The Silver Skull (The Elemental Web Chronicles Book 2)

by Anne Renwick

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  THE FIRST TIME Olivia woke in agony. Every inch of her skin burned, and her bones felt as if they were being forged from iron. Elizabeth held a cool compress to her forehead and murmured comforting words while pressing the bottle of laudanum to her lips.

  The second time she woke she was damp with sweat, but the flames had retreated. Only the flesh and bone of her forearm felt molten. She let Elizabeth spoon clear broth—laced with antimony—into her mouth.

  “Ian promises it will speed the healing process,” Elizabeth said.

  By dawn, when she woke for the fifth or sixth time, the pain only smoldered, deep inside her arm, like the coals of a dying fire.

  Elizabeth helped her into a sitting position, insisting Olivia consume the entire bowl of antimony broth that Steam Matilda had brought.

  Setting aside the spoon, she looked down at her broken arm set in a gypsum plaster cast that encased both her wrist and her elbow. She wiggled her fingers and was pleased to find them all in working order. Sore, but not overly so.

  “How does it feel?” Elizabeth asked.

  “It aches something fierce, but nothing like it did last night.” Her voice was hoarse but, for the first time in what felt like a short forever, her mind was clear. “Is it normal to feel as if your bones are melting when they knit back together?”

  “Not exactly. They throb and pulse with pain. But melt?” Elizabeth shook her head.

  “It felt as though someone shoved my arm inside a forge before hammering it back in shape,” Olivia said. “Now, it is as if the iron has begun to cool.”

  “Odd.”

  They both stared at her arm for a moment, wondering what the transformed osteoblasts had done. Were doing. Might do in the future. But there was no point in worrying about what might happen if there was to be no future.

  “You’ve been speaking to Steam Matilda?” Olivia asked, breaking the silence.

  “Whispering in her left ear as instructed.” Elizabeth glanced toward the window. “No sign of Wei’s bird yet, but the window is closed.”

  As such, there was no way of knowing what was going on outside. Olivia swung her feet over the edge of the bed.

  “They changed the lock.” Elizabeth reached out and lifted a heavy padlock hanging from a chain securing the door of their cage. “They said you were a British spy and confiscated the contents of your reticule, took every last hairpin…”

  “But I still wear my corset.” Olivia stood and wobbled her way over to the barred door. She bent to examine the padlock.

  “Your corset?” Elizabeth repeated. “How—”

  “Lock picks instead of steel stays,” she answered. Renewed hope lit Elizabeth’s face. “Most men don’t suspect a woman. Of those who do, their eyes tend to skim over the corset itself and focus instead upon what it supports.”

  A slow grin spread across Elizabeth’s face. “It seems my brother married… a truly unusual woman.”

  Olivia dropped her eyes to the lock and let the lie stand. Ian’s offer for her hand was too new, a fragile, precious thing she clutched tightly to her chest and had yet to let herself fully examine. “Pfft. It’s a basic Scheldner. Only three pins. Will you bring the chair?” Her legs wobbled and her head spun. Likely it was mere dehydration. “And perhaps some more water.”

  Settling herself before the iron door, Olivia reached inside her dressing gown and extracted two picks, somewhat grateful the count had broken her left arm and not her right. She contorted herself into a number of odd and uncomfortable positions, shifting this way and that, trying to accommodate the cast that immobilized her arm at a strange angle. She needed her left hand to hold the rake pick.

  Heaving a sigh of frustration, Olivia dragged the chair closer to the lock and knelt upon the seat. She could do this. A few adjustments later, her left hand slipped the rake pick into place.

  “There we go. A few tweaks…” She slid a hook pick in beside the first, both feeling and listening for the pins. One. Two. Three. She had them. There was a faint click, and the deadbolt fell away. As a precaution, she gave the rake pick an extra twist, breaking off a small piece of metal inside the lock’s mechanism. No one would use this lock again. Or the pick.

  Elizabeth clapped her hands. “Have I mentioned how thrilled I am to have a sister such as you?

  Sister. Olivia opened her mouth, then closed it again, unwilling to disabuse her of the truth. Soon. She would tell her soon. The minute they were safe.

