven’t managed to put it out.”
“Then we need to move on Su Shun,” Gavin said instantly. “Tonight.” He picked up his wings, shrugged into the harness, and set about buckling and buttoning. “The sun’s almost set. Can your men be ready to leave when it’s fully dark, Lieutenant Li?”
“They are ready on a moment’s notice, Lord Ennock,” Li replied.
“What are you doing?” Phipps asked.
“I’m not going into the Forbidden City without these.” Gavin finished the final buckle and shrugged his shoulders for a test furl. The wings opened with a soft metallic clink. It felt good to wear them again, as though he had reattached a missing leg. The battery was fully charged, too, thanks to the Lady’s generator. “We might need a scout or an escape route. And they’re handy in other ways.”
He yanked on a pulley, and his left wing snapped outward. It caught a deck chair and sent it spinning. Click jumped back with a sharp hiss.
“Prince Kung and the lady will be here soon,” Li said. “And then-”
From high up came a crash of splintering wood. Gavin tensed. Alice snatched up the wire sword, though it wasn’t connected to its battery pack. Phipps and Li leaped to their feet, Phipps with a glass cutlass and Li with a pistol.
Bits of wood showered from the rafters, and a brass nightingale flashed downward. Gavin snapped out a hand and caught it without thinking, and only after his fist closed around the tiny automaton did it occur to him that the bird might be dangerous. Sawdust clung to the nightingale’s head where it had smashed through the wooden wall. The tip of its beak was stained red.
“Good catch,” Phipps breathed. “Is it a spy?”
“I don’t know,” Gavin told her. “I’ll have to take it apart and see what-”
I see the moon, the moon sees me.
It turns all the forest soft and silvery.
The moon picked you from all the rest,
For I loved you best.
Gavin stared. His hand froze around the little bird. The voice that emerged from its red-stained beak was like Gavin’s, but not quite. It was deeper, with a different tone. And it sang the song in A-flat, which Gavin had never done in his life.
I have a ship, my ship must flee,
Sailing o’er the clouds and on the silver sea.
The moon picked you from all the rest,
For I loved you best.
The voice touched his soul with a ghostly hand, warm and cool at the same time. It called up chilly summer nights and soft music bouncing off hard cobbles. His hand trembled with the effort not to crush the bird in his plague-strong hand.
“How does it know that song?” Alice demanded beside him. “Gavin, what’s going on?”
“I–I. .” Gavin’s mouth was filled with sandpaper and joy and fear. The clockwork plague flared back to life. “I have to go. I have to go right now.”
“What?” Phipps lowered the cutlass. “Gavin, you can’t just-”
But Gavin was already moving. He tos
sed the little bird into the air and, for reasons he couldn’t articulate, snatched up the Impossible Cube and ran toward the gangplank. The nightingale flew ahead of him. The plague pulled him along, wiping out rational judgment. His only thought was to follow the fascinating nightingale back to its source. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed.
“Gavin!” A honey-haired woman moved to block his way. “You can’t just leave!”
His wings glowed. He vaulted over her head and glided to one of the stable doors. Ignoring the shouts behind him, he yanked it open onto an evening courtyard. The two surprised soldiers standing guard outside didn’t have time to react as the nightingale shot through the opening and Gavin followed. He dashed over the stones. Power coruscated over his wings. They chimed softly and propelled him into the darkening sky. The woman’s cries thinned and vanished beneath him, and he was only vaguely aware of her distress. He had to follow the bird.
Peking stretched out below him in a blocky series of red and brown tile roofs with upturned corners. A few scattered torches and lanterns were lit, and he smelled smoke. In the distance, flames flickered hungrily around some of the buildings. The streets below him were mostly empty, and though it was growing dark, Gavin didn’t quite understand why this was, until he saw the elephant. And the tiger. And the dragon. They and other automatons were stomping through the city, each accompanied by a Dragon Man and soldiers. Even as Gavin watched from above, an elephant smashed through a wooden gateway. Four soldiers and the Dragon Man boiled into the courtyard beyond it. Gavin couldn’t hear the shouts and screams of the inhabitants, but he knew they were there, nonetheless. The salamander circling his ear grew chilly in the evening air. None of the people below looked up. He took all this in with a glance, however, and didn’t pause to consider any of it. The brass nightingale was flying, and he had to follow.
