by Anne Renwick
Olivia drew breath, preparing to argue. He stopped her with a kiss.
Sliding his hands into her tangled hair, he cupped the base of her skull, pouring forth the love he felt for this amazing woman. He wanted his future to include more than endless hours in a windowless laboratory. But before he could beg her to be his wife, there was one last loose end to tie up.
He pulled away and stared into her eyes. “It’s better if I go alone. Please. See my sister, Wei, and yourself safe. All I need do is retrieve the apparatus. A simple task,” he lied. “In and out. I’ll meet you at the border crossing.”
Kissing her forehead, and then his sister’s, he turned and stalked off into the woods, ignoring their cries of outrage.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
MR. BLACK GRABBED OLIVIA by the elbow, muttering in Romani, as he spun her toward the waiting caravan where the gypsy man held the reins. As the gypsy woman lifted the lantern and climbed inside, helping Elizabeth up the curved steps, she waved at Olivia to hurry.
She yanked her arm away. “What did you just say?”
“Get in,” Mr. Black begged. “Please. Snow accumulates and my leg aches.”
“No.” She refused to climb inside. “Repeat that. Slowly and clearly and in English.”
“You understood me well enough. The duke thought you would balk at following Rathsburn, even though you believe your heart set on working in the field. The duchess claimed you had more sense than to disobey direct orders.” He tweaked her nose and grinned. “I alone knew that you would not prove impervious to the charms of a handsome young doctor. The Ravensdale clan… all of you so headstrong.”
“This was a test?” She planted her hands on her hips. “My parents expected me to fail?”
“Your father expected to challenge your preconceived notions of fieldwork,” Mr. Black said. “Your mother expected to provide you with an incentive to marry that Italian baron. The duchess worried you were about to rebel.” His voice grew sing-song. “‘Provide my daughter with a touch of intrigue. If she thinks she might someday become a field agent, she will go through with the wedding.’”
Olivia blinked. “She never intended to let me…”
“Work in the field?” Mr. Black shook his head. “No. She hoped with time and children your interest would fade. Always she underestimates her daughters, and this is how I end up camping among my people in freezing conditions.” He sighed. “Italy was too much to hope for.”
“I see.” She bit out. She was never to be a field agent, never to be trusted with her own mission. She blinked back the tears that welled in her eyes. All her studies, all her training and still she was deemed fit only to retrieve information from a safe distance.
“Oh, for aether’s sake.” Mr. Black rolled his eyes. “Dry your eyes. If you’d not stowed away on his dirigible, slipping acousticotransmitters hither and yon, we might have lost Rathsburn and his technology to any number of foreign powers. No one foresaw the involvement of Russia or China.” He paused. “And I expected him to have more time.”
“You want him to succeed,” she said. A dark cloud lifted. If anyone could sway the duke in Ian’s favor, it was Mr. Black, his right hand man.
Mr. Black threw his hands in the air. “Of course. This is his chance to right an old wrong, to allow him to stop Warrick and retrieve his sister. Calmly. Quietly. Discreetly.”
“You mean he’s not to be charged with treason?” Aghast, her jaw fell open.
“Oh, should he fail, he’ll be charged,” Mr. Black said. “But if he retrieves that device, if he returns to Britain successful, no charges will be pressed. Instead, he’ll be commended and promoted.”
“If.” Olivia swallowed. But if he failed… She glanced at her arm. “Did you not hear? I’m the one who was responsible for developing the programming for the device, for punching the cards that allows the instrument to function. I need to go help him.”
A string of colorful Romani curses fell from the agent’s lips. “No. We need to leave while the iron hooves of the clockwork horses and the wheels of the caravans can still move through the deepening snow.”
She drew breath to argue further, but he held up a finger. “As to your involvement in programming the device, I heard nothing, and I advise you never to mention it again.” He glanced over his shoulder into the woods. “Particularly if Rathsburn fails to return.”
