by Anne Renwick
“Not yet,” Thornton answered. “You’ll have to tolerate their presence somewhat longer.”
“Now, Luca. It’s not that bad,” Emily chided. “Think how horrible my Romani was once.” Luca’s lips tugged into a faint smile, and Emily turned to Amanda. “What brings you here thenje?”
“I need to speak with you,” she replied. “About the amatiflora.”
“Walk with me,” Thornton said, addressing Luca. “We’ll survey the perimeter while they speak.” He pinned Amanda with a look. “After the two sisters have reached the safety of a vardo.”
Amanda caught her sister’s arm and began walking toward the bright yellow vardo Emily shared with Luca and his great aunt, Nadya. She suspected they might need to consult the old woman. “How are you?” she asked. “How is the baby?”
Emily smiled. “Fine. Kicking strongly, often keeping me awake late into the night.”
They’d reached the curved stairs leading upward and inward. Amanda’s lightness faded. She paused, turning toward her sister. “Before we go in, I need to tell you about a situation brewing with Ned.” Amanda filled her in on their brother’s plans to amputate.
Emily’s face contracted with concern. “He needs to be stopped.”
“I agree. I’ll speak with Father, but only as a last resort,” Amanda said. “The spider, if I could only focus on it alone, without worry this eye doctor might strike again at any moment…” Too many responsibilities pulled her in opposite directions. “I could have it ready for rat trials within the week. But…”
“But without a working formula, it’s hopeless,” Emily finished.
Amanda nodded. “I cannot make it work, Emily. I’ve tried every plant you suggested, but they all lack… something.”
Nadya called in Romani from inside the vardo.
“There’s certainly nothing wrong with her hearing,” Emily muttered, waving Amanda to precede her.
Inside, Nadya, little more than a face and two gnarled hands emerging from a swirl of colorful rags, gestured to a low cushion beside her.
“Me?” Amanda was uncertain her attire was up to the descent.
The old woman nodded, pointing again and launching into a stream of Romani.
Amanda scooped her skirts with one hand and bent her knees, aiming for the cushion, but the best she could hope for was a controlled fall onto the pillow. “Oof.”
Corsets and crinolines were not meant to accommodate floor seating. Amanda thought she caught a twitch of amusement on Nadya’s face, but buried amidst so many wrinkles, it was difficult to tell.
“So what do you need to ask me?” Emily asked, folding easily onto a cushion despite her rounded stomach.
“Amatiflora, it may grow—somewhere—in a greenhouse. If you can sketch it, I can hunt for it.”
Nadya erupted into Romani and Emily reached behind her, drawing forth a scrap of paper and a box of broken pastels. Grasping the items in her gnarled fingers, she began to sketch with incredible skill. A twining vine took shape, twisting up a lamp post and bursting into white flowers. Handing the picture to Amanda, Nadya muttered.
Emily translated. “She is not at all confident the flowers will be potent if grown inside beneath a roof of glass where the moon’s rays cannot touch the blooms.”
Another torrent of Romani flowed forth from the old woman’s lips.
“I did write that down in the formula I handed her,” Emily replied, addressing Nadya, attempting to force the language into English.
Nadya sighed, her wrinkles scrunching into fierce concentration, as if English pained her. “You must use flowers exactly as in formula.”
“I will,” Amanda said. “If I manage to locate them.”
The old woman shook her head. “I know gadji. Before me, this girl” she pointed a knotted finger at Emily, “not know to pick flowers at full moon. Still, she resists.”
Amanda gave Emily a speaking look.
Emily shrugged, managing to convey with a look that it was easier to humor an old woman than to reason with or oppose her on such a trivial matter.
“Now. You try my way.” Nadya jabbed at the air for emphasis. “It will not do. Fresh picked at full moon. Tonight.”
Emily’s eyebrows rose.
“We cannot. The amatiflora is long past bloom,” Amanda reminded her.
The amatiflora was a vine-like plant, one that curled its way up trees, lamp posts, buildings, anything that would draw it closer to the sun. In England, Emily’s notes had indicated, the plant’s lifecycle was brief, its blooms confined to late summer.