The little bird sped up, but Gavin kept pace with easy sweeps of his wings. Even with the Impossible Cube, flying was as easy as thought. They passed over the borders of the city, and the houses faded into farmland. The sun set fully, but a full moon rose, turning the nightingale’s brass body to liquid gold and changing the red stain on its beak to black. Still Gavin flew, trailing blue power behind him. They were going northwest. Occasionally it occurred to Gavin that he had fled something-someone-important, but the clockwork plague pulled him forward, drew him on through the cool night air.
The moon spilled silver over cattle pastures and rice fields that eventually gave way to hills and paper-leaved forests. Roads threaded through the trees, then faded and vanished. Mountains rose up, some green, some frosted with ice. And then the little bird dove. Gavin followed, in a terror he would lose it. It flew toward a valley dotted with pinpricks of light. As he drew closer, he made out buildings cut into the side of one of the mountains, creating strange steps up to the sky. Graceful bridges and walkways arched between them, and trees clung ferociously among the rocks. And all of it was overrun by water. A hundred rivulets started in the forests at the mountaintop, streamed down the face of the mountain, ribboned through the network of buildings, and joined up in a serpentine river at the bottom of the valley. No building was more than a few steps from running water. Gavin’s eye wanted to trace all the rivulets, find the patterns and permutations, but he also needed to follow the bird. He tore himself away from the lovely waters and followed the bird down to one of the buildings. It lay exactly halfway up the mountain, between two streams. An overhanging tiled roof jutted out a little way like a porch. The bird fluttered down somewhere under the roof, and Gavin landed on the smooth stone beneath it. A pair of round paper lanterns hung on the two pillars that supported the overhang, and Gavin’s eyes took a moment to adjust to their yellow light amid the pearly sound of rushing water. He clutched the Cube to his chest as his wings powered down and folded back over his shoulders.
“So it found you. That’s. . fantastic.”
The voice was the same one that had come from the nightingale. Gavin’s body went weak, and for a moment he couldn’t find his voice. The Impossible Cube dropped to the ground.
“Dad?” he said.
Chapter Fourteen
The ghost parade floated through the empty city streets. Men and even a few women dressed in white robes and wide white hats beat solemn drums and carried white lanterns to light the way. A white-clad little boy with a candle led the way. A pretty woman walked a few paces behind him, giving quiet directions. She held a box wrapped in white cloth. Everyone else in the parade howled and cried and pulled at their faces. They groaned the dead emperor’s name and begged the spirits of the ancestors to welcome him and keep him safe. Their moans twisted down the streets and sent shivers down Alice’s back, even though she was among mourners. Her white robe swirled around her arms and legs, and she kept her head down so her hat would hide her face. The unfamiliar presence of the wire sword bumped at her side, and the battery pack pulled at her back and shoulders. The muddy streets had already stained the hem of her robe and splattered the cloth. Thank heavens she was wearing sturdy shoes. She desperately wanted to scan the skies for signs of Gavin, but she dared not look up and expose her foreign features.
“I don’t like doing this without Gavin,” she muttered to Phipps, who was walking beside her.
“So you’ve said a number of times,” Phipps replied from the depths of her own white robe. They were both walking in the middle of the group to hide themselves better. “But we can’t wait for him. If we’re going after the Jade Hand, we have to do it tonight.”
A crash, a small explosion, and a scream from a side street overpowered the groaning for a moment. Alice automatically turned, wanting to run and help, but Phipps put a firm brass hand on her arm. “Don’t.”
“But-”
“I said don’t. We can’t afford-”
A brass tiger pulling a two-wheeled cart with a black-clad Dragon Man in the driver’s seat galloped out of the side street. The tiger was carrying a doll in its mouth, and the Dragon Man-a woman, actually-was laughing uproariously. Alice shrank back, ready to run. The cart rocketed toward the ghost parade until the Dragon Man caught sight of the white-clad people. With a shout, she-he? — turned the tiger aside and rushed off down another street.
