Clockwork Angels: The Novel (25 page)

“Next time?” There wasn’t going to be a next time. “I earned this!”

“Oh, I’m sure the baker would agree,” he said facetiously and rolled his eyes. “It was a good act, though. I liked it.” The young man hunkered down next to Owen, who flicked his glance from side to side. “I’m Guerrero. What’s your name?”

“Owen. Owen Hardy from Barrel Arbor—in Albion. I was the assistant apple-orchard—”

“I asked your name, not your life story.”

Owen clamped his lips together.

The two young men spent the rest of the afternoon together, but Guerrero told nothing of his own story. “Where do you live?” Owen finally asked.

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“The day of the week . . . who’s home and who isn’t. Who has something they’re not using.” Guerrero did not ask Owen to stay with him, nor did Owen ask permission, but he had no friends and it felt as if he’d been a long time without companionship.

As night closed like a stranglehold on the city, Guerrero took him to a set of dark homes on the outskirts of the city. “This is where you live?” Owen asked.

“Tonight. These people have a lake cottage. I’ve been watching them for weeks, and they often leave for days at a time.” He jimmied open a window in the back. “See? Not even locked.”

“But we can’t just—“

Guerrero looked at him with his piercing blue eyes. “I can. And you’re welcome to join me . . . or not, as you prefer. Look around you—the owners have so much they won’t even miss it, so long as we cover our tracks. Don’t you want somewhere to sleep that’s warm and safe, a place to clean yourself up? A decent meal of more than you can possibly eat?”

Owen’s eyes stung, and he realized tears had sprung to them. “Yes, more than I can say.” He had been brought up to believe that each person would get what he deserved, and the devil could take the rest. For his own survival, whether or not he deserved it, Owen had to take what he could, for himself.

Guerrero knew exactly where to look. The two feasted on stored food in the larder, careful to take apples, carrots, and potatoes only from the back barrels, and to rearrange the pantry shelves afterward so nothing was obviously missing. “See how much they have?” Guerrero said. “It’s not really stealing if they can do without it.”

“But it’s not
ours
,” Owen said.

The other young man shrugged. “Who’s to say they deserved it? And why do they deserve it more than we do?”

Owen hung his head. “It’s still stealing. They earned it or bought it.” Before the incident in the bakery, he had never stolen in his life, and the thought of what he’d done nauseated him . . . but it made sense that this was a crime that hurt no one.

Guerrero watched him closely. “You got a better way to survive?”

“No . . . not yet.”

Despite having a roof over his head and a bed to sleep in, Owen spent a restless night, and even after eating his fill of good food, his stomach knotted and roiled. They crept away at sunrise, just in case the owners came home early. “I try not to leave any trace,” Guerrero said. “Good places like this, I can stop by three, maybe four times before they get wise.”

Back on the streets, Guerrero knew many useful places around Poseidon. Owen followed him like a puppy, or an apprentice, though uneasy that this young man was so casual about breaking rules whenever they proved inconvenient. On the other hand, Owen was afraid and lonely, and he decided that even a bad option was better than no option.

With distorted nostalgia, he told Guerrero about Barrel Arbor, despite the other young man’s plain lack of interest. Finally, Guerrero said, “You’re a strange one, Owen Hardy. How can you be here, and how can you have done and seen all the things you say, and still be such a babe?”

Owen didn’t know what he meant. “It’s who I am. Don’t you see the good in people?”

“Not usually. But then I don’t bother to look.”

Guerrero made a habit of stealing fruit from grocers, sausages from butchers, bread from bakeries or cafes. Maybe out of some misplaced sense of honor, or just concern about Owen’s ineptitude, the tow-headed young man sheltered him from stealing. “You won’t be any good at it,” he said. “I’ll let you help out in other ways.”

Over the days, then weeks, and possibly months—Owen didn’t keep track; he had neither pocketwatch nor calendar, and no reason to distinguish one day from another—he got to know his companion, as much as possible. Even so, Guerrero never talked about his mother or father, never mentioned his past, and—oddest of all—never even mentioned his dreams.

They spent most nights in the streets, occasionally venturing into an unoccupied house. Once they awakened a dog that came at them; Owen couldn’t see the beast, but judging by the magnitude of its barks and growls, it must have been ferociously large.