“There is a chance.” Nadya’s mouth worked. “Long ago, when I was girl, the Effra ran,” her hands waved, “above. Amatiflora along its banks.”
The Effra was one of the lost rivers of London. Forced underground, it was now little more than a sewer that emptied into the Thames near the Vauxhall Bridge. She only knew of it because of the coffin. The Effra, passing beneath a cemetery, had covertly carried a coffin and its occupant downstream into the Thames where the coffin surfaced, shocking all of London and reminding its populace of the lost rivers conscripted in the creation of the great sewer system that ran beneath them all.
The Effra had been underground at least fifty years.
“It’s October,” Emily pointed out gently.
Nadya’s eyes scrunched. “Listen.” Her voice wobbled on. “South London Waterworks, they build near the Effra, near Vauxhall Bridge. Yes?”
Companies such as South London Waterworks had once drawn their water from the Thames, but pollution had long since forced them to move operations upstream.
“The building,” Nadya pressed. “It still stands?”
Amanda nodded. “Part of the building was incorporated into Airship Sails.” A large factory, dedicated to manufacturing and sewing enormous lengths of silver cloth to form the balloon that held the aether.
“They have engine station,” Nadya said. “Where great furnaces make sewing machines turn.”
“Yes, of course,” Amanda answered, as realization began to dawn on her. “You think…”
“No.” Nadya shook her head. “I not think. I know. Amatiflora, it climbs for sun, yes, but also for warmth.”
Amanda and Emily’s eyes caught. Was it possible?
“Unlikely,” Emily said.
“But worth looking,” Amanda concluded.
With a working nerve agent, it was just possible that the neurachnid could soon re-spin the nerves Ned had damaged. It was certainly worth trying before he resorted to Ferrous Limbs.
“Last night was the full moon,” Emily stated flatly.
The old woman’s hand see-sawed. “Need not be perfect. Just much moonlight.”
Amanda did not care about the moonlight. She cared only for obtaining the correct flowers. Or, at the very least, a length of stem to carry to the botanists at Lister University. They could use the sketch and the sample to search through what was certain to be an extensive selection of plants to determine if what the gypsies called the amatiflora grew within. She shoved to her feet. “Thornton will take me.” He would. All she had to do was threaten to go alone.
“You can’t go there looking like a peacock.” Emily gave her an assessing glance. “A lord and lady skulking about the factory’s premises will draw immediate and unwanted attention.” She twisted onto her knees beside a trunk and began to drag forth a selection of skirts. “Strip.”
No, Amanda certainly couldn’t skulk about the streets of South London in silks and feathers. She complied, unhooking her bodice and stripping down to her corset and combinations. This was it, then, the end of their visit. Once dressed, Amanda would be on her way, leaving Emily alone again. Though Thornton’s guards would look over her, she would feel much better if Emily were closer, where she could see her daily. “Please, Emily,” Amanda pleaded as her sister loosened her corset. “Will you please move home?”
Emily held out an ochre-colored skirt, her eyes sad. “I cannot.”
&n
bsp; “Only until this situation is resolved. Never mind Mother. Or Olivia’s dreams of a titled husband. She’d be better off without Carlton. You can help me with the formula in my laboratory. I could use the help. I need the help.” Amanda tossed aside her corset and pulled on the full, ruffled skirt; its hem skimmed her knees. The last time she’d worn a skirt this short, she’d yet to pin up her hair.
“It’s not just that.” Emily held out a pair of high-heeled brown leather boots. Straps and buckles covered their sides. “I promised Father.”
“It’s your life, Emily. Perhaps the baby’s.” The boots fit snugly and rose to her knees. Likely they’d be wading through overgrown weeds. Thorns were a distinct possibility.
“So it is. I will not leave Luca. Or Nadya. Or…” She waved a hand, indicating the camp. “The rest of my family.”
It was a knife to the gut, realizing that Emily trusted the men and women in this camp to look after her better than her own biological family.
