Redyn still smiled, standing in the back of the crowd, as the king’s executioner pulled a black hood over her brother, still known to her as the Fiend. Her mother wept to the side, her father’s arms around her. Her other three brothers hung back, their faces drawn and ashen like Burke’s.
“How can you smile?” Burke demanded. “They’re going to kill your brother.”
“I can’t stop them,” she said. “Shouldn’t his last thoughts be that his family will be fine?”
“The letter told on your brother, didn’t it?”
The executioner tied her brother’s hands behind his back. Her mother wailed louder and a hush fell over the crowd. Redyn wondered if anyone would be able to walk past the center square without thinking of the scaffold, of the Fiend who’d killed a wolf. He should’ve removed his arrows if he didn’t want to be discovered.
He shouldn’t have killed her wolf if he wanted to live.
“I told the truth,” she said. “That’s all the letter held.”
The executioner slung the noose around her brother’s neck and he made a gasping sound, one of tears and horror, but not of regret.
“Goodbye, Burke.” Redyn kissed his cheek because boys seemed to like that, and she slipped off into the forest before her parents noticed she’d left the house.
She knew the fiend had died when the crowd made an audible cry.
Redyn, age twelve
“Girls, there’s a coach come into town,” Tia’s mother called from the back door of their cottage. Redyn remained still where she sat on the grass with the other girls, who’d chosen to fawn over Tia’s birthday presents. The beloved corset, a symbol of Tia finally becoming a lady, went back into the pile. If it had been Redyn’s choice, she wouldn’t have wasted her time embroidering a handkerchief for the snob, and she wouldn’t have attended the party.
“A real coach from court?” The high, white collar on Tia’s dress seemed to eat her face.
“Come see, girls. It looks like they’re buying supplies from the store.”
Since the others ran around the cottage, Redyn dragged along after them. Tia had barely glanced at the handkerchief before tossing it down. What had Redyn’s mother thought, forcing her to make that, when the others brought store-bought goods?
The steamcoach dwarfed the two pony carts on the deep-rutted main road through the village. A youth in the green uniform of the king’s army stood on the front porch of the general store while villagers crowded around him with questions. Redyn smirked. They must not have remembered what happened last time the king sent someone to their village.
She circled the steamcoach, studying the gold embossing, the brass pipes in the back where the steam emerged, the high wheels that could carry the contraption through mud and shallow streams. Redyn crouched to see beneath it.
“You like machines?” a woman asked.
Redyn jerked upright. The coach’s door had opened without her hearing it, and a woman in a black dress leaned out, her gray hair fastened into a chignon.
Redyn nodded.
“I do too. I’ve always had a strange fascination with gears. I want to see how much I can create and what I can do with those creations.” She opened the door wider. “I helped to enhance this coach. I abhor the rumble they usually make.”
“You tinkered with this?” Redyn whispered. The greatest the villagers created was a new barn.
“I work with everything I can. I’m Professor Rosa.”
“You’re a professor?” Redyn couldn’t believe someone had actually left her speechless.
“I once taught at the University of Lake Wrecking. My husband passed away last year, so I wanted a quiet home, somewhere I could work in peace.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to a university, but we’re only allowed to go to school until we’re twelve. I finished this year.” She’d asked if she could, but her mother had been adamant. Only rich girls with no prospects for marriage continued their education.
Professor Rosa smiled, her face wrinkling around the eyes and mouth. “I’m planning on giving science classes once my laboratory is settled. Hopefully, you’ll be able to attend.”
“You’ll live around here?”
“The king has given me the Kenyon Castle.”
“Grandmother,” a boy’s voice interrupted from behind Redyn. “I have everything you need.”
Redyn jumped aside and met the knight’s gaze. No, he had to be a squire, not yet twenty in age. He glared down his long nose at her, so she glared back, pursing her lips.
“Thank you, Alexxin. I was telling this dear about my plans for the science classes.”
He pushed his black curls off his forehead, raked Redyn with a stare that made her blush, and leapt into the coach with his grandmother. Redyn crossed her arms as the steamcoach rattled down the road into the forest.
“It’s unseemly for girls to learn science,” Redyn’s mother hissed across the table. “What is that old woman thinking? She should’ve stayed in the city.”
“Professors do unique things,” her father said around a bite of bread.
“But to ask if any of our children want her to teach them? She has nerve.”
Redyn stirred her spoon through her stew. “I’m going.”
“What?” Her father dipped his bread into his bowl.
She stared at him, keeping her face expressionless. “I’m going to learn from her.”
“Nonsense.” Her mother snorted. “Why would you want to do that?”
“I want to make things.”
“I can understand letting some of our boys go, but not the girls.” Her father stabbed at her with his spoon. “Won’t do you no good learning from her.”
“I asked around and no one is sending their child,” Redyn’s mother added.
“I’m going,” Redyn repeated. “After my chores, I will walk to the castle and learn from her.”
“You won’t.” Her father sliced himself another one off the loaf.
“I will,” Redyn said, and this time neither of her parents countered with a nay.
“This is where we can keep our extra supplies.” Professor Rosa marked what supplies those might be with a lead pencil on her clipboard.
