The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (5 page)

I dropped the lighter into her hand and she flinched as if
she expected it to be hot. 

“Papa told me Dr. Baisell invented some kind of mechanical
tinderbox,” she said.  “Is this it, then?”

Griff stared at it too.  At least he had the decency not to
steal it from her.  Dr. Baisell, one of the Science Ministry’s darlings, had
given me the thing for a birthday present.  I’d already guessed he meant it
more for my father’s eyes than my happiness, because getting the lighter under
the king’s nose might mean more funding for the scientists’ research lab. 
Baisell never gave up anything without a reason. 

And if the rumors were true, I knew they were inventing more
than lighters under the vast grounds of the Science Ministry.  What they were
working on, though, no one really knew.  We hadn’t even known about the
aeroplanes until the day they took us out to the palace park and flew one over
our heads by way of demonstration.

For a few moments we stood silent, while Samyr tried to make
a spark and Griff peered greedily over her shoulder.

“See,” I said.  “No need to be a damn Jixy Flint to make
fire.”

“Tarik, language!” Samyr chided. 

She’d given up on trying to light the thing, and now just
ran her pale fingers over the steel the way someone might stroke a snake. 
Finally she held it out, but Griff moved quicker than me and snatched it from
her hand.

“Well, isn’t this
something
,” he said.  “This is real
power.  Tarik, what d’you say to taking this down south-side and showing that
Jixy chizzer a thing or two?”

“No,” I said. 

Zagger signaled to me, just a tap to his forehead telling me
to stay put.  Samyr and Griff kept talking about the lighter, but I didn’t hear
a word of it.  I waited, anxious, while Zagger climbed resolutely into the cab
of the motorcar and turned the engine. 

For one agonizing moment nothing happened.  Then the car
roared to life in a cloud of steam, and I let out the breath I didn’t realize
I’d been holding.  Zagger took a few minutes to check all the temperature and
pressure gauges, then came back around to my door and opened it for me.  I
slipped under the railing, catching his stone-faced stare briefly before
turning back to Griff and Samyr.

“Suppose I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow, Tarik,” Samyr said.

She reached up to take off my cap, but I waved her away and
climbed into the motorcar.  Griff trailed me, leaning his arm on my door to
keep it ajar.  He still had my lighter; I plucked it from his fingers and
shoved it into my coat pocket before he could snatch it back.

“Come on, Tarik.  We need to do something.  Just you and
me.”  He lowered his voice conspiratorially.  “Don’t tell Samyr.  She’ll never
stand for South Brinmark.”

“I’ll see you at the gala.  I’m sure it’ll be charming.”

“You said that last year.”

“I lied, then.”

“And now?”

“We’ll see.”  I rapped my knuckles on the glass. 
“Afternoon, Farro.  Miss Von.”

Samyr waved enthusiastically at me while still trying to
pull her mitt back on, but Griff just gave me a long-suffering glance and
tipped two fingers to his temple in a mock salute. 

The motorcar shuddered and pitched forward, chattering over
the cobblestones and splashing in puddled pits with teeth-knocking force.  I’d
never gotten used to its bumping and jarring, so much harsher than a carriage. 
But it was the newest, most progressive thing, and of course the royal family
had to lead the way into the future for all of Cavnal.  Just like my little
ferrosteel lighter and the stark electrical lamps that now annoyed the eyes of
every person in the palace.

Or maybe I was the only one annoyed by it all.  Maybe
because, for all I lied and tried to hide it, I really was a Jixy.  Backwards,
like someone born out of time.  Someone that didn’t belong in all this madness.

Chapter 5 — Hayli

Someone was shaking me, and it hurt like the devil in a
doghouse.  Everything hurt.  My head throbbed and I tasted the metal tang of
blood on my tongue, and even when I pried open my eyes, the whole world kept
swirling about till I thought maybe I’d got my eyeballs knocked loose.  I got
that reeling sensation sometimes after I Shifted, but this was different.  All
wrong.

“Hey, kid!  Are you all right?”

