by Adam Dreece
“There’s a great deal of professional courtesy at play. I suppose it only makes sense, from one master inventor to another. Regardless of our affiliations, at the end of the day, are we not part of the same brotherhood? I think all of this has really changed my views on Simon, as a person. Yes, he’s working with a bunch of people whom I believe to be evil, but the man is… well, decent.”
Franklin raised an eyebrow. “It almost sounds as if you like it here.”
Maxwell put his hands on his hips and lost his words for a moment. “Um, well… a man adapts, I suppose. Still, I miss the cat, and going to the pub.”
“The cat died two years ago, and you never go to the pub,” replied Franklin, annoyed.
Scratching his head, Maxwell glanced about in thought. “She died?”
“Yes, Father,” answered Franklin.
“Well, that’s a shame. But the pub… I admit it’s rare, but I had the freedom of choosing whether or not I went, and… well, I miss making that decision,” he said thoughtfully. “I miss that. I do. Tea?”
“Why not,” replied Franklin. As his hand started to spasm, he quickly hid it behind him.
After getting the kettle on, he gave his son a long look. “You’ve let your hair grow. Hmm. It’s fine, just in need of a little trim maybe.”
“Actually, Father, I’m letting it grow. I’m thinking a philosopher’s pony tail might look sporting,” said Franklin stiffly.
“Oh,” replied Maxwell. “Well, you aren’t the little boy I sent into the world on an adventure anymore, are you? I think it’s a most reasonable decision, a most reasonable one. Why, I tried to have one once. It didn’t work out, but I applaud your spirit! Yes, go after it.” His expression looked disconnected and guilty.
“I wasn’t a little boy when I left home,” said Franklin, irritated. “I think… I don’t think you’ve seen me as I really am for some time, to be honest.” He lowered his gaze to the floor, bothered by the truth of what he’d just said.
“Yes, well… a hazard of the profession, I suppose.” Maxwell glanced about pensively. “You should have a look at this heat ring, a marvelous little thing.” He took the kettle off of the red glowing coil. “It, and all the lanterns, are powered by gas from the ground.”
“Oh,” said Franklin, looking at the piles on the floor.
Maxwell poured the tea into a pot, placed the leaves in after counting to five, and then decided to ask the big question on his mind. “Did you… um… did you manage to get the plans to Nikolas?”
Franklin’s face hardened above tense shoulders. “I made it all the way to Minette. I met Klaus, his granddaughter and some others. But the plans… no. I hid them just before I was kidnapped by agents of the Ginger Lady.”
Maxwell waited and then laughed. “Oh, you had me going! The mythical Ginger Lady. You are a cheeky monkey,” he said, giving his son a playful punch.
Staring down his father’s antics, Franklin said, “No, actually, she’s very real. She has three cruel henchmen she refers to as her children. Twisted, demented red cloaked monsters. It took every ounce of genius and determination I had to escape them.”
Patting Franklin’s arm, Maxwell said, “But… but you’re here now, you’re safe. That’s all that matters. We’re together.”
Franklin looked over his shoulder at the door, thinking. “Oh, I remembered something. I owe you an apology.”
Maxwell finished preparing the second cup for tea and smiled. “Oh? What for?”
A relaxed smile broke out across Franklin’s face for the first time. “I should never have given you a hard time about managing money. It’s quite the tricky business, it turns out. I had to work for a couple of months just to be able to afford to cross over to Freland. Though I’d honestly thought I had been rather thrifty with my money, I still spent too liberally for my means. Penny wise, pound foolish, maybe? I got robbed a number of times after getting paid for my dirty hours of work. I learned a lot about being alone and having no money. I didn't like it much.”
They chuckled together. “Yes, well, I’ve heard it said not even the destitute enjoy being poor.” Maxwell gave his son an affection tap on the arm. “I appreciate you saying that. You’re becoming quite the man, Franklin. I am sorry you had to learn some lessons of life the hard way. I’m proud of you, look at where you’ve gotten.”