Redyn stepped into the small room on the castle’s third floor; the fourth floor had been declared unusable because the roof had caved in. “The window is broken.”
When Lord Kenyon had died, those living nearby had ransacked the castle, thieving everything of value. A smashed chair made up the room’s only contents. How grand it must’ve been at one point. They could bring back that grandeur.
“Don’t worry, Red. I have enough money to fix this and still purchase supplies.”
“How?”
“Hmm?” Professor Rosa checked the ceiling before turning back into the hallway.
“How do you have so much money?”
Professor Rosa blinked. “My husband was a lord. Our children passed away from the fever, and now I only have Alexxin. I can’t take all my money with me into the grave.”
“No one here will be able to build as well as this.” The cottages tended to sway when the wind blew too hard.
“Alexxin can bring in workers with him next time he visits.”
“But…” Redyn licked her lips. “They’ll talk in the village. They don’t like strangers.”
Professor Rosa shrugged. “Let them talk. In the meantime, we’ll have a laboratory as splendid as any I’ve ever worked in.”
Redyn, age thirteen
“Come along,” Redyn’s mother snapped. “You’re taking too long.”
Music thrummed from the town hall. Anyone with an instrument played it while the walls vibrated to the tunes. Redyn remembered why she’d never listened to her mother’s insistence about learning to play the piano—music caused headaches and confusion. Silence helped develop thought.
Villagers mingled outside, sipping punch from tin cups and laughing.
“Hello,” her mother called. “Isn’t it a splendid e
vening?” They’d taken longer to leave the cottage than Redyn’s father and brothers, who’d gone after work. Her mother had wanted to finish the buttermilk biscuits that decorated her only silver tray.
“Redyn, we haven’t seen you lately,” said a robust woman in a skirt with eighteen frills. “Don’t you help your poor mother anymore?”
“I work with Professor Rosa.” Redyn curtsied to be polite.
The woman snorted. “How horrendous. Girls should take care of the menfolk, not create things.”
Redyn tapped the brass-framed goggles resting on her head. “I made these. Actually, I made two pairs, and Professor Rosa sent them back to her dean in the city. The dean was very impressed. Professor Rosa thinks I may have a job at the university someday.”
Her mother’s harsh bark of a laugh cut through the music. “My daughter has the most outlandish ideas. At least when she’s with Professor Rosa she’s not moping around the kitchen. She’ll find a husband soon enough.”
“What if she doesn’t?”
“Then she won’t go to that castle anymore.”
Redyn pursed her lips as she brushed past the idiotic gossips into the town hall that stank of sweat and the hay someone had thrown over the wooden plank floor to absorb mud from outdoors. Bodies whirled by in time with the fast-paced music. If her mother wanted her to court, then she would court—anything to remain as the professor’s apprentice.
She kept close to the wall as she skirted the dancers. No one looked as nice as she did in her white dress. The professor preferred white clothes in the laboratory, so that they would notice if any bolts or gears fell onto their clothes. She’d even ordered dresses from the city for Redyn.
A group of girls stood beside the tables of food; one wrinkled her nose at Redyn. “What’s that ridiculous thing on her head? Does she need glasses now?”
“They’re terribly big if she does,” another girl snickered.
Redyn kept her gaze forward as she located Burke sitting on a hay bale with a gang of boys. She stopped beside him to grab his arm. “Hello, Burke.”
He stood so fast he almost stumbled. “Um, hullo, Redyn.”
“Court me.” She should smile, but her lips didn’t want to turn upward.
“Um, what?” He frowned in the flickering light from the gas lamps.
“We shall court and be a couple.” She stood on her toes to kiss his cheek. “We shall enjoy it. Now dance with me.” Her mother would expect her to do that.
Anything to continue working at the laboratory.
“Red,” Burke panted, “do we have to keep circling the woods?”
She brushed a branch away from her face. “Yes.”
“Why?” he asked again as if she might tell him this time.
Professor Rosa had said, “In order to make something realistic, you must understand it completely. You must know how the real creature thinks in order to make one of metal.”
Redyn crouched to see through a bush. The professor had textbooks describing how an animal’s body moved, what muscles clenched and loosened.
Redyn stood and brushed leaves off her striped stockings. “Walk me to the castle.”
“You don’t want to have a picnic? I told you I wouldn’t mind packing us a meal. I know you hate cooking.”
“I will go to the castle now. I must work.” The professor wanted her to start a project, and she would.
She would create a clockwork wolf.
Redyn, age sixteen
Redyn sat in the curve of the tree scraping her boots against the bark. Slices of wood rained over the weeds below.
Her beautiful wolf waited in the lilacs. Metal plates made up the body, and when he shifted, the gears she’d carefully oiled showed within. Her darling wolf of years past would be honored to have the replica. It had taken her three years to perfect her pet, and it had become just that—perfect.
Feet crunched over leaves and twigs, and her wolf crouched low, a growl emitting from its mechanical jaws. Redyn smiled.
The rudest of the busybodies in town waddled through the woods carrying a wicker basket; she must’ve taken a meal to her sons and husband in the mines. Under her breath, she mumbled something that sounded like, “Make fun of my food, hmph.”
