The Brass Giant

by Brooke Johnson

  “I’ll be off now,” she called.

  The men’s conversation paused, but neither of them answered her. Just as well. Petra picked up her things and crept out the back door. Stepping into the narrow alleyway between the pawnshop and an abandoned bail bonds building, she tucked her hair into her hat to complete her masculine disguise and then made for the University.

  HUDDLED OVER THE automaton designs, Petra and Emmerich drew up the extensive parts order for the machine. They could forge most of the custom pieces on-­site, but for speed and efficiency, they would divide the workload between manufacturers and send for the more common pieces to be made in the Guild factories located on the mainland. While Emmerich summed up the cost of materials, Petra pushed her shoes against the edge of the desk and reclined, balancing on the back legs of her chair.

  A few students still lingered in the workshop, too consumed by their own projects to bother Emmerich. She understood the disinterest. Give an engineer a project, and the rest of the world fell by the wayside.

  “You will fall doing that,” said Emmerich.

  Petra leaned forward, slamming the chair to the floor, and he chuckled softly. She checked her pocket watch—­nearly six o’clock. Her absence from dinner would probably go unnoticed, and if Matron did notice, Solomon would cover for her. She needed to come up with a good excuse for being out so late, something that didn’t involve being out alone with a boy until the late hours of the night. With the deadline just four months away, she’d have to spend nearly every evening helping Emmerich finish the automaton.

  Petra snapped the watch shut and moved to slip it back into her pocket, but Emmerich’s hand suddenly closed over hers. A shiver ran up the length of her arm.

  “You fixed it,” he said, carefully prying open her fingers to examine the watch.

  She swallowed thickly and nodded, trying not to think of the warmth of his skin or the gentleness of his touch. “Just today.”

  Relinquishing her hold on the watch, she let Emmerich carry it into the light. Her heart pounded in a discordant rhythm, making it hard to breathe. Why did she let him have such an effect on her? The intensity in the way he spoke to her, the way he touched her so intimately, as if . . . She shook her head, clearing the thoughts from her mind. She refused to let herself be so affected; she wasn’t some fainting damsel trying to win his affections—­she was his colleague, his partner.

  Frowning, she stabilized her leaping pulse with steady breaths and looked on as Emmerich examined the watch. She half expected him to take it apart, to study the double mainspring she had worked so hard to convince him would work for the automaton, but it seemed the watch had enchanted him. He rubbed his thumb across the intricate C that decorated the front of the case, a curious smile on his lips.

  “I’ve seen a watch like this before.”

  Everything stilled. The ticking of the pocket watch beat like a drum in the silence, the rest of the world frozen in time.

  “You have?”

  Emmerich nodded. “I am certain of it.”

  “Where?” she demanded. “When?”

  He glanced up at her with a calculating stare and offered her the watch. “It was some time ago, when I was but a child. It would have been before the fire.”

  Petra’s heart thundered in her chest, a demand for answers in her throat. “The University fire?”

  “Yes.”

  She stared down at the watch in her trembling hands. “Do you—­” Her voice cracked, and she closed her eyes, tightening her fingers around the watch. The decorative C pressed hard into her palm. “Do you remember whose it was?”

  Only his silence answered her, but then he leaned forward in his chair, his voice low. “Do you truly not remember who gave it to you?”

  “No,” she said quietly, shaking her head. “I don’t remember anything from before the fire.”

  “But you were there that day,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  She nodded. That was where Matron Etta found her, rescued from the burning building and left crying in Matron’s arms, with only the watch and a wooden screwdriver in her pockets. Petra stared at the watch, seeing the hidden inscription in her mind, the only proof that someone somewhere had loved her.

  She pried the back of the watch from the rest of the case, and the engraved brass fell into her lap. Whoever had written the inscription, whoever had given her the pocket watch, had loved her enough to forever carve their love into the casing. She yearned to feel that love again, to feel comfort, to belong. She wanted someone to hold her, someone to believe in her, to be there for her when no one else would.