Franklin smiled stiffly, his eyes confused. What would have once felt like a warm complement now made him uneasy. He gazed about the room again, cringing at the state of everything. “It feels like it’s been a million years since we were home, with you burning that letter from Klaus, and whatnot.” He accepted the cup of tea and gave it a sniff. “Is that citrus in the perfume?”
“It is,” replied Maxwell gleefully. “Lovely brew. They call it Baron Brown. Or is that the other one? Anyway, come, let’s sit you down… oh, let me find you something to sit on. I’ve never had company before. I think there’s a stool upstairs. Back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” He returned moments later holding a simple wooden foot stool.
Franklin put his cup on the counter with two hands, hiding another tremor. Something about one of the piles had caught his attention. He crouched down to examine it in detail, and then the one beside it. He looked up at the drawings pinned to the wall to the right of the high-backed chair. “What are these?”
“Those are the puzzles I mentioned,” said Maxwell proudly. “The wall has my favorite solutions. Simon sends them to keep us—the inventors in residence here—thinking.”
Franklin raised an eyebrow. “In residence?”
“Well, we aren’t prisoners,” scoffed Maxwell. “Yes, our movements are restrained, but I think it has more to do with the times. And the puzzles, I believe they really are a professional courtesy, like I mentioned. Even the greatest minds need a whetstone of problems to stay sharp.”
Tapping a particular drawing on the wall, Franklin said, “Have you sent him the solution for this one yet?”
“Which one?” Maxwell adjusted his spectacles and leaned in for a look. “Hmm, about a month ago, I think. Yes, there in the opposite corner of the due date is the submission date. Right now I’m working the one right by your feet, the one with the arcing lines.”
Franklin bent down and picked up the drawing. After analyzing its contents and muttering to himself, he rubbed his face. He put the paper back down, and chuckled darkly. He ran his eyes over every drawing on the wall and atop the piles, soaking them in.
Maxwell gestured for his son to sit on the stool. “We can talk about these puzzles and problems later. I hope they’ll give you a room beside mine, or maybe move me up to something a little bigger and let us share. That’d be nice, at least until we can go home. Now, you must tell me what Klaus is like.”
Franklin stared at his father in cold disbelief. He backed up slightly, shaking his head. “You don’t see it, do you?” he asked.
“See what?” asked Maxwell, standing beside his son and looking for something out of place.
Putting his hands behind his back, Franklin raised his chin and said, “All of it. What you’re actually doing here. You think Simon’s been courteous? That he’s just being an upstanding fellow inventor?”
“Well, he has. What’s wrong with that? The world should be more civilized,” defended Maxwell.
Franklin clenched his fists tightly. “You’re an idiot. Look at it. Truly look at it, all of it! The man has outsmarted you into giving him the steam engine plans piece by bloody piece!”
Maxwell laughed nervously. “What? Never. You’re just tired, not thinking clearly.”
Glaring at his father, Franklin shook his head in disbelief. “Tired? I’m not five years old, Father.”
“I know, you’re fifteen.”
“Actually, Father,” said Franklin, twitching, “you seem to have forgotten that my birthday was yesterday. I was wondering if I was going to have to point it out.”
“No, I’m sure I—” he glanced about, trying to find a calendar. �
��I’m sure I’d—”
“You’re just lost in your own world,” said Franklin. “Do you really want to know about your hero, the great Nikolas Klaus? He was mocking you, Father. While he helped nudge you in the direction of putting together your cute little invention, he had inventions like a rocket cart. I saw it fly through the air with my own eyes. He was so far ahead of you that you were a bug to his boot.”
Maxwell’s face went red. “That’s impossible. You’ve misunderstood something. You should have more respect. Nikolas—”
“I saw it! You’re a fool,” barked Franklin. “You’re a stupid, blind old fool.”
“Now, you will watch your tone!” said Maxwell, grabbing Franklin’s arm.
Franklin scoffed and shook off his father’s grasp. “Please. That didn’t work before you sent me on your pointless errand. You should be careful I don’t leave you battered and broken.”