With that, Mr. Black turned his back on her, favoring one leg as he walked to the other caravan. Wei reached out to help him as he struggled up onto its seat. She ought to be wrapped in a blanket and tucked inside, but the girl had a clear case of hero worship and would not be separated from him. He lifted the reins of the mechanical horse and raised his eyebrows.
Olivia glanced at the woods.
“No,” Black yelled. “You’ll only be taken captive and used against him.”
If she didn’t freeze to death first.
Blinking back frustrated tears, she jerked her chin in a nod and climbed the stairs, ignoring Elizabeth’s concerned questions and the gypsy woman’s considering gaze. Before she even had time to sit, the vehicle lurched into motion—rattling and rumbling through the forest over tree roots and stray rocks.
She landed on her rump with a thud. Drawing her knees to her chest, she tipped her head back against the wall of the caravan and studied the lamp that swung overhead. Was this how her adventure ended? Hauled home like a sack of potatoes while Ian took the final risk?
“Is there more than one kind of Queen’s agent?” Elizabeth asked.
She was so tired of that question, regardless of its form. She ought not answer, but what did it matter? She was done with fieldwork, done with the Queen’s agents. “I am—was—a societal liaison. Trained to marry a title, to monitor his illegal activities and report them to the Crown.”
“Is that why you followed my brother?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “No. Against all training, I attempted to assist him. But by programming that device of his, by enabling the count to demand its use, I merely increased his odds of life in prison.” So many lives might shatter if it fell into the wrong hands, and Ian would have every reason to regret ever meeting her. Yet here she sat, completely useless while the man she loved risked everything. Her chest felt heavy. Hollow. Was it possible for a heart to break? Because something deep inside was cracking, crumbling. “If he does not succeed, both of us are ruined.”
The gypsy woman lifted her dark eyes to pierce Olivia with a fierce gaze. “You love him?” she asked in Romani.
“I do.”
“Then you go.”
The gypsy was right. Could Olivia fight? Not with weapons, perhaps, but she could do her best to stop Katerina’s departure. She pulled herself to her feet, steadying herself against a wooden strut. She could not quit now, not at the mission’s most critical point. “Are there clothes I can wear?”
“Yes.” With a triumphant grin, the gypsy bent and threw open the lid of a trunk, rummaged through its contents and shoved a plain blue shirtwaist and a pair of dark knee-breeches into Olivia’s arms. “Mr. Black is not always right,” the gypsy said, still speaking in Romani. “Go help your love.”
“What did she say?” Elizabeth asked. “What’s going on?”
“I’m going after your brother.” She would not sit idly while he walked back into that hornet’s nest.
“Can you help him if you’re not a full agent?”
“I don’t know, but I have to try. If—when—that pteryform drops the dead count at Katerina’s feet, a chaotic power struggle could erupt.”
She pulled on the shirtwaist, then the soft, worn breeches. They fit like a second skin, flaring at her hips, curving in at her thighs, buckling just beneath her knees and allowing a marvelous freedom of movement. Men had so many advantages. She took the leather boots handed to her, ones that rose above the knee and laced up the back. More clothing landed at her feet.
“I refuse to be treated like an incompetent.” Olivia buttoned a leather vest,
belted on a green velvet jacket. “Ian fails, and he’s given a second chance. Me? I was barely allowed a first chance.” Heat flooded her words, each scalding a bitter path across her tongue. “Years of training and I had to throw a fit to win the smallest of concessions. Then, because I haven’t been properly briefed, I take the tiniest misstep in the interest of helping my country, and I’m to be chastised for failing to follow instructions to the exact letter?” She threw a hand in the air. “A male agent, he’s admired for his resourcefulness, but aether forbid a woman takes initiative.”
She would go back to the castle and help finish what she’d started. If they succeeded, she would not continue to work as a societal liaison on a determined path to widowhood. She could do more than program household steambots to bake cream cakes and listen at doors. Perhaps she would begin by following her sister’s example and storm the all-male citadel that was the Rankine Institute to demand they inscribe her legal name upon the diploma she’d rightfully earned.
All of ton society would think her stark, raving mad. She no longer cared.
