The Girl With the Windup Heart

by Kady Cross

  She nodded.

  “Have fun, then.” The lady went back to her book.

  Mila couldn’t believe it! Jack would not be impressed that she was out so late. But then, Jack seemed to assume that everyone she met was out to hurt her in some way.

  As they left the house a steam carriage rumbled up to the curb and stopped, its engine running and chugging steam into the darkness. The driver tipped his hat to them. “Is there a Mila amongst you?”

  “I’m Mila,” she said warily, stepping forward. She didn’t know this man.

  The man offered her a slight smile. “For you, miss.” He leaned down, offering her an envelope.

  Mila took it. “Thank you.”

  “Good evening,” the driver said and pulled away.

  “Ohh, Mila got a letter from an admirer,” Gina cooed.

  “Open it! Open it!” The girls all chanted. Two doors down a woman opened her window. “Shut up out there!”

  The girls giggled. Mila frowned and opened her letter. It read:

  I know who you are. It is imperative to the well-being of our mutual friend Mr. Dandy that you come to my house. Now. Use the servants’ entrance.

  It was signed with a simple B. Blackhurst. Under any other circumstances Mila would assume he meant that Jack was in danger, but having met the man, she knew that any danger to Jack would be at the hand of his lordship himself if she didn’t do as instructed.

  “I have to go,” she said, crumpling the note in her hand.

  Her friends were confused. Henrietta blinked. “What...?” But Mila was already gone, moving faster than she ought toward Mayfair—moving faster than humanly possible.

  If Blackhurst hurt Jack, she’d break every bone in his body—one at a time.

  Chapter Thirteen

  How did she fight a ghost in its own element? This was the question that plagued Finley as she lay in the Tesla suit waiting for death to claim her. In the living world Lord Felix wouldn’t be much of an opponent at all. The one time they’d tangled, she hadn’t even had confidence in her strength or fighting abilities, and she’d still kicked his arse—hard. But in the Aether he was much, much stronger than her, and had every advantage—including an army of murderous girls.

  The odds were very much in favor of her getting ripped limb from limb. At least Ipsley would be there to help her, and to let Em know if she needed to be yanked out in a hurry.

  If she was nervous about facing Felix she was even more aggravated by it. This detour took up time she could have spent with Griffin. Time that could have been used in getting him out of the Aether and back where he belonged. Time that then gave Garibaldi opportunity to plot against them. He’d already drained so much of Griffin that he obviously wasn’t worried about anything they might do in retaliation. He didn’t believe they were the least threat, and that was the real pisser.

  If only he had a physical body—she’d make him pay. But Garibaldi was something she couldn’t pound into a bloody pulp, and had to be dealt with in other ways.

  Her eyelids began to droop. A chill crept over her flesh, covering her with a shiver. Dying wasn’t so bad, but she could use a blanket. As her life faded away—surely dying this many times in such a short period had to be hazardous—the colors of the world gave way to that now familiar misty gray. She found herself standing on that spooky road where she’d first seen the girl on the wall.

  That was intriguing. She’d managed to bring herself to this place, whereas before she’d not had the ability to choose where she entered the Aether.

  “You’re gaining some degree of power here,” Ipsley commented, as though reading her thoughts.

  “Is that good or bad?” Finley asked. He seemed clearer to her, as well—sharper.

  “I’m not entirely sure.” But he was somewhat sure, she suspected, judging from his tone. She had a feeling that this newfound ease in the Aether was one of those hazards she’d wondered about. Would she enter the Aether one of these times and not be able to find her way out? Would she die for good?

  Not before she saved Griffin she wouldn’t.

  She walked on a distance before coming to a halt. “This is where I encountered Lord Felix before.”

  The medium glanced about. “There’s nothing here to indicate this is a regular haunt for him.”

  Finley smiled at his unintentional pun. “No, but he’ll be here.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  She met his gaze. He obviously didn’t have a mean bone in his body if he couldn’t guess the answer to that. It was so obvious. “Because I’m here, and he wants to kill me.”

  “Oh. Yes. Well...” He frowned. In any other situation it would have been humorous to watch him pull himself together. “So we just wait, then?”

  A cool breeze lifted Finley’s hair. She heard giggling. “Yes, but not for long.”

  Tempting as it was to run, she held her ground. This had to end, and she was going to be the one to end it, regardless of how it went. Lord Felix had been in her life for far too long, and had been something to be feared for the entire time. Even after he was killed she lived in fear of having been the one to end his miserable existence. Funny that now she relished the thought of sending his sorry self straight to hell.

  The giggling grew louder. Tendrils of mist came together a few feet down the road—wisps of smoke flying into one another, twirling and undulating until they formed girl-like shapes. Those shapes turned to shadows and then into Felix’s ghost girls. One. Two. Three...six. Six of them coming toward her with smiles pulling at their stitched lips.

  “Playtime,” one whispered through black thread. What had been the point of sewing their mouths shut if they could still talk? Or was it only Finley who could hear them? She didn’t have time to contemplate it as their master had materialized behind them and was sauntering toward her swinging his walking stick. He smirked as he drew closer. And for the first time Finley noticed that he had a small mesh pouch hanging from a chain at his waist. The pouch was filled with eyeballs.