“Now,” Redyn whispered. Her wolf leaped from the lilacs with a snarl that sent the busybody shrieking. The woman threw her basket and waved her arms overhead, her bosom bouncing in the confines of her blue dress.
Crimson blood splashed across the linen as the wolf sank his jaws into her throat.
“Good boy.” Redyn hopped down from her perch.
“You want to marry me, don’t you?” Redyn leaned away from Burke. Her suitor paled and sputtered. “Not now, you silly boy. Someday. The others our age are wedding already.”
“S-someday, yes,” he stammered.
“I’m afraid that won’t happen.”
“What?” He turned toward the castle as if she’d written “surprise” across the weathered bricks.
“We won’t do well together. I will always favor you, but not in the way you need.” Redyn kissed his cheek to make him feel better. “Goodbye, Burke.” She skipped into the castle.
She’d dated to please her mother, but pleasing her didn’t matter any longer.
The wolves would take care of anyone who threatened Redyn.
“You made him cry.” Alexxin leaned against the hallway wall when Redyn entered the castle. She removed her scarlet wool cloak and hung it on the peg.
“I didn’t realize you would be here,” Redyn drawled.
“My grandmother needed fresh supplies.” He pushed off from the stone to stalk toward her. The brass buttons on his indigo uniform seemed to wink at her.
Redyn tipped her head, keeping her mouth firm. “I trust you’ve been well.” Her mother would be proud of that statement.
Alexxin tapped his finger against the underside of her chin. “Why did you make that lad so sad?”
She stepped back. “We’re no longer together.”
“Oh? That means you’re without a beau. You broke his miner heart.”
“He’s a woodcutter, not a miner. He logs in the deep woods.”
Alexxin trailed his fingertip over her throat to the V-neckline of her white bodice. “Have you ever wanted to visit the court? I could show you around the city.”
Redyn skirted around him. “Congratulations on your knighthood.”
Alexxin caught her wrist in his hand. “My dear Red, I heard the most intriguing news when I drove through your village today. It seems a wolf picked off three of your villagers. How tragic.”
Redyn blinked at him. “It is tragic that a wolf pack moved into the area.” She almost licked her lips, but caught herself. What happened to the villagers couldn’t be any of his concern.
He lifted her hand to brush his lips over the backs of her knuckles. “I seem to recall you complaining to my grandmother about those certain individuals poking their noses into your business here. Then, when I arrived, Grandmother mentioned you’d finished creating your clockwork wolf.”
“I’m glad to know she’s pleased with my work.” A tingle worked its way over her hand and she extracted it from his grasp. “I did my best for her.”
“Of course you did.” He strolled toward the back of the castle where he kept his chambers, but paused. “You’ll have to show me your creation.”
“Of course,” she echoed. She could display all five for him, and the sixth should be finished that evening.
Burke jogged after her as she walked the path through the forest toward Professor Rosa’s castle. Autumn leaves drifted around her as bright in color as her cloak.
“Redyn, wait,” Burke panted. “Let me just talk to you once. Please.”
“Yes?” She turned on the heels of her knee-high boots to face him.
He halted in front of her and bent at the waist, his lungs heaving as he fought for breath. “You shouldn’t… be out here… alone. Those wolves… the count is up to twenty-five. Th
e mayor… sent for… the king to do… a purging… in the forest.”
Redyn straightened her shoulders. “Alexxin will act as the king’s representative and see about it.”
“Alexxin?”
“Professor Rosa’s grandson.”
“Redyn.” Burke reached for her shoulder, hesitated, and drew his hand back. His gaze flicked out at the trees. “Please, be careful.”
“I will.” She wondered if her wolves watched them from the shadows.
Redyn, age seventeen
Redyn pictured her last glimpse of the village: the wolves surrounding Burke as he knelt sobbing beside the well, the only survivor.
Besides her.
“It’s the most unusual shame.” Professor Rosa fiddled with her vials. “Not that I went into the village at all, and not that anyone came out here, but it’s still a most unusual shame to have them all eradicated out there. Don’t worry, Red.” She glanced up from her worktable. “I’ve installed enough security measures around my castle to keep us safe.”
“Thank you.” Redyn screwed the final breastplate in place on her thirtieth clockwork wolf. Professor Rosa might have been book smart, but she didn’t have the sense to look around her to see reality.
Excellent.
“Red?” Alexxin knocked on the open laboratory door.
She stood and removed her leather gloves. They helped her hold the tiny gears in place while she worked. “Do you need something, Alexxin?”
“Grandmother, this is for you, too.” He held up a letter. “I’ve had word that they want me to train the newest set of squires. I won’t be able to visit here as often.”
Professor Rosa’s face softened. “My poor boy. Do as the king bids, and know you go with honor and love. I’ll miss seeing you here.”
“Red.” He cleared his throat. “Would you like to come with me? You can see the university, and the court.”
“What an excellent idea. Take one of your wolves.” Professor Rosa stabbed her quill toward Redyn’s creation. “I can write to the dean letting him know. Your clockwork wolves are fascinating. I’m sure he’ll be interested.”
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