Elizabeth pressed Wei’s small zoetomatic bird into her hand. “Send a message back if…”
Olivia took the nightingale and tucked it into her coat pocket, the beginnings of a plan forming in her mind. She twisted her hair into a tight knot at the base of her skull, securing it with a handful of hairpins. “Have you any weapons on board?”
The gypsy woman nodded and pointed at a small trunk, an unremarkable brass-bound trunk. “That belongs to Mr. Black.”
“Mr. Black?” Then it was anything but ordinary.
She skimmed her fingers over the metal strips, pressing at regular intervals, searching for the section that would yield to her touch. There. Between two commonplace rivets, the brass band slid to the side, exposing a sunken rotor. Not a particularly complex lock, but she’d trained to open these by sound. Listening for faint clicks on a wagon rumbling through the woods…
“Four. Six. Two. Five,” the gypsy said.
“Mr. Black let you—”
“Let.” The gypsy sniffed. “No. But I too am just a woman. A woman who has eyes that see around corners. Take whatever you want. I say nothing.”
Olivia dialed in the numbers, and the trunk’s lid hissed open. It didn’t hold much. She pawed through clothing, papers, various objects whose purpose gave her pause—she really ought to be more afraid of Mr. Black—and then her hand fell upon a pair of bioactive nocturnal goggles. She stared for a second in awe. So they did exist. She had heard whispers.
With such goggles, she could have been Ian’s lookout. Anger seeped in, replacing indignity. Would be.
She hung them about her neck and dug deeper into Mr. Black’s trunk.
The Roost. Katerina’s trained pteryform could easily carry her—and the apparatus—from the castle to the storm frigate. Katerina would be heading there. Ian and Zheng would be in pursuit. Anything could happen.
The most direct route to The Roost was straight up. Olivia snatched up a set of mechanical climbing dragon claws. Scaling the castle walls with bare hands and boots was impossible, but with these… She shoved them into a sack and tied the bag to her belt with shaking hands. Looking up would surely be better than looking down. It would have to be.
Pulling on a dark, woolen cap to hide the bright beacon that was her hair, she swung an equally dark cape about her shoulders.
Elizabeth’s mouth hung open as she stared at Olivia. “Are you certain you’re not that kind of agent?”
She was tonight. She had to be. “Stay with Mr. Black,” Olivia said. “He’s the best of the Queen’s agents. Do whatever he tells you. I’ll see your brother safe.”
And with that promise, she turned and leapt from the wagon.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
LIGHT BLAZED FROM a castle window—the very window from which Ian had climbed out of mere hours ago. Katerina’s silhouette filled the frame. A clear beacon. A reminder that she not only wished to deliver his technology to Russia, she also wished to deliver him to Russia.
He stopped in the shadow of the castle’s stone wall. He’d lost much time and the advantage of surprise by rushing deep into the forest behind Wei, convinced Olivia and Elizabeth would both break their necks leaping from a seven-story window.
Squinting at the night sky, he searched for the Russian storm frigate through the driving snow. Nothing yet. But the mercury had dropped by several degrees and in the sky, a pteryform soared, flapping its great, leathery black wings, drawn by the increasing cold and awaiting its mistress’ signal.
The snow swirled about him as one patrolling guardsmen greeted another, each clapping the other upon the shoulder with a smile. Though Ian could not understand the words, one guardsman pointed to the tumor upon his mandible, speaking excitedly. It seemed word was out that a cure had been found.
The plan was to stop Katerina, press the osforare apparatus into Black’s hands, and see Olivia and Elizabeth safe across the border. Then he would return to this small German village. He owed a debt to the men, to the families whose lives had been irrevocably altered by the invasive bone cells he’d helped to create. He would obliterate Warrick’s legacy from their bodies, their bones. Only then could he return home.
Unless Katerina had her way.
Even without his cooperation, Russia could reverse engineer the osforare apparatus. Her chemists could deconstruct the biochemical residue and, given enough time, they might reproduce it. But he would do everything within his power to prevent a future where men with silver skeletons attacked Britain riding astride armored pteryformes.