“Don’t,” Phipps said one more time. “The Dragon Men are still looking for us, but if they think we’re a mourning parade for the-”
“I know, I know,” Alice said. “But what kind of monster lets loose a bunch of lunatics on his own people?”
“The kind of monster we’re going to stop,” Phipps replied shortly.
Alice gave the little boy-Lady Orchid’s son, Cricket-an unhappy look. “Even if it means cutting off a child’s hand?”
“You’re doing your best to topple your second empire in a year, yet you balk at cutting off a child’s hand so he can become emperor.” Phipps gave a short bark of a laugh that meshed strangely with the cries of the men that surrounded her. “How do you live with all your contradictions, Lady Michaels?”
The parade continued. The mourners, Lieutenant Li and his troops in disguise, made a good job of it. The crying hid the occasional clank of sword or pistol or metal limb. Phipps herself kept her head down to keep both her Western features and her monocle out of sight. Occasionally people looked out of windows over courtyard walls or threw small packages of food and tiny coins wrapped in white or yellow cloth. The soldiers picked these up and ate the food and pocketed the coins. Alice worked out that in religious terms the packets were meant to be an offering to the spirit world, though in practical terms they fed and paid the mourners, much like offerings at church on Sunday were supposed to be for God but ended up buying food for the minister.
It was a long and nerve-wracking walk to Jingshan Park, which bordered the Forbidden City on the north and where one end of the Passage of Silken Footsteps was hidden. It seemed a strange way to hide, wearing white in plain sight and making as much noise as they could, but they moved unmolested. Three other times they encountered D
ragon Men with animal-shaped automatons, and each time Alice’s heart stopped. But each time, the Dragon Man caught sight of the white robes and turned aside. Lady Orchid, with her white-wrapped box, remained a paragon of calm, while Alice was sweating inside her increasingly filthy white robe, and her mouth was dry as an iron pan on a hot stove from the constant tension. She wished for Click and her other automatons, but the little ones had their own part to play in this, and Click, who was obviously of Western design, had no way to remain inconspicuous in a Chinese mourning parade. So she had left him behind on the Lady.
The summer air was both hot and sticky, and Alice felt like boiled rice in the heavy clothing. Her legs ached, and she wanted nothing more than to lie down with something cool to drink. Then she saw a ragged shadow lurching along a red-painted wall. It was a plague zombie, the first she had seen since arriving in China. Lady Orchid had told her plague zombies were routinely rounded up and hidden away here. This one must have escaped, or perhaps the poor soul was a new victim of the disease. In any case, Alice worked her way to the outer edge of the false parade and made a dash for the zombie as it shambled around a corner. Phipps hissed something at her, but Alice ignored it. She followed the zombie, a dirty snowflake swirling after a bit of coal, and easily caught up with it on the empty street. Not it-him. The creature was a young man. Like every other zombie Alice had encountered, his clothes were rags. A foul smell hung about him. Sores wept pus and blood, and tattered red muscle showed through splits in his skin. Alice had lost count of the number of people she had cured of the plague, but the heartrending sympathy for its victims remained strong as ever. The young man stared at her with fever-yellow as she rolled up her sleeve to expose the iron spider. Its eyes glowed a hungry red. This would be her first cure in China.
“Spread this,” she told the uncomprehending young man. “Spread it far and w-”
A loud mechanical hiss interrupted her. Alice spun and found herself face-to-face with a multilegged, serpentine brass dragon the size of a horse. Perched behind its head at a control panel was a lithe, older man dressed all in black. White whiskers trailed from his chin, matching the brass ones on the dragon. The Dragon Man said something in Chinese, and the dragon hissed again. Damp steam issued from its nostrils. Alice squeaked and backed up, nearly bumping into the zombie. Her heart all but jumped from her chest. She fumbled for the wire sword, but it was under her robe and she couldn’t get at it.
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