  She swallowed the ache in her throat.

  With Emmerich, she felt that.

  “Petra?” He leaned in, cupping his right hand around her face, his thumb lightly caressing the width of her cheek. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice soft.

  She blinked, and wetness splashed the tops of her cheeks. Were they tears? Lifting her eyes, she saw Emmerich staring back at her, his eyes full of concern. Her skin blossomed with warmth beneath his callused fingers, hardened by years of turning a screwdriver and fitting gears to tickers, and she fought the desire to lean into his hand, to revel in the touch of his fingers upon her cheek. Too soon, he drew away, and a cold chill settled on her skin.

  “I—­I am sorry,” he said, refusing to meet her eye. “I shouldn’t have—­ It was thoughtless of me to—­” He cleared his throat. “If I have offended you—­”

  “No,” she said quietly, wishing he would look at her. “It’s all right, I . . .” She paused, wiping away her cooled tears. “Thank you,” she said finally. “Thank you for your concern.” Her voice sounded hollow and ungracious, but what else could she say?

  She dropped her gaze and fiddled with the pocket watch in her lap. The heavy thrum of her beating heart filled her ears, and she was certain she must be blushing. “Is there—­” She cleared her throat. “Is there any other work to be done tonight?”

  “Work?”

  She glanced up and met his confused gaze. “On the automaton?”

  “Oh, right. No,” he said. “No more work tonight. We have to wait until the materials are ready before we can begin construction, and until then . . .” He shrugged.

  “And when will that be?”

  “Two weeks, perhaps, maybe less.”

  “Is there nothing else we can do between now and then?”

  “I’m afraid not,” he said.

  Petra slumped in her chair. Two weeks without work. Two weeks sitting in the pawnshop dealing with Tolly and his father, Mr. Monfore. Two weeks without seeing Emmerich. Two weeks of sitting around, doing nothing.

  She did not look forward to that.

  Emmerich smiled, still as charmingly handsome as ever. “We’ll begin soon enough,” he said. “In the meantime, would you like me to walk you home?”

  Home was the last place she wanted to be, but she nodded all the same, grateful to spend just a little more time with him, even if it was in awkward silence.

  PETRA AND EMMERICH walked slowly down Medlock Cross, enjoying each other’s silent company. The sun still sat high in the summer sky despite the evening hour, and the air was sticky hot, clinging to Petra’s skin and clothes. She hated summer. There was no escape from the summer heat, nowhere cool to hide in the machine-­powered city, the streets warmed by steam and exhaust. The only respite was eating shaved ice in Pemberton Square, but Petra usually didn’t have the money for such frivolous things. The thought of the cold, crunchy ice sent her mouth watering, and an idea struck her—­she could afford shaved ice treats now, maybe even a flavored one.

  Not yet wanting to go home, she turned toward Emmerich, “Would you like to get a shaved ice in Pemberton?”

  Emmerich grinned. “If you do.”

  They headed toward Andover, passing by the pawnshop, the barber, and th
en the pub, happening upon a group of Luddites outside. A woman stood on a crate in front of the window, shouting to the crowd beneath her. She spoke of the corruptness of the Guild, the vulgarity of machines, riling the mob until they shouted in agreement. Emmerich frowned, his arms tensing as they walked past. Petra understood his anger. The Luddites were the real wickedness of the city, not the Guild, not the University or the machines they built. They were a group of zealous radicals, anti-­technologists with a history of violence against the Guild and anyone who believed that machines would pave the way to the future. It was Luddites who set fire to the University all those years ago, the reason Petra was an orphan. She glared at the woman as she and Emmerich passed.

  When they reached Andover Street, Emmerich released a forceful sigh.

  “I know,” she said quietly. “I hate them too.”

