A Dance Like Flame (Of Magic & Machine Book 1)

by Tammy Blackwell

  It would have been less brutal for her to stab him through the heart directly than apologize for trying to save his sister.

  “I am grateful for your presence and willingness to assist Mr. Chanse.”

  “Assist me?” Chance’s double-bass voice boomed across the henge. “I have come to assist her.” He carried a bundle of tools wrapped in an old carpet in one arm and two sets of goggles unlike any Ezra had ever seen in the other hand.

  “I was just putting the finishing touches on them when the Young boy arrived,” he said, handing Bits one of the goggles. “I hope they are what you require, my lady.”

  She examined his offering, flicking down different lenses over the eyepiece and turning various dials.

  “They’re splendid,” she said, placing them on her head. Just before sliding them over her eyes, she looked up, and Ezra was able to see her face — and her eyes glowing an otherworldly bronze — for the first time. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Nash, this next part is going to require the entirety of my concentration, and I do believe you have a body to prepare for me.”

  Chapter 30

  The first rays of morning were turning the sky a kaleidoscope of pinks, oranges, and reds when Bits finally removed her goggles. The magnifying lenses had helped her more times throughout the procedure than she could count, but she could feel a bruise forming on her cheeks where the brass had dug into her skin for hours on end. If she wasn’t so exhausted, she might have asked Garroway if there was anything he could do to repair the damage.

  A low fire still burned within the remains of the pyre. Lily had said the ashes would be gathered by Hattie’s closest female relation and then sprinkled within the garden at Breena Manor. It was a fitting end to Hattie’s tenure here on earth. Bits hoped one day someone would feed her remaining body into the fire of a forge so she might fuel the metal that had served as her closest friend all these years.

  On the stone above her, the body which once belonged to Cora lay still as death save for the steady rise and fall of her chest. There was no way of knowing if their efforts had truly worked or not until she woke.

  The procedure had started smoothly enough. Bits had marked her path days ago and made quick work of cutting through the various layers of cogs and gears to get to the cage where Rose’s heart beat. That, however, was when things got complicated. She’d thought opening the cage would be nothing more than breaking down the metal, something her powers made as simple as breathing. Yet, no matter how she tried, she couldn’t get it to budge. Finally, Mr. Chanse and the Duke of Sidhe were able to remove whatever protection spell had been cast on it, and she was able to move forward.

  The exact procedure for extracting the heart had always been an unknown. It was impossible to know what she would find, so she came prepared for any eventuality, save the one where tiny filaments of copper, silver, and gold were embedded in the tissue and then connected to nearly every part of the clockwork body.

  It had been impossible to remove them from the heart without damaging it, so she’d unwound each one and detached it from the Sally Maid, memorizing its placement so that when it was placed in Cora’s chest, she was able to instruct Ezra onto which corresponding organ it should be attached.

  He clearly did not like leaving long strands of metal threaded inside his sister. Bits didn’t care for it too much herself, but in the end, it appeared to have worked.

  If only Cora… No, Rose. If only Rose would wake up and let them know for certain.

  “Are.” Whack. “You.” Whack. “Trying.” Whack. “To.” Whack. “Kill.” Whack. “Me?”

  “I thought that.” Clang, clang, clang. “Was rather the point.” Clang, clang, clang. “Your Grace.”

  Bits pulled her feet in closer to her body to avoid being trampled upon by Mr. Garroway and the Duke of Sidhe. The Touched had wielded a great deal of magic in the night. If they had not been in the aether-saturated henge, they may not have been able to pull it off. Now they were all in danger of succumbing to Residual. Mr. Chanse was walking home while carrying at least fifty pounds of metal, Ezra was doing his controlled breathing thing, and the duke and Mr. Garroway were wielding rods from the Sally Maid Bits had elongated and sharpened so they could use them as rapiers for a fencing match.