One night, a man lurched down the alley where Owen and Guerrero had taken refuge behind a tavern; the man collapsed on the ground in a stupor that smelled of ale. As he snored, Guerrero moved forward furtively, nudged the man and rolled him over, but the drunkard merely grunted and continued sleeping. Guerrero noticed a small purse hanging at his waist and snatched it, breaking the string. As he hurried out of the alley, he grabbed Owen’s arm. “Come on!”

Owen tugged his arm free. “You just robbed that man!”

“I didn’t hurt him.” He pulled open the purse, proudly plucked out four coins. The two used the money to get their first decent meal in some time.

From that point on, Guerrero changed his tactics. Though Owen complained about it, Guerrero waited outside taverns long after midnight, in order to follow deeply intoxicated men. Even if the drunks were still conscious, they couldn’t run swiftly or in a straight enough line to catch the two young men after they had grabbed the money.

Owen had tried everything else he could think of to survive, had offered to help, struggled to work. He had found no friends, no welcoming arms, no smiles. He longed for his days with Magnusson’s Carnival Extravaganza or with his father in the Tick Tock Tavern; he could not forget about Francesca, even though she had hurt him.

Guerrero was all he had.

Late one night, they followed a man who tottered and limped out of a tavern, singing a song about the Seven Cities of Gold at the top of his lungs. The man was big and shaggy, with dirty clothes and a thick jacket despite the heat. Guerrero grinned. “Oh, Cabeza de Vaca! He is a familiar face among the Poseidon City taverns. His name means head of a cow!” Cabeza de Vaca did indeed have thick, blocky features and (seemingly) a thick, blocky skull.

In a hushed, husky voice, Guerrero continued, “Oh, he has quite a reputation! Cabeza de Vaca wanders the wilderness for months on end, seeking treasure. I don’t think he’s ever found it, but whenever he comes back into the city, he tells people his tales so that they buy him drinks. He says he’s gotten close to the Seven Cities of Gold again and again.” The young man changed his voice to a falsetto, flapping his hands in the air as if he were overheating with excitement. “’I could see them! The golden walls in the distance . . . I could see them, but I could never reach them.’” Guerrero snorted. “He stays in the city until people stop buying him drinks, and then wanders back out to the wilderness to do it all over again.”

Owen and Guerrero followed the shaggy man around the corner. Cabeza de Vaca kept swaying, favoring his left leg. He began singing another verse, but forgot the words and repeated the first one instead.

After giving Owen a signal, Guerrero dashed forward like a shadow and Owen approached from the other side to block him, but the man reeled around. Guerrero grabbed the drunkard’s jacket, fumbled in his pocket and around his waist until he found the purse. He yanked it—but the purse was attached with a thin wire instead of a breakable string.

Cabeza de Vaca bellowed in angry surprise even louder than he had been bellowing out his tune. Owen dashed in to distract him so Guerrero could get away. The shaggy man swung a fist the size of a mutton roast, catching Owen’s head with a glancing blow that knocked his porkpie hat askew. De Vaca was not quite as drunk as Owen and Guerrero had thought—he merely lurched and weaved because of an injured leg.

Responding to the shouts, other men boiled out of the tavern and headed down the alley to the rescue. Cabeza de Vaca grabbed Owen’s arm and locked a manacle of fingers around it. Owen tried to escape, but the drunk hooked his fingers into the fabric of his sleeve and refused to let go.

De Vaca’s angry friends saw what was happening and charged ahead, howling as if they had found a new sport.

Guerrero took one look at the men rushing toward them, let go of de Vaca’s wired purse, and bolted. He didn’t spare even a momentary glance for his friend. Owen looked after him, wideeyed, and then was knocked to the ground.

When the other men fell upon him, they didn’t ask questions, just started punching. “Guerrero!” He heard no answer, saw no rescue. “Help!”

Owen fought back, swinging his fists, as Golson had taught him. But this was no practice sparring; through training and desperation, he managed to bloody a few noses, but there were too many opponents for him.

He broke away, bolting for the main street, and reached the mouth of the alley before his attackers caught him and knocked him to the ground again. They began kicking him and cursing.

