Mechanica (25 page)

I prayed Lord Alming would still be there and that I could fix whatever was wrong with my machine. I paced around the edges of the room, searching, but I could see no monocle-wearing men with huge mustaches anywhere. I began to walk more swiftly, and I felt my heart quicken.

Not looking where I was going, I ran headfirst into one of the guards. “Ah—sorry!” I gasped, still scanning the room for my lost patron.

“Never mind, miss, never mind,” he grumbled, straightening the hem of his coat.

I wondered if he might be able to help me. “Excuse me,” I said, “but have you perhaps seen Lord Alming? He’s a very tall man in a purple jacket, and he has a monocle, and—”

“And a great gray mustache?” He nodded. “Yes, I believe he left just a few minutes ago—went out by the main staircase, I think.”

“Oh—thank you!”

I only narrowly avoided crashing into the guard again as I dodged toward the stairs. I picked up my skirts and rushed for the doors, but when I’d almost reached the top of the staircase, I stumbled. One of my shoes slipped off and tumbled down the steps.

I turned back for a moment, wondering how far I could chase Lord Alming through the snow in stockinged feet, but the shoe had fallen all the way to the bottom of the stairs, and I hardly had time to fetch it. There was nothing to be done—I dashed down the dark entry hall and out the doors, hobbling lopsided.

Snow was falling. It covered the palace, the courtyard, and the winding path down to the city square with its quiet white glow. The valets were gone, or at least inside.

I took out my pocket watch: it was exactly midnight. The courtyard looked entirely deserted.

My unrequited love suddenly seemed like a small disappointment indeed, compared to my loss of Lord Alming’s approval and, with it, his patronage. I’d wanted my independence long before I’d ever wanted Fin.

I covered my face with my hands, and my lace gauntlets scratched at my cheeks. All I wanted now was Jules, and to go home.

The doors behind me groaned open, and I turned to see one of the valets coming out. “Do you wish me to call for your carriage, miss?” he asked.

“I wish—” My voice caught. I closed my eyes and nodded. “Yes, please.”

The valet nodded and strode into the snowy darkness.

I leaned against the wall and couldn’t make myself move even when the snow melted and seeped through the back of my gown. I opened my eyes only when I heard Jules’s metallic gait draw near to the palace doors.

He was glorious in the snow, his glass hide gleaming, puffs of smoke from his nostrils lingering in the freezing air. He followed the valet calmly, as docile as a child’s pony, but the man still glanced back at him every few moments, frightened and awed.

I could see a thousand questions about to spill from the servant’s lips, with only his palace training keeping him silent—and even that, I supposed, might not hold out for long. I didn’t think I could bear much more human interaction just then, so I slipped past him quickly, murmuring my thanks.

“And thank you for waiting, Jules,” I whispered. He shook his head in response, and his ears pricked forward.

I took my place inside the carriage and pulled the levers that were my reins. Jules set off quickly, and we left the palace behind.

I took Jules down small side streets until we left Esting City, and then back through the forest. Soon everyone would see him, but for now, he was a secret to all but the palace servants—and still a secret from the Steps.

I worried that they would be waiting for me, ready to punish me for leaving the house. Or worse, had they seen me there, despite the ombrossus? Had they seen me dancing with Fin—with the Heir?

Had they seen my heart crushed?

Seen me run?

Jules slowed when we approached the shed beneath the ruins, and as he plodded into his makeshift stall, I could sense that he was tired too. But he still steered my little spherical carriage expertly through the door. A new snowdrift had edged its way in; I’d been so distracted by the idea of the ball, I’d left the door open behind us. I lit one of the lamps I kept inside the shed, scraped the snow outside with a length of steel that was lying against the wall, then turned back to close the door.

Fin’s note was still pinned there. I stared at it for a moment:
I’ll look for you.

I tore down the paper and walked into the shed again, slamming the door behind me. What could he have meant? I now understood the leap my heart had made when I read his words—a precursor to the plunge it had taken tonight. I’d thought his heart was leaping too.

But Fin loved Caro. Not me. He loved Caro.