  Bits had commanded her fair share of aether throughout the night as well, but there was no risk of it burning through her body. For her, the aether was an external tool. She could wrap it around a piece of metal to give it extra strength or bind it together. What looked like the ability to move metal with her thoughts was merely the ability to command the aether to prod and reshape. But with aether, there was always a price, and hers was bone-numbing exhaustion. If given the opportunity, she would sleep for an entire week.

  She hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes until she could feel the weight of someone staring at her and was forced to open them. Mr. Garroway stood before her. A quick glance to her left and right proved they were quite alone, but one of the large stone pillars was to her back, blocking much of the henge from her view. Certainly the duke and Ezra were nearby.

  She’d not spoken to the vicar since their encounter on her first visit to the forge. He’d come to meet with Mr. Chanse twice over the past week, but each time she’d been able to avoid him, and there had simply been no time during the evening for anything other than the task at hand.

  “You are an abomination.”

  Bits was too tired to feel hurt or afraid.

  “Is that a personal opinion or a professional assessment as a man of the cloth?” she asked, stretching her legs out. There were places in her hips and back she hadn’t known existed until they became so unbearably sore. Her feet felt as if they were twice their normal size and bruised beyond repair.

  Mr. Garroway looked even more disheveled and half-mad than normal. His eyes were bloodshot and shadowed by purple rings. His hair alternately hung limp and stuck out in clumps. He cradled his good arm in the clockwork one, and a trail of blood extended from the corner of his swollen mouth to his chin, no doubt the result of his match with the duke.

  “You do not belong here,” he spat out. “You do not belong in this world.”

  Bits sighed and settled back against the stone. “And yet here I am.” It was the story of her life. She belonged nowhere, not London, Kent, nor Corrigan. Yet she had to exist somewhere. It no longer mattered to her. “Is there something you were wishing to ask me, or is this just another way for you to expel some aether? Either way, I am quite tired. If it’s a question, perhaps you can ask it at another time, and if it’s the aether, I’m certain the duke would be willing to pummel you a bit more. Parry, parry, thrust and all that good stuff.”

  The color of Mr. Garroway’s face complimented the morning sky nicely.

  “You think yourself invincible. A god. But I know better.” He towered over where she sat on the hard ground. “I will take great pleasure in showing you just how mortal you truly are when the time comes.”

  Just how mortal…

  Oh. He was going to kill her. That was what this was about. He had come over to threaten her life just moments after she’d given everything she had to save one of his people. Right.

  Perhaps she wasn’t too tired to be afraid after all.

  Garroway leaned back, his face becoming a carefully neutral mask just as the Duke of Sidhe stepped into view.

  "Ah, Lady Elizabeth. There you are." The duke was not as disheveled or battered as Garroway, yet he looked more diminished. It was hard to remember the real reason they had all come here so many hours ago, yet the truth of it was writ across the duke's face.

  "Your Grace," she said, hoping that a slight inclination of her head was enough of a proper greeting for the circumstances.

  "Sidhe," he corrected. "After tonight, I think we can set aside a bit of formality."

  The offer was an honor and sign of respect, one she would not refuse after getting the exact opposite from Garroway.

  "Sidhe," she repeated. "And pl
ease, call me Bits. I realize it lacks dignity, but it's who I am all the same."

  Sidhe's mouth pulled up into something that might have been a smile on a different man. "Bits it is then." He pulled himself up, shoulders squared, and placed a fist over his heart. "Bits, on behalf of the Touched of Corrigan, the brother of my heart, and myself, I thank you for the service you have provided and offer the alliance of the Oberon."

  Heavens. Bits no more understood what was happening with Sidhe than Garroway's obvious hatred, but she much preferred this confusion. An alliance implied equal standing, and the support of one as powerful as the Duke of Sidhe both inside and outside of Corrigan's walls was no small thing.

  Garroway certainly understood the full impact. "Your Grace, you do not mean--"

  "I do mean, and I do not recall seeking your counsel on the matter," Sidhe said, pinning Garroway with his stare.