“A fine gypsy woman, my Emily,” said Nadya.
“Don’t look like that, Amanda. Father hasn’t abandoned me. Not only do we camp here because of him, but if you take the time to look, you’ll find that his men outnumber the gypsy men two to one. I am better guarded here in this camp than I would be in any mansion,” Emily said. “Now, about your attire.” She lifted a short, midriff-baring white cotton blouse. It was mostly sleeves. Full, puffy sleeves. In her other hand was an equally short, sapphire blue vest. Silver chains and coins dripped from the hem.
“I don’t think so.”
“Come now, Amanda. I’ve seen Lord Thornton sneaking sidelong glances at you, but the hinges of his jaw seem bolted tight.” She grinned knowingly. “I think this outfit might loosen them. Let’s see if we can make the earl’s jaw drop.”
Amanda pursed her lips a moment, but it was as if her sister read her mind. She reached out and snatched the blouse from Emily’s hand. Turning her back to the two women, she pulled off the top half of her combinations and tugged on the blouse. It ended directly beneath her breasts. She slid her arms through the holes of the half-vest, drawing it closed with its leather buckles. The vest pushed her breasts upward against the low ruffle of the blouse, placing the deep valley between them on display. The coins hanging from chains brushed against her bare belly. She felt like a temptress; it would be impossible for Thornton not to look.
Cool metal fell around her neck. A chain with yet more silver coins. “Without a necklace, no one will believe you Roma,” Emily explained.
The dressing continued. Two more coins, one each to hang from an earlobe. A green scarf to wind about her hips, an ochre one to hold back her hair, and a broad leather belt to sling over her hips, fitted with a knife and a purse.
“To harvest the amatiflora,” said Emily. “The vines are tough. Collect the leaves as well as the flowers.”
Nadya nodded her approval.
A cool breeze blew across Amanda’s mid-drift. Into the vardo stepped Luca. And Thornton.
And Amanda had to suppress a satisfied smirk as his jaw did indeed unhinge.
Chapter Twenty-Five
THORNTON DID NOT agree with the plan.
There would be no moving Emily or her husband Luca to the Avesbury townhouse. The two were stubborn and foolish. Perhaps both. Just like Amanda’s plan.
He was a fool for going along with it. A gypsy fool dressed in a crimson vest and a loose white shirt with sleeves that flapped in the wind that blew in off the Thames. A brown, woolen cap that made his scalp itch squatted on his head, well-worn leather trousers hugged his legs, and distressed boots a size too small squeezed his feet, cramping the small muscles of his feet and threatening to send his bad leg into full spasm.
Worst of all he sat atop the splintery seat of a crank wagon, driving the daughter of a duke to South London in the dead of night across a rickety bridge when nearly all her family believed her safely ensconced in the London Symphony House.
“Throw any scrap metal you find in the back of the wagon,” Luca had advised. “It’ll lend authenticity to your disguise.”
Black had near cracked a molar clenching his jaw when Thornton informed him he’d be remaining behind at the gypsy camp on guard detail. The man clearly thought Thornton had lost his mind.
Quite likely, he was correct.
But Amanda and Emily swore up and down and sideways that the amatiflora was the key ingredient. The old woman insisted it still bloomed and that it must be harvested tonight.
Looking at Amanda standing there in the vardo, the flickering light of a lantern casting shadows and throwing highlights onto her curves, he’d nodded, knowing full well he was agreeing to a fool’s errand. His eyes had fixed on the swell of her chest above a tightly strapped vest, then fallen to catch on the swoops of chains and dangling coins that brushed her bare stomach above her navel. He’d been incapable of refusing.
Struck mute, he’d been easily led into an adjacent vardo, easily convinced into adjusting his own appearance to match hers. All under the wry eye of Luca. Then, with much suppressed amusement, the gypsy man had wrapped a protective arm about his pregnant wife and waved them on their way.
Beside him, Amanda tensed and gripped the side of the cart as they approached Vauxhall Bridge.