“How dare you? You’re my son and you will—”
“And I will nothing!” shouted Franklin, seething. “The trip was good for me. It showed me that I can, that I must become so much more than I would at your side, in your shadow. You just breed failure around you.”
“What are you talking about? How… how—how dare you?” stammered Maxwell.
Franklin gestured to the mess surrounding them. “I don’t know how you did it, but this place already has your stink of defeat and meekness. You’ve been sitting here, thinking life is simple and good, and instead you’ve been taken advantage of as the fool that you are,” he hesitated before speaking again, with his harshest words yet. “For the first time, I understand why mother left you.”
Maxwell slapped Franklin. “You have no right!”
“You think me wrong? Then look. Those diagrams, they are all parts of the boiler.” Franklin pulled two sheets off the wall. “These are how the pistons are held.” He picked up one from the floor. “This one is part of the steam inlet mechanism. You’ve been giving it all to him in pieces, willfully! They didn’t need to torture you, they just had to give you a nice chair and a pot of tea. Some man of conviction you turned out to be.”
Maxwell went white and staggered, putting a hand on the wall to steady himself. “You’re… you’re wrong. You’re just angry and you’re just… just… seeing things.” He stopped and stared in horror at the truth. Franklin was right. He’d fallen right into Simon’s trap. Maxwell remembered sensing something off along the way, but he’d so desperately wanted to believe things were better than they really were, that the world wasn’t mean and nasty and conniving. So he’d easily been played for the naive fool he was.
Franklin laughed. “YES I’m angry. How many times did I listen when you told me to be humble, that I had to accept when someone else won? You claimed I just needed to try harder, that it would build my character. Here’s the real life lesson, Father; only the strong survive. If I follow your lead, I’m going to wind up being a fool with nothing, wondering why everyone around me is achieving their dreams and seeing my inventions stolen from me. I will not end up being a worthless idiot.” He straightened his coat. “No wonder Simon offered me this visit. He knew I’d see my instincts were right.”
“What are you talking about?” Maxwell’s forehead was covered in sweat.
“I’m going to work for… no, with him.”
“The man’s a monster!” exclaimed Maxwell.
Franklin laughed at his father. “Make up your mind, is he a saint or a monster? He can’t be both.”
Maxwell stared at the papers, scared. The truth was terrifyingly obvious. He mentally put the images together in his head, grasping for something to redeem himself with. “Ah! He won’t be able to piece everything together, because he doesn’t have… oh, wait… Anyway, there’s still time for the Tub—”
“There is no Tub anymore. I was there when they captured Anna Kundle Maucher, yet another arrogant idiot. I saw Klaus’ house burn to the ground. I’ve joined the winning side, and all of this, this ability to just take what they need through nothing more than sheer genius, is what I want to do. That’s why I gave Simon the location of the steam engine plans. This is my path to changing history.”
Maxwell stumbled into his chair, kicking over piles, sick to his stomach. “Please, tell me you’re kidding. This is all a horrible, twisted joke. I forgive you. Please, you can’t be… Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he whispered, his heart pounding.
Franklin stared in disbelief at his father. “What I’ve done?” He waved at the drawings. “Apparently, all I’ve done is found a way to make some coin on something you were just about to finish giving him for free.”
“Son, you don’t understand. There was more than just the engine on those plans.”
He ignored his father’s remarks and continued on his rant. “I listened to you, and what did it get me? It got me humiliated and shocked by a little girl, so badly that I can’t even hold a cup of tea properly anymore!” yelled Franklin, picking up his tea cup off the counter and throwing it against the wall.
“Son, please… this has all gone so badly,” whispered Maxwell sorrowfully.
Franklin paced about and then stopped, another dark chuckle finding its way out. “Do you have any idea how I got here? I convinced two trained thugs to listen to me, not only because I was smarter than them, but because I was able to drop one of them to the ground with a single blow. Do you know how I got these clothes? I beat street gamblers at their own game. Do you know how I am standing right here? Because I figured out, in a day, what Simon St. Malo himself couldn’t solve after nearly two weeks. I will find a way to be great, and nothing, not even you, is going to stop me.”