  The priest remained silent, but he wasn't through. It was in the set of his jaw and flare of his nostril. Bits let her gaze fall to his clockwork hand. She'd never once used her abilities against another living thing, but if necessary, she would protect herself.

  She lifted her eyes to meet Sidhe's steady gaze. "It is an alliance I will gladly accept. The abilities of a Velchan are at your disposal,Your Grace."

  Sidhe offered his hand, and she took it. His fingers engulfed her tiny palm, and he pumped her hand with so much force she thought her shoulder might dislocate. It was odd, shaking hands with a man as if they were equals, especially since she'd yet to pull herself up off the ground.

  "There is no way we can properly repay you for helping bring our Rose back to us, but know if there is ever anything you require, all you must do is ask. Corrigan is your home now, and all doors will be open to you.”

  Home. It was a simple, yet complicated word. Sidhe didn't know it, but he'd offered her the one thing she desired beyond all others.

  "We don't know that Rose is coming back to us yet," said a voice that embodied home more than anything else Bits had ever encountered. "There is no way to know how successful we were until, or even if, she wakes."

  Ezra was as weary and wrinkled as the rest of them, although he was thankfully missing the bruises and bloodied lips of Garroway and Sidhe. Like Garroway, his hair had lost any semblance of modern style. Tawny curls hung about his face, softening the severe angles of his jaw and nose.

  She wanted to go to him, to run her fingers through those curls and bury her face in his strong chest. The only thing staying her hand was knowing how much it would hurt when he pulled away from her touch, pity and disgust coloring his words.

  "She will wake, and she will be our Rose," Sidhe said.

  Ezra walked up to the stone dais, standing directly beside Bits. She could only see the wool of his trousers, but she could well imagine the soft look he was giving the body that once housed Cora's spirit and was now possibly home to another.

  "You can't know that," he said.

  "I can." Sidhe's gaze drifted to pile of ash where his wife's body had been laid. "I will not lose a wife and a sister. I refuse." He took in a deep breath, and his large body seemed to shrink as he released it. "I need to return home. It's been too many hours since I last held Aisling. She will be getting restless. Her nurse says she is only calm when I am with her."

  "Yes, of course." Ezra clasped the duke's shoulder. "Thank you for everything, my brother. Even if it didn't work--"

  "It did."

  "Even if it did not, I thank you. I would not have made it through the night without you."

  Sidhe raised the arm Ezra was not clinging to and clasped his friend in the same style. "Nor I without you."

  They remained in their odd sort of embrace for several moments before they both released the other at the same time and stepped away.

  "Give my love to Aisling. I will be by to see her in a few days."

  "Of course," Sidhe said. "Bits, would you mind to remain with Ezra for a while longer? I do believe I will require Garroway's services." He prodded his lower ribs and grimaced. "I shall send a carriage along with Bricky and Demir as soon as I return to Breena. They can assist you in getting Rose home once she's awake."

  "I will be fine--"

  "Of course,Your Grace," Bits said, cutting off Ezra. Someone had to stay with him, and Sidhe was right, he needed to return to his daughter. She didn't trust Garroway, for obvious reasons, which left her as the only option. It may not have pleased Ezra, but she wasn't about to abandon him.

  Chapter 31

  It was truly amazing the difference a dress could make. When Nellie walked about London in her normal clothes -- day dresses and ball gowns crafted by the most renowned modiste in all of England -- everyone noticed her. No one spoke to her of course. They didn't compliment her impeccable taste or wish her a lovely day, but they did look. She couldn't promenade down to Gunter's for a frozen ice without someone being able to account for each and every step she took.

  Today, however, she doubted any of the dozens of people she passed would remember seeing her at all.

  A black woman in the clothes of a lady was noteworthy. A black woman in the clothes of a servant was merely background.

  She'd long since given up feeling guilty for the fate that landed her as the ward of the Earl of Winstead. After all, she was only a babe when the earl found her stowed away on his ship as it sailed home from a voyage to the West Indies. It was a story he loved to tell, even to those who had heard it many times over the past twenty-four years.