British security, his honor and his future depended upon his success. Katerina Dyatlova had to be stopped, and he had until midnight. Less than an hour.
~~~
Olivia shoved the bioactive nocturnal goggles onto her forehead.
She’d made it. Barely. If not for said goggles, she would have lost her race to the many tree roots that had stretched out to trip her, or the branches that tore and ripped at her arms, each assault a reminder that she was woefully ill-prepared for this latest self-appointed mission.
Her fingers and toes and ears and nose were frost-nipped. Her legs ached and her lungs burned from the unaccustomed exertion. And she’d only just reached the base of the castle. Far overhead, a pteryform circled, still tracing a holding pattern. Katerina had yet to order the creature to its perch, to The Roost, and that meant Olivia was not too late. Excellent, for her plan depended upon being the first to arrive.
Breathless, she unfastened the sack at her waist and drew forth the dragon claws. She fitted the steel hind claws to the toes of her boots, yanking the leather buckles to secure them more tightly than was strictly necessary. Then she slid her hands into the fore claws. With thumb and forefinger, she twisted the dial on each foot, each hand. A low hum began, informing her ears that power surged through their inner workings.
Pushing the goggles into place with the backs of her hands, she tipped her head back, studying the stone wall that stretched into the night sky. The Roost lay ten stories above her. If Wei could manage with bare hands and feet, certainly it wasn’t madness for her to undertake the task with mechanical assistance. Was it?
Olivia took several long breaths, attempting to calm the anxiety that roiled inside her, then gripped the stone with one hand. With a flick of her index finger, the claw locked into place, holding fast. Impressive. She lifted her other arm and grabbed another piece of the wall. One foot secured with a toe-tap, then the next. A twist of her wrist and the first claw released. She reached higher. Hands. Feet. Limb by limb, she scaled the wall.
~~~
Five steps up the tower stairs, Ian froze at the faint creak of door hinges. Sword raised, back against the wall, he waited. Anyone wishing to reach The Roost would need to pass this way.
More than an hour remained until the scheduled flyby. Early yet for Katerina to have left whatever bolt hole in which she’d hidden, but he hoped the prowler was her. He’d r
ather complete this task quickly and head with all due speed to the French border.
Alas, the cold, fierce eyes that stared up at him were not hers. These two dark pools belonged to a mercenary chemical peddler. “The count has been murdered.” Zheng’s voice promised to inflict vengeance upon all involved.
“Imagine that,” Ian answered, keeping his face blank. “By his wife?”
Zheng’s eyes narrowed. “He was hunting you and yours. He rode out upon the back of his pteryform, but came back in its claws. The beast dropped him from the sky, shattering his skull upon the courtyard’s cobblestones.”
“That’s not murder,” Ian answered. “Merely a predator returning with prey.”
“Is it?” Zheng tipped his head. “The creature showed no interest in consuming him, but there were several deep puncture wounds. He’d lost much blood.”
“Have you seen pteryform claws? The razor edge of its beak?”
“Your unanticipated return to the castle suggests a man who knows his way around a multitude of blades played a role. Upon your arrival, I removed several throwing knives from your person.”
“So you did.” Was this an accusation? Ian fought to keep amusement from his face.
“But as you were taken captive, you betrayed no loyalty, and so we have no further argument between us.” Zheng waved a hand toward the stairs. “A Russian airship approaches, and that monstrous beast circles overhead. It now answers to the countess. I am certain she intends to leave with your device.”
“Were you unable to keep Katerina secure?”
Zheng hissed out several words in Chinese. “No. She is a slippery eel.”
On that they agreed. “I intend stop her.”
“I will help.” Zheng nodded. “It is good you have returned. Britain will have need of antimony. We will form a new alliance.”
It was hard to keep the shock from his face. “A partnership? With a man who allows his niece to sample poisonous food items? Who does not object to deadly experimentation upon young men or women? Who kills a man in anger knowing the answers that man holds might save lives?”
