Heart of Steel (14 page)

She turned toward the stairs and gestured for him to follow. “Only a conversation, Mr. Fox. And I hope to soon have a gift for you.”

 

 

Ivy Blacksmith hadn't yet named her submersible, but Yasmeen
had heard the crew members call it
The Copper Prick
. Yasmeen could see a faint resemblance in the cylindrical body and the rounded head, but she thought the name was wishful thinking on their part—the width of the capsule was as tall as a man, and in length was three times a man's height. From there, the resemblance in shape ended. The tail tapered off into a propeller set over a pair of flat rudders, and she'd never encountered a prick with a raised bump on the shaft similar to Ivy's glass observation dome in the capsule's hatch.

Perhaps she was more selective in her pricks than Mad Machen's crew.

She led Archimedes amidships and stopped near the port rail, where they could watch the activity around the copper submersible without standing in the crew's way—and where they could speak in relative privacy.

“Is this my gift?” He gestured to the submersible. “I already have my own, you realize.”

God's truth, men were all the same. But he also appeared suitably impressed by the machine—as any man ought to be. “Your gift is the copy of your sketch, if all goes well. Depending upon the sort of person you'll have to steal the original back from, you'd be wise to put distance between you before she has a chance to realize it's missing.”

His gaze snapped to hers.
“She?”

He knew, Yasmeen saw immediately. His expression resembled that of a man who faced an oncoming battalion of war machines, with a mob of zombies closing in from behind. For all of his frivolity, for all of his charm, this man was also deeply aware of the dangers the world threw at them.

“I can't be certain,” Yasmeen said. And it seemed strange that the elite guard would steal such an item—they didn't steal anything, unless it were necessary. But who could say what another person considered necessary? “But Miracle Mattson learned about the sketch from Franz Kessler. You've heard what happened to him?”

“His throat slit. That wasn't you? In her express, Zenobia said you were coming to speak with him.”

“I didn't arrive in Port Fallow until after it happened. But a woman was there, watching the house. I had no reason to think she knew anything of the sketch at the time—not until I heard from one of Mad Machen's men that you were hiding in a crate, and paid him a sous to look for a woman in a robe. Were you truly hiding?”

“Wouldn't you?”

“If I thought I was her target. So you knew what she was. How?” Not many New Worlders recognized a
gan tsetseg
woman.

“I've seen Temür Agha's guard.”

Temür Agha.
Fifteen years ago, the general had crushed the rebellion in Constantinople by razing the city to the ground. Of royal blood, cunning and ruthless, his name inspired terror across the empire—including the ruling houses in Xanadu. Even the Khan hadn't dared an assassination, and instead had named him the governor of the Moroccan occupied territories, sending Temür to the farthest edge of the empire.

Even that meant risking an insult: officials and
dargas
were assigned to the territories outside of Asia as a punishment, not reward. Temür hadn't retaliated, but from the beginning of his governorship, rumors had been swirling that he was amassing great power in Morocco and would soon try to march across the empire. Ten years had passed, and he hadn't yet—but Yasmeen wouldn't place bets against it happening, eventually.

She didn't care one way or another. In the meantime, she avoided Morocco as much as possible. Archimedes apparently hadn't had the sense to, and the idea that he'd hidden from the woman amused Yasmeen; obviously, someone had explained what the elite guards were capable of, but hadn't mentioned that they weren't rabid murderers who gutted everyone who passed them. Only loyalty and duty were more sacred to the guard than self-control and compassion. If the woman had found him huddling near a crate, she'd have probably given him a blanket or a coin.

Unless Archimedes had reason to think the woman had targeted him.

Yasmeen froze with her cigarillo halfway to her lips. “Your debt,” she said. “Is it to Temür Agha?”

“Yes.”

Her stomach rolled into a hard knot. “And that woman was his guard?”

“I don't know. I didn't see her clearly. I didn't want to take the risk.”

Only an idiot would. “I saw her clearly. What did Temür Agha's guard look like?”

