by Jay Lake
“Nonsense,” Childress answered. “The tide’s running for several hours yet. Your sense of the dramatic is overtaking your judgment.”
The grip grew tighter. “You will not be baffling me as you have him.”
“Then I go. I came, did I not?”
Boyett shuddered. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” she asked, but he did not answer.
Then the woman led her up a gangplank of a fast packet named Mute Swan, which shuddered as its engines chuffed somewhere deep within the metal hull. Childress looked back when she reached the top. Boyett stared up after her.
“What did you tell him?” she asked her captor.
“The truth,” the woman said. “As for you, you go below now.”
Childress looked up at the brass curving in the evening sky, wondering if that poor, lost Hethor had found any reward to go with his success.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
MAINSPRING
Copyright © 2007 by Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
All rights reserved.
Edited by Beth Meacham
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
eISBN 9781429933728
First eBook Edition : March 2011
First Edition: June 2007
First Mass Market Edition: May 2008