  “Good God,” Ipsley rasped.

  Finley’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t quite share the medium’s horror as her mind had suddenly seized upon an idea. It was risky, and stood a better chance of ending with her entrails scattered all over the gray ground, but it was the only idea she had.

  “Ipsley, can I conjure things here? Like in a dream? Just think of something and have it appear?”

  He glanced at her. “You can do that in your dreams? By Jove, Miss Jayne, that’s extraordinary.”

  And Felix was almost upon them. “Can I?”

  He nodded. “By all rights, yes. You should be able to do just that.”

  “Back so soon?” Lord Felix cooed as he drew closer. The bars through his eyebrow glinted. “Couldn’t stay away from me, what?”

  She arched a brow. “Indeed.” Her mind, however, was centered on something else—turning the single thought of dagger into a real thing that she could feel in her hand.

  “I knew you’d come back,” the blond ghost was saying. “You’re just one of those girls who likes a little pain.”

  She was going to like inflicting some pain on him. In her mind she saw the same sort of wisps that formed the girls swirling around her hand. She looked down and there they were, and as she watched a wickedly sharp, double-edged dagger took shape, until it was solid and real. Brilliant.

  Felix hesitated when he saw the blade. “Little bird’s learned a trick or two since her last visit.” He held out his own hand and suddenly he had a dagger, as well. “What splendid fun.”

  “Fun,” his girls echoed, clapping their hands excitedly as they slowly surrounded her. “Splendid fun.”

  Finley changed her stance. She kept her attention centered on Felix, even as the girls began to close in. They were shadows in her peripheral
vision. Then, when one got close enough, she whipped to the side, grabbed the girl by the front of her diaphanous gown and pulled her close. She lifted the dagger and slashed with concentrated intent—slicing through the stitches that pierced her bluish lips. The girl gasped and Finley shoved her away.

  “Oy,” Felix snarled. “Don’t touch my girls.”

  Finley smiled at his reaction. “What? Your mama never taught you about sharing?”

  “Nine o’clock!” Ipsley shouted. She lunged to the left, grabbed another girl and repeated the action on her, again severing the blackened threads. Felix lurched at her, making a vicious swipe with his blade that she just barely avoided. The tip of the dagger tore her sleeve. She pivoted on her heel and drew her arm back so that the blade pointed behind her, then she followed through, bringing her weapon up so that it kissed her adversary’s cheek, leaving a thin line of blood in its wake.

  “Five o’clock!” Dear Ipsley again.

  She whirled around and slashed another of the girls, and then a fourth. Only two more to go. The first of them had started to moan in a manner that was almost like singing, only more mournful than any song she’d ever heard before.

  Felix growled—a wretched, hollow sound that shriveled her soul. His face distorted for a split second—became a skeletal mask that would have stopped her heart were she not already on the threshold of death. This time when he attacked she wasn’t fast enough, and his blade dug a trench along her side. It was deep and it hurt. A lot. In the living world it would have dropped her to her knees as she fought to hold her insides where they belonged, but she wasn’t ready to die just yet, and she certainly wasn’t going to let Felix August-Raynes be the one to send her on to her maker. This wasn’t the living world and the same rules didn’t apply. It was going to take a lot more than that to kill her.

  “Finley!” Ipsley cried. She ignored him, and instead freed the mouth of the fifth girl. This time she drew blood. The girl raised her hand to her mouth, and stared at her bloody fingers in wonder before raising her eyeless gaze to Finley.

  “Sorry,” Finley said. Why the devil was she apologizing when these creatures had tried to tear her apart?

  “Kill her,” Felix commanded. Somehow he’d gotten a second blade and he wielded them both as if he’d been born holding them. “But I want her alive when I cut out her eyes.”

  The girls closed in at the same time Felix did. Finley tensed, and tried to block out Ipsley’s shouting. He drove in and around the girls, but he was ineffectual in his current form, and no more help than a shadow.

  Felix struck. His blades sliced her arms, her chest, her throat, her face, and Finley struggled to ignore the pain. It wasn’t real. She was just a ghost. If she believed in the injuries it would make them worse—make them reality. True death was not an option.

  Blood ran down her arm, slicking her fingers, making it difficult to keep a grip on her own blade. She ducked as Felix took another swipe, and stumbled. As much as she fought it, there was a part of her mind on the verge of hysteria over her injuries, and it was strong enough that she wasn’t at her best. She only barely managed to avoid another attack, but this time she dodged toward her attacker, rather than away from him. She grasped the top of the pouch tied at his waist and pulled him close, slicing through the cord with her dagger. Then, she lifted one foot and drove her boot into his chest, shoving him backward before he could make another strike.

  It took all of her strength to move, but she wasn’t fast enough to avoid the girls. They grabbed her with talonlike hands as they closed in on her like vultures on a corpse. Their fingers tore at her clothes and her skin, dug into the wounds their master had made. Finley screamed, but she didn’t stop. She shoved the pouch into the hands of the final girl—the one she’d found on the wall and who had told her to run. Then, she cut the stitches that sealed the girl’s mouth.