  “Can you teach me to do that?” Elizabeth continued. “Another day, of course.”

  “Another day,” she promised, forcing a smile and wondering if that day would ever materialize.

  They crept across the turret room, careful not to alert the guard standing outside the door. Elizabeth grasped the latch, pushed the window open. Together, they leaned out and stared down into the river valley.

  Olivia’s heart gave a massive thud. The big moment was coming. And soon. She would have to do it. Jump. Wei’s exit strategy had turned into their only option. The alternative, becoming the count’s pawn, was unacceptable.

  “Look!” Elizabeth pointed.

  Upon the riverbank beside the Sky Dragon, a tiny figure dressed in red waved her arms.

  Wei.

  The girl bent, then flung an object into the sky. One that grew larger as the nightingale’s wings struggled against rising and swirling air currents, fluttering ever closer to the tower window.

  Dark, gray clouds hung low in the sky. Threatening a storm. Olivia’s heart skipped a beat. Snow flurries. Icy gusts. What might extreme weather conditions do to their wings? She pulled herself back inside and leaned against the cold, stone wall. She could have sworn the floor shifted beneath her.

  “Seven stories,” she breathed, pressing her good hand against her pounding heart. “And that’s not even accounting for the height of the rock the castle stands upon.”

  Elizabeth placed a hand upon her shoulder. “A spy afraid of heights?” She lifted an eyebrow.

  “I’m not much of a spy,” Olivia confessed. “My duties have, until now, never extended much beyond lock picking and household eavesdropping—or programming a steambot to do so.”

  The nightingale swooped into the room, searching for a perch and settling upon the back of a chair. A long strip of paper was tightly wound about its ankle. She uncoiled the note and recognized Mr. Black’s handwriting at once.

  “Passed by mill,” she read aloud. “Guardsmen agitated due to treatment delay. Something to do with the count’s wife.”

  “What!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I thought you said Katerina was unconscious and hidden under your bed?”

  “She is. Was.” She swallowed. Had Katerina managed to escape? Had she been discovered? Or perhaps Ian had turned her over as a gesture of goodwill to pacify the count. If so, given the count’s state of mind, how long would he allow his wife to live? “I suppose we ought to be grateful he is not occupied with Ian. Or us.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “There’s that.”

  But such a reprieve was temporary. When the Russians arrived—depending upon the value they placed upon Katerina—there might yet be more Russian agents swarming the castle. If that were to occur… She shook her head and frowned. No matter what path those thoughts ran down, none of them reached a promising conclusion. All the more reason to hasten their departure.

  She turned back to the note. “Attempts to contact Rathsburn have failed. Window open, but no response beyond scraps of silk tied to bird’s leg.”

  She looked up into Elizabeth’s worried face. “Likely he has nothing with which to write. We gagged Katerina with strips of her petticoats. That must be his way of signaling her escape.”

  Elizabeth gave a tight nod.

  “Rescue plan initiates at dusk. Fly one hour after full dark for green campfire in woods,” she finished. Her pulse jumped. She’d insisted she could do this, leap from a tower window and glide to the ground. Soon she would have to match her actions to
her words.

  “Green?”

  “A beacon of sorts, I presume,” Olivia answered.

  “Fly. How fast did my brother say his transformed cells would mend bones?”

  She frowned at her arm. There was no more pain. Only a faint soreness. “I’ve little choice. We’ll wait a few hours, then the cast will have to come off.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “RESCUE BEGINS AT DUSK.” Ian glared at the terse note from Black. Not a single word about how Olivia or his sister fared. Or if the two women really intended to glide from the turret room. Was it possible the procedure had been a terrific success? Or would their jump be one of desperation? Worry dropped like leaden ball into his stomach. He’d seen the wings beneath Elizabeth’s bed, taken note that Olivia still wore her corset, its lock picks in situ. All was in place for their mad and dramatic leap.

  Rescue. Alone, he could manage escape without assistance, though it would be difficult, but with Olivia and Elizabeth locked away in a tower, outside assistance was required. Particularly once they had feet on the ground. A large group headed toward the border would be suspicious, but in the company of gypsies, they might have a chance.

