Curio (14 page)

Was she expected to speak? Apparently not. After an almost smooth curtsy, she allowed Benedict to lead her from the stage.

Musicians filed into the row of chairs, each dressed in black clothing.

“Their music is their beauty tonight.” Benedict's whisper came on a warm puff of steam that settled on her ear and neck like dew.

A thrill zinged through her veins, raising goose bumps, weakening her knees, and troubling her heart. When a many-layered hum swelled from the stage, she welcomed the distraction from Blueboy's nearness. The perfect note filled the room and throbbed within Grey's chest before the instruments broke out of the unified sound, each somehow distinct yet perfectly blended. Percussion and brass paraded while strings and wind built monuments of resonance. Grey held her breath. She could listen to this forever if her heart could bear the sweetness. She strained forward, aching to join the sound.

Smooth fingers glided over her upper arm and she whirled, stunned by the grace of her own movement. Benedict captured her hand, extending her arm into a perfect line. His other hand circled around her back and rested near her shoulder blade.

And they were moving. No, they were floating. The music hollowed Grey then filled her. Benedict's blue eyes magnetized hers. Around and around the room she drifted, twirling away from him only to be anchored back into the frame of his body. Light glinted off the other porcie couples, an ever-shifting pattern in Grey's peripheral vision. She couldn't blink. It was all so beautiful.

A spot of black flickered before her eyes. She almost stumbled. A cottony cloud filled her brain, muffling her thoughts. Deep within her, hunger stretched like a yawning chasm. No, not now. She breathed in the delicious music.

A clatter sounded from elsewhere in the house. The noise jarred her fuzzy brain, repeating over and over as if demanding her attention.

Benedict's gaze tore away from her.

Grey wobbled, her head spinning as a moan slipped from her lips.

Dancing couples broke apart. Someone far away shrieked.

Grey was sliding into a dark place. Diving into blackness. The hungry chasm opened wide to swallow her.

A dusty, faintly sweet scent filled Grey's nostrils.

Her stomach growled and she came fully awake. Darkness washed the bedclothes of their rosy color. She shivered as a breeze skimmed the sticky layer of sweat on her skin.

A rustle.

She bolted upright.

The figure in her room froze halfway between her bed and the tall, open windows, his face turned toward the freedom of the outdoors.

“Who are you?” Grey squinted at the strange silhouette. A bulky shape protruded from his shoulders and covered his back to his waist. What appeared to be a headdress composed of long feather-like coils sprang from the back of his head, sticking up at angles and cascading over his shoulders. His metallic attributes glimmered even in the dark. He was bigger than any of the tocks she'd seen. And misshapen.

Grey struggled to rise, hampered by the constricting dress twisted around her legs. Her heartbeat raced. “I said, ‘Who are you?' ”

She strained to hear his voice. When the mechanized whir of tock speech followed, it crushed a vague hope growing in her chest.

“I left you something.” His head swiveled ever so slightly over his shoulder but the gloom distorted the lower portion of his face. Or did he wear a mask?

She glanced around her room. A quick tread vibrated through the bed beneath her and into her bones.

He was gone. A whooshing noise faded into the night air outside Grey's window.

CHAPTER

10

B
laise dashed onto the veranda, bounded to the railing, and jumped. The moment of falling sent thrills chasing through his body. Or maybe the buzz in his veins had more to do with the girl he'd just left.

He punched the lift button on his steam pack, and the wings spread out on either side of him, leveling his fall into a downward glide. Shadowed ground neared and the sounds of the disturbed household carried closer. He yanked on the bellow cord. Once. Twice. Three times. The cinderite pellets in the chamber should still be warm. He hadn't lingered in Blueboy's mansion. Even though he'd wanted to.

A shout rang from the corner of the great house. Mechanical. One of the serving tocks, which meant he'd been spotted.

He pumped the cord again. The whoosh of air and steam filled his ears just as his foot touched ground. He ran straight for the high back wall, taking flight just in time. Accompanied by the faint, high-pitched squeal of steam as it coursed through the tubing and activated the pistons in the joints of his wings, Blaise sailed over the wall and flew over the city, leaving Lord Blueboy's mansion behind.

Light and color burst in the streets outside Blueboy's high walls. The homes, galleries, and halls of the town center
bustled with the highest class of porcie, parading their splendor for each other to see. None of them looked up as Blaise careened over the streets.

Once he'd gained altitude, he rubbed his heels together, disengaging the clamps that fastened the fins on each boot. The canvas stabilizers expanded, and the buffeting wind around his legs calmed into a smooth stream.

Blaise fled the glare of Curio City's nightlife, cutting south through the ever-present layer of fog toward the factory district on the edge of the Shelf. He pulled his goggles from their perch above his forehead, fitted them over his eyes, and settled into steady flight. His mechanized wings beat a slow rhythm powered by the constant flow of warm air from his steam pack.

A smile tugged the corner of his mouth. He'd like to see Benedict's perfect face now. The little porcie king probably leaked all over himself at the intrusion. The maid he'd startled had screamed like her key'd been stolen.