  “You’re free,” she told her. “He doesn’t have any power over you anymore.”

  The girl froze, and one by one the others followed. Finley’s knees began to buckle, and it was only those cruel hands that kept her upright. She watched, stomach rolling and vision blurring as the girl reached into the pouch and withdrew two of the eyes. She lifted them to the gaping sockets in her face and set one then the other in place.

  “No!” Felix screamed.

  The girl turned her head and looked at him as she thrust the pouch at one of her sisters. Felix ran toward them—ran toward Finley. As the girls each retrieved their eyes, they released their hold on her, and her legs refused to hold out any longer. She was bleeding badly—to the point where the pain had begun to recede into peaceful nothingness.

  “I’m getting you out of here!” Ipsley shouted.

  “Not yet!” Finley cried, but he was already gone. She sank to her hands and knees. Felix’s boots appeared in her line of vision. She couldn’t even tense to prepare for the kick he was surely going to deliver to her head.

  But no kick came, and Finley lifted her head.

  The girls—all with their eyes returned and bloodied lips free—surrounded him.

  “Kill her,” he commanded, pointing at Finley. “You kill her now.”

  The girls cocked their heads in unison—a disturbing sight. Then, they snapped upright, hissing with teeth bared and eyes wide. She didn’t know which one attacked first, but they lunged at him like dogs at a bone, snarling and snapping. A cry of pain echoed in the fog. And as the world dropped away, the last thing Finley saw was Lord Felix screaming for mercy as he was devoured by his former victims.

  Five weeks and four days earlier...

  “Where are we going?” Mila asked as she sat beside Jack in his sleek steam carriage. They were racing through the streets of London—well, perhaps racing wasn’t the best word. They raced from time to time, and then other times they were held up in the chaotic throng that seemed to be normal traffic. Mila didn’t understand how people could get so jammed up, and she didn’t want to understand it.

  “I told you, it’s a surprise.” Jack shot her a small smile. “Think of it as a belated birthday present.”

  “Birthday present?” she echoed.

  To his credit, he didn’t look at her as though this was something she should know, or common knowledge among “real” people. “It’s a custom that on the anniversary of someone’s birth you give them a present.”

  “But I wasn’t born.”

  He made a face as he steered the carriage between two carts, a swearing farmer and an angry man shouting in Chinese. Something about a cow... “Of course you were. Maybe not in the conventional sense, but you had a day when you were awake and became aware of yourself as a being and not a machine.”

  Yes, he had a point. “That was weeks ago.”

  “That’s why this is a belated present.”

  She shrugged. “All right.” This didn’t really make a lot of sense to her, but it was nice to be out of the house. She liked it when Jack took her out exploring. He took her to interesting places like museums where she could learn about things. She enjoyed learning.

  She stared out the window at the passing city and all it’s strange wonder. There were so many things to see. It was a clear morning, and a dirigible was flying high above them. L’air France was written in script on its side.

  “What’s it like to fly?” she asked.

  “Like flying,” Jack answered.

  Mila frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  His lips tilted on one side. “It’s something you have to experience for yourself. No one can tell you what it’s like.”

  “Oh.” She peered up at the ship again. “I would like to find out someday.”

  “I’ll see that you do.”

  She believed him.

  They pulled up in front of a large brick building with white columns. It wasn’t fancy, but it was lovely. Jack shut dow
n the engine and got out of the carriage, coming around to open her door for her. He was adamant about opening her door—another thing she didn’t understand. Her limbs worked just as well as his, and she understood the procedure of turning a handle. Still, it wasn’t that important a detail, so she didn’t push it.

  She turned her head to look at the sign in front of the building, but her gaze went instead to what appeared to be a pile of rubbish beside the steps. Her heart skipped a beat. Was that what she thought it was? She moved closer. It was.

  It was an automaton that had had its logic engine ripped out. There was what looked like dried blood on its tarnished brass face. Its mouth was slightly open—it was a humanoid machine—and she could see what appeared to be two humanlike teeth.

  “Damnation,” Jack swore. “Come away, poppet.”

  “Why would someone do this?” she asked, horrified. It had been murdered.

  He led her away, up the steps to the building. “Someone probably got scared. Some people are afraid of the automatons that have become sentient.”

  “Why would they be afraid?”

  His gaze locked with hers. “Because machines are smarter and stronger than we are, and that’s terrifying.”

  And that was the moment that Mila realized she could never tell anyone who didn’t already know what she really was. It was going to have to be a secret, and a closely guarded one. She didn’t want people to be afraid of her.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said. “Let’s go inside.”

  She followed him into the building. It smelled of dust and paper and ink, and when he led her into the main room her jaw literally dropped. Thank goodness it was bolted to her skull.

  Books. Wall after wall, row after impossibly long row of beautiful books.

  “What is this place?” Was that breathy sound in her voice?

  Jack was grinning. “It’s a lending library. You can borrow whatever books you want, take them home and read them. Then we bring them back and you can get more. Do you like it?”

  “Oh, Jack!” It was all she could say. She didn’t know the right words to correctly articulate just how wonderful it was.