I prodded at the part of my brain that knew that, while the rest of me—the part doing the prodding—watched, puzzled and fascinated. Such a strange-looking, squishy little idea; it couldn’t be real, could it?

But there it was. The one I loved loved someone else.

As I thought of it in those words, it seemed silly and melodramatic. Did I even love Fin, really? Had I had time to love him yet?

Oh, I knew I had. Time didn’t matter. And I loved him still, whatever he felt. I loved him for his kindness to me, for his easy happiness and laughter; I loved the imagined conversations and stories that had brought so much light into these last narrow, dark months after Jules’s first death. I’d had the insects, to be sure, but Fin’s friendship had made my life less lonely in a way they never could.

But then—another part of my mind chimed in—Caro had given me all those things too, and I had never fancied myself in love with her.

He had kissed me. The kiss had spun me silly. He’d smiled at me many times, charmed me, laughed in a kind, close way that made me believe things that perhaps I should not have believed. My skin felt warm when I thought of him; there was always something empty about my hands when I remembered that, on a very few occasions, they had held his. My waist still remembered the feel of his glove as we danced.

And he loved Caro. And he loved Caro.

And he didn’t love me.

I closed my eyes.

I had hoped that he loved me—but it was more than that. I had hoped I was loved. Mother and Father and Mr. Candery had each loved me well enough in their ways, but they were gone now. Stepmother, Piety, Chastity: they certainly didn’t love me. And Mr. Waters thought kindly of me, but that wasn’t the same at all.

Caro’s friendship had helped to sustain me just as Fin’s had. She loved me, in another way, and I loved her, too. I had felt certain since we first met, long before we should have known any such thing, that we would be friends for the rest of our lives. That, at least, was a kind of love I could count on.

And then there was Jules, of course. Jules loved me. But as much as I wished otherwise, and as intelligent and kind and sweet and as good a friend as he was, Jules was not quite a person. His was not the kind of love I thought I’d found in Fin.

All the things I’d learned from novels, from Faerie tales, from Piety and Chastity’s gossiping and storytelling and swooning, silly as they were, had taught me that the love I’d thought I’d found in Fin was the best kind to be had. That the reason behind all of life and all of love in the first place was to find someone, love him, and let that love become the foundation for the rest of your life.

And I had found not only a kind, charming, handsome young man whom I could love, but also a prince, the Heir to all of Esting! No story could have asked for a better ending than the one that—just for a moment—I’d thought my love for him would give me.

But what was I, without that ending?

No less me, no less myself. No less loved than I had ever been, not really.

And of course Fin did care for me in his way, in a way that I tried to tell myself might be better, if I could only learn to see it so.

My head collapsed back against the cold wooden wall. All this thinking was well enough, but it did not give me the love I’d hoped was mine.

Worst of all was the small part of me that thought I was wrong about what I’d seen, that Fin could still love me after all. It was only a look between them. One moment and one look. Almost nothing.

I turned to Jules, waiting patiently in the flickering, low light for me to unhitch him from the carriage.

He nosed his cold muzzle against my shoulder.

I circled my arms around his neck. Jules was with me. I had friends. I was still loved.

I let myself lean against him, and for a few minutes, I let myself cry.

Then I raised my head and smiled at him, swiped at my eyes, and rubbed my handkerchief across the cloudy tear and breath marks on the shining glass of his neck.

I took up the oil rag and a wrench from a bin I kept inside the shed, kilted up my skirts, and covered them as best I could with my overcoat. I spent twenty minutes—ticked out on the clock in Jules’s flank, and the pocket watch at my hip, in perfect synchrony—rubbing the residue of snow and grime from his legs, his hide, his face.

“You did so well,” I told him. “And I could only go at all tonight because of you—” My breath hitched; I pressed a hand to my stomach. “I’m so glad to have you back, Jules. I couldn’t lose you again.”

Jules shook his head, and once more I found myself wondering how he could understand so much more than a real horse could.

