Astrid Darby and the Circus in the Sky

by Eleanor Prophet

  ***

  “Elodie! Don't do this!” Eitenne pleaded with a dramatic flair that I considered slightly inappropriate, given the current situation.

  Flaire's guards, while quite burly and possessing weapons which I suspected could cause grievous bodily harm, should they get it in mind to attack us, were quite polite as they directed us towards their master's chambers. As we stepped inside, the room, larger than our suite but quite similar in design, seemed quite innocuous indeed.

  The small sitting room area was most accommodating to our small party. I felt quite comfortable and suspected there were far worse places to die, not that I had not many times faced much more dangerous villains than a ringmaster with a clockwork and lived to tell. Beside me, Asher seemed relaxed, though he was often relaxed in even the most extreme, life-threatening situations. I felt his fingers close around mine and was grateful for their warmth.

  Elodie ignored her brother. She lifted her chin and strode to Flaire's side as though to confirm her particular loyalties. Flaire wrapped an arm around her waist. Ah ha. So, I had been right all along. “You should be proud, Eitenne,” Flaire announced. “Your sister has discovered a new avenue of enlightenment. And yet you defy her wishes by hiring these people to spy upon us. You are one of us. This is a grave dishonour and betrayal.”

  Eitenne twisted his hands together in a strange contortion that seemed almost impossible. His fingers appeared almost to bend backwards over themselves. “You have done something to my sister, Pietro. I know it is true.”

  “I assure you, Eitenne, your sister is quite herself. Are you not, my love?” Flaire turned his head to look at the woman on his arm. For a moment, they peered most dotingly into each other's eyes.

  Then Elodie turned back to Eitenne with a look so disdainful, so venomous, Eitenne flinched away from her. “I told you Eitenne. I did implore you to give up this campaign against Pietro. Why did you not listen to me? I had hoped it would not come to this.”

  Asher waved his hand impatiently. “I am afraid we have little time for family tensions at the moment. I am most eager to see that which you claim will be the last thing we see.”

  Pietro smiled indulgently. “Ah. Yes. Of course. Allow me to reveal, then, the most unique of inventions. Come.”

  He led us into the next chamber, which reminded me somewhat of Morgan Reinhart's sitting room. Copper wire, gauges, glass bottles, metal tubes, gears, scrap metal and mysterious tools littered the floor. The main attraction was an apparatus in the centre of the room, which stood twice as tall as a man. The dingus was, for the moment, draped in a red cloth. With a performer's flair, Pietro swept the cloth from the instrument, gesturing grandly as though he expected a great gasp or round of rousing applause.

  It was little more than a glass cylinder with a pointed metal tip from which protruded a series of wires and tubes, which extended straight into the floor, as though it was connected to something underneath the ship; the clockwork we'd heard during Elodie's performance, to be sure. The cylinder was filled with an airy, roiling substance that resembled most closely a golden fog with the consistency of a London Particular. It was, perhaps, very dense gas or some sort of very light liquid. As we watched, the substance swirled and danced, as though reacting to our presence. It moved almost as if it were alive, as if it could sense us outside its chamber.

  Asher and I turned to peer at each other uncomprehendingly. If Flaire expected either of us to divine the purpose of the machine or applaud the achievement, he was deeply disappointed. Its nature eluded us completely. We turned back to Flaire. As he realised we had absolutely no idea about what we should be so impressed, his smile slipped, and he grunted impatiently.

  “May I present the first ever Empathetic Spirit Resonance Extractor and Manipulator.”

  “That sounds completely absurd,” Asher remarked.

  Flaire scoffed disdainfully. “But what does it actually do?” I asked.

  “It harnesses the human condition,” Flaire replied with a vainglorious toss of his dark hair.

  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  “It extracts the energies and emotions of the audience and stores it here, in this chamber.” He lifted a hand to touch the sparkling glass. Inside the chamber, the swirling energy moved towards his fingers, as though trying to get closer to him through their prison wall.

  “That is human emotion?” Asher did not seem inclined to conceal the disdain in his voice.

  “It is part of all of you.” He smiled a bit wryly. “Well, those of you who did not resist Elodie's extractor.”

  “Is that what the flute is?” I asked, lifting my eyebrows.