  They walked down the street, passing through the original buildings of the fourth quadrant. The shops and houses here boasted Regency-­style architecture with antique lanterns above each door, unconnected to the gas lines that lit the streetlamps on Medlock. The older buildings were not so cluttered and neglected as the rest of the fourth quadrant—­their doorknobs polished and shop faces freshly painted. It was the way the whole quadrant should have been had time, disinterest, and neglect not let the rest fall to ruin. The poorer district still stood only because of the efforts of those who called it home.

  At the end of Andover, properly in the first quadrant now, was Pemberton Square. The plaza was full of ­people, mostly families with little children. Young girls and boys sat about the fountain, eating shaved ice and soaking their sleeves in the shallow water as they filched pennies from the bottom of the pool when their parents weren’t looking. When Petra was younger, Matron had often taken her and Solomon to Pemberton for shaved ice, or to the beach for a swim. But that was before Constance and the others joined their family. Years of caring for Petra and her siblings had taken a toll on Matron, and she no longer had the means or the energy of her youth, with too many children to care for and too big a heart to admit it.

  Emmerich bought their shaved ices, apple for Petra and mint for himself. They sat on a bench at the edge of the square, enjoying the cold treats.

  “Petra,” he said, setting his ice aside. “If I might ask, how did you become interested in engineering?”

  She glanced down at the empty paper cup in her hands and chewed on her lip. She’d never really thought about it before; that was just who she was. “I don’t know that there ever was a time that I wasn’t interested in machines. I always knew I’d be an engineer, ever since I was little . . .”

  She remembered the first time she visited Mr. Stricket’s shop with Matron Etta, before he’d gone into business with Monfore. Petra had been mesmerized by the glittering clock faces and swinging pendulums and the gentle sound of ticking gears. She’d hopped up into Mr. Stricket’s lap and watched as he repaired a broken pocket watch, as if she had always belonged there. It felt like home.

  She set her empty cup on the bench beside her. “I can’t explain it any more than that, only . . . when I listen to a clock ticking, when I hear the subtle whirring of a machine with all its parts in perfect synchronization, I feel it in my heart, in my bones. Being an engineer just felt . . . right.” She bowed her head and cleared her throat. “I know it sounds stupid, but it’s always been that way for me. It’s just who I am.”

  Emmerich regarded her, his eyes gentle. “I don’t think it’s stupid, Petra Wade.”

  She doubted that. “What made you decide to become an engineer?”

  He glanced away, his copper gaze on the distant gleam of the University. “Aedificium futurum,” he said.

  “Building the future.”

  He nodded. He did not need to say anything else. The Guild tenet was what first drew Petra to the dream of becoming a Guild engineer. Through science, even the most unlikely engineer could change the world.

  Chapter 7

  PETRA EXPECTED THE next two weeks to pass without sight or sound of Emmerich, but not two days went by before she found him standing outside the pawnshop after her shift ended, his hands in his pockets and a charmingly lopsided smile on his face. Nearly every other day since then, he whisked her away to fetch flavored ices in Pemberton Square as they talked about whatever happened to cross their minds—­engineering mostly, the different theories and projects they had dreamed up in the years before they met.

  Petra looked forward to their next outing that afternoon. She stood at the window, anxiously counting down the minutes until the end of her shift, excited to show Emmerich the vast gallery of machines beneath the fourth quadrant. He waited for her just outside the pawnshop, leaning casually against the stairs as he regarded the hazy gray sky above, his hair tousled by the breeze.

  She felt a presence loom up behind her and turned to find Tolly hovering over her shoulder. She scowled. “What do you want?”

  “Going out with him again, are you?” he asked, gesturing out the window.

  Petra crossed her arms over her chest. “And if I am?”

  “What interest is he to you, anyway?”

  She rolled her eyes without reply.

  Tolly hadn’t taken well to her increased visits from Emmerich, and try as she might to brush him off, he only stuck to her more fervently, like a determined leech. As if he really cared what she thought of Emmerich. It didn’t matter to him that Emmerich saw her as an equal, that they shared the same dreams, the same affinity for engineering. Nor that Emmerich challenged her intellectually, or that she genuinely enjoyed his company, both the moments of carefree conversation and the heavy debates over the latest scientific innovations. Tolly didn’t care that Emmerich breathed life into her, or that she had never been so content with the world as she was when she was with him.