I shoved back onto my side, hunting for something to focus
on.  Wet sky and wet trees and clouds of steam…rough patchy pavement scoring
lines into my palms.  Then, finally, I saw a face.  A strong face, stern, even
handsome.  Thirties, maybe.  Short blonde hair, military style.  Uniform. 

The guard!  I’d fallen, and hadn’t Shifted at all…

But no, I knew that wasn’t right.  This uniform was
different.  Black on black, long coat, tall boots.  Two revolvers on his hips
instead of a rifle.  A plain black coach hat tucked under one arm, a faint
silver shield emblem on the sleeve. 

That symbol meant only one thing.  Bodyguard.

A bodyguard?
  That made no sense.  Not out here, out
in the trees and the rain, all alone…

I dug my hands against my head.  Nothing made sense.  And to
make it all worse, my skin still prickled with the phantom feel of feathers, and
if I opened my mouth I didn’t much know what kind of noise would come out.

“Damn it, Zagger, I told you these things are death-traps,”
another voice said, drifting out from somewhere behind me.  “Don’t tell me one
of the coils blew.”

And right then, all I could think was how the voice sounded
like jet stone: smooth and rich and a little dark.  Refined.

I rolled my head back.  My gaze drifted over a smart black
motorcar, its grilled nose uncomfortably close to my back, snorting steam at me
like a hard-worked horse.  It was bigger than I’d imagined from the newspaper
photographs, all rounded edges and copper trim, with bright bulbous lamps
glaring at me like glassy eyeballs. 

A boy just older than me was climbing from the back seat,
slim even in his long leather coat and wool scarf.  He had one hand gripping
his neck under a shock of unruly dark hair.  It must have been slicked back
smooth before the rain hit, but now it stuck out every which way, wilder and
wilder the more he chafed it with his hand.

He took one look at the bodyguard, then me, and came
running.

“What the devil!  Are you hurt?” he asked, crouching down
beside me.

The bodyguard took a step toward him, but the boy waved him
off, dark eyes flashing.

“Death-trap’s right, hackie,” I snapped, glaring at the
older man.  My voice tasted like gravel.  “Dan’ y’ave eyes?  What got you in
such a rush?  On the get, you and the kid?”

“Come again?”

I almost didn’t catch the look he exchanged with the boy,
half-amused, half-angry.  And the boy, staring at me like I spoke a different
language than him.

“What are you doing on these grounds?” the boy asked, stern
suddenly, like Derrin.  “How did you get past the guards?”

Well, that relieved me a bit, anyway.  At least I’d made it
inside the palace walls.

“Oh, maybe I flew over them,” I said, shifting to a crouch,
and smirked through all the pain.

“Maybe you should smarten up and learn some manners,” the
bodyguard said.

But the boy waved at him again, and the man backed a few
steps away.  That sort of struck me as odd, but I couldn’t quite figure how.

“Are you hurt?” the boy asked me again.  “Is anything
broken?”

I wanted to glare at him, but he actually sounded
concerned.  And he wouldn’t have seen it anyway, because he’d already turned
his gaze back to the guard. 

“You hit the kid?”

“I didn’t even see him.” 

Him
.  I snorted inside.

“Look, I’m sorry,” the big man said, attempting pity.  “Do
you need to go to the hospital?”

“I’m jake,” I said.  “Leave me be.”

The boy reached out a hand, offering to help me up.  Pretending
to be a gentleman when I knew he was just trying to mock me, me in my rags,
sprawled in the mud.  I swiped at his hand, and jolted.  The boy jerked back,
too, and stared at me with some kind of surprise or horror in his eyes that I
couldn’t sort at all.  Even for seconds after that touch, my hand felt all buzzy
like I had a little hive of insects under my skin.

“Something wrong?” the guard asked.

And still the boy stared at me, almost like he was waiting. 
When I didn’t move he stood and brushed off his hands, facing aside.

“Nothing,” he said.  “Just a static shock.” (Even I knew
that didn’t make sense, what with the rain, but I didn’t say aught about it.) 
“Come on, we need to get going.  Get her off the grounds.”