  “It is, if I do say so, quite ingenious. It conducts the emotion of the crowd, funnels it into the gears of the exquisite machine below and transfers it here, into the chamber.” He peered up at the swirling golden fog with a fevered sort of fondness. “Aren't they beautiful? They are joy, fear, love, surprise, excitement. Elodie's performances are...quite visceral. The things you people feel...and it all comes back to me. It's all mine.”

  “But how?” I demanded. “How can a flute possibly move energy through clockwork gears?”

  “If you must ask, Mrs Darby, you could not possibly understand the genius of my invention.”

  I rolled my eyes, but I did not doubt that he was likely quite correct in this estimation. Xander, Juliana, perhaps, Morgan certainly would have understood the complicated apparatus, but I had little interest in how the thing worked; it was quite obvious that it did. As such, I resolved to turn my considerable cleverness towards smashing it up as quickly as possible. “All right. That is not inaccurate. But to what purpose then? What does it do? Does it power the ship?”

  Flaire laughed. “Power the ship? My dear lady, this ship relies on the most mundane and reliable methods of aeronautical propulsion. No, indeed. It is for something greater still.”

  I sighed and exchanged a long-suffering gaze with Asher. “Let's hear it, then. World domination? Political protest? A misguided overture of love or revenge? Do tell. We have, I assure you, heard it all.”

  His smile morphed into an angry scowl. “Nothing so banal. This clever contraption can harness the emotions of the people—their most intimate and transcendent feelings—to guide their thoughts and actions.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Asher interrupted. “But are you suggesting you can use this machine to control people's minds?

  “Not as such. It simply channels their most powerful feelings. It propels them into a sort of puppet-like trance. People are most suggestible, I have discovered, when they are most vulnerable to their emotions.”

  “But that is absurd,” I said. “It would never work.”

  “Do you think not?”

  “To what end do you intend to put this machine?” Asher demanded.

  Flaire smiled. “I am certain being in possession of a vast army of my followers will come in handy. I think perhaps I would eventually like to possess my own country. I have nobles and kings at my command, you know. Without even knowing it, they have all given themselves to me. I rule them all.”

  “Elodie!” Eitenne exclaimed. I had nearly forgotten the funambulist was in attendance of the peculiar audience and impromptu monologue. He looked so thoroughly downtrodden that I wished he could have been spared the details of his master's evil plan. “You are helping him with this nefarious scheme?”

  Elodie lifted her chin. Her expression was cold and impenetrable. She was still very beautiful, like an ice statue sculpted by a master hand. She did not deign to explain matters to her brother, despite the pain and shock upon his features, upon which the beautiful metallic swirls had smeared and run together so he looked like a tragic, garish clown. “I am with Pietro. I follow him.”

  “You are controlling her!” Eitenne jabbed a finger towards Flaire.

  Flaire's smile was almost pitying. “I am afraid, my dear Eitenne, that Elodie came to me quite willingly. I saw in her a most like-minded and ambitious compan
ion.” He stepped towards her and took her hand. She smiled up at him with a slavish expression in her eyes that did not bode well for her brother's cause. Flaire looked back around at us. “Now. I have apprised you all of my tremendous achievement. You must know what comes next.”

  I turned my head to meet Asher's gaze. At the same instant, we smiled at each other. His eyes glinted in that keen, audacious way that had so drawn me to him in the past. My pulse leapt. This was, I expected, going to be fun.

  “I am afraid you will find it far more difficult to kill us than you suspect,” Asher informed him in a mild, matter-of-fact sort of voice.

  Flaire laughed as so many who had come before him. Our foes nearly always assumed they were better than the last failed villain against whom we had battled. He drew a small, gilded pistol from his belt. Just as quickly, Asher's gun was in his hands, aimed at the startled ringmaster. With a leisurely hand, I extracted Nathaniel's clever little wave gun from a pocket in my capacious skirts.

  The ringmaster scowled around at his guards. “You did not check them for weapons?”

  The guards bent low at the waist in identical gestures of deep chagrin. “We beg your pardon, sir,” our guard said in a low, despairing murmur.

  “This just proves why it would behoove me to hire real security, rather than circus performers.”

  Asher stepped towards the disappointed man. “Flaire, put down your weapon