  No, Tolly only cared that her attentions were on someone other than him. Well, she was tired of his unwanted advances and tired of him treating her like a possession, as if he had some right to her because they’d grown up together.

  “I can see who I like, you know,” she said quietly, peering out the window.

  Movement across the street caught her eye, and she noticed a man in shabby clothing leaning against the barber’s window. He reminded her of the strange man with the rusted pocket watch who had visited the shop the other day. She’d almost forgotten. Between the fight with Tolly and the work with Emmerich on the automaton, the odd encounter had slipped her mind, but she was certain it was the same man.

  The clocks in the shop chimed four, and Petra reached behind her waist to untie her apron and head out, but Tolly grabbed her wrist. His voice dropped to a low growl.

  “You’re not bedding him, are you?”

  She blanched and swiveled around to face him, her arm twisted crookedly between them. “How dare you!” She tried to wrench her arm free, but he only tightened his grip. “Let me go.”

  “I’ve seen you, Pet, sneaking off to meet with him, staying out late. Don’t think I don’t see what’s going on.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Tolly clenched his jaw, a dark fire behind his eyes. “I see the way you look at him, the way he looks at you. You’re going to get yourself hurt, Petra. In the end, you’re nothing to him. Let it go too far, and he’ll ruin you. He’ll ruin you forever. And then who will want you?”

  Petra jerked her arm free and held her sore wrist, glaring at him. “I can look after myself, thanks,” she said, speaking through gritted teeth. “And I don’t need you making assumptions about what I do in my spare time.” She started toward the door but then hesitated, glancing back at him over her shoulder. “I’m not yours, Tolly. I never was.”

  With one final glare, she turned away and shoved through the front door. She stumbled onto the landing, finding Emmerich waiting at the bottom of the stairs, unaware of her exchange with Tolly. She glanced at
the window, and Tolly’s dark, leering eyes watched from within. She refused to let him ruin a perfectly good afternoon with Emmerich. With a deep breath, she composed herself and descended the stairs, hiding her reddened wrist behind her back.

  Emmerich grinned up at her. “Would you like to go to the square again?”

  “Not yet,” she said, forcing a smile. “I wanted to do something else first.”

  PETRA LED EMMERICH to the south end of Medlock. The entry to the subcity beneath the fourth quadrant was not a ser­vice hatch but a narrow door in the side of an old apartment building. There was another entrance closer to the pawnshop, but a much higher chance of being seen by Guild engineers if they went that way—­she had learned that from experience. But here, not many Guild-­certified engineers worked below the fourth quadrant, promising them the freedom to roam the subcity unhindered.

  They climbed down the brass spiral staircase and stepped onto a catwalk, suspended high over the rows of furnaces and boilers. Steam hissed through the latticework of pipes along the walls and sweat glistened on the underbellies of the boiling tubs. Below, lines of workers rhythmically thrust shovels into coal carts and fed the furnace fires, the light of the glowing coals gleaming off their soot-­covered skin. The air was hot with the tang of metal.

  Emmerich leaned against the rail and looked out over the vast boiler chamber. “This is a marvel.”

  Petra stood next to him, resting her hands on the railing. She breathed in the cindery smell of burning coal and smiled. “This isn’t even the best part.”

  “Oi!” shouted a worker from below. “You aren’t allowed down here.”

  Petra peered over the edge and spied one of the under-­foremen on the catwalk below. “Hello, Mr. Moss.”

  “Oh, it’s you,” he said, shaking his head. “Let me get Sol.” The foreman leaned over the edge of the railing and shouted for Petra’s brother. One of the workers stopped his shoveling and peered up at the catwalks. He spotted Petra and gave a little wave. “Five minutes, Sol,” shouted the foreman. “Then back to it.”