But what had happened to
her
—the girl in the north wing? His stomach flipped and heat burned his cheeks despite the rush of air. Was she ill? Was she a prisoner?

The face he glimpsed in the street two nights ago flashed in his memory: eyes closed, lips parted. Lips like his. Skin like his. A second sighting confirmed it. His brain bulged with the reality of
her.
A still body on the bed. All that hair spilling out onto the pillow. Her voice, lower than the porcie and tock females, thinned by concern but not yet weak with starvation. She wouldn't suffer like he had. He'd made sure of that.

He changed his course to the southeast. The hollow pit in his stomach was only a memory, and the bread and cheese in his pockets would soon banish the current small pang. He left thoughts of starvation in the vapor behind him and
scanned the familiar horizon for the hulking shape of the warehouse.

A small green light burned in the far upper corner of the darkened building. Blaise frowned and increased his speed. Callis's signal pulled him forward. He was needed at home.

He came in fast, only twisting the gauge to ease off the steam when the factory's roof appeared below him. His boots thudded onto the flat rooftop and he ran a few steps, scrabbling to a halt six feet from the stall-like structure providing access to the building below. He pushed his goggles to the top of his head and unfastened the grid covering his mouth.

Callis stood by the doorway, a sliver of faint light from the stairwell below glinting off his metal hand.

“Did you find her?”

“Yes.” Blaise jabbed the lift button and his wings retracted. “She's safe for now. The light?”

Callis reached to open the door he'd left ajar. “A child. Porcie. His leg is shattered. The boy's keepers are merchants. One of their shop tocks brought them here.”

Blaise ducked into the building, pausing to fumble with the straps of his pack. Callis stepped behind him and gripped the bulky apparatus, waiting for Blaise to shuck out of his harness.

“What do you make of them, the keepers?”

Steam sighed from the cooling pack as Callis set it in a corner of the stairwell. Or was it Callis who sighed? Blaise turned to meet the mismatched eyes.

Callis shrugged, his shirt and jacket masking the whir of his mechanized left arm. “The man is curious. The woman is hysterical.”

Blaise trudged down the first staircase, pulling his arms close to his body as the tight space closed in on him. Callis's light step followed him.

“And the child?” Blaise shot the question over his shoulder as they descended.

“Finally cooling, thank the Designer.”

The woman's wails tore at Blaise's ears before he reached the door to his workroom. He stepped into the office-turned-surgery and took a deep breath. The lights were off, but Blaise maneuvered around the huge center table and avoided the cluttered shelves lining the room. He kicked a rolling stool out of his way and stepped into the cavernous open space of the warehouse floor.

The porcie couple huddled on chairs near the entrance of the abandoned furniture factory. A small form rested on a bench beside them. Strange clinking sounds accompanied the woman's weeping.

Blaise strode across the room, ignoring their gasps, and knelt by the child. The ghost of a grimace marred the boy's face, but his expression settled into a blank stare as Blaise touched his cold, smooth hand.

“You're him?” The merchant's words tapped at Blaise as he cautiously shifted the child's form.

“You can repair our little Finnegan?”

The tinkling sound increased, drawing Blaise's focus. The woman fingered something in her lap. Her sobs choked into gurgles, and she lifted one hand to point at Callis.

“Will Finnegan be like him? Oh, George, I don't want Finnegan to be like him!” She collapsed against her husband, her hands returning to rummage through the mound of chinking pieces in her lap. In the dim light, the scraps looked flesh-toned.

Blaise gave Callis a nod and watched his friend's retreating back. He moved slowly, perhaps giving the porcie couple time to prepare. Blaise took a breath as Callis reached the knob on the wall and began to twist it. Orange light quivered
in the sconces on the walls, creeping nearer and nearer until the illumination reached Blaise. He turned back to the couple; their perfectly molded features stretched in shock.

The man recovered his voice first. “You're no glueman. Who . . . What are you?”

Blaise straightened his back, allowing the porcies to take in his height, build, and his foreign features.

“I'm the one who can fix your child. If you'll let me.” He curled his lip at the shards of Finnegan's leg gathered like hairpins in the woman's lap. “That rubble is useless now, but I can make him better.” He twisted to the right as Callis came up beside him. “I think Callis here will tell you that being half porcie and half tock isn't half bad.”

The woman's shriek drowned out Blaise's chuckle.

Blaise found a strip of red cloth and used it to tie his hair back. Then he rummaged through the tools on the narrow counter against the wall, keeping his back to the slab in the center of the room. His thoughts followed Callis on his errand. Would his friend go down to Cog Valley for parts? He should have told him to go straight to Old Reese in the northern stacks. The junk dealer owed Blaise for cleaning a clogged gear in his chest last week. He half turned, a whim to dart out of the factory and into the night pulling him from the workroom. No, Callis was faster. The modified porcie would bring back exactly what they needed to do the job in half the time Blaise took for similar missions.