  The count had posted numerous guardsmen outside the door, and one held the voltaic prod. The only reasonable path of escape was via the window. A window out of which he’d spent the better part of the daylight hours watching a riderless pteryform circle and storm clouds gather on the horizon—all while tying strips of the bedsheets together. When dusk arrived, he would need to descend quickly, before the guardsmen who patrolled below spotted him.

  Midnight tonight.

  All choice had been removed. With the cure discovered and the Russians en route, it was time to leave. Only one thing troubled him. Without the osforare apparatus in his possession and returned to British shores, he would be branded a traitor. Unless the duke took pity and deigned to accept his information about the Russians in trade.

  An ache gnawed inside his empty chest; he missed Olivia. How to win her hand? Perhaps if her father accepted his sincere apologies, he could arrange for her career to accelerate… Would the duke permit them to work within the Queen’s agents as a team?

  The hours crawled past, until at last the sun slowly disappeared behind the surrounding hills, and the orange-gold rays of sunset began to fade. Nearly time.

  He tied his makeshift rope to the bedpost and was flexing his fingers when the window opened and Wei slipped inside.

  Her face and hands were covered in gray paint, her hair stuffed beneath an equally gray skull cap. Even her clothes were gray—adult-sized clothing, the arms and legs of which had been inexpertly hacked off, shortened for a girl of her size. Castle camouflage.

  “It’s as if a gargoyle detached itself from the castle downspout and crawled inside,” he said.

  She grinned, far from insulted. “That the idea!” Hopping to the floor, she began to spin, turning a pirouette and unwinding a thin braided metal cord wrapped about her waist.

  He recognized the cording. “Black outfitted you.”

  “Black has most interesting toys.” Idolization gleamed in her eyes. The metal cording pooled upon the floor as she turned. “This he call Rapunzel cord. Except you go down, not up. Only one hundred feet. You drop last twenty. Black say not to break ankle.”

  “Mmm,” Ian answered. He might resent Black’s interference, but a swift and sure descent was preferable to one that was the visual equivalent of waving a white flag. He replaced the bedsheet rope with the cord and accepted the belt harness and geared winch from Wei with as much gratitude as he could muster. “No weapons?” he asked.

  “Black said you ask. He say you want weapon, come down. He has daggers to spare.”

  “Not a pistol?” Ian grumbled.

  “He say you ask that too. Say you not spy anymore. Say you good with blades and needles and potions. Stick to that.” Wei climbed onto the window seat and threw open the window. “Come! We go now,” she said. “You slide. I jump. We run for forest. Then princess and spy follow.”

  The image of canvas and wood beneath his sister’s bed flashed to mind. “Olivia?” Ian said. “Is it safe for her to glide?”

  “Yes. Princess talk all day to someone called Steam Matilda.” Wei looked up at him in awe. “You fixed her arm. She take cast off. Bone all healed.”

  Could it be? In less than forty-eight hours the transformed cells had repaired her broken arm. His body straightened as if all the emptiness inside his chest filled with aether. “It’s still a risk,” he worried aloud. “Why not take the Rapunzel cord to them?”

  Wei rolled her eyes. “Because they have wings. Come. Black worried. He say a Russian storm frigate approaches.”

  “A storm frigate?” He swore. Katerina’s flyby involved a storm frigate, the largest and most dangerous of all Russian airships.

  Clapping a hand to her mouth, Wei giggled at the descriptive phrases that erupted from his mouth.

  But it was no laughing matter.

  The outer hulls of Russian state storm frigates were super cooled, enough so that when they passed through clouds, it began to snow, obscuring the ship’s position and blinding their enemies. Storm frigates also carried weapons and—presumably—many, many Russian agents.

  Yet Katerina’s departure had been described as a flyby. He’d hoped the airship would do exactly that. Fly by.

  But to send a storm frigate for her? A chill settled in his bones. Katerina must be more important than he’d presumed. If she failed to board with her “cargo”, would the airship pause, weigh anchor? Would black-garbed Russian agents drop ropes from the sky and slither to the ground?