“Her?”the bodyguard echoed, his eyebrows shooting up.

“Really, Zagger?” the boy said, amused.

Why aye, you great dafty, can’t you tell a girl when you
see one?
I thought, even though I wore trousers and a waistcoat like the
lads just to keep folks from looking twice at me.  Kind of work I did, being
seen for a girl could get you in trouble—and not the kind of trouble I liked to
be in, either.  But the boy had known what I was right from the start, and
somehow I thought I didn’t quite mind that.

He stared at me a moment, then shoved his hands in his
trouser pockets and swung away again.  Zagger bent and pulled me to my feet,
scowling like I’d Shifted right in front of him.  I wanted to tug my filthy
grey waistcoat straight and fix my cap, but what for?  As if either of these
blokes cared that I looked like a patched-up sewer rat.  I knew I cared more
than I should, and I didn’t even know why.

A minute and the boy turned, flicking his hand at Zagger:
Get
on with it.

“Guard!” Zagger bellowed, calling to one of the passing
patrols.

Swell.  My luck never stuck. I’d finally managed to get
inside the palace walls, and of all the things that could possibly go wrong,
I’d gone and got crosswise to one of those blasted new motorcars.  Now they’d
toss me back onto the streets, and there’d go my one and only shot at getting
Jig inside. 
Poof
, gone.  And Kantian would bedpost me without food for
a week, as if that could make things better.

Maybe I could Shift when their backs were turned, and they’d
never even know what happened.  Then I could try to find Jig, and we could
finish the job… 

But I didn’t have a chance, because right then the guard
came sprinting up and saluted, not at Zagger, but at the boy.  I jutted my
lower lip in a scowl.

“Your Highness?” the guard asked.  “Shall I arrest him?”

Your Highness?
  I bit my tongue on a cry of
surprise.  I felt my face turn white, then red, and I’m sure my eyes bugged as
big as the headlamps on the motorcar. 

Zagger must have seen it, because he kind of smirked at me
when he thought I wasn’t watching.  The prince didn’t move at all.  He stood
turned a little aside, so I only saw his profile.  All quiet lines and tanned
skin, like he’d been born somewhere that actually saw the sun once in a while.

“Just send her off,” he said.  A second hitched past and his
dark eyes drifted back toward me.  “She won’t be back.”

“Oy, hang on!” I cried.  “Please, I’ve got to be here.  I’ve
got to—”

I screwed my mouth shut.  Chunnering on like a moonbrained
idiot, and the Crown Prince not five steps away from me.  The
prince
. 
I’d seen his pictures in the Herald, of course.  I don’t know why I didn’t
recognize him from the beginning.  Maybe because the pictures always showed him
all dashing in sport gear or three-piece suits, with that sweet mischievous
smile and studied laziness—not mucked up with rain and mud and his cheeks all
ruddy from the wind.

I didn’t realize I was staring at him until Zagger cleared
his throat.

“His Royal Highness visits the public on specific,
pre-appointed days.  You can ogle him on the next such occasion if you like,
but right now I have to return him to the palace.”

The prince spun about.  My face caught fire, but still, he
looked so baffled I almost laughed. 

The guard clamped a hand on my arm, and I twisted once and
stood still.  Jig could’ve gotten free.  He was the fighter, lean and quick and
mean as a tom, with those slick moves that could turn a man inside out before
he knew what hit him.  Not me.  I was stuck, and furious.  And my heart kept
pattering like a bird’s, three parts panic, one part…I’m not sure what.

The boy—the prince—glanced at me one last time before
climbing into the motorcar.  Zagger gave me a parting smirk for good measure
and launched himself into the cab.  The engine snarled and I backed a step in
the guard’s grip, and then they were gone.

The guard nudged me, so I winced and fell in step with him. 
He didn’t talk to me, not a word.  Maybe if I Shifted he’d say something. 
Maybe even swear.  Or maybe he’d shoot me with that rifle before I’d flown a
foot.