“All right,” I sighed. “Good night, Jules.” I took off my one glass shoe and slid my feet back into the overlarge work boots, where the ache of spending the night in heeled dancing shoes compounded with the rough wear of leather on my thin-stockinged feet. I winced and limped my way back through the woods, but I knew I had to hurry. I didn’t want to linger on my own thoughts anymore—and I knew I had probably incurred enough of Stepmother’s wrath as it was.

My gown was mostly hidden beneath my long men’s coat. I pulled off my gauntlets as I walked, stuffing them into the coat’s roomy pockets. I unwound my glass fascinator from the hair I’d curled about it, nestling that into a pocket too. How practical men’s clothing was! I promised myself my next dress would have pockets aplenty hidden amongst its skirts.

Lampton Manor, I saw with surprise, was completely dark as I approached.

I decided I might as well go in the front door. Even through my heartbreak over Fin, over my loss of Lord Alming’s business, something about the ball had made me momentarily brave. So I held my head high and sailed through into the foyer with all the dignity I could muster.

All was dark and still. A few steps inside, I paused, surprised that Stepmother had not yet sprung herself on me.

I pulled off the long, heavy coat and stashed it in one of the vestibules, trying not to drip too much snowmelt on the floor. I couldn’t make any more housework for myself than was absolutely necessary, not with the Exposition still ahead.

I smoothed out my skirts before walking—quickly, I admit—to the servants’ staircase. If I could at least make it upstairs and change into my rags before Stepmother saw me, I might almost be safe. Where could she possibly be?

Once inside my room, I twisted around to undo the row of small buttons at the back of my gown. I had to shove the skirts toward the floor to step out of them, the fabric was so thick and rich. I had the extra silk from Piety’s and Chastity’s wardrobes to thank for that. I’d dyed them myself in my experiments, and Jules had known, had used the rest of my clockwork menagerie to gather them all together and make this dress, this gorgeous dress.

All the things he had done for me—I was still amazed.

The gown continued to stand after I stepped out of it. I lifted it carefully by the shoulders, feeling its weight in my hands. I knew I had to return it to Stepmother’s closet by morning. I was sure, too, that any luck I’d had that evening had long since run out; I couldn’t imagine getting in and out of Stepmother’s room without being discovered.

This was not a night for blessings.

Still, I had to try.

Dressed in my brown flannel skirts and blouse, my sootiest apron tied around my waist—for the suggestion, at least, that I’d been cleaning fireplaces after all—I stepped back into the rear hallway, closing the door as silently as I could behind me.

I padded over to the main hall, where the Steps’ rooms lay. I crept along for several moments before I heard it: Piety’s telltale snore.

I clapped both hands over my mouth to stifle my laughter. They were already asleep!

Sure enough, Chastity’s high-pitched gibbering shortly followed.

Stepmother’s room was silent, but then, I’d never heard her make noises in her sleep.

I wondered if I really dared to go inside. She might be up reading Scriptures, or doing any number of things—or she might be waiting for me.

But perhaps she wasn’t in her room at all. Perhaps she was out searching for me, even more furious than I’d imagined.

I held my breath as I opened her door. It was very dark; she slept without even the light and warmth of a banked fire. A worldly foolishness, she said, to keep the sleeping body warm while the dreaming mind communed with the Lord.

Or, of course, the fire could be out because she wasn’t there.

I prayed—and I rarely prayed—that she would be asleep and that I would not wake her. And perhaps the Lord heard me after all, because the door opened silently the rest of the way, and my feet padded equally silently over to the closet, where I managed to rehang the gown. Or perhaps it was just that the ombrossus still concealed me.

I crossed the room to leave, passing by the huge bed Stepmother had once shared with Father—the bed, I realized exactly then, that Mother must have died in.

I’d made Stepmother’s bed every day for years, of course. But I had never thought of that moment. I’d turned down and changed and washed her sheets, and I knew now that I had not let myself think of it.

Mother had died there.

And Stepmother slept there now. As if suddenly entranced, I slowly approached the bed.

There she lay, her brown hair coiled in a long braid and pinned on top of her head, little streaks of gray showing at her temples where the soft side-rolls she wore during the day usually concealed them.