  "We were a full half day out to sea when I heard this caterwauling," he would say, his cheeks rosy from too many spirits. "I searched for nearly an hour before I found its source. A babe, not yet big enough to walk on her own, was hidden among the food supplies. With no mam to be found and being too far out to turn the ship around, I took her back to my cabin and cared for her myself. By the time we got to England's shores, I was too attached to the child to send her to an orphanage."

  If anyone wondered how it was he'd happened to have the means to care for a small child aboard a ship or noticed how the child in question shared the exact same jawline, nose, and eye shape as the man who found her, they were refined enough to only mention it behind open fans and closed parlor doors.

  She lived a life of privilege, having all the same advantages as Winstead’s legitimate children. She'd sat through lessons on Latin, French, and literature. She learned to play the piano, paint, and dance. There was not an invitation extended to the Winstead household for which her family did not include her. Yet she always knew she was different. People always stared, and servants always talked.

  Her entire life she'd been grateful for the privilege granted by the earl’s generosity, yet as she made her way to the back entrance of the Earl of Braxton's townhouse completely unnoticed, she thought perhaps she'd been wrong. Maybe it would have been better if he'd given her to the care of Cook or Betsy, the upstairs maid who had never been able to have a child of her own. How freeing life was when one could go unseen.

  At her knock, a kitchen girl with teeth like an ancient fence line answered the door.

  "I'm here to speak with the Earl of Braxton," Nellie said, trying to ignore how the scent of fresh baked break made her stomach growl in a most unladylike manner.

  The girl looked Nellie up and down. "We're not hiring no new staff, and if we was, you'd have to speak to Cook anyways."

  "I do not seek a position," Nellie said, stepping past the girl and into the kitchen. "I seek Braxton. Is he in the library?"She could have easily come by the front door and be admitted immediate entrance by Roswell, Braxton's butler, but that would have required an escort, and today's visit was one she wished to make alone.

  Without invitation, Nellie pushed past the girl. “You can't be just walking in here like this," she said as Nellie made her way towards the library. Braxton was always in the library, if he wasn't making mischief in the clubs or escorting his latest mistress around town. Since he hadn't done the later two in months, she knew
exactly where to find him.

  "Henry, we need to talk," Nellie said, opening the door to the library, the kitchen girl on her heels.

  "I'm sorry, m'lord,” the girl said, wringing her hands as she stepped around Nellie. “I tried to stop her."

  If Braxton heard the girl, he gave no notice. "One,” he said as if Nellie hadn’t barged into his home unannounced, “if I have to tell you once more to call me Braxton instead of that insipid boyhood name, I will be reduced to violence. And two, what on earth are you wearing, Nel? You look like a chambermaid."

  Nellie adjusted the high neck of her plain grey dress. "Fitting, since this frock belongs to my chambermaid. I borrowed it."

  Braxton slipped a weeks-old letter into the book he was reading and set it aside. "Why?"

  "Because I need to speak to you."

  "We've been speaking with one another since we were babes and you've never required a servant's dress before." He looked at the kitchen girl as if noticing her for the first time. "You're not Hope."

  "No, she's one of yours," Nellie explained. "Hope did not accompany me today."

  Finally, realization settled on Braxton's face.

  "Ah. Yes. Right. Ummm..."

  Of course he didn’t know the girl’s name. It wouldn’t surprise Nellie if he often forgot how to address his valet.

  "Sissy, m'lord,” the girl supplied

  "Sissy? Really?"

  Sissy looked to Nellie for help. It was amazing how quickly one's allegiance changed when faced with the actuality of the Earl of Braxton.

  "Forgive the earl's manners, Sissy. He's... Well, there is no real excuse for him, but he's an earl. He tends to get away with it." All too often in Nellie's opinion, but generally no one asked for her opinion. "Could you be a dear and see about getting us some tea sent in? And maybe some biscuits. Those ginger ones the earl likes, if you have them."