  Either way, Ian was in no position to resist them, not trapped in this room. He climbed to the window’s edge and flung the Rapunzel cord out, watching as it unfurled. Not a single guardsman so much as turned his head. With a snick, Ian hooked the geared winch to his belt and then to the cord. He pulled on his leather gloves and took hold of the thin metal line.

  “Let’s go,” he said. Trusting to the engineering skills of those employed by the Rankine Institute, he stepped off the window ledge.

  ~~~

  “Time to go.” Elizabeth stood at the window, adjusting her wings. “An hour has passed since the sun disappeared behind the hills.”

  Olivia paced across the floorboards, flexing and extending her arm. An arm that had been badly broken some thirty-six hours ago. It was still sore and tender to the touch, but there really was no choice. None at all.

  The nightingale had fluttered back and forth all day, carrying gliding tips from Wei and more detailed instructions as to where to land. A final note written in Mr. Black’s hand instructed them not to delay. A Russian storm frigate had been spotted flying in their direction, and the resultant storm was expected to begin shortly after dark. Already winds had begun to pick up.

  “I see a green light in the distance,” Elizabeth called.

  “Are you sure?” she asked, wiping her damp palms on her skirts. “Absolutely certain?”

  Her stomach hurt and, though she’d been sipping antimony-laced bone broth—careful not to ingest too much at once—she felt as though she might lose what little liquid she’d swallowed. It was impossible to say if it was the antimony or anxiety. Either way, she didn’t seem to be able to muster the intestinal fortitude to spread her wings and leap from their window. She was certain she would slam into the face of the castle wall on her very first turn, then crash to the ground, battered and broken beyond all repair.

  She had a mental image of nearly every bone in her body shattering. Only one indestructible, silver-boned, antimony-reinforced forearm would lie upon the cobblestones intact.

  When she’d agreed to glide to the ground from a height of over one hundred feet, she’d thought Ian would be at her side, ready to… Do what exactly? Kiss her before shoving her off the edge? No. This was a solo event. One took to the air a solitary individual. Voluntarily.

  Elizabeth turned and fixed O
livia with a stare. “If you don’t jump, my brother will refuse to leave.”

  She was right. Ian would come for her, risking his very life. Mr. Black would call for French and British backup. More Russian airships would arrive. Tumor-ridden guardsmen would die defending an insane count. British agents would be caught in the crossfire. Secret and valuable biotechnology representing years of effort and thousands of pounds would be exposed, lost to the hands of enemies.

  Pressing a hand to her forehead, she swallowed. “Yes, of course. Ian wouldn’t want me to cause an international incident.”

  “What?” Elizabeth exclaimed. “No. He would come for you, for his wife, for the woman he loves.”

  She froze. Love. Was it possible that Ian could want her for herself? He had proposed. She’d been so certain that it was merely a gentlemanly compulsion. That she’d been ruined. That he needed a wife. That her programming skills were valuable. That marrying her would prevent a charge of treason, force her father to reinstate him as a Queen’s agent and ensure his laboratory work continued without interruption.

  But what if Elizabeth was right? What if Ian loved her?

  Me.

  Was another future possible? One that didn’t involve prowling about her own home, suffering the attentions of a dishonorable husband so that she might pry into his unscrupulous activities? Waiting—perhaps indefinitely—for her husband to die before she could begin to truly experience life? Deep inside her belly, a fledgling hope stretched its wings, but didn’t quite dare take flight.

  Olivia didn’t wish to leave the Queen’s service, not exactly. Yet blindly marrying some loathsome target chosen for her was no longer acceptable, and fieldwork wasn’t as appealing as she’d once believed. Perhaps she might serve her country in other ways…

  But if she didn’t jump, she’d never have the chance to find out.

  She stiffened her spine, slid her wrists into the wing braces and nodded. If Elizabeth could fling herself into the air, so could she. “You first,” she said.

  Rolling her eyes, Elizabeth climbed onto the window ledge. “Remember. Ten seconds after me. You must jump. Mr. Black has been very clear about the narrow window of opportunity we will have to disappear if we are spotted before guardsmen swarm the forest.”