“Long black hair, braided here.” His fingers met at the center of his forehead and dragged back over his ears. “Beautiful. Skin like teak on her face, but gray hands.”

Yasmeen pursed her lips. He'd just described half of the elite guard after the women had been altered with mechanical flesh. “Anything helpful? Was she tall? Full-lipped, thin-nosed, curly-haired, round-faced? Did her features give any hint of her ancestry? Did you hear her speak?”

“Straight hair. She didn't speak. She was as tall as that blacksmith.” He indicated Ivy. “A Turk, perhaps. Or Hindustani.”

A better description, but it was still impossible to be certain. “Perhaps the woman I saw was Temür's guard, then. But as two months have passed and you aren't dead, I suspect not.”

Yasmeen
hoped
not. If she discovered that the woman had boarded her lady, Yasmeen wouldn't be able to avenge her crew alone; she'd need to hire a group of mercenaries and assassins. If the woman was Temür Agha's guard, however, it hardly mattered whether Yasmeen went by herself or with a small army; either would turn into a suicide mission.

“Franz Kessler and her presence on the docks might be a coincidence,” Archimedes said softly. “But not likely. If Kessler had told her of the sketch, she might have guessed it was aboard
Lady Corsair
. Were all of your crew killed before the explosion?”

Yasmeen nodded. He'd put it together exactly as she had. “They barely had time to draw their weapons.”

“That sounds like the elite guard. What I've heard they can do.”

“What they
can
do, yes.” But not what they
would
do—and that was where Yasmeen became uncertain again. “But if she was only after the sketch, she could have stolen it without killing anyone, and without anyone aboard seeing her.”

“And if she couldn't open your strongbox?”

Would she rage through the airship, taking out her frustration on the crew? Yasmeen didn't think so. But perhaps the woman hadn't been alone. Though Ginger had never seen who'd attacked her, she'd had an impression of “they.” Yet at such a moment, in the dark, one quick person could have seemed like many.

Yasmeen simply didn't know. “Whatever happened, when she didn't find the sketch, she might have realized that you'd had it when you left my lady.”

“
If
she saw me,” Archimedes said.

“She saw you.”

“But—”

“She saw you.” Suddenly amused, Yasmeen caught his gaze. He'd managed to surprise her by hiding beside a crate in a pile of rags, but he wouldn't have escaped the attention of that woman. “Even if we're wrong and she was only strolling along the docks for her own pleasure, she saw you.”

His eyes searched her face. “How do you know so much about them?”

“Don't be dense, Mr. Fox. And don't tell your sister, either. I'm waiting until her curiosity about my background is on the verge of killing her—and then I'll negotiate a better royalty in exchange for each new crumb.” She appreciated the deep laugh that served as his response, the squint of his eyes as it shook through him. “Was seeing this woman your reason for sending Zenobia to London?”

His laugh faded. “Yes.”

“To the Iron Duke, no less. I thought you didn't trust him?”

“I wouldn't trust him to protect
me
. But who's more capable of protecting her?”

Yasmeen could only think of a few names, but none who had incurred the same sort of debt to Archimedes that Rhys Trahaearn had. The Iron Duke had thrown him from his pirate ship, but Wolfram Gunther-Baptiste
had
boarded that ship in good faith and fulfilled the job asked of him. Trahaearn considered anyone who served his ship under his protection—which meant providing help when needed. When Archimedes asked for something of this nature, there was no question that the Iron Duke would do it.

But Archimedes probably didn't understand that—most likely, he'd just rolled the dice.

“And if the Iron Duke is reluctant, who more likely to talk him into it than Scarsdale?”

He grinned. “Did he need to?”

“No. But you're right. How could Scarsdale resist the author of the Archimedes Fox adventures? He and your sister have been inseparable since she arrived.” And because she couldn't resist, either, “Perhaps Zenobia will soon be a countess.”

Archimedes' grin fixed to his face, and he gave his head a hard shake, as if to clear it. “Eh?”