A man walked by in the well-lit street. He had a broad chest, dark brown skin, and a bald pate that gleamed in the red-coal streetlights. He stopped to regard the altercation. Self-righteous in dispensing their justice, the roughs didn’t mind having an audience, but as Owen fought to defend himself, he looked up and met the stranger’s eyes, desperate and pleading.

It was the man from the Underworld Bookshop—the one the manager had called Commodore.

The man hesitated, not wanting to get involved; he took one footstep in the other direction, but thought better of it. He turned back. “There now, he’s had enough,” he said.

“He’s had enough when we say he’s had enough!”

The Commodore took out a formidable nightstick. “If you don’t decide he’s had enough, then there’ll be a lot more pummeling in the next few minutes.”

Owen groaned, bleeding in the alley. He curled up, his breath hitching. His attackers scoffed at the pathetic sight, but the bald stranger and his cudgel were enough to make them realize they had entertained themselves enough. They rounded up Cabeza de Vaca, who was still indignant and cursing. Together, the group tottered off; before they had vanished down the street, they began singing together, off key, about the Seven Cities of Gold.

Owen’s rescuer looked down at him, considering the young man in silence. He seemed both disappointed and curious. “Now you’ll have a chance to convince me that I haven’t made a mistake.”

I have stoked the fire on the big steel wheels,
Steered the airships right across the stars

T
he man’s name was Pangloss, and he was a steamliner pilot visiting Poseidon at the end of an airship run from the alchemy mines deep in the highlands of Atlantis. As the pilot, he called himself a commodore, although Owen could not determine who had actually given him that rank. Pangloss was entirely bald, lacking even eyebrows, but he made up for the dearth of hair on his head with a fury of black beard that spread across his chin and broad chest.

Commodore Pangloss helped Owen stumble from the alley to a clean and well-lit room in an inn several blocks from the tavern. “I have no great fondness for thieves, young man, and I would have walked by, assuming you were getting exactly what you deserved. I don’t know what stopped me. Maybe it was your appreciation for books.” He shook his head. “But I saw a look in your eyes, something there that I don’t usually see in hardened criminals.”

“I’m not a hardened criminal.” Owen spat blood and wiped his mouth, but he had no excuses to make. He wasn’t even sure if he was telling the truth.

Commodore Pangloss said, “Not yet, perhaps, but a city like Poseidon will ruin you soon enough.”

“I’ve got nowhere else to go.” Owen felt around in his mouth; one of his teeth was loose but didn’t wobble too much.

“You can share my room right now, but I head off again in two days,” the Commodore said. “Get cleaned up, and then I’ll hear what you have to say for yourself.”

It had been so long since Owen washed under bright lights, without fear of discovery, that he had forgotten what clean felt like. After he used soapy water from a basin and scrubbed his hands and face, rinsing away the dirt as well as drying blood, he saw that his skin was now no longer the color of grime and dirt. He sat wrapped in a blanket while the Commodore sent his filthy clothes to the innkeeper for a washing.

Owen ravenously ate some poppyseed rolls and cheese that Pangloss had left on a sideboard from his lunch, then he slurped a cup of lukewarm tea that felt like happiness pouring down his throat. He would have liked to add honey, but none was offered.

As a fugitive, Owen was hesitant to speak his name or admit that he came from Barrel Arbor. By now, the Regulators had surely broadcast an arrest warrant for him, though Poseidon City had no direct newsgraph connection to Albion. How much of a reward would the Watchmaker offer for his capture and return to face justice?

Magnusson’s Carnival Extravaganza had taught him that in order to earn his supper, he had to provide a show. And since he was too bruised and battered to put on a juggling performance, he settled for a story instead. Judging by his package of new books tied together in twine, the Commodore was an appreciator of tales.

Owen went on for more than an hour, and Pangloss listened without comment. Once he got started, the young man lost track of which details he should be hiding, and so he told it all, even about Francesca, and his time with Guerrero . . . and how his supposed friend had run, abandoning him to be beaten in the alley. Somewhere in the stories, tears began pouring down Owen’s cheeks, although he couldn’t say exactly which part had triggered them.

At the end, the Commodore said only, “I knew from my first glance at you in the bookshop that you didn’t belong here.”