Maxwell’s head drooped. “You can’t do this. I didn’t know what I was doing, but you, Franklin, you can’t. You don’t understand what these people are trying to do.”
“Actually, I think I have a remarkably good idea.” Franklin stepped into the hallway, tugged on his shirt sleeves, and straightened his vest and coat. “We won’t talk again for a long, long time. But I will see that you make it home to Inglea. We won’t be needing your services anymore.”
As he stormed out of the building, Ruffo and Stefano flanked him silently for a quarter of a mile.
“Where we going?” asked Stefano, realizing they were starting to walk in a circle.
Franklin stopped and gazed about at the early evening lights coming from the town down the hill. “I… I don’t know. I’ve got a thousand crowns from St. Malo on me. I’m mentioning this because I’m splitting it evenly with the two of you.”
“No, you aren’t,” said Ruffo, cracking his knuckles.
“That’s right, that’s not the way it’s going to work,” added Stefano.
“Oh?” Franklin glanced between them nervously.
“The boss always gets a double share. Half for you, half split between us.”
Franklin was surprised. “Really?”
“Rules are rules,” said Ruffo. “But seriously, you got a thousand crowns? That’s… that’s like double what LeLoup was going to get.”
Franklin tapped his breast pocket. “It’s a thousand, and its in paper. I told you guys I’d take care of you, right?”
“You did,” answered Ruffo, truly impressed.
“So, what do you do with that type of money?” asked Franklin, looking at the town.
“Just follow our lead, Franky. We’ve got this,” said Stefano, putting his arm around the lad. “And don’t worry, we ain’t going to have you waking up in some garbage heap or nothing. You’re the boss, and the boss has to be respected, always.”
“Yeah, Franky, we got your back,” added Ruffo.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Without Regret
Amami slowed the King’s-Horse down to a stop and glanced about as she dismounted. “We should be safe to stay here overnight.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. “This old farm house is a bit creepy looking.”
“I have stayed here many times. It used to be our un
cle’s,” replied Amami, completing her ritual of shutting down the mechanical horse.
The old house looked very much worse for wear. The field around it that had once been brimming with vegetables was now overgrown with weeds.
“Have I been here before?” asked Richy hesitantly.
Amami stopped and thought. “I… I do not believe so. I had been here several times before you were born. You met our uncle once, when he came up to visit us. After you were taken, and father died—”
“How did he die?”
Steeling herself, she answered, “When you were being taken, father shot Marcus Pieman, and one of the men shot our father. He died a week later of infection.” She stared at the ground. “His name was Everett.”
Richy couldn’t explain the well of emotion he was feeling. He didn’t remember the man. “What’s… What’s our last name?”
Amami stared at him, confused. “How do you not know? Do you know anything about who you are?”
Turning away from her, he said, “The only thing I know is someone thought my name was Hotaru.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Yes, the Hotaru! That’s why you were taken,” replied Amami. “So, you remember that.”
“I don’t know what it means.”
“But…” she stopped, frustrated. She wished she could shake him and bring everything back. “Do you remember me calling you the Dragon all the time?”
He shook his head.
“And you called me the Fox.”
Richy offered a smile.
“I’ve used that name everywhere I go,” she said, smiling back. She took a saddle bag of supplies off the horse and started to head for the house. “In the morning, we head home to visit mother.” As she reached the door, she realized Richy hadn’t moved. “Riichi?”
He was standing there, staring at the ground.
She put down her bag and walked back over to him, confused. “Come.”
He shook his head. “I can’t abandon my friends. Bakon and Egelina-Marie were captured by the Lady in Red. I have to find them and help them. It feels like I haven’t spoken to Tee and Elly in years. They’re probably worried about me. I can’t imagine what my parents are feeling.”