She flicked her cigarillo over the side of the ship. “She's a practical woman. It'd be a good fit—and perfect timing. He's searching for a wife. Duty calls, and he needs the heir and spare.”

He stared at her, as if trying to read the truth from her face. Yasmeen smiled, showing her teeth. An expression of relief slipped over his features, then worry, then relief again. Finally, he said, “I can't decide if you're serious. I think I ought to write her.”

“Perhaps you should,” Yasmeen agreed.

 

 

The wind picked up, chopping the harbor's surface into
rough waves, but making for a quick sail to the south docks. Mad Machen ordered the anchor dropped near the site where her lady had crashed into the water and returned to the main deck, where Big Thom ran a test of the dive suit's air pump, checking the flow through the long, coiled tube. The hand-cranked device forced air to circulate through the waterproofed leather hose and into the diver's brass helmet—which meant the diver relied on someone else simply to
breathe
.

Madness. Even the tiny enclosed space in Ivy's submersible would be preferable, and Yasmeen wouldn't take money to dive underwater in
that
.

No doubt Archimedes would do it for free. Yasmeen looked starboard, where a hoist suspended the submersible over
Vesuvius
's side, copper skin gleaming in the dull sunlight. From inside the capsule, Archimedes' exclamations of awe and questions to Ivy had echoed hollowly through the open hatch for the past twenty minutes, but his voice had smoothed out now, hints of flattery and teasing slipping through.

Trying to charm her into taking him down, no doubt. Good luck to him.

She made her way across the deck toward Mad Machen, who was holding the full-length canvas suit at arm's length, a frown darkening his scarred face.

“How does a man get into this blasted thing?”

“There's a double-flap fastening in the back,” Yasmeen said, but his question sparked a note of alarm in her head. “You've done this before, haven't you?”

“I've dived before. This looks to be a hell of a lot easier. You don't even have to hold your breath.”

Yasmeen looked to Big Thom, who rose from his crouch next to the air pump, shaking his head. The man lived up to his name, with broad shoulders made wider by the pneumatic braces across his back and chest. Combined with his steel prosthetic arms, the apparatus gave him tremendous hauling power—and during the Horde's occupation in England, he'd hauled fish. He ran a salvaging boat now, though by the looks of it, he hadn't been hauling up much treasure.

“No,” Big Thom said. “It's not easier. When you told me you'd dived, I thought you understood that. But you're not going down. Not in my suit.”

Big balls, too. Not many men would say “no” so baldly to Mad Machen's face.

Quiet fell over the main deck. The crew wasn't used to hearing that word said to him, either.

“She's not going down alone. Not on this first run.”

“That's your business,” Big Thom said, as if he didn't see the pulse throbbing in Mad Machen's temples and the tension whitening the pirate's knuckles and lips. “Unless you've practiced swimming with the brass guards over that canvas, weighing you down, you aren't any good to her anyway—and I'll probably be hauling up your dead body.”

“Then I won't use the guards.”

Ivy's voice called from starboard, “And lose your
other
leg to a shark?”

Yasmeen glanced over her shoulder, where the blacksmith was climbing out of the submersible's hatch, her eyebrows drawn and mouth tight. She leapt to the deck, followed by Archimedes.

“There's more than that,” Big Thom added. “You've got to know to keep your hose from kinking. You've got to know how fast you can come up. Give me a few hours and I'll find a diver who can go down with her. You can't.”

“I can,” Archimedes said.

Yasmeen huffed out a laugh. Of course he could. And was idiot enough to offer.

Mad Machen's wild gaze landed on her face. Ah, softhearted Eben. She'd have blamed love for this, but he'd already been a bit mad before he'd met Ivy.

She shrugged. “He made it through the Underwater Perils of Porto.”

The pirate looked to Archimedes. “You go down, then. If she doesn't come back up, I'll kill you.”

That wouldn't do at all. Yasmeen said, “But before he kills you, make sure to hook that hoist chain to my strongbox.”