“There’ve been no reports of any giant kraken,” he reassured her. “None over five feet in length.”
“It’s not the kraken that worry me, not directly. Rather, the bridge no longer appears… straight.”
Thornton glanced ahead out over the water. It did appear somewhat… bowed. Everything about tonight was a bad idea. “Would you prefer to go the long way around? Use another bridge?”
“No. Airship Sails is directly on the other side,” she said. “But I do prefer to cross quickly.”
The kraken population in the Thames was on the rise again, keeping river traffic to a minimum. Men brave enough to take on the job could easily find work perched on the front of larger boats, air cartridge-loaded harpoons in hand, watching and waiting for the inevitable kraken large enough to capsize their vessel. The smaller ones tended to swarm, but were a danger only to small boats.
For the most part, bridges were safe—except for Vauxhall Bridge. During the last infestation, an extremely large kraken queen—rumored to be some thirty feet, beak to pointed tail fin—had taken up residence between the two central piers, badly damaging the structure. Plans to replace the current bridge only fueled rumors of its imminent collapse. Traffic, therefore, was at a mere trickle.
Thornton pulled on a knob, allowing the spring to unwind faster, and the wagon shot out onto the bridge, which did indeed seem to bend in a westerly direction as the tide rose.
As the crank wagon rumbled off the bridge into South London, Amanda let out a long sigh of relief.
A few minutes later, just as the crank wagon’s spring had nearly run down, Thornton pulled on the steering handle, directing them onto the side of the road. For a few long moments, he and Amanda sat quietly, studying the hulking brick factory building that was Airship Sails. It was deserted, the workers all having been sent home hours ago.
The sewing machines here were great, hulking beasts with needles the length of a man’s arm to bind together lengths of sailcloth with steel threads. A feat of engineering that turned the silver-coated cloth into enormous balloons that, when stretched across their metal framework, could float an airship’s hull—the equivalent of a small city—wherever its captain steered it.
There would be a watchman or two about, but no more. Sailcloth was thick and heavy, and in such lengths that theft was unlikely. Nevertheless, there were tall iron fences and stout locks that the owners assumed—in this case, wrongly—would keep troublemakers and thieves at bay.
“The gate is locked,” Amanda said. “But over there, down by the Thames, there’s a gap in the fencing next to…” She squinted. “Is that an old submersible chute in the weeds?”
“It
is.”
At one point, personal submersibles were all the rage amongst businessmen. Until the kraken infestation. Now airships were considered far, far safer. However, when progress had been made in the clearing of the river, specifically with the recent development of a TDM, Tentacle Defense Mechanism, some companies had polished up their submersible stations and vessels— wealthy stockholders often preferred to visit their investments unseen—in hopes of once again being able to travel beneath the Thames.
Airship Sails was not among those companies. Yet, if he was not mistaken, a toolbox rested beside a submersible floating in the tank beside the docking station. Perhaps efforts at modernization were underway.
“The gate is a much more direct route to our goal,” he said.
His gaze traveled along the roofline of the factory, then fell upon the power house, set to the side of the main building and built of brick, cast iron and granite to alleviate fire concerns. The engines it housed generated an immense amount of power for the sewing machines by firing coal. It was a square building, small compared to the factory, and the chimney attached to its side towered over it, stretching some six stories into the moonlit sky.
All day coal burned. All day the engines churned, belching hot air and smoke into that chimney. All day the bricks absorbed heat. All night, those same bricks radiated that heat out back out into the night. And, at the base of the chimney, a smattering of weeds still clung to life through the increasingly cold nights.
Did vines still twist and writhe up the brick column? Did he dare hope flowers still bloomed? He squinted, but it was too dark and too far for that level of detail. They’d have to move closer, breach the iron fence. “It would make much more sense to return tomorrow,” he said. “There are strings easily pulled.”
Amanda shook her head. “Best to act quickly and leave no record of our activities for the eye doctor to learn of. Besides, though it likely amounts to nothing, Nadya insists we gather the blooms in the moonlight.”
